Woodson's Arc

Chapter 7 of 10

By morning the grove had gone quiet. Woodson and Lunara had walked down from the peaks for two days, and the danger she had warned of never showed itself. But he did not trust the silence. Every hunter he had ever known would want her antlers, and he could not guard an open trail forever. He needed a place to hide her. A place with walls. "We can't keep moving," he said. "You need shelter. So do I." Lunara pulled her hood over her antlers. "Then name the place. I will follow." He thought of the low country and dismissed it. Too many eyes. Then he remembered a cave he had once sheltered in, high on a wooded slope, its mouth hidden behind snow-heavy pines. One entrance. Good sightlines. He could watch the approach for a mile. "There's a cave I know," he said. "Hidden. One way in. I can defend it." They climbed for half a day. The cave was where he remembered, its mouth screened by drifts and dark timber. Inside, the air was still and dry. Woodson set his bow against the wall and walked the space, checking corners, testing the ground. He found an old fire ring and a store of split wood left by some past traveler. "This will hold," he said. "Nobody finds this unless they already know it's here." He built the fire. Lunara sat close to it and let her hood fall back. In the firelight her antlers threw long shadows on the stone. She watched him work the way she had watched him in the grove. "You keep looking at the entrance," she said. "That's the job." "You have made yourself a wall." She said it plainly. "You told me you work alone because it costs you less. Now you build a home for two." He stopped and looked at her. He had spent his life keeping distance. He had made this cave a fortress, but the reason he wanted it standing was sitting by his fire. "I know," he said. "I'm doing it anyway." Lunara did not look away. "Then it is a home." Woodson banked the fire and sat beside her. For the first time in years he was not counting the exits to leave. He was counting them to protect what was inside. He slept in short turns, waking to check Lunara and the mouth of the cave. His heart can’t deny the special connection that has yet to bloom between them.