People of the Raven (North America's Forgotten Past) (13 page)

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

BOOK: People of the Raven (North America's Forgotten Past)
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“Because you gave your word.”
“One’s word can be broken.”
“Or maybe because you were married to Tlikit for all those years.”
He gave her a wary sidelong glance. “That was in a different world.”
“At the time she left Fire Village, she was in line to rule the Council. People still can’t understand why she did that—gave up her heritage to marry a slave warrior. For a long time, it puzzled me, too.”
His jaw muscles jumped as he pulled the knots tight.
She studied him with narrowed eyes as she pulled out another of the wet poles and lifted it high. “I don’t think the man that Tlikit placed that much faith and love in is the type to break his word.”
“Perhaps not.” The muscles in his brown forearms corded as he pulled the knots tight. “We were so young then.” He smiled at the memories that lay just behind his eyes. “I used to worry that over time her regrets would accumulate. If they did, she never let on. Until
the end, she was … well, let’s say that everyone deserves at least one remarkable love during their lifetimes.”
The longing in his voice touched her. Had she ever had a remarkable love? With her mother and daughter, yes. But certainly not with Toget. She could have traded him for another husband without a thought had circumstances required.
She blurted, “I’ve never loved like that.”
He studied her, a softness in his vulnerable brown eyes. “You have a long life ahead of you, Matron. Finish your mourning; find some peace for yourself. Only then can you begin to build your life again.”
“Have you found peace for yourself, Chief, or are you still in mourning?”
He didn’t answer her, turning instead to the long length of pole he lowered into the water. “It’s a remarkably tedious chore, this fishing for dentalium. Don’t expect that we’ll bring up two shells with every try. I’ve done this for days and only recovered one or two.”
She nodded. “You never know, Great Chief. Sometimes you get lucky more than once.”
He said nothing in reply, and she felt a curious stirring in the darkness of grief and pain. What was it about this taciturn man who wore the cares of his people like a cape of stone?
 
 
F
ear rode like a burden on Pitch’s shoulders as he trotted up the trail, barely making a sound. Almost invisible shapes—silhouetted against the snow—slipped between the dark trunks behind them, there one instant, gone the next. In the falling snow and darkness, it was almost impossible to see them.
“Dzoo, where are they?”
“Stay in front of me,” she whispered. “Don’t look back.”
The trail, a white slash in the darkness, narrowed and wound through a thick grove of firs, brush, and boulders taller than a man. The baleful eyes of crows glared out at them from the limbs. Their occasional caws broke the predawn quiet.
Pitch whispered, “Why is he just following us? Why doesn’t he attack?”
She turned slightly. Her pointed nose, full lips, and a single dark eye shone against the dark rim of her hood. “He is like Brother Wolf.
Patient. He knows our final Dance will come. For the moment, it is you we must protect.”
The stealthy crunch of footfalls behind them affected Pitch like fists in his belly. He hated being driven like a blacktailed deer into a surround. And truth be told, he chafed at having to rely on Dzoo for protection. It should be the other way around. She was the more valuable, a great Healer and Soul Flyer, while he was but a practicing young Singer.
He lifted his spear and nocked it in his atlatl—a throwing stick about as long as his forearm. Dawn was breaking. If they were going to try to kill him, it would be now.
“You’re sure they won’t harm you?”
“Coyote would cook their livers inside their gutted bodies if any harm came to me.” A pause. “So don’t let your masculine pride goad you into doing something foolish. You are an important piece in the game to come. We need you alive.”
“What game? You speak in riddles, Dzoo.”
“Riddles are everything and nothing. Circles within circles, round and round without end.”
Far away, farther than could be real, he caught a glimmer of dawn light on a wind-stirred hide cloak, and a strange scent filled the air.
“Dzoo?” Pitch whispered urgently. “Is that the smell you spoke of?”
“We’re a half hand’s walk from Sandy Point Village. Keep the pace.”
“Maybe that’s what he’s waiting for! He wants to kill us close to camp so people will find our bodies. The villagers would panic. You know how it would affect them. Let me fishhook back, I might be able to ambush—”
“They’re watching every move you make. Obey me and
walk.
”
He marched around a wide curve in the trail with his heart pounding. By the time they emerged into a small snowy meadow, his hand ached from clutching his spear.
The forest was dim, quiet. Empty. His gaze darted over the snow-sheathed rocks and brush, searching for a glimpse of skin or hide clothing. Somewhere behind them, snow fell in a white shower from a high fir branch.
“Where did he go? Do you see him?”
For a time only the melodic sounds of the dawn answered him, the trill of a gray jay from the top of a fir, the strange cooing of Wind Woman playing in the trees.
“He’s still there, Pitch.”
