by Dakota Chase
We laughed and asked to speak with her. Once we were seated at her fire, I carefully unwrapped the leather and exposed the piece of lightning glass. “We have this to trade, Red Fox. We need hoods and mittens for the hunt.”
Her eyes popped open wide. “This is treasure, Ash! Only rarely does the sea spirit give up her fragile bones. It is worth far more than hoods and mitts!”
“But it’s all we have to trade right now.” I offered the glass to her. “Here, take a closer look. It’s really pretty.”
“It is beautiful and very valuable. You saved Rabbit, and Bear Paw tells me you found out the Deer Clan planned to take our cave and lands from us. I will not shame myself or Bear Paw by taking advantage of you in a trade.”
Grant shook his head. “But—”
She put up her hand. “No. I will trade, but I must give you fair worth for the sea bones.”
I looked at Grant and shrugged. “All right. What do you think is fair?”
She frowned and chewed her bottom lip as if considering her options. “I think the hoods and mitts, plus a new set of trousers and shirts each, new boots, and packs for each of you would be fair.” She smiled. “Also, I will fill the packs with things you may need on the mammoth hunt. Dried food, tea, rope, a cup and a plate.”
It sounded like a lot. “Are you sure, Red Fox? We don’t want to take advantage of you either.”
“It is fair.” She gave us a curt nod and then smiled as she reached for the glass.
I gave it to her, wishing I had more of it. If I’d known how valuable it was to the Bison Clan, I would’ve looked for more while we were at the beach.
“Bear Paw says Gray Wolf plans to leave for the hunt in less than a handful of days. I’d better get busy! There is still so much to do before then.” She wrapped the glass in the leather and secreted it away in a basket in the corner of her hearth.
“Is there anything we should be doing to get ready?” Grant asked, but I was thinking the same thing. “We’ve never been on a mammoth hunt before.” What did one take on a mammoth hunt? Not that we owned very much, and we were out of things to trade aside from a few shells.
“I will provide everything you need as part of our trade. Go, get some tea and rest. You’ll need all your strength for the hunt. It is a long walk to the great ice wall, and hunting the mammoth is only the beginning of the labor. Did your people ever hunt them? They are giants, and it will take many, many hours to skin it and cut the meat up. Then you need to carry it all back on sleds and in packs.”
“Sounds like fun.” Grant smiled, but his cheek twitched, as if it was a job to keep his lips curved. I couldn’t blame him. I knew what he was most worried about, because I was worried about the same thing. Not only did we have to go on the hunt and manage not to get killed, but we needed to make sure we got a hunting talisman with a mammoth on it.
It was a lot of pressure for a pair of guys whose only previous hunting experience was in video games.
I admitted we’d gotten pretty good with using our atlatls to hurl spears at the targets, but there was probably a huge difference between hitting a stationary, stuffed pad of leather and a living, breathing, and justifiably pissed off, hairy elephant.
Chapter Sixteen
ON THE day the hunters would leave on the trek to find mammoth, the entire tribe was already awake and bustling long before the sun began to crack the darkness. Excitement crackled in the air—even those who would stay behind seemed infected with it.
Ash and I couldn’t sleep the night before. Too much hinged on this hunt, and we were totally unconvinced either of us was ready for it. Earlier we’d sat with Rabbit and the other hunters-in-training, circled around a fire, drinking cups of tea and telling the Bison Clan version of campfire ghost stories. All the stories involved young, unproven hunters on their manhood hunt and some sort of horrific death or disfigurement caused by poor aim, bad luck, or a curse.
We didn’t necessarily believe any of the stories, but we still felt the fear they were meant to inspire. Hunting big game like mammoth wasn’t like aiming a fake gun at a video screen. This was real, and the possibility existed one or both of us might be injured or worse.
Breakfast that morning was huge, a real feast. Someone had gone out and bagged a deer, so there was fresh venison stew, thickened with some sort of grain. We had mushrooms, vegetables I couldn’t identify but that tasted like carrots, and flat cakes baked on hot rocks that reminded me of pancakes, especially when the Bison Clan poured honey over them.
