by Corie Weaver
I scrambled to my feet and watched him turn between two houses.
"We will see you in three days." His voice drifted back to me, and I woke.
Chapter Nine
Pale early light shone into the hut. Jack chased rabbits in his dreams, and I decided to let him sleep a little longer while I filled our water bottles. I'd tried to contact Mom and Dad before I went back to sleep, but my dreams for the rest of the night had been confused and I wasn't sure if the message had gotten through.
I needed to find a way to carry more food. We had extra space from where we had eaten our previous supplies; I worried it wouldn't be enough for pots and baskets. I'd figure it out when we actually found the food. I stretched, surprised I wasn't exhausted. I guess my body rested while I talked with Coyote, still my head felt like I hadn't slept at all, but lived through one very long day.
After filling the bottles I went back to the hut and ruffled Jack's fur.
"Come on, boy. We've got a lot to do." Not that he was going to be much help, but I'd relish the company.
Gathering food took the entire morning. My ankle was mostly healed, with only a slight twinge if I stepped wrong. At the first few houses I felt like a criminal, sneaking around, searching through people's possessions. I tried not to make a mess for them to clean up, even though I wasn't sure if anyone would ever be back to be angry about the violation of their privacy.
I peered inside baskets and pots, rummaged through what looked to be random piles of things, and slowly accumulated my stores. A waterskin borrowed from one home, a pair of flat, woven baskets from another, with dried berries from a third, and cornmeal from yet others. I found fewer stashes of dried meat than I had hoped. I had taken only a small piece wherever I found it but when I looked at the pitiful pile I had obtained, I went back for more. One a return trip I found a small stash of salt I happily added to my supplies.
I would be fine for a few days on corn paste mixed with water and berries, but I wasn't sure how Jack would feel about it.
The sun hung high in the sky and we were as ready as we could be. Jack had his harness back on, the saddlebags filled with water, jerky and meal. I had arranged and rearranged my backpack until I made everything fit. I didn't want to leave anything behind, and even packed a few pieces of leather from Ash's hut. They'd been useful before, they might be again.
The pack sat heavily on my back, but I knew it wouldn't be for long, especially if there was no drinkable water out there.
We started off into the hills. I don't know what to call that sort of landscape: pine trees, bent over by the wind, small and twisted; clumps of gray-green grass, and silvery sage; bushes filled with little golden flowers dotted the hills around me. Dad had called this "high desert," but like no desert in cartoons, with nothing but sand and palm trees, but it was wild and rough all the same. Broken, rocky ground sheltered tiny brightly colored lizards that darted from one bush to another, and birds raced across our path.
I hadn't put Jack's leash back on, but he stayed right by me, running ahead, running back, snuffling around at the new and interesting smells, but hanging around. I wondered if I could leave him off the leash when I got home. I didn't pay attention to where I put my feet, and before long twisted my ankle again. Not as badly, but it still hurt, and I moved more slowly than before through the wild land.
Shadows grew longer, and we needed to find somewhere to spend the night. Coyote hadn't given any advice about that, and I kicked myself for not asking. We didn't have a tent, but I had a couple of soft woven blankets from the village rolled up and tied to my pack. They would have to do for a sleeping bag. The air took on a chill as the sun went down, and I knew we had to stop soon.
In the dusk we found a rocky outcropping of a hill, enough to provide a bit of shelter. I cleared off the ground, and gratefully slid my pack off. I would need to readjust the straps in the morning, or I'd end up with blisters.
Jack flopped next to me. Earlier in the day he had acted as if this long walk was the best thing in the world. Now his eyes told me this he had enough, we could go home now.
"I wish we could, bucko."
I eased his harness off, and he squirmed with pleasure at being free. Jack trotted off, and I set up his bowl and filled it with water. I got out some of the jerky for him, and started tearing it into small strips. Soaked in water, they would be soft enough for him to eat, not that different from canned dog food.
