People of the Earth (10 page)

 
          
 
Bad Belly hesitated, then shook his head.
"It was between us. A private thing." He shrugged. "Maybe only
fevered talk."

 
          
 
She stared, wanting to pry it out of him,
afraid to take the chance of waking her husband from his uneasy slumber.

 
          
 
Bad Belly avoided her eyes. What did Warm Fire
mean? Leave? Seek out some Dreamer? What Dreamer? Where? He swallowed hard,
sweat running down his flushed face. I promised. But I don’t know what I
promised to do. Don’t leave me, Warm Fire. I don’t understand.

 
          
 
Larkspur entered along with Black Hand. The
Healer crossed and bent down to feel Warm Fire's forehead. "He's growing
weaker."

 
          
 
Larkspur studied Bitterbrush before she looked
back and forth between Warm Fire and Bad Belly. "What happened?"

 
          
 
"Nothing," Bad Belly mumbled and
turned his attention to memorizing Warm Fire's face. He studied the strong
nose, the way Warm Fire's mouth had been made for laughter. Like a man working
bone, he engraved the lines and features in his soul to have forever. He held
Warm Fire's head reverently, recalling the times they had laughed, sharing a
good joke.

           
 
Forgotten nights around the fire lived again
in his memory. As clearly as if it had just happened, he remembered Warm Fire's
concern as he ran experienced fingers over Bad Belly's injured leg. "Not
broken, but you'd better let me carry you." And he had.

 
          
 
When Bad Belly looked up, Bitterbrush's
expression betrayed her irritation. Larkspur was reading it like a buffalo
trail in snow.

 
          
 
"Go on back to your whittling, Bad
Belly." Larkspur settled herself in her place. "You've stirred things
up enough. Go finish your dart shaft."

 
          
 
"He asked me to stay. To hold him."
Anger heated in his belly. "You can't ask me to go. Not when he asked for
me to stay."

 
          
 
The hard set of her face ordered him more
eloquently than words.

 
          
 
"I'll hold him," Bitterbrush said as
she moved forward.

 
          
 
Bad Belly closed his eyes for a moment.
Reluctantly he slid to the side, easing Warm Fire's head onto Bitterbrush's
lap. Why couldn't they let him hold his friend? Warm Fire had wanted that. Why
didn't Bitterbrush say something? Stand up for him just this once?

 
          
 
He reached down with the intent of wiping away
a sparkling bead of sweat that had started down Warm Fire's cheek.

 
          
 
"Go." Larkspur's guttural voice
stopped him short. "He needs peace."

 
          
 
To withdraw his hand seemed the hardest thing
he'd ever done. He turned, hot glare meeting hers. Can I challenge her?

 
          
 
A gleam lit in the old woman's eyes, a
willingness to meet him, to crush and humiliate him.

 
          
 
It's not worth it. It will destroy me. Warm
Fire is right. There 's no good to come of this. Nothing to be gained by
fighting while my friend dies.

 
          
 
As he stood, Warm Fire's body jerked. Without
waking, he cried out, "No! The glow is leaving . . . leaving me . . .
floating."

 
          
 
Bad Belly turned back; his jaws clamped and
his good hand clenched into a fist. Larkspur had turned to Warm Fire; she
didn't see the hatred her grandson glared at her.

 
          
 
"He's begun to rave. His soul is slipping
around in his body," Black Hand announced. "We need to smoke more
sweetgrass
, to purify the air."

 
          
 
Larkspur's eyes narrowed to slits when she glanced
at Bad Belly, and jerked her head toward the door.

 
          
 
He stepped out into the afternoon light,
experiencing a chill colder than that driven by the wind. She
wouldn
V even let me hold him while he died. A single tear
traced irregularly down his cheek, driven this way and that by the wind.

 
          
 
Snow crunched under Brave Man's hide-wrapped
winter moccasins as he broke trail up the back of the ridge. Here, in the lee
of the steep ridge, the drift had piled deep as layers of snow settled, alternately
freezing and thawing into a treacherous slope.

 
          
 
Soon, the voices whispered in his head. Meat
soon.

 
          
 
Brave Man growled to himself, wincing at the
headache that stabbed through his skull and seared his brain. The headaches
grew worse when Power came on him. Sometimes, like now, they drove him to the
point of madness.

 
          
 
He sucked a cold breath into his lungs and
pounded out a flat place in the snow.

 
          
 
"Catching your breath?" Wind Runner
asked from below.

