and going. Perhaps that was a good thing. Elsa seemed kind, and Heckram did not cuff Kerlew and push him aside. Perhaps it would work out, this limited contact.
'You take for medicine?' Elsa asked. She was offering a piece of carved horn, incised with figures painted red and black and blue. She didn't look to Heckram for permission before offering the trade. If a woman had behaved so in Benu's group, her man would have beaten her for her forwardness. But Heckram was not paying attention to them.
Tillu took the horn slowly and turned it over in her hands.
'Open here. See?' Elsa took it back, to pull off the fitted cap. She spilled three bone needles into her hand. They were new and sharp, made by skilled hands. Tillu nodded in appreciation, and reached to touch one shyly. Elsa smiled. 'I make them, and case.
My father, no sons. Teach me to carve instead. Now he says I am better than most men at carving. I makes knives, needles, arrowheads, harness rings. Mine are not just strong.
Mine are pretty.'
Elsa recapped the carved needle case and offered it back to her. Tillu took it cautiously, to examine the carved and painted surface. The tiny decorations pleased her more than the new needles inside. After a moment, she remembered her guests.
'You stay, eat?' Tillu offered.
Heckram shook his head as he rose from where he and Kerlew had been conferring.
'Dark nearly here. Hurry back to talvsit. You come talvsit, sometime? People welcome healer, much work for healer. You come, sometime?'
'Sometime, maybe,' Tillu agreed slowly as Kerlew bounced in excitement at the prospect. She followed them to the door of the tent, watching in consternation as they strapped the long flat pieces of wood to their feet and took up their staves.
'Skis,' Heckram explained, smiling at her confusion. 'Go over snow fast, not sink.
You, skis?'
Tillu shook her head, eyes wide.
Heckram grinned at her. 'You come talvsit, I teach you. Teach Kerlew, too. Good way to hunt, on skis. Go fast, quiet. You come to talvsit, visit, learn skis. Maybe tell about your people, your lands?'
The request and offer took Tillu by surprise and she found herself flushing in confusion. Heckram smiled down at her and nodded assurance at Kerlew, who was capering with excitement.
Elsa settled her hat firmly on her head and glanced at Heckram with annoyance.
'Time to go,' she suggested, a trace of irritation in her voice.
'I'm glad you came,' Tillu said awkwardly, wondering if she had somehow offended the woman. But Elsa's smile seemed warm as she promised, 'Next time, bear grease.'
With a wave of her hand she pushed off, sliding her feet in long steps as she coasted over the top of the snow. Tillu marveled at this strange method of traveling. There was no denying it was swift. Already Elsa had reached the base of the trees and was starting easily up the hill. Tillu expected her to have to struggle to ascend, but Elsa leaned into the walk. It looked so easy.
'You come talvsit, soon,' Heckram suggested as he pushed off to follow the woman.
His leg muscles worked and the skis carried him forward effortlessly. Tillu watched him go. With his longer stride he would catch up with Elsa easily. She must have known that, for she showed no sign of waiting for him. Still, it was strange to hear a woman announce it was time to go, and stranger still to see a man follow her. Kerlew peered from the tent flap after them.
'Skis,' Tillu told him, pointing after them. 'Would you like to do that?'
'Someday I will. See my knife?' He held up a bone knife in a sheath of woven fiber.
As Tillu reached for it, he pulled it close to him. He drew the blade from the sheath and flourished it dangerously near his own face, not letting her touch it.
'Where did you get that? Did the man forget it?' she asked, hoping Kerlew had not somehow stolen it.
'He didn't forget it. He wanted the goose spoon, so we traded.' Kerlew spun away from her touch, eluding her. 'Now I am a man indeed!'
'A knife does not make a man!' Tillu scoffed. 'Let me see it.'
'Look, but do not touch,' Kerlew told her with tolerant pride. 'Carp told me to never let a woman touch my own tools. A shaman can hide his strength in his tools. I put good luck in the goose spoon for Heckram.'
'Carp!' Tillu snorted, but put her hands down.
He held the blade steady for her inspection. It was a fine piece of work, with the handle wrapped in a leather thong to keep the grip from slipping. Away from the cutting edge, decorative lines had been etched shallowly into the blade and stained black. It was worth far more than a crudely carved spoon and Tillu chewed at her lip, pondering. What made Heckram treat Kerlew so kindly and pay her so generously for the simple healing of Lasse? She could not understand it. It made her uneasy. 'I shall find a way to make it even with them, when next they come,' she promised herself softly.
'She will not come again.' Kerlew spoke in a voice that was next to a whisper, but deeper. He stood suddenly still, staring up the hillside. The point of his new knife touched the base of his throat.
The two skiers had appeared on a bare shoulder of the hillside, limned against the darkening sky. Colors had fled from the earth, taking refuge in the sky on the horizon.
Branches and trunks of trees had turned black against the pale snow. The people on the crest of the hill were no more than dark shapes against the violet streak on the horizon.
'She has to come back, to bring the bear grease so I can make the ointment for her shoulder,' Tillu pointed out. 'Move out of the way and let me back in the tent. It's getting cold out here.'
'She will not come back, for he is going to kill her. Even now the blackness swallows her down, and she is gone.'
A chill not from cold racked Tillu's body. Kerlew stood in the entrance of the tent, the knife held before him like a finger pointing at the far figures at the top of the hill. His eyes were full of the setting sun and the violet light made his face look like a corpse's.
Tillu could not keep herself from following his gaze. The woman's form went over the crest of the hill, appearing to sink into blackness. The sunset splashed the surrounding snow with spreading pink and shadowed purples. As Tillu watched, the figure of the man plunged after her. A chill wind rattled branches, dropping plops of snow like irregular footsteps. She started at the sound. When she glanced back to Kerlew, he smiled up at her ingenuously.
'Let's eat all that food tonight!' he suggested happily and vanished into the tent, his treasured knife waving in his clutched fist. * * * 'Wait!' Heckram called. Elsa had cut across the smooth face of the snow on the downside of the hill and was nearly out of sight in a thicket of willow. He gave a final glance at the lonely tent with the woman and boy standing before it, then pushed off to follow her. She was right to hurry, with the sun setting and the light changing, but he suspected she was feeling playful as well.
They had always competed as children, on foot, on their skis, or in their pulkors as they raced over the snow in winter, shouting wild encouragement to the bounding harkar that pulled them. As a youth, Heckram had strained to stretch his wolf hides tighter as they dried, so they might appear larger than those of his slender young neighbor. In summer they had compared strings of fish and each measured their new calves against the other's to see whose reindeer prospered most. Elsa was a strong herdfolk woman, competent and independent. But he had enjoyed her challenges more when they were younger.
'Wait,' he called again, and she gave in, sinking her poles at the sides of her skis as she paused.
A sting of evening wind kissed Heckram's cheeks as he caught up with her. The same wind, and effort, had reddened Elsa's cheeks. Some of her thick hair had escaped from her bright cap. She shook her hands free of their mittens and tucked it back in. She had dark, liquid eyes that flashed like those of a proud little vaja. She pulled her fingers from her cap, but her hair snagged on them and spilled out worse than ever. Heckram grinned as she ruthlessly stuffed it back.
'Why not just let it hang out?' he asked as she struggled with it.
And spend all evening picking the snarls out of it? No, thank you. Why didn't you tell me about the boy?'
