The Horsemasters (22 page)

I don’t care what Mother says, Morna thought defiantly. If I want to go to summer camp, then I will. Her spirits soared. She turned back into her hut and began to put together her hunting things.

* * * *

The sun was shining brightly when Nel awoke that afternoon. She sat up and saw that Ronan’s sleeping skins were empty. There was a roasted hare impaled on a stick over the doused ashes of a cookfire. He had been busy while she slept.

At that moment Nigak cantered around the bend in the river. His ears pricked as soon as he saw Nel; he raced up to her and enthusiastically began to lick her face.

Ronan’s voice said, “I was going to wake you if you were still asleep.” Nel raised her head and her heart caught as she saw him following Nigak up from the shore. The ends of his hair were dripping from his wash in the river, and for some reason, the familiar sight brought tears to Nel’s eyes. She looked away so he would not see.

“It’s growing late,” she heard him saying.

“I was tired,” Nel murmured apologetically. She sniffed the fragrance from the cooked hare. “The food smells wonderful. I’m starved.”

“You have time to wash first,” he said austerely.

Nel’s head snapped up. “I am not a little girl any longer, Ronan,” she informed him. “It is not necessary for you to tell me when I should wash.”

“That is nice to hear,” he said. He began to remove the hare from the roasting stick. He looked up at her and raised his eyebrows. “It won’t take you long.”

Nel almost refused. Then she thought that a refusal would only convince him that she was indeed still a child, so she rose with dignity and went down to the river.

Nel’s thoughts were in a tumble of confusion; everything had happened so fast, from the time Ronan first showed himself until the time she had left the tribe with him, that she had had no chance to sort her feelings out. At first, she had assumed he had come for her in order to carry her away and marry her, a scenario Nel had dreamed about for years. Then he had said that he wanted her to help him tame the horses.

It had almost sounded as if that was all he wanted her for, she thought, as she picked her way over the stones at the river’s edge. And he was still treating her as if she were a child…sending her to wash her face and hands! The other men of the Red Deer had certainly noticed that she was no longer a child.

She plunged her hands into the water and bent to splash some on her face. Ronan had noticed the change in her too, she remembered.

“I am still the same inside,” she had assured him. But it wasn’t true.

A dreadful fear smote Nel. Perhaps he was already married, Dhu, if that were so, then what would she do?

“Nel!” He even sounded as if he were calling a naughty child, Nel thought rebelliously.

“I’m coming,” she called back, and waded out of the shallows.

* * * *

As soon as Nel had gone down to the river, Ronan began to cut up the roasted hare. Whistling between his teeth, he speared the tenderest pieces onto another stick for Nel. He waited, and when she seemed to be making no motion toward returning, he called for her. Without waiting any longer, he began to eat his own portion hungrily.

He chewed slowly as he watched her coming back across the rocky shore to the sheltered place beneath the trees where they had pitched their camp. The afternoon sun played on her soft brown hair. He was finding it increasingly difficult to match this slim and beautiful girl to the skinny child with legs like a newborn foal that had lived all these years in his memory.

He intended to marry her. It was why he had never looked to take a wife from the women who had joined the Tribe of the Wolf. He had always known that one day he would go back for Nel and marry her.

But now that he was with her again, he didn’t know how to proceed. Any other Red Deer girl who chose to make this kind of a journey with him would expect to share his sleeping skins. But Nel had always regarded him as her big brother. He might frighten her if he tried to present himself as a lover. He did not want to frighten Nel.

He must give her time, he decided. He must accustom her slowly to the idea of marrying him. The very way she had instantly agreed to come with him demonstrated her innocence. She had never once questioned his intentions, had assumed that all would be between them as it always had been.

He would have to restrain himself, he thought firmly. He would have to give her time.

Nel arrived back at the fire, cast him a reproachful look, accepted her food in dignified silence, and sat down to eat. When she had finished the hare she slipped off one of her moccasins, flexed her foot, and bent forward to rub her instep.

“Are you hurt?” Ronan asked.

“Not really, I stepped on a rock last night and bruised my foot a little, that’s all. I shall be fine.”

