Kalik (12 page)

“They took some of our men to carry everything. Their backs were all scarred when they returned,” said Tepulka.

“The track from Lake Ka must come somewhere between here and the Cold Hills,” I said. “Kalik talked of a wide valley. I think I saw it west, over that way.”

“Remember those cliffs we saw through the trees, yesterday? Where Tepulka and Maka caught the ewe. There might be a place for a winter camp back there.

“We can search the Cold Hills, find the Iron People, trade with them, and be on our way as soon as winter’s over. Long before Kalik comes to trade with them.”

“What if they tell him about us?” said Tulu.

“Only a couple of us will go, so they won’t know about the rest. And we’ll say we’re from the east. They’ll have nothing to tell Kalik.”

“Do you know the place where we’re going?” asked Puli. She was so much better, she was thinking about the future. Both Puli, and Tama with his sheep.

“No, but I’ve got an idea,” I said.

“Tell us?”

“We’ll know it when we see it! It’ll seem just right for us. Away to the south there’s a warm piece of land between a lake and a river rushing by….” I repeated everything I had told them the night of our feast, after they had all gone to sleep.

“Why don’t we just keep going till we get there?” Kimi asked. And there was a chorus, “Yes!”

“Because, we can’t travel through winter with two babies.”

The Children understood our need for a winter camp but, over and over again, they wanted to hear more about our place.

“Of course there might not be a lake, or a river.”

“You said a lake and a river,” Chak grumbled. “You said, ‘…a river rushing by.'” The three other young children backed him up.

“And a pool,” said Kimi. “With a tree to swing from.”

“And a rope,” said Hurk. Tupu coughed, the first time that day.

“We'll know it when we see it.” I tried to sound confident. “Wherever it is!”

“We'll know it,” repeated Maka. The others looked at her.

“When we see it,” Tulu laughed.

“It's better than being slaves,” I said, then wished I hadn't. But the smaller children were already forgetting the Headland. Travelling, collecting food, and making camp each day kept us busy. Looking after the sheep. Mending clothes. And spinning while we walked, while we sat at night, while I told stories. Adding ball after ball of yarn to our store of yarn.

Tupu looked better each day. Sweating, coughing less, her fever disappearing. Her ribs no longer shone white through her skin. I tapped her chest, listened, and said, “You're getting fat, Tupu!”

Puli went nowhere without her spindle, her hands always busy. Everyone admired the strong even yarn she made. It gave her a sense of purpose, of feeling useful. Even more than that, as her skills became more obvious, so did her personality. Puli was not always easy to get on with. She was intelligent and didn't mind showing it.

Remembering all I could of the Shaman's care of pregnant women, I checked Kitimah and Sheenah. At first I had thought them sisters, but they were just close friends, and their common experience brought them closer together.

Our slow pace suited them, their leisurely conversation continuous like a half-heard stream. Sheenah especially had a keen eye for green-leaved plants, roots, and berries. Every few days they seemed to find us something new to eat. Once, as we made camp, they caught up, their hands full of seeds. “They're good to chew,” said Sheenah, handing them round.

“I know this! Where did you find it?” Sheenah led me back to a patch of long grass. “It's … it's called….” I couldn't remember the name.

We gathered the seedheads, threshed and winnowed them on a bare spot. In a hollow rock, we ground the seeds with a rounded stone. “It's called….” and my voice faded. “I've forgotten its name,” I said to Sheenah, “but we can bake a sort of bread with it.”

“Bread?”

“I'll show you.”

It took us a couple of days to grind enough. I made a dough, wetting the flour, mixing it, and remembering the first bread I ever tasted. When Taur made it from oats, he used potato water to make it rise. This bread wouldn't be as light. We didn't have any cooking pots, either, so I sprinkled the ball of dough with clean white ashes, raked away the fire, and covered it with embers.

When I brushed off the ashes and broke the hot loaf open, everyone crowded, sniffing, exclaiming.

Chak nibbled a bit of his crust. A bit more. Then some of the bread inside. Kimi still sat smelling her piece. “It's good,” said Hurk, as if unsure. The older ones were asking for more before the little ones had finished theirs.

It wasn't as good as Taur's bread, but they ate every crumb. The little ones had forgotten their first caution and now wanted
more. “You stay here and collect all the seeds you can. We'll make some more when I get back.”

