The Reindeer People (11 page)

'Sorry,' he murmured as he moved to pass him.

'Of course you are,' drawled the other, and Heckram halted, turning slowly.

'Do you have a problem, Joboam?' he asked with excessive courtesy.

'Only with fools who charge into me in the dark. You're late back from the hunt, I hear. I thought perhaps I'd seen the last of you. But here you are again, no doubt with a fine kill.'

'No doubt,' Heckram said lightly. 'But you're far from your hut this night, Joboam. Looking for something?'

'Perhaps. Capiam likes to know what goes on in all parts of the talvsit. He knows it is easier to stop trouble before it starts. So, on his behalf, I take an evening stroll, to make sure all is well. Surely you don't object?'

'Why should I? If the dogs run about between the huts by day, why shouldn't Joboam by night?'

'I'm sure Capiam will find your jest very amusing when I report it to him.'

'If he's half the man his father was, he'll find it more than that,' Heckram replied recklessly and pushed past Joboam on the narrow path, not quite touching him. He strode on, his shoulders tightened, wondering if Joboam would jump him from behind. But all remained silent behind him as he walked on.

He pushed his seething anger down, telling himself he really had no reason to be incensed. So Joboam walked among the huts by night, checking to be sure all was well. What was there to be concerned about in that? Only his superior attitude as he deigned to walk among the humbler huts. The man was assuming authority to himself. Capiam, as the leader of the herdfolk, should not have to ask others to be sure the sita was secure at night. Had he not legs of his own to walk among his own people? But no, ever since the older Capiam had died last winter, his son had taken himself seriously, acting more like some barbarian tribe chief than the leader of the sita. His spare time was spent in his own hut with his wife and son. If Capiam had to send someone to patrol between the huts at night, then why not send his boy, Rolke? Let him start learning to act like the son of the herdlord, instead of crouching by his mother's hearth all day. She was as wealthy as Capiam himself. She did little sewing or weaving or hunting anymore. Stina had once wondered aloud what the woman did all day, other than berating their daughter, Kari, for her laziness. Yet she herself looked as heavy as a pregnant vaja, while the girl looked starved as an orphaned miesse. Heckram shook his head in distaste. Capiam seemed proud of his wife's girth, as if she were a harke fattening for a winter feast.

'I'd never share a hearth with a woman like that,' Heckram vowed heartily, and was surprised to hear himself speak. What kind of woman, then, would he share a hearth with? That was the next question, and one he'd already banished from home conversations. He detoured to his meat rack with its scanty stores. Climbing up, he took out his knife to carve a generous chunk of meat from one of the haunches there and to lift down a blood sausage as well. He was hungry after the day's effort with no rations to sustain him. So he would eat now, leaving his rack barer than ever, and hope for better luck tomorrow. And what kind of woman, he wondered, would sit at hearth with a man with an empty meat rack? He dashed the thought from his mind with a shake of his head and lifted the door flap of the hut he shared with his mother.

The fire on the arran was nearly out. Ristin knelt by it, feeding it bits of twigs to coax the coals back to flame. For an instant she looked small as a child to Heckram. It was the shadows diminishing her. Not that she was a large person. She had the short, stocky build that most of the herdfolk shared. At times, Heckram felt like a lumbering elk in a herd of reindeer. So had his grandfather been, a big man from the south who came north to trade and never left. Even his hair was pale, Ristin would say, light as the flash of a reindeer's tail. Short and dark herself, she showed no sign of her mixed blood. Only in her son had it come to bloom. She still wore her warm furs, and her bright wool hat covered her hair and cheeks. Her mittens hung from strings at her wrists, baring her hands.

'Just leaving?' he asked, coming in quietly.

Ristin made a startled noise and dropped the piece of wood she held. 'Oh, it's you. Well, I'm glad you're finally back. No, just coming in. I've been hunting today, but without much luck.'

'Oh. For wolves or sons?'

Ristin shrugged lightly. 'A little of both. I was worried about you, and a new pelt would be nice. So I took my bow down and went out. Why, does that surprise you?'

'Not from a woman who was hunting wolves when I was a brat in a komse with a mouthful of marrow to keep me quiet.'

Ristin laughed quietly. 'Sounds as if you've been talking to Stina. She was worried about Lasse. I'm glad to see it was without cause.'

'Not quite.'

'Oh?' Ristin had been shrugging out of her coat, but she paused, peering out the neck hole like an owl from a tree.

