People of the Raven (North America's Forgotten Past) (22 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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Rain Bear pulled the brim of his hat down over his eyes. “Was that a yes or a no?”
The old man smiled. “A no. I don’t believe that murdering Raven People will make you hesitate. But my beliefs won’t help you much, I’m afraid.”
A stick broke in the fire, and sparks exploded. As they whirled upward into the rain, they winked out like tiny torches snuffed in the ocean.
Rain Bear tossed another branch onto the flames. “Well, I agree with you.”
Rain dripped into the old man’s long gray beard, forming a glistening net of drops. It shimmered when he turned to squarely face Rain Bear.
“Do you know why I’m here?” Rides-the-Wind asked.
Rain Bear gestured uncertainly. “No. Not really.”
“Power brought me.” He nodded to Evening Star’s lodge. “As it brought her.”
Rain Bear made no reply as he rubbed the toe of his moccasin over a wet hearthstone.
As though irritated, Rides-the-Wind braced his walking stick in front of him and gripped the slippery knob in a tight fist. Firelight ran up the wet shaft like honey. “You are about to accept the most difficult challenge any man ever has.”
“What challenge?”
“The decisions you make in the next few days will touch thousands of lives as yet unborn.” The old man’s eyes seemed to burn. “So, how will you choose?”
“Choose what, Elder?”
A faint smile twisted the old man’s lips. “That is what I have come here to see.”
P
itch walked slowly across the village, conserving his strength. Every time he planted his left foot, pain stabbed his wounded shoulder. News of the attack on War Gods Village had panicked the clans. Warriors had been dispatched to the perimeters, leaving only women, children, and the elderly to sit around their evening fires and whisper about what might come next.
After days of snow and rain, cold damp drafts seeped through the forest, penetrating every garment. To make matters worse, soaked wood, when it burned at all, belched blue smoke but not much heat. Pitch couldn’t seem to get warm.
Because he was a young Singer, people turned strained and frightened faces toward him as he passed, mutely asking him why this was happening, what they had done to deserve such punishments from the gods.
Pitch tried to smile reassuringly, but they knew as well as he that something was coming. Too many villages had been destroyed. Too many people needed food. Summer had lasted longer than anyone could remember. Mother Ocean was rising. Everyone saw it. Many of the lesser rock formations near the shore had drowned last cycle. The beach was being eaten away.
The trail ran through a heavily forested area and emerged at the edge of the sea cliff where—less than five tens of body lengths away—silver waves washed the rocky littoral. He paused for a moment.
Canoes dotted the water between the beach and the outlying islands. He could see fishermen casting nets in the vain hope of adding to the dwindling larders. As he watched, the calm roar of the Mother’s voice soothed him. Two gray-headed elders hunched over a small fire down near the water, and a group of young women watched several children playing chase. They ran up and down the shore, laughing. The firelight cast their huge shadows across the ocean like those of giants.
Rides-the-Wind sat on a rocky ledge overlooking the water. A tan sea-grass blanket draped his shoulders.
Pitch ground his teeth, refusing to move. Why on earth had he thought the old man might help him? He belonged to the North Wind People, and had no obligation to any paltry Healer-in-the-Making …
“Stop babbling to yourself and come join me,” Rides-the-Wind called without turning. “I’ve been expecting you for days.”
Pitch looked to see if there was anyone else standing close by. “Are—are you talking to me?”
“Of course I’m talking to you.”
He hesitantly walked forward. “Babbling? I wasn’t speaking out loud. Was I?”
“Are you going to sit, or not?” The elder pointed to the ledge.
Pitch eased down onto the damp gray stone and winced. “Forgive me, Elder. I hope you do not consider my presence an intrusion.”
“An intrusion is only made by someone obsessed with his own needs, young Singer. Is that why you’ve come? To have me assuage your personal needs?”
“No, Elder.” Pitch took a breath to fortify his courage. “Dzoo and I had trouble at Antler Spoon’s village.”
“Yes, I heard.”
Rides-the-Wind frowned at the bald eagles perched on one of the dead firs that jutted up along the shoreline; their white heads glinted like beacons. They always flocked to Sandy Point Village during the Sits Down Moon.
Pitch was forming his question when Rides-the-Wind asked, “Are you going up to care for the dead in War Gods Village?”
“As soon as I’ve spoken with you.”
Rides-the-Wind gestured to the sling on Pitch’s arm. “Are you sure you’re well enough?”
“I’ll be all right. Since there is no one else, I have to be. I just hope I have the strength to Sing the sacred Songs.”
