Zadayi Red (44 page)

He pulled a pouch off the belt, dug his fingers in, and rubbed his
do-wa
with bear grease. It was already hard, but he wanted her to see. He stroked himself several times, deliciously.

Then he knelt between her legs, picked up the knife, and pulled out the neckline of her dress. With the sharp blade he cut the dress delicately from her neck to her breasts, then to her waist, then to the bottom of her skirt. He let his eyes linger on her. “Your breasts are beautiful, not that I give a damn.”

He rubbed her crotch with greasy fingers. He glared into her eyes, hoping to see desire, but saw only hatred. He raised her knees and thrust himself into her.

S
unoya pulled Zeya away from a widow and said, “I’m going to die tomorrow.”

Disbelief slapped his face. He saw her dress cut top to bottom and tied with her shawl. He looked into her eyes for the truth and saw it.

He forgot everything else in the world. He couldn’t hear the woman he’d just been listening to. He forgot about Klandagi, who was never more than one leap away from him.

“Take me seriously. I’m going to die now.” Now her speech stumbled. “And I have a lot to do . . .”

She turned away from him and took one staggering step. He grabbed her. “Mother,” he said with an edge, “what happened?”

She whirled on him like he was a culprit. “Wilu raped me. Just now.”

“Where?” said Klandagi.

“Down by the creek.” She waved a hand in that direction.

Klandagi bounded off.

Zeya wrapped his mother in his arms.

Sunoya said, “I don’t know if I have enough concentration to call Su-Li.”

At that moment the buzzard hovered over her, then perched on her shoulder.

“Goodbye, friend,” she said to him.

Zeya couldn’t hear what Su-Li said back, but he could guess.

He knew the story. If any man ever had his mother, even by force, she would die. In a single day she would wither, grow ancient, and at the next sunset pass on to the Darkening Land. At the same moment she passed over, Su-Li would be whisked away beyond the Sky Arch. Sunoya knew, Zeya knew.

They sat and he held her. Through the evening they stayed there. In the last of the light Su-Li perched on her shoulder.
I understand,
he said. All night long they stayed like that.

In the morning Sunoya said, “I want to go to the bathroom.” Zeya walked with her.

When they got back, she said, “I’m hungry.” Somehow he found two honeyed seed cakes for her. He ate nothing. For her to eat and die, he to starve and live—it was unspeakable.

Word spread through the camp. The Tuscas packed up and left for the Cheowa village. People nodded to Zeya as they left, and no one spoke. He held Sunoya all day. Late in the afternoon she drifted out of consciousness. Zeya eased her down, lay beside her, and held her. Klandagi curled up nearby, and Su-Li perched on her arm.

When the sun spread itself along the ridge of the mountain, lunacy rattled Zeya. He stammered out, “How long?”
Then he smiled ruefully at himself for asking a question the buzzard couldn’t answer with signals.

The buzzard perched on Sunoya’s hip now.

“I’m going to stick out my hand and grab the sun and hold it in the sky,” he said. His mind hurled crazy thoughts at him, and one was:
Stupid
.

When the sun was gone and only a little light lingered, Zeya said to Su-Li, “Will you be sad to go back?” Half of him despised the bitterness in his voice, and half of him didn’t give a damn.

Su-Li turned one eye directly into Zeya’s face, and it glowed. He said,
I love your mother.

Zeya burst into tears. He snuggled into Sunoya’s back and let himself rock with great, pitching sobs.

When the light was only a hint, and not even a hint, Zeya sat up and looked at the buzzard.

Su-Li said,
Maybe I love your world
. The spirit animal’s head swiveled all the way around slowly. The two of them could barely see.
It’s a terrible world. Time. Joy and horror, brutality and beauty. The death of every creature’s life for another. It’s love and murder, illness and art. It’s unspeakable.
Zeya had never heard so many words in a row from Su-Li. He hesitated.
This what Thunderbird sent me to Earth to learn. I’ve fallen in love with the world of Time.

Sunoya said, “My friend, you do go on.” She chuckled soft and low. Zeya embraced her, kissed her cheek, clasped her hand, and looked back at Su-Li.

The spirit animal was gone.

For a moment Zeya couldn’t breathe. He squeezed his mother’s hand. He looked into her eyes—unmoving. He breathed. He closed the eyelids with tender fingers. He kissed the dead lips. He slid the zadayi from her dress and laid it on the outside, red side facing the world.

K
landagi didn’t want to sit and watch his friend die. He raged to take care of the rapist.

He followed Wilu’s footsteps easily enough, muzzle to the ground. When the scent led onto the main trail to west, the big cat felt sure the Tusca warrior was headed for his own village. Maybe he had belongings he wanted to collect.
And go where?
thought Klandagi. The Tusca people existed no longer. After what had happened, no other Galayi village would take in a son of Inaj.

The black panther loped along the trail, night eyes showing the way, nose up to catch another smell. In the darkest hours he caught it—a fire, used to keep a man without blankets warm. He followed it to the cave entrance.

He hesitated a moment, then let out the loudest roar he could.

He heard scurrying within, but saw nothing. He roared again and leapt to the entrance. Half a dozen steps back, Wilu crouched against a wall. He cringed and simpered.

Klandagi blocked the exit, but saw a hole at the back.

That gave him an idea. At the battleground Zeya had strictly prohibited the shedding of any Galayi blood. Klandagi considered himself exempt—he wasn’t a Galayi now, he was a panther. Intriguingly, he had other options.

