She flung away the rock. She felt angry, resentful at being reduced to scraping at a bit of stone. And then she felt a twinge of shame at having destroyed the refuge of this tiny, patient scrap of life.
The lake was fringed by dried and cracked mud. Walking there, Icebones found herself picking over the scattered and gnawed bones of deer, bison, lemmings, and horses, and they spoke to her of the grisly story that had unfolded here.
But there was hope, she saw. Some footprints in the mud led away from the deadly betrayal of the pond and off to the south, before vanishing into the red dust. Perhaps some instinct among these frightened, foolish animals had guided them the way Icebones knew the mammoths must travel, to the deep sanctuary of the Footfall.
Exploring the mud with her trunk tip, Icebones found one very strange set of prints. They were round, like mammoth footprints, but much smaller and smoother. These creatures had come here after the rest had died off, for bits of bone were to be found crushed into the strange prints. And, here and there, these anonymous visitors had dug deep holes — like water holes, but deeper than she could reach with her trunk.
She noticed Spiral. The tall Cow was standing alone on the ice at the edge of the lake, her trunk tucked defensively under her head. She was gazing at a brown, shapeless lump that lay huddled on the rock shore.
Thunder stood by her, wrapping his trunk over Spiral’s head to comfort her.
Spiral said, "I was working the ice. I didn’t even notice that at first. It doesn’t even smell…"
That was a dead animal. It was a goat, Icebones thought — or rather it had once been a goat, for it was clearly long dead. It lay on its back, its head held up stiffly into the air as if it was staring at the sky. Its skin seemed to be mostly intact, even retaining much of its hair, but it was drawn tight over bones and lumpy flesh. The goat’s mouth was open. The skin of its face had drawn back, exposing the teeth and a white sheet of jaw bone.
The goat had even kept its eyes. Exposed by the shrinking-back of its skin, the eyeballs were just globes of yellow-white, with a texture like soft fungus.
"It must have lost its way," said Thunder gently.
"It died here," said Icebones. "But there are no wolves or foxes or carrion birds to eat its flesh. Not even the flies which feast on the dead. And its body dried out."
Spiral prodded the corpse with her spiraling tusks. It shifted and rocked, rigid, like a piece of wood. "Will we finish up dried out and dead like this? And then who will Remember us?"
"We are not lost," Thunder growled. "We are not goats. We are mammoth. We will find the way."
They stayed a day and a night at the pond, gnawing at bitter ice.
Then they moved on.
They frequently came across blood weed.
It was difficult to spot. The weed gave off little odor, and its blood-red color almost exactly matched the harsh crimson of the underlying rock and dust — which was probably no accident.
The mammoths found bits of bone, cleansed of flesh, in the weeds’ traps, but all such traces were old. Even the weeds had not fed or drunk for a long time. Icebones wondered if these plants could last forever, waiting for the occasional fall of unwary migrant animals into their patient maws.
Icebones came across a new kind of plant, nestled in a hollow. It was like a flower blossom, cupped like an upturned skull, and its tight-folded petals were waxy and stiff. The whole thing was as wide as a mammoth’s footprint, and about as deep. A sheet of some shining, translucent substance coated the top of the blossom, sealing it off. Under the translucent sheet Icebones thought she saw a glint of green.
Cautiously she popped the covering sheet with the tip of her tusk. The sheet shriveled back, breaking up into threads that dried and snapped. A small puff of moisture escaped, a trace of water that instantly frosted on the petals. A spider scuttled at the base of the blossom.
Icebones scraped off the frost eagerly and plunged her moist trunk tip into her mouth. It was barely a trace, but it tasted delicious, reviving her spirit a great deal more than it nourished her body. She picked the flower apart and chewed it carefully. Despite that trace of green there was little flavor or nourishment to be had, and she spat it out.
She called the others, and they soon found more of the plants.
Each plant sheltered spiders, which made the moisture-trapping lids that allowed the green hearts of the plants to grow. So each flower was like a tiny Family, she thought, spiders and plant working together to keep each other alive.
It was Thunder who came up with the best way to use the flowers. He opened his mouth wide and pushed the whole plant in lid first. Then he bit to pop the lid, and so was able to suck down every bit of the trapped moisture. But he had to scrape off bits of spiderweb that clung to his mouth and trunk, and Icebones saw spiders scrambling away into his fur.
Spiral made a hoot of disgust. "Eating spiderweb. How disgusting."
Icebones found another plant and, deliberately, plucked it and thrust it into her mouth. "Spiders won’t kill you. Thirst will. You will all do as Thunder does—"
Suddenly Thunder stood tall, trunk raised, his small ears spread.
The others froze in their tracks — every one of them, flighty Spiral, Autumn with her aching ribs, Breeze with her scored back, even restless, growing, ever-hungry. Woodsmoke, as still as if they had been shaped from the ancient rock itself. Icebones found a moment to be proud of them, for a disciplined silence, vital to any prey animal, was a characteristic of a well-run Family.
And then she heard what had disturbed Thunder. It was a scraping, as if something was digging deep into the ground.
"But," Autumn murmured, "what kind of animal makes burrowing noises like that?"
Thunder said, "There is a crater rim ahead. It hides us from the source of the noise. I will go ahead alone, and—"
"No, brave Thunder. We are safer together." Icebones stepped toward the crater ridge. "Let’s go, let’s go."
The other mammoths quickly formed up behind her. They climbed the shallow, much-eroded crater rim.
Icebones paused when she got to the rim’s flattened top, her trunk raised.
In the crater basin, heavy heads lifted slowly.
Thunder pealed out a bright trumpet. He hurried forward, scattering dust and bits of rock. Icebones, more warily, clambered down the slope, keeping her trunk raised.
Mammoths — at least that was her first impression. They were heavy, dark, hairy creatures, spread over the basin. She saw several adults — Cows? — clustered together around a stand of breathing trees, digging at the roots. A black-faced calf poked its head out through the dense hairs beneath its mother’s belly, curious like all calves. Further away there were looser groupings of what she supposed were Bulls.
As Thunder approached, the Cows lifted their trunks out of the holes they had dug. Their trunks were broad but very long, longer than any adult mammoth Icebones had met before. Their tusks were short and stubby. They huddled closer together, the adults forming a solid phalanx before the stand of trees.
They looked like mammoths. They behaved as mammoths might. But they did not smell like mammoths. And as Icebones worked her way down the slope, her sense of unease deepened.
Woodsmoke had wandered away from his mother. Two calves peered at him from a forest of thick black hair. The adults watched him suspiciously, but no mammoth would be hostile to a calf, however strange. Soon Woodsmoke had locked his trunk around a calf’s trunk, and was tugging vigorously.