People of the Fire (9 page)

 
          
 
Gray mist rose around him, cooling the
battering heat of the sun on his back, throbbing about him in time to the pain
that touched his nerves like white-burning coals on skin.

 
          
 
How long had he lain there, floating up and
down from consciousness? A vague image of night, of shivering and hurting,
played briefly about his mind.

 
          
 
Then something had changed. His head had been
moved. He knew it despite the lightning bolts of pain that racked him. Perhaps
the Power hadn't been dead. He remembered . . .

           
 
Two Smokes groaned, trying to find himself in
the waves of misery.

 
          
 
"
Anit'ah
?"
He recognized the word. Enemy.

 
          
 
"
Anit'ah
, can
you hear me?"

 
          
 
"I . . ." The croak of his voice
scared him.

 
          
 
"Drink. Slow."

 
          
 
Warm fingers parted his cracked lips, working
between his teeth to pry his jaws apart. A slight trickle of water traced over
his tongue. Desperately he licked at the roof of his mouth. More water, enough
to tease his throat, then he was drinking, reveling in the liquid.

 
          
 
He tried to turn over—pain staggered his mind.

 
          
 
"Hold still. Your leg. Very bad. Wait
just a minute. Drink more."

 
          
 
This time he recognized the pressure against
his lip. Buffalo-gut water bag. He sucked more of the precious fluid into his
dying body.

 
          
 
"Now, let me .see your leg."

 
          
 
He felt fingers lifting the hem of his
berdache's
dress. Fire flashed white as fingers prodded and
he cried out. The dress lifted higher and he heard an intake of breath.

 
          
 
"You're a man? In a . . . Ah!
Berdache
!"

 
          
 
"Got to get back to camp," he
whispered. "My fault. Got to save the child. Got . . . to . . ."

 
          
 
"Child is all right. I've got to do
something with this leg. It'll hurt."

 
          
 
He screamed as the practiced fingers probed
his flesh. The grayness wrapped around him again, dragging him down into
darkness . . . away from the pain. .

 
          
 
She'd saved his leg. The old woman had healed
him while he waited there at Monster Bone Springs. Later she'd gone, bringing
back ranging hunters. They'd carried him here. Now he waited, and suffered, and
wished for the high
Buffalo
Mountains
where he'd grown up and found a place among
a people who didn't treat him like an animal.

 
          
 
Carefully, Two Smokes lifted the Wolf Bundle,
placing it next to his cheek, feeling nothing of the Power it had once held.
Singing, he dropped
sweetgrass
onto the coals of the
morning fire, passing the Bundle four times through the cleansing smoke and
singing his devotion. With reverent he smoothed the scuffed sides of the Wolf
Bundle and expertly wrapped it in the protective wolf skin.

 
          
 
Fingers like ice traced his back. Power had
been abused. Who would suffer to restore the circles? Power always proved so
unpredictable. Offended, it might strike anywhere.

 
          
 
Anxiously he looked over at the boy.

 
          
 
With subtle tendrils, the Wolf Bundle reached
out, twining itself around Heavy Beaver's soul. Like morning mist, it explored
the texture of the man's spirit. Like the
Starweb
across the heavens, it wound around the sleeping man. Imperceptibly, the net
began to close, tightening around Heavy Beaver's life.

 
          
 
Wolf Dreamer whispered from the stars.
"The time hasn't come yet. He still serves our purpose. ''

 
          
 
“He seeks to drive human beings from the world
around them. He would divide the world. If he has his way, men will become more
important than earth, sun, animals—even women. "

 
          
 
"The time hasn't come. Our plant has only
sent up shoots."

 
          
 
"The boy may not be strong enough. He may
be the Trickster." The Wolf Bundle hesitated. "This Heavy Beaver is
evil."

 
          
 
' 'Trust in the Circles.' '

 
          
 
"It would be so easy to kill him now,
disperse his soul into the rocks and mold, and send it flying with the
wind-borne dust."

 
          
 
“And you yourself would alter the Spirals.
Trust the harmony, trust the way of the Wise One. ''

 
          
 
Reluctantly, the Power of the Wolf Bundle
unwound from around Heavy Beaver's soul.

 
          
 
White Calf walked slowly down the trail.
Countless elk, mountain sheep, and buffalo had beaten the path. Here and there
a deadfall had blocked the trail, causing her to work her way around on brittle
legs to find the main thread of the path again.

 
          
 
Animals thought differently than humans, and
the game trails led from one meadow to another; or to shelter in the thick
timber; or perhaps a place where water might be found. Human beings traveled in
straighter lines.

