Children of the Dawn (24 page)

Ashan found a big patch of starflowers in a meadow.

“These make tea for babies with hurting stomachs. Pinch off the flowertops carefully, so you don’t pull the stems out of the
ground. That way they’ll come back, and we’ll gather them next autumn.”

The woman and the little one crept along on their knees, picking white blossoms and talking.

Ashan said, “I know you’re a brave girl, Tahna, but I’m surprised that you weren’t afraid to come on the trek. Many Tlikit
people believe evil spirits live in mountains.”

“But you said it isn’t true. I believe
you,
Moonkeeper.”

That pleased Ashan. She might never change the way adults thought, but little ones held the future in their hands.

“I’m surprised that your mother allowed you and your sister to come.”

“It wasn’t easy.” Tahna hesitated. “I had to be mean to her.”

“Oh?”

“I told her that the God Wahawkin was coming on the trek, and wanted us to come.”

“Really? Did your Spirit Guardian tell you that?”

“Well, no—but don’t tell my mother.”

“I won’t. What did your mother say?”

“She didn’t believe me at first. So I told her Wahawkin said we
must
come, or he would burn our hut.”

Stunned, Ashan stopped picking and stared at Tahna as she continued.

“I took a stick from the cooking fire. I gave my mother a look with my eyes—like
this
” Tahna glared; her voice took on a fierce sound. “I pretended I was going to touch the burning end of the stick to the floor
mats. Then I made my eyes plain again, and put the stick back in the fire.” Tahna’s voice changed back to a little-girl lilt.
“And so my mother said we could come.”

What kind of child is this?
Ashan wondered.

One morning the Moonkeeper and the girl left the camp, following the creek. Red alders grew here. Ashan wanted to take back
a supply of inner bark.

“Look,” Tahna said as they walked along. She pointed to a high ridge. “See where the rock is painted white? What is that?”

“I think it’s an owl cave. They drop their waste over the side, and that’s why it looks painted. Do you know what owls are?”

“Of course. Night-flying hooting birds. But I’ve never seen one. You mean they live up there?”

Ashan nodded.

“Let’s go see!” Tahna said.

“No. Sit down, and I’ll tell you a story.”

The girl was disappointed, but she sat down. Ashan sat next to her.

“These are owl feathers,” she said, showing Tahna the
pledge band on her upper arm—the arm not on the side of the heart; the heart-side arm was for Tor’s pledge band.

“When I was a girl of fifteen summers, I got them from a cave like that.”

“They’re beautiful,” Tahna said, though the feathers were ragged with age. “I’m only eight summers, but I’m strong. Why can’t
I go up there and get some? I would love to have an armpiece like that.”

“It’s not just an armpiece, Tahna. It’s a pledge band, the sign of a Moonkeeper’s courage, and no one else may wear one like
this.”

“The Other Moonkeeper Tenka doesn’t wear owl feathers. Will you bring her here to get some?”

“No.”

Removing her headband, Ashan pushed the hair from her forehead.

“These are owl scars.”

Tahna sucked in her breath when she saw the faint old talon slashes.

Ashan said, “See? They go up into my hair.”

She pulled the hair back around her face and tied her headband on.

“It may look like an easy thing to get owl feathers, but I almost died doing it. I was afraid. I didn’t want to go. But Raga,
the Old Moonkeeper, forced me. The owls attacked me, grabbed me with their talons, and threw me from the cliff into a raging
river. I was sucked through a whirlpool. I didn’t wake up for three days.”

Tahna listened with wide eyes.

“Fear was the old way, Raga’s way. Fear is not my way. That is why I will not bring Tenka here. Feathers are just feathers,
not something worth dying for.”

Ashan stood. “Let’s get some red alder.”

Choosing one whose trunk was about the thickness of her thigh, Ashan showed Tahna how to remove pieces of the smooth bark
in a way that wouldn’t harm the tree. With a stone blade, she sliced two up-and-down lines, as long as a child’s arm, three
fingers wide, deep into the soft bark. Cutting a point at top and bottom, she pried the strip out with the blade.

She handed the blade to Tahna. “Be careful. It’s sharp.”

The first piece Tahna cut looked as good as Ashan’s. When they had enough, they sat down to peel the inner bark, the only
part they would take back.

