Mercedes Morgan's Arc

Chapter 9 of 21

Mercedes lay on the rock spur until the cold drove her back to the horses. The herd was down there, thirty-four head, and any step she took toward them would send them running. She knew it. The wind was wrong, her scent was wrong, and even without the cub the elk would read her as a hunter the moment she crossed the treeline. She sat by the sled and thought about her grandmother, who used to say that elk came to the hand that smelled like the woods, not like the woman. Mercedes untied the last of her grandmother's stitched pouches and laid them on her knee. Balsam. Yarrow. Mint. She had used them once already to hide the cub. She could use them again to hide herself. She worked through the afternoon. She crushed fresh herbs into a soft bundle and tied it with cord from the pack. She rubbed the crushed leaves into her coat, her sleeves, her hair. She wiped the elk-skin at her collar with a handful of snow and pressed the bundle against the seam so the smell soaked in. Then she walked down the west fork alone, keeping the wind in her face, the bundle open in her hand. She stopped at the edge of the trees and knelt. She did not step into the valley. She waited. The herd grazed on. A cow lifted her head, stared, and went back to the moss. Mercedes stayed on her knees until her legs burned. Then she saw him. An old bull stepped out from the far treeline, gray at the muzzle, antlers wide and heavy, and turned his head toward her. He did not run. He watched. Then he walked, slow, across the open snow, and stopped ten paces from her knees. Mercedes did not move. The old bull lowered his head and smelled the bundle in her hand. He smelled her coat. He smelled the elk-skin at her collar that had once been his kind. His breath fogged the air between them. For a long moment he stood there, and she understood he was deciding. Then he lifted his head and made a low sound in his throat, and behind him two cows stepped out of the trees. Then a calf. Then more. The herd did not come to her. But the herd did not run. The old bull turned and walked back toward the valley, stopped, and looked at her once over his shoulder. Mercedes rose slowly. She had her opening. Now she had to lead them home before the thaw closed the passes behind her.