People of the Nightland (North America's Forgotten Past) (19 page)

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Authors: W. Michael Gear,Kathleen O'Neal Gear

BOOK: People of the Nightland (North America's Forgotten Past)
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He remained silent, listening.
When her hands started to shake, she knotted them and stuffed them under her armpits.
Windwolf asked, “What did you say?”
“That Wolf Dreamer was dead.”
He shifted against the ledge, and his cape made a soft scraping sound. “Do you believe that deep down in your soul?”
Her eyes narrowed. “If Wolf Dreamer has to murder my family to test my faith, he’s a monster. I prefer to believe he never existed.”
His gaze rested on her face for a moment, then moved away, back to the star-spotted sky.
What do I believe?
He puzzled for the answer, and it eluded him.
After a long silence, he murmured, “You said there were things you needed to tell me about the Prophet? What things?”
She clumsily fumbled with the laces on her cape, pulling them tighter. “I met him once.”
Windwolf jerked around to look at her. “Where?”
“Outside of a Nine Pipes village. Ashes had just been born. She was sick. I had seen six and ten summers. I’d gone out at dusk to carry a bowl of mussel shells to the trash midden and found him there. He looked like a frightened animal. He was huddling over the midden using his teeth to scrape tiny bits of meat from old shells. When he saw me, he let out a whimper like a terrified dog—one that’s been kicked too often. He tried to scuttle away. I called to him, but he disappeared into the forest.” She rubbed her arms again. As night deepened, the air turned bitterly cold. “I went back into our lodge and filled a bowl with the last of the warm snowshoe hare we’d had for supper. We’d been very careful, eating just enough to keep us alive. I was supposed to save the rest for breakfast.”
“But you didn’t?”
“No. When I went outside again, he was back at the midden, working on the mussel shells again. I crept up very carefully and handed him the bowl.”
“How did he react?”
She tilted her head, remembering the expression on his face. “He looked as though I’d just given him enough buffalo hides to ransom a village. As though to thank me, he handed me a raven feather.”
Windwolf leaned against the ledge beside her. “When did you see him again?”
“I never did. He was around—people would see his tracks. I heard hunters say that they’d seen him at this village, or that, but he never returned to Nine Pipes territory.”
Windwolf grunted thoughtfully, but didn’t say anything.
Somewhere out in the darkness a wolf yipped. Then a whole pack began serenading the night. Their lilting howls echoed across the hills.
“Do you think that’s why he’s so interested in you? You helped him once?” Windwolf asked.
“Maybe. I think his soul is loose. He needs to be Healed by a Soul Flyer, someone powerful enough to find his lost soul and fix it to his body again.”
Windwolf ran his hand over the carved wood of his atlatl. It was such a soft, loving gesture, it reminded her of the way a man would touch a woman’s skin. “I hope you won’t allow your pity for him to cloud your thoughts when the time comes to kill him.”
Memories flashed across her soul: Ti-Bish hungrily gobbling down the warm meat with tears in his eyes … Hookmaker shouting at her to run … the screaming women in the enclosure … .
“No.” She shook her head. “It won’t.”
An owl flapped over the creek on silent wings. They watched it soar just above the water before it vanished into the darkness.
A queer uneasiness taunted her. She said, “And what about you? Do you believe in the Blessed Wolf Dreamer?”
He bowed his head, and nodded. “Oh, yes, very much.”
He wondered why he’d just said that, when, in truth, he really didn’t know.
“Then you’re a fool.”
“I suspect so.” She didn’t catch the irony in his voice.
He shoved away from the ledge and gazed up at the night sky. “The Blessed Star People have begun to open their eyes. We should go. Given the trails we have to follow, we have a way to travel before we reach Headswift Village.”
She woke Ashes, and they walked quietly in the deep blue shadows of the boulders, stopping frequently to listen for the sound of footsteps on the path behind them.
K
akala turned his head away as someone threw a cupful of something liquid at him. The cold stuff spattered on the cage bars, and on his crouched body. His nose immediately detected the cloying scent of urine.
He closed his eyes, breathing deeply. The cage was a wooden box, constructed of spruce poles carried in from the distant groves where they extended in small patches into the tundra. The poles had been hacked into lengths, the corners bound together with wet sinew and allowed to dry snug and tight.
He had room only to crouch in the waist-high box. Food and water were brought daily—the former consisting of scraps collected from the camps, bits of gristle, previously gnawed bones—anything thought unfit for the evening fire.
Other people don’t do this
. The notion seemed stuck in his head. No people he’d ever heard of treated their miscreants this way. Among the Sunpath, traveling from camp to camp with the seasons, a family was responsible for its own. A man who compulsively stole, or acted violently or dangerously, was simply smacked in the back of his head
when he wasn’t looking. It was a way of recognizing that something was wrong, that some evil had taken possession of his soul.
Why are we so different?
He shifted, feeling the muscles in his back, thighs, and calves cramp. And this was just the end of the second day.
He clamped his eyes tight, grinding his jaw.
At least it is only me this time.
Each heartbeat that he spent bent double and aching was one that Keresa, Bishka, and the rest did not. He was here for them, enduring for them.
Not like last time. That had been true horror. He had watched his beautiful wife wilt, her soul ebbing in futility, as she crouched two cages down from him. At first they had called reassurances back and forth. But as the days passed, she had grown reticent, and then, finally, ceased to answer his pleas completely.
He liked to believe that she died the night of the storm, that it was the cold wind, blowing snow, and fog that had killed her. Not a loss of will.
He needed but look back to see her long dark hair, the sparkle in her eyes. Oh, how she’d laughed, her white teeth shining behind full lips. Had any woman ever lived to match her?
Their life together had been special. She, like Keresa, had been born to the hunt, to the trail, and adventure.
Perhaps it is time for me to die, as well. Nothing is left.
With Nashat’s order, he had felt everything slip away. All of the long hard years it had taken to rebuild his life and reputation had vanished in an instant. Nashat had taken it all with a snapping voice, disdain in the man’s eyes.
“Why?” he whispered. “What have our people become?”
Opening his eyes, he looked up past the polished spruce poles to see the Star People, so many of them, on the clear black night. They packed so closely together they made the sky seem small.
Like me. I am small. And getting smaller.
T
he Sunpath People call the time before Wolf Dreamer led humans through the hole in the ice the Exile. They believe it was a period of eternal darkness and cold, a lonely time when the gods had abandoned them.
How strange that they do not realize Exile requires solitude and abandonment in order to reveal its truths. It is only when the gods desert us that we dare to look deep inside and ask why … .
 