“What will you use this for?” Tahna asked, holding up a thin, slippery strip.

“When someone gets hair bugs, I boil red alder bark with wood sorrel leaves. They put the tea on their heads. The bugs die.”

“Really? We just pick them off each other’s heads and squash them.”

“I know. Without red alder and sorrel—which I found growing by the creek where we’re camped—there isn’t anything else to do.”

“How do you know all these things?”

“The Old Moonkeeper Raga taught me. The Moonkeeper before taught her, all the way back to First Woman. Coyote Spirit took
First Woman on a trek to show her the plants that help people.”

Tahna said, “Plants
want
to help people? Now I know why I’ve always liked them.”

“Not all plants want to help. Some will kill. It is part of the Balance.”

“Oh. Well, I still like them. Learning about them makes me like them more. It’s like having a secret.”

“That’s the way it is for me,” Ashan said.

“Did you teach the Other Moonkeeper Tenka about medicine plants?”

“Yes. If something happens to me, the people must still have a medicine woman.”

“Oh,” Tahna said with a sigh.

As they headed back to the camp, Tahna said, “Moonkeeper, did you know the God Wahawkin brings my sister and me gifts in the
night?”

This child was always surprising her… the God Wahawkin was just something Tor made up when he needed to control the Tlikit
people. Ashan was quite sure that there was no such creature.

“What kinds of gifts?” she asked.

“Sometimes a fur, or a special piece of leather. Or good
things to eat, like crystal honey. Wahawkin brought us some huge huckleberries just before this trek.”

Huckleberries…

“How do you know who brings these things? Have you ever seen him?”

Tahna shook her head.

“I’ve tried to stay awake, but I never can. But I know it’s Wahawkin. Who else could it be? The god is our father, you know.”

Ashan cleared her throat. She couldn’t think of what to say.

“Well, you are lucky girls.”

Ashan, Ashan
…
how can you be so blind?
Tor, who claims to be Wahawkin when it suits him? These twins who claim Wahawkin as their father? If she allowed herself
to think that Tor might have fathered Tsilka’s daughters—no!—it was much too painful to consider for even one heartbeat.

You know how little ones are. They lie. There are no gifts brought by Wahawkin, or Tor, or anyone else,
she told herself until she believed it.

Tor had chosen a spot for himself and Ashan at the back of the meadow on a low rise. She lay there that night, snuggled against
her sleeping mate. With the sweet warmth of lovemaking still pulsing through her, she gazed at Alhaia, the Moon… Alhaia who
had sent no more babies to her and Tor. Kai El was enough for any mother—and Ashan was Moonkeeper as well. But she had always
thought there’d be others. Her son was eleven summers now. Ashan was twenty-eight. She’d known for a long time that there
would be no other little ones. She accepted it, never forgetting how lucky she was to have Kai El.

As she drifted between waking and sleep, her thoughts wandered.

Tahna
…
while I’ve been teaching her, I have learned.

Tahna was no ordinary child. She would use terror to get what she wanted. She loved medicine plants. She told lies for no
reason. These things did not go together. It was as if Tahna were more than one person.

Yet we get along,
Ashan thought.
We enjoy each other’s company. I like her… more than like her.

It was that time of night when thoughts go where they will, even bad, bad thoughts… .

I wouldn’t mind having those twins. Maybe I’ll put a spell on their mother. I wouldn’t want to kill her, but Alhaia sends
us no more little ones, and Tsilka’s not a good mother, and they don’t have a father. They’d be better off here, with us.
They’re special. They deserve…

She drifted off to sleep filled with thoughts she would never allow in the day, and a desire too wrongful to act upon… asleep
or awake, Ashan honored above all others the relationship between mother and child.

I
N THE AFTERNOON OF THE FIFTH DAY, A CLOUDMASS
strode out of Warmer, covering the sun. Bursts of lightning lit it from the inside, turning the sky underneath dark orange-gray.
A smell that was other smells missing came before it. The Moonkeeper knew that thunderstorms of the greatest power sucked
smells from the land. This storm would be different from the dry storms of other afternoons. It was coming straight for them,
and fast.

Ashan and Tahna ran all the way back to the camp.