 
          
 
Brave Man nodded, panting, blinking at the
sudden agony that speared his skull. Despite himself, he cocked his head and
winced. He caught Wind Runner's eyes on him and scowled. I see the look in your
eyes, old friend. Watch all you want, you’ll never see the extent of the pain.
Nor will you ever know the fullness of the Power.

 
          
 
He hated Wind Runner's perfect features—hated
the way the young women looked at his one-time friend with admiration. Wind
Runner stood tall and straight, with well-muscled shoulders filling his
elk-hide hunting coat. Amused eyes exposed Wind Runner's buoyant soul and
brought life to his broad-cheeked face. His mobile mouth suited laughter and
warm smiles. Parallel lines of blue had been tattooed into his forehead—the
symbol of his speed and endurance.

 
          
 
Brave Man's heart hardened. Once the young
women had looked at him that way, too. They had speculated on what sort of
husband Brave Man would make. White Ash had loved him then, dreamed of the
future with him. But that was back before he'd been killed and escaped from the
Camp of the Dead. That was before the headaches and the voices. Since then,
he'd tattooed black crosses into his cheeks—the sign of Power and strength. He
remained coldly handsome for all that: his jaw strong, nose prominent and
straight, and brow full and high over his keen eyes.

 
          
 
Brave Man forced a false calm into his
expression and paused to scan the terrain behind them. Rolling country stippled
with sage spread below the ridge they climbed. The sagebrush looked patchy,
thick and tall as a man's waist in the drainages and thin and scrubby, often
growing no higher than a man's ankle, on the ridge tops and where the soil was
poor or rocky. A man could measure the land by the sagebrush—tell the richness
of the soil and the likelihood of finding water. When tall sagebrush mixed with
giant wild rye, the soil would be damp.

 
          
 
Here, in the southern portion of this
miserable basin, the sagebrush grew short and gnarled. Fortunately, the
mountains rimming the east, south, and west caught the clouds and fed rivers
that ran through the sere and rocky land.

 
          
 
Farther down the slope, the rest of the men
waited with darts in hand. Brave Man filled his lungs and started up, lifting
his feet high over the snow and hammering his heels down hard to break the
crust. Behind him, Wind Runner followed, snow rasping on his clothing.

 
          
 
Brave Man stopped short of the crest and
peered ahead. Yet another desolate valley unfolded before him. Grunting with
irritation, he placed a hand to shield his eyes from the stinging wind and
studied the far ridge, letting his gaze trace-

            
He chuckled to himself as the
voices whispered, See? We told you. Meat. Meat soon.

 
          
 
Four black dots—buffalo—grazed the sparse
ridge top to the southwest.

 
          
 
Brave Man stepped to the crest and held up his
hand to caution Wind Runner. One by one the White Clay hunters climbed up,
stamping snow from their moccasins.

 
          
 
"There," Brave Man pointed.
"Four. Meat. The Power has told me." His headache diminished in
intensity.

 
          
 
"Here's what we'll do," Badger said.
"Brave Man, you and Wind Runner circle around this ridge. Come up from the
far side, but don't let the wind betray you.
Buffalo
don't see good, but they have sensitive
noses. Watch the wind and come up from under the crest of that ridge. Whistling
Hare and the rest of us will cross the valley here and circle. When we're
ready, someone will run across so the buffalo can smell him. When that happens,
we'll rush and push them onto the drifted snow. You and Wind Runner cut off any
retreat. When the buffalo break through the crust, they'll be mired for a short
time. That's our chance. If that drift is firm, we can run out and dart all
four before they know what happened."

 
          
 
"Let's go." Wind Runner tapped Brave
Man on the shoulder. The familiarity burned like cactus juice in a cut.

 
          
 
Unwilling to let Wind Runner lead anywhere,
Brave Man forced his muscles harder. He cut out over the drift, breaking
through and charging down across the crusted snow. Even that effort sapped his
strength.

 
          
 
Food. Need food t the voices whispered in his
mind. Body weak.

 
          
 
Brave Man battered his way onto the snowy
slope below the drift and threaded his way through the sage.

 
          
 
"You're still mad at me," Wind
Runner observed from behind. "You still haven't forgiven me for stopping
you when you wanted to take White Ash."

 
          
 
Brave Man wheeled, jabbing a finger into his
friend's chest. "You meddled with Power, boy. She's mine. She and I, we're
supposed to be together ... for the future."

           
 
Wind Runner studied him curiously, expression
pinching. "Do you still think I was wrong to stop you? She'd have hated
you, you know."

 
          
 
Brave Man shook his head, turning away,
forcing his tired legs into a trot. Over his shoulder, he called, "You
only prolong the inevitable . . . and anger me . . . and Power."

