There was movement from deep inside the house and a moment later a very pregnant woman appeared at the door. Her eyes were red and her face was pale, but she spoke boldly enough. “Capricorn is very ill.”
“I know. May I see him?” said Canis.
With a shrug, she stepped aside and led the way up the stairs to her husband.
The man lay among the furs like the dead. The only sign of life was the shallow movement of his chest and the fact that he was drenched with sweat.
Canis knelt on the furs beside Capricorn and pealed back the pelt that covered him. Underneath he saw that the claw marks hadn’t been touched and they now smelled and seeped badly with infection.
Canis looked at Lyra with indignation. “Why haven’t you done anything for these?” he asked.
New tears leaked down her face. “They’re from a bear. There’s little that can be done for them.”
“There must be something. Get me some water.” Canis knew he wasn’t a healer, but surely, he could do something.
When Lyra left the room, Canis suddenly felt detached from himself almost as if he had been set aside while his body acted on its own. He thought he ought to struggle, but he felt no alarm.
He came back to his senses and his body when Lyra came back into the room. He pulled his hand back from Capricorn’s bloody chest, and noticed him looking at him, though his face was slack and his eyes didn’t have much focus to them.
“He’s awake,” said Lyra. She set the bowl of hot water hastily aside, grabbed a rag from another bowl, and dabbed at his forehead. As she leaned over him to do so, she noticed another thing. “The infection is gone. This will barely scar. What did you do?”
Canis looked at his bloody hand and then down at Capricorn’s chest; it was still cruelly sliced, but the wounds were clean, and no longer angry and swollen with infection. He shook his head. “I do not know. I…I do not know.”
Lyra took up the bowl of hot water and started to dab at the ugly wounds while Capricorn flinched, then faded again with a sighing groan.
As she worked over her husband, Canis slipped out of the house and back to his own. He was utterly bewildered about what had happened.
To the Stars
Two days later, the men returned with the meat from the hunt. It had been impossible to skin the frozen moose, but they were able to hack it apart with axes in order to divide the load up among the sleds. They brought the skull back too, it would be skinned out and mounted over Libra’s house, and the choicest pieces of meat would belong to her and her family. The hunters brought the hide of the giant bear back with them too, but it vanished in another direction.
Gemini’s body, now thawed, was straightened, washed, and dressed in his best. The clan all stopped by to pay their respects while Eridanus comforted his wife.
Everyone was concerned for Libra because of her pregnancy. Few enough women were born to the clan in the first place and death during childbirth happened all too often. A strain like this might have undesirable effects.
Only the oldest of Libra’s three children was old enough to understand what had happened. He knew his father was going to be leaving never to return. He took a certain amount of pleasure in starting in on the head of the moose, even though it was only just beginning to thaw. He laid the strips of hide he was able to cut from it on his father’s chest. His father would take them with him to the stars.
Canis paid his respects too, though he hung back. He had not known the man or his family. Finally emboldened, he knelt before Libra with the arrow that had killed the bear held in both of his hands. “The beast responsible for your husband’s death has paid.” He hoped she might take at least some comfort from the knowledge.
Libra took the arrow with trembling fingers, and then Canis slipped away and back to his home. He was restless and confused. He found his way to the roof of the house and found that the roofs of all the houses joined. A narrow bridge extended across the stockade gateways so a sentry could walk the entire circle of the camp.
Canis paced the circle restlessly. Why have I been thrust into this chaos so soon? Why couldn't I have just slipped into this life quietly to just grow up in safety until I could leave again, but, instead, everything goes all strange as soon as I get here? A joined Wulfi speaks to me – something never done before. I draw my father’s bow and kill a monster bear when kids my age can’t normally draw their father’s bows. And to top it all off, I heal a man everyone had given up on just because his wounds were from a bear. What did I do to deserve this? What will they expect from me now?
He came to a halt facing east and studied the contours of the landscape lit by the lowering sun behind him. Though he could see for miles, he could see no sign of the plains. He was standing there when Eridanus found him a few minutes later.
“Your gift was very generous, if…a little odd. The bear didn’t touch Gemini. How is it that you say the bear was responsible for his death?”
“You did not see where he lay,” said Canis speaking softly as he still regarded the horizon. “The bear had him trapped. He was only safe from the bear if he stayed where he was against the tree…to keep the tree between him and the bear. He couldn’t even climb it because it had no lower branches. He wouldn’t have stood a chance if he had tried to run to the side.” He paused for a moment, remembering the trampled ground. “No, it was the moose that killed him, but it was the bear that kept him there.”
“I see. Thank you for bringing him back before he was ravaged.” He studied the back of the strange boy before him. His red hair, unheard of in the clan, though it was so like his mother’s, reached past his shoulders and he still wore the strange clothes he had arrived in. “Thank you for bringing them all back.” There was another pause then Eridanus turned to leave.
“Wait,” said Canis. He turned to face the man. “May I ask you a question? It is of a personal nature.”
