The Reindeer People (12 page)

Heckram shook his head as he rose from where he and Kerlew had been conferring. 'Dark nearly here. Hurry back to talvsit. You come talvsit, sometime? People welcome healer, much work for healer. You come, sometime?'

'Sometime, maybe,' Tillu agreed slowly as Kerlew bounced in excitement at the prospect. She followed them to the door of the tent, watching in consternation as they strapped the long flat pieces of wood to their feet and took up their staves.

'Skis,' Heckram explained, smiling at her confusion. 'Go over snow fast, not sink. You, skis?'

Tillu shook her head, eyes wide.

Heckram grinned at her. 'You come talvsit, I teach you. Teach Kerlew, too. Good way to hunt, on skis. Go fast, quiet. You come to talvsit, visit, learn skis. Maybe tell about your people, your lands?'

The request and offer took Tillu by surprise and she found herself flushing in confusion. Heckram smiled down at her and nodded assurance at Kerlew, who was capering with excitement.

Elsa settled her hat firmly on her head and glanced at Heckram with annoyance. 'Time to go,' she suggested, a trace of irritation in her voice.

'I'm glad you came,' Tillu said awkwardly, wondering if she had somehow offended the woman. But Elsa's smile seemed warm as she promised, 'Next time, bear grease.' With a wave of her hand she pushed off, sliding her feet in long steps as she coasted over the top of the snow. Tillu marveled at this strange method of traveling. There was no denying it was swift. Already Elsa had reached the base of the trees and was starting easily up the hill. Tillu expected her to have to struggle to ascend, but Elsa leaned into the walk. It looked so easy.

'You come talvsit, soon,' Heckram suggested as he pushed off to follow the woman. His leg muscles worked and the skis carried him forward effortlessly. Tillu watched him go. With his longer stride he would catch up with Elsa easily. She must have known that, for she showed no sign of waiting for him. Still, it was strange to hear a woman announce it was time to go, and stranger still to see a man follow her. Kerlew peered from the tent flap after them.

'Skis,' Tillu told him, pointing after them. 'Would you like to do that?'

'Someday I will. See my knife?' He held up a bone knife in a sheath of woven fiber. As Tillu reached for it, he pulled it close to him. He drew the blade from the sheath and flourished it dangerously near his own face, not letting her touch it.

'Where did you get that? Did the man forget it?' she asked, hoping Kerlew had not somehow stolen it.

'He didn't forget it. He wanted the goose spoon, so we traded.' Kerlew spun away from her touch, eluding her. 'Now I am a man indeed!'

'A knife does not make a man!' Tillu scoffed. 'Let me see it.'

'Look, but do not touch,' Kerlew told her with tolerant pride. 'Carp told me to never let a woman touch my own tools. A shaman can hide his strength in his tools. I put good luck in the goose spoon for Heckram.'

'Carp!' Tillu snorted, but put her hands down.

He held the blade steady for her inspection. It was a fine piece of work, with the handle wrapped in a leather thong to keep the grip from slipping. Away from the cutting edge, decorative lines had been etched shallowly into the blade and stained black. It was worth far more than a crudely carved spoon and Tillu chewed at her lip, pondering. What made Heckram treat Kerlew so kindly and pay her so generously for the simple healing of Lasse? She could not understand it. It made her uneasy. 'I shall find a way to make it even with them, when next they come,' she promised herself softly.

'She will not come again.' Kerlew spoke in a voice that was next to a whisper, but deeper. He stood suddenly still, staring up the hillside. The point of his new knife touched the base of his throat.

The two skiers had appeared on a bare shoulder of the hillside, limned against the darkening sky. Colors had fled from the earth, taking refuge in the sky on the horizon. Branches and trunks of trees had turned black against the pale snow. The people on the crest of the hill were no more than dark shapes against the violet streak on the horizon.

'She has to come back, to bring the bear grease so I can make the ointment for her shoulder,' Tillu pointed out. 'Move out of the way and let me back in the tent. It's getting cold out here.'

'She will not come back, for he is going to kill her. Even now the blackness swallows her down, and she is gone.'

