Thorn came back as he had the night before, his leather patch wrapped around a lump which he carried farther out from his body than was normal. He flame-seared and then roasted the chunks. Once again Loon’s mouth ran with saliva, and he hadn’t even been walking that day. Elga’s eyes were fixed on the meat such that the whites of her eyes were visible all the way round.
They ate in silence, then wrapped themselves up by the fire and built it up to burn a big bed of embers. They went out under the starry sky to relieve themselves one last time, and Thorn moved Click back in a bit closer to the fire, so that night scavengers would keep their distance. One didn’t have to be very far from the fire to be in freezing air; it was going to be another cold night, maybe the coldest of their trek so far. The end of a storm is its coldest part.
They bundled tightly into their furs and lay around the fire so close that the smell of singeing fur filled their nostrils from time to time. After midnight it got so cold that without discussing it they pressed together like horses in a storm, with Elga between the two men at first, but then as the night crept on at the slow pace of the stars’ creep, the one farthest from the fire moved inside the one closest to it, and pressed back against them. The coldest part of the three of them was thus pressed into the warmest, and the person newly on the outside huddled against the back of the one in the middle. Round and round, fist after fist, like kits in a litter. Finally the moon set, breath by breath, the only time when you could easily see the sky rolling. After that there were only a couple of fists of the night left to endure.
In the first graying of the eastern sky Loon woke to find himself next to the embers, pressed back into Thorn. Some movement across the fire caused him to lift his head. It was Click. He was standing on his knees, because of course Thorn had removed and cooked his shanks. On Click’s face there was an expression Loon couldn’t quite understand, some odd mix of pride and longing, disappointment and grief. Loon shaped his lips to say roop, but he didn’t want to speak, for fear of waking Thorn and Elga. He realized that he was still asleep too, that he was dreaming. He mouthed the shapes of the words, and spoke them in the dream:—Thank you; and put his head back down and closed his eyes, thinking, Now Click’s spirit will keep watch over us for the rest of the night. Although only a spirit would be out on such a cold night, so nothing would challenge him.
The next three days were hard. It warmed up a little. Their sled got shorter. Loon got up and walked as much as he could, but each time he did he was forced to get back on the sled long before he wanted to. Elga and Thorn now took turns pulling it. Elga was still losing weight: her breasts were almost completely flat, her eyes sunken deep in her skull, her top ribs sticking far out. It was easy to see the shape of her skull. Thorn, always skin and bones, had turned into a snake’s head, earless, lipless, fleshless. He spoke very little, especially for him, and was always anxious to get up on ridges that might give him a view to the east, walking ahead of the other two frequently. They followed his tracks and found him up on the ridges, gazing east with hand over eyes, searching for a sign, fretting. No one mentioned that they were lost. Every afternoon they stopped and made a fire, successfully using an ember from the night before, and every evening in the blue dusk they ate cooked meat, including kidneys, liver, and the heart itself, tougher even than the tough old muscles they had started with. At night they lay bundled together by the fire. Only one night was close to as cold as the last night of the storm had been, and the morning after that one, Thorn went out and came back with a double handful of starlings, holding them by their feet; he had found them under a knot of black spruce trees, where they had frozen in the night and fallen off their perches. Roasted, they made for a welcome change.
They also found more meadow onions in meadows they passed. Eating those made them feel bloated and gassy, but they did it anyway. The new snow melted off quickly, and every day the old snow melted a little more, and now during the afternoons, sheets of black water rushed over more and more black ground. Summer was finally arriving. Now they had to search for snowy stretches to make it easier to pull the sled. As the last old snow melted, the remaining suncups got bigger and bigger, and these were almost as hard for sled pulling as bare ground. Loon walked for longer and longer stretches, using his sticks in place of Badleg, but Thorn was impatient, and sometimes would demand that Loon get back on the sled and be pulled. Elga only pursed her lips and pulled the sled, with or without Loon on it. Sometimes Thorn took a turn, but he was getting too light to hold the sled on the downhills, and was forced to give it back over to Elga whenever their way went down.
