People of the Fire (63 page)

 
          
 
"To tell you I couldn't leave my family.
That I'd come to love them too much. That I couldn't leave them alone."

 
          
 
"But you could have simply stayed at
camp. You didn't need to seek me out at all."

 
          
 
"Wolf was there, watching."

 
          
 
"Did he ever threaten you? Did he ever
act to remind you of your duty?"

 
          
 
Little Dancer clamped his eyes shut, trying to
think, remembering only the level stare wolf had given him the night the Wolf
Bundle had called to him. "No. But I thought—"

 
          
 
"I told you the first time we met that
free will couldn't be denied. Did I ever imply that you'd be punished if you
failed me?"

 
          
 
"No."

 
          
 
"So you could have run. But you came,
knowing even as you did that I might destroy you for saying you wouldn't—"

 
          
 
''But I owed you!'' Little Dancer tried to sit
up and gasped at the pain in his throbbing leg. "I couldn't just pretend
nothing happened up there in the snow."

 
          
 
"You are a man who accepts
responsibility." Wolf Dreamer lifted his face to the sun above, closing
his eyes, seeming to enjoy the warmth.

 
          
 
"It doesn't matter," Little Dancer
whispered. "My first responsibility is to my wife ... my children. Now, it
seems the rattlesnake has used his own free will. I guess it's all without
point anyway. I would ask one last thing of you. Please, if you could make
things easier on Elk Charm and my daughters, I'd—"

           
 
"I have no intention of letting you die,
Fire Dancer. Less now than I might have before."

 
          
 
Again, his vision seemed to swim, and his eyes
had trouble focusing. "What?"

 
          
 
Wolf Dreamer stood, rising like smoke, and
walked closer, settling next to Little Dancer's fevered body. "Oh, you're
quite in the right condition. Your mind is wandering, shifting from real to
unreal. For four days you've been without food and water. That's the sacred
number. Snake venom has lowered your resistance even further. The gates of your
mind are open, the thresholds dropped. You're teetering on the verge of losing
yourself, ready to touch the One. Once, I had to use mushrooms—as you will one
day use another poison. Now is the time to teach you to Dream with the
One."

 
          
 
"Even if I've told you I can't abandon my
family?"

 
          
 
Wolf Dreamer's smile might have been
everything good in the universe. Little Dancer's soul would have sung to see it
again.

 
          
 
"I know you love them, Fire Dancer, but
I'm going to give you something more powerful. I'm giving you the Dream. I'm
giving you the One. With it, you'll Dance the Spiral back into balance. You'll
be One with the fire, air, and water . . . with the very Earth Mother.
Everything has ties to the One. Even your family.

 
          
 
"Come, take my hand. Together, we'll
Dance the poison, and you'll learn it's only illusion."

 
          
 
"Then White Calf was right?"

 
          
 
"More than she could ever know."

 
          
 
Little Dancer winced at the pain, gulping for
air, seeking to quiet his reeling reality. He reached for the man of light,
fingers grasping into a brilliant flash. . . .

 
          
 
He awoke, flat on his back, staring up into
the night sky. A terrible thirst burned with the intensity of fever. In his
mouth, his tongue rasped like dry leather

 
          
 
He whimpered and forced himself to sit up,
looking about owlishly, trying to place where he was. A solitary spire of rock
supported his back.

 
          
 
"What?" The sound of his voice
frightened him.

 
          
 
He blinked, remembering. He'd climbed to find
Wolf Dreamer. The snake had bitten him. Frantic fingers clawed at his leg,
feeling familiar firm flesh. He stared around, seeing nothing out of order in
the darkness

 
          
 
The memory of Wolf Dreamer settled warm in his
mind. He'd Danced with the Wolf Dreamer; together, they'd been the Oneness,
floating like the wind, Dancing with the pulse of the universe, singing and
chanting in harmony with the beat of the Creator. In that manner, they'd felt
the twirling beauty of the spinning stars, heard the songs of distant suns, and
felt the pulse of life. He had known freedom then. His soul had become light.
The memory clung to him with the rich sweetness of warm honey.

 
          
 
That bit of flesh that made up Little Dancer
had been left behind, a bit of matter, a composite of tissue that deluded. The
glory of the One shimmered in his memory, absorbing his thoughts until he
realized the sun had climbed into the sky.

 
          
 
Could he do it again? Could he Dance the One,
Dream it out of thin air without Wolf Dreamer? He felt the call, desperate,
yearning. Like a melody on the wind, it came to him.

 
          
 
“The Wolf Bundle."

 
          
 
He crawled to the edge of the pinnacle and
looked over the side. The spirit of the rocks hummed beneath him. Without a
worry, he lowered himself, seeking a foothold.

 
          
 
His muscles quivered from the strain,
irritating pain shot up his fingers as the rock dug into his skin.