“How can you be sure? We’re only a stone’s throw from the cutoff to Sandy Point Village. Maybe he grew frightened. As soon as it’s light, our scouts will see him.”
Dzoo lifted the hem of her cloak to step over a log that had fallen across the trail. As she continued up the path, she said, “That just means Coyote has to be more careful.”
She said his name softly, as though along this snowy trail, covered with coyote tracks, the animals who bore his name might awaken and join him in the hunt.
“Do you think he’s circling around us?”
“Probably. He wants me very badly.”
Pitch frowned. “Who does?”
“He’s there!”
Pitch jerked his spear up and saw the shadowy figure approaching through the trees to his left. “Dzoo, run!”
Dzoo’s talonlike grip tightened on his arm. “No. Back up. Let him come to us.”
Dzoo loosed the war club from her belt and backed into a grove of alders. Pitch took cover behind one of the wet trunks. As he waited, sweat trickled down his face.
A man moved no more than two tens of paces from Pitch’s position, weaving silently between the trunks, taking his time.
Pitch slid his arm back, took aim, waiting for a clear shot—
Then he heard it and spun. “There’s another one behind us!”
Instinctively his arm slid back, muscles rolling as he cast. He lost the flashing dart in the dim dawn light. The man staggered away, into the forest, and Pitch pulled his stiletto from his belt.
A second warrior ran out of the trees screaming and jabbing his spear at Pitch. Pitch dodged sideways, thrust his stiletto into the man’s belly, and ripped upward.
He heard the long dart as it cut the air and sliced into his left arm. The force of the impact spun him around and knocked him off his feet. He sat down hard in the cold snow, staring at the bloody length of dart point that stuck out through his arm above the elbow. “Dzoo, for the sake of the gods, run!”
But she just stood there, tall and straight, her haunting gaze on the forest. After several heartbeats she said, “They’re gone.”
“What?” Pitch cradled his wounded arm, dazzled by the pain each time he moved and the long shaft pulled at his flesh. “Where did they go?”
Dzoo knelt and examined the spear that pinned his cape to his arm. Without a moment’s hesitation, she reached into her healer’s pack and rummaged for a long obsidian blade.
Pitch blinked, feeling light-headed, seeing the world start to spin around him. His stomach lurched, tickling the bottom of his throat with the need to vomit.
Dzoo gripped the blood-slick shaft and began sawing at the binding that held it to the stemmed point. Even those faint vibrations sent waves of sickness into his soul. He cried out when the point came free. Dzoo stepped behind him, grasped the shaft, and pulled it slowly from his flesh.
When Pitch screamed, he caught the hazy image of the Noisy Ones. The misshapen spirits looked like ugly children, whirling each other around, flying into the sky while snow drifted down behind them.
Pitch gasped, bent double, and threw up. His gut wrenched once, twice, a third time. Then he collapsed to the blood-spattered snow, panting. Hot blood soaked his shirt and cape. He had no idea how long he lay there, soaking cool relief from the snow. His arm moved as Dzoo bound it, feeling numb, oddly removed from his body.
“Come on. We have to get out of here.” Dzoo pulled his good arm over her shoulders and dragged him to his feet. Pitch threw up again, vomit burning his throat.
“Go ahead,” he whispered. “Get away while you can.”
“It is already too late for that, Pitch. He knows I will be his in the end. It is only a matter of how.”
She propped his good arm over her shoulder, and together they staggered down the trail toward Sandy Point Village.
T
he Dreams were terrible as they wrapped around Tsauz’s soul in those last chaotic moments before wakefulness … .
 
 
H
e fell through images of fire and lightning. A dreadful emptiness filled him, knotting at the bottom of his throat. As he fell, the sick sensation of weightlessness grew in his gut. Flashes of light lit the sky around him.
He screamed, having never felt this terror before—not even that terrible night he had almost burned to death.
Fire flared yellow in the sky, but this time, it did not sear his flesh. He screamed again, venting his soul into the rushing air.
“It is your decision to fall, Tsauz. Reach out! Grab the wind! Clutch it to you, and save yourself!”
A voice boomed in time with the thunder.
Tsauz reached out, seeing his hands, fingers grasping for a bruised and wounded sky. He could feel the air tearing through his fingers. As he closed them, the rushing air screamed in agony, a loud whistling wail that sent shivers through him. He could feel the pain.
Crying in terror, he let go, his body spiraling, falling, falling …
 
 
T
sauz bolted awake, blinking in the darkness. His body shivered; the pit of his stomach still tingled with the sensation of his weightless plummet through space. The roaring sound was gone with the Dream, replaced by the hollow clunking of wooden bowls and the murmurs of the warriors beyond the walls of his lodge.
