—They’re there, he said.—They’re coming this way, with some wolves tied to ropes. They probably have our track. We’ve got to go.
—Won’t they see us?
—Yes. We’ll have to outrun them today, and lose them tonight.
He looked at each of them in turn.—We have to go fast. If we go fast all day, they can’t catch up to us. We can’t be the ones to get tired of the pace. We have to tire them. We have to be fast enough to keep a good distance, even if they charge. We have to outlast them at their charge pace, and then at whatever pace they can keep to after their charge. Understand?
—What if they let their wolves loose on us? Loon asked.
—We’ll kill the wolves and they’ll have lost their trackers. Anyway they might not be able to let those wolves off their ropes this far away from home without them running away. If we keep our distance, they can probably only use them as trackers.
Loon and Elga nodded. Click saw them and nodded too, humming and then saying,—Skai, skai, skai.
Thorn got out a bag of nuts from his pack and gave them each five.—We’ll eat on the run. Let’s go.
They took off out of their dip, running on the snowshoes toward the flat snow of the first riverbed. No cries came from behind them, but the way Thorn moved made it clear that he thought they would be seen by their pursuers. Instead of crossing the river’s ice he headed upstream on it, then picked a line and took off across the river, headed for the first rise of a ridge that ran south.
They had to show their hunters that it was not possible to catch them, neither in a rush nor over the long haul. With a woman among them it would be hard to do this, but Elga was strong. She had no problem keeping up with the men. It was harder to tell about Click, because of the way he huffed and puffed as he walked, making a song of his breathing. But the old ones were reputed to be made of harder stuff than most people, and Click certainly gave no indication of slowing down or being tired. As for Thorn, it was hard to say whether he would be able to hold this pace. For sure he was setting it now. Some old men had been cured to a kind of leathery toughness that youth could not match, and Loon would not be at all surprised to learn that Thorn was one of them.
So it could be that Loon was the slowest of their little band. It was a galling thought, and yet as they hurried along for fist after fist, it began to seem like it might be true. Badleg was never going to like a full day’s running, no matter the aid of the alder walking stick, which Loon had already named Thirdleg, hoping that the feeble joke would prong him along a little. Thirdleg would have to do its part, that was certain.
All that day they ran. At open leads of water they could safely reach, Thorn paused so they could put their faces to the water and drink, and in those moments he passed out some nuts and dried meat and honey seedcake, to eat as they started walking again. They never stopped for long, but Thorn always found something that caused them to pause briefly every fist or two. Their pace was as fast as Loon could keep to; he didn’t know if it was the same for the others or not, and he didn’t want to ask.
In the afternoon the snow softened, and they stopped to put on their snowshoes again. After that they would certainly be leaving tracks easy for their pursuers to follow. But the jende would be on broken snowshoes, which would slow them down.
Their pursuers were very seldom visible. Once they heard a distant howl, human or lupine, as if their track had been picked up after being lost. Thorn wanted to see them from time to time, to know where they were, so as they crossed the steppe he veered for low hills crowned by trees, or went to the highest parts of the drunken forests they skirted, to find places where trees had crossed in ways that gave them a blind where they could see without being seen. Three times Thorn spotted the jende party, and the third time he said,—They’re sending out a pair with the wolves to rush us.
This was the way wolves sometimes chased caribou, tiring them out with a charge until the weakest one fell behind. Their defense now had to be the same as the caribous’: stick together and stay ahead. Sometimes, Loon recalled, the lead males in the caribou herd might try to strike fear into the pursuers by turning on them. And Thorn was looking thoughtful as they hustled south through that long afternoon. At each stream crossing he took the most dangerous route, passing over exposed bare ice as near open leads as he dared, as if in hope that their pursuers might be heavier and fall through. Loon followed him over one thin brittle stretch of transparent ice, observing this, and then hustled forward to tell Thorn he was wrong if he thought he could trick the jende into making any mistakes on ice, because the jende were better on ice than anyone. Thorn growled at this, but did not try the trick again. His brow stayed deeply furrowed.
The sun finally sank into the west, and as the stars popped out they crawled into an alder brake, crawling under the weave of branches to do so. Here was where they would be vulnerable to the captive wolves, whom it seemed must have been kept on ropes, or they would have caught up.
When they were wrapped in their furs, Thorn said to Loon,—Stay here with Elga, and took Click by the arm, and the two of them headed back north with their spears.
When they reappeared, a couple of fists later, they were in a hurry to leave.
—Another all-nighter, Thorn said.—We killed one of their lead pair. The other one got away, but he doesn’t know how many of us were there. So they’ll be careful tonight. Let’s make this the night we get away.
—They can always track us, Loon said.
—Let’s see about that.
