Half-Breed

by Anna L. Walls

  After stoking the fire again, she too curled up on the bear hide inches from where his right hand rested loosely. Around it, there were still signs that he had clenched at the hide in pain, but his hand was slack and straight now. She studied it. Even though its owner was only sixteen, the hand was strong. The fingers were long and graceful – talented in so many things. She studied and admired his hand until sleep washed over her exhausted mind, then that hand, and its mate, did obscure but tantalizing things in her dreams.

  Canis didn’t stir for two full days. Every few hours, Nike would search through his body with her new ability to heal. She kept ahead of the blood seeping into his lung and encouraged the fine tissues inside of his body to join just a little bit more each time.

  At first, she touched the white stone between Canis’s eyebrows in order to make use of his healing ability, but being ever curious, she tried it without touching the stone and discovered that the ability seemed to have claimed a new home.

  She wondered if Canis still retained his ability to heal, or if perhaps he had given it to her. There was no way of knowing until the next time he tried to use it and he wouldn’t be doing that for some time.

  Canis woke on the third morning after being brought home. The sound of someone walking across the polished floor with soft feet woke him, and since he couldn’t place where he was, his first thought was to defend himself and escape. Fortunately, he didn’t move quickly. Pulling both his hands beneath his shoulders in preparation for pushing himself off the floor was quite enough to remind him of his current condition. It also enabled his sluggish brain to identify the bear hide beneath his cheek and feel Rrusharr’s soothing presence in his mind, registering that her calm spoke of home and safety.

  The whispering feet were at his side in moments and cool hands were on his arms and hands. Nike guided his hands back to their original position. “I don’t think you want to move much, Canis. You’re torn up inside some and it hasn’t had much of a chance to heal yet,” said Nike.

  With grim determination, Canis fought down the urge to curl up with the pain. He remembered little of the accident, only waking in the snow in so much pain. As soon as he thought he had enough control he whispered, “How long have I been here?” He was surprised that he didn’t taste blood with the words.

  “This is the third day. Are you hungry or thirsty? I didn’t know how to feed you with you lying on your belly.”

  Canis thought about it. “Starved, yes, and thirsty like a desert,” he replied.

  Nike hurried off to find something she could heat up. While she was gone, Canis struggled to push himself onto his side. He knew he could do that much; he’d had to ride on that side in the sled, and if he could do that, laying here among the soft folds of the bear hide should be easy by comparison.

  Nike was surprised to see him on his side when she returned with his water skin. She set the bladder aside and went to retrieve a mug. When she brought the mug of water over to him she said, “I thought the water skin would be easier for you to manage on your stomach, but this is better.”

  Canis opened his eyes a slit and spoke with a voice strained with pain. “I thought I could do this, but perhaps not. I hurt all over.”

  “It’s no wonder. You are more bruise than wound. I’ve done what I could, but bruises are difficult. Be still now.” She reached out and caressed his exposed arm using the touch as a focus to go through his tense body and soothe the nerves that knotted his muscles with pain.

  “What did you do?” asked Canis much relieved, and very surprised.

  “I can use your healing.” She reached up and gently brushed at the stone in his forehead. “You showed me how to do it.”

  Canis took the water and sipped at it, relishing its wetness, wondering if any of it reached his insides before being soaked up into the dry tissues of his throat. “Tell me about it, all of it.”

  While she fed him the warmed stew, she told him everything that had happened since her brother and Eridanus had brought him in.

  He watched her nose turn slightly red as she recounted how she thought he was going to die. He watched goose bumps travel up her arm as she spoke of the sensation she felt when she had touched the stone. He watched her eyes flutter and shift as she spoke of making his flesh, bones, and blood do her bidding.

  He pushed the spoon away with the bowl half finished and rested his head back against a fold of bear hide, resisting the urge to touch the stone that rested between his eyebrows. “No more now. So much for wanting to eat a whole moose, I think I will sleep for a while. Help me.”

  Nike set the bowl and mug aside and helped him to roll back onto his stomach. By the time he was laying flat again, he was whimpering with pain, but she soothed it away once again. As the cords of his muscles finished their trembling, she pulled a corner of the massive hide up to cover him. Then after taking care of the dishes, she moved off to do some sewing. There was a new coat to make and there was plenty of warm fur on this massive bear hide.

  His pain quiet again, Canis lay with his eyes closed and thought about the things he had seen in her face as she had talked. He realized, perhaps for the first time, that Nike was in love with him. What am I going to do? She will make someone a very good mate, but it can’t be me; I will be leaving. He decided then that he would leave as soon as he could.

  As for Nike’s newfound ability to heal, he knew where that came from too. The Mother had given him that ability so he could bring it here. Obviously, someone would become familiar enough with him, or be bold enough, to touch the stone, and their inclination toward petting seemed to make this a good possibility. In that way, the ability to heal would be brought to a people who needed it so badly; it was only his difference that had put it off for so long.

