While most of the camp had gravitated to Tsen and Shin and were petting them to the point where it was almost aggravating, Tor saw two familiar figures in the twilight and flickering light of the campfires… The Baldor brothers.

Both of them were joined by equally small wives with equally small babies at their breasts. Coming right up to him and hugging him, they both exclaimed, "We thought you were never coming back. When summer came we looked for you and your horse. But you never came. Why we are so excited now!"

"I told you I would return. Only the gods knew how long."

"So much has changed. Who is this you have with you, she is so beautiful, a prime example of womanhood!" Their wives giggled.

"This is Shea, my wife. We have weathered much together." She extended her hands in greeting to the young wives who gasped with their husbands when they heard that news.

The brothers introduced their wives and babies, one walking and one not yet.

"Any children?"

"If we did, they would be with us. But there is always hope." Tor patted Shea's taut midsection gently. Only the gods know. We want to have many."

Not wanting to bring her up, Tor avoided the question by asking another.

"Where is Yahn? I have so much to tell him and you around the campfire."

"He lived long for an albino. But in the winter last, when food became so scarce without a store of meat like you provided, he gave up eating so that the others could eat. He withered and died. We held a ceremony and sent him off to the gods of the lake."

The other brother then sadly reported. "Silva was so adventurous, and even more so after you left. She wanted to do everything. When she saw us paddling across the lake with you, she wanted to try it. When we got on the lake she was loving it so much, putting her hands in the water and paddling with us that we stayed out until midday… Too long." He began sobbing.

The other brother continued when his brother could no longer speak. "She received a terrible sunburn.  Yahn had warned her not to go out, but she was a free spirit and wouldn't listen to reason. The old women made poultices to cover her back and legs, but it was of no avail. She died screaming in a night of terrible pain." He too, started sobbing uncontrollably.

Tor and Shea joined in crying and they all held each other for comfort. Eventually, and sadly, they moved off to where preparations were being made to cook the meat the visitors had brought for another sad, but welcome, celebration. It wasn't till the following night that Tor was up to telling his fabulous stories, proven by artifacts brought from faraway places.

The next day they traded and observed the camp life of the strange people. Shea was especially interested and wanted to be mother to them all. They stayed while the moon went through from quarter to half phase doing all they could for this clan of misfits, now friends.

After trying to teach the Baldors how to sail with their round boats without much success, Tor spent much of his time showing them how to make a dugout canoe by burning the center out making it easier to chip away the center part. There were many small people to help in the task on a huge old log that had been there forever on the lake bank.

When the dugout was completed, it easily carried four little people. After outriggers were lashed on, it was ready to go. By that time, Tor's seal skin sail was getting tattered and torn. He wanted to take it with him anyway as evidence of seals. The women of the camp were good at weaving fine grasses into covers for sleeping. So he set Shea to helping them weave a sail from that grass that was common in the clearings near camp.

Before long, everyone in the camp wanted to go sailing. The Baldor brothers took possession of the first and only dugout canoe on the lake. Very soon, they were catching more fish. Tor and Shea led hunting parties deep into the outlying forest and brought back, thanks to Tsen's ability to carry, much meat and birds for the people to dry and smoke in preparation for the inevitable winter to come.

As they left on that, still familiar, trail ahead there was much crying among the strange people wanting them to stay. But they still had a way to go to get to the Valley of the Po and were secretly anxious to leave the melancholy behind that still dwelt in that place of past remembrance.

They soon found another cache and prepared for the mountains ahead. This time, gathering up tinder and firewood, as well as carrying an ember to have fire at a stopping point that Tor remembered at high altitude near one of the passes.

This time everything went easier. Many of the hard parts of the trail had been improved by many who had passed this way before them, the land bridge between Lake Geneve and the River Po. After two passings of the sun and the moon, nearly full now, enabling them to travel in the moonlight, they descended to the valley of the Po where thoughts of their destination came to Tor's mind.

"Shea, this river, except for a short passage over a mountain range to shorten our journey, will be our guide all the way to our destination."

"Will that take long?

"Not long. But first we must pass through a gorge where there are fierce people. Fortunately they know me and we shouldn't have any trouble with them."

"I can't wait." She was regaining her usual cheerfulness again. Tor appreciated that in her. He really needed it, thinking about what he would find when he arrived at the camp of the Po people.

The river here was very small, a bouncing babbling brook that grew as they continued down the trail into the beginnings of the gorge ahead. Up ahead, the mountain above came right down to the trail that had once been the riverbed. With the river on the right side and a steep wall on the left, it was narrow, but very passable. Curved out of sight to the left.

Suddenly, Shin alerted to something. From his growl Tor knew that it was not game, but something dangerous. Immediately, a large bear came bounding into sight from around the bend trailing three cubs. Both Tor and Shea stopped and reached for their bows while Tsen reared up on his hind legs giving the bear a reason to stop.

But Shin, as protective as he was, ran right up to the sow viciously barking at her to get her to retreat. She didn't. Instead with one swipe of her front paw she hit him on the shoulder and as her motion continued her claws ripped open his throat as he flew off the trail into the water screaming like Tor had never heard him before.

Then the bear, seeing more trouble for her cubs, turned tail and ran with them back to where they had come.

Tor was down off the trail and up to his knees in water to pick up his dog who was bleeding profusely from his neck and gasping for breath. He was dead by the time Tor got him back up on the trail, where once again, the couple cried their eyes out and hugged until they had no more tears to cry.

Instead of cutting Shin up and eating him, the tradition of Thals from Tor's past, ahead they soon found a spot that was above where the river would flood. They buried him under rocks the way that a human might be buried to avoid the body from being attacked by scavengers.

Once again, the couple moved on with melancholy on their minds. Such was the way of the gods.

Copyright 2021 © Ronald W. Hull

7/4/21