Matt's Arc

Chapter 4 of 7

The woman crouched by the fire and started to speak. Then dogs barked in the trees. Voices came up the trail, low and steady, men calling to each other about weight and rope. She stopped mid-word. The two men by the fire turned toward the sound. The wolf at her feet stood up. She looked at Matt and her mouth went flat. "Hunting party," she said. "Back early. They will not want a town face at this fire." She stood and brushed her hands on her thighs. "You have to go before they clear the trees. Now." Matt did not move. "You said you would tell me where she went." The voices grew louder. Someone laughed. Through a gap in the pines he saw two men dragging a big buck by the antlers, arrows still in its side. Behind them another man shook out a wide painted hide and slung it over a low branch at the edge of the clearing. The hide showed bears and deer and mountains. It was a marker. This was their ground again. He had minutes, maybe less. "Name the debt," Matt said. "Fast. I'll take it." The woman studied him. She reached into the teepee and pulled out a folded blanket, pale wool with green and blue dream catchers stitched down its length. She pressed it into his hands. "Her mother made this. She left it here when she went. You carry it to her. You do not open it. You do not sell it. You put it in her hands and you tell her who sent it." Matt nodded. "Where." The woman's eyes flicked to the trees. The dogs were close now. She spoke fast. "South. Past the salt flats. A town called Ruso. She works at the feed store there. She goes by her mother's name now, not the one you knew." She touched the green band at her wrist. "Do not come back up this ridge. Whatever you find down there, you keep it down there." Matt tucked the blanket inside his coat. He stood. The first hunter stepped into the clearing and stopped when he saw him. The man's hand went to the knife at his belt. The woman raised one palm at the hunter and the other at Matt, holding them apart. "He is leaving," she said. She did not look at Matt again. He walked past the fire, past the carved post, past the dead buck in the dirt. No one followed. The wolf watched him go from beside the woman's leg. He made the trees before the shouting started behind him. He did not look back. He had a name for the town. He had a blanket he could not open. He had a direction, and it was south, and it was not this ridge.