We ate until we were stuffed since Bear Paw had advised us we’d be eating nothing but traveling food cakes until after the mammoth hunt—and afterward as well if the hunt wasn’t successful. There’d be no other hunting or fishing on the journey north. We’d have hot tea when we camped for the night. That was it.
Red Fox had come to us the night before with two piles of clothing, her part of our barter for the lightning glass. She’d outdone herself, and I learned she’d traded a few of her own treasures for some of the pieces. We each got a new shirt and trouser set, both decorated with tiny seashells in the style of Bison Clan, a new fur hood, and a pair of fur mittens. In addition, she gave us each a pair of boots that wrapped up our legs. The fur lining on the boots would keep our legs warm, for sure.
“Thank you, Red Fox. These are great!” Ash tried on his hood and mitts. He looked like an artic explorer, and I grinned at him.
“Yes, thank you, Red Fox. They’re perfect.” I held the shirt up to my chest. I was sure it would fit, and it really was kind of cool, with all the seashell accents sewn onto it.
She looked pleased with our happiness and flashed us a big smile. “Good. Our barter is done. I wish you good luck on the hunt, and that you will come back men of the Bison Clan.”
Ash smiled. “We aren’t really Bison Clan, Red Fox. We’re American.”
She sniffed. “Perhaps, but I think in your hearts you’re Bison Clan.” She left us with another smile and those few words, and I had to turn away so Ash wouldn’t see me tear up. It felt good to be so accepted by people so different from us.
After breakfast we dressed in our new clothes and packed the rest of our things we needed to take. Red Fox had also made good on her promise to supply us with essentials for our travel packs, so there was very little we needed. Our brand-new atlatls hung from special loops on our belts, and we carried three new spears each, all complements of Badger. When we joined the other young people, we looked like all the other hunters-in-training of the Bison Clan.
Gray Wolf turned toward those who were staying behind. There weren’t many—mostly mothers with small children and the tribe elders. Everyone who could go was making the trip. Even Musk Ox, who usually stayed behind during hunts, would come with us. “Be safe and well until the spirits bring us home to you.”
“Go and hunt, men and women of the Bison Clan, and may the spirits grant you luck and watch over you,” Snow Owl, who would not be going on the hunt, replied. His job was to stay behind and hold ceremonies pleading with the spirits to protect the hunters on their journey. Ash and I were pretty sure our names would not be mentioned in any of these ceremonies. Snow Owl would probably pray we got eaten by bears somewhere along the way.
There was some worry about the Deer Clan coming to the cave while most of the hunters were away, but Gray Wolf couldn’t risk leaving too many of his hunters behind. A few people couldn’t go either because of age or illness, and some chose not to go, mostly women with small children, and a few of the craftsmen, although Badger was going. Those remaining behind would need to protect the cave.
I had to wonder if they would be enough and really hoped they would be. The last thing we wanted was to return from the mammoth hunt to find the Deer Clan living in the cave and the remaining Bison Clan either dead or driven away. There would be war, and I got the feeling Ash and I would get caught up in it, something neither of us wanted.
There was nothing we could do about it. Who stayed or went was ultimately
Gray Wolf’s decision. The responsibility for what happened was his alone as well.
The sun was still in the process of breaching the horizon when we started out from the cave. Ash and I carried our packs slung over one shoulder by virtue of a thick leather thong. We wore our new clothes and boots, but had our hoods, mitts, and coats stashed in our packs. It was too warm yet, especially with the exercise of walking. Two sleds were brought along with us, and we took turns pulling them.
Speaking of walking, I didn’t consider myself out of shape. I was at a good weight for my height and bone structure, and I played sports at school, but I had to push myself to keep up with Bison Clan hunters. I found little consolation in the fact Ash was huffing right alongside me. Some, but not much.
