you,' he offered in a tiny voice. He lifted his pale eyes to Heckram's face. Heckram nodded, knowing the offer was sincere. It was all Kerlew had to offer him.
'Let's hunt, then,' he said, and Kerlew sprang suddenly to life. The boy snatched up his boots. 'Dress warmly,' Heckram reminded him. 'We'll be gone all day. I'll bank the fire so it doesn't go out.'
'Doesn't matter!' Kerlew told him joyously, if it goes out, I can make another.
Sometime I'll show you how.'
The sun on the snow was brighter than Heckram remembered it, the air crisper, the sky more blue. Eagerness and inexperience made the boy clumsy, but Heckram was amazed at his own patience. He found good cover overlooking a game trail, and waiting for a rabbit became more engrossing than all the reindeer stalking he and Lasse had done all winter. The bow was hopelessly too large for Kerlew; Heckram had to draw it back and help Kerlew hold it steady. The boy exclaimed over Heckram's brightly stained and feathered arrows and had to examine every one in the quiver before he could decide which one to nock. Heckram blessed whatever spirit made the game move so well today. Of seven rabbits that came their way, they felled three, and made great fun of retrieving the other arrows that had gone wobbling off into the woods.
They spoke little, lest they scare the game, communicating with nudges and nods that made the boy's awkwardness with words unimportant. When the first rabbit fell, he let Kerlew retrieve it. The boy lifted if by the heavy deer arrow that had speared its entire body. He stared at it as if he had never seen a rabbit before. When he stood up, his shoulders straightened and he stood taller, his body opened in the light. His chin came up, and something kindled in his eyes. 'Tillu will see this soon!' was all he said.
He came back to their cover to wait for the next rabbit; the smile did not leave his face again.
The sun was fading before they tired, and they walked back in the dimness, his hand on Kerlew's shoulder while the boy hugged his three rabbits to his chest. They said little as they walked back, both too busy imagining how Tillu would react to this magnificent feast. 'They're heavy rabbits,' Kerlew said once, 'very, very heavy.' Heckram knew better than to offer to carry them for him.
The wind was rising as they crested the last hill, and Tillu's voice rose up to them like the ululation of a she-wolf. 'Kerlew!' Her voice drew the name out and threw it to the wind, her hopelessness riding the dark breath of the night. The pain in it split Heckram's soul; it was the cry of a woman who had lost her everything. 'Coming! We're coming!' he roared into the night, and hurried, pushing her son on before him.
They came out of the darkness and she stared at the large silhouette that walked beside her son. Relief flooded her and she rushed to meet them, throwing her arms around Kerlew with a glad cry. He shrugged her off with an embarrassed exclamation.
She did not even notice the rabbits in his arms. 'Where have you been?' she demanded of him, and then of Heckram, 'Where did you find him?' She looked down at her son, at the wide grin on his face despite the worry and fears she had endured. Anger rose in her, that he would wander off on his own, and make Heckram interrupt his hunting to bring the boy back. 'Why did you go off like that?' she scolded. 'Do you think I have nothing to do besides worry about you? Do you think Heckram has nothing better to do than look after you? You know you should not leave the tent when I am gone! What if Heckram had not found you and brought you home?'
Kerlew's triumph melted in humiliation. He stood speechless before her growing anger, his worthless rabbits clutched to his chest. Heckram put his arm around him, squeezed the boy's unresisting shoulder. 'We went hunting,' he told Tillu, amazed at the defiance he heard in his own voice.
'I would think you would have asked before you took my son from my tent,' Tillu snapped back. 'You left no sign, nothing! I have searched and called until my voice was hoarse! You had no right to take him without asking me.'
'Kerlew wanted to go,' Heckram defended himself, the woman's words suddenly understandable to him as never before, though their accent remained strange. 'And he hunted well.'
'He is not old enough to decide such things for himself. Is it your custom to take a woman's child from her tent, and make no word to her about it?'
