Hang-lip would be foolish enough to stand around and be shot at constantly. At some point he would have to go out and meet it with musket and spear. The thought was not a pleasant one.
Chara had urged him not to travel to Finbarr’s cabin. “The weather is too fierce,” she had said. “It is foolishness.”
“Perhaps so,” he had admitted. “Yet I need the walk.”
“Then hold your son for a moment,” she had said, her voice angry. “And when you are lying in a snowdrift and your life is drifting away, think of how you will never see him grow.” With that she had stalked from the room.
Aye, you’re a fool right enough, Kaelin Ring, he told himself as he added another chunk of wood to the flames. There’s no denying it.
Hunger gnawed at him. There was a little meat left but no cheese, and he had finished the last of his bread the previous morning. The meat he decided to leave for Feargol. The child would need all his strength for the walk to Ironlatch. The fuel store was low now, enough perhaps for half a day. They could not wait out the bear.
Kaelin gazed around the cave, focusing on the jumbled stand of broken rocks that made up the western wall. Maybe men were sleeping here at the time of the roof fall, he thought. Perhaps their bodies are buried beneath those rocks. Cavemen dressed in furs or ancient hunters sheltering from the snow.
“There are spirits of heroes wandering every forest and mountain,” Jaim had told him once. Kaelin wished it were true. Then perhaps he could talk to Jaim one more time and say his farewells. Perhaps then he could put aside his grief.
“Is it morning yet?” asked Feargol, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
“Almost. Did you dream?”
“No. I had a lovely sleep. Are you going to shoot the bear with your pistols?”
“No. I shall use your daddy’s musket. It takes a bigger charge.”
Feargol stood up and looked around. “I need to pee,” he said.
Kaelin smiled. “Anywhere you please, my friend. There’s no one here to scold you for peeing inside.” The child walked to the cave mouth, then scampered back inside.
“Its too cold out there, Uncle Kaelin.” He ran to the rear wall and relieved himself. Then he returned to the fire. “Will it take us long to reach Ironlatch?”
“It will. It will be very cold, and you’ll need your hat.”
“I’ll tie it down like Bane.” He looked across at Kaelin. “Can I see one of your pistols?”
The boy had asked many times during Kaelin’s visits to hold one of the Emburleys, but Finbarr had always told him no. Kaelin pulled one of the silver pistols from his belt. Reversing it, he passed it to Feargol, who took it in both hands.
“It is very pretty,” said the boy, turning it over. “What is that animal?” he asked, pointing to the engraved pommel.
“Jaim said it was a lion, a ferocious beast who lives in the hot lands far to the south, across the seas.”
“Is it big, then?”
“Jaim said they could be ten feet long from the tips of their noses to the ends of their tails. And their teeth are as long as a man’s fingers.”
“When I’m big I shall have pistols with lions on them. And I shall shoot all the bears.”
“That would not be good,” said Kaelin. “The bears have a right to live their lives, to mate and rear young. They are not all as evil as Hang-lip. Don’t hate the bears, Feargol. Hate is bad. Bane didn’t hate bears.”
“Not even bears with bad faces?”
The question brought back the memories of the previous night’s curious conversation. “What did you mean when you said you told your daddy about the bear?” he asked.
“I told him it was coming. That I had seen its bad face.”
“What did you see?”
“I was playing with Basson, and I saw this face. It was in the air. It had scales and red eyes. It spoke to me.”
“Did Basson see it?”
“No. He got angry and said I was making it up. The face frightened me, and I told Daddy. He didn’t believe