Ivory and Bone by Julie Eshbaugh Page A

help celebrate our triumph over the cat,” Chev says. I hadsuspected my family had been sent for because my injuries were so grave, in case I had gotten worse instead of better. I have seen injured hunters fail quickly. I’m sure Chev has, too. But I don’t say anything about that. Instead, I simply smile. “A celebration will bewonderful, but I’m not sure what you mean by ‘our triumph over the cat.’”
    Your brother sits forward. “This cat, it was a rebel,” he says. I study his face. Chev is older than you and Seeri by maybe as many as six or seven years. Like the other Olen men, his hair is always pulled back tight in a braid. This differs from the style of the men in my clan—we generally cut our hair with sharp bladesto keep it short and out of the way. Something about this style gives Chev a stern look, his features exposed and his eyes intense, as if he is constantly forming a plan. There is a sadness, too, that shows in the set of his mouth and the lines at the edges of his lips.
    “This cat no longer had a taste for bison or elk.” He raises his face and stares at the hides on the wall, but I know he islooking at something else—a memory. “It was not long after we returned from your camp. This cat killed a hunter who was stalking game. After that, this cat stalked all of us. No one could go outside of camp. I had to forbid it.
    “But one did—a child. She tried to sneak off to the river in the valley beyond the hills. We found her that night. Her own mother could not recognize her face.”
    Chevgoes silent as his eyes darken.
    “That’s the reason I stayed,” says Pek. “I’ve been helping patrol the camp and hunt for the cat. I promised to stay until he was no longer a threat.”
    “The Spirit of this cat was a demon,” Chev says. “We offered prayers and chants to the Divine, and now the demon has been slain.” He gets to his feet and strides for the door. “My clanspeople are busy in the kitchen,preparing the evening meal for you and your family. This meal will allow us to express our thanks.”
    With that, Chev ducks quickly through the door and is gone.
    “So he’s happy?” I ask Pek, half joking. Chev is not a man who is open with his emotions.
    “Maybe with you, but not with me.”
    Pek sits cross-legged on a pile of pelts that make up the bed across from me. His head is bowed, but he raiseshis face slowly and gives me a smile completely devoid of joy.
    “Seeri?” I don’t need to ask. Of course it’s Seeri.
    “He’s quite serious about her betrothal to his friend. I believe that he sees me as unsuitable and unworthy.”
    “And you know this how?”
    “His words, carried across the space between huts as he shouted at Seeri.”
    My brother—the one who was born with a spear in his hand, the onewho could always out-throw me—seems beaten. The lowered head, the drooping shoulders—I’veseen that only once before in him, on the first day we hunted seals so he could bring the pelts to your clan. Even that day, Pek had started out hopeful. It had taken defeat and a near drowning to weigh him down.
    “I’d planned to win him over by killing the rogue cat, but you’ve solved that problem. I thinkthere’s little left that I could do to change his mind.”
    I lean forward and feel the scabs across my back tighten as I reach for Pek’s shoulder. “Sorry for killing the cat before you could, but it really left me no choice—”
    “I didn’t mean—”
    “I know,” I say. “But don’t give up. After all, aren’t you the one who said there’s still hope? She isn’t married yet.”
    I turn and lie down again, my bodysuddenly heavy. I press my chest against the sealskin blanket, my wounds open to the air. My eyes close. I catch myself just as I drift into a dream and I shake myself awake, but Pek is already by the door.
    “Sleep,” he says. “Don’t fight it.”
    “I’ve slept all day—”
    “And you walked all of yesterday. And fought a cat. And dragged