'Is it your custom for a mother to humiliate her son before his friend, instead of rejoicing over his first kill? The boy did well! It is time he learned to hunt!'
'That is not for you to decide! You don't know Kerlew, he is not like other boys! He is
-'
'Gone,' Heckram pointed out to her.
It was true. Kerlew had discarded his rabbits in a pathetic heap at her feet and disappeared into the tent. Tillu stood staring down at them silently for a long moment.
Embarrassment flooded her face with warmth. How could she have quarreled with a stranger over her own child, admitted to him that Kerlew needed constant supervision?
How dare he pity them and make excuses for her son to her. She glared at the meat he had brought. 'You don't have to hunt for us,' she pointed out coldly, 'I can get the meat we need. And I can take care of my own son. Take your rabbits and go.'
'They aren't mine!' Heckram longed to shake her, and the urge echoed in his voice.
'Kerlew shot them. Every one of them. To please you. To be a man. Why do you treat him so badly? Why doesn't the boy have a bow, why do you keep him like a baby?
Don't you want him to grow to be a man?'
Tillu sank down slowly, almost collapsing in the snow. She lay her mittened hand on the soft fur of the dead rabbits. 'He really killed these?' she asked, disbelief still strong in her voice. Heckram nodded silently. 'My son can hunt.' She said the words aloud, but Heckram knew they were not for him. They were spoken to herself, in a voice full of wonder and thankfulness. She looked up at him, her eyes shining wetly. 'His first kill.'
She paused. Her face clouded as she realized what she had said and done, 'I was so worried,' she said softly. 'So frightened.' She glanced up at him, her eyes dark, 'I'm sorry.'
He shook his head, refusing the apology. 'Tell Kerlew that. I should tell you I am sorry, for taking him in such a way. I meant no harm.' Now that the quarrel was ending, Heckram felt suddenly abashed at the frankness of his earlier words. Who was he, to interfere between Tillu and her son? 'I should go back to the talvsit. It is late.'
'No!' The vehemence in Tillu's voice surprised him. She gathered up the rabbits, cradling them like babies. 'Please,' she said in a softer voice. 'I've all but ruined it for him. Stay and watch me skin out his kill. Eat with us. Celebrate with him.'
'Any mother would have been worried. I was a fool to take him off that way, leaving no sign for you.' His own behavior suddenly seemed reprehensible, 'I should have asked you first.'
'No. No. I am always telling myself, if only the boy would do something on his own, if only he would decide for himself, then I would know there is hope for him. Then, the first time he does, I scold him and humiliate him. I've spoiled it for him, his hunt and his first kill.'
Hope for him. Heckram could not understand the anguish in her voice. How could she expect the boy to learn, if no one taught him? How could she love him so much, and understand him so little? Aloud, he asked, 'How did your own hunting go?'
She shrugged to his question. 'A couple of ptarmigan.'
'Only two?'
She nodded, perplexed.
'Then all is well, still.' He lifted his voice. 'Kerlew! Come out and help with the rabbits. It is as I told you! We two have hunted much better than Tillu. Your kill is three to her two! Kerlew! Hurry! Or do you think I will carry all these rabbits myself?'
The boy's hesitancy was painful to watch. He came forward cautiously, his shoulders hunched as if he feared them both. It was only when Tillu stepped aside that he dared come close to Heckram. The rabbits lay in the snow where Tillu had placed them. His eyes darted from the rabbits to Heckram and finally to Tillu.
'It's a very good kill,' she said softly.
He only looked at her. She lifted her eyes to Heckram, and then met her son's stare.
'Better than mine. All I brought down was two skinny birds. But you, you have brought home all this meat on your first hunt.' Suddenly she straightened, standing braver in the night. 'See how well my son hunts!' she exclaimed to Heckram. The pride in her voice rang true. 'Soon it will be, not rabbits, but fat deer he brings. The fat
