With pretended docility, she moved to the pots the women had left for her, helping herself to some bits of boiled meat still swimming in lukewarm water and oil. She kept her eyes averted before the old man, thinking quickly as she chewed slowly, and then licked the dripping juices from her fingers.
‘A hunter was born this night in the tent of Rak,’ she announced casually. ‘All the men feast about his fire on tongue and ribs. A fine healthy boy, as large as Elna could pass.’
‘That is a good sign,’ Carp announced officiously. ‘The spirits once more turn their faces toward us. My gifts to them and my hours of dancing have changed their hearts.’
‘So were many saying about the fire,’ Tillu agreed smoothly. ‘Some were saying that Rak would surely gift you well for the health of his firstborn.’
Carp immediately took up his coat and dragged it on. ‘Then they will be calling for me soon, to chant for a new hunter. Such a burden for an old man such as myself. Rak will press me to eat much meat to celebrate a new hunter, and to chant late under the stars, lest spirits come to steal his son before he has a guardian of his own.’ He pulled his hood forward to shelter his wrinkled face. ‘Then I shall have to arise early tomorrow, to read the will of the beasts to determine the boy’s guardian, and to mark him as a hunter with the first blood spilled tomorrow, and to offer the feast of the first kill to the spirits. Uh-yah. An old man must do without his sleep to secure the hunters of tomorrow.’
‘And your apprentice? Will you not stay to guide him out of his trance?’ Tillu pretended unconcern as she spilled a vessel of blood into the remains of the warm oil and water and stirred them into a thick soup. She hung the pot near the lamp to warm it further.
‘There is no need. He does not need the Smoke of the Traveler. I but burned some as an offering. The boy is gifted, for the spirits are ever with him, talking in his ears as loudly as chattering women. He will be a powerful shaman, and all will know him as my apprentice.’ There was undisguised pride in the old man’s voice as he pulled his skin boots up over his bony knees and knotted the thongs around them. ‘My thanks for the hospitality of this house.’
‘My thanks for honoring our cold and humble tent, and seeing fit to share in these poor foods.’ And her heartfelt thanks that he was finally leaving.
‘Uh-yah,’ Carp grunted. He stood a long moment, holding the tent flap up and looking at her. ‘Woman.’ Tillu flinched at that tone, like a dog nudged in a sore spot. ‘Tomorrow you will move my tent. Down here, next to yours. After the ceremonies. I will show you where I want it.’
She managed to keep her eyes and voice steady. ‘Why?’
‘Does a woman question a man when he says he will do a thing? Then a woman has lived too long alone, and has forgotten how the world is ordered.’ He let the tent flap fall. Tillu listened to the crunch of his retreating footfalls. She swallowed her sickness, her mind racing. Soon he would be at the fire, and the men would press him to eat boiled meat with them and drink the rich broth to celebrate the new hunter. There would be chanting far into the night. Carp would be very busy.
She poked at the wick in the oil lamp so that the flame burned lower. The light in the small tent faded, and the soft murmur of Kerlew’s voice ceased. His hands curled and fell to the skins beside him. He would be close to sleep now, full of his own idle stories. Well, let him. The work of this move would be Tillu’s, for the boy was still more hindrance than help with these things. Tillu stirred her blood soup, then took the vessel from its hanging string and drank slowly of the warmth. It gave her strength, and her courage grew.
She began to tidy her tent, eating what Carp had left of the delicacies the women had brought for her, wiping each pot as she finished with it and setting them aside. She set them on their sides on the earth floor of the tent, for they would not stand alone. Their pointed bottoms were designed to be nestled between the hearth stones in a fire. Their sides were rough where pebbles had been accidentally mixed with the clay that formed them. She set them down carefully, taking care not to crack any. She would take nothing that was not hers. She finished eating what there was and wiped her face and hands on a piece of skin. Putting her hands on her hips, she surveyed the task before her.
She wished that she had more to worry about. A little skin case held her sewing needles, awl, and sinew. Another larger bag held her healing herbs and the other supplies she used in treating the various ailments of the folk. A skillfully pegged-together wooden box, remnant of a stay with another people, held her extra reserves of herbs and roots and seeds. Besides that, there were her two cooking vessels made of baked clay and several baskets for gathering. Their sleeping pallets were no more than skins on top of piles of brush gathered each time the folk decided to stop and make a village for a few days. She had two stone lamps and a sack of oil. She thought regretfully of the dried slabs of fish, the pokes of berries in oil, the scored and smoked twists of meat she would have to leave behind. Some she could take, but not a winter’s supply. She could only drag so much. Her wits would have to feed them.
Luckily their winter clothing was new, sewn for them by Reena before the disaster. It would last them most of the winter. She would worry about replacing it when that time came. The tent itself was no more than stretched and scraped winter hides sewn together. The poles that supported it would become the poles of the travois she would drag it on. It was a heavy load for one, but such was the fate of a woman with no man and a son with the mind of a babe.
No! That wasn’t true! She fiercely rebuked herself for the thought. Kerlew was a good boy, a capable boy, and could grow to be a good man, if only Carp would leave him alone. His ‘training and initiation’ only made the boy grow more childish each day. She hated watching him revert to the strange, introverted behavior of his earliest childhood. Carp had undone the work of months. Once Kerlew had helped her gather her healing herbs, had done simple tasks of fetching and tidying. But all that had been changed by the bear.
Tillu mourned the event as she gathered her possessions and bundled them, grieving as if it had been her own son lost. It had been a tragedy, but only that, until the old shaman had cast his shadow over it.
Kerlew was terrified of bears. Tillu had seen to that, and refused to regret it. Mother and son were too often on their own, traveling alone, for her to think of a bear as prey. Her rule for the boy had been simple, the only kind of rule he could remember and keep. ‘If you see or hear a bear, you leave any meat or berries you have, and come quickly to me.’ It had always worked well for them, when they were traveling as two alone. But last spring they had joined with Benu’s folk. The other children had speedily learned of Kerlew’s differences, but nothing had given them as much joy as his fear of bears. It was sport for them to rattle the bushes like a bear, snarling and snorting, so that Kerlew would flee and leave them whatever fish or berries he had painstakingly gathered. Back at the tents afterward, they would gleefully tell how he had run, and how they had enjoyed their ill-gotten gains.
All of Benu’s folk, big and small, had found it humorous. Tillu had tried to believe it did not matter. Why let it rankle, when Kerlew himself would uncertainly grin as they told of it? Trying to tell him that he did not have to flee from the bear sounds made by children younger than himself only confused him. His old rule was too deeply ingrained in his soul. The children growled and Kerlew fled, to be teased later. Reena’s two youngsters had taken the most joy in it. Scarcely a day passed that Kerlew did