in, gray and glistening.
My eyesight started to go. I caught it when it was reduced to pinpoints of light and forced them open by sheer force of will and a lifetimeâs experience of blackouts; when youâve lived through the same nightmare a score of times you learn to recognize it and exercise some control over it. My elbows wanted to buckle, I wobbled. The wave passed on through the other side of my skull. I remained motionless on my hands and knees until I was sure it was all out. Then I shoved myself upright and let the momentum carry me off my knees and onto my feet. I did this all in one movement, like ripping off a bandage. Getting the worst part out of the way all at once.
The worst was worse than I thought. The wave reversed itself in a towering curl, blocking out the light. I grabbed for the tent pole with both hands, felt the coarse bark, and tightened my grip, imprinting the whorls and ridges on my palms. The inside of the curl was lined with hot orange pain. It was like getting shot all over again. I increased my grip on the pole, tried to crush the straight pine, to make my hands hurt worse than what was going on around the middle of my body. The wave crested, hung frozen for a week, then ducked its head and went on over. I hung on to the pole and rode it out. The burning slid down from my trunk to my pelvis and down my legs and out the ends of my toes. I stood shaking in the aftermath.
When I thought I could support myself I took one hand away, then the other. Some of the bark came off with them. My fingernails were bleeding. They throbbed when I fumbled the bone buttons of my shirt through the eyelets. One side of my body, the side opposite the fire burning outside the tent, was cold. I looked down at the bearskin, lying at my feet, as far away as Helena. I didnât dare bend down and try to pick it up. I didnât have enough left to make that trip all over again.
I pulled aside the flap and stepped outside, hugging myself
to keep the heat in. The sky was clear of clouds, allowing outer space to come clear to the ground, black as a bottomless well and studded with stars like ice crystals. The air was searingly cold; breathing it in was like plunging chest deep into an icy creek. A fresh fall of snow, over now, covered the raw broken edges of the ruined settlement and gentled the steep slope to the river, chuckling away between the jagged wafers of ice that lined its banks. The place looked as it might have before civilization had stretched out its left arm and closed its fingers around it.
Hope Weathersill sat cross-legged in the snow twenty feet from the tent, on the far edge of the firelight. Her back was turned my way, but she must have heard me, because the snow squeaked like sprung planks beneath my boots. She didnât turn around or stir as I approached the fire. It had begun to burn down. I spotted a pile of limbs nearby, powdered with snow. I went over, bent my knees to keep from stooping, slid one off the pile, shook off the snow, and dragged it over to the fire, where I dropped the end into the flames. Breaking it up would have damaged me worse than the limb. I saw the other end had been chopped with an axe or a tomahawk; either the pile was left over from Vivianâs last visit or the Indians were helping out.
A spluttering snort drew my attention to the horses. The sorrel mustang and the woolly gray were standing a hundred feet closer to the tent than the spot where I had hitched them. I walked that way. They were hobbled with braided rawhide thongs and someone had unsaddled them and unfolded their saddle blankets and spread them over their backs for warmth. I found the saddles themselves close by, stacked and covered with the canvas wrap from my bedroll, sifted over with snow. The bag of oats was there as well and I fed two handfuls apiece to the horses, who accepted them greedily as if they hadnât eaten in days. But whoever had relieved them of their burdens
My eyesight started to go. I caught it when it was reduced to pinpoints of light and forced them open by sheer force of will and a lifetimeâs experience of blackouts; when youâve lived through the same nightmare a score of times you learn to recognize it and exercise some control over it. My elbows wanted to buckle, I wobbled. The wave passed on through the other side of my skull. I remained motionless on my hands and knees until I was sure it was all out. Then I shoved myself upright and let the momentum carry me off my knees and onto my feet. I did this all in one movement, like ripping off a bandage. Getting the worst part out of the way all at once.
The worst was worse than I thought. The wave reversed itself in a towering curl, blocking out the light. I grabbed for the tent pole with both hands, felt the coarse bark, and tightened my grip, imprinting the whorls and ridges on my palms. The inside of the curl was lined with hot orange pain. It was like getting shot all over again. I increased my grip on the pole, tried to crush the straight pine, to make my hands hurt worse than what was going on around the middle of my body. The wave crested, hung frozen for a week, then ducked its head and went on over. I hung on to the pole and rode it out. The burning slid down from my trunk to my pelvis and down my legs and out the ends of my toes. I stood shaking in the aftermath.
When I thought I could support myself I took one hand away, then the other. Some of the bark came off with them. My fingernails were bleeding. They throbbed when I fumbled the bone buttons of my shirt through the eyelets. One side of my body, the side opposite the fire burning outside the tent, was cold. I looked down at the bearskin, lying at my feet, as far away as Helena. I didnât dare bend down and try to pick it up. I didnât have enough left to make that trip all over again.
I pulled aside the flap and stepped outside, hugging myself
to keep the heat in. The sky was clear of clouds, allowing outer space to come clear to the ground, black as a bottomless well and studded with stars like ice crystals. The air was searingly cold; breathing it in was like plunging chest deep into an icy creek. A fresh fall of snow, over now, covered the raw broken edges of the ruined settlement and gentled the steep slope to the river, chuckling away between the jagged wafers of ice that lined its banks. The place looked as it might have before civilization had stretched out its left arm and closed its fingers around it.
Hope Weathersill sat cross-legged in the snow twenty feet from the tent, on the far edge of the firelight. Her back was turned my way, but she must have heard me, because the snow squeaked like sprung planks beneath my boots. She didnât turn around or stir as I approached the fire. It had begun to burn down. I spotted a pile of limbs nearby, powdered with snow. I went over, bent my knees to keep from stooping, slid one off the pile, shook off the snow, and dragged it over to the fire, where I dropped the end into the flames. Breaking it up would have damaged me worse than the limb. I saw the other end had been chopped with an axe or a tomahawk; either the pile was left over from Vivianâs last visit or the Indians were helping out.
A spluttering snort drew my attention to the horses. The sorrel mustang and the woolly gray were standing a hundred feet closer to the tent than the spot where I had hitched them. I walked that way. They were hobbled with braided rawhide thongs and someone had unsaddled them and unfolded their saddle blankets and spread them over their backs for warmth. I found the saddles themselves close by, stacked and covered with the canvas wrap from my bedroll, sifted over with snow. The bag of oats was there as well and I fed two handfuls apiece to the horses, who accepted them greedily as if they hadnât eaten in days. But whoever had relieved them of their burdens
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