People of the Earth (15 page)

 
          
 
"And it hasn't?"

 
          
 
He smiled wearily at her. "Since I've
been here, all I can think about is Bitterbrush. I wonder how much of you is in
her. All the while that I was Singing for Warm Fire, I kept noticing how her
breasts hung, how her hips stretched the dress. A Healer shouldn't notice
things like that."

 
          
 
She raised a brow. "And you tell this to
an old lover?"

 
          
 
Black Hand made a neutral gesture. "Why
not? I'd never had a woman when you took me to your robes. You taught me the
craving. And it's never gone away. When I sleep, I fight a constant battle.
Power Dreams compete with other dreams—dreams of coupling with you, or with
other women. When I leave here, I'll suffer the same wont for
Bitterbrush." He rubbed a nervous hand on his elk-hide leggings.
"What if I did want to give up Power? What if I did want her and could
persuade you that there was an advantage in the match? Would she take me?"

 
          
 
Larkspur shifted her gaze to the fire,
watching the sparks rise in swirling patterns. A great deal of prestige could
come to Round Rock through such a marriage. It would augment her own status—and
that of her clan—if the People were to know that a Healer gave up Power for a
Round Rock woman. What would that say about the desirability of Round Rock
women?
Phloxseed's
daughter was coming of age.

 
          
 
"She would accept you. I would see to it.
But the time's not right yet. Can you wait? Give her time to forget the shock
of Warm Fire's death and to heal the grief. Give yourself some time, too. See
what happens with your Power."

 
          
 
He nodded. "If she'll wait."

 
          
 
"She'll wait. I know how to handle
Bitterbrush. Besides, the Gathering will be a turning point in her life. Men
will desire her, will fight over her. You'll be there. While all the
hotbloods
are vying, simply be her friend. Be kind to her.
I'll do my part to get you two together. Couple with her if you like. I know
what to tell her between now and then so she'll accept you. See if the fantasy
of her body stays with you afterward. If it does, I'll keep the suitors off.
Then see what happens next year. If you still want her, we'll deal."

 
          
 
"She won't feel she's being pushed? That
you're meddling with her life?"

 
          
 
"Not Bitterbrush. She's a smart woman.
She's young enough, and Warm Fire was ardent between the robes. She'll miss it.
You saw enough of Warm Fire to know what he was like. She'll be looking for
that kind of man—and if you haven't forgotten the tricks I taught you, you'll
please her."

 
          
 
"You're a devious one."

 
          
 
"I am. One of my daughters, Young Fawn,
grew so disgusted with me that she left to go live with her husband's people,
the Warm Wind." She paused. "One of these days I'm going to make her
regret that."

 
          
 
"That's my point. I don't want you to
drive Bitterbrush away—to alienate her the way you did Young Fawn." He ran
a tired hand over his face. "But I think I'll let you do it your
way."

 
          
 
She shot him a sideways glance, noting the
despair in his voice. "Want to talk about it?"

 
          
 
He started to say no and hesitated, staring
frankly at her. "You must mention this to no one." He looked back at
the fire, his long face haunted.

           
 
She thought he'd decided to keep his peace;
then he slowly said, "The reason I'm so worried about the witchcraft
accusations is that I've been having this Dream. It's a clear night . . .
starry. Wind is blowing through the sage. You can smell dust. A trail runs
between two large sandstone boulders. They're sort of rounded, worn away. You
can hear all the People Singing in the background. I'm lying there in the trail
between the boulders, facedown in the dust . . . and the top of my head is bashed
in."

 
          
 
Bad Belly took the biscuit-root cakes
Bitterbrush handed him. He soaked the hard bread in yarrow tea until it
softened and then chewed it thoughtfully. Little Lupine lay in her robes sound
asleep, a fist clenched next to her mouth, one leg sprawled out. Firelight
flickered inside the lodge. Tendrils of blue smoke drifted up and out through
the smoke hole. Bedding lay piled in the rear, removed from where Bitterbrush
had uncovered a storage pit dug into the dirt floor. From the pit she'd taken
several pieces of dried biscuit root. Then she'd replaced the sandstone-slab
covering and resettled the bedding.

 
          
 
For a long moment Bitterbrush stared absently
into the fire. She'd borne Warm Fire five children over the years. Of them, only
Tuber, her firstborn, and Lupine, her last, remained. The others had died of
the wasting sickness: fever, spawned by the rapid passing of the bowels,
weakened the infants until their souls slipped away.

