People of the Earth (37 page)

 
          
 
He'd barely recovered when One Man leaped like
a striking cougar; his stone-headed club hissed in for the kill. In
desperation, Wind Runner rammed the bigger man. Through the haze of his panic,
he heard the crowd cry out.

 
          
 
He locked with One Man, knowing full well that
in a match of brute strength, he'd lose. But the larger man's reach and
powerful muscles left him little choice. He bulled into his opponent, cramming
the handle of his war club into One Man's rock-hard stomach. A heel locked
behind his as One Man tripped him.

 
          
 
Wind Runner hit the ground rolling and threw
himself to one side as One Man's
ekib
thocked
into the frozen earth beside his head. Wind Runner
rolled back on his shoulders, kicking out with his heels to smash One Man full
in the face.

 
          
 
Using the momentum from his kick to roll away,
Wind Runner scrambled to his feet. One Man shook his head—as if to clear his
vision—and stared at his hand. The hafting of the Black Point warrior's war
club had broken on impact with the frozen ground.

 
          
 
Wind Runner put his hand up. "Wait!"

 
          
 
Silence fell on the crowd. One Man advanced,
wary, hands reaching out.

 
          
 
"Wait!" Wind Runner cried again.
"If I kill One Man, the Black Point will lose a strong man, a good
man."

 
          
 
Black Moon stepped between them, giving Wind
Runner a narrow stare. "What are you saying?"

 
          
 
Wind Runner didn't drop his eyes from One Man,
who stood poised and ready. Blood leaked from the Black Point warrior's nose.

 
          
 
Wind Runner quickly said, "Only this. If
I kill One Man with my club, I will have won. And One Man? He'll lie dead, and
his wives and children will mourn and cry." Taking a deadly gamble, Wind
Runner dropped his club; it thudded
soddenly
on the
ground. He stepped forward and extended his hand to One Man. "If I'm
accepted among the Black Point, I would wish to be accepted as One Man's
friend—not as the warrior who widowed his wife and took his children's
father."

 
          
 
One Man licked his bloody lips and glanced at
Black Moon.

 
          
 
"Have I proved my courage to you, One
Man?" Wind Runner took a deep breath. "Have I fought you honestly,
and with courage?"

 
          
 
One Man nodded despite the confusion in his
eyes. "You fight well, Wind Runner. But it isn't decided between us. I'm
not beaten."

 
          
 
"No, you're not. But if I did beat you,
you'd be shamed. The resentment would fester like a cactus thorn under the
skin. The bad feelings would never be finished between us, would they? I'd have
to kill you. Or you me. And the Black Point would be less one warrior either
way."

 
          
 
Black Moon chewed at his lower lip as he
considered. Hot Fat hobbled up on his old joints. The clan leader looked at the
Soul Flier. "What of the Power? Can we do this?"

 
          
 
Hot Fat glanced at One Man and Wind Runner.
"The reason for the challenge is to determine an individual's worth, not
for the idle shedding of blood. In the beginning, the challenge was made to
ensure that a clan took in only those worthy to belong, to ensure that we
didn't accept cowards or fools who would weaken our blood. As humans, we have
to be careful not to bend the ways of Power to our own ends. We must look
beyond, to the true meaning and purpose of the things we do. Do we serve the
ways of Power? Or do we simply seek to entertain ourselves in the name of
Power? How do you speak, One Man? You fought him. Do you think his arm is
strong enough, his heart courageous enough, to defend your family?"

 
          
 
Wind Runner met the warrior's measuring stare.
One Man nodded slowly. "I'd take him on a raid. I think I'd listen to his
counsel, too."

 
          
 
Wind Runner struggled to catch his breath.
Images lurked in the back of his mind—images of a camp just upriver. On that
warm summer day, he remembered, the warriors who stood around him now had run
screaming and killing through the lodges of the White Clay. The haunting eyes
of the dead watched.

 
          
 
Black Moon raised his hands. "Then I
declare this contest over. Wind Runner has earned a place among the Black
Point. He has done so through courage—and cunning."

 
          
 
Wind Runner offered his hand to One Man again.
The big warrior took it, a grin barely touching his lips. "I'd still have
killed you, you know."

 
          
 
Wind Runner shrugged. "Perhaps, but isn't
it better this way?"

 
          
 
One Man daubed at his nose. "I'm going to
have to think about it. You fought well. So well that it's better that you
fight with us than against us."

 
          
 
Hot Fat placed a hand on Wind Runner's
shoulder. "Come. Everyone is going to want to talk about you and what
you've done today. My granddaughter,
Aspen
, will have my meal cooked soon. Her cooking
is wonderful, even if she drives most men to the end of their wits with her
ways. Join me. We will talk."

 
          
 
Wind Runner smiled weakly and followed the old
man; he could feel the eyes of his White Clay dead upon him, their stares
burning into his soul. / had no choice.

