They carried the bones down to the narrow pond that was the highest one in the canyon they were in. On the deepest part of the shore, Thorn took Click’s skull and jawbone out of his ribcage. He sang the spirit-freeing song:
When we die
We fly into the sky
And everything begins again
Loon looked at Click’s thick bony brow, his bulky forehead, his skull so long, his big worn chompers. His teeth still looked just as they had in life when they had been revealed from inside his lips in a fear grin, or a shy smile. Seeing that gave Loon another stab of grief, a hot rush in his eyes and throat. The skull was both Click and not Click. A body was just clothing; Click was his spirit, as was made clear by his ghost, still out there in the forest with them. Although now he was concealed, which was a great relief, even though they could feel that he was nearby.
Thorn sang with his eyes closed, then opened them. He looked around, and it was clear he saw nothing but the ice-edged pond, the trees, the tight valley walls, the sky. Loon saw a weight lift off Thorn’s shoulders at that moment.
Loon took in a deep breath, let it out. He realized, by the beelike humming that had now started in his leg, that Click’s spirit was inside him, occupying the numb spot in his ankle. Again he decided that Badleg’s new name would be Click. Badleg was gone. Loon would carry Click along inside him and hope that Click would be his friend, even though Loon had been forced to eat some of him. That seemed like a lot to ask. But Click had been willing to help them. Ever since Heather had tended him back to life, he had been willing to serve. So, possibly that would continue. Loon would find out later.
For now there was just Loon and Thorn, alone in the forest. Carefully they set the bones in an open patch of black water and watched them sink into the pond, one by one, while they chanted together the good-bye:
We who loved you in the time you lived
Who cared for you as you cared for us
We lay you to rest now to sleep in Mother Earth
So your spirit can live on in peace
Free of this world in dreams above the sky
We will always remember you
In the seventh month of that year, with Elga pregnant again, they left for their summer trek, past the Ice Caps and then north to the steppes. The walking was so unlike their forced march home of the year before that their escape seemed more than ever a dream. Or else this now was the dream; to Loon it often felt like one. The skies were clear, the air warm; the salmon run at Cedar Salmon River gave them more than they could eat. When they had smoked a load of fish they walked on, hauling the travois only a fist or two at a time. Short hikes, long rests, with every valley, every ford, pass, rest stop, and camp familiar to them. On the steppe they followed the trails along the curving streams north to their caribou ravine, and though there were not as many caribou this year as two years before, they still managed to direct a line of the beasts into their chute with its little cliff, and the resulting glut of meat kept them busy both day and night.
One night before going to sleep Elga and Loon went down to the river to wash off, and they heard two loons downstream. Loon looned his loon cry, and the loons looned back, and then Elga tried it, and the loons hesitated, and then answered her too. They held each other and laughed aloud to be so blessed. There’s nothing like a loon’s cry.
Then it was new moon of the eighth month, and they were off to the festival. Everyone in the pack began to act a little jumpy, but none of them could possibly have been as nervous as Loon, who could not bring himself to leave Elga’s side for even a moment. She was about halfway through her pregnancy.
So they came into the festival valley in a completely different mood than in summers past, clumped tightly together, with the men at the fore and all the kids tucked in among the women, who were dressed to kill, their hair braided and tied up in a way they usually would be only for the eighth night dance. The men’s spears were prominent in a way they wouldn’t normally be at festival. Schist and Ibex and Thorn took the lead, with Hawk and Moss and Nevermind and Spearthrower flanking them, and even as they proceeded to their usual campsite they called out to the corroborators that they had arrived and needed a judgment.
And it was true they did, for the northers were already there, at the northern end of the meadow in their usual spot, if they came at all, and their men had spotted the Wolves and were even now crossing the camp, spears in hand. This made it clear to the corroborators that their presence was required, and they too converged at speed from wherever they had been. All this hurrying and shouting drew everyone else at the festival too, of course.
The ice men were roaring, — There they are! Thieves, murderers! We want justice! We’re going to kill them if we don’t get it!
But Schist was good at projecting an immovable resolve, and he stood at the point of the Wolf men holding his spear in both hands across his chest. All the Wolf men stood the same, spears up and ready. Loon’s heart was thumping hard in his throat. He stood right next to Elga.
The big men among the corroborators bulled to the center of the growing crowd, and one of them shouted for order. Festival protocol demanded compliance to this command; any fighting now would cause the fighters to be beaten ferociously and then kicked out of the festival, and perhaps not allowed to come back. Most of the corroborators were from the packs who lived closest to the festival grounds, and they wouldn’t abide any challenges to their rule; if they sensed that their right to rule was being questioned they would swell up like toads and mass together like lions at a kill, their eyes fixed and round. They were like that now, bristling, ready to leap and pummel. Seeing them like that made it clear that the northers and Wolves were by no means the most dangerous men there, even if they were the angriest. And some of this anger was a pretense, it had to be; the crimes causing the anger had happened many months before.
The corroborators’ spokesman threw up his hand. The crowd went silent.
— Speak, he said heavily, glaring at the northers in a way that made it clear he meant, Speak and speak only.
One of the jende from one of the other houses spoke for them, a man Loon had worked for a few times in the ravines, and at the sound of this man’s voice Loon’s stomach shrank to the size of a nut.
Some of the corroborators knew the jende tongue, and one of those gave a short version of the norther’s statement in the southern tongue most of the people there spoke. It was as expected: Loon’s pack had stolen one of their women three summers before, and the following summer they had taken her back, and prevented Loon from stealing her again. Then Loon’s people had invaded their camp and with Loon’s help burned down a house and kidnapped her again. The attack had hurt a bunch of people, a woman and child had died by scalding, and one of their biggest houses had been destroyed.
— The woman in question came to us on her own three summers ago, Schist declared as soon as the translator had finished.-She was never a part of these ice men’s pack. She doesn’t even speak their tongue. She came from the east, and joined us at this festival of her own free will. You all saw it. She married into us and we took her in. Then the ice men stole her. Then we got her back. We did what had to be done. It’s too bad some of their people got hurt, but we didn’t start it.
Lots of shouting from the jende men followed this statement, and Schist’s fierce retorts cut right through them. Louder and louder insults led to the shaking of spears, and at that the corroborators swelled even bigger, and hefted their thick sticks over their heads, ready to strike. Again their spokesman raised his hand, in a fist this time, and the noise wavered and then died down.