Yes, he had painted those marks in many different configurations. The pictorial language of the shaman. Sometimes they had meant war, the preparation for driving out evil and inviting the light of the spirits to battle with the dark. Sometimes they meant knowledge, and often they merely represented a season or a wind. But in this arrangement, the marks wrought in gold on the side of a box-car, they meant something different.

They had spelled the word love.

Sam’s tears fell, and the hot line of saltwater that ran from his cheek onto the rock to which it was pressed, spread out like ink on blotting paper and joined the water that ran across the ice from the mountains.

* * *

What did he feel?

He had not even considered that on his journey. He watched the cars rumble by and knew that on the other side of this solid snake, Sam was walking along the track towards the tunnel entrance. He was safe. Alive. Calvin had stretched out his spirit and felt his pain and sorrow as he climbed that rock towards the track, and knew that Sam’s heart was contemplating a dark and unthinkable deed. But his hurried prayer to the Thunder Spirit must have been answered, although he was not sure how, and Calvin had nearly wept when a small gap between the cars had briefly revealed Sam emerging over the top of the rock. He would wait now, until Sam settled in his purpose, choose his time, and then approach.

But what did he feel?

Calvin rubbed at his disfigured hand with his good fingers and bent his head. All his purification, his return to the way of the spirit, his sweat and terror, had left him no time to ask himself that simple question. Now, he had tracked his prize to this place, and the question was burning in his heart.

He stood in the great shadow of a tall pine, and with a mind that was clear allowed himself the luxury of honesty. He was still in love with Sam. His excitement that was almost swallowed by constant terror was the excitement of seeing a lost love.

And how would this object of adoration, this boy that had grown into such a man, react when he viewed this old and broken nightmare from his past? Once, that was, Sam believed it to be truly the man and not an apparition from his private hell. Calvin could not say, but he braced himself for the rejection that was inevitable, the violence that might occur.

The tree above him rustled, dropping snow onto the drift in front of him with a dull thud. The shaman raised his head slowly and stared into the drooping snow-laden branches of the lodgepole pine, searching for the creature that had betrayed its presence. There was no time to dwell on the pain in his human heart. It was not only Calvin who watched Sam Hunting Wolf with hungry eyes.