People of the Earth (87 page)

 
          
 
He smelled the warm air, cataloging its
scents. This land, his land, had nurtured him, fed him, provided shelter and
happiness. The land remained, heedless of the troubles of Earth People and the
black threat that descended from the north.

 
          
 
Still Water glanced at White Ash and realized
she had lost herself in her head. A hardness had formed around the fullness of
her mouth. Worry ate at her, occupying every waking moment.

 
          
 
"Can you Dream the birds?" he asked.

 
          
 
"Dream the birds?" Her brow puckered
and wind tugged strands of her black hair so that they caught the sun, gleaming
and blue-tinged in the light.

           
 
"Sure." He gestured. "Singing
Stones Dreamed the elk. See if you can Dream the birds, get them to accompany
us for a while. I like walking with birds."

 
          
 
She gave him a suspicious glance. "I
don't know. Walking and Dreaming at the same time?"

 
          
 
He grinned at her. "A new challenge. Just
this morning you were complaining that as Singing Stones said, you'd learned to
walk but you couldn't control your balance."

 
          
 
She jerked a nod, indicating that she would
try. Her frown tightened as she honed her concentration.

 
          
 
The pace slowed, but they walked on. Still
Water kept his eyes on the birds flitting in the sage.

 
          
 
He stayed silent, simply enjoying the warmth
and smelling the land. A touch settled on his soul—an imperceptible shifting
that vanished immediately. He glanced down to see Trouble staring at White Ash.
The dog cocked its ears and whined softly.

 
          
 
A shiver ran along Still Water's spine as he
felt the touch again. His skin prickled: White Ash Dreamed and walked. He knew
deep within his soul when she touched the edges of the One. The Wolf Bundle on
his back became lighter. Now weight began to vanish, until his pack might have
been filled with air. Still Water's soul thrilled with the feeling of Power.
Sparks of it shot through his bones. He shook his head, guts roiling.

 
          
 
He had opened his mouth to say something when
a rosy finch fluttered around them. He stared, a slow smile coming to his lips.
Or was this only curiosity on the finch's part?

 
          
 
A bluebird landed on his shoulder. Other birds
appeared in the air, circling and following, flitting from sagebrush to
sagebrush. They sang, chirping and warbling. Joy rose in Still Water's soul.

 
          
 
Then something plopped on his head. With a
grimace, he stopped, reached up and wiped wet white stuff from his hair and
glared at a circling meadowlark.

 
          
 
As he turned to speak to White Ash, a doe
antelope crested the ridge, ears up, watching them intently. She picked her way
down through the sage and turned to walk before them. Still Water gaped and
looked over his shoulder. A coyote, with her bright-eyed pups, ambled along
behind them. A badger grumbled under its breath as it bulled through the sage
on short, bowed legs. The eagle dropped, soaring close above them, but none of
the birds reacted to the sky hunter's descent. More antelope crossed the dune
to precede them.

 
          
 
A warm fullness began to pulse in Still
Water's soul. He glimpsed a bushy-tailed packrat as the nocturnal creature
paralleled their path without paying the slightest heed to the badger or
coyotes. Insects whirled noisily on silvered wings.

 
          
 
A rattlesnake slithered through the waving
grasses to intercept their path.

 
          
 
“White Ash?" Still Water called gently.

 
          
 
The rattlesnake turned toward them, leaving
sinuous marks in the sand. Still Water reached over and touched her.
"White Ash? Maybe this is getting a little out of control."

 
          
 
Her eyes cleared and she mumbled,
"Hmm?"

 
          
 
As suddenly, the birds rose and the antelope
stopped, staring about uneasily.

 
          
 
Still Water watched the rattlesnake coil,
tongue flicking back and forth.

 
          
 
“Oh, my." White Ash started.

 
          
 
White patches flashed on the antelopes' hind
quarters as they raced off over the dune, kicking up spurts of dust. Birds
exploded in all directions amid chirps of alarm. Within half a moment, Still
Water stood alone with White Ash in the little hollow. Only the rattlesnake
remained, and then it slid into the shade of a sagebrush.

 
          
 
Still Water sighed and looked around.

 
          
 
"Did I do that?" White Ash gave him
a wide-eyed stare.

 
          
 
Still Water stepped wide over the
rattlesnake's trail—a queasy feeling in the soles of his feet—and skirted the
reptile's refuge. "I think calling birds will take some work. You called
everything."

 
          
 
She simply stared at him. "I just touched
the edge of Power. I didn't want to go too far."

