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search of dry fuel.
The arrow on the sign pointed to the right, downstream.
David thought: There may be hikers!
He stepped from the tree shadows, stopped in confusion at a great flapping of wings and bird cries
overhead. A flock of ravens had leaped into the sky at sight of him, filling the air with their uproar.
David stared up at them, terrified.
Ravens! Hundreds of them!
They darkened the sky, wheeling and calling.
As though the birds had summoned him, Katsuk emerged from the trees across the meadow on the far
side of the river. He stood a moment beside a great spruce, his headband dull red, a black feather in the
back. He came straight then toward the river, one arm brushing aside silken green leaves at the bank.
He stopped only when he was thigh deep in the water. The river around him ran milky with snowmelt.
David stared at Katsuk, unable to move.
The ravens continued to wheel and call.
Katsuk waited in the water, holding his bow and arrow high, staring up at the birds.
Why is he waiting?David wondered.
At the river's near shore, David saw the silvery white of raindrops on reeds, then gray rocks, then the
river, and Katsuk standing in the water like an animal startled into stillness, undecided which way to turn,
waiting.
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Why!
The ravens whirled out over the trees beyond the meadow, went away with diminishing noise, grew
abruptly silent. They had settled down.
As the birds fell silent, Katsuk plunged into motion, crossed the river, climbed dripping into the
meadow. He came straight on to where David stood, walking with slow, deliberate steps. The strung
bow was carried in his left hand, a single arrow clutched to it with two fingers. He wore the obsidian
knife in a loop of his rope belt near the pouch. His loincloth was stained with brown earth. Water ran
from it down his legs.
Katsuk stopped a pace from David, stood staring into the boy's face.
David trembled, not knowing what to do or say. He knew he could not outrun Katsuk. And there was
that bow with an arrow ready for it.
"Raven told me where you would be," Katsuk said. "I came straight here after I had made my arrow.
You followed the river as Raven told me. That is the long way here."
David's teeth chattered with cold and fear. There was an oddly deliberate pacing to Katsuk's words.
Katsuk held up the bow and the arrow. "You see -- they are finished." He nodded. "But I did not feel
it when you lured me to that arrow tree. I thought the arrow wood was a gift and took it. I thanked
Cedar. But you tricked me. It was a trick."
Katsuk coughed, deep and racking. When the spasm passed, he stood trembling. The skin of his jaws
and cheeks was pale.
What's wrong with him?David wondered.
"You have put the Cedar sickness upon me," Katsuk said. "You and Tskanay."
David thought: He really is sick.
Katsuk said: "I am cold. We must find a place to be warm. Cedar takes the heat of my body and
sends it to the sky."
David shook his head, tried to still the chattering of his teeth. Katsuk had been waiting here at the
meadow with his birds. But he sounded so . . . strange. The sickness had changed him.
"Take this sickness from me," Katsuk said.
David bit his lip, seeking pain to help stop the chattering of his teeth. He pointed to the sign. "There's a
shelter. We could. . . ."
"No! We cannot go that way. People come." Katsuk peered at the spruce copse from which David
had emerged. "There is a place . . . in there."
"I've just come that way," David said. "There's no --"
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"There is a place," Katsuk said. "Come."
Walking with that odd, stiff-legged stride, Katsuk stepped past the boy, moved into the trees. David
followed, feeling that he had moved into Katsuk's delirium.
Again, Katsuk coughed, deep and racking.
At the logjam where David had rested, Katsuk paused. He studied the water hurtling against the logs:
dark, blue-gray river crossed by smoky driftwood. Yes, this was the place.
He stepped up onto the jam, crossed the river, jumping from log to log. David followed.
On the far shore, David saw what he had missed earlier: an abandoned park shelter, part of its roof
caved in. The logs and shakes were mottled with moss and lichen. Katsuk entered the shelter. David
heard him digging in there. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]