 
          
 
Would they believe that?

 
          
 
Bad Belly squinted and shaded his eyes against
the sun as he looked out over the valley, hardly willing to believe they walked
through a real, honest, warm day. To the south the snow-capped heights of the
Sideways
Mountains
gleamed so bright it hurt to look at them.
The valley below had melted into a sticky quagmire of gray-brown mud. Water ran
opaque with silt, rippling like flexed muscles—as if it had absorbed the
strength of the land while it surged in the drainages.

 
          
 
The endless dome of the sky seemed to glow
with new life, and the sun actually beat down hot upon his body. He could smell
the rich tang of the damp soil waiting to spring into new life. Two eagles
circled in aerial dance over the valley. The sage-rich hillsides appeared
fertile for once; the blue-green leaves had renewed themselves with the sun's
wealth. Now the pungent scent of sage recharged his senses.

 
          
 
They walked along the southern exposure, high
enough on the hillside to avoid most of the mud. Nevertheless, their feet sank
into the cushion of loose soil, sometimes sliding on the slick ooze that lay
underneath the friable crust.

 
          
 
Bad Belly hummed happily to himself. Trouble
charged this way and that, sniffing in holes, occasionally stopping short under
Bad Belly's feet to stare around.

 
          
 
White Ash walked behind him, following the
route he picked through the sage and bitterbrush.

 
          
 
"How are the sandals holding up?"
she asked.

 
          
 
Bad Belly took a quick look, trying to decide
where the sandals ended and the mud began. "So far, so good. That
three-times cursed cactus sure goes through them, though. They're worse than
moccasins."

 
          
 
"You surprised me. I wouldn't have
thought to weave juniper bark, sage, and yucca into footwear."

           
 
"The Trader, Left Hand, told me about it.
He said that people in the basin country do it this way. You see, all they have
down there are antelope and deer. Almost no buffalo or elk, and only mountain
sheep up in the hills. Hides are always in short supply, and precious to them.
Left Hand says they'll trade a lot of things for good buffalo-hide moccasins.''

 
          
 
He hadn't figured out what to do about his
legs yet, however. The sagebrush had scratched his calves half bloody.

 
          
 
He pulled up,
rehitching
the bark basket he'd woven to carry the fish they'd smoked and dried. "You
think we're on the right trail?"

 
          
 
She gave him a nervous glance. "I think
so. I mean . . . I don't know. I hate going east. Too close to the Wolf People.
I just ..." She shook her head, lifting slim hands to rub at her temples.
"I'm sorry I made you do this. But that terrible Dream I had last night at
the
hot
springs
was so ... so ominous. Dangerous. We had to leave. In the Dream I saw warriors
coming. People I couldn't recognize. Hundreds of them streaming down from the
north. They carried bloody darts. And behind them . . . hunger and pain and
frozen death.

 
          
 
"Sun People?"

 
          
 
"I couldn't tell. They held long stone
knives up to the sun. And the feathers . . . they wore them in their hair and
on their shoulders. Feathers of all the colors of the rainbow. The voice in the
Dream said we had to leave, to flee east. To find some Power Bundle."

 
          
 
He scratched under his chin, resettling his grip
on the fish basket. "Maybe you are the Dreamer."

 
          
 
She arched an eyebrow. "Well, I'm a
witch-cursed poor one, then."

 
          
 
They camped that night in a stand of junipers.
Bad Belly spent the twilight hours stripping bark from the trees. That done, he
rubbed the long strands between his palm and thigh to make the tough strands
pliable. The strands—bristling with scratchy fibers—he wove into a cloak. The
fire crackled merrily while he worked. White Ash picked at the remains of a
smoked fish, stopping every now and then to spit one of the fine bones into the
fire.

           
 
He paused to enjoy the way the fire
illuminated her features. Her bruises were much better now. If only he could
soothe the sadness in her eyes. At moments like this, when she got lost in her
head, the haunted look would come.

 
          
 
“Why did you stay with me?" he asked
gently.

 
          
 
She chewed the last of the flaky meat from the
fish's skeleton and flipped the remains into the fire, then rubbed her hands on
the leather of his leggings. She crossed her arms and leaned forward to peer
intently into the fire.

 
          
 
"I guess because I needed someone.
Imagine how you'd feel if one day everything you'd ever loved was gone. Imagine
if nothing remained for you. No safety anywhere. What would you do if your life
had been stripped bare and the pieces of it burned and scattered? I had no
place to go."

 
          
 
"You told me about Three Forks. You could
go back there. Green Fire would make a place for you."

 
          
 
She smiled wistfully. 'That's not my place
anymore, Bad Belly. When I was a girl, I hated it there. Do you know how Three
Forks feels about Power, about people who Dream? People who hear voices like we
do make them nervous. Green Fire's father was witched once—or she thought he
was. She didn't want me growing up to Dream. I don't want to go back."