Then an afternoon came when Elga fell on the snow, and was very slow to get back up. Loon got off the sled, so much shorter and lumpier now, and hopped over to her, feeling terrible. He saw all of a sudden that she was emaciated, sunburned, almost too weak to get back up. She had walked herself into the ground without saying a word about it.
—No! Loon said, when she finally stood and tugged on the sled lines.—Now it’s my turn.
He took the harness off her and put it around his waist. Between his walking poles and his legs he had become a four-legged creature, in form not unlike a hyena, high-shouldered and ugly. But still he could hop along, hauling Badleg and making it help whenever he could manage it. Elga limped behind him in the shallow trench over the snow that the sled made.
By now none of them were walking very well, but they were moving at about the same pace as each other. They stumped along wordlessly, and made camp earlier each day, and hunted for bulbs as well as firewood, and at night slept on dry ground, or dry stone slabs, warm in the fire’s heat.
Finally a day came when they all were failing. On that day it was Badleg who saw them through, having the only muscles among them not completely tapped out. As Loon walked it was now Badleg who gave the most push, painful though it was. So sometimes Loon hauled the sled by itself, sometimes with Thorn on it, once even with Elga, who wept with frustration to have to lie down and be pulled. But Loon insisted. Badleg was fresh compared to them, and Loon quickly learned to contain the pain to a little stab of agony that burned at a single point in every step, a pain to be ignored as an unwelcome guest, an intruder, someone to thrust past unacknowledged time after time, like a hyena or a pike. Step after step this attitude worked, almost. His third wind, or some wind beyond the third wind, had come into him, and he gritted his teeth and felt the strength, still there in the parts of Badleg that didn’t hurt. Even Goodleg was not as strong as Badleg now.
I am the third wind
I come to you
When you have nothing left
When you can’t go on
But you go on anyway
In that moment of extremity
That afternoon they ascended a forested snowy slope to a bare ridge running southwest to northeast, resting every three or four steps. On the ridge Thorn shaded his eyes with a hand, staring east.
Suddenly he said,—Here now, what’s that?
He pointed.—See that peak just over the horizon there, over those trees? That’s Ice Cap South. Puy Mir.
—Are you sure? Loon couldn’t help saying.
Thorn kept staring. Then he looked at Elga and Loon and smiled. It was like seeing a snake smile, unexpected and repellent, but a smile nevertheless.
—I’m sure.
The idea that they knew where they were did a lot to restore their spirits, of course. But their problems were by no means over, because Ice Cap South was well to the west of their camp, and all the rivers and even the creeks were now broken up and running high. No more crossing ice, which was a relief given the break-up they had seen; but they were too weak to cross streams at any ford higher than their ankles. Camp lay to the east of them, but the ravines here ran northeast to southwest, so they often had to walk across the grain of the land, and cross creek after creek. Usually the best way over these little creeks was a tree that had fallen across them. As he didn’t trust Badleg’s balance, Loon found these logs about a
s frightening as any ford. On every crossing he sat down and scooted himself across the fallen trees, or crawled, even if they were logs so thick that ordinarily he could have crossed them standing on his hands. Meanwhile Elga and Thorn, who had recovered a little, had to cross while grabbing the two ends of Click and lifting his body, like a fur-wrapped log, over and between branches sticking up. Loon could do nothing to help them with this.
Now also, as the days were warming to well above freezing, from about midday to just after sunset, poor Click was thawing a little in the afternoons, then refreezing at night. His meat was therefore going off. Thorn spent a final session with him, one night after they chewed on some of his ribs, and came back to the fire with three last bags of meat that he thrust into a snowbank near them.
—You can walk all the time now? he said to Loon.
—Yes, Loon said, hoping it was true.
—Good. Tomorrow we’ll leave him. We can come back later and give his body a proper burial.