'Nothing serious, but it could have been. A strange hunter, hunting alone, aimed at a vaja and got Lasse instead. Not seriously!' he added hastily as Ristin's face went grave. 'But it might have been. Luckily she was skilled as a healer. She bound up his arm, and gave us shelter for the night in her tent. I ... I said I'd pay for her healing. I'm not sure that she understood me, for she speaks our language poorly. And I know that if Lasse knew of it, he would say it was his debt.'

'But you feel responsible for his injury?' Ristin guessed.

'Somewhat.' Heckram scratched at his ear and the day's growth of stubble on his chin.

'Could you have prevented it?' Ristin pressed.

'No. Probably not. But he is only a boy, in some ways, and Stina trusts me with him. I don't like to have that trust betrayed, even accidentally.' He paused and cleared his throat. 'But that isn't the only reason I want to pay the healer for her work. There was something about her and her son.' He stared into the fire as he shrugged off his outer garments. 'Mother, do you remember the year, several years after the plague, when we lost the two calves at the river crossing, and you decided we couldn't slaughter any of our animals for winter meat?'

Ristin slowly put her coat on its peg, shaking the garment out to air it well. She sank down by the fire to loosen the laces on her boots. Her eyes were distant as she pulled them off and drew out the handfuls of shoe grass that insulated them. She fluffed it out and set it by the fire to dry.

'Do you remember that winter?' Heckram pressed.

She turned to him. 'How would one forget such a time? Your father was gone, we had no fattened autumn reindeer meat, no blood sausage, no marrow bones. Only hare and ptarmigan and fish from the summer catch. The wild reindeer were still decimated from the plague, and what there were of them, the wolves hunted better than I. It was a hard time for us all.'

Heckram shook out his tunic and hung it to air. He turned to her, his face grave. 'Her son eats like I did then. He watches food cook like he's afraid it will leap out of the pot and run away. Their tent is not sewn well, the hides they sleep under are thin. Worse, the knife she has looks like something I might have made back then. I do not think she is the hunter you are, either. Other than winging Lasse, the only meat she had shot was a thin hare.'

'It is not as if we are wealthy ourselves,' Ristin began slowly.

'I know, but —'

'Don't interrupt. But there is much cluttering this place that another might put to better use. I do not know why I keep mittens that are too small for you now. And how many bows can I use at one time ... though if her bow was good enough to down Lasse, perhaps that is something she does not need.'

Heckram chuckled softly. 'I admit I did not notice the condition of her bow. It was the boy I looked at.' As he spoke, he took down the tablo board and turned it over to show its scarred back. Setting the meat atop it, he began to carve it into slices that would cook quickly. He was hungry tonight, hungrier somehow for having met the boy and the healer. 'They were so strange. I wanted to talk to her, to ask her where they had come from and why. She has a look of far places to her and acts as if she doesn't really know how to provide for herself. I am sure she has tales to tell, and I wanted to hear them. But she didn't want to talk. I think she understood more of my words than she let on. But she was fearful, as if talking to me might leave her open to harm. And the boy ... He was all eyes, and so quiet, staring all the time.'

'Hunger can do that to a boy.' Ristin paused, remembering. 'And being alone can make a woman that cautious. But Heckram ...'

'Yes?'

'The worst of those days, for me, was the pity of those around us. We had the village to help us, and some were kind. I cannot count how many times you were fed by Lasse's father at his tent. Some mornings there was meat on our rack that I knew had not been there the night before. I knew it was done out of kindness, but it was -'

'I know. Some I shall take as payment for Lasse. She also had a bag of herbs there, and seemed to know the mixing of them. It has been long since there was a healer among the herdfolk. I am sure there are medicines that would be useful to us and that she might make. I will leave her pride intact.' He had spitted the meat pieces and now set them to cook over the revived flames. The fat sizzled and his stomach rolled yearningly.

Ristin nodded thoughtfully. 'Sometimes it is all one has left to lean on. You might talk to Elsa as well. She had some bone work and ribbon weaving she wanted the traders to take. She might be willing to trade some of it for something to ease her shoulder when the days are cold and wet. It has never been the same since that fall. Perhaps you should even take her along when you go to pay the healer. The girl works so hard, and this chance to trade might be a bit of a rest for her. Is it far to the healer's hut?'

'Not by skis. If we had not been on foot, hoping to drag a vaja home alive, Lasse and I would have been home by noon. And now that I know where it is, I should be able to get there in a short time. I will tell Elsa I am going. If she wants to come along, I'm sure she will.'

'You might treat her with a little courtesy.'