Eridanus looked at the boy that now faced him. It was difficult to tell what was behind his icy eyes. He shrugged. “I’m sure you have many questions and I’m also sure that no few of those questions will be of a personal nature. Ask.”
Now that he had permission to ask, he didn’t know how to put it into words. He started with a simpler question. “May I know your name?”
“That’s not a very personal question. My name is Eridanus, but I thought you knew our names already.”
Canis shook his head. “I only know what Rramerr told me; you were not mentioned, but that was not the question I wished to ask. The woman in there…” He waved a hand vaguely toward where she lived.
“Libra, her name is Libra,” supplied Eridanus.
“Libra,” Canis nodded. “I thought she was Gemini’s wife and yet she leans on you. Are you her brother? Forgive me…”
Eridanus smiled. “I see. Let me see if I can explain. There are almost twice as many men here as there are women. It has always been that way, more or less. That is why it is common for a woman to have two husbands. Sometimes she chooses them at the same time; Libra chose Gemini and me at the same time. Sometimes a woman stays with only one mate for a year or two before choosing another. Only seldom does a woman stay with only one man.”
“Does that mean she, Libra, will choose another husband…someday?” Canis winced at the question. He wished another man was standing here. He felt utterly insensitive asking these questions of this man at this time.
Eridanus covered the last of the distance between them and rested his hands on Canis’s shoulders. “Do not cringe when you ask your questions. I understand your curiosity and it is all something you should know. Find me any time when you have these hard questions. I promise to try my best to answer all of them. Now, to answer this last question.” A fleeting look of pain flashed across his eyes. “She might choose to bring another into our house, but I think it won’t be for a while. We both need to adjust to this loss first.”
Canis nodded and accompanied Eridanus as he headed back to his wife, but when he went down into h
is house, Canis remained on the roof. Every house had an access to the roofs and there was a narrow ladder up to the roofs at each of the gates. Canis took the ladder at the north gate and strode out along the still visible blood trail. He felt Rrusharr close by, but she didn’t disturb him. This restlessness was something he needed to sort out on his own and he didn’t plan to go far.
A few yards from the walls, he knelt directly on the path. He reached down and touched a finger to one of the red marks still visible in the snow. “You had a plan for me, didn’t you,” he said to the air around him. “Why would you leave me to figure it out for myself?” The next thing he knew, he was sitting fully on the frozen snow and Orion was resting a hand on his shoulder.
“Did you hear me? What are you doing out here in the dark?” asked Orion.
Canis looked around; the sun had gone down. He must have been sitting here for hours and yet he didn’t remember actually sitting down. He pulled himself to his feet. “I was…just thinking,” he said; only he hadn’t been. He had been blank – utterly devoid of thought or sense. He had been outside of the walls and yet he had felt safe, and not just because he knew Rrusharr watched over him.
As they turned to head toward their house, Canis asked, “Father, what will happen to Gemini…to his body? Does the ground ever thaw out enough to bury the dead?”
“We are not like the bear who buries his kill to ripen for another day. We will give his mortal remains to the stars.” He could see that this answer didn’t mean anything, but he didn’t have a better one. “You will see tomorrow night.”
The next day, Orion took Canis out to show him how their firewood was gathered. Several of the men and boys of the clan were already working on a massive tree, and they had been working on it for some time already. The stump was at least a hundred yards from what was left of the tree and still the men with the big saws were forced to work over their heads to cut the next section free. “If they’re lucky, they’ll make two such cuts today. Those men over there…” he pointed to another two men who were beating at one of the rounds already cut free, “…will break up those rounds. At the end of the day, everyone will take a sled load home. The boys work along the trunk.” He called out to an older youth. “Leo, come show Canis what to do. I’ll go back and get our sled.”
Both Canis and Leo looked after Orion as he picked up an ax to help with breaking up another of the big rounds. “He’s not well,” said Leo.
“I worry that this will make him cough again.”
“If it does, just load up your sled with whatever is available and take him home. He probably won’t like it, but you might be able to make him go.”
“Is that how it works?” asked Canis.
“Pretty much. Everyone who comes out here and works on a tree takes home a sled load of wood. This is the best time of year to fill your wood slot.”
“Why is that?” asked Canis.
“Because the days are longer and warmer, but not too warm. Many days will go by without a storm so we take down a tree, then the clan works on it until it’s all hauled in. This one tree will come very close to filling everyone’s needs.”
Canis looked again at the size of the tree. Just this portion that was left made the logs used in building the stockade look like saplings and yet those logs were every bit as big as, or bigger than, the firewood Canis had split during his travels west.
Canis worked along side Leo all day, though Orion went home after only an hour or so. They, and other boys of the clan, cut the branches from the tree then cut them up into sections. They took turns working the saw and stacking the rounds or piling up the parts of the branches that would not be used.
That night Orion and Canis followed the rest of the clan out of camp. All but the youngest carried a torch. Gemini’s closest family and friends carried his body as well as that of his companion, Rramerr, on woven pallets.
