'Wolverine. Wolverine did it. Who else comes so softly, who else creeps so silently?
You know how they kill, Ristin. They wait until the reindeer has scooped out a hollow in the snow to bare the moss. Then, when the deer puts its head down to eat and cannot see anything but snow, the wolverine streaks forward and tears out its throat. That is what happened to Elsa. When she knelt to dip her bucket in the water, Wolverine was waiting. He was angered, as he often is, for no reason at all, and poor Elsa had no spirit beast to protect her. Wolverine sprang out and seized her spirit and ran away with it into the dark lands, to drink its blood. That is why Tillu could not make her live. Her soul was gone. If Carp had been with us, he could have drummed and chanted and followed Wolverine into the earth. He could have fought Wolverine for Elsa's soul, and when he came back, he would have brought a spirit beast to protect Elsa. But we had no najd, and so she died.'
'Who tells you these things?' Tillu demanded when the silence had grown long.
'Carp. Old men sleep little, and night is the time for owls to be wakeful. It was not your fault, Tillu. No healer could have saved her from Wolverine. Only a najd.'
'No wolverine attacked Elsa. I've seen women beaten before, and Elsa was beaten to death. By a man, not a wolverine spirit!' Tillu added emphatically. She felt sudden disgust.
'And you have never met a man with the spirit of a wolverine?' Kari asked coldly.
'Joboam.' Ristin dropped the name, and it fell like a heavy round stone into a still pool. The ripples of the implication washed over Tillu, and dizzied her. Heckram's behavior suddenly had a logical pattern.
'If this is known,' she asked weakly, 'why is nothing done about it? Do your folk have no punishment for those who kill?'
'No proof,' Ristin said heavily. 'But I am not the only one who thinks it so. There is Missa, Elsa's mother. She dares not speak, for fear Kuoljok would be driven to do something. He has not been the same since the death. Stina and Lasse suspect him, as do Heckram and I. But the herdlord is blind to Joboam's faults, and will not even ...'
Ristin's voice ran down, and she turned to Kari apologetically. 'I did not mean to criticize your father, Kari. I forgot to whom I spoke.'
'Too many forget to speak at all. To whisper the truth is better than to not speak it at all. I take no offense, Ristin. If I thought I could make my father hear, I would scream it to him myself. But his ears are closed.' Kari's voice was bitter, and brought no reply from the other two.
Tillu sat silent, too many thoughts whirling through her head to make sense of any of them. It seemed possible that Joboam had beaten Elsa to death, and no one had spoken out against him. Kari had dropped enough hints that she thought she knew what Joboam had been able to 'make her do' when she was a child. And Carp was using his strange influence over Kari to pull her ever farther from the normal paths of life. Kerlew was likely dead; or so Ristin believed. And her own ambivalence toward Heckram was not as secret as she thought; his mother at least had sensed it. The food she had eaten was a sodden lump in the pit of her stomach, and she felt drugged with exhaustion.
Into the midst of the fire-light and silence. Carp came stumping. He sighed noisily as he eased himself down onto the skins, conveying both weariness and satisfaction. 'I need food,' he announced to no one in particular. Ristin and Tillu exchanged glances.
Neither one spoke nor moved. But Kari was unmindful of them as she rose to fetch cakes and soup for the old man. He took it from her without thanks, and sipped at the stew noisily. He smacked his pale tongue against his gums and remaining teeth and sighed again. 'It's all been arranged,' he said with smug satisfaction.
Kari fell into the trap. 'What has?'
He gave her a scathing look. 'Women. Always babbling and prying. The work of a najd is not for you to ask about, girl. Bring me some water.'
'Let him get it himself,' Tillu cut in angrily. His manner rasped on her like sand against a wound.
'There speaks an ungrateful woman. What does she care about her son, or the one who will bring him safely home to her? Oh, she likes to mope and drag about, so that all will pity her for her loss, but when one does something to bring the boy back, does she thank him? No, she will not even fetch him a simple dipper of water.'
Instead of maddening her, the words only made her weary. She ignored him, didn't watch Kari as she rose to get him a drink. To Ristin she said, 'I think I will sleep now. I want to thank you for your hospitality this night. And for making me understand things I had not known before.'
'What things?' Carp instantly demanded.
'Only women's natterings. Nothing to interest a najd.' Ristin assured him blandly. In spite of her sorrows, Tillu felt a small smile twitch the corners of her mouth. She liked this Ristin. She found the bundle that held her sleeping skins, and took them to the far side of the shelter, as far from Carp as she could get without leaving Ristin's hospitality.
She unrolled the hides and rolled herself up in one. The spring nights were getting warmer. But it would still be cold for a boy out alone in the dark. She tried to push the thought from her mind and sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When Tillu did sleep, her dreams were of cold dark places, where wolverines snarled at her from cracks in shattered cliffs and moldering bones pushed greenly from the earth. Tillu wandered in a long ravine she could not climb out of, her feet sinking into freezing mud. The passage was narrow, and she could barely avoid the wolverines as they lunged at her from their lairs. She tried to run, but terror folded her legs limply beneath her. She dragged herself on, moving so slowly that she knew she would never escape. Far away, someone called her name.
Then someone took her shoulder and tugged at her, pulling her free. She awoke to cold hands on her arms, and Kerlew tugging at her. She clutched at him wordlessly.
Only now, when the pain of loss stopped, could she comprehend how bad it had been.
The boy yelped as she hugged him and struggled against her, but she didn't care. His skin was so cold, his clothing soaked with dew.
'Oh, it's warm in here!' he suddenly exclaimed, and burrowed into her sleeping hides and pulled them around himself. The cold night slapped Tillu, but she laughed. As she reached for another hide one fell over her. Heckram knelt down stiffly beside them, to tuck the hides more closely around Kerlew.
'Are you asleep already?' he asked softly, but the boy didn't answer. He chuckled quietly. 'I guess he'll be fine.'
Tillu reached up to grip his cold hand. He looked down and swayed slightly where he knelt. 'I'm so tired,' he said, as if it were all the explanation she needed.
'And cold.' She sat up as she spoke and wrapped her sleeping hide around his shoulders. He sank down beside Kerlew. 'Do you want something hot to drink?' she asked.
He nodded, rubbing his face with both hands. 'I haven't slept since the last time I saw you.' His voice was hollow with weariness. He spoke softly, and the others in the shelter never stirred. Tillu moved to the fire, to poke up the embers and add a little water to the soup left in the pot.
'I went back over the trail. At first I didn't call, because I didn't want to alert Joboam.
I don't mind trouble with Joboam, but I didn't want it to delay me just then. So I went back a long ways through the dark as quietly as I could. I figured that if Kerlew were in sight of the campfires, he would find his way to the camp. When I couldn't see the fires anymore, I began to call. No answer and no sign of the boy.' He paused for a tremendous yawn, and to scratch at his tousled hair. Tillu stirred the soup and waited impatiently for it to heat.
'I went all the way back, to where I had last seen him. I thought that he would be somewhere between there and the camp. But I was wrong.'
'What?'
'I had to wait for dawn, but as soon as there was light. I looked for his trail. There wasn't much to go on, so many had passed that way. I decided to watch both sides of the trail for signs of anyone leaving it. I didn't have hope of finding much. A barefoot boy doesn't leave much mark on the land.' Heckram's voice ran down. Silence fell.
