But everyone had to eat.
Up on the ridge above the big cave Loon saw a flicker between trees. Not red, so not a fox. Could have been a woodsman. Every once in a while they appeared in the distance, usually in forests, which was why they had their name. Most of them had lost their luck, Thorn said, lost it so bad they had lost their pack too. Because luck was real.
Thorn always said that he didn’t have any luck anymore, nor any spirit powers of his own, but had learned to ask the spirit powers out there to visit him and take him over. It didn’t look like a comfortable thing. Sometimes he sighed heavily on the days when he woke to realize it was a day for one of his spirit travels. He drank berry mash all day and trembled as the time came for the visitation. He would flick Loon on the ear for no reason. The spirits who visited him were Bison Man, Birch Woman, the Night Colors, and another he would never name. Telling others about one’s abilities could sometimes make them go away, so Thorn was usually reticent and even secretive about that part of his life. But Loon was his apprentice, and although Thorn did not think much of Loon in that regard, he had to train him or find someone else. It would have pleased Loon to be rejected and allowed to go his way. He kept trying to make that happen, just on the off chance it might work. As the ducks kept not coming and everyone got more stretched and thin, Loon was ruder and ruder to Thorn, or he just left camp all day, every day, just as he had so often as a child. But Thorn seemed determined to keep him, and the truth was that Loon liked etching stones, and carving wood and antler and tusk, and making the paints and painting. He wanted to paint the big animals inside their cave when the time came for him. In that way he wanted to be a shaman. And Thorn knew that and used it against him. And he reminded Loon that being a shaman was a good way to know lots of women too, even if they were sick when you knew them. Loon found that idea horrible. A lot of what shamans had to do frightened and disgusted him.
Not only did the ducks not come, but one day the air went so cold that the sun showed its ears, and everyone returned to camp and began to prepare for a cold snap. It was the worst time of year for one, because the last snow was melting and all the little creatures’ tunnels between the snow and ground were flooded. It was already the most dangerous time of the year for every animal, much worse than winter itself; to add a freeze at the end was a hard thing. But the sky was frosted, and the sun’s ears gleamed in a circle around it. Cold was surely coming. At this point firewood was more important than food.
Cold enough to frost your face, cold enough to freeze your pizzle; everyone got into the big house, even Heather.
Two days later, with frozen little creatures all over the land, it warmed back up again. The day after that it got very warm. They heard the first mosquito, and when you can hear one mosquito there are sure to be ten more around. The day was coming when the river was going to break up.
They gathered on the Stone Bison, where they could see up and down the gorge of the Urdecha a long way, and the flat discolored ice with all its leads against the banks ran right under their feet. Thorn put on his bison head and led them in the prayers to the river, asking it to break up cleanly so that it wouldn’t get dammed and flood Loop Meadow and drown their camp. That had happened. Just in case it did again, everyone had their most valuable small possessions in their belts, and were dressed in all their finest clothes. It was a hot day to be wearing so much, but they would soon be able to swim in the open river and wash off all their sweat and body paint. It was one of the biggest days of the year. And surely after break-up the ducks would have to come.
Upstream and downstream, the river was groaning. In the fall when it froze and made these noises, it was crying out for its blanket of snow. Now it was crying out for release, for the chance to run free and see the sun again. Loon recognized in these low booms and sizzling cracks the very words his own spirit had been crying out inside him since his wander. He sat on the back of the Stone Bison and moaned with the river, as many of the pack did.
Big jagged plates were rising out of the shattered patches of river ice, as if something underneath was pushing up to be free. Some leads were resolving into eddies, with small ice plates jumbling in their downstream ends. Many shards of ice were half black with bottom mud. The booms and cracks became very frequent and loud.
Thorn approached Loon. He looked oddly small under his bison head. He said loudly to Loon, — Let’s say the break-up story together, right here watching it.
— No, Loon said without thinking. He didn’t know that poem.
Thorn’s right hand leaped out and flicked Loon on the ear, the first time he had managed it since Loon’s wander. Loon howled and stood up to walk away.
— No, Thorn shouted, standing in front of Loon and pointing at the ground. His eyes were fixed on Loon like little suns.-Say it now, when it’s happening right before your eyes, and remember! Remember!
After a while Loon bowed his head. He rubbed his throbbing ear and looked at the stony ground of the Stone Bison’s back. Well, when memorizing this one his ear had always been throbbing, it seemed. With a big sigh he began:
Frost has to freeze and ice build bridges,
Water support you and hide the seeds.
One alone shall unbind the frost
And drive away the long winter.
Good weather will come again,
Summer hot with sun.
Great salt sea deep trail of the dead,
We burn holly for you to break the ice.
Take it back we do not need it,
Tip the sun up toast the air,
Hurry the water under the ice,
Fill the meadows with snowmelt.
Flow water flow,
Fill the ravines fill the ravines,
Fall down the cliffs black in the sun,
Fall water fall.
— No no, Thorn said.-That’s Fill water fill.
Fill water fill,
Push from below
The old ice and snow,
Fill from above
Like finger in glove,
Like baby born
With a push from inside.
The moment comes to push and push,
Mother Earth knows Mother Earth squeezes,
A spasm a cramp a knot a push.
Break ice break now,
Break ice break now.
Loon tried to remember what came next. Below them the deepest canyon of the gorge was groaning hugely, as if a big woman in a spasm of birthing pain.
Suddenly Thorn spoke, and Loon listened gratefully, because he had never remembered what came next.
As it happened, Thorn shifted to a different story, one Loon knew much better.
One spring a great storm came out of the west,
Destroying the homes of the people by the river.
They lashed their skin boats together for safety
And sat in them as water rose up all the valleys
And covered the land completely.
They drifted unable to save themselves,
In the bitter night many of them froze
And their bodies fell into the sea.
Then wind and sea calmed and the sun beat down,
The sun was so intense some died of its heat.
Finally a shaman struck the water with his spear,
Crying, Enough! Enough! We’ve had enough!