People of the Fire (69 page)

 
          
 
The buffalo would come back. He'd cleansed the
People of the taint of women. Buffalo Above would see their humility and lift
the drought, bringing his children to fertility. The buffalo would continue so
long as the People remained untainted. Mother had told him that as a young boy.

 
          
 
So why keep whittling away at the
Anit'ah
? the voice of reason demanded.

 
          
 
"Because they stood before us. Denied us
the land which is ours. Because they defied me!" He raised a clenched fist
to the mountain wall.

 
          
 
The drums of the Blessing remained in his
memory, pounding their message of unity and the Power of the People. They'd
been together then, untainted by the evil prophecy of a dying witch.

 
          
 
He stopped, staring up at the fire in the
clouds, remembering the way the huge bonfires of the Blessing had even masked
the light of the
Starweb
.

 
          
 
“Yes. A Blessing. A way to purify the taint of
Straight Wood's possessed soul."

 
          
 
He smiled blandly at the sky, thankful for the
sign his mother had sent him. He could reaffirm the Power of the People, make
them one again. Together they'd Dance away the taint of Straight Wood's
prophecy—and the witch White Calf at the same time.

 
          
 
He smacked a pudgy fist into a palm before
slapping another mosquito. Already he could hear the drums, fed the Power of
the Dancing People. The women could be shown their place.

 
          
 
The Power of Heavy Beaver would be renewed And
maybe, just perhaps, he could understand his mother's words this time if he
purified himself, sweated and tasted.

 
          
 
"Thank you, Mother," he whispered to
the dying hues in the clouds. He'd need some time for preparation, of course.

           
 
He couldn't recall the war parties from the
mountain and leave their back exposed. To do so might give heart to the
Anit'ah
. But if runners went up to tell them the People
Danced a Blessing, perhaps they at last might see the end of the
Anit'ah
.

 
          
 
Fire Dancer led the way up the rocky trail
behind White Calf's shelter, called by something beyond. The huge black wolf
whined softly, warning. Muscles rippled along the animal's flanks as it fixed
piercing eyes on Fire Dancer. Why? What did it know?

 
          
 
The western horizon blazed in a glory of light
as the sunset illuminated the clouds. The color stopped them as they reached
the crest of the trail. Was it imagination, or did a man's form stare at them
out of the packed thunderhead? A shiver played down Two Smokes' spine; a
feeling of Power filled the air about them. Some terrible worry betrayed itself
in Fire Dancer's posture as he looked up at the radiant clouds, eyes on the
shining face that had formed from the cloud mass.

 
          
 
The anxiety had been growing as they climbed
the trails and cut through the valleys. Fire Dancer rarely spoke, locked away
in his preoccupation and worry.

 
          
 
Then to have found White Calf's shelter empty,
and a bloodstain in the soil, had added to the premonition.

 
          
 
Two Smokes hobbled up and stopped, following
Fire Dancer's gaze. The old woman lay on her back, illuminated by the vermilion
tones cast by the enflamed clouds. Already the coyotes and ravens had been at
work. White splotches streaked her clothing where the ravens had evacuated. The
flesh had been eaten from her face and feet. Despite the ravaging of her gut,
the fatal dart shaft still stuck up to the sky.

 
          
 
"No!" The cry tore from Fire
Dancer's throat.

 
          
 
An aching hollowness yawned within as Two
Smokes hitched his way forward—pain forgotten in his tortured knee. He stopped
at the edge of the stone circle, seeing how someone had propped White Calf's
head on the central cairn, facing her to the west so her soul could watch the
setting sun. Wisps of gray hair fluttered around the wreckage of her skull.

 
          
 
She'd been dead for some days. Now her exposed
gums glinted in the bloody light. The empty sockets of her eyes gaped at the
sunset. Her death
rictus
mocked the dying day.

 
          
 
Two Smokes wavered on his feet, catching the
odor of decay and raven feces. He seemed to hang over an abyss, a portion of
his soul torn away to disappear with the wind.

 
          
 
Fire Dancer walked up to stand beside him, the
strength of his grief buffeting Two Smokes' already tortured soul. The black wolf
whimpered, a keening note in its plaintive voice.

 
          
 
"I thought the People didn't believe in
killing their own through violence." The thought surfaced and Two Smokes
had to say something.

 
          
 
"They've lost their way," Fire
Dancer
whispered."Others
must pay."

 
          
 
"They'll pay," Two Smokes gritted.
"They'll pay in the end. You'll Dream them all away, into the ground, to
be locked forever in blackness."

 
          
 
Two Smokes shuddered at the weight of Fire
Dancer's hand on his shoulder. The soft voice soothed something in his rent
soul.

 
          
 
"Do you kill children for foolishness? Do
you destroy them because they've no parent?"

 
          
 
Two Smokes clamped his eyes shut, trying to
block the memory, to ignore the scent of death in his nostrils. "Is that
what we are? Parents?"

 
          
 
"Perhaps. Maybe a better word is
teacher."