'I do. With as much courtesy as I give to Lasse, or Jakke. Or any of my friends.'

'Heckram ...'

'Are you hungry? The meat is nearly ready.'

Ristin noticed the tone of his voice with a sigh. 'Yes. But I'll remind you once more that you aren't getting any younger. Nor I.'

'Nor Elsa. I know. But I won't have a hungry child at my hearth, mother. I won't look for a wife until I am sure I can care for one.'

'If you wait until you're ready, you'll never be wed.'

'Mother.'

Silence fell. Heckram drew the still sizzling meat from the flames, portioning it into the wooden trenchers his mother set beside him. She brought juobmo as well, sour milk preserved in a small keg and flavored with sorrel leaves. With cheese and blood sausage, it made a pleasant meal, although it was a quiet one. The meat was more flavorful than tender. Heckram chewed the fine-grained chunks, watching the fire and thinking. After the dishes had been cleared away, Ristin took up a half-finished basket. She seemed to give much thought to which fibers to choose and then abruptly set it aside. She stared at him until he lifted his eyes to meet hers. She spoke softly.

'Heckram. Your father and I ... we never intended to have a hungry child at our hearth.'

He shrank at the pain in her voice, 'I know that,' he said gently, 'I did not mean my words as a rebuke to you.'

But she spoke on relentlessly. 'We never expected the plague, and I never thought to lose him while you were just a boy. But for all that, Heckram, even knowing all that was to come, I would do it again. I'd take him as husband again.'

A small silence was planted in the hut and grew. Ristin took up her belt weaving and knelt to fasten it to the center pole. Drawing it out taut, she knelt and took up colored root fibers for the pattern, some stained red from alder bark, some yellow from wild onion. She sorted out a handful.

'When I feel that way about Elsa,' Heckram offered, 'I'll ask her. But only when I feel that way.'

Ristin looked up from her work, holding her son with her eyes for a long moment. Then she slowly nodded. 'That's fair,' she said softly as her head bent over her work again. 'That's fair to both of you. But let us hope she still feels that way about you when you get around to asking her.'

The long shadows of the trees crossed her trail in a bluish network against the snow. Evening was seeping up the hillside, rising about her as if darkness began in the hollows and shadowed places of the land and welled up to meet the night. Already the brightest stars were beginning to show in the deep blue of the sky. The sun itself had but peeped over the horizon today and sidled along the skyline. Soon it would dip out of sight again. She'd best hurry.

Tillu ducked under a branch, careful not to disturb its load of snow. She moved silently, always watching for that flicker of movement that might give her one more target for her bow. She was getting better with it. She grinned to herself; soon she'd have as much skill as one of the children in Benu's band. But the landscape around her was still. The slowly encroaching twilight was darkening the green of the pine boughs into near black, merging the ranked tree trunks to either side of her trail into a curtain of grayish bark and shadowed snow. Perhaps if she had not wasted so much time watching the herd of reindeer and trying to think of a way to kill one. Her mind swung back to that challenge. She had already proved that her crude arrows from her flimsy bow did no more than bounce off the animals' thick hides. All she had accomplished was spooking them. A flung spear would do no better, for she hadn't the skills to make a good one. And even in the deep snow, the reindeer would easily flounder away from her before she could get close enough to use a jabbing spear. But there had to be a way, and she would discover it soon.

She tried not to think of the long nights of winter that still remained. She should remember that the darkest part of the cold time was behind her now, and they were still both alive. She sighed lightly, promising herself that things would get better. Look how Kerlew was changing. In the three days since the strangers had stayed with them, the boy had turned out twelve spoons. True, some were cruder than others, but each one seemed improved. And, in typical Kerlew fashion, now that he was confident of one implement, he was not inclined to try to carve anything else. She would let him enjoy his success for a while, and then persuade him to try something new. The point was, they were surviving, and Kerlew was growing. She wouldn't worry any further than that. Tillu crested the last rise and started down into the sheltered dell that held her home.

The strange tracks cut across her path, the twin lines of them looking almost blue against the snow in the evening shadows. Tillu froze, looking up and down the line of the trail's passage, but seeing nothing. They vanished into the snow-mantled trees, with no sign of what had made them.

She crouched down to study the track, to touch its clean edge with her mittened hand. She had seen nothing like these before. The tracks were long and narrow and continuous, almost as if a man had dragged something long and narrow through the snow. But there were no footprints beside them. Indistinct dents in the snow alongside the long narrow tracks at irregular intervals puzzled her. Nothing about them resembled the footprints of any creature she knew. She strained her ears, but heard nothing. She couldn't even tell if the mysterious tracks were going or coming. But as she continued on her way home, she found her tracks paralleling them. As it became more and more obvious that her tent was either their destination or source, she hurried.

