Half-Breed

by Anna L. Walls

  Two and a half weeks later, he crossed another riverbed, but the season was late enough that it was very shallow. Thanks to the tall boots his long-ago benefactor had given him, he didn’t get his feet wet in crossing it, but afterward the terrain and the now thigh-deep snow started to give him trouble again and he found his path pushed farther north than he intended, but perhaps it was for the best. He considered himself lucky to find an abandoned cabin to shelter in so far from any other sign of habitation. From this point, he tried every day to penetrate deeper into the foothills, but as if winter had held off as long as it could, it descended on him like it was making up for lost time. Just when he thought he might be able to make real progress, more snow would fall and he would be back to struggling for his next meal.

  As the winter wore on, hunting became even more difficult. Game either burrowed under the snow and seldom came to the surface or migrated out of the hills entirely in search of graze under less snow. Even collecting dry firewood was becoming almost impossible as the level of snow crept over the lower dead branches of the bigger trees.

  If he allowed himself to think about it, he regretted coming this far this late in the year, but what did he know, so he didn’t allow himself to think about it much. He would have made no different decisions and he couldn’t turn back now. He kept fighting, one day at a time.

  As the weather grew colder, there was somewhat less snowfall. By now, Canis had discovered that walking on cut branches kept him on top of the snow, so he brought some green branches back to the house and figured out a way to weave them into large pads that he could tie to his feet with strips of leather.

  After many trials and failures, he developed something that worked well enough. With that, he and Rrusharr agreed to move on. If they stayed much longer, hunger or cold would take them, it was only a matter of which they would succumb to first.

  With the large pads on his feet, their pace was only limited by how far Rrusharr could go, so she set the pace and picked the route. She had come out of these mountains, so she was the one to lead them back.

  As they crawled their way into the mountains, winding around the higher peaks, Canis and Rrusharr hunted rabbits, squirrels, and lemmings for food. Both of them lost all of the little fat that remained on their bodies, becoming lean and tough.

  Canis had always hated doing much with his hair other than combing it. He had learned to like that feeling and he took the time to comb his hair every day, morning and night; it served to remind him of Gem, he treasured his memory of her. His hair had grown well past his shoulders by now and the hair she had kept cut away from his eyes now reached past his chin and he kept it shoved behind his ears.

  As the weather grew colder and dryer, he had stopped binding his hair back since it was thick enough to act as a hat fairly well most of the time, but when the temperature started to stay far below freezing, he wanted something more.

  Canis started to keep the pelts from their small kills and made rudimentary mittens and a hat that covered his ears. He had no idea how to make them soft, but they worked well enough and he managed to accumulate enough new ones to be able to replace what gave out.

  Every day he would stuff snow into his water jug until it wouldn’t hold any more and sling it on his back under his coat. It was heavy and bulky, but he carried little else. He wore all of his clothes all the time these days so the only thing he worried about carrying was his oilcloth and his blanket wrapped around his money pouch. The sword at his hip was almost a forgotten item, except when he needed to chop branches from trees for firewood.

  The next thing he experimented with was making a bow with a few arrows. He had a hard time finding a straight piece of wood that would bend, but he eventually settled on a sapling, or at least the top of one, which was almost six feet long. Then he pealed and sharpened a few straight sticks to serve as arrows. With a bow, even a crude one, hunting became a little easier, making it possible for them to cover more distance during a day.

  As he penetrated deeper into the mountains, the snow under his feet seemed to be not so deep or perhaps it was more compacted since it was still plenty deep enough. The trees grew farther apart and much bigger than anything he had ever seen on the plains. He found one once that was hollow, though it was still green. The hollow core was large enough to crawl into and when he found his way down to the roots, he had a chamber large enough for both him and Rrusharr. Hunting was good in the area so they stayed there for three days while his things dried out and they caught up on sleep.

  Canis lost all track of time and distance, in fact, he almost forgot what his goal was in the constant battle for food and warmth, so he was unprepared when they encountered a hunting party of three men and six Wulfen. He stared at them from hiding for several minutes while they gutted and quartered a moose, loading the sections into one of the sleds they had with them.

  They were dressed in some kind of bleached leather with a bulky coat with a furry hood. If they chose to do so, they could lie still on the snow and they would be difficult to pick out until they moved. And the Wulfen with them were positively huge. They all stood waist high to the man who watched over the others while they worked. For the first time, Canis understood why Rrusharr kept telling him that they were still pups. She was little better than half their size, huge in her own right, but compared to these adults, she was very obviously young.

  It was Rrusharr who recognized these men. Canis and Rrusharr had been lying behind a snow-covered log watching them. Suddenly with a glow of happiness, Rrusharr sat up as bold as can be and howled a greeting, at the same time informing Canis of family.

  At the sound, the men went on the alert instantly and looked prepared to defend their kill with all their might, which was considerable.

  Canis could understand the feeling. Having spent months living on the edge of starvation, he too would have defended that kill with his life. In fact, he might have considered taking that kill if there had been less of them. He envied the hunting party’s strength and skill in being able to bring down one of the massive monsters he had only been able to watch. He couldn’t bring himself to try for one. If he could find and catch it after he wounded it, he would be forced to waste most of the kill. He wouldn’t have been able to take the meat with him nor stay by the kill. The meat would have frozen too hard to eat within a few hours anyway.