About an hour from camp, they came upon a large hole in the snow. Men had been working here all day with shovels made of bone, scooping away at a mound of snow. As soon as the mourners arrived, the bodies of the dead were laid on the exposed branches from some previous firewood tree, and then with an air of ceremony, everyone tossed their torch onto the revealed branches.
Canis watched the fire grow hot, driving the spectators back. He also saw thousands of sparks fly up into the night sky. He knew what he was seeing, and he knew that everyone around him knew what they were seeing, but it looked like the sparks were going up and joining the stars. The smoke, that was very hard to see in the dark, looked like the souls of the dead leaving the body to be carried to the stars along with the sparks of ash from the fire. It was a very beautiful thought, but it was a very sad thought as well. Of the little he understood about the Mother, he couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to leave Her gentle embrace. For him, these two had gone back into Her arms. For the others, they had joined their ancestors among the stars.
His thoughts were interrupted by a disturbance farther around the circle. Moments later a small child was tugging on his coat. “You helped my daddy; you can help her too,” piped the small voice and Canis recognized her as the daughter of Capricorn.
“What happened?” asked Canis as he allowed himself to be pulled along.
“Libra fainted,” said the girl.
Canis groaned. He was not a healer. He was relieved to see Libra already being helped to her feet by Eridanus before he reached them.
The next day, Canis was on his way back to the woodpile when he met Lyra at the door.
“Hello,” he said. “How is Capricorn?”
“He is recovering, thank you. He wishes to see you.”
“Me, why?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied. “Will you come?”
Canis shrugged and followed her to her home. Upstairs again, Canis sat down on a short wooden stool.
Capricorn was much better than the last time he had been here and he was appraising Canis with a critical eye. “I have heard several stories about you,” he started out hesitantly, then he plunged directly into the reason he had wanted to speak to him. “I would like you to hunt for my family until I am strong again.”
Canis didn’t know what he expected, but it certainly wasn’t this. “I have only been here a few days and there is much I do not know about how things are done around here. Surely, a boy like me is never asked to shoulder the responsibility of a man’s family, not when there are other men around, anyway.”
Capricorn smiled. “True. You are a stranger, and under other circumstances, you would never be approached, not this soon, but I think you will get a lot of practice hunting. Because of those stories, many of the clan will want you to be a member of their hunting parties, and despite what or how much is taken, every member of the party earns an equal portion. What I am asking of you is that you share your portion with my family. Believe me, it is not something I ask lightly. I am taking advantage of the stories circulating the camp and I am taking advantage of a boy. I don’t like taking advantage.”
Canis considered what Capricorn said. If he did go on several hunting trips and earned an equal share of each hunt, he would likely accumulate more than he and his father would need. “If what you say happens, I would have little time to preserve the food I brought in. Nor would I have time for other duties of the house. If I brought my entire take here, would your wife preserve the meat for me?”
Lyra, who had been listening from the curtain that was their door answered. “Preserving meat is tedious, but not difficult. Surely that is not all I could do for you in return for this favor.”
“I do not know; what would be fair?” asked Canis.
“You will bring in many furs with your hunts. I’ll tan all the hides you bring in as well as make sure that your father gets fed while you’re gone.”
“This seems very generous of you. Could I ask you to teach me these skills as well?”
“I would be happy to teach you,” replied Lyra with a smile.
Capricorn lo
oked greatly relieved, but he still felt guilty about the whole deal. “Take my father’s bow and string it. If you can draw it, I’ll give it to you,” he said.
Lyra, lifted down the bow that hung on the wall near where she stood and handed it to Canis.
He strung it and took a stance to draw the string. Like with his father’s bow, he could pull the string back to his chin, but he couldn’t hold it there without starting to shake.
“Get my old bow,” said Capricorn and Lyra disappeared from the room to return a few moments later with another bow. This one was simpler, made only of wood and a few inches shorter.
Canis strung it and drew it to his cheek. It had a smooth pull and rested comfortably in his hand.
Capricorn nodded. “Take it. It’s yours.”
Canis smiled one of his few open smiles. “My thanks,” he said as he unstrung both bows and handed the heavier one back to Lyra who then handed him the quiver of arrows that went with the bow he was keeping.
Canis stood out in front of Capricorn’s house, His original destination forgotten.
Seeing him with a bow in his hand, Eridanus asked, “When are you planning to go hunting?”
Canis looked again at his new possession. “Soon.”
Coming of Age
Just as Capricorn predicted, all the men wanted Canis to accompany them on their hunting trips; they considered him very lucky, but few of them tried to become close. His red hair marked him different and there was no forgetting that.
When he wasn’t hunting, he was out working on that monster tree in order to fill up their supply of firewood. If he found a free moment, he went up onto the roof to practice with his sword –he didn’t want to forget this skill.
Nike took it upon herself to move into the house with Canis and Orion. She was almost of age so no one objected. Everyone assumed she would take Canis as her mate when she did come of age. Until then, it was commonly agreed that Canis could use the help. It was not easy for a man to run a home alone.
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