Tsauz clutched his knotted blanket and pulled it up to his chest, sniffing the familiar scent of the fabric. Mother had given the blanket to him. He remembered what it looked like: the chocolate brown of woven buffalo hair with dyed porcupine quill decorations done in chevrons over one side.
With one hand he reached down to where Runner, his little puppy and only friend in the world, shifted and began scratching behind his ear. Tsauz could tell by the flapping sound the puppy’s ear made.
“Bad Dreams, Runner,” he whispered as the puppy licked his hand.
Mother, dead.
Afterimages of her blistered and peeling face, her melted hair like wet leather against her scalp, lingered as his last memory of sight. He sniffed his blanket again, using its odor to blank the stench of fire.
In the Dream, he had fallen through fire. And the voice had called out to him:
Reach out! Grab the wind!
But whose voice had that been, booming even louder than the thunder?
He cocked his head, as if the echoes of it lingered somewhere above.
A worried voice from beyond caught his attention. Then came the familiar strains of a baritone voice. Yes! That was Father! He was back.
Tsauz pressed his ear close to the leather door hanging, trying to hear what Father was saying to the warriors assembled around the morning fire outside. Father spoke softly. He’d been gone for several days, and it surprised Tsauz to hear his voice.
“How many made it to Sandy Point Village?” Father asked.
War Chief White Stone answered, “More than we thought. Perhaps ten tens.”
Red Dog’s gruff voice added, “They ran like wood rats through the brush, Starwatcher. Some we ran down and dispatched; others, well, had they gone in a group, we could have killed more.”
Father said something Tsauz couldn’t make out, but the tone
frightened him. He was used to hearing Father shout in rage when angry; this quiet, seething fury made Tsauz’s heart race. Sometimes when father spoke like this, it was because someone had been bad. When Tsauz was bad, Father had to hit him. It was for his own good. Father said so.
He fingered the tender bruises left from when Father had taken a piece of firewood to him several days ago. He’d been bad, slipping out of the tent one night when he was supposed to stay inside. It had been so hard to know what was right. There had been whimpering sounds, like someone in trouble would make. Tsauz had crept out into the night and felt his way to the sounds. He’d found blankets and had heard a woman’s voice whimpering “No” over and over as the blankets moved and Father grunted, as if in pain. He’d asked Father if he was all right. He could hardly remember what had come next. Only the sound of the blows, and the crying woman, mixed with the guilt because he’d been bad.
Beyond the tent, Father’s voice still had that sibilant quality. He wished he could see what was going on. He’d only been blind for two moons. It frustrated him not to be able to see facial expressions.
He leaned his head against the doorframe. Yellow flashes played behind his eyes as they had since that night. Yellow flashes, tongues of fire, forever burned into his last vision.
He’d been sitting at Mother’s side in Grandfather’s Salmon Village lodge. Her entire family—brothers, sisters, parents, and grandparents—had been there. He had gone with Mother that night. Once again he remembered the worry he had felt when Grandfather, a stern old man with snowy hair and an age-lined face, had said, “The time has come for us to leave this place.”
Tsauz had felt a bolt of fear run through him. He had lived his entire life on Fire Mountain. Why would they go? He had looked around the lodge again, wondering why Father was not present, too.
“It must be done with great care,” Grandfather had said. “No one must know. Tomorrow, when the sun rises, they must find our lodge empty. We must be ever careful to leave no trail.”
Tsauz remembered the concern with which everyone had looked first at Mother, and then at him. Their pity hadn’t made sense to him, any more than had Mother’s excuse that she had fallen while hauling water, and that that was how she’d gotten so badly bruised and dislocated her arm.
Grandmother had looked at him and said, “He will be coming for the boy. We must all remember that.”
Tsauz had been about to ask who would be coming when a strange fire had literally exploded in the lodge entrance. No one really knew what had happened, or what made it burn so hot, but a spark must have caught in the dry bark roof.
The blaze had been bright and hot. Tsauz ran his fingers over the scars on the backs of his hands. Had he ever felt such pain? After that, not even Father’s beatings hurt.
A man’s hand had grabbed him from behind and dragged him outside. He’d caught a glimpse of Red Dog before the man ran away into the darkness. The last thing he’d ever seen was Mother’s face peeling and shriveling as her hair burned.
Tsauz let out a pained breath. He kept that image locked deep in a secret place in his soul. When he felt lonely or afraid, he pulled it out and looked into her eyes again—frightened eyes, filled with desperation to save him.
Tsauz shifted, and his head brushed the sloping roof. Though only ten summers had passed since his birth, Tsauz had grown tall. He had a long narrow face with a pointed chin and shoulder-length black hair that had grown out after being singed short in places.