We walked nonstop until the sun was high overhead and Gray Wolf called a halt for a light lunch of traveling cakes. No hot tea was made because no one wanted to take the time to make a fire and heat the water. Before my legs barely stretched out—or so it seemed—we were on the move again.
The landscape changed slowly as we covered more distance. The lushly forested hills around the cave flattened, the trees thinning and eventually giving way to plains of rippling grass, much like the area we’d crossed while carrying Rabbit back to the cave.
By the time the sun dipped low enough for dark to begin edging out the light, all we could see in all directions was endless seed heads bobbing in the wind. That, and far in the distance, a gleaming, glittering blue wall.
The great wall of ice.
Gray Wolf finally gave the signal for the party to stop and make camp when we came across a clear, trickling stream. Fires were lit and water boiled, and I didn’t think I was ever so grateful for a hot cup of boiled grass than I was then.
“It must be gigantic.” Ash sipped at his cup of hot tea, the first we’d had since leaving the Bison Clan cave early that morning.
“It looks like a mountain. From what I remember reading, glaciers stretched across the entire continent. Can you imagine?”
“So, where did it all go? The ice eventually melted, right?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I think the sea levels rose, and the climate definitely changed. That’s why people are so concerned about the glaciers melting in our own time. Global warming is causing it, except it isn’t nature’s idea—it’s our fault.”
Ash nodded and sipped at his cup again. “Are we going all the way up to the ice?”
I held my own cup under my chin, letting the steam warm my face. “I don’t know. Pretty close, I guess. It depends on how soon we find mammoth.”
“What if we don’t find any?”
It was a question I didn’t want to answer. I’d thought of it too but had pushed it away, refusing to consider the problems we’d face. Now it was out in the air, spoken aloud, and I couldn’t ignore it anymore. “I don’t know. We’d be screwed. No mammoth hunt, no mammoth painted on a hunting talisman. Plus, winter is coming fast. By the time we get back to the cave, it may be too cold to go looking for it anywhere else. We might be forced to winter with the Bison Clan.”
Ash gasped and stared wide-eyed at me over the rim of his cup. “All winter? Are you insane?”
“No, but I don’t see what choice we’d have, do you? If we left, we don’t know if any other tribe will even let us join them, let alone have a mammoth-hunting talisman. And if we get caught outside during a blizzard, we’ll be as good as dead.”
“Shit.”
It was all he said, but it summed up our situation pretty well. Shit was right. If the hunt wasn’t successful, we’d be hip-deep in it.
The two of us settled down as close to the fire as we could without singeing our eyebrows off, wrapped ourselves in our heavy winter coats, and laid our old furs on top. As bone-tired as I was, it took me a while to fall asleep. When I finally drifted off, I dreamed of towering blue ice walls, a cold so bitterly sharp it felt like it had teeth, and being buried in deep, deep snow.
WE CONTINUED to hike north for better than a week. Every day was the same as the one before—walking, walking, walking, short rest stops, and more walking, then huddling next to tiny fires at night, desperate for the little bit of heat they provided.
The temperature dropped every day, the air growing colder as we inexorably marched closer to the foot of the great wall of ice.
Then, on the eleventh or twelfth day—I was having trouble keeping track, since one day blended into another, the landscape barely changing—Ash and I were bringing up the rear of the line behind Rabbit and the other young hunters when we came across a deep, wide valley. I saw Gray Wolf, Bear Paw, and Musk Ox climb the ridge and figured they were trying to decide how best to make our way down into the valley.
Suddenly there seemed to be a flurry of excitement among them, and I saw them pointing off in the distance.
The rest of the Bison Clan grew restless as word came back through the line.
Mammoth!
A herd had been spotted in the distance. Anyone who’d grown tired or footsore found themselves energized, eager to move on, to get closer to the beasts we’d come so far to find. We all dashed up the side of the ridge edging the valley and stood in a long line, shading our eyes to get a glimpse of them.