He took Click’s leggings from one of the bags and put them on the fire to burn, chanting the good-bye farewell to Click’s spirit:
Now you are gone, we loved you
Now you are gone, we thank you
Now you rest in the sky above
And we will always remember you
After another cold night bundled together by the fire, a night unvisited by Click, they woke to a cold north wind. This was very unfortunate; wind was by a long way the worst of their foes; snow would have been better, even rain. Their luck seemed to have left them entirely, perhaps because of their treatment of Click, but anyway: bad.
When they were as bundled up as they could get, they went together to the remains of Click’s body, hauled it to an area of south-facing rocks, and laid it out for the birds. Already black buzzards scrapped around overhead in the gale. Thorn sang the funeral song and made a promise to Click to return and collect what bones might remain, for proper disposal when the time was right.
Then they took off on their own.
Now Loon walked as much as he could on his poles, but of course Badleg had to do its part, there was no way around it. Whenever they were on remnants of snow in the afternoon, it still helped to be on their snowshoes, and that involved Badleg no matter what. Loon just had to stride over that little click of agony. It was an almost audible click. Indeed in the mornings, when he was stiff and it was quiet, he could actually hear the click as he felt the pain jolt up him. It was very like one of Click’s little click words, and so it began to seem to Loon that Click had taken over from Badleg, and from Crouch, and had now settled in their place. Click had moved into him to protest the bad treatment he had received from his comrades after his death, or perhaps to help him along. Step by step Click clicked in him.
Thorn kept a steady slow pace, although whenever he approached a ridge that looked like it was going to give him a view east, he hurried up it with a speed that suggested to Loon that the old man still had a little reserve of strength. Elga was slower, and Loon could see that she was wearing down. She had eaten all she could of her own fat, and was now as thin as she could get. But she was stubborn too. He knew that now full well, and could see it clearly in the set of her shoulders, and the deep wedge between her eyebrows, and the look in her eye. She was not going to stop now that they were so close.
So really it came down to a matter of isolating Click to his single objection, the same stab over and over again, and then getting along without any more hurt than that. Over wet ground, over rocks, over big suncups when they could not be avoided; they were getting really bad, whether hard in the mornings or soft in the afternoons. Up ravines and over passes, sometimes following animal trails, with some human trail signs too. Keeping a general aim east. From every high point they stared east hungrily, and Thorn would point at something he recognized, and on they would go, down again toward the next creek crossing, the next up, the next pass.
That night by the fire they ate the last of Click’s flesh, and Thorn built the fire larger even than usual and warmed his hands at the flames, dancing just a little in place.—Tomorrow we’ll be there, he said.
—Really? Loon and Elga said together. They looked at each other, sharing their surprise.
—Tomorrow or the day after, if we’re slow tomorrow. But it doesn’t matter. We’re going to make it. Thank you Click, thank you Click, thank you thank you thank you.
The next day they woke and drank water, sat by the fire warming up, went out to perform their ablutions. Stood stiffly and shuffled off again. As that day wore on, and they came to what Thorn said was a tributary of West of Northerly Creek, Elga tied her snowshoes on and led the way down a valley of softening suncups, stomping down a path for Loon to follow; and Thorn too followed. Now, at the very end, Thorn was finally slowing down, taking each step as if it were a complete effort, as if he were utterly tapped out, with no second wind or third wind, or any wind at all; just one step at a time, each a full effort. So he was like Loon in that regard, and Loon wondered if Thorn had hurt himself, or had just run out of wind. He only shook his head when Loon asked about it, and stepped on in the same gait.
—Remember! Loon said, mimicking Thorn’s teaching voice,—in a journey of twentytwenty days you can still trip on the last step!
Thorn just shook his head. He was too tired to object. But he had always said that a little irritation could jolt one’s spirit in a good way. So Loon kept it up. How often he had heard this one.—Oh, yes, he repeated in Thorn’s tones,—in a journey of twentytwenty years, you can still fuck up on the very last step! So don’t! He almost laughed, he had heard this one so often.
