Alone in the Wild (Rockton #5)(39)

With that we reach the end of what Maryanne can tell me for now. I have more questions—so many more—but she’s tiring, and that trip down memory lane wasn’t a joyful one. As eager as I am to take her to try identifying the dead woman, she needs a rest first and, again, I’m otherwise stalled until Dalton returns, hopefully with information on where to find the baby’s parents.





NINETEEN


As Maryanne naps, so does the baby, while I make notes on Maryanne’s story. As I watch the baby soundly sleeping, I marvel at my maternal skill. All those stories about babies crying constantly and moms never getting a moment to themselves, and here I am, with time to write down all my notes and then make coffee and even leaf through a novel I’d accidentally left under my old sofa. Clearly Edwin is right, and I’m a natural mother.

Yeah … I’m not that delusional. The baby deserves all the credit for this. I’m guessing that, at this age, they sleep a lot of the time, like Storm and Raoul did as puppies. Also, having lived in the wilderness, born in winter, the baby wouldn’t be accustomed to a cushy life where Mom and Dad can jump to fulfill her every need. She’s curled up with Maryanne on the sofa, snuggled deep into a soft source of body heat, and she’s happy.

The baby does eventually fuss, and I take her from Maryanne, who is so deeply asleep that if the house caught fire, I’d need to haul her out. Alone in the wilderness she’s probably done little more than nap for months now, staying just warm enough to doze without drifting into the endless slumber of hypothermia.

When Maryanne does wake, I summon Jen to take the baby while I finally escort Maryanne to the clinic, where I hope she can identify the dead woman.



* * *



We’re at the clinic, having come in the back way. April has made sure it’s empty, and I ask her to stay in the front room, in case anyone arrives. Maryanne and I walk in to find the dead woman on the examining table. Maryanne takes one look and stops midstep. I resist the urge to jump in with questions. I can see mental wheels turning, and I don’t want to do anything to put on the brakes.

Maryanne walks to the table. She looks down and whispers, “I’m Ellen.” She looks over at me. “That’s what she said. I’m Ellen. I met her…”

Maryanne looks around, and I push over a chair. She eyes it, this simple object that would once have been so familiar. Then she gingerly lowers herself onto it.

I pull another chair from the next room and sit in front of her.

“‘Met’ isn’t quite the right word,” Maryanne says. “I encountered her. It was…” She shakes her head. “Time is difficult to judge. I remember it was warm that day. It might have been last summer. It could even have been the one before. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific.”

“That’s fine.”

“We were gathering berries. If you need the exact time of year, that could help. They were crowberries. I was with the shaman and the two other women from our group. She”—Maryanne gestures toward the dead woman—“came out of the woods. Carefully. I remember that. She made enough noise so we’d hear her, and she had her hands raised so we could see she wasn’t armed. She did everything right.”

“And?”

“The shaman tried to kill her. It was like the men with Eric. He’d be an asset as a worker, as a fighter, but all they see is competition. Our power, as with most patriarchal tribes, came from our mates.”

“Fewer women means more opportunity to snag a powerful man.”

“Yes, and I would strongly suspect that freeing Lora was the shaman’s idea. Lora was young and strong and pretty. If she’d survived, she could have taken the best mate, become the most powerful woman, possibly even become shaman. This woman”—she nods at the body—“wasn’t young, but she’d still be competition. The shaman ran her off and tried to get us to hunt and kill her, as a supposed threat to the group. We were in a down phase, though, so myself and the other women pretended to give chase but didn’t put much effort into it. She got away easily.”

“Do you know what she wanted?”

“That’s what I’m struggling to remember. She spoke to us, but while I would have understood her at the time, the memory faded quickly. What I remember isn’t the conversation but the gist of it. She wanted to help us. I was confused at first, because she said something about help, and I thought she needed help, but that wasn’t it. She wanted to help us.”

“But before that, you didn’t know her. She wasn’t from your tribe.”

Maryanne shakes her head. “She was a settler, not a hostile.”

“Could you take a look at this?”

I rise and fold back the sheet to show the woman’s—Ellen’s— upper-chest scarring. Before I can say anything, Maryanne sucks in breath.

“Oh!” she says. “That’s … Yes, that’s the other group.” She looks at me. “There are two tribes in this area. I don’t know if there are more farther afield, but we only had contact with this other one, and as little of that as possible. It was like two wolf packs, equally matched in size, with enough territory that they didn’t need to cross paths. My feeling is that the two groups had been linked at some point.”