  He didn’t know how long this stockade had been here and he didn’t know how many such places there were here in these mountains. The fact that Halley had come from another clan said there was more than one. Apparently the Mother thought them in need; perhaps they were.

  If the clansmen had been here as long as the plainsmen had, then they were indeed in need. Only the snow kept the plainsmen out of the mountains, and aside from this winter, the snow was gradually receding and the men of the plains would follow close after. If they made it this far, the clans would be run down and slaughtered like animals or caged like his father had been, or worse.

  Before he drifted off to sleep entirely, he wondered if the touch to his stone would work more than once. In a silent prayer to the Mother, he promised that he would have every woman in the clan touch it before he left the mountains, even if he had to search out every clan to do it. A warmth spread out from his heart and lulled him to sleep, telling him that he had made the right decision.

  Time to Go

  The next day, Canis sent for Sagittarius and his brother Taurus. Both brothers were in their early twenties, but no woman had yet chosen them, so they hunted with their fathers for the family. He also requested that their sister, Carina, come and distract Nike away from the visit. He arranged all this the only way he could, through their companions, something he hesitated to do, as it seemed so much like an invasion of privacy.

  News of what appeared to be Nike’s new healing ability had spread around the stockade, as all news did, and Carina was newly pregnant, so she could feign curiosity for a personal reason with very little effort.

  Shortly after Nike left, Sagittarius and Taurus entered. Canis was unable to be much of a host, but he offered for them to take a seat and quickly explained why he wanted to see them. Logically, he would have chosen Capricorn for something of this nature – a return of the favor – but he had another reason for wanting these two. “I will not be able to hunt for the rest of the winter and I intend to leave here as soon as I am able. I have seen how both of you look at Nike when you think no one will notice.”

  Both men shifted. They might be brothers, but it was obvious that they did not share the same father. Regardless, they acted much the same; the
y were both somber, serious men.

  Canis continued, “I want one of you, or both of you, to move in here and hunt for Nike. Since I am leaving, it is my hope that Nike will choose one of you as her husband. I have already told her that this house will be hers when I leave.”

  “She made it clear she will choose you as her husband,” said Taurus. “I’m surprised she hasn’t told you yet.”

  “She has hinted at it, but I have given her no encouragement,” said Canis.

  “We are hunting for our family,” said Sagittarius.

  “Yes, I know, and it is right that you do so, especially now that hunting is so hard,” said Canis. “I am just asking you to accept responsibility for Nike too. There are four hunters in your family. I am the only hunter for this family.” He knew his request would not be denied. No one would deny a downed hunter’s request for help; they just needed a suitable incentive. “When I leave, I will take very little with me.”

  “Why are you leaving?” asked Taurus. “Why would you want to?”

  “You are too much like your mother,” commented Sagittarius, though his comment was not meant as an insult.

  It was an old subject; one that almost never came up, but he owed them an answer. “I do not know that I am like my mother, but I owe a plainsman a lot of money. As a kid, I could do nothing to repay him. As a man, I can. I must leave before I have to turn Nike down, and time is short for that. I cannot be her mate and not be here to hunt for her, and I would not take her away from here. There are dangers where I go I may not be able to protect her from.”

  Taurus, slightly more spontaneous than his brother, stood. “I will come here and hunt for Nike,” he declared.

  Sagittarius stood next. “My brother eats like a bear; he will need my skill too, if there is to be enough meat for everyone. I too will come here and hunt for Nike.”

  Canis watched them, surprised at the exchange, but Taurus didn’t seem to take offense at the jab. As he watched them leave, he wondered what kind of chaos their presence in his quiet home would cause.

  As it turned out, the only chaos they caused was the understandable chaos of moving and settling into a new environment, and the fact that there were two more people and their companions coming and going.

  Nike was none too pleased to have the extra mouths to feed and the brothers both ate like bears, but she understood the necessity of it and didn’t protest.

  Like other homes with two hunters, Sagittarius and Taurus took turns hunting while the other helped with the house chores. Both men worked hard for Nike, and they worked hard on her. Both of them were vying for her attention and Canis encouraged them, though he found that it tore at him to do so.

  Canis’s strength returned slowly, and by the time the snows started to melt, he was getting around stiffly on his own. With the coming spring and his returned health, Canis began preparations for departure.

  One of the things he did was to find excuses for all of the women and girls to touch the stone between his brows. Sometimes he encouraged their curiosity and other times he outright asked for it. The news of how Nike had received her gift helped. The gift was given out only one other time to Cygnus’ baby daughter.

  Shortly before he left, he grilled the elders of the camp for the locations of other clans and learned there were three other clans that they knew of, though they could give him directions to only the closest one, the others were much farther south, and no one had ever traveled that far.

  With a sled half full of provisions, sleeping furs, cooking items and tools, Canis left by the eastern gate heading south. At the top of a ridge, he stopped to look back. The stockade had been the most home he had ever known. Perhaps, one day, he would come back.

