Patricia Wrede - Across the Great Barrier

“Just like the summer men,” Professor Torgeson said, nodding. “I’d hoped for better, but I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Summer men?” Mr. Macleod said.

“Vinlanders who cross to the mainland to hunt every summer,” the professor replied. “We lose a few every year who insist on staying just a few more days and get caught by an early winter storm. Once that happens, they rarely make it back before the ice dragons come down from the north.”

Mr. Macleod nodded. “Same thing, really. Pierre took it particularly hard on account of these last few years being so good. He got accustomed to taking enough animals to get his summer supplies without so much work, so when things went back to normal, he was right put out.”

“The last few years have been good ones?”

“For trappers,” Wash agreed. “All up the Red River and down to the Middle Plains Territory. Maybe farther.”

“Likely it was all the animals forced out by the grubs,” Mr. Macleod said. “Leastwise, that’s what everyone says.”

“Forced out by the grubs?” Lan said. “But they just ate plants!”

“And when the rabbits and deer and bison and giant beavers and rainbow squirrels have no plants to eat, they leave, and the saber cats and foxes and jewel minks and dire wolves follow,” Mr. Macleod said.

“Why would this year have been a bad one, then?” I asked. “The grub-killed land is coming back, but it’s not the same, and it won’t be for a long time. There might be enough for the rabbits and ground squirrels to eat, but for sure not the giant beavers and deer.”

“Who knows?” Mr. Macleod said. “All I can say is that every trapper who came in from the Far West this year had a scanty catch.”

“Now, there’s an odd thing,” Wash said, rubbing his beard. “I hadn’t rightly thought on it before, but most all the trappers who work south of the Grand Bow River brought in as many furs as they could carry. There were a lot more new critters among them, too.”

“More new animals?” Professor Torgeson said.

“There are a lot of things in the Far West that we don’t have names for,” Wash said.

“Every so often, the boys bring in something strange,” Mr. Macleod agreed. “There’s a fox with a gray patch on its forehead that they’re partial to, when they can catch one, and a thing that looks a bit like a fat squirrel that’s had its tail bobbed. Come to think on it, there’s been more of those furs these past few years than there used to be. But then, the boys have been working farther west.”

“Have they?” Wash said in a thoughtful tone. “The way the trappers I talked to were complaining, I got the notion they haven’t ever gone much past their usual runs.”

“How far west would that be?” Professor Torgeson asked.

“Most of the trappers on the North Plains work between here and … well, draw a north-south line through Wintering Island on the Grand Bow, and that’s about as far west as they’ve ever gone,” Mr. Macleod said. “I don’t know about the Gauls and Acadians. They call themselves coureurs de bois, and they’re right out of their heads, if you ask me, the chances they take.”

“They aren’t accustomed to having a safe place nearby,” the professor pointed out. “Acadian settlement isn’t more than halfway along the Great Lakes yet.”

“If the trappers had their way, they’d stay there,” Mr. Macleod grunted. “They were right pleased when the Settlement Office held up on allowing any new settlements last year.”

“All this building has been eating up their hunting ground,” Wash said, nodding.

“Speaking of hunting,” Professor Torgeson said in a pointed tone. “I believe Mr. Morris indicated that one of your hunting parties brought in something interesting.”

“Yes, well, just let me get it and you can see for yourselves.” Mr. Macleod disappeared behind the curtain for a minute. He came out carrying a stone fawn.

From the look of it, the fawn wasn’t more than a week old. Its legs were folded up under it, but its head was up and its eyes were wide, as if it had just seen or smelled something and was wondering what to do. The stone it was made of had a faint pinkish cast to it, but aside from that it looked just like all the other gray-white stone fragments we’d been collecting for days.

“Yonnie Karlsen and three of his friends were hunting off to the west when they came across it,” Mr. Macleod said as we looked it over. “He said there was a doe, too, caught standing. The others wanted to get out of there right quick, but Yonnie made them rig a sling to carry this little one back with them. Said he didn’t want folks calling it another tall tale.”

“How far west?” Wash asked.

“T’other side of the Red River,” Mr. Macleod said. “They were about a week out, which is why they needed the sling. This statue isn’t very heavy, but it’s awkward to haul around for very long.”

The professor had pulled out her magnifying glass to study the fawn more closely. “Except for that pink tinge, it’s just like the others,” she said. “Well, the pink, and that it’s not broken.”

“It was a fair bit pinker when they brought it in,” Mr. Macleod offered. “It’s faded out quite a bit over the last two weeks.”

“So they brought it in two weeks ago,” the professor said. “And they found it a week before that.”

“Early June,” Mr. Macleod confirmed.

“I’m not liking the look of this,” Wash said.

“What? No, no, it’s amazing!” Professor Torgeson said. “We’ll have to get it back to Mill City somehow without breaking it. I don’t suppose you still have that sling, Mr. Macleod?”

“I don’t think that’s what Wash meant,” I said.

Wash nodded. “Studying up on that statue is your job, Professor. Mine is keeping the settlements safe.”

“I sent word as soon as I saw it,” Mr. Macleod said. “Up here, white-tailed deer birth in mid to late May, most years. This fawn looks to be a week old or thereabouts, so it must have been petrified in late May or early June.”

“So three or four weeks ago, whatever does the petrifying was a week’s travel from this settlement,” Lan said. “It seems to me that if it was coming this way, you’d know by now.”

“Maybe,” Wash said. “Or maybe it just travels a whole lot slower than Mr. Karlsen’s hunting party.”

“If we’re lucky, it won’t be able to cross the Red River,” Mr. Macleod said. He frowned. “I purely do hate depending on luck.”

“You’re assuming that this fawn was petrified this year,” Professor Torgeson said reprovingly. “We have no evidence that that is the case. You’re also assuming that whatever it is can move, which is likewise unproven.”

“Professor, ma’am, that’s true enough,” Mr. Macleod said, “but out here, it’s better safe than sorry, because generally speaking, too much of the time sorry means you’re dead.”

“I would like to speak with your hunting party, if any of them are available,” Professor Torgeson said.

Mr. Macleod allowed as how the Anderson brothers had gone right back out to look for game, heading north this time instead of straight west, but he thought Mr. Karlsen was still about. He went off to fetch him while the professor returned to studying the statue.

“It feels wrong,” I said after a while.

Wash nodded, but Lan and Professor Torgeson gave me questioning looks. “It just feels wrong,” I repeated. “There’s no magic in it, not even a little bit, and there ought to be.”

“Just like the ones back at Daybat Creek,” Lan said, nodding.

“No,” I said. “Those are old, and they’re used to being the way they are. This one is … fresh. New. And it’s wrong.”