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"hoquat impatience." Goaded by that laughter, David had persisted, running the bow back and forth
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across its driver stick until friction made a spark in the dry grass tinder. Now he knew the careful way of
it.
With a slab of cedar notched by pounding with a stone, with a shoestring bow to drive the tinder stick,
with pitch and cedar splinters ready at hand, he persisted until he had a coal, then gently blew the coal
into flame which he fed with pitch and cedar. When it was going well, he thought: Katsuk should see me
now.
The thought frightened him, and he peered out of his shelter at the forest. It would be dark soon. He
wondered if he would be safer from Katsuk in the night. The man had strange powers. Hunger gripped
his stomach. He looked down at the stream. There would be trout in that stream. He had seen Katsuk
build a weir. But the night would be cold and he knew he would get wet trying to trap a trout. He
decided to forego the trout. Tomorrow . . . tomorrow there might be hikers or the people he knew must
be searching for him. They would have food.
It was a long night.
Twice, David went out to replenish his firewood, dragging back dead limbs, bark. It was raining lightly
the second time and the wood sizzled when he put it on the fire. His shelter turned the rain and most of
the wind, though, and it was warm by contrast with the night outside.
Several times he dozed, sitting up with his back against the earth which had been exposed by the
upheaval of roots. Once, he dreamed.
In the dream, he was running away, but there was a long brown string trailing behind him. It was tied
around his forehead the way Katsuk wore the braided cedar aroundhis head. David sensed the string
trailing him wherever he ran. The string went up the mountain to Katsuk and the man up there spoke
along its length. Katsuk was calling for help. "Hoquat, help me. Help me. Hoquat, I need you. Help
me."
David awoke to find dawn breaking and his fire almost out. He covered the coals with dirt to extinguish
them and prevent telltale smoke. An attack of shivering overcame him when he went out into the misting
dawn.
I'll keep following the stream down,he decided. There have to be people downstream.
As he thought this, he stared upstream, searching for any sign of pursuit. Where was Katsuk now? That
had been a crazy dream about string. Was Katsuk really in trouble up there? He could have fallen in the
night or broken a leg or something. Crazy Indian.
Still shivering, David set off down the watercourse.
* * *
Sheriff Pallatt:
Sure, some of these Indians can do strange things. Make your hair stand on end, some of them. I tell
myself that if you live close to something like this wilderness you get a feeling for it that others don't have.
I guess that's it. Maybe.
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* * *
In late afternoon David worked his way through a stand of big-leaf maples in a creek bottom. His little
stream had become a torrent more than ten feet across. A thick carpet of moss covered the ground
beneath the maples. David thought how soft a bed the moss would make. He had found a few berries
to eat and he drank water frequently, but hunger was a persistent ache now. It had moved from his
stomach to a tight band around his head. David wondered if the ache in his head could be real. Was it
really that brown string he had dreamed about? Was Katsuk up there somewhere holding the other end
of that string? He was tired and the moss invited, but when he pressed his hand into it, water ran up
between his fingers.
He noted then that his feet were soaking wet.
The wind had turned to the southwest. That meant rain. Patches of blue showed in the sky, but
gunmetal clouds were scudding toward the peaks behind him.
He paused beside a beaver-downed cottonwood, studied his surroundings: trees, trees, trees . . . the
river, a black pier of rocks buffeted by gray current . . . a squirrel running on a log. Was Katsuk out in
that forest nearby, silently watching? It was a thing he might do. He could be there.
David put this fear out of his mind. That wouldn't help. He plunged on, masking his passage wherever
he could in ways he had learned from watching Katsuk: walking on rocks, on logs, avoiding muddy
places.
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