 
          
 
First he had to recover the Wolf Bundle. In
the depths of his mind, he could feel it as he'd always known he could. The
long wait had come to an end. So little time remained. He had to get the Wolf
Bundle, restore its Power—and he had so much to learn.

 
          
 
Two Smokes hitched his painful way up the side
of the drainage, wincing at the pain in his knee. The older he got, the worse
it seemed to hurt. In his hand he clutched a delicate shock of
ricegrass
. The seed pods, full and ready to burst, bobbed
as he walked.

 
          
 
He stopped for a moment to get his breath and
stumped over to a large flat boulder. There, he gratefully lowered himself and
pulled the leather roll of his grass collection from where it traveled securely
in his belt. He unrolled -the long leather strip, staring at the various
grasses he'd collected through the years. He had lots of
ricegrass
,
of course, and now stared at it, admiring the fragile beauty.

 
          
 
Overhead a raven cawed and clucked, wheeling
about as if to give him a casual inspection. A grasshopper rose on clicking
wings, silver glinting off its shimmering flight. The summer stretched around
him, alive with the sounds of insects and birdsong.

 
          
 
Two Smokes let the sun burn into his face. To
live on a day like this made everything worthwhile. The warmth paid him back
for the storms that rolled across the land and made his bad knee ache. This day
rewarded him for the long blizzards, the times he'd shivered in rain-soaked
clothing or huddled under frost-stiff hides.

 
          
 
Absently, he picked up a rounded sandstone
cobble and used it to smash a seed pod of the
ricegrass
,
staring at the flattened seed and the tiny hairs. He mashed another and another
with increasing excitement.

 
          
 
“You stupid old fool!" He blinked,
feeling the pieces of his long quest coming together. Here lay the answer,
after all the years of chewing individual seeds, of grinding grass stems, and
pulling the shoots apart by the hour to nibble the sweet stalks of the grass.
No, people couldn't eat the body of the grass, but the seeds—yes, the
seeds—could be eaten!

 
          
 
His heart felt fit to burst and a tear
trickled down his weathered cheek. He'd never thought to collect the seeds—
they were the smallest part of the plant. But how many times he had plucked a
stem, just to have the seeds fall out and scatter? And no matter that seeds
were small, there were so many. Grass grew everywhere!

 
          
 
He looked about, seeing the nodding heads of
grass going to seed everywhere. As he did so, movement caught his eye. The
black wolf walked out of the juniper, followed by Little Dancer.

 
          
 
Two Smokes chuckled to himself. "Hey,
come here! I found it! I found the secret of the grasses! Come look! It's the
seeds! It's the seeds!" Two Smokes whooped and waved his hands.

            
Little Dancer wound around the
stands of
rabbitbrush
, a weary stumbling to his walk.
Like a man in a dream, he made his way. The wolf trotted swiftly to one side,
panting in the heat.

 
          
 
Not until he stood before Two Smokes did the
old
berdache
realize the difference. The ecstasy
stilled in his heart as he looked up. "Little Dancer?"

 
          
 
That familiar face had changed; even the scar
on his cheek seemed to stand out, lit from within.

 
          
 
"You've found the secret?"

 
          
 
Two Smokes nodded, aware of the strange glow
in the young man's eyes, like he lived a Dream. "It's the seeds." He
paused. "We can collect the seeds. In a basket like we do berries and . .
. Little Dancer, what happened?"

 
          
 
"I Dreamed with the First
Man.
" Little Dancer's voice sounded
faraway. "He came, found me on the top of the rock. Together we Dreamed .
. . and, Two Smokes, it was so beautiful ... so beautiful." He smiled,
lost in the memory.

 
          
 
So it had happened after all? Little Dancer
had found his Power? "And Elk Charm? What about her?"

 
          
 
Little Dancer smiled, lighting a part of the
old man's soul. "Wolf Dreamer will protect her. I asked . . . asked that
you all be protected."

 
          
 
"What about you?"

 
          
 
Little Dancer reached out to place both hands
on his shoulders. Two Smokes started at the touch, a tingling shooting through
him. He lost himself in the depths of the brown eyes staring so thoughtfully
into his. "Two Smokes, I see now. You've given so much, and no one has ever
understood. You've found the secret of the grass?"

 
          
 
"Yes. You have to collect the seeds.
They're little—but they're everywhere. It's not the stems, you see, but the
seeds that are important. I—I never thought to grind them! That's the
difference. And—and it's been right before my eyes the whole time! Grind the
seeds into a paste like we do with biscuit root."

 
          
 
"And you've tasted this?"

 
          
 
"Well, not yet, but I can. I will, I'll
bet it's wonderful!"

            
Little Dancer closed his eyes,
tilting his head back. "Would you collect some? Make it for me? The first
... to take with me?"

 
          
 
The heart almost stopped in Two Smokes' chest.
"Take with you? You're going Dreaming?"