The first feature of the landscape that Loon recognized on his own was the giant boulder that lay in the middle of West of Northerly Creek, straddling most of the streambed. He stared at it, feeling stunned. A little seed of relief was sprouting in him, right behind his belly button. He had often visited this boulder with Hawk and Moss, when wandering up this canyon; the charcoal drawing he had made of a cave bear was still there, on the big white side of the rock that fell straight into the water. He had had to climb the boulder from the other side, then hang down from its top and draw while hanging upside down. Hawk and Moss had laughed themselves silly. But there the bear shambled with its sloping forehead, eyeing any viewers on the bank as if considering whether to attack them. Excellent work for someone hanging upside down, and Loon found he was weeping to see it, not for the drawing, or even for home, but just at the idea that he could soon stop walking on Badleg. Only a certain finite number of steps now. They were less than a half day from home.
Although it took them longer than that. Still, in the last good light, late that afternoon, when everything was lit yellow from the side, the sky overhead darkening, the world big with the approach of night, they stumbled up after their long shadows to West Pass and looked down on the headwall meadow. It was empty. But then around a tree strolled Heather.
She stopped short as she saw them. For a moment she was frozen with surprise. Then she turned her head over her shoulder, and said,—Child, your parents are here. Even the unspeakable one is here.
Then she sat down abruptly on a log and stared at them as they approached.—I thought you were gone, she exclaimed, and put her face in her hands.
Their child stared curiously at Elga, who dropped her poles and caught him up, then lifted him into the air. He stared down at her, suspended between fright and some huge surprise. Loon joined them, and the two of them held the child between them as he began to sob and struggle to get away.
Heather wiped her face and watched this from her log.—You are one lucky boy, she said to the child.
She stood up and hugged Elga and then Loon, and then even Thorn.
—What about Click? she asked.
Thorn shook his head.—He died. I’ll tell you about it later.
Heather regarded him. Finally she said,—You’re uglier than ever, I see.
—You stole my beauty long ago, Thorn replied, turn
ing away from her.—Here, take our sacks. Take Loon’s sack. His leg is bad again.
—He can thank his shaman’s wander for that.
—Woman! Thorn said.—Shut up. Please. Shut up now, and help us get down to camp. We’re tired.
ALL THE WORLDS MEET
The Wolves’ camp under its little abri, overlooking Loop Meadow, Loop Hill, the Stone Bison, the river in its gorge. Midsummer sunset slanting in from the gorge to the west, cutting through the smoke from their fire. Home home home home home.
Heather walked them in, carrying all their things, and by the time they limped down the last part of the river path into camp it was after sunset, early dusk, and the firelight caught every face, they were all masks of themselves, expressing joy at the travelers’ unexpected return: Hawk and Moss shouting in his face, seizing him up in fierce hugs, everyone reaching in to touch them all, to be sure they were real, it was such a surprise. Even Sage gave him a kiss. It reminded Loon of the night he had come in from his wander, but this time launched above the sky, to a dream place more real than real. Or else this time it was the real real, as undeniable as pain, flush in his face.
They stayed up for a time talking and sipping duck soup, until exhaustion felled the travelers and they were carried to bed. All night in his dream, all Loon saw was the firelit faces, laughing, masklike. His pack.
Next morning he woke late and staggered like a wooden man to the east end of camp. The Stone Bison still arched over the river, morning light filled the gorge, the camp basked in the sun, the air was full of summer smells and the cluck of the river, the twitter of the birds. Every tree was a beehive. The sky was blue, and it seemed impossible they had been freezing in the wind and snow just a few days before. The sixth month could be like that. And home stayed home whether you were there or not. Loon kept looking around, he sat down and touched the ground, tasted some dust. It was hard to believe. The feeling in him was like some spring bud that he could look at and know it would grow into something big.