Swiftcurrent Creek tuvaq

out there, kilgitsuk answered, momentarily.

he was not certain yet if he would ever go back to his wife; that thought alone gnawed at him, but he could not bring the truth to the surface, especially to another man. he could not let himself feel weakness or it might infect him and spread. hiding it was the only option - for lestan could see it as an opening, a means to an end.

kilgitsuk should have known better than to doubt this man. it wasn't lestan he doubted specifically, but all men, for he knew the way their minds worked - the way the world was, for them. he knew it because that was what his mother had taught him, and his father, when he had killed him.

a deep breath comes.

i am a trader now. my time will end here when the thaw comes. and he will be gone, as he was hawk-in-snow for as long as the winter persisted.