 
          
 
She contemplated the problem and decided a
lesson could be learned from it. Which were the brighter, the People, who
traveled long distances and wanted long straight trails over the shortest
route, or animals who traveled by the day, suffering only to meet their needs?

 
          
 
She stopped where the trail slanted down the
thickly timbered slope. A pine squirrel chattered at her. She looked up to see
the beast, crouched, tail tight over its back.

 
          
 
"Chug-chug yourself," she growled.

 
          
 
The squirrel promptly jumped a couple of
branches higher in the fir and stamped its back feet, clucking and chirring at
her.

 
          
 
White Calf scratched behind her ear, resettled
her heavy pack, and sighed. Where a spry elk could sprint up and down a trail
like this, aging women must
tred
a different path.

 
          
 
The scent of fir hung thick in her nose, as
she promptly set off along the ridge crest. Not for four years had she followed
this route to the divide that would take her into the basin. In that time, the
Wise One Above alone knew what changes had been wrought. It might be a long
trip.

 
          
 
From the place where she lay in the shadows,
Tanager watched the old woman, wondering who she was. The witch.

           
 
White Calf? A brief flutter of anxiety seized
her eight-year-old soul. What evil might come of watching a witch?

 
          
 
Tanager froze, not even reaching to pull the
wild strands of hair back from her face. Smudged and soiled, she remained
motionless. She'd learned well despite her age. While watching animals, a
person shouldn't move. Elk, for instance, saw everything; they were almost
magical in their abilities to see, smell, and hear. And once, she'd been forced
to stay still as the dead when a grizzly bear had prowled to within feet of
her. Only the breeze had saved her that time, blowing the bear's sour scent
into her nose.

 
          
 
But then, Tanager had always known she was
special. The games of the other girls had no appeal for her. Something had
always drawn her to the timber, to skip gracefully along the polished trunks of
the deadfall and climb around in the rocks where a fall would have meant
instant death.

 
          
 
No amount of scolding by her mother could keep
her home. Not when the trees and animals called to her.

 
          
 
She wrinkled her nose as the old woman
disappeared. Who'd believe she'd seen a witch? Surely not Cricket or Elk Charm.
With no more noise than a stalking bobcat, Tanager backed out from her hiding
place and shot down the trail toward camp, running as only Tanager could.

 
          
 
Little Dancer curled into a ball, hoping his
sleep would ease the cramps in his stomach. The string of uneasy dreams wound
deeper into his mind.

 
          
 
Memories of what he'd seen replayed in his
head. He'd never forget the sight of Dancing Doe's baby being smashed onto the
hard cobbles of the ridge to flop and quiver and at last lie still. From where
he'd hidden in the sagebrush, he'd seen the tortured expression on Dancing
Doe's face. Above it all, Heavy Beaver's smile hovered, mocking.

 
          
 
The image shifted. Little Dancer's gut twisted
at the sound of the hollow plop as the Wolf Bundle landed on unresisting
ground.

 
          
 
"No!" he cried, remembering the
sucking emptiness that had pulled at his young soul.

 
          
 
"The People are dying," came a
voice. "Like smoke from a distant fire, we're drifting away, becoming less
and less."

           
 
An old woman walked down out of the trees,
hobbling with the aid of a walking stick. A tumpline secured an awkward pack
low on her back while breezes tugged her gray braids this way and that. As she
looked at Little Dancer, her deep-set dark eyes glowed with Power.

 
          
 
Shifting again, he danced and whirled, the
world spinning below him. A man threw something at the sky, his face contorted
as if by anger. A sudden light blinded him painfully.

 
          
 
He felt the hunger, like waves lapping the
cobbles of
Moon
River
. Pangs of want washed around him, bearing
him on the current, twisting around, gurgling.

 
          
 
"Stop it! Stop!" He cried out; the
knot in his belly grew, encompassing all the People. Pangs of hunger, like
tendrils, reached out to touch the men who waited on butte tops; it tickled
their bellies as they searched for fresh tracks. He ached for all the People,
feeling the wasting of their bodies, the energy draining from their flesh.

 
          
 
"Feed us. Feed me," he whimpered
into the dream. The cramping of his stomach tightened as the last of the thin
stew entered his blood.

 
          
 
We come. Remember this day . . . for we are
you.

 
          
 
He started at the nearness of the voice. A
curious hazy sensation sent him drifting. A taste lay on his tongue, that of
sage, usually so bitter, now almost sweet. He bawled in fright, unable to form
words. Frightened, he ran on light legs. The view of the world around him
expanded, oddly flat, but vividly clear.