“Where are you going?” asked Maka.

“I want to find Kalik's track to the Cold Hills. If it's further than a couple of day's travel, we'll be safe camping somewhere around here for winter. If it's closer, then we'll have to go back.”

“How long will you be away?”

“A few days. What's the matter?”

“Nothing.” Maka looked down.

“Their track will have grown over since last spring,” said Paku.

“Everyone follows the same line across country. Specially up a valley. There'll be signs: old campsites, fireplaces.”

Paku wanted to go with me. “I can manage on my own, “I told him, “but the others will need you if something goes wrong.” He looked at me quickly. “A good leader always makes sure there's someone to take over.” Paku thought and nodded.

Before I left, I made several simple frames, the way Hagar had shown me at the Hawk Cliffs. Looms big enough to stand at. And I showed the Children how to set them up, threading them. By the time I left, Maka and Tulu had woven the beginnings of two blankets. The sight of cloth growing at their fingertips delighted them. But the cleverest weaver was Puli, deft, quick. She was soon passing the shuttle back and forth, beating down the growing cloth. She reminded me of how quickly Taur had learned, how he invented patterns and improved on my plain weaving. I showed the little ones how the Travellers used to make small looms, ones we carried on the donkeys.

When I left to look for Kalik's track, Kitimah and Sheenah were looking for more seeds. Tama was helping Puli – in between keeping an eye on the sheep. Puli stood with her back to her loom.

“It's a secret,” she said and smiled her rare smile. Puli had a wide mouth, beautifully curved. For so long it had been turned down. Full of life now, she was a different person from the sad
child in the stockade.

“Go away, Ish,” she laughed. And the others chorused, “Yes, go away. Find Kalik's track.”

“You feed yourselves properly.”

“We can look after ourselves,” said Maka. And Tulu gave her laugh that made everyone join in.

Chak wouldn't look at me, and Tupu just stared. At the edge of the trees, I looked back. Puli stood hiding her loom still.

Out of sight, I ran – excited at being on my own – then dropped to a trot. That afternoon I came down into a broad valley with a stream running north-east – towards the lake. I found a campsite at once. Less than half a day from where I had left the Children….

Charred wood of old fires. Smoke stains up a cliff. Long tent poles stood out of the rain, for use again next summer. And shoved nearly out of sight, a metal cooking pot! I put it back. Kalik would know at once who had taken it, would guess we were alive.

Keeping out to one side, I followed what I guessed would be the line of their track north, as far as a column of rock. Closer, it turned into several drums of stone stacked on top of each other. And then I saw where the three-faced head had toppled and rolled. A Hekkat, the boundary of Lutha's People.

But why had its head been toppled? And why had it not been replaced, an earth ramp thrown up, the head rolled and mounted again? Kalik, of course. The trading party would have laughed and whispered the story around the Headland. Making things more difficult for Lutha.

At the base of its broken column were bones. I looked at the faces of Hekkat and shivered at the thought of Kalik's casual murdering.

I climbed the ridge to the west next day, and dropped into a stream running south-east down a narrow valley. I kept on against the lay of the land. It would make it harder for anyone to follow us.

The third night, I slept on another ridge. In the first light next morning, I stood on a bluff and upon the air below saw three black swans unwind the valley, flying south. I couldn't help singing as I climbed down and found a wild river rushing south. Even at its widest, the water was too deep and fast for most of the Children.

“If you dive in below those rapids and swim hard enough, the current will carry you across,” I said aloud. “You'd have a bit of a climb getting up that cliff the other side.” I tried the depth by the bank, but my spear was nearly swept away. Stronger current than I thought. Still I could get across.

I was filled with the pleasure of being on my own. In three days, I had gone further than the Children could go in about ten. Suddenly, I saw their faces. Chak, Kimi. I thought of my long journey from the North Land. The loneliness until I'd found Taur. The worse loneliness after his death. I was responsible for the Children. Paku would become a leader, but he was still too young now.

“If you got drowned, they'd think you'd abandoned them.” I listened to my voice and didn't like what it said.

“There's no way we could cross here,” I said loudly. Even if we found a crossing, we would probably need a raft, and for that we needed an axe. And long ropes.

