“When we reach the stronghold,” Jack said, “I would like to find a stream and build a dam in it and name it after Manny.”
“I like that idea,” Carrie replied.
She was shouldering a spear with four fish stacked on it. As long as he’d known her, she always wore her hair long and braided. About a month before, she’d come to him, handed him her knife, and told him to cut off the braid as close to her head as possible. He didn’t want to do it at first, but she told him it was getting knotted and filthy and she couldn’t take it anymore. So she sat down on a rock in front of him, and he cut her hair while tears ran down her cheeks.
To lay his palm on her head felt strange. He’d touched her hands before, but that was necessary touching, when his hands were tools that helped her up onto a boulder or pulled her out of a deeper part of a creek. But Jack had never touched her like this.
Despite the dirt, her hair was soft, and he felt the warmth of her head under his hand. When he saw Carrie crying over her lost braid, he wanted to hug her and hold her, but he could only bring himself to pick up the braid from the ground and hand it to her. After that, her hair always stood up in all directions.
Sometimes, when he watched her kindle a fire with two sticks and a few blades of grass or tell stories to the younger children in the evenings, he wished they’d lived in a time where she hadn’t had to cut her hair, where she could wear it long and beautiful and pretty.
You would like her, Manny, he thought during those times. She’s one of us.
One morning, Jack felt someone tugging at him in his sleep. When he opened his eyes, Carrie knelt beside him, pulling his shirt.
“You’re early,” he whispered. Except for the two women holding watch at the edge of their camp, nobody was up yet. The night was just beginning to lose its hold on the land, and Jack saw only Carrie’s silhouette against the sky.
“I couldn’t sleep anymore.”
Jack got up and grabbed his quiver. They left the camp silently, signaling the guards on their way out. They’d been in this spot for a few days now, mainly to stock up on food and water before they went farther into the mountains. The rocks all around them gave them cover from anyone approaching from the east and south. To the west stood a large cliff. It rose up steeply, protecting the group from possible attack from that direction. The land to the north sloped downward and into a valley. A cold, clear stream rushed over the rocks, providing pools of water for fishing and some of their more basic needs, like washing clothes and bathing.
They hadn’t seen other groups for the last six months. After the cloaked invaders killed two-thirds of their group, they avoided contact with anyone else. Though they’d taken to sleeping huddled together against possible attack during the first few weeks of their flight, they’d become more confident now, spreading out more—still holding watch each night but not under constant fear of death.
Jack and Carrie climbed down a rocky path they’d explored a few times over the last two days. Their familiarity with it made their steps certain, even in the dim twilight of the early morning. The stream was their hunting ground, and if today was a good day, they’d catch a dozen or so fish before the sun came up.
Carrie was only a few feet ahead when she stumbled and let out a muffled scream. The dark shape on the ground appeared to be a large blanket at first. Jack went down on one knee to explore the lump on the ground, then jumped back, pulling Carrie with him.
Before them lay a body. Jack dared not speak. Both looked at it, watching for any movement. After a moment, Carrie knelt and shook it slightly. There was no reaction. Jack knelt again beside her.
“Jack,” Carrie whispered. He could hear the fear in her voice.
“Yes?”
“Whoever this is—was—is wearing a robe. A hood.”
The hair on the back of Jack’s neck pricked up. There was a moment when he felt paralyzed, unable to take another breath or move. He felt the darkness closing in around him, and a grim certainty that his own death was imminent descended over him.
“What shall we do?” Carrie’s voice brought him back. Jack took her hand as they retreated.
“We have to tell the others,” he said.
She nodded.
They made their way quietly but quickly back along the rocky path, their feet swift and sure again. When they arrived at the camp, the eastern horizon became a pale, orange hue, pushing the darkness back.
“A dead cloaked one, halfway down toward the stream,” Jack said to the two women holding watch. They rushed to the others in the camp, waking them quietly.
“Get ready to leave,” Jonu told the group after they’d roused. Two older men had already shouldered their weapons.
Jack’s heart raced when they returned with the others to the body. Carrie wouldn’t let go of his hand, and he was glad to offer his own for comfort. He’d never seen her afraid until today. But now he saw the terror in her face, and he knew it mirrored his own fear back to him. He was glad she wouldn’t let go of his hand. The gesture filled him with an irrational sense of calm. Perhaps, he thought, it was fate balancing the scales, offering him absolution for when he’d held Manny’s hand but fled, leaving his dead brother behind.
By the time they reached the cloaked figure, the horizon had lightened. Dawn was now in full bloom. The early light softened the face of the dead man lying on the ground. Jonu turned him on his back, and his hood slipped off. His head was shaved bald and covered in blood. His right ear was missing. When Jonu opened his tunic, the extent of his injuries became visible. One part of his neck was ripped away and hung by a few pieces of skin and muscle. His sword was still in its sheath, as if he hadn’t had time to draw it against his attacker.
“An animal,” Carrie said.
“Yes,” Jonu replied.
“Shouldn’t we have heard it?” Carrie asked.
“Not necessarily,” Tom, one of the older men, said. “It was far enough down the path, and as long as he didn’t scream, we wouldn’t have heard him.”
A feeling had gnawed at Jack since Jonu had exposed the man’s wounds. Their size, their shape. Could it be?
He looked from the man to Carrie and the others. He’d never told anyone about the cub. And now, they were hundreds of miles away from where he’d first encountered the wolf, when he’d saved him from the iron trap.
No, he thought, dismissing it again. It can’t be. Maybe another wolf, but not that one.
“Wolves?” Jonu asked, voicing the question everyone was thinking. The wounds had demanded it be asked.
“This far into the mountains?” Tom sounded doubtful.
“We need to leave.” Jonu unbuckled the belt and took the man’s sheath and sword. “We need to leave now.”
The fear in her voice made everyone move quickly. Now and then, Jack looked back to scan the land below.
No, he thought again. Impossible.
He packed his sleeping blanket and hunting quiver, and while the others hurriedly gathered the little they had, he decided to tell Carrie about the cub. She needed to know. He couldn’t think of a good reason for why he hadn’t told her already. Was he afraid she would judge him for not telling the group about saving the cub rather than offering it as food to the village before?
The group made its way along the rocky mountain pass in single file, with Jonu scouting ahead a few hundred feet and Tom at the end, guarding the rear. They carried a few smoked fish from the previous day but little else. Jack calculated they’d be able to move for two days, assuming they found a fresh source of water. After that, they’d have to catch more fish or find another source of food.