Runestone (70 page)

Now Nils felt he was more confused than ever.

“Maybe so,” he agreed.

The holy men of the People
did
have powers of some sort. There were things he had seen that could
not
have happened, except that he had seen it. Things he could not explain, but that were real.

“It is like your sun-stone,” she was saying. “I do not know how it knows north, but
you
do. That is why you are a holy man.”

He saw no reason to tell her again that he was not really a holy man, and that he had no idea how the sun-stone could find the North Star.

W
ith the conversation behind him about the warning and the dream, Nils began to enjoy the journey more. On the long overland trek he had forgotten, almost, the pleasure of travel by boat, especially for a Norseman. His preoccupation had been with adjusting to the culture of the People, to his marriage, and family life. Ah, that
was
a distraction.

Now the tasks of travel were slight. The river was doing most of the work, and he had time to look around him, to think, to watch the creatures who made their lodges along the great watercourse. The days were thoroughly enjoyable, with warm sun and fresh breezes and the scent of blossoms in the gentle air. He had never before realized that there was a sweet fragrance, like that of honey, in the flowering of grapevines. The flowers themselves were quite unremarkable, small and greenish in color, but their fragrance seemed to affect him beyond all belief. It carried a sense of romance that kept him constantly alert and acutely aware of the presence of the woman who sat in the front of the canoe. Maybe it was partly her natural perfume, the powerful yet almost unnoticeable woman-scent, that drew him.

More likely, however, it was simply that she was Calling Dove, his wife, his friend, mother of their child. It was very difficult for him to watch her lithe movements, hardly more than an arm’s length in front of him, without becoming aroused. He knew the feel of those well-shaped arms that plied the paddle, as they had often embraced him. The feel of the sensuous body … He must not think such thoughts now. Maybe tonight they could slip away from the camp for a little while.

Dove glanced at him over her shoulder and smiled. He
smiled back, wondering if her thoughts might be along the same lines. He hoped so. It was early in the day, though, and they would travel far before he had a chance to test that theory.

They were on a smooth section of water that stretched on southward without any perceptible current. He knew it was there, however, because he could feel its pull on the canoe.

One of the big white-headed eagles hung high over the water, held in precisely the same position by a fluttering motion of its wings against the wind. It was much like the action of wind on a sail, he realized. He studied the angle of the wings, thinking how one might adjust a sail, angling it to port or starboard to catch just the right forces. …

The eagle suddenly folded its wings and dropped in a long sloping glide toward the water, faster and faster, like an arrow in flight. Nils began to wonder if the bird could pull out of the dive before it struck the surface. Then a slight change in the fixed angle of the wings, and the path of flight leveled in a powerful curve just above the water. A wingbeat or two and the bird swept across the smooth surface, little more than a hand’s span above it. A taloned claw struck downward, there was a quiet splash, and the bird rose, a flopping fish clutched tightly in its fist. The fish was large, and the eagle struggled to gain altitude. For a moment Nils thought it would drop its prize, but it deftly turned the fish to face forward, into the wind of its passage.

Yes
, he thought.
The fish is shaped like a boat. It cuts the wind like the prow of a ship!
How clever of the eagle to know how to use such principles to help her carry a load. She flew quite easily now, gaining altitude as she headed toward a nest in a towering cottonwood at the river’s edge ahead. Nils could see two or three small heads poking up over the pile of sticks to greet the returning parent, clamoring for the food she brought.

He smiled. He had noticed that his powers of observation were improving. There would have been a time when he would not even have noticed the eagle. Now he not only saw and watched it, but felt a strong sense of
enjoyment
over the success of the eagle’s hunt. He felt like congratulating her, a fellow hunter, for a job well done.

What was it, he wondered, that was allowing him more insight, more enjoyment of the world around him? He thought of Odin, and how the man seemed to see and understand everything, even with his one eye. It must be that the People looked at the world a little differently. … He could not define just
how
. It was much like the way a good sailor relates to the sea, it now occurred to him. Yes … An amateur tries to
fight
it, the wind and waves and currents. The one with skill and experience learns to use all of these forces, to become one with them.

On a smaller scale, he realized, it is much like learning to use the canoe. The first time he had stepped into a canoe, the thing had seemed alive, overresponsive to his every motion. It had been necessary to attune his entire body to-its motions. As he did so, it became easier.

“You must talk to its spirit,” Odin had told him, and so it had been. When that communication had been established, the canoe became like part of him, and he of it.

Could it be, he now wondered, that it was so with the
world
, too? In a way, he had always considered himself, as well as everyone else, as outside the world, or at least separate from it, even though living in it. What was it that he saw or felt in the approach of the People?

Finally it began to dawn on him. This was something that could not be put into words. Something, maybe, that could not even be understood. But the People seemed to feel no need to understand it. It must be like trying to understand the spirit of the canoe as its tremulous wobble tests the senses of the inexperienced. Then he becomes one with the canoe and …

Nils realized that he was close to the attitude of the People now. Not of understanding it. He might never do that. But he was, it seemed,
experiencing
it. Without realizing exactly when or how it had happened, he had-slipped into their ways. He was not acting
in
the world, but was
apart
of it, and it a part of him. Their spirits were one, though still identifiable, and it brought a joy and comfort, at the same time an excitement. He was seeing more, feeling the spirits of the creatures he saw as they traveled, understanding the mood of the beaver whose tail slapped the water of a still pool as it dived.