She was panting when she arrived at the clearing. Her eyes followed the strange trail right up to the edge of the beaten snow that surrounded her tent. She approached cautiously, heart thumping and ears straining. Four long, narrow planks of wood with strange leather fixtures rested on the snow outside her tent. The tips of the planks had been warped up at one end. Four staves stood in the snow beside them. Tillu had never seen anything like them. Muffled voices came from within the tent, Kerlew's piping one and the deeper voice of the stranger. Worry squeezed her stomach as she ducked into the tent.

Within, the fire burned merrily, casting its dancing shadows on the skin walls. Kerlew, his finished spoons in a row before him, crouched on his heels, busily explaining to a nodding Heckram exactly how each had been made. Another stranger, not near as tall as Heckram, stood by the entrance, looking down on the boy with a strange expression on her face.

The woman turned to Tillu as she entered, regarding her with wide black eyes above high cheekbones. Her fine lips parted in an uncertain smile. Her hair, shining black, had been coiled around her head under a bright cap of yellow and red knotted wool.

Tillu could only stare, feeling a strange ache of homesickness such as she had not experienced since Kerlew's birth. Over the years she had grown accustomed to seeing folks in clothing of leather or fur, skillfully designed and sewn, functional, sturdy clothing. Such did this woman wear, also. But at the cuffs and hems and throat, on the band of her hat above her eyes, everywhere there was room for it, her garments were decorated with woven bands of brightly colored fiber and wool interspersed with strips of fur. Beads of glowing yellow amber, of white and brown bone and horn, clicked against each other when she moved. The bright ornamentation woke in Tillu a sudden sharp hunger for a settled life, for villages where crops grew and domestic animals grazed, where a man or woman might spend a few moments of the day in doing more than simply surviving. She remembered her parents in the evening, her mother weaving something for the beauty of the blending colors, her father carving and painting useful objects to transform them into art. For a world she had long believed lay so far to the south of her that she would never again see it, her eyes stung.

'Heckram,' the woman said softly, and he turned on his heels, to nod easily to Tillu.

'Good spoons!' he said by way of greeting, and Kerlew turned a pride-flushed face to his mother.

'They came while you were gone, to pay for your healing the arrow-shot man.' Kerlew's explanation limped along in his usual halting way. 'I've been showing him the spoons I made. He likes the goose one best.'

Kerlew waved the ladle at her as he spoke. This was his latest creation, with the long curving handle possessing two knots and a stub at the end that suggested a goose's eyes and bill at the end of its long neck.

'Tillu the healer,' Heckram said. 'Elsa my friend.'

Tillu nodded to the introduction, not moving. She had not expected him to return and pay her. Their village must be closer than she thought. She covered her confusion by unloading the game bag from her waist and hanging her bow and quiver from its hook.

'Lasse is better?' she asked as she turned back.

'Much better.' Heckram's teeth were very white in his wind-bronzed face.

'Good. Good.' Her profession came to the forefront, rescuing them both from awkwardness as she asked, 'New bandage? Swell, bleed, hot?'

'New bandage,' he assured her. 'Wound closed. Arm moves, little pain.'

'Good, good.' She bobbed her head like a courting duck.

'You sound like you're talking to a baby,' Kerlew said in disgust.

Heckram caught the gist of his words, for he laughed as he replied, 'Makes easy to understand.'

And you, don't be rude. It's better to be quiet and learn manners when you are young,' Tillu suggested firmly.

Kerlew hung his head and retreated. Heckram hid a grin at the familiar rebuke. Even if he had not been able to decipher most of Tillu's words, he would have known what she said. It was a rebuke he had often heard himself when a child. Tillu sensed that he shielded the boy from further scolding with a change of subject.

'Pay healing,' he said to Tillu. He gestured to a hide that had been rolled into a pack. Stooping, he unfastened the knots of sinew and unrolled it, revealing various smaller bundles within. Their wrappings were cloth of woven fiber, some dyed in bright colors. He tapped each as he spoke. 'Fish. Cheese. Reindeer.' He paused and looked up at her as if asking her to make her choice. Perhaps he wanted her to choose what she would take for the healing. She didn't hesitate. She and Kerlew both had a permanent craving for fat of any kind.

'Cheese.' She smiled as she copied his inflection, remembering his word for it from the last time he had been here.

