Child of the Dead by Don Coldsmith

Author:Don Coldsmith [Coldsmith Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-56931-8
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 1995-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

21

They discussed the situation. Should they start back to the winter camp of the Southern band? What else could be done?

“She must have gone willingly,” Beaver Track observed. “Otherwise, there would be something left at her camp.”

“But with whom? And what happened to the child?”

“Yes … we saw nothing of the girl. Our mother may have wrapped the body for burial.”

“Where?” Wolf demanded. “Beaver, she would not place it on one of the scaffolds with others. Maybe she left it in one of the lodges. Or buried it among the rocks.”

“Maybe we should search.”

“No … There is nothing to be done anyway, if we did find the child’s body.”

“That is true.”

“But, back to our mother. We are made to think that she is alive. Or was when she left here. How long since her little camp there has been used?”

Beaver Track shrugged. “That is hard to say, Wolf. It has rained since then. The ashes of the fire …”

“Yes … it has rained … when?”

“Two or three times, the past moon. But maybe it rained where we were, and not here.”

“We cannot tell then,” Wolf mused.

“The ground is dry, though,” Beaver Track noted, touching a crack in the ground. “There has been no rain here for maybe half a moon.”

“Ah! That helps. She left more than half a moon ago, no? And because she chose to leave.”

“It seems so.”

“And she could have been with friends … Head Splitters, maybe. Could she: have been a captive, Beaver?”

The tracker pondered for a little while. “I am made to think no, Wolf. Think on it … No one would carry off an old woman. She has no value as a wife or as a slave. They would kill her or just leave her. There would be no honor in killing an old woman.”

“That is true. Then she left because she wanted to go with them. But with whom?”

The two men looked at each other for a moment and both came to the same conclusion.

“Alone?” suggested Beaver.

“Maybe. Let us think now. She knew where we would be, on Sycamore River. Would she try to join the band?”

“I am thinking not, Wolf. It is far, for an old woman on foot.”

“And she is stubborn. She would try to winter by herself, Beaver.”

“Yes, I think so. She would head south. Could she do it? Maybe we should go and look for her.”

“I am made to think,” said Wolf, “that it is too late to try. We have to wonder when the first snows will come.”

“That is true. By now, she has found a place to winter, no?”

Singing Wolf nodded. “Unless,” he mused, “she intends to die fighting Cold Maker in the open.”

“But if she planned to do that, Wolf, why would she bother to go anywhere? Why leave here?”

They talked longer, but: kept coming back to the same theory: their mother was alive, and had made plans to winter, either with friends and allies, or alone. And probably, far from here.

There was nothing more to be done.

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