  With their hiding place compromised, Canis took his stand beside Rrusharr and watched while one of the men, accompanied by three of the Wulfen, cautiously approached them. As soon as he was within shouting distance he called out, “Who are you?” The voice was a deep thrum and carried far over the cold snow.

  “I am Canis and this is Rrusharr. I am looking for Orion,” replied Canis in a voice that was raw from long silence.

  “Rrusharr? Orion said she must have left to go find you. I am Ursa. Come. You must be hungry.”

  The last thing Orion had said to him was that his name was known in these mountains. Well, if it got him a meal, Canis would be very happy with that right now.

  He accompanied Ursa back to the rest of the hunting party, noticing as they walked, that his profile was like Orion’s. He stood for the round of introductions. Aside from Ursa, there was Aries and Cetus. With them was a whole series of throaty names that sounded all too much alike to keep separate on the first try. He did, however catch that one of them was an older sibling of Rrusharr’s, but he didn’t catch which one it was and none of them looked much like her.

  When the men started to load the meat and hide onto their sleds, Canis bent to lend a hand, then, as soon as they were ready, he took up a rope and leaned into the load. It wasn’t long before he was relieved of his burden, though the man named Aries chuckled when he did it. “Keep that up and you’ll get strong soon enough. For now, let’s us just get this home before the next storm sets in.”

  Canis felt bad about not being able to help in some way, but in contrast, he was relieved not to have to pull the heavy sled. He was having enough tro
uble walking in the men’s large footprints. Their stride was much longer than his and their snowshoes were narrower, so the trail was narrower than one his snowshoes would have made. He kept tripping over his own feet.

  After tripping for the third time, Canis stepped out of the trail and walked with the Wulfen. Some of them walked in front and others followed behind, but most of them ranged to one side or the other and kept watch in case the hunting party was followed. The smell of a fresh kill was a strong attractant to scavengers, not to mention larger hunters.

  Yellowstone Clan

  When they reached the village two days later, Canis was amazed at the sight. It was a large stockade, built of heavy poles set upright side by side, leaving only small slits between where irregularities in the log didn’t allow for them to sit closer. The layout was roughly circular and around the inside were the homes of the people who lived here. Those too were made of logs, though these were laid out horizontally and stacked, their corners interlocking. These logs were chinked thickly with a combination of fur, clay, and moss. The roofs of the two story homes provided a sentry walk around the wall and Canis could see a long-faced youth up there doing just that. The central yard had been left in the grip of a huge amount of snow and ice that had accumulated there, but the flat roofs that extended far out over the doors, and likely a good deal of labor, ensured there was ample room to walk around in front of the homes.

  News that a stranger was with an incoming hunting party, spread through the village quickly, so several women and children were there to greet them at the gate, with them was the rest of the pack of giant Wulfen and pups. Canis had no trouble picking out those showing gray with age and some of the youngest were barely able to hold their fat tummies off the ground. All of them eyed the newcomer with open curiosity.

  Aries turned to a half grown boy among the crowd. “Go bring Orion.”

  “He is not well today,” said a woman who carried an infant wrapped in a soft pelt. Canis noticed that the woman had a far less prominent face. Apparently, the protruding profile was obvious only in the men.

  “Well then, we’ll just have to bring his surprise to him,” said Aries.

  “And what surprise is that?” asked the woman as she eyed the stranger in their midst.

  “This,” replied Aries as he rested a hand on Canis’s shoulder, “is his son, come all the way from the plains. He’s only about a year late.”

  The woman looked at him critically. “Hmm, might be her son, but he doesn’t look like one of us. Where is Rrusharr?”

  At the mention of her name, Rrusharr shouldered her way through the crowd of people and wolves to stand at Canis’s side.

  Only marginally satisfied, the woman waved him away with a curt “Take him” and turned to another man who took up the lead on one of the sleds and they headed off in the other direction.

  Aries watched her go with obvious admiration in his eyes as he handed his snowshoes and weapons to the half-grown boy he had spoken to before. “She’s my wife, Andromeda.”

  Canis looked up at the big man and watched him watch her retreating back. “She lives with another man.”

  “Yes, but she will warm my furs tonight.”

  Canis was surprised by this small revelation, though he knew little of man and woman relations. Most of the women in his life had been pleasure slaves. Otherwise, he had always assumed that it was a pairing of one man and one woman. That’s all that he had ever found in any of the homes he had entered. Then again, he had to admit that he had entered few homes. Perhaps that other man was a brother. Perhaps they didn’t ‘pair’ the way he was thinking.

  When she disappeared around the curve of the mound of snow dominating the center of the stockade, Aries turned in the other direction. “Come on, I’ll show you where your father lives. He still stays in the house of your mother.” He began to lead the way around the stockade.

  “I thought my mother ran away,” said Canis.

