Read Online A Girl Called Badger (Valley of the Sleeping Birds) by Stephen Colegrove - Free Book Online

prepared a rucksack with dried meat, a loaf of thick bread, an apple, and two water skins. He wrapped the revolver and artifacts in buckskin and put them at the bottom of the sack.
    Wool cap pulled over his ears, he walked through a brisk, pre-dawn mist. The northern corral was at the other end of the valley. It was close enough to the village that wolves avoided it but far enough that someone had to stay there during the summer.
    A barn and the wooden fence of a corral emerged from the fog, filled with a herd of sheep and goats. A brown nanny with a white star on her forehead bleated at Wilson. On the near side of the fence, a teenage boy in thick clothing rubbed a black and white collie around the neck.
    “Morning, Alfie,” said Wilson.
    The boy looked up. “Morning, sir. Wait––I didn’t know you had to watch the sheep. Where’s Robb?”
    “I’m working for him today. It’s all right, Alfie, I stay here sometimes––it gives me a chance to think. Is everything tip-top?”
    “I guess. The bow is in there.” Alfie pointed to a small cabin on the other side of the corral. “I brought extra blankets. You can use ‘em.”
    “Great.”
    “Bye!” Alfie grabbed a leather bag at his feet and ran into the mist. The dog barked and sped after him.
    The fog blackened the gray wood of the cabin with beads of dark moisture. A cast-iron bell and ringer were fastened to the wall next to the door.
    Wilson walked inside and took a crossbow and packet of bolts. At the corral he lifted a frayed loop of rope and dragged the gate open. A mottled collection of independent thinkers, the goats wandered out first while the sheep huddled inside the fence.
    Wilson put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. The black and white dog came speeding up the path and trotted to the other end of the corral.
    “Let’s go, Blackie! Let’s go! Heya! Heya!”
    The dog barked at the sheep and helped Wilson push and prod them up the mountain. The walk was long and the mist dampened his face and clothes. As he followed Blackie and the herd up the rocky slopes, the gloomy white shroud in the air slowly thinned to a blue sky.
    By the time he found the high meadow the sun was a finger’s width above Old Man but the valley below still a lake of fog. Wilson loaded his crossbow and set it nearby then sat down with his back to a yellow aspen. The sheep wandered through the pasture and Blackie lay in the sun, tongue lolling and eyes half-shut. Wilson tried to follow her example.
    But he couldn’t sleep––he kept thinking about Mina. She’d been thrown into his lap just like his mother had said and he’d rejected her. He’d been trained to use facts to make decisions, not to eliminate a choice because it felt wrong. He thought about Badger the last time he’d seen her. The warm hand he’d bandaged, the half-kiss and bloody lip they shared, the magnificent way her eyes changed when they focused on something.
    Wilson shifted position. Except she never looked at him that way. Why would care about a simpleton like him? He had years of training left, while the others she could choose from were basically adults. Whatever the situation between them, he had to tell her about the database and the others who’d died. But how?
    He woke with the sun overhead and the herd grazing a short distance away. Blackie rested, head on her paws and blinking lazily. Wilson tossed her some meat. After a meal of bread and cheese he inspected the crossbow. He carefully released the catch then cleaned and checked the reload lever, fittings, and bowstring. He reloaded and fitted the bolt back into its track.
    What would she think when he told her? What would she say? Blackie didn’t move her head but watched carefully as Wilson stood and walked a circle around the herd.
    He lay on the grass and watched dark clouds creep across the sky. Trust me. Her hand in his. I do. Wilson stood and practiced the calming trick for a quarter-hour and felt better.
    Out of boredom he