 
T
i-Bish tried his best to be invisible as he took step after careful step up the irregular course of the ice tunnel. In the sacred stories, it was told that great shamans, witches, and Powerful Spirit Beings could wish themselves invisible.
But I am not one. I am not that worthy of Power’s gifts.
The knowledge pained him, but could not be helped. For him, it was enough to just try with all the longing in his heart to fulfill the terrifying destiny Raven Hunter had chosen for him.
He stopped short, seeing the standing figure in the half-light. The
man was illuminated by a thin streamer of light slipping past the hanging in the great Council chamber.
How can I pass him?
Ti-Bish swallowed hard, fear rising in his bony chest. The man was obviously a warrior, for he held a thick wooden club, and stared watchfully up the tunnel toward the exit.
Frozen in indecision, Ti-Bish raised a foot, only to cringe when the guard looked his way, squinting in the faint light.
Ti-Bish fought the urge to flee, then sighed. He was caught. Wearily he walked up to the man, seeing reserve melt into recognition.
Now I am in real trouble.
To his surprise, instead of calling out to Nashat, the guard dropped to his knees. He wore a caribouhide hunting shirt with hair out around the shoulders. The man’s long black hair was pulled back in a braid. Looking up with reverential eyes, he whispered, “Guide!”
“I don’t mean to bother you.”
The man slowly shook his head, eyes oddly gleaming. “No bother, Guide. Do you wish to summon the Councilor?”
“No, I—”
“Unacceptable!”
Nashat’s harsh voice boomed from behind the curtain. “You left here with fifty warriors, Hawhak!
Fifty!
And all you had to do was destroy a couple of villages, and return with a handful of captives!”
“Councilor, we were ambushed! Silt came out of nowhere, with
all
of his warriors! Not even Kakala—”
“Kakala’s in a
cage
! Which may be where
you
belong!”
Ti-Bish winced at the violence in Nashat’s voice. He glanced at the guard, only to find the man’s attention fixed entirely on him.
“Kakala’s really in a cage?”
The guard nodded, expression still awed. “The Councilor ordered him there two days ago. He failed to kill Windwolf.”
Ti-Bish frowned. “I don’t understand.” He flinched at each explosive outburst from beyond the curtain.
“The Councilor ordered it in your name. You must be enraged at the war chief’s failure.”
Ti-Bish opened his mouth, closed it, then shook his head. “I
need
Kakala. He’s going to bring Skimmer to me.”
“But, I …” The guard shrugged helplessly, then licked his lips, as if daring to say something.
“Yes?” Ti-Bish prompted, hoping to hear more about Kakala.
“My child, Guide. My wife told me how you fixed my little baby … how you fixed his soul. I thank you, Guide. With all my heart, I just wanted you to know.”
Ti-Bish smiled. “Yes, I remember. The child is doing well?”
“Oh, yes, Guide. Smiling, eating, it’s … it’s a miracle.” The man’s face beamed with worship.
“I am glad.”
From behind the curtain, Nashat bellowed, “You will wait until Karigi’s return, and then, before the entire Council, you will tell us just
why you failed
!”
Ti-Bish glanced furtively back the way he’d come. Then, to the warrior, he said, “I must do something. Please, do not tell Nashat that I was here.” He clasped his hands, hoping desperately that the man wouldn’t order him back down the tunnel.
To his amazement, the man nodded, “Of course not, Guide. Do you have any other orders for me?”
“I … well, no. Only that I urge you to keep your faith. It won’t be long now.”
The man nodded, hanging on every word. “Thank you, Guide. Thank you so much.”
Ti-Bish gave him a weak smile, and hurried on.
Kakala is in a cage? This is terrible!

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