I heard rustling in the brush, and the jingle of Jack's collar.
"Jack? What are you up to, boy?"
He didn't come back immediately. I could hear him darting about, but couldn't figure out what he was doing. Surely he didn't have that much energy to burn off before sleeping.
I stood up with the flashlight, but before I left our little camp, he trotted back toward me.
"Jack, what have you been . . . Oh."
He carried a bloody lump of fur toward me, and my stomach flipped as I recognized it as a rabbit. "Jack, what are you doing?" I stopped myself. It was perfectly obvious what Jack was doing; he was busy with a perfectly normal doggie thing to do, and at the moment, darn helpful.
He looked at me questioningly. Treating him like a puppy chewing a shoe was only going to confuse him.
"Good boy. What a good, clever boy you are." I reached over, and tried to suppress my shudder while I patted his head and ruffled his ears. "Go eat your rabbit." I patted the ground, and he lay down and started happily tearing the poor bunny into pieces.
I looked at the dried meat I had shredded for him. Jack's hunting would make our few supplies last longer, but I felt badly for the rabbit. It had never occurred to me in all of his chasing he might actually catch one. I guess he never had reason to before.
My stomach rebelled at the thought of eating the dried meat to the accompaniment of the enthusiastic slurping and cracking of bones beside me. I ate anyway. We were past the point of delicate sensibilities. Long, long past.
* * *
By the next afternoon we both limped a bit; Jack's pads were unused to walking for hours on end. "Next time we start off to tramp halfway across unreal worlds I'll buy those booties first," I told him as we took a short rest.
But for now we had to pick our way across the ground, trying to avoid the zillion different types of plants with stickers and thorns and other sharp bits. One kind had actually poked through the rubber side of my shoe. Jack avoided most of the spines, but occasionally he'd limp, and I'd pull something out from his pads.
At a distance the hills were dressed all in shades of green; dark green shrubs, light green grasses. Not tropical or anything, but land you could grow things in.
Up close, tramping through that land day after day, you saw how sparse that grass was. Most of the ground was just that, ground. There was nothing green or lush about this land. I wondered about the village and the cornmeal I had taken from the houses; how hard it must have been to farm in this harsh climate.
You could live here, but it wouldn't be an easy life. You'd have to fight for everything. I wondered about what sort of person that would make. And I wondered about Ash, what Shriveled Corn Man had said about him.
It sounded like wolves had raised him, like Romulus and Remus from the stories of the founding of Rome. No, that wasn't right, he said foxes and deer and coyotes.
It might explain why he lived away from the others. Maybe why he was the last to survive against Shriveled Corn Man.
I thought about growing up with only animals around, and how lonely he must have felt. Then I looked at Jack next to me. Maybe not so lonely. Maybe just quieter.
Late afternoon came, and I was thinking it was about time to dig out the compass and check our direction, when Jack freaked out.
He stopped. Just dug in and wouldn't go on, even when I tugged at his harness. A low noise rumbled around us, and I realized he was growling. I bent to pet him to try to reassure him but that only made him growl louder and more viciously at whoever—or whatever—was spooking him. I
couldn't believe it. Jack, the world's most laidback dog, had never snapped at anyone in his fuzzy little life.
"Jack? What's up, guy?"
He looked at me, and if he could speak, it wouldn't have been clearer. Not now. I'm busy. I stayed still. Whatever was bothering Jack, I couldn't see it or smell it. I'd have to be patient and trust him.
I waited, looking around, getting my bearings. If we were on track, we'd be turning north about here, going through that stand of dark green pines I could see as a fuzzy smear across the landscape.
I focused on them, and then Jack pushed against my legs. Not just a brush but a shove, and I stumbled backward.
"Hey, careful!" I stepped back towards where he was, and he shoved me again. He was making figure eights, slamming his shoulder and hips into my legs, pushing me. Pushing me away from the north, where I was supposed to be heading to meet Spider Old Woman.
