People of the Earth (77 page)

 
          
 
Still Water rolled off White Ash and onto his
back. He gasped a lungful of warm air and stared up at the patchy clouds that
sailed so easily against the endless blue of the sky. The breeze tickled his
flushed skin.

 
          
 
"We shouldn't be doing this," White
Ash said with a sigh. "Singing Stones says that coupling distracts us from
Dreaming.

 
          
 
Still Water resettled his head and admired
her. Perspiration left her brown skin shining in the bright sun. Droplets—the
mingling of his and her sweat—sparkled in the light. He reveled in the sight of
her perfect body. Her firm muscles had gone lax after the passion of their
coupling. He reached over and traced a finger along the swell of her hip,
circling the dampness of her navel, his hand rising to cup her full breast. A
deep contentment swelled within his soul.

 
          
 
"We could stop." An ache accompanied
the thought.

 
          
 
She met his questioning gaze. For a moment he
seemed to sink into the brown softness of her eyes. The sun accented the
delicate hollow of her cheek. "I don't want to."

 
          
 
Peace drifted through his spent body. "I
know Dreamers aren't supposed to couple. And not just Singing Stones says
so."

 
          
 
"I don't care," she answered.
"I love you too much. Moments like these fill a need in my soul." She
lifted a hand to rub her brow. "I know I'm going to have to give up so
much of myself, I refuse to give you up, too. If I can't love and Dream, then I
won't Dream."

           
 
"Power has its price," he reminded.

 
          
 
"And I have mine."

 
          
 
They lay in silence for a moment before she
continued. "Even if I have to be the bridge between worlds, I won't give
you up. Power wouldn't have sent you to me otherwise. Maybe that's part of
it."

 
          
 
"Maybe," he agreed, "but Power
discards its tools after it uses them. Perhaps it will discard me."

 
          
 
"It can't."

 
          
 
"Oh?" He gave her a wry smile.
"Do you know something about Power that I don't?"

 
          
 
"You're the Keeper of the Wolf Bundle
now. Besides that ... I need you."

 
          
 
He glanced over his shoulder at the pack that
held the Wolf Bundle. He went nowhere without it. "I guess I am." He
grunted under his breath and shook his head.

 
          
 
"What?"

 
          
 
He scratched his ear. "I was thinking
about how I've changed. The person who was Bad Belly is gone. I'm not the same
man I was when I lived at Round Rock. I've become someone different. The Wolf
Bundle ... it changes a person. I am what it is, and it's become part of
me."

 
          
 
"I know." She flexed her hands,
muscles rippling under her smooth brown skin. "I feel the Wolf Bundle ...
it tugs at me all the time."

 
          
 
"Knowing it's close fills something in my
soul that was once empty. And I never knew it was gone. Do you
understand?"

 
          
 
She squeezed his hand where it lay on her breast.
"My love for you is that way. I never knew love could be so rich and full.
What I once thought was love has turned out to be a hollow skin . . . like the
one an insect sheds. It looks whole on the outside, but when you crack it open,
there's nothing there."

 
          
 
"Then perhaps you-and I must learn to
Dream together."

 
          
 
She took a deep breath and stared up at the
sky. "I wish I knew, Still Water. It took Singing Stones years to learn
how to Dream. The Wolf Bundle changed him, too. If his visions are right, I
don't have time to learn the way to the One."

           
 
She chewed on her lip before adding, "I
can feel the One, even now. It touches the edge of my soul with the gentle
brush of feathers on skin. Singing Stones has taught me how to clear my mind,
to hear and see nothing. I'm learning about myself, about how to slip past the
illusion. But I can do it only a bit at a time. I feel like an infant learning
to be a human being. There's so much. I have to learn to talk and walk and how
to act. I have to stand against Brave Man again. But he's a warrior, and I'm
only a small child."

 
          
 
"Power won't abandon us." He
swallowed, fervently hoping that would be the case. "We just have to try
harder."

 
          
 
"I know. I will. But sometimes I can
almost feel failure coming. And if it does, nothing that's happened to me in
the past will compare to what's coming. Brave Man will ..." She twisted
her head the other way.

 
          
 
Still Water's stomach knotted. "The worst
part is, I keep Dreaming of what will happen if we don't stop him. Last night I
flew over tens of tens of people. More people than there are grass blades. They
all looked up at me with misery in their eyes. Their souls cried out, and they
reached up as if I could save them." How can I save them? I don't even
know how to save us.