A faint smile tugged at Rides-the-Wind’s wrinkled lips, and his
dark eyes turned luminous. “If you need, I would be honored to help you. As a youth I made a full study of your rituals and Songs.”
“You did?”
The old man shrugged. “All of my life I have been fascinated by the ways that lead to the One Life. Each is a path that takes the traveler past different sights and experiences. In the end, however, the destination is still the same.”
They stared at each other in silence, each measuring the other.
Pitch tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t sound trite, or embarrass him.
Rides-the-Wind turned his attention to the eagles. “Why don’t you tell me about the obsidian fetishes?”
Pitch’s eyes widened. “Did Rain Bear tell you?”
“Of course not. What? Do you think you’re the only one who can hear their cries? I started hearing them the day before I arrived here.” He held out a skeletal hand. “Let me see them.”
Pitch reached into his belt pouch, drew out the fetish bag, and placed it on the old man’s palm. “When you open it, you’ll see—”
Rides-the-Wind held the bag to his ear and closed his eyes. For a long time, he did not move.
The eagles began shrieking. One flapped into the air; then another lifted off. In a few heartbeats, the entire flock was airborne, shrieking and flapping through the purple dusk.
Rides-the-Wind opened his eyes. “I hear many voices, Singer. Some young, some old. Some male, some female.”
“Many voices?”
Rides-the-Wind gave him a bland look. “Yes. Why?”
“Well, I … I only hear one voice.”
“Have you held the bag to your ear?”
Pitch shook his head warily.
“Does his Power frighten you so much? Listen, and learn. He is dangerous, this witch, but the voices will not harm you. And surely you’re not afraid to listen to the dead?”
“Witch?” Pitch whispered. “The dead?”
“Of course.” Rides-the-Wind handed the fetish bag to Pitch. “Hold it to your ear and
listen
.”
Pitch’s fingers tingled as he held the soft leather against his ear. Within moments, the flesh of his face began to crawl. He still only heard one voice clearly, but behind the man’s wrenching cries, he thought he made out the faint din of other voices. “Who are they, Elder?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. Who do you think they are?”
Pitch placed the bag on the ledge between them and rubbed his hand on his cape. His fingers burned and tingled as if bitten by wood ants. “If you’re right, and the voices belong to dead people, they could be my ancestors.”
Rides-the-Wind’s gray brows lowered. “That’s possible, but that’s not what has you so worried, is it?”
“No,” he said through a long exhalation. “I hear a man’s voice calling to me, begging me for help. How can I help if we’re hearing the voices of the dead?”
Rides-the-Wind tugged feebly at the sea-grass blanket over his shoulders. “The question is, dead when? Life is a great circle, Pitch. If you’re standing in the middle, birth and death are the same distance from you. What you see depends upon which direction you look. Are you hearing someone who has already died, or someone who will die and have his soul locked into the fetish sometime in the future? Do you hear words, or just cries?”
“Just cries.” Pitch clenched his fist in his lap. “Why is he crying? He sounds so terrified and lonely, it wounds my heart.”
Rides-the-Wind’s gaze followed the bald eagles. A few had landed again. They were preening, plucking at their feathers, combing their wings with their beaks. Out on the water, a whale blew. Water fountained twenty hands into the air. Immediately the fishermen began pulling in their nets, scrambling for paddles. Across the silver waves, they started in pursuit.
In a fierce whisper, Pitch asked, “Has this man already been witched, Rides-the-Wind? Or
will
he be witched? Will someone steal his soul and breathe it into one of those fetishes?”
“You begin to understand.” Rides-the-Wind reached for the bag again. He poured the fetishes out into his palm, where they glittered wildly. The largest was a black obsidian eagle with its wings spread. The flaking had been done with such deliberation that the scars looked like feathers ready to catch the wind. A coiled snake had been chipped out of red-brown obsidian, the flakes taken off in a pattern like scales. It glared with tiny polished jasper eyes inset in the triangular head. “He is a master flint knapper, isn’t he? Do you know which fetish holds the voice?”
“No. I only touched them once—and then just for a short time. The maker’s Power is almost overwhelming.”
As Rides-the-Wind studied the stones the purple gleam of dusk flowed into his deep wrinkles and threw an odd tracery of shadows over his face. “In all of my life, I haven’t encountered a witch like this one,” the old man said. “I’ve felt him for several moons now, caught
the faintest whiff of his Power on the night wind. Sensed his presence at the edge of my soul. He has a great hunger, Pitch. He wants to devour, control, and terrify.” He paused, frowning. “And he has come at a time of great danger to us. Why now? Is he part of the pattern?”
