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

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BOOK: People of the Raven (North America's Forgotten Past)

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Rain Bear said, “Actually, I was thinking of you, Talon. You command twice as many warriors as I do, and have been a war chief much longer than Dogrib or Sleeper.You are best suited for the position.”

The crow’s-feet around Talon’s eyes tightened. He seemed somewhat mollified and stretched out on the hides again. “I’ll consider it.”

Sleeper stared at the meat in his bowl, his expression thoughtful. “Rain Bear is right. No matter what is behind us, we must join forces and start defending ourselves. So far, we have turned our heads, left each individual village to defend itself. That must stop. But … you would make a better leader, Rain Bear. You were married to a North Wind woman. Plus, you have Matron Evening Star close. With her counsel, you should be able to anticipate the North Wind People’s moves better than anyone else.”

Talon gave Sleeper a hot glare.

Rain Bear lowered his gaze and peered at the steaming meat in his bowl. “Truly, I do not wish to lead the fight against the North Wind People. My wife, Tlikit, was one of them. According to their ways, my daughter and grandson are North Wind People.”

Raven People traced descent through the male, but North Wind
People considered Rain Bear’s daughter and grandson to belong to his wife’s Dragonfly Clan.

Sleeper said, “But your daughter and grandson live among our people. They consider themselves to be part of your clan. So does everyone else.”

“For now.” Rain Bear looked up. “But if we join forces and attack the North Wind People, the fighting will get worse before it gets better. People will be killed, inflaming hatred. That’s what war does. It creates an ‘us’ and a ‘them.’ I do not wish my family to become ‘them’ to my people, Sleeper.”

Talon asked thoughtfully, “Does that mean you do not wish to fight with us?”

“I will fight,” Rain Bear said. “But if we choose this path, we must all understand that killing Ecan is just the beginning.”

Sleeper sat up straighter. “Go on.”

“If we destroy Ecan’s war party, the North Wind People will be forced to retaliate. We can’t let that happen. So we must attack Fire Village as quickly as possible and with as much force as we can muster. To succeed, I believe we must ally our forces under one war chief.” He paused to let this sink in. “But there is one more thing we must have.”

“Which is what?”

“A spy in Fire Village.”

Talon and Sleeper chuckled softly.

“Well, yes, that would be very nice,” Talon agreed with exaggerated interest, “but I have no spies I wish to sacrifice. Ecan already has enough of my people’s heads on his wall.”

“Without someone inside we won’t know when they’re the most vulnerable, Talon,” Rain Bear answered.

Sleeper asked, “Whom do you have in mind for this dangerous task? Perhaps we could send a slave as tribute, or are you thinking of a slave who is already there?”

Rain Bear tore off another chunk of elk and chewed before he said, “I was thinking of Dzoo.”

Talon jerked so suddenly a piece of hot meat rolled from his bowl into his lap. He leaped to his feet to brush it away. “Blessed gods! Have you lost your senses? Half of our people think she’s a witch, and the other half that she’s one of the virginal Comet Women!”

“Our
enemies
think she’s a witch.” Sleeper leapt to Dzoo’s defense. “Most of the people in the Raven villages would die for her.”

“Yes, but …” Talon’s gaze darted as if searching for another reason. “Isn’t she in mourning?”

Rain Bear nodded. “Her husband, Pearl Oyster, died three moons ago.”

As Sleeper leaned forward to refill his bowl, the long leather fringes on his sleeves hissed across the hearthstones. “What difference does it make if Dzoo is in mourning? Can you point to a single person in our camps who hasn’t lost someone?”

“But”—Talon hesitated—“why her? Surely there must be someone more … appealing?”

“Who?” Sleeper asked.

At Talon’s blank look, Rain Bear said, “She was born in Fire Village. She knows the place.”

“She was taken from there as a child, you’ll recall,” Talon muttered. “And that’s a strange story if I ever heard one. Foreigners taking a little girl like that.”

“They knew she had Power,” Sleeper countered.