A chill not from cold racked Tillu's body. Kerlew stood in the entrance of the tent, the knife held before him like a finger pointing at the far figures at the top of the hill. His eyes were full of the setting sun and the violet light made his face look like a corpse's. Tillu could not keep herself from following his gaze. The woman's form went over the crest of the hill, appearing to sink into blackness. The sunset splashed the surrounding snow with spreading pink and shadowed purples. As Tillu watched, the figure of the man plunged after her. A chill wind rattled branches, dropping plops of snow like irregular footsteps. She started at the sound. When she glanced back to Kerlew, he smiled up at her ingenuously.

'Let's eat all that food tonight!' he suggested happily and vanished into the tent, his treasured knife waving in his clutched fist. * * * 'Wait!' Heckram called. Elsa had cut across the smooth face of the snow on the downside of the hill and was nearly out of sight in a thicket of willow. He gave a final glance at the lonely tent with the woman and boy standing before it, then pushed off to follow her. She was right to hurry, with the sun setting and the light changing, but he suspected she was feeling playful as well. They had always competed as children, on foot, on their skis, or in their pulkors as they raced over the snow in winter, shouting wild encouragement to the bounding harkar that pulled them. As a youth, Heckram had strained to stretch his wolf hides tighter as they dried, so they might appear larger than those of his slender young neighbor. In summer they had compared strings of fish and each measured their new calves against the other's to see whose reindeer prospered most. Elsa was a strong herdfolk woman, competent and independent. But he had enjoyed her challenges more when they were younger.

'Wait,' he called again, and she gave in, sinking her poles at the sides of her skis as she paused.

A sting of evening wind kissed Heckram's cheeks as he caught up with her. The same wind, and effort, had reddened Elsa's cheeks. Some of her thick hair had escaped from her bright cap. She shook her hands free of their mittens and tucked it back in. She had dark, liquid eyes that flashed like those of a proud little vaja. She pulled her fingers from her cap, but her hair snagged on them and spilled out worse than ever. Heckram grinned as she ruthlessly stuffed it back.

'Why not just let it hang out?' he asked as she struggled with it.

And spend all evening picking the snarls out of it? No, thank you. Why didn't you tell me about the boy?'

'I did. I'm sure I did. I told you the healer had a son.'

'That's not what I mean. Why didn't you tell me how strange he was? Lasse said something about it, but when you said he had imagined it, I believed you. But when we first went in there, before his mother came ... brrr. It was all I could do to keep from turning around and leaving. The way he looked at us!'

'He's just a boy,' Heckram snorted, feeling more annoyed than her remarks merited. 'Lonely, probably, and a bit hungry all the time.'

Elsa dropped her hands from her hat and began pulling her mittens back on. 'You actually believe that, don't you? I guess you haven't been around children that much. That boy is ... well, he isn't like other children. Look how he behaved when we first got there.'

'I don't know what you mean.'

Elsa shook her head at him. Taking a firm grip on her poles, she pushed off, Heckram following behind her and slightly to one side. 'When traders from the south come to the talvsit, what do the children do?' The rhythm of her words matched the rhythm of her pumping arms as she chose their trail through the woods.

'They rush out, chattering like magpies, making the dogs bark and pester them with a thousand questions,' Heckram replied grumpily. He felt as if she were lecturing him and he didn't enjoy it.

'That's right. But what did that boy do when strangers came? He didn't even come out of the tent, although he must have heard us talking outside. Not until you shouted to ask if anyone was home. Then he came silently to the tent flap and let us in, and sat down by the fire and invited us to sit, as if we had come all that way just to see him. He didn't run to find his mother, or call for her, or even mention her until you asked where she was. And the way he showed those spoons he had carved, as if they were some kind of treasure. You know that spoon you took wasn't worth the knife you gave him. I wonder that his mother allowed it.'

'I doubt that she even knows of it yet. It was just between Kerlew and me. And it wasn't the spoons he was showing me, so much as that he had learned from what I showed him last time. As to his manners ... Elsa, they aren't herdfolk. They're bound to have different customs. Perhaps among his people it is unseemly for children to be noisy. And I suppose, living alone as they do, he has learned to behave older than his years.'

'That's not it at all.' Now her voice was mirroring his annoyance. 'That boy is not right. He's ... well, not a half-wit, but only a step from it. Listen to how he talks!'

'He doesn't speak our language!' Heckram put in irritably.