Making sure his voice filled the cave, he said, “You hurt my friend. I want to kill you, which would be easy. But Zeya and Tsola”—
amazing, I’m thinking of Zeya as one of our leaders
—“say one Galayi can’t kill another.”

He pounced forward and raked his claws down Wilu’s arm.

Wilu whined.

“So,” Klandagi went on, “the traditional punishment for rape is banishment. You live alone the rest of your life, you see no one, you’re miserable. Very fitting, I think, worse than dying.

“I believe, though, that I won’t take you before the council for a formal trial. I’ll impose the sentence myself.”

Wilu spasmed visibly.

“Get on your hands and knees.”

Wilu didn’t move.

The panther swatted his face and drew a drizzle of blood. “Don’t try my patience. Get.”

Wilu did.

“Go into that hole.”

Wilu hesitated. Klandagi growled, and Wilu crawled forward.

The passage narrowed. Klandagi hoped it wouldn’t dead-end. Though Tsola knew the entire Cavern—she could picture parts she’d never seen in her mind—he didn’t.

Wilu emerged into a bigger space and half turned toward the cat, awaiting instructions.

This is delicious,
thought Klandagi.
Either way will be satisfying.

“Get going,” said Klandagi.

“It-it-it’s dark.”

“Perfectly dark,” said Klandagi happily. “Where we’re going, you’ll never see the light again.” He roared, and Wilu scrambled away.

“Stand up like a man,” Klandagi said. He realized that Wilu was so blind he couldn’t tell that this chamber was high enough.

Wilu obeyed.

“Turn very slowly in a circle.”

Wilu did.

“Stop. Walk straight ahead.”

Wilu fumbled his way forward. Klandagi knew how scary it was to be walking underground, in an unknown and unpredictable place, and be totally sightless. He’d heard every one of the medicine seekers talk about it. He’d turned himself into a man and experienced the total darkness of a cave. Terrifying.

From time to time he had to tell Wilu to turn a little to the left or right. He hoped this chamber was long. He wanted the bastard to have plenty of time to feel the panic. And he heard running water somewhere in front of them. That would be the place.

After a while, when it was obvious, Klandagi said, “You hear the water?”

“Yes.” The voice was a quaver.

“That’s one of our underground streams. This is where you’ll be spending the rest of your life.”

Wilu wailed.

The cat savored the horror Wilu must be feeling, and would feel.

Soon Klandagi said, “Stop.” Wilu did. “Kneel down.” Wilu did. “Reach a hand forward.”

Wilu put his hand in the water. “So you’ll have enough to drink. Unless we go a moon without rain and the stream dries up. I’ll bring food about once a week, unless I forget.”

“You’re going to leave me here?”

“Do you think you could get out by yourself?”

“No! No! No! No!” The voice was tremulous.

“Good. This is where you live until you grow old and go to the Darkening Land. If you call this living. You’ll never be able to see anything real, but don’t worry, your mind will provide pictures. Ants, bats, snakes, every manner of creature, real and imaginary. Your head will dream them up in bright color, day and night. Not that you’ll ever know day from night again.
Your life will be a nightmare.” He let it sink in. “Good-bye now.”

Wilu screamed,
“No-o-o-o-o!”

Klandagi padded a few steps off, dragging his nails so that Wilu could hear him, then turned back. “By the way, in case you decide to try to grope your way out, or take a chance and follow the stream? Oh, that would be delicious, swimming into a darkness without end, and without air. Just in case? Tsola will be able to see you at every moment, and she’ll send me after you. To cut you up and bring you back to this fine place.”

Klandagi walked off.

About a hundred human steps away he laid down to watch and listen. Wilu was sobbing. The tears went on entirely too long, and Klandagi got impatient.
Why not go on?
he thought.
I don’t care which way he dies
. But he was curious.

When Wilu stopped crying, he called out, “Klandagi? Klandagi? Klandagi? . . . Anyone?”

Silence. The silence that would last forever.

Wilu sat still. Klandagi supposed he was thinking of it, between flights of pure terror. After a long while, Wilu pulled his knife out of his belt. He held it to his cheek for a moment. Then he raised it high and plunged it into his belly.

Klandagi padded back to him. The knife was thrust in fully to the hilt, the hand clutched tight on it. The wound would do the job before long.

He touched a paw to the hand that didn’t hold the knife. Wilu’s whole body jumped. He moaned.

Kalndagi said, “You’re more of a man than I thought. Good-bye.” The great cat walked off and kept going.

I
n the morning Zeya touched his mother’s face and drew his hand away. He couldn’t bear to feel her flesh cold.

Going hungry, he pulled the robe she lay on until it was on an east-facing slope. The work was exhausting, and he couldn’t go any further. But just at that moment Klandagi came bounding across the valley. With his teeth and Zeya’s ebbing strength, they got her decently high.

They sat and rested a few moments. “Stones,” said Zeya.

Klandagi transformed himself into an old man—panthers had no fingers to grip stones. They covered her decently. “We’ll leave her all the food I have,” said the man once called The Hungry One. He looked around. “I don’t know the songs,” he said. The songs that eased the spirits of the dead and helped them on their way.

“I don’t think we should sing them anyway. Her journey won’t begin for seven days. Tsola will want to sing the songs herself.”

Zeya thought about it. “You’re sure.”

“Yes.”

He looked at the ugly, obscene stones that held his mother. “What now, then?”

“The people need you. Turn eagle and go.”

“I think I’d better turn eagle and sleep.”

They both turned, and both slept.