Kimi ran. More accurately, she moved as fast as nature would allow her to with a boy slung over her shoulder, a broken wrist in a splint, and a bad ankle that was getting worse now that Kimi had to run for her life. She limped and stumbled and scampered, the branches parted for her, and she was grateful to The Great Spirit for that. Since that time when the tree had saved her life, Kimi had, in times of danger, whether from animal or man, been in similar situations when the forest acted as her friend. Her protector. When the forest acted as if…as if it were alive. And it did not matter which forest it was. Whenever Kimi’s life had been threatened and she was close to a forest—it had never happened with a single tree—the forest acted on her behalf.
Pain burned in her wrist and shot up her arm. Even under cover of the trees, the snow assaulted her and the wind shrieked and buffeted her. If she had not been able to get under the cover of the forest and away from the—
WHUMP!
She turned to the left, toward Lone Man’s Walk. There it was, no more than thirty feet away, flying only a few feet above the path, its wings kicking up plumes of snow and clipping the branches that hung over the path, breaking off wooden tips and sending snow to the ground. The wind sliced through Kimi and the snow whirled about her, but nature’s fury could not drown out the noise the great wings made as the eagle flexed its muscles. Kimi thanked The Great Spirit that the forest was thick enough to prevent the monstrous evil from following her directly.
But she could not stay in the forest forever, especially under these conditions. She could not fight the animal on her own, she could not leave the boy and try to outrun the eagle in the open, but she also could not go on like this for much longer. She was tiring and weakening, and if she stopped, the eagle would certainly work its way through the trees to her and the boy.
The boy most likely needed the attention of a physician. Kimi knew there was a place a few miles from the mountain where such people worked, but that was much too far for her to go no matter how much the forest helped. She was still the one doing the running. Besides that, the forest did not, as far as she remembered, go all the way to the white man’s hospital. She needed to find a safe place to leave the boy. She had not seen any blood when she picked him up, and judging from the occasional groaning coming from him he did not seem to be in danger of dying. If she could find a place for him, a shelter that would protect him from the storm and keep him warm for a day, she could leave him, do what she had come here to do, and come back for him if necessary. She would trust The Great Spirit to protect the boy.
But where to hide him? It had to be a place where the eagle would not only be prohibited from reaching him, but a place where the eagle would not be able to see Kimi leave him. A place where—
Kimi stopped running. The momentum of the boy’s body carried her forward, and she fell facedown onto the snow, the boy landing on his back. She wiped the snow from her face and covered him with her body, expecting an attack. There was none. She brushed more snow out of her eye and raised her head. If she had taken three more steps she would have been exposed in the clearing, the same one she had come across before hearing the crash and the scream. Three more steps and the eagle would have swooped in for the kill.
Kimi looked left, expecting to see the massive wings and outstretched talons coming at her. Nothing. She looked behind her, then along the path. Nothing. To her right. Still nothing. Where could it…. Kimi raised her eye to the sky. It was there, she could barely see it through the snow, circling the clearing above the tree tops. Kimi rose to one knee. Her other knee and lower leg absorbed the cold of the snow, the shock of it focusing Kimi’s attention on her present situation.
The eagle above her circled the clearing. It had made one complete journey around the circumference, not once entering the space above the clearing, as if an invisible electrified fence had been erected at the perimeter and extended to the tree tops, warding off the flying menace.
Kimi watched the eagle as it continued circling the perimeter. It was still as high as it had been, still circling. Kimi looked at the clearing, wondering what she had stumbled upon that, evidently, would not allow the eagle to enter its airspace. She also wondered if she had just found an answer as to what to do with the boy. If she was wrong, she, or the boy, or both of them would most likely be torn to shreds within the next few seconds. But there was nothing else for her to do. She got down on one knee, carefully lifted the boy onto her shoulders, and stepped forward until she was at the edge of the clearing.
She looked up at the circling eagle.
She prayed to The Great Spirit.
Kimi closed her eye and stepped out from the protection of the forest and into the white storm, into the safety and danger of the open clearing.