Excerpt #1

It was slow going, and messy too, but the baby was amazingly intent, watching him with ancient eyes. She sucked hard on the knot, indicating with a tiny whimper when she’d sucked it dry and it was time for him to reload.

“What in bloody blue blazes will I do with a scrap of humanity like you?”

The rising colour in the aspen leaves had confirmed his hunch that, this year, winter would be closing fast. He couldn’t travel far hampered by a baby.

The Dene? They had invited him close to their fires. Shared their caribou stew, and finally sent him on his way with a pouch full of achee and two pair of soft moccasins. Maybe the Dene?

Trapper John held the baby to this chest, the heft of her as light as the down of a duck. His roughened hands were gentle on her back. Pat, pat, pat. Pat, pat, pat.

His efforts had further exhausted him and the sun was still warm on his back. And although he’d been sure he would never, in his lifetime, fall asleep with a baby cradled in his arms, he slumped, his eyes became heavy, his breathing measured and slow. The baby felt it, and matched her breath to his.

Snuggling deeper into the wiry nest of grey that fronted his massive chest, the Raft Baby slept, her lips curved in a secret smile.

Excerpt #2

Dear Ones,

I am writing by the light of a snapping birch fire, and my long hair, of which I must admit, I was just a smidgen proud, now smells like old moccasins and looks much worse. The first thing to go is vanity, which may not be so bad.

This land is so beautiful and so incredibly vast. It’s hard to imagine it, back home, where all you can see is another house across the street and a little patch of the sky. It’s the stars I would stay for, dotting the huge black bowl of the universe. Silence so absolute you could hear the beat of an angel’s wing.