She had been raised to be proud and self-reliant, qualities she would have to set aside if she returned to the station now. She had promised Jesse to take her last message to the city, and she would keep the promise. She would go to the city for Jesse, and for herself.

Chapter 4

Arevin sat on a huge boulder, his cousin’s baby gurgling in a sling against his chest. The warmth and activity of the new being were a comfort to him as he stared across the desert, in the direction Snake had gone. Stavin was well and the new child healthy; Arevin knew he should feel grateful and glad of the clan’s good fortune, so he felt vaguely guilty about his lingering sorrow. He touched the place on his cheek where the white serpent’s tail had struck him. As Snake had promised, there was no scar. It seemed impossible that she had been gone long enough for the cut to scab over and heal, because he remembered everything about her as clearly as if she were still here. About Snake was none of the blurriness that distance and time impart to most acquaintances. At the same time it felt to Arevin as if she had been gone forever.

One of the huge musk oxen the clan herded ambled up and rubbed herself against the boulder, giving her side a good scratch. She whuffled at Arevin, nuzzling his foot and licking at his boot with her great pink tongue. Nearby, her half-grown calf chewed at the dry, leafless branches of a desert bush. All the beasts in the herd grew thin during each harsh summer; now their coats were dull and rough. They survived the heat well enough if their insulating undercoats were thoroughly combed out when they began shedding in the spring; since the clan kept the oxen for their fine, soft winter wool, the combing was never neglected. But the oxen, like the people, had had enough of summer and heat and foraging for dry and tasteless food. The animals were anxious, in their mild-mannered way, to return to the fresh grass of winter pastures. Ordinarily Arevin too would be glad to return to the plateaus.

The baby waved tiny hands in the air, clutched Arevin’s finger, and drew it down. Arevin smiled. “That’s one thing I can’t do for you, little one,” he said. The baby sucked at his fingertip and gummed it contentedly, without crying when no milk came. The baby’s eyes were blue, like Snake’s. Many babies’ eyes are blue, Arevin thought. But a child’s blue eyes were enough to make him drift off into dreams.

He dreamed about Snake almost every night, or at least every night he was able to sleep. He had never felt this way about anyone before. He clung to memories of the few times they had touched: leaning against each other in the desert; the touch of her strong fingers on his bruised cheek; in Stavin’s tent, where he had comforted her. It was absurd that the happiest time in his life seemed to him the moment just before he knew she must leave, when he embraced her and hoped she might decide to stay. And she would have stayed, he thought. Because we do need a healer, and maybe partly because of me. She would have stayed longer if she could.

That was the only time he had cried in as long as he could remember. Yet he understood her not being willing to stay with her abilities crippled, for right now he felt crippled too. He was no good for anything. He knew it but could do nothing about it. Every day he hoped Snake might return, though he knew she would not. He had no idea how far beyond the desert her destination lay. She might have traveled from the healers’ station for a week or a month or half a year before reaching the desert and deciding to cross it in search of new people and new places.

He should have gone with her. He was certain of that now. In her grief she could not accept him, but he should have seen immediately that she would never be able to explain to her teachers what had happened here. Even Snake’s insight would not help her comprehend the terror Arevin’s people felt toward vipers. Arevin understood it from experience, from the nightmare he still had about his little sister’s death, from the cold sweat sliding down his body when Snake had asked him to help hold Mist. And he knew it from his own deathly fear when the sand viper bit Snake’s hand, for already he loved her, and he knew she would die.

Snake was associated with the only two miracles in Arevin’s experience. She had not died, that was the first, and the second was that she had saved Stavin’s life.

The baby blinked and sucked harder on Arevin’s finger. Arevin slid down from the boulder and held out one hand. The tremendous musk ox laid her chin on his palm and he scratched her beneath the jaw.

“Will you give some dinner to this child?” Arevin said. He patted her back and her side and her stomach and knelt down beside her. She did not have a great deal of milk this late in the year, but the calf was nearly weaned. With his sleeve Arevin briefly rubbed her teat, then held his cousin’s baby in reach of it. No more afraid of the immense beast than Arevin was, the child suckled hungrily.

When the baby’s hunger was satisfied, Arevin scratched the musk ox under the jaw again and climbed back up on the boulder. After a while the child fell asleep, tiny fingers wrapped around Arevin’s hand.

“Cousin!”

He glanced around. The leader of the clan climbed the side of the boulder and sat beside him, her long hair unbound and moving in the faint wind. She leaned over and smiled at the baby.

“How has this child been behaving?”

“Perfectly.”

She shook her hair back from her face. “They’re so much easier to carry when you can put them on your back. And even put them down once in a while.” She grinned. She was not always as reserved and dignified as when she received the clan’s guests.

Arevin managed a smile.

She put her hand over his, the one the baby was holding. “My dear, do I have to ask what’s the matter?”

Arevin shrugged, embarrassed. “I’ll try to do better,” he said. “I’ve been of little use lately.”

“Do you think I’m here to criticize?”

“Criticism would be proper.” Arevin did not look at the leader of his clan, his cousin, but instead stared at her peaceful child. His cousin let go of his hand and put her arm around his shoulders.

“Arevin,” she said, speaking to him directly by name for the third time in his life, “Arevin, you are valuable to me. In time you could be elected the clan’s leader, if you wish it. But you must settle your mind. If she did not want you…”

“We wanted each other,” Arevin said. “But she couldn’t continue her work here and she said I must not go with her. I can’t follow her now.” He glanced down at his cousin’s child. Since his own parents’ deaths, Arevin had been accepted as a member of his cousin’s family group. There were six adult partners, two, now three, children, and Arevin. His responsibilities were not well defined, but he did feel responsible for the children. Especially now, with the trip to winter territory ahead, the clan needed the work of every member. From now until the end of the trip the musk oxen had to be watched night and day, or they would wander east, a few at a time, seeking the new pastures, and never be seen again. Finding food was an equally difficult problem for the human beings at this time of year. But if they left too early, they would arrive at the wintering grounds when the forage was still new-sprouted tender and easily damaged.

“Cousin, tell me what you want to say.”

“I know the clan can’t spare anyone right now. I have responsibilities here, to you, to this child… But the healer — how can she explain what happened here? How can she make her teachers understand when she can’t understand it herself? I saw a sand viper strike her. I saw the blood and poison running down her hand. But she hardly even noticed it. She said she should never have felt it at all.“