Even Heather in her irritable way was pleased to have him back, he saw, and at some point, by the bonfire when she was passing nearby, on one of her perpetual errands, he put out an arm to stop her and give her a hug, as she was the only one who had not hugged him, but only touched his arm.-I made it, he said.
— Yes, yes, you made it, she replied, squeezing him briefly before she moved on.-Now you are twelve.
THE WOLVES AT HOME
In the chill dawn Loon woke under a blanket of ash flecks, mouth parched and head aching. His wander was over, he was back in his pack. Thorn was groaning and calling for water. The old man’s gray braids hung over his dark face, their broken hairs sticking out everywhere. His eyes when he opened them were red and gooey. He stared at Loon suspiciously; he looked like he was still wondering what had happened to Loon on his wander. Loon decided never to tell him. His wander was his. One of Heather’s sayings finally came clear to him: no one else can live your life for you. He felt the solitude of it, the loneliness. Another lesson of his wander.
Thorn growled, as if seeing Loon’s secretiveness and disapproving it. Then he grunted like a rhino and crawled across camp to its sunrise end, where Heather kept her nest. All her stuff was tucked around her on wooden shelves which made a tight little wind shelter. She was in there now, and when she saw Thorn she moved to stand in her entry, blocking him. Thorn reached between her legs for her water gourd and she kicked his forearm.
— I don’t speak to unspeakables, she said, — but everyone knows to stay out of my nest.
— I just want a drink of water, he whined.
— No one touches my things. They stay away from my nest. I’ve dusted it with poisons that will make you sick, everyone knows that.
Thorn lay there defeated.-Loon, he said, — get me a bucket of water, please. You can take it from Heather here.
— You get it, Loon said.-I’m not your apprentice anymore.
— You just became my apprentice, didn’t you notice? Do what I say and don’t be insolent. He laid a red eyeful of command on Loon.-That’s what your wander should have taught you.
Loon dug in a net bag for his real clothes, which Heather had kept for him.-It taught me I’m not your apprentice.
But of course that was just what he was. Unless he quit the shaman’s way entirely, which would probably mean leaving the pack. Thorn’s heavy red scorn speared the point home.
Loon got dressed and stumped around camp doing things for the old sorcerer, feeling like he had let himself get snared in a snare he had known to avoid. It made him sick as he saw it happening. Mornings after a big night could be like that, just a raven-shitted kill site, sunlight slivering the eyes, the camp all ashy and sordid, its people disgusting. Best to get out of camp on mornings like that, go down to the river and jump in.
So Loon did that. The one lead of open water had iced over in the night, but it was easy to crack through the thin clear layer and make a hole into the black water below. What a luxury it was to plunge into the sandy shallows of the lead, rub himself until he began to shiver under the shock of the black water, all the while knowing that the campfire would be there to warm him back up, and his clothes right there on the bank. Ah the luxury of home!
Except for the people. Although it was true that last night he had been very glad to see them. People are more wolf than wolverine, people are more lion than leopard, because they run in packs. Seeing all their faces in the firelight: he had to remember the feel of that, so intense and comforting. Where had it gone already? There was so much to remember from his wander. He would be asked to tell the rest of it, and he wouldn’t; but he had to remember it. It was his, it was what he had. And it had taught him some things. If he could remember them. Already it was getting to be like a dream he had had.
He limped up the side of Loop Hill to the flat spot that ledged around to the tail of the Stone Bison. This was a fine prospect, with views up and down the river gorge, and over Loop Meadow to the gray rise behind it, where their camp was tucked at the bottom of a little abri.
From here their camp was as small as a child’s toy. The pack house was a neat round thing of spruce logs and hides, smoke rising from the hole in the high point of the roof. People were still coming out of it, stunned by the day, or rather the previous night. In the doorway of the women’s house Chamois and Bluejay sat where they always did. His friends Hawk and Moss were still asleep in their furs, on the ramp under the abri. There were Thorn and Heather, and across the camp Schist and Ibex, putting wood on the big campfire. Every person down there was known to him so well that if he could see them at all, no matter how small they were, he knew just who it was, also what they were likely to be doing, and what they would say if you spoke to them. It was enough to make you scream.
Heather was holding up her blowdart tube and aiming it at Thorn. Her darts were tipped with poisons that would kill in just a few heartbeats. Thorn had his hands up, but was clearly berating her. His words could be as poisonous as her darts. He had cursed people to death at the festivals.
Loon stared down now as if looking at some other pack. Rising smoke, people grubbing in the morning chill. Out on his wander he had wanted to be home, now he wanted to be back on his wander. But of course, Heather would say if he told her this. You only want things you don’t have. Things you do have, you forget to want. We’re stupid that way.
Their camp was laid out like most abri camps Loon had ever seen. Quite a few had cliff overhangs even better than theirs, many of them upstream and down on the gorge walls of the Urdecha, others in other river canyons east and west and south. The cliffs backing these camps were usually painted, as theirs was. From the Stone Bison the paintings were tiny, a jumble of red and black spots. Loon could just make out the long stretch of painted wolves on the hunt, something like four score of them overlapping in a run toward the camp. They were the Wolf pack. Two score and two of them, this spring.
Schist was standing by the fire telling Ibex something. Schist was broad-shouldered and deep-chested, not tall but nevertheless big, shaped like a river stone but light on his feet. A very clever hunter, and very accurate with the javelin. A mild friendly look, attentive to everyone in the pack, an easy manner. He made jokes often but at heart was very serious, because he took on himself the task of making sure they had enough food to get through the winters and springs. That was his version of being a headman, and it was something women usually did, but he joined them in their work and suggested what everybody do. So every summer when the birds returned and they had not starved, he became briefly cheerful; but after midsummer day he returned to his beavering.
Now the birds had not yet returned, and their saved food was getting low, and he was very intent as he talked to Ibex. He was always talking food: cooking and fishing with Thunder and the women, hunting and trapping with the men. He had dug their storage pits himself, and was always lining them with new things. He spoke with people from other packs to see what they knew. He and Thorn had worked out an accounting system similar to Thorn’s yearsticks, using clean lengths of driftwood to notch marks for their pokes of animal fat, bags of nuts, dried salmon steaks, smoked caribou steaks; everything they gathered to eat in the cold months was stored and marked down. He knew how much every person in the pack would eat, based on the previous winter’s markings and adjusted by everyone’s summer health, by how much fat they had put on, and so on. He knew better than you how hungry you would be.