'Even when he speaks to his mother in their own language, he sounds like he doesn't speak the language! Why are you getting so upset? You act as if I were criticizing Lasse or your mother! He's just the healer's boy.'

'Because I ... I don't know. Because, maybe, he is a bit different. As I was a bit different, with no father to teach me a man's skills. My mother hunted and herded and fished and wove, and I worked alongside her where I could. But there was always that secret worry for me: What if something happened to her? And always the knowledge that our life was different from those around us, in ways they could never understand.'

Elsa had gradually slowed, as Heckram's words and pace had picked up. She was alongside him now, staring curiously at him. He clenched his jaws tight against any more words, feeling embarrassed that he had said so much. And angry. Angry at the past for the way it had been. He could not go back and change how it had been for himself. The most he could do was change how it was for Kerlew now. He glanced across at Elsa.

'There's no talking to you, is there?' she observed. 'A person can't say a word to you without your taking it personally. Is everyone supposed to tiptoe around your feelings? I'm the one who should be hurt. That knife you so casually traded for a crooked spoon is the one I made for you. Remember? At the last herd sorting, I borrowed one of yours to mark a calf after mine broke. And then I broke yours, too. So I had to make two new knives, and I gave the best one to you. But look at me. Am I carrying on about it as if I am insulted because you traded it away? No. But I make one little comment, and you are mortally offended. Over such a silly thing. And Heckram, you were nothing like that boy, and you know it. As well as I know it. I was around when you were a boy, remember? And you were never as strange as that Kerlew. But if you want to carry on about someone else's child, it's your business. I won't stop you. All I was trying to say is that he's not normal. But you'll find that out for yourself soon enough. I don't know how Lasse can bear to hunt with you. Everything has to be so grim with you!'

He let her talk on, hunching his shoulders to her words. He felt shamed that he had traded away her gift knife without even remembering it. She did have a right to feel insulted. But he would rather that she be insulted than that she scold him like a thoughtless child. He should never have told her he was going to see the healer. But, as the old tale went, in trying to please everyone he had pleased no one. He was sure his mother would soon hear about how unsociable he had been.

He glanced across at the girl. Her cheeks and nose were flushed with more than cold. He supposed he had offended her, and she was only saying he hadn't to save his feelings. But that was even worse. With an effort, he changed the subject and asked, 'How is that calf doing? The orphaned one you were hand-feeding?'

'It died,' she said coldly. 'Nearly a month ago. As I'm sure I mentioned to you at the time.'

'That's right,' he hastily amended. 'So you did. Well. That shows you how well my mind is working lately. I've had so much to think on, I can't seem to keep my thoughts together. Even Lasse scolds me about it. I just -'

Elsa abruptly jammed her poles into the snow, halting herself. With an effort, Heckram checked his own skis and looked back at her. He was astonished. She was crying.

'I'm sorry I forgot about the calf,' he said, feeling ashamed of his thoughtlessness and baffled by her response to it. Had one calf become so important in her life?

'You are an idiot. You and that boy make a fine pair. I really do believe you don't know anything of what goes on with the people of the herd. All you think of is the reindeer and hunting, and dragging animals back to cut your mark in their ears. Did you know Joboam has said that he will marry me?'

After a moment, Heckram shut his jaw with a snap. His head reeled with contradictory thoughts. 'He's a very wealthy man,' he observed, addressing his remarks to a nearby pine tree.

'Yes. And he smells like an ungutted carcass and has the manners of a wolverine, and I wouldn't have him near me if he were the son of the herdlord. Which he seems to think he is, even if Capiam has a son of his own who will inherit that position. But he comes around, and comes around, and comes around, following me about like a dog follows a bitch in heat. And he gives my mother and father gifts they cannot refuse for fear of offending him, gifts of things I know they need, but I cannot supply for them. Things I cannot hope to pay back for. He sits by our arran late into the evening, and if I go outside into the night to be alone, he follows me. If I say I am going to visit, he says he will go with me. He will not let me avoid him. Even when I say I will not hunt with him because I prefer to hunt alone, he follows me at a distance. I know he does, even if my father thinks I am silly. He has already told Capiam that I am going to marry him in the spring by the Cataclysm. I heard from Marta that Capiam was pleased and said that there would be a fine celebration, with many gifts for us. I feel like I am being swept down a river current, with nothing to grasp at.'