The Raven's Gift - Don Rearden [102]
He gave the old woman’s shoulder a rough shake. She was sleeping with her parka pulled over her. “Wake up,” he said, “he’s coming.”
When she opened her eyes, he pointed to the girl’s boots. She sat up, coughed out a mouthful of phlegm, and wiped it away with the back of her hand.
“How long she been gone? Where’s my caribou hide?” the old woman asked.
He shrugged and tried to listen for her, hoping she was just outside. The machine drew closer. Closer.
“She took my pistol, too,” he whispered.
“What you done to her?”
“Nothing. I would never hurt her.”
“Maybe she thinks you don’t need her no more. You’ll leave her.”
“No. She knows I do. I won’t leave her.”
“Go, then. See where her tracks take you. I’ll wait for that man.”
He pulled his down parka over his naked back and reached for the rifle leaning against the wall of the tent. He slid his boots onto his feet, not taking the time to put on his pants or socks. The sound of the zipper angered him. He stuck his head out and took a deep breath of the cool air. He couldn’t believe he had slept so deeply and he hadn’t heard the girl open and close the tent door.
As he zipped the door of the tent all the way open the old woman opened the breech of her shotgun, checked the shells, and spoke again. “When you find her, maybe he’ll have found me and maybe not. Piuraa, John.”
“Quyana,” he replied and stepped out into the pale dawn light. The air burned cold and a sick sinking feeling spread through his gut. The snow machine wasn’t far now. To the east, the sky glowed pink, the arctic sunrise minutes away. Her tracks, small, soft prints of bare soles, headed away from the river, through the birch and black spruce.
He followed them quietly, with quick, sharp strides, watching each track, noticing their deliberate pace, the distance between each step, and how she allowed the whole bottom of her foot to sink into the snow, as if that solid connection with the earth would allow her safe passage through the woods.
In places he could see where she had bumped a branch, knocking the snow free. The motor drew closer. Closer.
At one point, he found where she stopped, long enough to pick up a stick to help guide her. He knew this from the small, round black holes spaced evenly between each barefoot track.
He wanted to call out her name again, but the sound of the snow-machine motor racing closer and his heart drumming against his chest was already too much.
41
The trees thinned and turned to willows. The remaining spruce were black and leaning. The distance between her footsteps had increased and she had abandoned the stick she had used for walking. He picked it up and wished it was still warm where she had held it. In his mind he imagined her running now with the pistol, through the willows, the thin branches whipping against her face.
The motor had died and he suspected the hunter was making his stalk on their camp. He hoped he would spare the old woman.
Where was the girl going? Why was she running? What was she running from? Did she know he was coming? Did she know the hunter had found them?
He pushed his way through the willows until they opened up to a steep tundra bluff that rose above a long, frozen oxbow slough. Her tracks made a straight line across the ice, up the fifty-foot slope, and out of sight.
He squatted down and put his bare fingers to a footprint. He touched each toe impression, the ball of her foot, traced the arch, and then stopped at her heel. The track had a small spot of blood. The ice beneath the snow was beginning to cut her feet. If she was still alive when he found her, he would tend to her feet and tell her everything. They would make a stand and he would protect her.
42
He swore that he would keep track. He would record each day forward from the day she died. Never