 
          
 
"Green Fire's still raising a fuss about
witching. She thinks witching killed her husband. She even thought you were
witched away. Or so my grandmother—Larkspur—says."

 
          
 
A gleam grew in White Ash's eye. "Maybe I
was. I'll ask Sage Ghost ... if I ever see him again. He'll laugh about
it."

 
          
 
"But Three Forks has to keep the Spirits
happy, too. If they didn't, the grass wouldn't come up. The nut harvest would
go bad. The way the Earth People think, Spirits are responsible for everything."

 
          
 
"Even letting their Powers be used for
witching," she agreed. "Green Fire has made a place for herself
between the people and the Spirits. She deals with the Spirits, but
resentfully, fearfully. She likes to control that Power so it can't be used
against her. Anything else is a threat. That's the reason I can't go back. I
can't hide the Dreams. I couldn't as a little girl, and I don't think I can
now."

 
          
 
She stared into the fire, seeing beyond the
flames. "That's why I came with you. I don't have any place to go." A
pause. "And had I gone off alone, I'd have had only myself for company. I
don't . . . like myself very much anymore. I'm not worth ..." Her mouth
worked as she turned her head away.

 
          
 
He took a branch from the pile she'd collected
and dropped it on the fire. "You should like yourself. You're strong,
healthy, and most of all, you're smart. You can do anything you want to."

 
          
 
She shot him a furtive glance. "Like
being the Mother of the People? Whatever that means, I'm not sure I want any
part of it. I just want to try to find the torn pieces of my life and sew them
together again. Maybe run off and live in a cave like the Healers among the
Earth People do. If they think I'm living with Power, perhaps they'll leave me
be."

 
          
 
"Maybe that's what you need to do. Left
Hand told me that Power has its own ways."

 
          
 
He sniffed the night breeze, enjoying the
sweet scent of the juniper. The chill was deepening. He could already see his
breath when he turned away from the fire. "I guess we'll get a hard frost
tonight."

 
          
 
She twisted a strand of hair around her finger
as she stared up at the night sky, shot through with an infinity of stars.
"You'll be cold, won't you?"

 
          
 
He shrugged. "If I get cold, I'll throw
another chunk of sagebrush on the fire and roll over so the cold side gets
warm. I'll just hug Trouble close and share his warmth. He's got a good
coat." He smiled at his dog, who lay sleeping with his nose buried in his
tail.

 
          
 
"Why haven't you tried to take me?"

 
          
 
He started at the frank way she said it. The
words fled, and he couldn't find anything to say.

 
          
 
"Why haven't you tried?" she
demanded hotly. "I've seen the look in your eyes. You watch my body . . .
and you turn away. You want me. I can see it in you, in the way you look at me.
But you never come over in the night, never ask me to spread my legs for you.
Why?"

 
          
 
"Does it bother you that I look at
you?"

 
          
 
"Yes." She crossed her arms
defensively. "Are all men the same? Why can't you ignore me?"

 
          
 
He rubbed the back of his neck, shifting
uncomfortably. "You are a beautiful woman. I can't deny that. You listen
when I talk about things. You think about them and discuss them with me. Only
two other people have ever done that in my whole life. At the same time, I know
what you feel. I'll never let myself even be tempted."

 
          
 
"How do you know what I feel?" Her
harsh tone wounded his soul.

 
          
 
"I ..." he began, and stopped. How
do I tell her? How can I talk about it with someone who's almost a stranger? He
nerved himself. "I was married once. Her name was Golden Flax. Her father
had taken her, raped her, when she was a little girl. No one wanted her. No one
wanted me. We didn't really want each other—but that's what the clans decided
was good for us. What her father did ruined her life. It made her different,
and it wasn't her fault. People avoided her as if she carried a malignant
Spirit on her shoulder." He hung his head. "We coupled only once—and
she threw up. Maybe what happened to you left the same kind of scars on your memory."

 
          
 
Her stare had turned glassy, a near-panic on
her face.

 
          
 
He lifted his arm, gesturing with a knotted
fist. "I don't want to take you. Don't you understand? I know how you cry
in your sleep. You relive what happened with Three Bulls every time you close
your eyes. You've been hurt too much. I've worked hard to get you to smile
without that snake look in your eyes. I don't want to lose that."

 
          
 
Her miserable expression turned his stomach.
"I'll never let another man touch me that way."

 
          
 
"I don't want to."

 
          
 
"But I see the way you look at me."

 
          
 
He took a deep breath and exhaled nervously.
"You're very good to look at. But I'll never touch you—not in the way a
man touches a woman."

           
 
"Then why do you stay with me?"

 
          
 
He smiled gently. "You talk to me. You
don't treat me like a fool. You accept me for who I am and what I am."