River Guide: Pawprints on the Riverbank

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As Star began to wake, she felt a heavy weight upon her. Both her legs were pinned below the knees, and she was stiff with chill and soreness. Her head ached like never before. As she woke, she began to smell the stench of burning flesh. There was more than one kind of flesh smell. The smell was thick, and she gagged on it a little as she wondered what part of her body had been burnt like that. She slowly checked her scalp with sore fingers. Her hands were shaking, but she could feel all her hair and scalp. It was all intact and unhurt except for a lump on the back of her head.

That was sore! Whoa. It hurt more, but less sharply now as Star began to sit up or at least try to. The horse! It was lying across her legs and pinning her to the ground. She tried hitting it and punching it to wake it and make it move, but it lay there solidly on her, quite dead. Star grabbed a stick and started to push it under the carcass. She could lever the heavy corpse off her legs if she could shove the stick underneath it. After a few minutes, she changed the plan. She wedged the stick as deeply as she could and reached for another. Thankfully, the pony's body had trapped a lot of smaller falling debris in the storm. That provided Star with plenty of materials. Soon her legs were free. She still had to wait a while for the blood flow to restore her to full mobility. At least that painful tingling let her know her legs were still alive.

As she looked over the poor dead animal, Star could see what had happened. The pony had taken a hit from a lightning strike. Its body had also insulated Star from the main force of that blow. Its legs and hair were burned only on one side. The hoofs on that side of the horse were shattered and singed by that blow. She was lucky to be alive, although, at that moment, all she could muster was every curse she had ever learned to speak. Then it hit her as her thoughts cleared under her anger. Adam! Her husband! She looked down the hillside to where the camp had been. All there was to see now was a barren rock cliff top. No trees. No tent. No camp. No husband. She knew he was gone. She was grateful to be free of those servants, but now her heart sank deep into the ravaged ground below her feet.

She wasn't ready to weep yet. She couldn't call Adam dead yet. She needed to see. She needed to know. To see the river and land below. To see the answer she already knew must be wrong. The land had not taken him. He sought a new home, and their journey had not taken him away from her. Only one tear escaped as she made her way carefully to the edge of the cliff. She couldn't see the water below. The debris flow that used to be a river was audibly spraying up clouds of mist high into the sky. Anything down there was smashed and drowned, dead beyond dead. And yet, over the din of that grinding monster, she heard and felt something else. Something far more powerful.

As she looked toward the distant northern mountains, she saw something that tore her spiritual and emotional foundations apart just as the storm had torn apart the hillside. The flowing mountain of rock and tree and water coming down the flatlands across from the river came into view. It was terrifying. She wanted to run away, even knowing she was safe where she stood. She saw a line of smoke then, not far across the land but too far for her to think of doing anything useful. Someone was down there. They were in the path of that impossible flow and didn't know it or, worse yet, did know. Was it Adam? Was he out there in the way of death itself as it cleansed the lands of all life? As her heart raced in the highest hope and deepest despair, she went to her knees. Whoever it was out there, they were already dead. It's just that they didn't know it.

Star started singing the Song of the Spirit, calling for safe passage to the next land and beyond. Usually, the song was reserved for tribal members, but whoever this was out there, Star took great pity on them. It could be Adam. She sang as the flow erased the line of smoke from the earth and whoever had made it. She sang even more of that song to carry them safely to the great sky god and the lands of eternal happiness. As she finished singing her spirit song, she started singing another. Singing was helping her relax and heal from the stiffness of lying under a dead horse in a rainstorm. The sun warmed her as she sang again. This was for Adam, for Wolf Heart, her husband, the man of her dreams. She called for the same spirits that could tear the world apart to protect him now and restore him to her. She cried to them of her love for them and faith in their greatness in the land and sky. And then she was only crying. It was all she could do now with the spirit of death passing by in front of her, tearing all life from the land, scouring it clean again. It was amazing and terrifying at the same time. It surpassed anything she had ever seen or heard of.

Star returned to the horse carcass and, knowing that she must live if she wanted to see her husband again, she started cutting it up for food and leather. It was her only resource, but it was a huge one. It was food from the meat and shelter from the hide. The knife she had threatened the two servant men with so many times was bound tightly in its sash at her thigh. She felt honored that she was allowed to keep it. It meant the gods wanted her to live and return home. It was a great sign, and she was moved in her heart that she had been spared from all the tragedy around her. This world seemed so much bigger than she or Adam would ever be. She refused to give up hope, though. She hadn't been saved to live on without the best spirit man she had ever known. He must be alive somewhere. She felt it deep within her. She would return to the village. Then she would come back with scouts to find him. All of them would come, and they would find him.

After making a fire, cooking, and eating a quick meal of dead horse, Star was soon dragging a small laden travois with what meat she could carry and a few bloody leather bags to contain it all. She headed toward her village with a resolve that any warrior would envy or fear. Star was going for help, and they wouldn't dare say no. Not to her. Not for the man they named Wolf Heart with such tribal pride. An immense fire now burned in her heart and shined like bright stars in her eyes as she took each step toward home.