For the first time he realized the importance of the apology over a kill.

We are not in the world, but part of it!
he thought. He must have been learning this lesson without realizing it, over the past few seasons, he now saw. This had led to the increased acuteness of his observation, the greater enjoyment of things he saw. Like the eagle … Yes, he had, without thinking of it, wished her good hunting! It was a strange and exciting discovery, to know that such a thing had happened to him.

His thoughts were interrupted by a call from Odin in the other canoe.

“Wolf!”

There was no real urgency, merely an effort to get his attention. Nils looked that way, a stone’s throw to his left. Snake, in the prow of Odin’s canoe, did not speak but lifted his paddle to point to the northwest. Nils turned to look over his shoulder. In the far distance a low cloudbank lay along the horizon, gray and ugly. He realized now that the air was still, and that the warm and gentle breeze they had enjoyed for most of the day was now quiet. Stray puffs of wind from odd directions were stirring the tops of the willows.

“Let us camp,” called Odin, indicating a long stretch of grassy meadow along the bank by pointing with his paddle. “Rain Maker comes.”

The wind changed, even as they swung the canoes toward shore. Indecisive gusts steadied and merged and became a chill wind, now from the northwest. The distant cloudbank was growing alarmingly by the time they landed. Orange fire flickered in the blue-gray mass, and there was a low growl, a rumble that was felt rather than heard.

“Rain Maker’s drum,” grunted Snake as he dragged the canoes well up on shore.

“Gather some wood,” Odin called. “We can start a fire before the rain comes.”

As it happened, they could not. The wind whipped violently,
blowing sparks away and extinguishing them before they could light the tinder.

“No matter,” Odin shouted into the rising wind. “But here … Keep the wood dry!”

Quickly, they established a makeshift camp. The two canoes were overturned and placed against the dubious shelter of a thin fringe of willows. At least this would break part of the force of the northwest wind that was sweeping down on them.

Their baggage and the hastily gathered firewood were shoved under one of the canoes, while the humans took shelter under the other. They wrapped themselves in their robes and sat facing away from the storm’s advance. Young Sky crept between his parents, and Dove gathered him inside the folds of her own robe.

The crash of Rain Maker’s drum was closer now, and the individual flashes of lightning were followed more closely by the thunder. Fat raindrops were beginning to beat a tattoo on the upturned canoes. They could see the advance of the front of the storm on the river’s surface. Wind, stirring the smooth water into ripples, and then the sharp line that formed the border of the raindrops … Ahead of its advance, only wind-driven ripples, behind it, the river beaten to a froth by the driving rain.

It came from behind them, but there was a strange twist to the passing storm front. The rain swept along the river to the east of them before it struck full force on their shelter. This enabled them to watch its progress for a little while. The rain crept like a living thing down the river. The water where it was being beaten was writhing like a being in torture. Nils gazed in fascination as it swept on.

On a narrow point of land across the wide river stood a lone tree, a giant cottonwood. He was watching the storm approach that point when there was a blinding flash, and a crooked finger of fire jabbed downward from the glowering sky. It touched the top of the tree in the distance, and half of the majestic old giant seemed to fall away, to fall ponderously to the earth. A heartbeat later, the deafening boom reached their ears. In another instant, the entire scene was obliterated
by the gray curtain of driving rain that swept over their camp from behind.

“It is good not to camp under such trees,” observed Snake. “Rain Maker’s spears of fire are drawn to them.”

Nils was busy drawing his robe around himself, Dove, and young Sky, and paid little attention to such wisdom. It was much later that Odin assured him that yes, the cottonwood
did
attract the fiery spears of Rain Maker.

They huddled together under the canoes, trying to stay as dry as possible. The driving wind shifted and tore at them, and at times the rain seemed to fly horizontally. Then suddenly, the air was still. The rain slackened, and Odin poked his head outside.

“What is it?” Calling Dove asked.

“I do not know. Something is not right,” Odin answered thoughtfully. “The spirit …”

They could all feel it, the sense of expectancy in the still air. There was a strange greenish glow in the sky, and objects at a distance appeared distorted and otherworldly.

“We should build a fire now,” Odin said. “Let us announce our presence here before something else happens.”

He drew dry tinder and kindling sticks from beneath the other canoe, and his fire-making sticks from his pack. Before the flames were fairly started however, there was a sound, a rumble like distant thunder. It grew, seeming to shake the very earth, and came closer. They exchanged anxious glances, and Bright Sky crept close to his mother.

The noise now was like the bellowing of a hundred buffalo bulls all at once. The frightening thing was that its source seemed to move nearer, coming toward them from the southwest. Odin hastened to feed his fire, and Snake stood with upstretched arms, eyes closed, chanting a prayer for their safety.

Nils, like the others, was completely puzzled, as well as frightened. This was unlike any sound he had ever heard, a combination of a rumbling of the earth under them and the primal scream of a giant creature, mixed with the mutter of thunder that rolled on without pausing.

In a few moments it became apparent that the source of the sound was to pass south of their position. They could
follow its course, from the southwest, approaching the river, then seeming to
cross
the stream without pausing.

The wind had quickened again, and though they searched the distant scene for the cause of the horrible shrieking sound, they could see nothing. Their view was partly obstructed by the heavy timber just downstream, and further by the low-hanging clouds that layered out above the water.