Outside the lodge, an unknown man whispered, “What do you wish us to do, Starwatcher?”
Tsauz could hear fir needles crackling as Father paced back and forth. He knew that careful, measured tread. Before he’d gone blind, he’d seen Father pace often enough before their lodge at Fire Village.
“We carry out the plan,” Father said.
A brief silence. Then the man said, “But, Starwatcher, we can’t possibly win.”
“Yes,”
Father hissed,
“we can.”
“But how?” That was White Stone.
“By misdirection, deceit, and surprise.”
Tsauz wondered what misdirection and deceit were. He hadn’t heard those words before.
Father continued, “Antler Spoon’s village plays a role in this great hoax. The bulk of our forces are headed that way as we speak. Suspicion will be allayed while they circle, working their way on stealthy feet.” A pause, and then Father’s voice almost sounded joyous. “I can hear the gathering of raven wings, my friends. And they shall be blown away by a great northern wind!”
Grab the wind!
the Dream voice echoed inside Tsauz.
Feet shifted, and several conversations broke out.
Father’s voice suddenly burned with rage. “Do not ever let me
hear you say we can’t win again. Do you understand? Now take the remaining warriors and begin your circle. Make certain everything has been prepared for War Gods Village. And do not allow yourselves to be discovered.” A pause. “I will be most displeased if that happens. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Starwatcher.”
Steps padded away from the fire: One man at first, then many followed.
Runner snuggled against Tsauz’s leg and whimpered. When Tsauz reached down to pet him, the puppy wagged his tail and pawed the ground. Runner had a black body with a white face and spotted ears.
Tsauz patted the little dog on the head. “Shhh, Runner, I’m trying to hear Father.”
Runner may not have understood the words, but he knew a reprimand when he heard it. He circled on the blanket and curled against Tsauz’s side, then propped his chin on top of Tsauz’s thigh.
War Chief White Stone asked, “And the rest of us, Starwatcher?”
“The final stroke of genius, War Chief. We leave immediately for War Gods Village … and we are going straight through Sandy Point on the way.”
“Gods! Sandy Point? Are you crazy?”
A sudden silence made Tsauz tremble. Across the distance he could hear White Stone swallow dryly.
When Father spoke it was with a deadly fury. “If you ever use that word with me again, I will cut your tongue from your body, no matter who you are, or what you are to Cimmis. Pack your men; we move out now.”
“Yes, Starwatcher.” Feet pounded as White Stone turned and raced off.
Tsauz crawled out of his blankets and pulled the lodge flap open a crack to listen. Down the valley, he heard tens of warriors moving and smelled the scents of their breakfasts cooking: roasted venison and lady ferns. From Father’s position, he heard nothing, only a long and lingering silence, as if Father was lost in deep thought.
Runner licked Tsauz’s moccasin, and Tsauz gently stroked the puppy’s side. “Are you hungry?”
Runner perked up. He knew the word “hungry.”
Tsauz felt his way across the lodge to the bag where he kept the extra fried clams the slaves had fixed him for dinner. Runner trotted at his heels, whimpering.
Tsauz pulled out some clams and petted Runner’s side while the dog gulped them down.
“Now, be quiet. Father thinks we’re asleep. He might be angry if he knew we’d sneaked out of our hides to listen to him.”
When Father got angry, things died. That’s what had happened to Tsauz’s last puppy. Mother must have said something that angered Father, because he’d kicked the little puppy so many times he’d killed it. The squeals had been terrible. Then, the following night had been the fire, but Father had been gone. Chief Cimmis said he was high on Fire Mountain speaking with the stars that night, and could not be reached. Father hadn’t returned for days.
Tsauz had been so alone. The strange new darkness had pressed on his eyes and ears like granite weights. The warriors who’d guarded him hadn’t dared to speak with him. Neither had they made so much as a sound when he called out his dead mother’s name, or that of his puppy.
Only Chief Cimmis, passing by, had stopped. Tsauz had heard him, felt his penetrating stare, and then the old man had walked away. A half hand of time later he had returned with Runner, saying in an ominous voice, “Here, boy. This one is a gift. No one will dare to harm him.”
Tsauz tiptoed back to his bedding and quietly pulled the hides and buffalo blanket over him. Runner curled up on his chest.
“You would not have believed my Dream. It was so terrible, filled with Power. And this voice … it called out of the storm.”
Runner wiggled and stomped, weaseling his way up until he could lick Tsauz’s chin. The wagging of the little dog’s tail brought joy to his heart.
“We will be together forever, Runner. You will be my best friend. We’ll always take care of each other. And if you get lonely, I’ll hold you. Just like this.” He wrapped his arms around the squirming puppy.

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