Lower’s Upper was steep and narrow, with not much in the way of meadows, curving out to the west so that it caught a good afternoon light. The wind was picking up, the pine trees roaring in their big airy needle chorus. Pippiloette sang and yet Loon could barely hear him.
Then they heard a frightened bleat cut short, and after that the triumphant cries of their brothers of the hunt, who clearly were celebrating a kill. Loon and Pippiloette ran down to join them, saw it was true; the men were standing around a stag splayed on its side, two spears stuck through his ribs and the men busy trying to catch some of his leaking blood in gooseskin bags. When he had stopped bleeding they started a fire and began to break down his body for carrying back to camp. Pippiloette knew the proper disposal rituals for the parts of the body they weren’t going to be taking back, and he chatted amiably before they burned the guts, then chanted the deer death chant, and took the unusable bones and set them at the bottom of a little eddy in the creek, stuck in a little circle so they would have fish for company. This was Pippiloette’s version of the water burial, and one he assured them would result in much better luck with deer afterward. So the others did it willingly, and the bone circle looked good there in the water, like something beavers might do.
After that they had the quarters and body and head, and they were five, so all was well, and Pippiloette joined them cheerfully.-I’m almost going that way anyway. It will be good to see your people.
He came by once or twice a year, as he spent much of his time walking a circuit, like a wolverine’s but much larger. He liked to drop in on packs in a particular order, trading for things people elsewhere would like, moving them along region to region and holding on to a few things for his return home.-It can be lonely, it’s often dangerous, but it’s interesting, he said.-I get to talk to so many people, in so many packs. There are salmon people everywhere you go, so I’ve always got my clan’s people to look out for me, and they help me make my trades. And then in between visits I’m out and about, just like the rest of the animals.
— Always alone? Loon asked.
— Almost always.
— But isn’t that dangerous, to go alone?
— No, not so much. Best be quick at making fire, of course. I try to always carry a live ember, kind of go from fire to fire to make that happen. But if you’re good with fire, and keep an eye out, you’ll be left alone.
— Even when you sleep?
— It depends where you sleep, right? Don’t you think so?
— I was out on my wander back in the spring. It seemed hard to find a safe place to sleep, especially with a fire. Sometimes I slept in trees. Other times I made a huge fire. I would even sleep by day and stay awake all night.
— I’ve done all that, Pippiloette agreed.-You have to take care.
— What about woodsmen, or old ones?
— You have to take care. It depends what you think is worse, the animals or the woodsmen. In different areas it’s different. Woodsmen are skittish, they’re almost all up on the plateau, or in the ravines of the highlands, up where no one else will live. The lunkheads aren’t like that. They have their own regular camps, usually at the top of kolby canyons, or else on islands in rivers. They’re not very dangerous, compared to lions or hyenas. They’re not real happy around people, but they are polite. Woodsmen are usually crazy, and most want to keep their distance. They’re out there because they killed someone, or ate a dead person when they were hungry or something. Lots of times when I’ve run into one, it’s seemed like they forgot how to talk. A couple of them talked all the time, but never to me. They had invisible friends. They spoke languages I’ve never heard.
He shook his head.-It wouldn’t be good to be alone all the time. I like it when I’m out on a trip, but I like it because I know I’ll be talking to someone soon. If it were to go on forever, I wouldn’t like it. I don’t think the woodsmen are any different in that way, or not much. It’s true that a few I’ve met seemed really happy. Although it’s the happy ones you’re most likely to run into. The other kind, you hope you don’t.
He came with them to their camp and joined the evening by the fire. They cut up the stag and the women stuck some herbs into the brisket, and marinated the ribs and haunches and coated them with spiced fats. Everyone ate well that night.
As they sat watching the fire bank down, Pippiloette gave out some gifts from his sack, shells and carved sticks of antler and tusk and black wood. Those in the pack who had handcrafts to trade at the eight eight gave him some of their littler things as something to pass along to other packs. In this way people knew what to look for at the festivals. So they gave him things that would fit in his sack, like baskets, spoons, waterproof bags, fur liners, or hats.
Loon gave him an antler carved to have a man’s body and a lion’s head, much like the knot he had carved in his wander, and Pippiloette laughed out loud as he inspected it and shook Loon’s hand, saying-I’ll keep this myself, I tell you, but I’ll show it to everyone and tell them you made it.
— Thank you, Loon said.
Several of the girls clustered around Pippiloette, and because of that a number of the women did as well, some keeping the girls in hand, others just joining the general pleasure, because the traveler was a good-looking man, and his stories often brought news. Even Heather was relaxed around him, which was a good sign, because usually she regarded such men and muttered, — A face is just a face, what do you do in your place?
But Pippiloette seemed to do quite a lot in his place. And also he was good at being friendly without actually coming on to the women; he was charming but a little distant, and intent to speak also to the men he had hunted with. If there was ever an awkwardness, he took his flute from his sack and played them his tunes, which were the same every time he visited, and ones they only heard from him. He had a haunting way with the flute, different than Thorn’s. He sang their songs with them in a high nasal voice, buzzy and penetrating, but perfectly pitched. A really musical person. A spirit took him up when he sang or played, just as one saw in certain morning birds. He even stood up when these moments came.
Tonight he agreed to tell them a story, and they settled in around the fire happily. He stood by the fire, and looked at them as he spoke.
I am a traveler as you know,
I walk the surface of Mother Earth
And so do my fellow travelers,
Each of us on his own path.
And some of us repeat our paths
As long as we can find them,
And nothing makes us take a different way.
I am one of those myself,
Having a wife with my brother,
And he goes out when I’m at home,
And he doesn’t like it when I’m overly late
Although both of us have been delayed
Once or twice through the years.
What this means for me is I go out east
To the gate between worlds
And then turn north and walk for a fortnight,
Right up to the edge of the great ice cap,
And come back just under that great white wall
Or sometimes up on the ice itself
If the summer melt has made the land next to the ice
Impassable. West I return and south
Across the steppes to home, using paths
Of my own that no one knows, the best ways of all.
That’s the way it is for me, but in my travels
I meet other men out walking the world,
And some of them have neither circuit nor home
But wander always a new way. These men
Are curious people, odd in their ways and speech,
But interesting for that, and we talk.
Always when travelers get together over a fire
We talk. You can see that right now, I know.
And travelers together talk about traveling. Where have you been?