Page 147
He hands me the waterskin. “That’s the one that nearly took your stake.”
“And lost.”
He admires the hole in its side without being asked this time, then takes the piece I offer him.
We eat it cold. Still the best fish anybody’s ever handed him. There’s still herb stuck to the skin from this morning, and he gives me that bit. I give him the thickest piece and mind his claws when I put it in his hand.
My back starts aching against the trunk. I sit forward a little.
He reaches into the sack again. “Stay there.”
He takes out the linen and the dried meat to get at the spare shirt, folds it into a pad and tucks it behind my back.
“Better?”
I lean back slowly. Ohhh. “Yes. Thank you.”
He looks into the sack again. There’s a bundle wrapped in hide at the bottom, and it’s tipped over onto one corner. He gets it out, lays it across his thighs, and opens the hide with his two blunt fingertips.
It’s another shirt. He lifts it out to fix the folds, and one sleeve comes loose.
I know the patch on that elbow. The last corner puckers where the thread’s pulled too tight, and Rauk’s smaller stitches run beside it. What’s that doing in the sack. “Your father’s shirt.”
His thumb rests on the crooked corner. “Yes.”
There’s a handful of river stones in the fold of hide under it. I heard him set every one of those down in the dark.
“You brought the stones, too.”
“There’ll be a new moon at your brother’s.”
Next time I’m sitting right next to him for it.
I look at the worn collar, then at his face. “And the shirt?”
“I couldn’t part with it forever.”
I stop pulling a bone out of the fish.
“Forever?”
He runs the side of his hand down the sleeve.
“You need your family. I thought we’d stay there.”
“You thought we wouldn’t come back?”
“Yes.” He looks toward the trees behind us, then down at the shirt again.
Fuck.
He shut the den up this morning thinking that was it, and he never said a word. I put the fish down and wipe my hands on the clean edge of the wrapper.
“Rauk. Look at me.”
He turns. I scoot in until I can get both hands on his face without pulling my shoulders, and I kiss him with his jaw fur prickling my palms.
He follows me when I pull away, so I stay close.