"Jack, come on. We've got to go that way." I pointed, and looked at the pine trees, which was a mistake. With my attention distracted, he hit me again, and managed to spin me towards the south. I took a step and Jack encouraged me with a nip at my calves.
"Hey!" He was in full herding mode. "I'm not a cow!" I took one last glance over my shoulder at the pine trees. Something oozed out from the shadows, towards us.
"Jack, what is that?" He bumped me to keep moving. This time I didn't protest.
I couldn't see what was moving towards us, and that made it more horrible. It scared me and I wanted to be as far away from that stand of trees as possible. Right now.
I ran in the direction Jack had pushed me. Jack took the lead, and we sprinted through the broken landscape. Without warning, Jack stopped, nose to the ground, circling. He made a small whimper, like he didn't know what to do next.
"Hey, come here." I petted his ears. He looked at me, and I only saw myself reflected in his big dark eyes. He curled up on the ground and licked his feet.
"That thing is still after us. We're ahead, but not by much. And night is coming. We can't keep running through the dark. You might be okay, but I'll break my neck."
Jack let out a snort.
"I'm sure you'd find a perfectly good, smooth path for me. But you know I'm a klutz, and I'll trip on something." He seemed to take the point, but it was hard to tell.
"We need to find a place to hole up for the night, to hide. And isn't Coyote supposed to be helping us along this part of the way? Making sure we don't get too far off the path?"
I looked around in the purple dusk. Steep hills surrounded us, and I couldn't see any place that looked promising to stay for the night.
"Let's keep going, but we should keep an eye out for a place, okay?"
With another snort, Jack rose, cast a mournful look over his shoulder, and trotted on.
"What was that for? What?" Not surprisingly, he didn't answer, just padded away.
I hurried to follow him. No matter where I looked, it was hard to see any place that would work for shelter for the night. A cave might work, but I wasn't sure how to make sure it was unoccupied, and snakes or bears might not be much better than the thing chasing us.
I could climb a tree, but I couldn't sleep in one, and Jack couldn't climb, and maybe the thing could.
I worried until my stomach hurt, not from the constant jogging, but with a little ball of stress. If we didn't find something soon, we'd be in serious trouble.
And then there was something, off to the left. A tiny golden spark of light I never would have seen in the city, but here, in the complete blackness, it blazed like a star come to earth.
"Jack," I whispered. "What's that? Can we go there?" I'm asking the dog for advice, I thought. Even if he can understand me, and knows the answer to the question, how is he going to be able to answer me?
I shouldn't have worried. Jack looked at the light, then looked behind us, as if weighing the odds of the thing getting to us before we got to whatever safety the glimmering beam might represent.
Mind made up, he loped toward it, and I scrambled to catch up. In ten hard minutes we were there. But I couldn't understand. We had both seen the light, but now that we had arrived where it had been, all I could find was a sheer cliff face.
I backed away from the cliff, and found the light again. I inched toward it, not daring to look away for even a moment, not looking at my feet at all.
The light shone from a gap in the cliffside. I put my eye to the crack and gasped.
A room was inside, filled with light, and low benches, and tables, much like the inside of any of the rooms in Ash's village. A row of pegs on the wall held a bearskin coat.
A girl wearing a long pale dress with a wide red sash brushed her hair with her back to me. Her hair fell over her shoulder to her waist like a piece of night. Her golden skin flashed against the darkness.
I couldn't find a way to knock, and didn't like peering through the window. I stepped back from the crack a little bit, until I couldn't see through but could still see the light, still find my way back.
"Excuse me? Hello?" My voice shook, and I hoped she could hear me. "Miss? Something's chasing us. Can we come inside?" I paused, but no answer came.
"Hello? We were trying to get to Spider Old Woman, but I think we're off the path, and I don't know what's chasing us, but it's getting closer, and . . ." Horrified, I heard my voice waver. I refused to cry, not in front of a stranger.
