“What do you suggest?” Hunting Hawk, the Headman sighed wearily as he sank beside the campfire hearth. His drawn and worried face, reflected by the flickering light of the fire seemed seasons old, as did the features of the other men huddled there. The fitful wind whipped dust into their faces and sent geysers of bright red sparks flying into the night air as sap released from the fir branches popped. Overhead the deep black sky was punctuated with uncountable numbers of stars, the fires of ancestors gone to walk the wind. Although it was not unbearably cold, several of the men shivered.
One young hunter leaned forward with an intense expression on his face. “I have suggested time and again that we leave this place and move elsewhere.” Concern and something much closer to frustration showed on his brow as Wind Walker searched the faces of his fellow worriers.
“So you keep saying,” sour faced Badger Tail replied tersely, shaking his head at the younger man’s tenacity. “But so far you haven’t had any good suggestions as to where. Every time we have this talk you come back to the same thing, you insist that we could survive beside some mythical lake far to the north and east of here that none of us, including you, has ever seen. We all know that is not possible.”
“We do not know that,” Wind Walker replied. “We do know no one claims that land.”
“That is because they have better sense than you. What do we really know of that place? Nothing! That is what. Because it would be death to try living there, if indeed it really exists!” shouted Black Bear. “It gets brutally cold beyond the protection of the forest. We found that out here. We nearly died of the cold the last several moons and this place is much farther south than where you are suggesting we move. We made substantial improvements in our shelters; doubling the hides and making sure everyone had warm tunics and pants. Even with all those precautions we lost valuable members of this camp to the cold.”
“So?” the younger man shrugged. “We build better shelters to protect against the cold. The main thing is that we cannot stay here any longer. We have to go somewhere. If you have any better suggestions at least I am willing to listen,” Wind Walker stated stubbornly.
“We dare not move deeper into the forest,” asserted Dipper. “Even this close we are in danger of attack by the woodland tribes, and they will be checking this area very soon now that the snow is melting. They warned us last summer when they killed Otter and left his gutted carcass at the edge of the hunting camp. We fled to the plains at that time. We couldn’t decide what to do then, so we did nothing, and that is why we spent the winter here, with no more substantial protection than our bison hide sleeping shelters. How could we help but suffer? We must make some sort of decision; it cannot be put off any longer. We must decide on something!” He pulled his bison hide robe closer about him, shivering as the cold wind sent icy goose bumps down his spine.
“True, spending the winter in this valley was a bad decision,” Badger Tail agreed. “Even accounting for that herd of bison we killed just before the freeze. We were so confident that we had everything we needed to survive the winter. We had food, hides for better shelters and clothing. But we did not consider that predators were as determined to have our bison meat as we were. Still we fought them off and used their hides to decorate our tunic hoods. It proved to be insufficient. We lost people and nearly everyone suffered to some degree from frostbite. Every move we have made over the last several seasons has been a bad choice. Once this was a strong camp, now we are only a few straggling, starving families. We cannot survive another season under these conditions. I agree with Dipper, we must do something. We have no small children left in the camp. No woman has become pregnant because they are all starving. Without children how long do you think the camp will survive? I am almost willing to consider Wind Walker’s suggestion, crazy as it is. At least it is a suggestion. As he just pointed out, that is more than any of the rest of us have offered.”
Hunting Hawk looked from the gaunt faces of his hunters to the worried countenance of the Shaman beneath his fox headdress. They all looked expectantly back at him, leaving the decision to him, as usual. “All right,” he said at last with a heavy sigh. “We go north and the sooner the better. We must find food, shelter and a place where we can live without being driven off at every turn. This Big Lake place might not be the best solution. Ice, snow and blizzards hold that land, but no one has offered any other suggestions. How long before the camp can be prepared?”
“We can be ready to move in a couple of days,” several relieved braves agreed. Hunting Hawk turned to Porcupine, the Shaman. “Ask your spirits for guidance, give us some sign.”