 
          
 
"Uh-huh."

 
          
 
"You don't understand, Wind Runner. I was
chosen, singled out by Power for a reason. Power lies around us like a great
web. Strands run everywhere, through the rocks and brush as well as through
men's souls. I went beyond—to the place the Soul Fliers both fear and seek. I
escaped from the Camp of the Dead. I crawled over the bodies. That's when the
Spirits entered my head and began whispering the way to me. When I saw White
Ash after No Teeth and Bobcat found me, I could sense her Power. The voices
told me she would be mine. Together, she and I will make a new future for the
People. Together, we will bring Power to the People so that none are ever
hungry again."

 
          
 
"You may know Power, old friend, but you
don't know White Ash."

 
          
 
"And I suppose you do? Have you known her
any longer than I? Have you spent more time with her? Does she share her soul
with you? What do you know?"

 
          
 
"That she would have killed you for
raping her. Oh, perhaps you might have run off to the Broken Stones and
renounced the White Clay. Perhaps you could have kept her, but there's a
strength in her I think you've forgotten about. Maybe that blow to the head
rattled your ability to think, but remember that part of her soul is still
Earth People."

 
          
 
"She's one of us."

 
          
 
Wind Runner snorted derisively. "One of
us. Maybe. And maybe she would have forgiven you for the rape. But if you'd
carried her off like a war captive to the Broken Stones, and if you'd ever
struck her, she would have killed you, Brave Man."

 
          
 
"Fool! Power would never have let that
happen. No, it might have taken a while, but she'd turn to me—to Power-in the
end."

           
 
"You believe that, don't you?" Wind
Runner sighed. "I don't know what's happened to you. What happened to the
brave youth you once were? Listen, why don't you let Old Falcon Sing for your
..."

 
          
 
“Fool!'' Brave Man glared over his shoulder.
"I have never forgiven you for what you did that day. Perhaps I never
will. Why do you care? You can't have her. Or does your penis throb with
incest?"

 
          
 
Wind Runner frowned. "I'll never touch
her. Not as long as she's my cousin."

 
          
 
"Then leave her to her destiny."

 
          
 
Brave Man's growing anger spurred him to
sprint ahead. He cleared the end of the ridge and searched for the buffalo.
They continued to graze, unconcerned, on the ridge.

 
          
 
He and Wind Runner dropped into a drainage and
worked their way closer. "How long do you think we have before they spring
the trap?" Wind Runner asked anxiously.

 
          
 
Brave Man squinted at the clouds, judging the
location of the obscured sun. "Not long. We'd better run or the People
might starve."

 
          
 
Panting and gasping, Brave Man forced himself
up the last slope. The bulk of the ridge hid his progress from the quarry. His
legs quaked and trembled, and the headache had begun to pound against his
temples again. Behind, Wind Runner's moccasins crunched a cadence in the snow.
If it killed him, he'd maintain the lead, do anything to keep Wind Runner from
beating him to the ambush site.

 
          
 
"Careful," Wind Runner whispered
between ragged pants of breath as they neared the top.

 
          
 
Brave Man jerked his head in a curt nod and
worked up under the drift. The snow looked perfect here. He crept to the sharp
cornice and raised his eyes. He could see the top of a shaggy hump perhaps two
dart casts away. Close, very close.

 
          
 
Wind Runner pointed to the basin. Brave Man
could barely make out Old Falcon, Dancing, arms lifted to the sullen skies. He
smirked to himself. The old man knew nothing of Power.

 
          
 
A yell rang out in the distance.

 
          
 
"Get ready," Brave Man mouthed,
making sure a dart lay securely
nocked
in his
atlatl
. He rose until he could make out the buffalo. They
had bunched and begun to move up the ridge at a fast trot. Suddenly they
stopped and milled. A loud whoop rang out on the air and the buffalo turned,
stampeding out onto the drift.

 
          
 
"Now!" Brave Man called. He leaped,
crashing through the feathered edge of the drift and wiggling himself up on the
hard crust of snow. Heart lurching, he scrambled to his feet and prayed the
crust would hold him.

 
          
 
The buffalo wallowed in the deep snow, bucking
and kicking as they fought for footing. Frosty breath puffed around their
snow-caked faces as they grunted with effort and fear.

 
          
 
The voices shrieked in Brave Man's head as he
stopped short, sent his arm back, and threw his body weight behind a cast. The
dart made a sodden thump as it drove into the lead cow's side. The impact
bounced the main shaft back almost to Brave Man's feet, driving the
foreshaft
deep into the buffalo's lungs and the big blood
vessels there.