Near the northern lip of the basin, where the meadow turf sloped down toward a ravine of twisted ironwood and mountain pine, they heard someone talking in the flowers.
At first Ysabet took the sound for another wax-pollen echo—like the river bell Chaska had heard or the phantom cough behind the granite boulder. It was a low, hoarse murmur coming from a slumped bank of earth where an old ironwood tree leaned out over the gully.
Then Lilt, walking at the rear of the hemp rope beside Chaska, lifted her flat head and flared her nostrils wide. She did not hiss the way she had at the phantom sheep. Instead, her throat gave the low, guttural click she used when a real mule or a courier’s dog was standing downwind, and her broad leading fin twitched against the walking pad.
“That’s not dust,” Chaska said through her wet scarf, pointing her walking pole toward the base of the ironwood bank. “Look under the lower root. That’s boot leather, and there’s a steel snare-ring hanging on that dead branch.”
Ashaun held the flower stems aside with her stone left forearm and sliced a narrow turn in the path so they could reach the gravel bank without shaking the overhead boughs. Osha and Chaska set the oak archive case down on a dry hummock of sedge at the edge of the cut lane while Ysabet moved forward with Pip still touching the rope beside her knee.