 
          
 
"I can't believe he's gone," she
told Bad Belly, quietly. “It seems impossible. I keep expecting to see him duck
through the door flap, grinning about some joke, or bursting to tell me about
some wonderful thing he's seen. He's not dead. My heart says he can't be."

           
 
"Can I help? You cried most of the night."
Bad Belly reached over, placing a warm hand on her arm. "The pain will
pass. It always does."

 
          
 
He tried to tell himself it would be that way,
that the gaping hole Warm Fire's death had left in his heart would heal over,
too. Would there ever be another rainbow in his life? Another sunrise of hope
and purpose?

 
          
 
Bitterbrush shook her head, running nervous
fingers through the thick black wealth of her hair. "I don't know. Half of
me died with him, Bad Belly. I'm not whole anymore. I feel like . . . like a
shadow. None of this is real."

 
          
 
He popped the last of the biscuit-root cake
into his mouth and chewed it before adding, "I know. He was my only
friend. I feel lost without him, too. He understood me."

 
          
 
Bitterbrush tried to smile, and failed, averting
her eyes. "I know it's hard for you. Grandmother's . . . well ..."

 
          
 
He resettled himself, the bad arm tucked
protectively in his lap. "She doesn't know what to do with me. I'm a
burden to her, and an embarrassment."

 
          
 
"Don't. It's not right for you to blame
yourself, Bad Belly. You've never been the same since you came back from Golden
Flax's camp. Grandmother just didn't ... I mean, she did her best. She just
couldn't know that Golden Flax would cause so many problems."

 
          
 
He lifted an eyebrow. "What? You don't
believe that two cripples make a whole?"

 
          
 
Bitterbrush colored, nervous fingers fidgeting
with the fringed hem of her skirt. "Golden Flax wasn't a cripple. You
can't call her that."

 
          
 
"Dear sister, cripples come in all shapes
and forms. Me, I'm an easy cripple to spot, just look—"

 
          
 
"Please, Bad Belly."

 
          
 
"—at my arm and you can see it. With
Golden Flax, her problem lay inside—a soul cripple, if you will. You know, the
People don't forgive a woman for incest. They forgive it even less when she was
had by her father.''

 
          
 
Bitterbrush blanched, glancing quickly to make
sure Lupine slept soundly. "I wish you wouldn't say that. You know she
couldn't help it. He raped her. What does a little girl do? She couldn't
understand."

 
          
 
Bad Belly reached to throw another pungent
sagebrush on the fire, watching the brilliant flame climb through the dry
leaves and thin branches. "No, it wasn't her fault. But in the eyes of our
people, she's still soiled goods. No matter that she didn't want it to happen,
it did. She's tainted, and no one will forget it—least of all she
herself."

 
          
 
"I'll never forgive her for throwing you
out like that. It was shameless."

 
          
 
Bad Belly stared at the fire, remembering the
miserable day after that even more miserable night. He hadn't been in White
Sandstone's camp for three weeks. The day had been windy, and black clouds had
piled overhead. Golden Flax had told him to leave, that she didn't want him.
The look of desperation in her tortured eyes still burned in his soul.

 
          
 
He'd put together his pack and walked out of
Sand
Wash
camp that afternoon, while thunder growled and cracked and rain fell in
sheets.

 
          
 
"How muddy the ground was," he
sighed to himself.

 
          
 
"What?" Bitterbrush asked.

 
          
 
"Talking to myself. Don't blame Golden
Flax. It wasn't her fault. She was trapped as much as I was. We were forced
together as a convenience. What better arrangement than to stick two unwanted
people together? Who knows, maybe they'll like each other in the end and you'll
have two unwanted people wanting each other. What a clever trick."

 
          
 
"Please, I hurt enough already."

 
          
 
He took a breath, frowning. "I know. You
probably think I'm angry and ungrateful. I'm not. Well, maybe I was once, but
that passed with time. Now I look at it all as a cruel joke that's no one's
fault. Maybe at Gathering I'll see if I can't sit down with her and just talk.
See how she's doing. Tell her that I don't carry any grudge. Despite all the
hot words shot back and forth by Grandmother and White Sandstone, perhaps Golden
Flax and I can at least be friends."

 
          
 
Bitterbrush cocked her head, eyes narrowing as
she tried to understand. "You forgive everyone, don't you? You probably
even forgive the rattlesnake that killed your arm."

           
 
He smiled. "I suppose I do. It's just
that when you think about the people involved, and why they did what they did,
you can usually see that they're as lost and hurt as you are."

 
          
 
“You think Grandmother was hurt? I don't think
she's ever been bruised by anything."

