from his own bed. The man gave him a grin and a friendly poke of thanks, and settled for sleep.
Tillu rose to bring in wood to bank the fire. Kerlew followed her out into the cold to relieve himself, then brought in an extra armload of fuel.
'I like them,' the boy said suddenly. 'Let's go live with their people. You can be the healer and I can be the shaman.'
'Shush!' Tillu glanced warily at the unstirring men. 'Go to sleep now. We'll talk about that later.'
She arranged the wood with care, thinking of Kerlew's words. Could it be he missed being part of a people as much as she did? A foolish idea. What had folk ever meant to him besides beating and taunts and mockery? Except for Carp. And this man, tonight.
But the way a man behaved around a child when he was alone with him and the way he treated him in public were two different things. She remembered a man, several years ago, a man who had seemed to like her. He had courted her with meat and gifts, and then, one night as Kerlew slept, he had offered, with the kindest of smiles, to take the child out and leave him 'where the wolves would find him quickly, so that you and I could have children of our own. The gods never intended one such as he to live this long.' Tillu and Kerlew had left that folk before the sun rose the next day. She and Kerlew had both liked that man, too. She shook her head, felt the sting of fool's tears.
She banked the fire so it would burn long and then retreated to her own pallet. But she could not relax with strangers in her tent, and she lay for a long time, staring at the slow fire and dreaming. She glanced at the sleeping Heckram and found herself speculating. If she had not seen them hunting together, she would never have guessed that he and the boy were of the same people. The boy had a short, broad build. His thick black hair and yellowed skin reminded her of Kerlew's parentage. But Heckram, while he showed signs of kinship in his high cheekbones and dark eyes, also reminded her of the men of her own people. Blood and people had mixed somewhere. She lay still, smelling their unfamiliar odors. There was the smell of blood, sharp and disturbing, from the boy's injury. But beneath that there were the subtler odors of hides tanned by a different method, of the cheese and fish, and of the man himself.
Inexplicably, he smelled of reindeer. Not the dead odor of meat and hides, but the subtle wild scent that she picked up when she stalked such game. He smelled of living reindeer as her own father had once smelled of his sheep. It was a puzzle. She meant to stay awake and ponder it, but didn't.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lasse put out a hand and steadied himself for a moment against Heckram.
'I'm out of breath,' he explained.
'Me, too,' Heckram agreed, standing still while the boy panted. 'But there's not far to go now.'
The last hill had been a steep one, but now they stood on the final ridge. The barking of the dogs bounced echoes through the hills, and the wood smoke of the talvsit was a distinct tang in the air. The forested slope below them hid the winter camp with its huts of sod and bark, but they were nearly home.
'And just as well, too,' Heckram muttered to himself. Lasse had not asked for any help, but he walked awkwardly, his injured arm held close to his chest. Usually the boy plowed eagerly through the snow ahead of Heckram. Today he had followed in his wake, taking advantage of the trail he broke, and Heckram had consciously slowed his pace. Now relief lightened Heckram's mood. The brief light of the day was already fading. He was glad they had made it home before dark.
'Just as well ... what?' panted the boy.
'Just as well everyone will be busy at their chores when we come in. Bad enough to come back empty- handed. Worse to come back saying, 'Here's the only meat that was shot, and it's not worth eating.''
Lasse snorted his contempt for the weak joke, and they began to make their way down the hill. They soon intersected one of the many trails that led into the winter encampment, and the going was easier. On the trail the snow was packed, and there were no overhanging branches to duck. They passed a few harkar browsing on the outskirts of the camp. Their ears swiveled toward the men curiously but the deer didn't pause as they nipped the tenderest tips of the naked branches. The rest of the domestic reindeer would be either with the herd grazing up on the hillsides or harnessed to pulkor, journeying south with the traders who sought wool and bronze tools and other supplies.
Elsa was drawing water from the spring as they passed. She straightened with her dripping buckets and called out as she caught sight of them. 'You're back! What kept you? Too much luck, I hope.' Her voice was warm with welcome and relief.
Heckram felt the familiar tightness in his chest, that sense of a duty shirked. It made him brusque. 'Too much luck of the wrong kind. Any news here?'
She shook her head, walking ahead of them as she talked. 'Not much. Wolves got one of Jeffor's vaja last night, so most of the sita has been out hunting today.'
And not you?' Lasse asked. 'Then they won't get much.'
The girl smiled at his compliment. 'Not this time. My mother is not feeling well, so I stayed behind to bring in the water and do the heavier chores. Father went with the hunters.'
'Well, the man who taught you to shoot so well can surely shoot as well himself,'
Lasse observed.
Heckram was silent on the subject. He knew that Kuoljok's eyes were starting to fail him. The same thought must have crossed Elsa's mind, for her face saddened for an instant. But she recovered well, easing her heavy buckets to the ground outside her tent, then straightening with a sigh. Then, as she noticed Lasse's odd posture: 'What's happened to you?' she demanded.
'A mishap,' Heckram said and suddenly did not want to say much about it. 'A strange hunter. She must have been taking aim at the same vaja that Lasse and I were stalking. Lasse stood up with his rope at the same instant that she let fly. The arrow took him through the arm. But he'll be all right. She had some skills as a healer. That's why we were out overnight.'
Elsa nodded and spoke to Lasse. 'Your grandmother was worried, but refused to make a fuss over it. She just said that doubtless you'd had better hunting than you expected and were having a hard time getting it home.'
'I wish,' Lasse snorted.
'This strange hunter? Is there another talvsit close by, then? I've bone needles and antler work I'd like to trade. I tried to send some south with the traders, but they said they'd already packed as big a load as their sleds would carry. Still, another village might -'
Heckram shook his head, but Lasse elaborated. 'No. No talvsit at all. Just a woman and her son living in a skin tent alone. And not even much of a tent at that.'
'Outcasts, perhaps?' Elsa asked, her curiosity piqued.
Heckram shrugged. 'I doubt it. They've a foreign look about them, a strange way of cutting their clothes, and their speech is different. One can barely understand them.'
'Still,' Elsa persisted in wondering. 'How do folk come to be alone like that? There must be some evil in their past... like a plague that destroyed the rest of them, or becoming separated during a river crossing,' she hastened to explain at Heckram's puzzled look.
'The boy has the look of something like that. Did you see how he watched us leave this morning, Heckram? More like a black crow in a tree than a child. Like he knew too much of life to be a child, but wasn't concerned by any of it. He watched us go, but I would swear he didn't see us. It seemed a very strange look for a little boy,' Lasse added, shaking his head.
Elsa's eyes brightened with curiosity.
Heckram shrugged uneasily. 'You're imagining things, Lasse. Let's get you home to Stina. She's been worried about you all this time, and my mother as well. As if we were children out playing late.'
'Not too far off the mark, if you ask me,' Elsa commented lightly, then waved a farewell as she ducked into