“I think he is here for Dzoo.”
The stones clinked musically as Rides-the-Wind shoved them back in the bag and laid it on the ledge between them. “He tried to buy Dzoo’s life with them?”
“Yes. Antler Spoon called him Coyote. They say he wears an ancient coyote mask, and I think he wears a large shining spear point pendant. Something that catches the light.”
“Coyote?”
Pitch swallowed hard, thinking about poor Sweet Grass.
Skinned wings.
His voice quaked when he answered, “Yes.”
“Did Dzoo speculate about his identity?”
“She thought he might be one of the North Wind People. She said he may have been born in Fire Village.”
“I would like to speak with her. Together, perhaps we—”
“Dogrib found her tracks yesterday. She was taken by Ecan’s warriors.”
Rides-the-Wind bowed his old head and massaged his brow. “Unforeseen, that. Together she and I could have stopped this. A switching of Power, shifting the weave of life around us.” He sighed. “But for good or ill?”
Pitch leaned forward. “Dogrib doesn’t think they’ll kill her. He said—”
“Kill
her
?” Rides-the-Wind inquired in a curious voice. “Blessed Spirits, Pitch, the fools have no idea what they’ve done. Depending on what they try to do to her, Dzoo might be tempted to make her own sack of fetishes. And if she does, may the gods help them.”
R
ain Bear tugged his cape closed over his chest and sighed. From his perch on a flat boulder near the War Gods pillars, the distant ocean looked glorious, shimmering like an undulating blanket of liquid silver.
He’d spent all day going from one refugee camp to the next, speaking with the elders, coordinating with war chiefs, counting his warriors once, twice, again. The Raven People had the numbers, but they were unskilled. The North Wind People had trained warriors, men and women who’d spent their lives learning how to kill. He had fishermen, woodworkers, sea-grass weavers, and hunters. They had the passion for the moment, but would they hold when the spears began to fly and their friends were killed before their eyes?
Rain Bear shifted his gaze away from the island-dotted vista to watch Evening Star as she walked up the trail toward him. Luxurious red hair blew around her beautiful face, and her leather dress molded to her hips with each step in a manner that brought teasing images to his masculine thoughts. She was tall for a woman, but looked small striding between Hornet and Wolf Spider.
“Any sign of the boy yet?” Evening Star asked as she neared Rain Bear.
“No, and we’ve searched everywhere.”
Evening Star slid onto the boulder beside him, and Rain Bear awkwardly glanced at the guards. Wolf Spider and Hornet pretended
not to notice. Both young warriors had their elkhide hoods up. He couldn’t see their faces, but he felt their interest. Wolf Spider’s head kept turning his way. Was Evening Star oblivious to the effect she had on men? Having her close was like a Spirit plant surging through his veins.
“Didn’t one of the villagers say he’d seen the boy?” She tucked a windblown lock of hair behind her ear.
“Yes, an old man named Black Rock.” Rain Bear forced himself to study the rough terrain before him. “But it makes no sense. The boy’s blind! How can he still be hidden?
Why
would he still be hiding? Hunger alone should have driven him out by now.”
She studied him with those knowing blue eyes. “Terror, Chief, can be a persuasive motivator.”
On the crest of the ridge to their right, tufts of fog curled around the gods. Massive and dark, the pillars really did resemble headless human bodies.
Her hair tugged loose from where she’d tucked it behind her ear and blew around until it tangled with her eyelashes. Rain Bear lifted a hand to brush it away. Then caught himself. It had been instinct … but it shocked him. Did he long to touch her so much? His hand hovered in front of her face for several instants before he withdrew it.
“Forgive me,” he said.
“In another time and place, I would have been glad.” Kindness filled her eyes as she attended to the wayward lock.
She turned to the distant ocean. “Is Pitch well enough to prepare the bodies of the dead?”
“He says he is. I’m not so sure. He’s still fevered. Apparently, Rides-the-Wind offered to help, but Pitch considers it to be his responsibility.”
A deep rumble of Thunderbirds came from somewhere out in the fog.
Evening Star said, “Rain Bear, if you were a frightened little boy, where would you hide?”
Rain Bear’s gaze drifted over the steep rocky slopes. “During the attack, I suppose I’d hide in the rocks. After the attack, I’d return to the burned village and search every lodge looking for my father.”
“He must have known the lodges were filled with dead people.”
At death, the soul seeped out with the last breath, but it remained close to the body, not certain where to go or what to do until it was ritually prepared. Often the soul thought it was still alive and tried to speak with the living. Evening Star was right. Only a very foolish or
desperate boy would dare risk having a lonely ghost tap him on the shoulder and start asking questions.
