Kim Robinson - Shaman

He ran favoring his left leg, breathing hard, really sucking it in, needing the air. After a while, he felt the second wind catch him up: that was good. He looked back often; no sight of them. Hard to know if they would continue their pursuit for long. They had had to recover their spears. Why mammoth spears down in the canyons? Maybe it was true they had nothing else. And they hadn’t used spear throwers. Almost-people, nightmare people, crossed over into the day world. Or he had crossed over into theirs.

The ramp he was climbing was clean. He could see the break in the cliffs that would get him to the ridge. The cliffs were the usual white rock, flecked with black lichen. He was bleeding a little again from his right toe, so he stopped as he climbed to shove dirt into it again to clot the blood. He was working so hard that his blood was shooting out of him, even though the scrape was not very deep.

The ramp cut through little cliffs, and the slope lay back and gave him a clean run to the ridge, well covered by head-high trees. He sped over the ridge, which was broad here. Surely now he was clear of the old ones. They would not come up to this particular spot just to look.

Still he kept on, impelled by the memory of that spear flying up at him. It had been spinning on its axis like a firestick. The long chert blade would have pierced him right through. Think what that would be like! He had seen it often with small animals, speared them himself and watched them writhe, heard them shriek before they died. Best to keep running. Run in the same way one would run on the hunt, just as hard and steady, just as long. Indeed given what was at stake it made sense to go much longer than when on the hunt. Run right through his second wind, run until the rare and elusive third wind filled him, then run some more.

Finally the long afternoon of running slanted to its close. The moment came when afternoon became evening, a matter of failing light in the still-blue sky. He kept on through the dusk that followed, and even when darkness began to fall. The moon was now a day less than half there, thus almost directly overhead. Still over half a fortnight to go before he could return to the pack! He could not imagine getting comfortable enough with his situation to start another fire, not with old ones somewhere nearby. And his ankle still hurt. He could not move his foot without pain.

But he was alive. And he could go a week without food if he had to. And a week without fire, too, at least if it did not storm again. Even if it did storm. Anyway the important point was that he was alive. This was his wander, it was not meant to be easy. He had escaped three old ones! If he had. Now he would really have a story to tell! If he could bring it home.

He gathered some dry leaves and branches and pulled them after him into a nook of boulders under a dense cluster of ground-hugging spruce. The trees had been splayed over the rocks by the force of the constant downslope wind. He ripped a tear in his bark vest getting into the nook, and his leggings were already in tatters. But he was able to make a rough bed, and he felt he was well hidden. Spruce gum daubed over his chest masked his own scent, although he ended up sticky, and felt pricked everywhere by spruce needles stuck to his skin. He was going to be cold, and his ankle throbbed with every heartbeat. He needed some artemisia tea to suck down, some mistletoe pollen to smoke. As it was, he could only clench his teeth. He named his hurts, as Thorn had always insisted he do; the cut in his toe was Spit, the hurt inside his ankle he called Crouch. Spit and Crouch sang their little duet, and he listened past them to the wind in the pines, nervous at any other sounds. There were some rustlings, and some of these made his heart pound; he wondered if he could leap out of his lair before the spears plunged through it and pinned him to the ground. Probably not. Loon had speared snow hares through just such cover. He knew just how it would go. Probably the rustlings were only hares or grouse, or even squirrels or mice. But the image from one time he had speared a snow hare through the neck was a hard one to fall asleep to.

He slept lightly, and when he stirred to huddle in a new position against the cold, cuddling chilled parts and thus inevitably exposing warm parts, he would listen, and sniff the air, and worry a little, before dipping back under. Sleep with one eye open. Thorn claimed you could do it. It meant he did not so much dream as think, but in a jumpy disconnected way. A moment came when he surfaced to full wakefulness, both feet cold, ears and pizzle cold, even though he had wrapped his arms around his head when he fell asleep. He began to shiver, and realized he would therefore not be able to fall back asleep, and indeed could not even continue to lie there; he was shivering too hard.

Fearfully he pulled himself out of his tuck and looked around. The near-half moon was about to set in the west, so the night was half done. Unhappily he began to bounce up and down in place, staying always on his right leg; also to bunch his fists, and twist side to side. At first it felt like he was too tired to be able to dance hard enough to warm up, but by the time he had gotten the shivering to stop, he was fully awake, less tired, and interested to see what he would not have seen in the tuck, which was the plateau in the last of the moonlight, shadows stretching across it broad and black. Nothing moved. The night was still. He rearranged his bark clothing as best he could, trying to tighten it around him, and after a time burrowed back into his nest. Any tuck is better than none. This was his wander, he told himself, he was becoming a shaman, it was supposed to be a trial. He had not only to survive, but survive in style. Now with Crouch, and the old ones wandering about, his task was made more difficult. But he was halfway through, almost. Eight days left at most, maybe nine. He was actually having trouble keeping count. But the moon would do it.

Whatever he managed in terms of style would have to come later, and be accomplished by day. At night, to avoid both the old ones, who might spot his fire, and night-hunting animals, who were only held off by fire, he was going to have to find a better refuge than this one, which was both cold and exposed to view. Some hollow, some cathole or marmot house where he could keep a little warm, and yet see anything approaching him. Under a boulder, perhaps, with some boughs dragged in for warmth. Live like a marmot for half a fortnight.

Crouch was barking and it was hard not to groan. The memory of his big bed of embers, radiating heat so intense he had had to keep a distance from it, now struck him as an incredible gift. Luxury is stupid: another of Heather’s favorites. It goes too far, she would explain. Enough is as good as a feast. But tonight he didn’t have enough.

He had been acting as if the womb canyons etching the border of the uplands would be empty, just because no packs made their camp in them. His own presence should have told him he was wrong. Old ones, woodsmen, travelers, lions, any could have wandered by and killed him by his fire. Starting in the storm had apparently frozen his wits. Wrong from the start. In the storm itself one could assume everyone would be hunkered down. After the storm, no. Strangers could always pass by. You have to beware. He had forgotten that, seduced by his fire. Fire was a giveaway, there was no denying it. Although perhaps a very little one, down in some hollow, lit at twilight, kept barely alive, fed just before dawn: surely it would be all right?

No. Not really. Just hop in place and sing a little back-and-forth song, right right left, right right left, on and on. No real weight on the left. All the while looking at the moon, trying to see it fatter than it was. He truly had lost count of how many days he had been out, but ran back through them in as much detail as he could recall, to recover the number. He kept track with his fingers, using them like one of Thorn’s yearsticks. He had been out five days. Yes, five. He had gotten a fire started on the second day; watched the bears kill a deer on the third; made deerskin clothing on the fourth; tried to shift camps on the fifth. This was going to be the sixth day. He almost groaned aloud, but let Crouch do the talking. He was going to have to find a way to stay warm without a fire, and he was going to have to find something to eat. He could forage, but it would be best if he also found something to kill. Some animal with fur.