Wild Inferno by Sandi Ault

does not bring the young woman back any meat, and she has to go to her family’s lodge for dinner many nights through the winter. And one day in early spring, while the beautiful woman is outside helping her mother stretch a hide, she sees the big man bringing a deer he has killed to the lodge of another woman in camp. And that woman is a little bit older and not so pretty, but big man continues to bring her gifts and this not so pretty woman decides to accept the big man. And so big man and his not so pretty bride go into the wedding lodge, and it is spring.”
    The audience laughed and clapped.
    â€œThen the summer comes, and the People stop to pick serviceberries again. And pretty soon all the women in camp have made the last of the serviceberries into pemmican and the leaves of that tree are turning into the colors of sunset and fire. Frost paints the lodges again, and the People choose a winter camp, this time in Sagebrush Valley. They settle in and the snows come. The young woman notices that big man and his new bride don’t hardly come out of their lodge much at all.”
    Whoops and more clapping.
    â€œEvery once in a while, big man’s bride would come out and gather some firewood and then she went right back in the lodge. And every time she did come out for wood, the People noticed that her skin looked softer and smoother, that her hair was shiny and strong, and her body was nice and round, that she was growing more pretty every day somehow, spending her days and nights all the time in that lodge with big man. Finally, the spring comes, and big man and his new bride come out of their lodge with two little bear cubs. Over the winter, big man has grown hair all over his body, and he has become a bear. At first, the People are afraid, but then they watch and see the tenderness and devotion he shows to his little ones and to his bride, and they see that he is a wise being. Big man has become a bear, and his bear spirit just needed the right wife to help him find his path.
    â€œAnd the bear gave the People a lesson. There is a time for all things, even for things we love, things that bring us joy. Everything that happens is someplace on the medicine wheel, and the wheel is always turning. The bear knows that the spring is the best time to make love. Because on the medicine wheel, love is on one side, and children come around after that. So the wheel turns, and a spring marriage makes winter children, so the babies can sleep with their mother in the den as they grow fat and healthy, without hunters coming. And the bear also tells us that spring and summer are the time for hunting and gathering, because winter comes around on the wheel after that.”
    â€œBut what about little guy?” one man yelled.
    â€œAw, he was a coyote,” Mary Takes Horse said. “He ran off and went his own way. You know how they are.”

12
Debriefing
    Wednesday, 2300 Hours
    When I got back to Fire Camp, I headed for the chow tent. I knew they wouldn’t have supper this late, but there were usually a few goodies one could grab—they often left them out for crews who arrived in camp late. It was still over one hundred degrees, so the first place I went was to the beverage area. I took my plastic bottle out of my belt holder and filled it first with crushed ice. Then I poured in a couple packets of sweetener and a pouch of the fake lemon juice they had for tea. I filled the jug to the top with water and shook it to mix up my improvised lemonade. I poked around the coolers set up along the chow line and found some ice cream bars in one of them. I sat down at one of the tables and began unfolding the wrapper from a frozen fudge bar. A small gust of wind blew through the tent and a strip of the paper I had pulled from the ice cream flitted back and forth and then stuck again in the frozen fudge. I remembered the flap of flesh on the singed face of the corpse, the tuft of hair fluttering in the breeze as I