As the cloudmass marched toward them, women and little ones hurried to cover the drying berries with skins and mats. They
layered cedar branches for a rough shelter, and crouched together inside, laughing at the men who’d be caught unprotected.
Wind tore at the shelter. They had to hold on to the branches to keep them from blowing away. Thunder booms came one on top
of the other, shaking the ground. Through the cedar needles, they saw lightning flashing.

How frightened the little ones must be! Ashan shouted encouragement, but only the closest ones heard her above the noise.

Rain slashed through the cedar branch shelter, drenching them in the short time it lasted. When the rain passed, the women
threw off the branches. The wet air was cleaned of late summer dust, charged with power from the lightning. The
sun made steam rise from the ground. They laughed without knowing why.

Kai El and several other little ones were missing, but Ashan didn’t worry. It was only a storm. No one died from being wet.

The storm caught seven little ones away from the camp playing Find Me. When Kai El—at eleven summers the oldest in the group—saw
how fierce it would be, he yelled for the others. They huddled together with skins over their heads, shrieking and laughing
to hide fear of thunder and lightning, until the pounding rain decided they were wet enough.

Terrible hot wind followed the rain. Strong enough to knock a small child down, it whipped branches, swirled, changed directions,
like a thing mad and confused. It howled coming through the thick fir trees. Behind the howling, Kai El heard a muffled roar.

Life along the Great River came with many kinds of winds, but he had never known one like this. He didn’t know why, but it
scared him.

The sky was wrong, too—low, heavy with fast-moving clouds, and darker than any daytime sky should be. Above the tall, pointed
treetops, it looked thick and orange-brown.

Kai El smelled smoke.

His friends were afraid.

“What it it? What is it?”

“I don’t know,” he shouted over the wind, “but it’s bad! Run!”

They ran for the camp. Undergrowth tripped them; wild dashes across open spots made the slower ones fall.

“Stay together!” Kai El yelled.

They helped each other, jerking up a downed one, dragging a slow one.

“Faster! It’s coming!”

The sky got darker, the wind fiercer, the strange roaring louder. Thickening smoke burned their eyes and throats and made
them cough. Something evil was after them. They didn’t know what it was. They were terrified it would catch them before they
reached the parents who would save them.

The little ones slid down a dirt bank, splashed through
a creek, scrabbled up the other side, and out into a small clearing—

Kai El froze.

Wildfire—coming too fast to outrun, chasing tumbling clouds of orange sparks along the ground in front of it. Bushes burst
into flame before the fire reached them. Behind the sparkclouds, the sky—which had been getting darker—was now becoming brighter.
The trees were black shapes against pulsing red-yellow-orange. One by one their tops exploded, turning them into torches that
burned from the top down.

With every heartbeat, the fire became bigger and brighter. Kai El’s eyes cried. His skin burned. He coughed. He could barely
breathe for the smoke and heat.

He wanted to run! Run for his life! He pawed at small hands clinging to his leg—

The voice of Tsagaia jerked him to his senses.

“Get in the creek!” she yelled. “Get your clothes and hair wet!”

Nissa cried, “There’s not enough water! The fire will boil it away! Boil us like roots in a stew!” Screaming, “Run!” she took
off across the open ground.

“Get her, Kai El!” Tsagaia shouted, as she shoved the others toward the creek.

Tackling Nissa, he dragged her—shrieking and fighting—to the edge of the small ravine, and tumbled her over. She landed on
her rear—babbling—crazed eyes darting. Tsagaia took her hand, and she hushed. They lay down and squirmed among the others.

The water fell over a heap of rocks and splashed into a little pool. Kai El looked through smoky air at his friends—stretched
out on their stomachs; arms around each other; heads in the waterfall; coughing and gasping. Some cried; some were terrified
beyond tears—except Tsagaia, comforting the others. Shoulders and rears stuck out of the water. Kai El thought of digging
at the rocky bottom to deepen the pool, but there wasn’t time. The heat was unbearable; the fire would be on them in moments.

“Come on, Kai El!” Tsagaia yelled.

Kai El slid down the bank and got in the water.

“Breathe through this,” she said, giving him a wet piece
of her woven grass skirt. She was very close, but he barely heard her voice above the roar.