'Cheese,' he agreed uncertainly, trying to understand why she had repeated it. Then he shrugged, rolled up the hide with its smaller packages, and offered it to her.

'All?' she asked, stunned by the size of the offering.

'For Lasse,' he explained.

'Too much,' she refused quickly.

He shrugged innocently at her words, but she was suddenly certain that he was pretending not to understand her. 'For Lasse,' he repeated slowly. 'You healed him. I pay.' He kept his eyes from hers as he set the bundle down on her pallet.

Tillu hesitated, but Kerlew's eyes were on her with mute appeal in them. 'Thank you,' she said stiffly, but Heckram grinned at the boy as if they shared a secret. All stood about silently for an awkward moment.

Then Elsa spoke. 'I come, trade?'

'Trade?' Tillu asked, puzzled. She had not expected the woman to speak. Was not this Heckram's woman? She glanced toward Heckram to see his reaction. She was accustomed to men handling all such negotiations. But Heckram seemed engrossed in some talk with Kerlew.

'Old hurt.' Elsa was not paying the least attention to her man. Tillu turned back to her words. 'Fall into river, hit rock. Long time ago.' The young woman put a hand to the small of her back, then to her shoulder, miming pain.

'Cold, wet day? Swell?' Tillu asked.

Elsa nodded quickly at each of Tillu's questions. Tillu pointed to her knuckles and wrist. 'Swell, hurt here, also?'

'No.' Again she touched the small of her back, and her shoulder. 'Only shoulder, only back. Fall down, long time ago.'

'Elsa work hard? Lift heavy loads?'

Elsa laughed ruefully. 'Yes. Elsa herdwoman. Hard work, heavy loads.'

Tillu nodded back. 'Tillu see?'

Elsa nodded and bent to draw her heavy skin tunic off over her head. She glanced once at Heckram and the boy, and then turned her back on them to pull off her undershirt of woven wool. Stepping to her side, Tillu ran a careful hand over the shoulder. There was no indication of an injury. She hesitated, then pressed gently and finally probed at the joint. A smooth layer of muscle coated the young woman's back. Lift heavy loads? Tillu didn't doubt it. Her diminutive size was belied by the musculature of her shoulders and back.

'Not hurt now,' she reminded Tillu as the healer manipulated the shoulder. 'Only cold wet days. Then ache, stiff.'

Tillu nodded, satisfied. This was a thing she had seen before, and often. Her mind was working swiftly. She had some herbs that would make a tea for that kind of pain. She had others that would work even better if they were blended with fat into a greasy ointment. But fat was something she didn't have.

She made a sign to them to wait and went to the back of the tent for her medicine box. Elsa pulled her shirt back on as Tillu mixed the herbs and placed them into a pouch of dried intestine. 'Mix a little of these with hot water and let them soak, oh, just until the leaves are soft. Then drink, but only one cup, no more. Too much can be bad.' Tillu suddenly realized that she was making no effort to make herself easily understood. She glanced up, but Elsa was nodding, seeming to understand the directions. 'You have bear grease? Wolf fat? Glutton fat?' she asked her.

Elsa nodded slowly, looking puzzled.

'You bring some. I make medicine to rub on. Better kind, help more. Put where it hurts only. Understand?'

'Next time,' Elsa suggested, and Tillu nodded. Next time. So there would be a next time, with people coming and going. Perhaps that was a good thing. Elsa seemed kind, and Heckram did not cuff Kerlew and push him aside. Perhaps it would work out, this limited contact.

'You take for medicine?' Elsa asked. She was offering a piece of carved horn, incised with figures painted red and black and blue. She didn't look to Heckram for permission before offering the trade. If a woman had behaved so in Benu's group, her man would have beaten her for her forwardness. But Heckram was not paying attention to them. Tillu took the horn slowly and turned it over in her hands.

'Open here. See?' Elsa took it back, to pull off the fitted cap. She spilled three bone needles into her hand. They were new and sharp, made by skilled hands. Tillu nodded in appreciation, and reached to touch one shyly. Elsa smiled. 'I make them, and case. My father, no sons. Teach me to carve instead. Now he says I am better than most men at carving. I makes knives, needles, arrowheads, harness rings. Mine are not just strong. Mine are pretty.'

Elsa recapped the carved needle case and offered it back to her. Tillu took it cautiously, to examine the carved and painted surface. The tiny decorations pleased her more than the new needles inside. After a moment, she remembered her guests.

'You stay, eat?' Tillu offered.