“And that’s another reason she’s perfect,” Rain Bear continued. “She’s sympathetic to us. With her reputation as a Healer, she can go anywhere, talk with anyone. A spy’s first duty is to listen, and no one listens like Dzoo.”

Talon studied the piece of meat that had fallen from his plate, then popped it into his mouth. After he’d swallowed it, he added, “I don’t see why Cimmis would allow her past the walls in the first place.”

“I do,” Sleeper countered. “He’ll see it as an opportunity to demonstrate his Power over a legendary witch. His reputation would soar.”

Talon’s sun-bronzed face appeared pale against the background of the soot-colored lodge. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

Sleeper steepled his fingers. “Will Dzoo do it?”

Rain Bear lifted a shoulder. “I’ll talk to her when she and Pitch—”

Shouts erupted outside.

Talon rose into a crouch. “Hallowed gods, what now?”

Rain Bear reached for his weapons belt and slipped it around his waist.

Dogrib jerked the flap aside. “A runner just came in. Ecan’s war party has split. Eight tens of his warriors are headed in the direction of Antler Spoon’s village.”

Sleeper frowned. “Isn’t that where Dzoo went to Heal?”

“It is.” Rain Bear swung his cape around his shoulders and ducked out into the cold morning air. Warriors had already begun to gather, all shouting questions at Dogrib. Their frightened eyes fixed on Rain Bear as he asked, “How long will it take us to get there?”

Dogrib shrugged. “Given their head start, my chief, too long. Besides, we would need to send at least five tens of men to have a chance against his forces. We can’t afford to pull that many away from Sandy Point Village. If this is one of Ecan’s ruses, these people will be slaughtered like dogs while we’re away.”

“Yes, you’re right, War Chief.” Rain Bear’s gaze went over the hungry children sitting around the smoky fires and the old people huddled beneath mounds of tattered hides.

In a weary exhalation, he added, “Blessed Song Maker, I should have known he’d do this. Dzoo is our strength, and Cimmis knows it. Of course he’d take the opportunity to snatch her when she’s outside Sandy Point Village’s protection.”

Dogrib gave him a searching look. “I just pray she has foreseen their coming.”

Late Morning

“
O
h, I have seen many things in my time. But most of them, I admit, I did not wish to see,” I whisper.

The old Soul Keeper rises to his feet, and I hear him walk a few paces away. His voice is dimmer, muted by the rushing wind through the cottonwoods and the riot of birdsong that fills the day. “Seeing is good, Chief. Most humans sleep from the womb to death. They never fully open their eyes. Oh, a few are startled now and then and forced to really look at the world, but they quickly choose to return to sleep. Not seeing is so much easier.”

“I, too, have spent a good deal of time sleeping, Soul Keeper. I blame them not.”

He pauses as though not sure what to say to my admission. He thinks everyone should wake up. That there is no place for sleeping in a world such as ours.

“Did not seeing comfort you, Chief? Weren’t you afraid that there were others stirring around you who were awake and watching you?”

I laugh softly. “People who are truly awake are engaged in great suffering. They didn’t have time for me.”

He turns, and his long robe flaps in a gust of wind. “Are you awake now?” he softly asks.

“More awake than I have ever been.”

He walks back and sits beside me. The scents of wood smoke and wet leather cling to him. For a long time I just lie still, trying to memorize the
fragrances. I have smelled these things every day of my life, yet they smell new, fresh, and pleasant. I want to keep them.

“Do you mean you are suffering physically, or in your soul?”

“Both.”

“Great suffering,” he says with a sigh, “is not usually physical. Abandonment, isolation, loss of hope—those are the real torments. So many people these days have outlived their beloved spouses and companions. Their children are absorbed in their own lives. They cannot bear to stare into the eyes of someone who is truly awake.” He reaches out and takes my hand. His fingers have a knobby, skeletal feel, like knotted ropes. “Are you lonely?”

“I wish my wife were here. I yearn to look into her eyes.”

“She would not look back. You have become the entire universe. The naked unbearable universe. All that there is.”