 
          
 
He ran, realizing he did so on four nimble
legs. Creatures, antelope, stood with rump patches flashing white at his alarm.
A doe stood alert and chirped to him. Without thought he turned to race for her
and the security she meant to him.

 
          
 
We come, the voice repeated. We come.

 
          
 
He shivered, torn from the body he inhabited.
Dazed, he struggled against the pressure on his shoulder, kicking. He screamed,
hearing his human voice loud in his own

 
          
 
"Little Dancer, wake up! It's a bad
dream. Wake up!"

 
          
 
He blinked, clearing his filmy eyes to stare
at his robes piled before his nose, half-afraid of what he'd find. His mother
stared down at him, concern in her tense :

           
 
"It's a dream. That's all. A bad
dream," she told him, running a soothing hand down his shoulder.

 
          
 
With an effort like walking through deep wet
snow, he cleared his thoughts.

 
          
 
"Are you all right?"

 
          
 
He shook his head, the misty image of the
antelope fawn clouding his reality. "No. Not a bad dream. We are
one."

 
          
 
Sage Root cocked her head. "I know. I've
been having nightmares, too. After last night you're—"

 
          
 
"No. " He looked over at where Two
Smokes slept, the
parfleche
containing the Wolf
Bundle tight against his chest. "We're one. The antelope heard. They're
coming. To the river . . . coming . . ."

 
          
 
She stared at him, frown lines deepening in
the smooth skin of her brow.

 
          
 
"I mean it. I saw. In the dream." He
sat up, feeling the awe of it all. "I just can't . . . can't ..."

 
          
 
"Explain?" She lifted an eyebrow,
thoughtful as she stared out the lodge entrance. Avoiding his eyes?

 
          
 
"I got scared. But it wasn't bad. Not
like Heavy Beaver would say. Not evil. Not bad. I swear. It was ..." He
frowned, perplexed, looking for the words. "One. Not different."

 
          
 
"Coming to the river? In the dream, which
way was the sun?"

 
          
 
He thought about it. "There. West."

 
          
 
"And the antelope were moving which
way?"

 
          
 
If the sun had been west, to the right, they'd
be going . . . "South."

 
          
 
She hunched over, supporting her chin with a
fist. '7f the Dream was real—a Spirit Dream. If the time is now, then ..."
She chewed at her lip for a moment, fingering her long gleaming braids.
"The old antelope trap is only a short walk from here."

 
          
 
"Heavy Beaver will get real mad if you
trap antelope."

 
          
 
Under her breath, as if to herself, she said,
"It's only a little boy's dream. Not a Spirit Dream. But what's left
besides hope?" She took a deep breath, nodding slowly to herself. When she
turned toward him, resignation hunched her shoulders. "We're all hungry.
He can Curse us on full stomachs."

           
 
She said it flippantly. But the fear lurked in
her eyes like a coyote in the night.

 
          
 
Blood Bear saw the Trader first. He walked
easily up the buffalo trail along the valley bottom. He wore a brightly painted
shirt, back bent to a pack secured by a thick, ornately beaded tumpline. In one
hand he carried a long stick that rose to a hoop decorated in gaily dyed
feathers—the staff of a Trader. A line of dogs followed, tails wagging, heads
down, and panting as they bore saddle packs of their own.

 
          
 
Blood Bear approached the man warily. Despite
the heavy pack on his shoulders and the string of pack dogs, he might still be
an enemy.

 
          
 
"Ho-
yeh
!"
the man called in the universal pidgin of travelers who came in peace.

 
          
 
"Ho-
yeh
,"
Blood Bear repeated. But the shafts of his darts felt smooth on his fingers
where they rested in the
atlatl
, ready to be cast.

 
          
 
The man made the sign for "who?"

 
          
 
Blood Bear lifted his hand, palm out, fingers
widespread. Then he pointed to the red hand he'd painted on his worn shirt.

 
          
 
"Red Hand," the man called, and
smiled. "I am Three Rattles. From the White Crane People north of the
Big
River
. Once, in my great-grandfather's day, Red
Hand and White Crane Peoples were the same. Languages not so different."

 
          
 
"No. Language not so different." A
relief, he wouldn't have to use sign language, with all its problems. Traders
came and went, using a signing technique, when needed, to barter their goods.
Traders had special Power. Everyone knew that and accepted them. No good came
from killing or robbing a Trader. Doing so biased the Power the Traders claimed
as their own, turning it against the murderer or thief.