They were still far away and looked like little more than a group of fuzzy brown blobs to me. But the fact I could see individual animals at all considering how far away they were told me something about how huge they must be.
For a moment fear tickled my belly. Even with our spears, how could we possibly hunt them? It seemed impossibly stupid to even try.
“But they’ve done it before.” Ash’s voice made me realize I’d spoken my worry aloud. “Gray Wolf said so. They know what they’re doing.”
I nodded and prayed Ash was right. It was all I could do, considering Gray Wolf called for us to move again and to double-time it. He wanted to get closer to the herd before dark.
The rift wasn’t wide, and we were able to easily jump down to the other side. Even Rabbit made it without hurting his bad leg. We set off at a trot, covering ground quickly, but by the time Gray Wolf gestured for us to stop, Ash and I were gasping for breath.
We could still see them in the failing light. I thought I could count twenty animals, including a few little ones. Musk Ox thought it was a favorable sign and the spirits must be pleased with the Bison Clan to send them a large herd.
“Tomorrow.” Gray Wolf made the announcement we’d all been expecting as we kindled fires and put water on to boil. “Tomorrow, we will hunt.”
Chapter Seventeen
AS IT turned out, the action didn’t wait until dawn to start.
Bear Paw was the first to spot the flicker of fire in the distance. He immediately brought it to Gray Wolf’s attention, and word swiftly spread through the camp. If the flames were from a campfire, then the Bison Clan had competition for the mammoth herd.
“Who can it be? No one else hunts this far north.” Musk Ox frowned.
Everyone was up, staring in the direction of the tiny, winking light, and everyone seemed to have an opinion. Most of the people thought it was the Deer Clan, since they’d been in the forests of the Bison Clan so recently, but a few others were adamant it was the spirits of the mammoths, come to prepare for battle.
Grant and I were firmly in the Deer Clan camp of thinking.
I kept my voice to a whisper. “If it is the Deer Clan, there’s going to be war.”
Grant nodded. “I know. We need to do a preemptive strike.”
“What? We’re gonna bomb them? I hate to break it to you, but we’re fresh out of explosives, here.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “No. We need to talk sense to Gray Wolf and convince him that playing nice with whoever that is, especially if it’s the Deer Clan, will serve him better than fighting them.”
I thought about it. “That actually makes sense. But what can we say that’ll make him listen? We’re not even hunters yet. I doubt he’ll listen to us any more than any adult would
in our own time.”
“We have to try.”
“What if it’s not the Deer Clan?”
“What if it’s not? The end result will be the same.”
“True. Okay. Let’s give it a go, but you do the talking. It’s your idea.” I gave him a nudge in the right direction and followed him to where Gray Wolf, Bear Paw, and Musk Ox stood.
Grant cleared his throat nervously. “Um, Gray Wolf? Can we talk to you for a minute?”
He threw us a brief glance but seemed to dismiss us just as quickly. “We are too busy for chatter. Leave us.”
“But it’s really important!” I knew I said I would let Grant do the talking, but first we had to get Gray Wolf to agree to listen, so I jumped right in.
“We, uh, we have wisdom from our people, the Americans, that might help!”
I blinked and looked at Grant in surprise. It was a good stalling tactic, but where was he going with it? What was he going to say?
For a minute it looked like Gray Wolf wasn’t going to listen, but then he sighed. “Very well. What is it you have to tell me while our enemies camp so nearby?”
“Well, you see, our people have a history of wars too. There was one, the first one for our people. We called it the Revolutionary War. We fought our bitter enemies, the British, and we won. But it came at a cost. Many people died on both sides.”
Gray Wolf nodded. “War brings death. It is what war does.”
“Yeah. Well, the thing is, as time passed, we made friends with the British. Who were once our enemies became our allies. And when another war came, this one bigger and worse than any that came before it, a World War, we fought beside them. And won together. We have fought wars since then side by side. Our relationship has been far more beneficial for both of us than it had been when we were enemies.”