Luck | Page 7

don't know
where the dreams will take me."
When he glanced up, Onion was standing with her hips cocked to
support the bulging skin she had slung over her shoulder. She smiled at
him and he shrugged. He knew that smile. The argument was over.
It was not yet midday when they started out. They talked at first. He
told her about his trip to the country of the shell people. They were
telling stories about a new people who had come down from the ice
mountains. The shell people had not yet seen these strangers
themselves, but had heard about them from their distant neighbors, the
sky people. The newcomers were said to have four arms. Dogs
followed them and obeyed their orders.

"Then we'll call them the dog people," said Onion.
"That wouldn't be very polite." Dogs were scavengers, like crows and
rats. The only thing they were good for was eating, and they were often
too stringy for that.
"Then call them the ice people." Onion laughed. "Maybe they melt in
the summer and their dogs drink them."
Thumb was pleased to see Onion keep good pace and good
conversation. She was definitely getting better.
Onion told him that the mothers had decided to ask Owl's son Bone to
become the storyteller, even though he was still learning stories. He
had only begun training with his father four summers ago but he a big
voice and an easy laugh. His words didn't always light the stars, but he
was still young and he would have Owl to teach him.
As they climbed farther away from the river, they dropped into hunting
order. Game was scarce near the summer camp, but here they might
surprise a hare or a squirrel or even a deer. Thumb moved ahead,
stepping quietly, spear at the ready. Onion trailed behind, picking
mushrooms and stopping to roll logs over in search of grubs and
salamanders.
That night they lay together as lovers. Afterward Thumb wept for their
dead baby boy.
The sun was three hands from the dawn edge of the sky when they
reached the cave the next day. Onion gathered tinder and kindling
while Thumb pulled dead branches from trees and dragged them into a
pile. The people visited the long cave regularly and had built a good
hearth just inside the entrance. Thumb watched Onion take the
smoldering coal she had brought from the hearthfire and set it on the
tinder.
"I thank the first mother for this fire," she said. "She makes the warmth
of the world." She blew on the coal until it smoked and the tinder

caught fire.
When the pile of firewood reached Thumb's waist, he went out to
gather birch bark. He peeled what he could and cut the rest with his
chert knife. He was careful not to cut a complete circle of bark, which
would girdle a tree and kill it. Thumb folded the bark again and again
into a wad and then wedged it into the cleft of a green stick. When he
had made three of these birch torches he returned to the cave. He was
surprised to find Bead, Owl's lover, sitting at the fire next to Onion. She
was rocking back and forth, as if in mourning.

"I tried to talk to Owl last night, but he wouldn't hear me," she told
them. She looked as if she had slept on a sharp rock. "This morning I
followed him here. He walked into the cave without fire or food, with
empty hands. When I called for him to stop, he ran from me. I tried to
find him but I have no light. I've been looking I don't know. Most of the
day." Her hands and face were dirty and her doeskin shirt was smeared
with chalky mud. "He's gone, I think."
"I'll find him." Thumb gestured at the torches he had made. "And I
have a lamp."
"What if he doesn't want to be found?" said Bead. "He is ashamed,
Thumb. And afraid." She tugged at her hair hard enough to pull a few
gray strands out. "And he is an old fool."
"He wants to die in there?" said Onion.
"I think," she said. "Where no one can see him. Where he can't even see
himself."
"The spirits will see him," said Thumb. "They are thick in this cave. It
will make bad luck for the people."
"If he thinks his own luck has run," said Onion, "maybe he doesn't
care."

They sat for a minute in silence, listening to the fire, watching sparks
fly up to become sky. In his mind's eye, Thumb tried to see Owl as
someone who would knowingly make bad luck for all of them. He
couldn't. It wasn't the kind of story Owl