 
          
 
Gray Needle traveled with a sickness in her
soul. Memories of the horror in Little Toe's eyes lurked inside her as she
walked. Her husband's strained expression was reflected in the faces of the
others. Horror hung over
Badwater
clan like the shimmering
of bloodthirsty mosquitoes. The clan had ties with Three Forks through Little
Toe. No one had been able to say who had killed Black Hand, but the serpent's
head of suspicion fixed itself on Three Forks. If Three Forks clan harbored the
abomination—the murderer—Little Toe carried the taint. And through him, so do I
. . . and our children!

 
          
 
Gray Needle shuddered at the thought and
turned her attention to the men who walked several dart casts ahead of the main
body of the clan. They hastened on their way, shoulders slumped and heads
bowed. Bone Ring, the clan leader, walked in the center of her family; they
talked in subdued voices. Evil had been loosed. A person could feel it on the
wind, hear its rustle among the drying grasses.

 
          
 
Through the shadowed gray boles of the gnarled
cotton-woods that grew along the
Spirit
River
, Gray Needle could see that Little Toe
stayed to the side, aloof and alone. She could tell by his posture that guilt
rode him like a tick-hunting blackbird on a buffalo's back.

 
          
 
"It's not his fault," Gray Needle
told
Squawapple
as she looked to the east, where
muddy-yellow sandstone bluffs rose square against the sky. The wind blew hot
across the basin, picking up the burning heat of the sun before it invaded the
shaded river bottom.

 
          
 
"I know. I was there."
Squawapple
pursed thin lips under her long, thin nose.
"Five rocks, from Warm Wind clan, was visiting at the Three Forks' camp
when it happened. He told me that all of the Three Forks men were there. So was
Owl-clover—grousing about the way old Larkspur had humiliated her and her clan.
Five Rocks said that none of them had that look—you know, like they were going
to do something as vile as murder. Someone who'd do that—especially at a
Gathering—would be nervous, looking over his shoulder to see if anyone
noticed."

 
          
 
"They were all there?"

 
          
 
"All but a couple of the women who'd gone
out visiting. Five Rocks said that Basket was so miserable she'd gone off to be
by herself. Losing that baby changed her."

 
          
 
"Basket is Little Toe's sister. They used
to be very close-sent gifts back and forth. He told me she's become a
frightened wreck now. Almost someone he doesn't know anymore." Gray Needle
gestured impotence. "Someone must have heard something!"

 
          
 
"Who could hear?"
Squawapple
asked. "Tall Man tells a wonderful story.
Black Hand was killed a good dart's cast from camp."

 
          
 
Gray Needle shook her head, studying her
husband through lowered eyes. "He's taking all the blame on himself,
afraid he'll foul us."

           
 
"He shouldn't," Bone Ring
interrupted. "I know Little Toe. He's a good man. He has to be, to have
angered old Green Fire the way he did." She growled, "Daughter, the
only good thing that's come out of Three Forks in a long time is that man of
yours. I'll have a word with him. For the moment, he won't be in a mood to
listen. Maybe by the time we get back to
Badwater
, he
will be."

 
          
 
Gray Needle smiled her thanks, but it wouldn't
be over. Not for a long time, if ever.

 
          
 
Squawapple
said
miserably, "Murder done at the Gathering? No good will come of it."

 
          
 
"The witching talk will start
again." Bone Ring scowled at the dusty sandstone-capped bluffs to the
east. She wiped at a trickle of perspiration that slid down one round cheek.
"We can't afford that kind of trouble, not with the Sun People sending
parties south."

 
          
 
Gray Needle looked back to where her infant
son rode in her niece Elderberry's pack. The girl loved the child as if it were
her own. At the thought of the baby, Gray Needle's breasts began to ache with
milk. Will my child live long enough to deserve a name? And if he does, will
his life always be tainted by this terrible deed?

 
          
 
She dropped back and took her baby from
Elderberry. As the child nursed, Gray Needle listened.

 
          
 
"The other camps will help drive the Sun
People off if they come,"
Squawapple
was saying.

 
          
 
Bone Ring gave a nod of assent. "They
will ... if they don't start accusing each other of witching. Nothing tears the
People apart like talk of witching. It'll ruin us." She paused.
"Protection from the Sun People . . . well, at least we got that promise
at the Gathering."

 
          
 
Squawapple
wiped at
the sweat trickling out of her hair and looked longingly at the cool water of
the
Spirit
River
to their left. Grasshoppers exploded from
the grass at their feet, clicking away as the dappled sunlight caught their
wings.