  “She did. She didn’t like clan life. I suppose she tried; she took your father as her mate, but she still left, and after she was pregnant too. It was a foolish thing for her to do. I don’t understand it. We found her as a half-grown child wandering the mountains alone. She grew up here, but still, she left one day when Orion was out hunting. He immediately left to search for her. He was gone for eight years before he found her, but it was too late, she was dead and you were gone. He was gone from here for so long; we thought he was surely dead. Since Rrewarr’s death, he has not been strong. It is hard to be alone.”

  “Is there no chance another companion will come to him?” asked Canis.

  “There is still a slim chance, but he has been here for more than a year and he doesn’t call. I suppose it’s hard; he has been alone for more than three years. The chances grow slimmer as time passes. Perhaps you can bring him back to life enough to attract the attention of another companion.”

  As Aries talked, they passed four houses and another gate before coming to a stop before the first door after the gate. When there was no response to his scratches, he pounded on it with his fist.

  This noise won a wordless growl from a point over their heads, so Aries led the way into the house and up a set of wide steps located against the back wall. Canis propped his snowshoes and bow in the corner, and hung his quiver of arrows on a hook by the door and followed him.

  The second floor was a collection of half walls and curtains, but Aries found his way through the maze to where an old man lay amongst a mound of dirty furs.

  If it weren’t for the ratty pelt the man still wore, Canis wouldn’t have recognized him as the same man he released from the carnival over a year ago. He looked to have aged twenty years since then.

  Orion pulled himself up to sit in the middle of his nest and looked closer at who was intruding into his space. He stared for a long time at the shock of red hair before he made his eyes move down to take in the face beneath it. There was no mistaking who was standing beside Aries. The coat he wore was too big and he still had his bedroll slung over his shoulder, but it was… “Canis?” he said in a raspy voice, firing up a rough bout of coughing.

  “Yes. I came.” Canis didn’t mention that he was here to hide out from the slaver, Patro. He didn’t think his sordid history would matter to the man much. He doubted that the institution of slavery penetrated very far into these mountains. In fact, he had seen very little of it outside of the city.

  “Ah, you can talk now. Rrusharr found you. I hoped she would.” Another fit of rasping coughs shook him and he wilted back to the furs.

  Canis was appalled at what he saw, but Aries led him away. Down on the main floor, Aries stopped him. “As Stephanie’s son, you have a right to stay here. Take care of your father. He was a great hunter…once. I’ll send my daughter over with some food. She will also show you how we do things here.”

  That suited Canis just fine. Things were obviously different here. In the mean time, he explored his surroundings. After dropping his bedroll and his coat in a nearby chair, he found a back door leading to a space between the stockade wall and the back wall of the house. It was about half-full of wood so he split some and built up the fire in the hearth that dominated the center of the room. Then he explored the contents of the shelves he found in what might pass for a kitchen. He found the makings for tea near the back of one shelf and started to look around for some water.

  He was just trying to figure out a likely water barrel not too far from the fireplace when a soft scratching came at the door. When he opened it, he saw a girl about his same age. She had pale gray hair streaked with black. In one of her hands, she carried a large covered dish, and hanging from the other was a covered bucket.

  “Hello, my name is Nike. Father asked me to bring this for you and show you around.” She handed the things she carried to Canis. The first thing she did was go directly to the barrel by the fireplace and pull the lid off the top. With hardly a glance inside, she replaced the lid and made a face. “That is where you shoul
d melt your snow, but it needs to be cleaned out first. I’ll bring you some sand to use. Scrub it good, it’s bad.”

  “Where do I get the snow to melt?” asked Canis hoping he wouldn’t have to haul it far.

  “Out there in the center of the yard. We let the snow build up in the winter for that purpose. In the summer, there’s a spring there. After you get that thing cleaned out, you bring in snow every day. I like to do it in the evening so it has all night to melt. Keep this full and you’ll never want for water especially since it’s only the two of you. How’s he doing? Father said he had a bad cough.”

  “Yes he does. This whole place is very dirty. It would help him if it were cleaner.”

  “I know. He won’t let anyone come and clean for him. He’s very proud. When his woman left him… It was very bad for him. He’s been like this, more or less, ever since he returned.” She looked at him with a critical eye that resembled her mother’s very much. “Maybe I’ll take you as a mate when I’m older.”

  “No, I do not plan to stay here for the rest of my life. It would not be right to take a mate and then leave.”

  “Why did you come if you don’t plan to stay?” she asked.

  Canis wondered how much he should let the clan know about his past, but he figured an answer had to be given. “I needed a safe place where I can grow up, then I must go; I have a debt to repay. Beyond that, I have made no plans.”

  She studied at him for a while then returned to the reason for her being here in the first place. “Well, there’s stew in the pot and water in the bucket. If you need anything else, just come and scratch on our door. We’re almost directly across the yard, ninth door around.” She then took him around the house and pointed out were things were kept, commenting occasionally on the lack of one thing or another. “You will probably have to borrow some things from the others in camp, but if you do, be sure to replace it next summer. I’m sure someone will show you how to collect what you need, just ask. You’re new; you’re expected to ask. If you don’t, everyone will think you’re being stuck up, and that’s just foolish. I have to go; mother expects me to help. I’ll see you tomorrow.” With that, she swept out of the room and was gone.