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the neatly packed wagon, with its piles of tightly rolled sleeping furs, its red- and blue-painted wooden chests, and its rows of lidded storage baskets. Birdie was entranced.
    “It’s perfect,” she said wistfully. “I wish we had a wagon like this.”
    “Eh, and so you should,” Branica said, nodding approvingly. She was cutting thick slices of pungent sausage with a curved knife. “You Fishers stay too close to roof and doorstep. We Hunters, now — we live in all the world at once and sleep beneath new stars each night. It keeps the mind easy and the spirit free. To stay in one place, then that place comes to own you, no? When you find a place you can no longer leave behind, that is not to be whole.”
    She handed Tad a wooden plate piled high with sliced sausage, and laughed at his puzzled expression.
    “You do not understand me, little pond-dweller, no? You Fishers are like the rocks, who sit-sit-sit, and let the world pass by them” — she made a little crouching movement, then froze, rocklike, flashing dark eyes at Tad —“but we Hunters are like the wind in the grasses, touching all, seeing all. You should spend a summer with us in caravan. Then you see how it is to live.”
    Tad wanted to protest that that wasn’t what Fishers were like at all — even though, secretly, he had sometimes thought so himself.
We don’t just sit like a lot of stickmud turtles
, he thought resentfully. He opened his mouth to argue, but before he could speak, Ditani interrupted with a question.
    “Is that your frog?” Ditani asked curiously — and then, when Tad nodded —“I’ve never seen anyone keep a frog as a pet before.”
    Pippit, hovering at the edge of the campsite, croaked and rolled his eyes at her, which was his way of looking endearing. Ditani leaned closer to Tad.
    “They’re really good to eat,” she whispered.
    Pippit gave an outraged croak and vanished into the shrubbery.
    “To
eat
?” Tad repeated incredulously.
“Frogs?”
    Ditani nodded. “Their legs,” she said.
    Tad stared at her in horror.
    “Nobono!” Branica shouted over his shoulder. “Talk later, man! We need meat for the supper!”
    Nobono, shaking his head, broke away from his conversation with Uncle Czabo and Pondleweed and walked toward her, soft-footed, unslinging his bow. He smacked Branica on the bottom. “No need to screech like a huntercat, woman,” he said. He grinned at Tad, teeth flashing white in his dark face.
    “Have you been on the hunt before, young Fisher?” At the shake of Tad’s head, Nobono crooked a finger and jerked his head toward the dimness of the forest. “Time that you were then. Follow me and try not to set those webby feet to break twigs.”
    Tad looked anxiously toward his father for permission; Pondleweed shrugged resignedly and gave a little nod. Torn between anticipation and resentment, Tad hurried behind as Nobono slipped into the underbrush.
    Tad had never seen anything like the Hunter’s skill in the forest. Nobono was as swift and silent as a brown shadow, sliding from tree root to tree root, slithering through dead weeds and bracken, light as a dried leaf. Motionless, he became invisible, and Tad felt his heart give a nervous beat at the thought of losing him, of being abandoned in the forest all alone. A hand gripped his shoulder and Tad jerked with alarm.
    “Softly.” It was Nobono, speaking in a breath of a whisper. He crouched, pulling Tad down beside him, and pointed. “There. Can’t you smell it? Blood.”
    Tad squinted in the direction of the pointing finger, sniffing the evening air. He couldn’t smell anything. At least not anything different. Just leaf mold. And he couldn’t see anything either. He turned to ask Nobono a question, but the Hunger impatiently jerked his head, gesturing for silence. Tad looked again. Was that something moving — there, beneath that shaggy clump of ferns? He couldn’t be sure. Then he heard a faint rustle and a sound of scrabbling claws, and