Picking my way back east through a tangle of ridges, I made a mistake, and had to climb a high spot before dropping down to the valley with Kalik's track. Looking for the best way, I climbed a clear knob for a view and saw pale shapes, what must be the Cold Hills, snow lying along distant crests. And, shrugged among lower gullies, a dark cloud.

I watched the dark cloud a long time, thinking. At last I imagined I heard the Children's voices calling, as if pulling me back. I plunged down a spur. It was only when I smashed into a fallen tree and a broken branch stabbed into my leg that I slowed.

I made the wound bleed, squeezed out splinters, hobbled
down to a creek, and washed it, found herbs to clean it. Now I wanted to be back with the Children, I could only make slow time. Worse, it was my lame leg.

I re-crossed Kalik's trading track where it went under some trees. And there I picked up a knife, the wooden handle in good condition though it had lain all summer. I backed away, looking to see I left no sign, climbed the side of the valley, and crawled under the scrub like pulling a blanket over myself. I propped up my leg, and kept a lookout for a long time, then climbed back over the ridge.

Two days later, I limped out of the trees. Chak saw me and screamed. He ran, Kimi after him. They cried and held my hands. For the rest of that day, the little ones wouldn't let me out of sight.

“I told you I was coming back,” I said, but Tama wouldn't look at me. Tupu's face was white. Her cough had returned. I knew I would hear cries, whimpers during the night.

“We're too close to Kalik's track. About a day's walk. So we can't stay here for winter.” I told the Children of the wild river to the west, how I hoped it might lead to a southern lake. As I talked, I drew a map in the dirt.

“If anything happens to me, you can make your own way to the river. Paku will know how to get you there. It's going to be tricky, getting across.” I gave Paku the knife I had picked up.

“Is something going to happen to you, Ish?” asked Chak.

“Just in case I have an accident. You've seen the map. You all know which way to go now.”

Chak flung himself at me, crying. I hugged him close and felt guilty. What if I had swum the river? Would I have come back? I saw unease in Maka's eyes.

That night I told them their stories: the Five Friends, the Showman and the Blazed Track. And the little ones clustered, touching me and each other. Their lips forming the words as I spoke.

While I was away, Paku and Tulu had gone back and
searched the cliffs we had passed earlier.

“No water handy,” Paku said. “No good for firewood. Cold, and too open. There's no cave or leaning rock. We'd have trouble building shelters. And there's no grazing.”

“Good! You've saved us time going back,” I said. We talked about other places further back still, but nobody wanted to return towards the tunnel.

Then Puli burst out, as if she could hold it in no longer. “We've got a surprise for you!”

Tulu laughed. So gay, her laugh! And we all laughed with her. We could not help it.

“Look!” said Puli. Tulu's blanket was finished. She had tied it off, set up the warps on her big loom, and begun on another.

“I forgot about your weaving,” I said. “I meant to ask….”

“We worked all day while you were away,” said Maka. “We made Paku and Tepulka help, too.”

“We made them work all night!” Tulu shrieked. She danced, excited. “They're not as fast as us, but we got one blanket finished.” I had to laugh with her. Everybody pressed around as I wrapped the blanket around myself. I felt the warmth, smelled the oily wool. The little ones all had to have a turn wrapping themselves and sniffing. And then I remembered Puli.

“What about your surprise?” She looked at me with her wide smile. Tama stood behind her, impassive as usual. Between them they held up a length of woven cloth. Patterned with different-coloured wools. Puli had Taur's eye for design. When we had the chance, I would teach her how to dye wool, to get many more colours.

“You have a gift,” I said. Suddenly I knew what we were going to do. As if the patterns of Puli's weaving had formed a shape in my mind, a plan.

“What's wrong?” Maka asked.

“Puli's given me an idea. Paku says there's nowhere to camp at the cliffs. We're too close to Kalik's track. We don't want to go further back.” I could see it now, both subtle and clear. I
looked again at Puli's woven piece. At Tulu's finished blanket. At Maka's, half-completed. The smaller pieces on the little looms I praised, held them to my face and sniffed.

“Your weaving's given me a better idea.” I thought of the black cloud in the Cold Hills to the south-east, its dark bruise on the straw-coloured skin of the land below the snow crests.

“Let's finish all the weaving you've begun. It won't take long with everyone helping. I'll tell you my idea and we'll see