  With Rrusharr, Ggrrawrr, and another young Wulfi by the name of Rranggrr, he turned his back on the stockade. Somehow, despite his desire, he knew he would never see these people or this place again.

  In his mind the scene at the house took many different forms. He hoped Nike would choose one of both of the men he’d chosen for her. He truly wanted her to be happy. He wished he could have waited to be sure, but he knew his continued presence would only put her decision off or cause her disappointment when he turned her down. Taking himself out of her choices put her on a much better path.

  Canis traveled south, finding the first clan in five weeks with no trouble. A strange hunter was rare, but not unheard of; he was just so very different. News that he knew of Halley broke some of the ice and there was other news to exchange. Her mother, at least, was pleased to learn that she had found mates and was building a family. News that she seemed truly happy came as a bit of a surprise, but the news was welcome just the same. He also spotted the man who walked with a stick under his arm. During his short stay, he made him a better one with a piece across the top covered and padded with fur.

  Aside from Haley’s mother, Canis’s welcome here was less than warm. Everyone kept staring at him – he was simply too different. Even so, after a long discussion with the elders, he was able to leave two healers here. He wondered if perhaps he should show them something of the gift, but aside from telling them that what they felt was a gift of healing from the Mother, he could tell them very little. After all, what did he really know about it? He could remember nothing about the times he had healed someone. He was confident that instinct would be sufficient. It had served Nike very well and he wasn’t willing to live here long enough for some tragedy to occur; his reputation was strange enough as it was. He asked for directions to the next clan holding and moved on.

  It took most of three weeks to reach the next clan stockade, and if it weren’t for the scouting of the Wulfen in his company, he might not have found it then. The mountains he traveled through were laced with crevasses in the ancient ice. Cut by spring runoff deep within their depths, they forced Canis to divert his path many times before making progress south.

  He finally found the clan nestled near a frozen lake and he was welcomed warmly if only out of curiosity. Though he traveled with three Wulfen, they had never before seen red hair and Canis’s hair reached past his waist by now. No one in the clan had hair that reached even as far as their shoulders; it just didn’t grow that long. Clan hair ranged from pale gray to black, but the closest it ever got to red was a few undertones of brown.

  After staying a little over a week with this clan, he headed south once again leaving behind three healers this time, including one little boy who couldn’t seem to keep his hands to himself. Canis hadn’t expected the gift to be passed to males. The woman and the girl who also received the gift were both told that the gift came from the Mother and now they had the skill to heal if they would use it, but the boy was too young to understand any of this. His mother listened avidly, though, as he told them what Nike had told him of the experience.

  Like all the others, they didn’t know who the Mother was and Canis himself didn’t know well enough to say much about it except to tell his own story about how he had been given the stone between his brows and the gift to heal, though his gift was intended to be spread among the clans.

  As the giant trees that reached up above the glaciers grew farther apart, the terrain he had to cross grew rougher. It became riddled with upstart ridges of rock that made travel slow and difficult. The high altitude didn’t bother him much, but it seem that the farther south he traveled the dryer the cold air became making him drink a lot of water, so he was forced to stop often to refill his water skin with snow.

  Hunting grew more difficult as well, so when Canis saw an opportunity to shoot a creature he hadn’t seen before, he took it. Not as big as a moose, it was nonetheless a powerful creature with an impressive many-pointed rack. Standing five feet at the shoulders, it had dark brown fur on its head and neck and creamy gray fur on its back and flanks.

  Canis’s shot dropped it in the snow only a few bounds from where it had been standing scraping away the snow to get at whatever was beneath it. He skinned, and deboned it as far as he could, allowin
g the hungry Wulfen to feast on the ribs and the meaty knuckles of what he was discarding. The rest he cut into sections and spread out on the snow to bleed out and freeze as much as it was going to this time of year.

  The temperature of the air was above freezing, but not so far as to melt all of the snow on the ground. The meat would not freeze solid, but the cold would not let it go bad very fast either. He found the hide thick and soft so he kept that too and used it to wrap the meat in, protecting it even further from the warm air and sun.

  It took Canis a little more than a month to reach the last clan holding, and by then the short summer was drawing to a close. It was the largest clan and perhaps the easiest to find, but if it weren’t for the wide-ranging Wulfen, he might have missed this one too.

  This clan’s holding didn’t boast a stockade. Instead, it resembled a village of the plains more than anything else. Due to the cold winds that screamed across the landscape during much of the winter, only half of the upper story of the homes extended above the ground. That combined with the average of five feet of snow that the wind packed up against any obstruction in its path made the village all, but invisible to a traveler who didn’t know what to look for.

  His arrival was, of course, announced through the Wulfen population well before he reached the edge of the village, so he was met by a good many of its residents before he ever saw the settlement.

  His compliment of Wulfen hunters saw to it that he was greeted as warmly as at the other clan holdings. After the elders got over their first surprise of a visiting stranger, his appearance seemed to have the opposite affect as at the other holdings. They all clasped hands with him and pulled him into the crowd. They introduced him to every face that flashed past on the way into the confines of the town.