"Never mind. I'm sorry to have bothered you." I wasn't even sure she could hear me. I wanted to bang on the stone walls, force a way in. Instead I turned around and walked away. If we were going to find another hiding place, we'd have to move fast, and we had wasted precious time.
"Wait."
I sagged with relief at her soft voice and stumbled inside the door she held open, with Jack on my heels.
As we entered I saw it wasn't a door, but only a section of the cliff, and now she sealed it tight behind her.
"I must not have closed it all the way or you would never have seen the light. If something is chasing you, let us not tell it where you are, eh?" She flashed a quick smile, and it lit up her entire face. I realized she was beautiful. Not just pretty, or made up like people you see in magazines. She looked a little older than me; her features were sharp and even. I hadn't ever seen anyone like her before, and stammered a bit trying to get my words straight.
"Thank you very much. It's been a long day." I looked around, expecting to see other people.
"Are you alone here?"
She glanced at the peg where the single bearskin coat hung. "No. My parents are out, but will be back soon."
I nodded, too tired to ask for further information.
She gestured to the fire. "Please come in, be comfortable."
We moved closer to the warmth. I took off Jack's saddlebags and harness while she watched, then slipped out of my own pack. She shook her head as I set out food for Jack. He didn't seem interested in chasing down his own dinner tonight and welcomed the jerky.
He gulped his dinner down as soon as I lowered it, then sat to lick his sore paws.
"We've gone a long way today," I explained. "He had a lot of stickers to fight." I reached over to stroke his head. Jack glanced up, then went back to work.
I petted Jack, suddenly awkward in front of this girl. How would I explain any of this?
She reached over to touch the edge of Jack's ear with the tip of her finger.
"He's a lovely dog."
"Yes, he is. Brave and wonderful too."
She tilted her head, as if listening to him.
"Has he had to be brave?"
Such a simple question. It was enough to make the whole story come spilling out of me, like water crashing down over rocks.
She sat silent through the entire telling. It took less time than I would have thought.
"So now I have to find Spider Old Woman, and find out how to defeat Shriveled Corn Man. But I'm far from where I'm supposed to be."
The girl shifted to stir the pot on the fire.
&n
bsp; "Let me think on this."
We sat in the flickering light and I was grateful for the quiet and the company.
She stirred the pot again. "Have you eaten?"
I thought of the food in my pack. "No. I have some dried berries and cornmeal if you'd like."
"The berries would be welcome, but there is plenty of stew."
I got the berries out, and she poured them into a woven bowl with a running red pattern.
"I'll let them soak in water for a bit; they'll make a fine dessert."
She walked to a shelf set into the rock wall and came back with two delicate clay bowls.
"Here," she ladled one full and handed it to me, topped up with steaming meat and broth. "My name is Bear Girl."
"I'm Maggie." I mumbled around a too-hot sip of broth. "This is wonderful" I felt myself relax as the warmth spread through my body from the thick stew.
Jack sat up, nose quivering. Bear Girl laughed. "Yes, brave one. You may have some as well." She filled a third bowl, and we giggled as we watched him pick his way around the hotter pieces and gulp down the rest.
Another long silence as we watched Jack lick up the last of the stew from his bowl.
The quiet stretched on, and I was startled when she finally spoke. "I wonder what it was that chased you."
I shook my head. "We never saw it. At least I didn't. Jack sensed something before I did, but I felt it. It was like a strong hand against our backs, pushing us."
"Pushing you here, perhaps?" She turned to tend the fire, and I lost her next few words in the crackle of the flames.
She repeated them when she turned back around. "You said Coyote was to guide you after the second day. Do you suppose he could have been your pursuer?"
Outrage and shock leapt up in me. "Coyote? He was supposed to make sure we stayed on the path. And I was sure he said to go north. We had to run away, to the south."
Bear Girl shrugged. "It does seem like something that might amuse him. And there is a pass to the valley where Spider Old Woman lives not far from here. "