Is that what Death is? Looking into the naked unbearable eyes of the universe?

It takes a great effort, but I manage to slit my eyes, and I find him gazing down at me with infinite kindness through a blaze of white-hot light.

How strange.

If occurs to me for the first time that he is wrong. Looking upon great suffering is not the most frightening thing in life. It is not what is naked and unbearable.

Great kindness is.

Perhaps because it is harder to accept.

I close my eyes and work very hard to keep them closed.

Eight

T
he man known as Coyote prowled the starlit forest trail that wound around Antler Spoon’s village. He carefully stepped over snow-covered ferns that might rustle beneath his fur-trimmed moccasins. He could not afford to misstep or be heard. Not tonight when old dreams were about to become real.

He lifted his nose to sniff the chill air, and his long hair blew around the magnificent coyote mask he wore. Human scents rode Wind Woman’s breath: cooked food, moldering hides, the fever-sweaty bodies of the ill, and the tangy odors of boiling Spirit plants.

Beyond the dark spruce to his left, smoke clung like a blue veil to the towering gray cliff. There the villagers had taken refuge in the lava caves that riddled the rock like wormholes. They’d come here six moons ago. Three tens of refugees from famine-struck villages in the north. The children had been filthy and starving. Many of the elderly had barely been able to walk. For a time, this narrow mountain valley must have seemed like one of the Above Worlds to them, beautiful and free, impervious to the raids that savaged the villages along the shore and on the islands out in the sound.

When his duties allowed, he had come here to watch them. They were people with no local kin, no one to call upon for aid. Isolated and vulnerable. From that the plan had been born. One night he had crept among them and sowed the deadly fever. He had trickled scrapings of a red-brown fungus into their stews, sifted it into sacks
of dried food. Within days, people started to lose weight and complain of chest pains. Some died before Chief Antler Spoon asked for help.

As he had hoped,
she
had come.

Now, as the frost of his breath silvered the muzzle of his Coyote mask, he watched from beneath a spruce tree’s dark skirt. A shadow moved across the firelit roof of the largest cave. Coyote let his tall body melt into the dark trunk.

Is it her?

The shadow wavered, as if blown by the wind, then continued across the roof until it slipped into the black edges of night.

Is that you, Dzoo?

Fear and excitement tickled his belly.

It was said that she could point at a star, and it would fall to earth in a streak of fire. She had reddish brown hair and the perfect body of a Sea Spirit.

His gaze caressed the cave for a time; then he forced himself to step out and follow the snowy trail toward the rendezvous. If the terms of his bargain had been met, Dzoo would be his tonight.

If I can just see her …

He
needed
to see her. Sometimes the need was overwhelming. It became an ache so desperate he thought it would cause his very bones to splinter. As a youth he had been a trader. Though he had heard of her childhood capture, he had been unprepared for her Power and beauty. Then, one day, he’d met her in Pearl Oyster’s camp, stared into her eyes, and lost his soul to her. He had watched her from afar after that, kindling even more need. In desperation he had gone to an ancient Soul Flier—a man of great renown among the Striped Dart People—and honed the skills of Power and obsession. Then, when he had come down from the mountains, it was to find her vanished. The people said that she had returned to the coast, to her home. So he had come, searching, until he found her. Through careful planning, he had placed himself where he could finally have her for his own.

Once, he’d been close enough to breathe in her fragrance and touch her hair. But the path to greatness—as his mentor had taught so diligently—was not to be wasted by an idle move or lack of discipline. He was Coyote. Cunning, Powerful, and patient.

He balled his fists and shoved them beneath his woven sea-grass cape.

Until recently, Dzoo’s husband, Pearl Oyster, had guarded her like an old wolf. He’d never left her alone. No matter where she
went, he was standing there with his weapons, eternally vigilant. The man’s cool eyes took the measure of anyone who came near her.

Of all Coyote’s challenges, killing Pearl Oyster had been the most difficult. From the protection of the Mossy Cave, he had thrown attack after attack at the stern warrior’s soul. Then news of Pearl Oyster’s death had spread like wildfire across the land, and Coyote had known.