 
          
 
He cupped his chin in his good hand, vision
lost in the flickering of the fire. "Don't you ever wonder about that? She
seems to be invincible—as if her soul were made of rock. But what's really
inside her? What made her that way? Fear? Fear of some weakness of the soul that
would bring disgrace if anyone ever found out?"

 
          
 
Bitterbrush gave him a disbelieving look.
"Or maybe she's just strong because that's her nature. Maybe that's the
way she is—like a badger is the way a badger is. It's badger's nature. He
doesn't act like a coyote because he's a badger."

 
          
 
Bad Belly pursed his lips. "No, I think
people are different. It's our nature to be people—like badgers must be
badgers. But what makes people act the way they do? I think it's something in
the soul that's different. You watch the birds and coyotes and antelope, and
they bicker and turn on each other. But people are different, more cunning in
the ways they hurt each other. It's like they want to wound each other's soul,
not just to keep food to themselves."

 
          
 
Bitterbrush sighed explosively, throwing her
hands up. "No wonder Golden Flax threw you out! What is this crazy talk?
People are the way they are. They're born that way. Some are short and others
are tall, and some are strong and others are weak."

 
          
 
"No, you don't—"

 
          
 
"Listen. I don't want to hear it. I don't
have time to fill my head with your foolishness. My husband is dead. I have to
feed my children and give some thought to what's going to happen when we get to
the Gathering. Grandmother's going to want to marry me to someone, and I'd
better start deciding who I'll marry and who I won't."

 
          
 
"Doesn't it bother you that you have to
marry again before you've even had time to come to grips with—"

 
          
 
“No!" She glared at him, a barely
discernible tremble to her lower jaw, before she lashed out, "I have my
duty to this family. This camp, and all that goes with it, will be my
responsibility one day. I'm not like a man, Bad Belly. I can't just play my way
through life. I have to take responsibility for this lineage. The root grounds,
the grass, the plants we eat, the places we hunt—all will be under my care one
of these days. I have to learn the rituals, the ways of keeping the Spirits
happy so they don't turn their backs on us. That's your livelihood that I'm
talking about, because I have to feed you, too. Part of keeping track of things
is having a husband who can hunt, who can help do things like repair lodges and
fix animal traps. I can't avoid these facts."

 
          
 
“I know." He pulled himself up, avoiding
her eyes. "I'm sorry I brought it up."

 
          
 
"Do me a favor."

 
          
 
He glanced at her, noting the fever in her
eyes. "What?"

 
          
 
"Find my son for me. He's late for his
supper. If he doesn't eat, he'll waste away like his father did."

 
          
 
"Perhaps his appetite hasn't—"

 
          
 
"Curse you! I don't want to discuss it.
You always answer everything with a question! Just go find your nephew. I’ll
worry about what he's doing and why."

 
          
 
Bad Belly swiftly wrapped an elk robe about
his shoulders before he slipped into the night.

 
          
 
Outside the lodge, his eyes took a moment to
adjust to the darkness. A faint grayness lingered over the rocky ridges of the
western horizon. An owl called plaintively into the night. Trouble raised his
head, yawned, and stood up before stretching his front end and then his back.
He wagged his tail happily and padded over to prod at Bad Belly's leg with his
nose.

 
          
 
This had been a long winter, hard on all of
them. And with Warm Fire's death, a spark had gone out of the camp. Bad Belly
straightened, ignoring Trouble's demanding nose, and paused, letting the feel
of the camp seep into his consciousness. He heard coyotes yipping a fragile
chorus in the distance.

 
          
 
Warm Fire's presence lingered in the night
air. His Spirit might have stood over the central fire pit, telling the story
of a perfect buffalo hunt, while the rest of the family listened raptly. Bad
Belly could picture his friend's gestures as he described the way he'd sneaked
up on the buffalo. He could see Warm Fire's arm going back, snapping his
atlatl
forward to drive an imaginary dart into the big
beast. Echoes of voices floated over the frozen camp. Over there, by the
grinding stones where the women ground parched rice-grass seeds into paste,
Warm Fire had squatted in the shade as he knapped out a new hunting point and
listened to Bad Belly talk about the way wasps lived together in the arroyo
banks. Behind the camp, in the junipers, Warm Fire once had hung a fat buck
antelope, laughing as he skinned the animal out, rich blood staining his hands.
The talk that day had been about Tuber and what sort of man he would become.

 
          
 
Bad Belly closed his eyes and sighed. Bit by
bit, the presence of Warm Fire's soul would fade—like moisture after a summer
afternoon rain shower.