Mercedes Morgan's Arc

Chapter 10 of 21

Mercedes climbed back to the sled with the old bull's look still on her. The herd would not run from her now, but they would not follow her either. Thirty-four elk scattered across a valley would drift apart the moment she turned uphill. She needed one line, one thread they would all take. She sat by the horses and cut open the last of her feed sack. Inside was the tied bundle of hay she had saved from the trapper's cabin, bright and green in the middle, sweet enough to smell through the cord. She had meant it for the horses on the walk home. She loosened the tie and pulled loose stalks between her fingers. Elk in deep winter had eaten moss and bark for months. The bull had sniffed her hand for the smell of woods. Now she would give the herd something better than moss to walk toward. She went down the west fork before dusk, the bundle open under her arm, dropping a small handful every twenty paces. She laid a line from the treeline up through the snow toward the pass. At the edge of the valley she knelt and set the last thick clump on a flat rock where the bull could see it. Then she backed off and waited. The bull came first. He ate from the rock, lifted his head, and walked to the next handful. Two cows followed. Then the calves, then the rest, nose to tail, drawn by the smell up the trail she had laid. Mercedes moved ahead of them, dropping more, keeping the line unbroken. By the time the moon rose she had them past the treeline and climbing toward the summit in a single strung column, thirty-four head, following the sweet trail she carried. The bundle in her hand was half gone. The pass was still ahead, the thaw was still coming, but the herd was moving with her now, and they were moving together.