 
          
 
Two Smokes blinked to clear his vision and
looked at Fire Dancer, awed at the feeling of loss. The man stood, staring, an
incredible sorrow in his anguished expression. Had so much of Fire Dancer died
with White Calf?

 
          
 
"I wanted to come talk to her, to see if
she knew a way for me. I ..." He shook his head. "The path to the One
is so difficult, Two Smokes. Illusion is real to us. It's powerful—so hard to
deny. Once I lay dying in the snow, and I freed myself. Then I lay dying of
snakebite, and the barriers in the soul lowered to let me Dream the One. I had
a guide each time. Don't you understand? / had a guide!"

 
          
 
Fire Dancer swallowed and lowered his eyes, a
sag to his shoulders. "What if I can't Dream it? What it the illusion
blinds me? I'm . . .so unsure."

 
          
 
"You counted on White Calf?"

           
 
"She knew so much."

 
          
 
"When her soul went free, something
wonderful left the world." The knot in Two Smokes' throat tightened.
"She was my friend. She, of all the people I've known, understood me
best."

 
          
 
"Grief is an illusion," Fire Dancer
repeated under his breath. "Only illusion."

 
          
 
"And if it fills you when you try to
Dream?"

 
          
 
"Then it may kill us all." He turned
away then, walking wearily back toward the trail that led down to the valley,
and suddenly collapsed, sinking to his knees. He cupped his face in his hands.
"I feel so lost."

 
          
 
"But you've Dreamed the One."

 
          
 
Fire Dancer hunched as if against a blow.
"I've Dreamed. Yes, I've Dreamed the One. But, Two Smokes, why do you
think I sat up on the ridge? I've tried, and tried and tried. I can't do it on
my own. Don't you see?

 
          
 
"Imagine a mountain in front of you, and
you can see a fire at the top. You stand in darkness, bathed only by the light
of the fire, but you can't see the trails. The mountain is illusion, and you
don't know the paths through it. So you start up, and find your way blocked by
rock. You go back, and start again, and that way is blocked by deadfall, but
you get higher, closer to the light. Each time you go back and retrace, finding
your way around dead ends, and each time you get farther—but I've never found
the path to the top, and each of the dead ends is always there, ready to block
you again if you forget the way around it.

 
          
 
"Worst of all, it's cold at the bottom of
the mountain. I want to feel the fire, experience the warmth. That drives me,
makes me more desperate. The more I want it, the farther light is away, the
more impossible to reach the summit. People think to Dance the One you just
spread your wings and fly—but you have to walk, take each step up the path of
illusion.

 
          
 
"And I haven't found the way yet by
myself. At the camp, Elk Charm, or my daughters, or Hungry Bull . . . something
blocked me. Even my own doubts."

 
          
 
"But you Dreamed the One!"

 
          
 
"Yes!" he cried. "Wolf Dreamer
came to me. I almost had to die to reach that threshold! Can't you see? I'm my
own worst enemy! It's not Heavy Beaver or Blood Bear . . . it's me that I have
to defeat!"

 
          
 
"Maybe Wolf Dreamer will come to you when
you need. Power can't just throw its tools away like a silly old woman does a
flake after she's cut—"

 
          
 
"But it can." With fevered eyes he
glanced at Two Smokes. "I don't know, call it a feeling, but it's not just
Wolf Dreamer, or Power, or what they'd wish. It's me.
Vm
important. I have to dream the Spiral back. And I can feel it, like that
sensation you get when a grizzly bear is watching. I have to make it to the One
on my own. It's within me. My free will—if you want to think of it that way."

 
          
 
"There's also the Wolf Bundle."

 
          
 
"How do I use it? I can feel it, but it's
like the One. It hovers out there, locked in Spirit Power, and it's dying. Ever
since that day Heavy Beaver threw it into the dark, it's been dying. What if so
much of the Power has drifted away that it's like an old man, incapable of
casting a dart?"

 
          
 
Two Smokes ripped his attention from the
gruesome corpse. "And if the Wolf Bundle can't help?"

 
          
 
Fire Dancer's shoulders rose and fell.
"Then I don't know what I'll do." He stared up at the garish sunset.
"These past days, I've been haunted—seeing the love in Elk Charm's eyes. I
long to hold my daughters, to see them play. I want to hear Hungry Bull laugh
at Black Crow's jokes, enjoy Three Toes whistling like a bird.

 
          
 
"Now, when I close my eyes, I'll see
White Calf's corpse, feel the grief twisting inside like a rabbit on a stick.
Do you know what that means? What if I can't control my will? What if I can't
find the path by the time I need it? What then? I only know I can do it. I can
touch the One. Once I'm there, I can Dance the world without getting lost. But
can I climb the mountain when I need to? I need more time!”

 
          
 
Tanager woke before sunrise. She lay curled in
her hide, body stiff as if she'd run and fought all through the long night.
Desperately thirsty, she worked her tongue around the dryness of her mouth,
grimacing at the sour taste.