“Let me see.” He came to kneel in front of her and she relinquished her foot into his hand.

Her slim, high-arched foot was the color of ivory, clean and cold from standing barefoot in the river. Ronan looked down at the straight toes and healthy pale pink nails. “There,” Nel said, pointing to a bluish mark at the highest point of her instep arch.

“I see,” he said.

His hand looked very dark against her pale delicate skin. Her head was so close to his that he could smell the fresh scent of her hair. He held her foot almost gingerly and looked up into her eyes. She had very long black eyelashes. He had never before noticed how odd it was that her lashes should be so dark when her hair was so light. She looked back at him and said reproachfully, “My poor feet are freezing. That river water is like ice.”

He dropped her foot as if it was burning him. “I know.” His voice sounded thick and he cleared his throat. He backed away from her. “I don’t think that bruise will hinder your walking.”

“I told you it wouldn’t,” she said impatiently. She threw her empty stick into the trees. “I am ready to leave if you are.”

He jumped to his feet. “Pack up your things and we’ll go,” he replied, and went to collect his own.

They were following the same route Ronan had followed over three years before when he had been expelled from the Tribe of the Red Deer: south along the Greatfish, east along the Narrow River, through the Buffalo Pass, and into the hunting grounds of the Tribe of the Buffalo. Then they would go south along the Atata, following it all the way up the Altas and across to the other side. If the weather held, and they made good time, the whole journey should take them seven days.

“We will have to detour around summer camp,” Ronan said, and Nel nodded in agreement.

Ronan left the river track as soon as they turned eastward, choosing instead a series of deer tracks that ran through the thickly forested hills. The afternoon was quiet, but hidden within the protective pine and birch of the forest lurked a plenitude of wild animals, and Ronan’s eyes were wary, his large spear grasped firmly in his left hand as he kept a constant lookout for possible danger.

He caught glimpses of deer as they flitted through the forest, the merest tremors of movement at the edge of his vision. Halfway through the afternoon he saw the unmistakable tracks of a bear, and his vigilance increased. But Nigak gave no sign that he scented a bear close by, and the tracks soon disappeared. The afternoon had advanced considerably when Ronan spotted a magnificent red deer stag, with splendid spiraling antlers, lying on a moss-covered rock halfway up the hill to their left.

“Look,” Ronan said softly over his shoulder to Nel. The deer blended into rock and hill so well that it was not easy to distinguish.

“He has picked a perfect lookout place,” Nel said, and Ronan could tell from her voice that she was smiling.

They had been walking for perhaps five hours when Ronan heard the grunting sound of animals foraging nearby among the trees. He halted and turned to Nel, scanning her face for signs of weariness. “Boar,” he said, “Are you ready to stop for the night? Shall I get us one for supper?”

She put down her spear and shifted her backpack. “Are we near the cave you told me of?”

“It is yet another two hours ahead.”

“I can go for another two hours,” Nel said.

“Are you sure?” He had felt guilty when he had seen her exhaustion at their first stopping place. “We are safely ahead of a messenger, if there is one.”

“I am sure,” Nel said firmly, and motioned him onward.

An hour later, Ronan saw the leopard spoor. Leopard and bear were what he had principally watched out for all afternoon, as leopards were known to inhabit the territory around the Red Deer summer camp. The tribe had lost more than one man to leopard in Ronan’s lifetime. Ronan stopped, bent, and looked closely at the droppings on the track. They were warm.

Nel came up beside him. Ronan looked up. “Leopard,” he said.

Instinctively, Nel looked up into the trees.

Ronan shook his head. “It is going along the track.” He looked at his spear as if to check it. “We had better proceed carefully.” He whistled for Nigak, but there was no response. They walked on.

It was five minutes before they came upon the leopard, crouched in the undergrowth to the right of the track, watching a single young antelope as it grazed in a small forest glade beyond. Ronan and Nel halted, stood in perfect silence, and watched.