It was his turn.

The snowy trail through the trees ended in a small meadow ten tens of body lengths from the village. The gleam of the Star People and the near-full moon silvered the snow and played in the fir needles.

He wiped his clammy palms on his cape and drew an intricately engraved deer-bone stiletto from his belt. As he knelt behind a boulder, he heard the faintest of scuffing sounds and willed himself to become one with the stone. It might just be an animal. An owl or—

A foot crunched the wet snow.

Only Coyote’s eyes moved.

In the firs, much closer than he’d have thought possible, a man rose and whispered in an accented voice, “Coyote? Is that you? I’ve brought her.”

His gaze surveyed the dark shapes of the forest, searching for any hidden threats. “Show me.”

“She’s over here. Come and see.” The man braced his feet and clenched his fists at his sides, as though expecting a fight. “I dragged her here just moments ago.”

The newcomer had seen perhaps three tens and five summers, but he had a wrinkled face and silver-streaked black hair. His moon-washed expression tightened in fear as Coyote walked toward him.

“You dragged her out here by yourself?”

“No one must know what I do.” The accent of the Cougar People made him almost unintelligible.

The idea of gazing into Dzoo’s eyes again sent a tingle through Coyote. It was like looking into an endless black abyss—only to have the abyss look back. She stirred something deep in his soul, something that had brought him here, to this place—the end of a long and arduous journey.

She lay on her side on a black-and-red painted hide. A tangle of long hair obscured most of her face.

But it
did
look like her.

He tried to keep his voice from trembling. Cold shakes were running through his hands and fingers. “This is Dzoo?”

“Would I cheat you after what you promised to do to my family if I failed?”

Coyote willed control into his muscles. His need was a soul hunger that nibbled and sucked at his bones and nerves. “What did you give her to make her soul fly?”

“A small sip of nightshade, Coyote—just enough to make her sleep.”

“Nightshade! You gave
Dzoo
poison?”

The man reached out pleadingly. “How else could I bring her to you? I had no choice! Her Powers are very great!”

Coyote thrust his hand into his belt pouch, pulled out the bag, and threw it at the old man. As the old man caught the small bladder sack, the delicate tinkle of glassy stone could be heard. “With those precious objects, Broken Sun, you could buy an entire village.”
For all the good they will do you in the end, old man.

Broken Sun turned the small bag to the moonlight and stared at the tiny red coyote paw prints painted on the leather. He offered it back. “Take it. I don’t wish it.”

“That was our bargain. And you do wish it, my friend.” Coyote paused, and carefully pronounced the following words: “Betrayal is a costly business. Costly in every way. Remember that your own people might thank you for saving them, but the Raven People will kill you for what you have just done. You may need those fetishes to buy your life.”

Coyote knelt, and the large spear point pendant he wore on a necklace swung forward. As long as a man’s hand, and almost as wide, it had been carefully chipped from translucent brown chert with two deep channel flakes driven out of each side like flutes.

He tucked it back before reaching out to stroke her hair with a shaking hand, then quickly wrapped her in the blanket, slipped his arms beneath her body, and lifted. She felt as light as a sparrow’s feather.

Dear gods, I’m holding her.

His arms started to tremble, and he could feel the first ecstatic prickling at the root of his hardening penis.

Broken Sun’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve kept my part of the bargain. Do not forget what you promised. My village is safe, yes? The sickness will leave us, and no warriors will come here.”

Coyote clutched the slender body against his chest, and a fiery wave flooded through his pelvis and along his veins. In a soft voice, he answered, “It will be just as I promised.”

Broken Sun scurried away like a rabbit freed from a snare, tripping, falling, running again.

Coyote waited—listening to the darkness, feeling the need throbbing through each fiber of his soul—until he knew he was alone with her.

Then he tenderly kissed her silken cheek and carried her away into the forest.

BOOK: People of the Raven (North America's Forgotten Past)

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