“And he’s blind,” he reminded her. “Maybe he’s afraid to leave his hiding place for fear he might fall, or get lost?”
“That could be.”
He looked down at the distant shoreline and could see the wide swath of muddy water that hemmed the beach. As the Ice Giants melted, more and more freshwater flooded the drainages and poured into the sea. The mud had already destroyed most of their shellfish beds and killed the algae and seaweed they used to gather. They could still trade for such items, but how long would that last? The mud dissipated as it flowed southward along the coast, but it still did damage.
Wind Woman swept the hair away from Evening Star’s face. She tipped her chin up and closed her eyes, as though concentrating on the scent of the sea. “Two moons ago, when my village was destroyed, my baby was in my arms. I could hear my husband screaming behind me, ordering me to run. But there were too many of them; escape was cut off. Before it was over, my husband was killed before my eyes, and my daughter’s screams haunted my ears. The only thing I knew for certain was that I was alone—truly alone for the first time in my life.” She drew up her knees and propped her arms upon them. “That’s how Tsauz is feeling now. No one, especially a child, should ever have to feel that way.”
“We’ll keep looking.”
She rested her chin on her arms. “What is happening to us, Great Chief? Why are we doing this to ourselves?”
“Perhaps this is an age of madness, a shifting, a transition?”
She tilted her head to peer into his eyes. “Your people are still coming for the ceremonial tomorrow. They’ll be packed shoulder to shoulder on this narrow mountaintop. If anyone finds the boy, he’ll be torn to pieces.”
“We’ll find him before then.” He hesitated. “Evening Star, what do you think Cimmis is planning?”
She straightened on the rock and turned to peer directly into his eyes. “I can tell you this: He did not attack War Gods Village just because Matron Weedis refused to pay the tribute she owed.”
“Why else would he have attacked?
“It was meant to force you into a corner and discourage you from striking back.”
Rain Bear’s gaze drifted over the burned lodges below. Every time he looked at them, he imagined his own village in charred ruins,
strewn with dead bodies. He could almost hear Cimmis whispering,
“Do you want Sandy Point Village to look like this? If you attack, I promise you it will.”
He asked, “If we capture Tsauz, what will Ecan do?”
As dusk turned to night, the warriors who stood guard began to light campfires. Orange dots glittered to life on the surrounding hills.
“Ecan is not a fool.” She shivered, and Rain Bear wondered if it was from cold, or the strain of discussing Ecan. “He’ll be crafty.”
“Will he negotiate?”
“You mean will he agree to spare your village in return for his son’s life?” Her delicate red brows pinched. “He might, but only as a diversion.”
“A diversion?”
“Something to keep you busy while his personal assassins get in place.” Gently, she said, “He’ll try to kill your family, Rain Bear. Pick off your daughter first, or maybe your grandson, then your most trusted aides. Finally, they’ll murder the village elders. Sooner or later, you will understand that it’s cheaper to return the boy unharmed.”
A cold wave seemed to flow out of his chest into his fingers and toes. “Perhaps I should kill the boy when we find him.”
“If you can … you should.”
It was the way she’d whispered the words. Utterly serious, as though she knew from experience. “Why do you say that?”
“Ecan will be betting that no matter what he’s done to you, you can’t kill an innocent child. He’ll be counting on that. So you must decide now, before you find him, can you kill an innocent boy?”
Sunlight shone from her shell earrings and twinkled in her hair.
Rain Bear slid off the flat rock and walked a few paces away. Hornet and Wolf Spider watched him, faces expressionless.
Kill a blind boy? How?
He wasn’t that sort of man. And if he didn’t kill the child? Suppose one of Talon’s elders was murdered: He would demand that the boy be killed to punish Ecan. Rain Bear would then have to refuse. That would set one village against another. People would take sides. If they had managed to build an alliance, it would crumble to dust before his eyes.
He ran a hand through his long black hair. “Matron, I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you are here.”
Evening Star gave him a weak smile. Very softly, she said, “You may not be, once you realize that
I
pose the same dilemma for you.”
“You? Why?”
She climbed down off the rock. “Please, come with me. I have an
idea about how to find Tsauz. We must speak with the orphans. Surely one of them noticed a strange child during the battle. Let’s ask if they saw where he was hiding.”
“I will never use you as a hostage.”
“Won’t you?” She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “I am Cimmis’s niece. Though he may not care about me, there are other North Wind elders who do. So tell me, where do your loyalties lie, Rain Bear?”

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