The leopard was lying very low to the ground, almost upon its belly. Its lowness and its spotted hide made it virtually invisible to the antelope, which was grazing peacefully. As Ronan and Nel watched, the leopard got to its feet and began to creep slowly forward. Suddenly the antelope looked up. The leopard froze, one paw still suspended. The antelope looked all around the glade, its gaze passing right over the leopard, then once again it lowered its head to graze. The leopard waited, then slowly it crept forward again.

Once more, the antelope looked up. Once more the leopard froze. This time, however, Ronan was sure that the antelope had spotted the predator, for it stared directly at it. The leopard never moved. The antelope continued to stare. Slowly, half-inch by half-inch, the leopard lowered its body toward the ground. Still the antelope looked. The leopard sank downward until its body was flat against the ground. The antelope began to graze once more.

After a short time, the leopard slowly began to creep forward again.

For ten minutes Ronan and Nel stood in fascinated silence and watched the scene being enacted by the leopard and the antelope. Again and again the antelope would look up. Again and again the leopard would freeze and the antelope would apparently see nothing. Finally the leopard was within sure striking distance of the antelope. Ronan felt his own muscles tense as he watched the leopard collect itself. He held his breath.

Nigak’s blood-curdling howl ripped through the air. The leopard and the antelope reacted instantly, the antelope running for its life into the forest, the leopard streaking in pursuit. At first the antelope ran straight, but then it started to zigzag among the trees. In so doing it gained ground on the leopard. Within seconds the two animals had passed out of Ronan’s sight.

“You certainly spoiled that leopard’s afternoon, Nigak,” he heard Nel saying beside him.

The wolf was panting, his tongue lolling out, his ears flopping sideways. He looked very pleased with himself. Nel laughed. “Lucky antelope,” she said.

“Unlucky us,” Ronan returned. “I’m sure that leopard has cubs somewhere to feed. The antelope would have kept them busy until we were out of their territory. Now she will be hunting again.”

“How much farther do we have to go?” Nel asked.

“The cave is but an hour ahead,” he said. “We will be safer there than we will be camping in the forest with a hungry leopard.”

Nel nodded again, shifted her pack to a more comfortable position on her back, and prepared to move.

The cave was one Ronan had found during the second summer he had spent at the Red Deer summer camp. He had taken Cala there once, but as far as he was aware no one else knew of it. It was sufficiently removed from camp, and sufficiently hidden, for him to think that, even if Arika ordered a search, he and Nel would be safe.

They reached it an hour before darkfall.

“I have some fruit and some dried meat in my pack,” Nel said as they climbed the last part of the hill that led to the cave. “We can have that for supper. It is too near dark for you to go out hunting.”

“All right,” he said.

The cave did not go deep into the hill, but the single chamber was of quite a decent size. The first thing Nel saw when she came in was the remains of the fire he and Cala had built. “Ronan,” she said. “Someone else has been here.”

For some reason he did not understand, Ronan did not want to tell her that he had brought Cala here. “Na,” he answered carelessly, “that is just the remains of the fire I built myself when I was here years ago.”

Nel was still staring at the hearthstones and the ash. “I had better get some wood for a new fire before it grows too dark,” he said to distract her attention. “Can you fetch us some fresh water? There is a stream just yonder,” and he pointed.

“All right,” Nel said, and turned away from the hearthstones to collect the bladders they used for carrying water.

By the time the dark came, Ronan had a good fire going. They ate, and Nigak left to go hunting for his own supper. Nel began to spread her sleeping skins, and Ronan sat at his place by the fire and watched her as she bent and straightened, bent and straightened.

Her waist was so slim and supple, he thought. He wanted to put his hands around it. He could see the sweet curve of her breasts beneath her buckskin shirt. He wanted to put his hands on them as well.

Dhu, this was torture! She finished with the skins and came to join him at the fire, stretching out her long, slim legs to the warmth. Still without speaking, she untied the leather thong that fastened her braid and began to undo her hair.

Ronan had not lain with a girl in a long, long time. It seemed the men who followed Sky God had different attitudes about women from the tribes who followed the Mother. In fact, the last girl he had lain with had been a girl from one of the Goddess-worshiping tribes of the plain. They had met by chance on one of Ronan’s periodic scouting trips, had taken great pleasure in each other, and had said good-bye with smiling goodwill.