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

cheek. He started to get up for his jacket but Badger held him tight.
    “Is that all you have to say?” she asked.
    “No, there’s more.”
    They sheltered from the storm under the wide spruce trees like a pair of lonely goats. When the thunder passed and the rain faded to a soft spray they guided the animals down the mountain. Wilson kept his arm around Badger’s waist and felt the gentle rhythm in each of her steps.
    “Why did the patrol take so long?”
    Badger sighed. “This group of tribals kept wandering back and forth like they were looking for something. Too close to ignore and too many to fight.”
    “Hunters?”
    “Too much noise. They wouldn’t have caught a dead goat tied to a tree.”
    “Raiders?”
    “Maybe. I couldn’t get close enough to find out.”
    At the dark edge of twilight they brought the herd to the corral. Wilson locked the gate and gave Blackie a large piece of dried meat. He walked with Badger hand-in-hand to the small cabin. Inside were two narrow bunks and a large pile of furs.
    “You don’t have to stay,” said Wilson, holding her around the waist. “You might be missed.”
    “Someone right here will miss me,” she said.
    The bunks were hard and the furs musty, but it didn’t matter. Together they kept warm and forgot that anything else had ever existed.
    Later, curled together under the blankets, Wilson played with one of her braids that had started come loose.
    “I feel like a hooked fish,” he said. “And you’re on the other end of the line.”
    Badger giggled. “I won’t throw you back yet.”
    She left the bunk and felt through a pile of clothes.
    “Where are you going?”
    “You’re right, Will––I can’t stay here. Simpson will come looking for me.”     
    “Well, they have to find out sometime.”
    “Not tonight and not like this.”
    Wilson stayed under the furs and stared at the antlers that hung from the roof beams.
    “There’s something I didn’t tell you.”
    She jumped on top of him playfully. “What?”
    “It’s about you.”
    “I’m the greatest, you told me six times already.”
    Wilson shook his head. “It’s about your collapse. The sickness.”
    “Tell me.”
    “Listen, it’s not definite. Like you said, what do the stupid priests know anyway? Maybe there’s another set of records I haven’t found yet–”
    She opened her eyes wide. “WHAT is not definite?”
    Wilson sighed and rubbed his cheeks.
    “Your condition ... it’s fatal. Everyone in your name-line had it, including the founder. It started at different ages, but all of them had it. And ... all of them died from it.”
    “You’re joking!” She left the bed and stared at him. “Don’t tell me a stupid thing like that. I feel fine. It can’t be that bad!”
    “I wouldn’t tell you unless I thought it was true.”
    “How long?”
    “A month. Six weeks at the most.”
    “Why didn’t you say anything?”
    The look in her eyes made Wilson wish he had more than a blanket for protection.
    “You were on patrol!”
    “That’s not what I meant,” she said. “Before.”
    “What? I don’t understand.”
    Badger pulled on her trousers, moccasins, and jacket.
    “I thought you were different,” she said.
    “Kira, it’s not what you think!”
    She turned the latch and a draft blew into the room.
    “No. You’re just like the rest of them.”
     
     

FOUR
     
    T he next two weeks were hell for him.
    Badger avoided him outside, at mealtimes, and didn’t attend services. Wilson pushed carefully-worded letters under her door but found them torn and scattered across the corridor later. The hunters simply avoided his questions. He didn’t even know if she was in the valley or not. He began to see things, to mistake other dark-haired girls for her. He walked the underground corridors at night until the lack of sleep ground his mind into a thoughtless oblivion. When Reed wasn’t watching, he searched for her on the tracking screens.
    For a distraction he