The waxing moon was one night farther east, one night fatter; by its light they walked through the increasing chill of a very cold night. In the haze of moonlight the stars were dim. The hard sparkly snow squeaked under their feet. They had reached the muskeg flats of the big valley’s drainage, and the tipping trees and icy black flat spots speckling the swamps convinced them to put their snowshoes on, to spread their weight out a little more on what looked like thin ice, maybe night ice only. If they had had ropes they would have roped together to cross land like this, but all they could do now was hope for the best. Click went after Thorn, and was substantially heavier than the rest of them, so presumably if he passed over a spot, it would hold Elga and Loon. On the other hand it was possible he would crush a spot that could only hold two crossings, and the third person then plunge through. So Loon and Elga stayed close enough to lunge to each other if they had to.
Happily the black flats proved to be frozen as solid as the white ice, and it was actually their slipperiness that made them worth avoiding. Thorn threaded between them when he could. If he crossed one, they got to feel how much better their footing was with their snowshoes on. One could even skate a little on them. Better however to stay on white snow, even if it was hard as the ice, and in some places almost as flat. The whiteness itself seemed to hold the foot.
They followed stream courses when they tended south, and skated along at a good speed. On land they were not as fast. Thorn cut a good line up the land southward. Moonlight was really the best illumination for seeing the shape of the land. Every muscle of the hills lay there under its blanket of suncupped snow, seeming to glow faintly under the luminous black sky. Through this white flesh the black rock outcroppings thrust like erect spurts, and frozen waterfalls slid down clefts like spills of spurtmilk. Male marks on female curves, the land in intercourse with itself, there in the moonlight and shadow. Always like that, from the beginning in the old time: mother and father first whole and one, split by a fight about how things should be, a fight never resolved. As they scurried under the moon, Loon remembered what he could of Thorn’s story about how the world had begun. Once in nothingness there was an egg filled by a person, and this person had all the parts and qualities of the world, and pecked out of its eggshell and poured out and became all things. The sky is the biggest piece of eggshell left behind, the sun what was left of the yolk, the earth and everything on it parts of the white of the egg. Raven pecked the white until everything was itself
.
Loon knew he was forgetting most of the story. He wondered if he would ever be able to remember the stories the way Thorn could. It didn’t seem like he would. For a long time that truth had been a burden in his chest, a weight like a rock, and now he had to let it go so he could walk better. It was a problem for another time. Now whatever he could remember was enough. Now their walking was the whole story.
Strangely, even while walking at great speed by night, there was still time to think about other things. None of the thoughts seemed to matter very much, and yet they still flitted through his mind, like ghosts he was shedding as he conjured them up, because now they meant nothing. Nothing mattered but their walk, so really it was a question of whether his chittering thoughts helped him to deal with Badleg or not. Sometimes they did, being distractions, like squirrels on a branch overhead. Other times it felt like he had to devote every part of his attention to landing properly on his left foot and getting across its stride with the least amount of weight possible put on it, and quickly getting back onto Goodleg, so foursquare and reliable. If Goodleg were ever to give under these strains he was putting on it… that was a very sharp fear. But for now Goodleg kept on coming through for him, solid and painless. He could rely on Goodleg, push him a little. Then, deep in the rhythms of that altered walking, if his mind did drift to things not present, to other worries, to spin like a firestick, maybe that was all right, even a good thing. Part of the ability to ignore the repeated jab of Badleg’s squeaking.
As they continued Loon felt more and more tired. At moonset Thorn stopped at a lead to drink and eat some honey seedcake. After that they hiked on under the stars, pricking out everywhere in the darkening black. It got harder to see. They had to pay more attention to the snow, really look at it, and even when they did it was sometimes not possible to see how it tilted or how slippery it might be. You had to feel the land with your feet.
After a long period of walking blind like this, in the after part of the night when it fell deepest into its icy chill, Loon felt that his second wind had slipped into him when he hadn’t noticed. He was stronger now, lighter, tougher; he could go on, and it even felt like he could go on forever, or at least as long as needed. Hike on with these three companions for the rest of his life, and yet never tire. That was how it felt sometimes, when the second wind came on you and someone would say, Let’s hike all day and then talk it over.
That was a good feeling. He almost always felt the arrival of the second wind in him with immense gratitude, welcoming it with a little hop and song, and never more than now. It was so good to feel the absence of the light-headedness and weakness, feel their replacement by a deep strength.
So he swung into his pacing, poled hard with Thirdleg; he took over Elga’s spot, and then passed Click with a brief hello, and a tilt of the head that indicated his hope that Click would drop back and follow Elga, just to be sure of her. Click rooped his assent to something, anyway, and Loon caught up with Thorn.
Together they came on a river’s bend like the big loops in the Urdecha.
As they walked on the frozen stream Thorn said,—We’re almost to the big river crossing this valley. I hope the ice there isn’t already broken up. It seems like it’s almost time. Even these side streams are getting thin. It’s eighth day of the sixth month. The rivers down south are broken up by now. These must be close.
—Should we be walking on them then?