 
          
 
He nodded uneasily. 4 'Maybe we don't want to
try this around white bears—or anything big, or hungry."

 
          
 
She followed him across a low bar of sand
before sinking wearily to the warm ground. Her hide skirt spread around her in
a fringed crescent. Still Water squatted down next to her, noting the slump of
her shoulders.

 
          
 
"Why are you sad? You did it!" he
told her excitedly.

 
          
 
"But all I wanted was birds."

 
          
 
"They came."

 
          
 
"Along with everything else." She
looked up at him with frightened eyes. "Maybe that's because I didn't
trust myself to cross into the One. I held back." She closed her eyes.
"But it's there. Calling."

 
          
 
"The important thing is that you managed
to hold back. That's good."

 
          
 
"Only because you were there. I could see
your soul, glowing. I anchored myself to you."

 
          
 
Trouble sniffed around the base of a bush and
grunted as he lay down in the shade.

 
          
 
"Where are we going?" she asked,
looking around as though suddenly lost.

 
          
 
Still Water squinted out across the rumpled
dunes. "South." He lifted his hand to the western horizon, judging
the time. They had three hands of sunlight left. "There's a creek that
generally holds water this late in the year. It's just at the edge of the dune
field. I won't say the water
js
good, but it's wet.
We can camp there. We might be a little late, but . . ."He shrugged.

 
          
 
White Ash exhaled wearily and got to her feet.
"Let's go."

 
          
 
Snail Shell ran his toughened fingers along
the smooth wood of his dart shaft. His heart pumped excitement. He'd cut the
tracks and followed them, aware that his prey kept to the low spots, seeking to
avoid detection. Easy victims: only a man, a woman, and a dog. One cast from
his strong arm and Spirit-blessed
atlatl
and two
things would happen: The man would die, and the woman would be his. The dog
could be clubbed easily enough if it caused trouble.

 
          
 
Now Snail Shell waited, knowing they would
come along this path. Out of long practice, he checked his back trail, where
he'd circled and hidden himself in the waist-high sage along their route. He'd
chosen a perfect place for ambush. He crouched where the sage grew thick and
tall, his feet braced in the sand of the dune side. The wind took his scent
away from his prey and their dog's keen nose. When they reached the hollow
place between the dunes, they'd be in the open—walking on hardpan.

 
          
 
He'd seen the woman first, noting her beauty
and the sensual sway of her hips, imagining her moving under him in the robes.
This one, he'd keep. Then he'd turned his attention to the man, seeing no
warrior, only a homely man who bore a pack and walked absently, his eyes on the
clouds, one arm held protectively to his chest. The dog had been nothing more
than a long-haired black-and-white cur—and scrawny at that. The beast wouldn't
even make a decent pack animal.

 
          
 
He caught faint strains of their conversation
as they walked into the hollow. Snail Shell froze, his arm back, the dart
firmly
nocked
in his
atlatl
.
As they approached, they ceased to talk and the woman looked curiously
preoccupied.

 
          
 
Snail Shell prepared to stand and cast his
dart, but something played with his soul, some Power. A prickling—like a
thousand ant feet—lifted his high-
roached
hair,
filled his breast and tried to suffocate his heart. In horror, he glanced at
the woman's face. She looked asleep, or dead—but she was walking.

 
          
 
Frightened, he let them pass and followed,
using all of his wiles. Fear traced frosty patterns up and down his spine. What
sort of magic was this?

 
          
 
He watched in awe as the birds came to circle
around them and land on their shoulders. Then antelope joined the couple, and
coyotes, and an eagle. A badger crashed through the
rabbitbrush
,
passing within an arm's length of Snail Shell as it moaned and trotted forward,
thick fur bouncing, to join the man and woman.

 
          
 
Snail Shell gaped . . . and then he ran,
afraid the Power would mark his soul and twist him up in the trance. He headed
south, toward the main camp of the clan. Wind Runner must know, all the Black
Point must know, in order to guard themselves.

 
          
 
Would Hot Fat have the ability to fight
against such Power? Would any of them?

 
          
 
Snail Shell pounded through the sand, cursing
the way it dragged at the feet. But once the first flush of fear had passed, he
dropped into a distance-eating lope that would carry him through the night.

 
          
 
White Ash woke to the lightening of the
eastern horizon. Dreams had haunted her sleep, images that chilled her soul.
Fright had risen like a corrupt smoke to hover over her.