—We have to cross them! And I want to know how they are. If we could get across the big one, and then it broke up… He hiked on a little faster.
Loon let Thorn get his lead, followed. Thorn was on the hunt now, and Loon wanted to leave him to it, as well as nurse his second wind, pace it to serve the long haul. Behind him he saw that Click was just behind Elga, and they were close behind. Elga looked intent, downward, inward: some creature of the night, serious about being out there, even less inclined to talk than usual. At one brief stop she looked at Loon and it was as if she were looking right through him. She had not expected to get to try this escape, he saw; it had surprised her to get this chance, so that she reminded him of the jende when they had gotten off the ice raft. She had not expected to live. Now she would escape or die.
Soon after sunrise, in the raw yellows of morning, the stream they had been descending for the past few fists widened, and they were crossing a frozen pool or flood meadow, near their stream’s confluence with the big river. Thorn turned and trudged up to the top of a little prominence overlooking things, and while following him Loon realized how tired his legs had become; even a slight tilt uphill was close to devastating. And as soon as they crossed this river, it would all be uphill.
From the knob they could see up and down a broad sweep of the big river. Its surface was still white, yes, but a great number of giant white plates stuck up into the air, very striking to the eye. And the ice was speaking. Low long booms filled the air, like thunder from below the river, muffled as it came up through the ice. Sharp cracks punctuated these booms, also long sizzling sounds, zinging away from them. The river groaned when the zinging sounds ran through it. Oh yes: this ice was going to break up soon. All these booms and zings and cracks were announcing it, and rather emphatically at that. Even though nothing moved.
Thorn looked back to the north, pointed: a gyre of crows wheeled over something near the horizon in that direction.
—Let’s cross now, Thorn said.—No time to rest. Let’s cross and get up on a hill on the other side, then see what we can see.
So they took off across the river. They walked with sliding gentle steps. Crossing lanes of black ice, they saw bubbles trapped below the glistening surface, and below the bubbles caught glimpses of the watery depths, slight suggestions of green grass flexing in the current, perhaps the flicker of a trout. Downstream the cracks and zinging noises were louder than ever, and Loon’s breath caught in his throat; this was how break-ups announced themselves, the noise moving upstream well ahead of the break-up itself.
Thorn just put his head down and walked faster. They were still in their snowshoes, and sometimes they walked across black slicks that looked wet, they had frozen so smoothly. The older white ice was much more nobbled. They shuffled and skidded as fast as they could, arms pumping. Loon used Thirdleg to push himself along. The other three stayed as close to Thorn as seemed safe, each a few body lengths behind the one before, Loon bringing up the rear, determined to keep a good distance from Elga but not to drop back too far.
It took a long time to cross the river, it was so wide. When they reached the far bank they were all winded; they had been hurrying for their lives, and now they felt it. After a moment to catch their breath, to slow down the beating of their hearts, Thorn led them to another little headland point, just a man’s height doubled above the stream.
Up there they dropped their sacks and pulled out their leather patches, and untied their feet out of their snowshoes and sat on the patches set on the snowshoes. They were still breathing hard. Thorn made them drink from his water bag, and they all fumbled in their sacks and ate nuts, and dried meat, and seedcakes. They saw they did not have much food, although Thorn had a few bags of oil; but that would have to be a problem for later. For now they were famished, and would have to eat a lot to go on at anything like the pace they had been setting. So they ate.
Nothing they could see to the north was moving, except for a pack of otters, frolicking upstream on the far bank as if nothing special was happening that day, as if the river weren’t about to break up right under them. Thorn scowled to see that, and after a while he stood, and performed a little dance while singing the break-up song:
Frost has to freeze and ice coat the rivers
One alone shall unbind the frost
And drive away the long winter
Good weather come again
Summer hot with sun!
Great salt sea land of the dead
We will burn holly for you to break the ice
Take it back we do not need
it
Tip the sun up toast the air
Hurry the water under the ice
Fill the ravines
Fall down the cliffs
Fill water fill
Every crevice and spill
Push from below
The old ice and snow
Fill from above
Like finger in glove
Like baby born
With a push from inside
The moment comes to push and push
And push and push and push
Mother Earth knows
Mother Earth squeezes
A spasm a cramp
A knot a push
Go to her cave and tell her to do it
Break ice break now
Break ice break now!
The river was alive, they could hear it throbbing. Under its white blanket of snow, under the bare ice shelving over it, it pushed up, it surged with the spring melt. They could see snow and ice shifting in places, and sudden bucklings where ice tipped up blinking in the sun, or lines of new plates cracked upright as if stitched by invisible sinews. Water sheeted out of these seams, bluing the ice downstream into little skyblinks.
Thorn sang hoarsely, danced without moving his feet, suggesting the dance without actually doing it. Speaking to the sky. The river boomed back. It was loud both upstream and down. But the break-up didn’t come.