Shadows in the Cave (7 page)

Iona looked at Aku’s sleeping face. He was worn out from loving her.

She put a hand on his cheek. She teased a wisp of his black hair with her little finger. She loved Aku. It was simple, it was powerful, but mostly it was enormous, bigger in every dimension than she’d ever imagined such a feeling could be.

Late this afternoon when they slipped to this sandy pocket behind a pine tree, which they did every chance they got, they lay down side by side and faced each other. Before touching her in the way that led to loving, he spoke to her from his heart. It was a small ritual they had, trading whatever words came tumbling out at that moment, even though they spoke different languages. She listened to his voice as she would to soft soughings of the wind, because she knew his intent without knowing what all his words meant. She felt like she understood the tones and shapes of his utterance.

It was awkward, and sometimes funny, not being able to talk to each other in a clear way. They could communicate about practical things through the sign language shared by the tribes.
Is this your sister or your aunt? The roasted chestnuts are over there. Why does the river look deeper today than it did yesterday?
With the sign language and gestures, they could fumble through speaking about such things. They also taught each other short phrases. Sometimes they tossed words into the air and shrugged. After being together for one moon and a few days, they understood sentences about half the time. All they really needed was to touch, and kiss, and embrace, and touch more intimately.

After he finished talking, their ritual was that she should take her turn speaking words he didn’t understand. But she hadn’t, not this time. The moon was rising out over the sea that she knew and he did not. She felt like the white globe
was floating up into her throat, and no mere words could squeeze past it. She tried to say something and only felt a terrific pressure in her chest. She pulled him on top of her and urged him with her legs and her belly.

Iona and Aku rolled onto their sides, still clasped together but spent. She looked at the last of the day’s sunlight on his face, and the glow it gave his brown eyes.

Now was the time. She knew. She was content with the reality. At the Planting Moon Ceremony she and Aku had made love for the first time. Now they had been promised that they would be married during the Harvest Moon Ceremony. They hated to wait two more moons, but that was the tradition. Among the Galayi and Amaso peoples, marriages were agreed on as much by families as the couple, because it was not just a meshing of two people, but of generations of two families.

Now was the time to tell him. Still she hesitated.
Now
. “Aku, I have your child inside me.”

There, simple words, singing in the air between them.

He looked deep into her eyes and saw play.

Quickly, he rolled her to his other side. The last of the sun was in her eyes. She was warmth, endless warmth. And honesty. And a hint of laughter.

He whooped. He whooped louder. The shushing of the waters, here where the river flowed into the sea, tossed his words away, made them no more than a gull’s cry.

He bellowed. “I love you!”

And louder, longer, “I love you!”

In answer a bellow tapped at their ears.

At first they weren’t sure what it was. They looked at
each other in question. They got up on their knees, crawled to the top of the low dune, and looked toward the village.

Oghi was running as fast as any man-turtle could run. He was also shouting something.

“What did he say?” asked Aku.

“Don’t know! Shhh!”

This time they both heard it.

“She’s gone!” Aku wasn’t sure what he heard. He wasn’t that confident in the Amaso language.

Oghi shouted again.

“She’s gone,” said Iona, her voice pulled tight by strain. She made the hand signs so Aku would be sure.

“Who’s gone?”

“Your sister Salya.”

“She’s gone?”

“Get dressed!” whispered Iona fiercely.

Aku stood up to get his breechcloth on. About sundown a gust of rain had driven them tighter into their robes and each others’ arms. Now a drop of cold water fell off the tip of a pine needle onto the part in his hair, right on the top center. He rubbed the cold spot with a stiff finger.

“Your shirt!” said Iona.

She was standing, smoothing her skirt down. Their clothes were made of deer hide.

Aku pulled the shirt over his head and double-checked his owl feathers to make sure they were tight. The Amaso people thought the feathers were daft. Owls were thought to be witches, and their night cries made people hurry inside. But the memory of his mother was enough for Aku.

Sea turtle man pulled up beside them and heaved out a half comprehensible mix of words and big breaths at Aku. Iona signed it.

“Your sister has disappeared!”

Oghi got his breath and spoke slowly so that Aku would understand. He was an odd young man, because his nickname was Old Man.

“What do you know about it?” Aku asked.

Oghi looked at the sand and fidgeted on his feet. These two had circled each other warily for a reason—Oghi sensed the seer power in Aku, and Aku knew it. “You better hear what the moon women say first.”

Iona signed those words.

“Let’s go,” Aku said.

Aku and Iona ran, outdistancing Oghi, who was short-legged and out of breath. Like raindrops splashing off a boulder, the awful news couldn’t get into Aku’s head.
My sister. My twin. Taken? Dead?

They sprinted into the circle of huts and across the village green. A new friend of Salya’s staggered around making a sound somewhere between moaning and singing. Aku and Iona dashed right by her and out of the circle of houses to the isolated brush hut where women on their moon slept. A ring of men stood at a distance from three moon women, talking.

“She went out to pee just after the sun went down,” one of the Galayi women told Chalu, signing to be sure to get the facts across.

“She said she’d be right back,” said one of the other moon women. “We were about to eat.”

“But she didn’t come back.”

“We went and checked.”

“She’s nowhere.”

Shonan called out, “All right, everyone, have any of you seen Salya since sunset?” Anger licked his tongue.

No one answered.

“I’ll ask all around the village,” said Iona. Her tone was despair.

“Let’s go check the signs,” Shonan said to Aku. They both took burning chunks of wood from the cooking fire.

The women’s pee place was beyond some scrub and behind a dune, a spot washed by the tides. One look and Shonan said, “Damn, damn, damn.”

They barely needed the torches to read the signs, which were obvious in the light of the moon. Someone had been dragged away, heel tracks lining the sand.

“Why didn’t she yell?” said Shonan.

Aku had never felt so dumb making words in his life. “Maybe they hit her over the head.”

“Or maybe the sound of the damn surf was louder than her cries.” His father missed the hills and mountains, disliked the roaring ocean.

The lines of the dragging heels and the footprints led to a place littered with moccasin tracks. In the middle of all the tracks was a smooth, back-shaped depression in the sand. Aku’s mind felt as disheveled as the tossed grains.

“They laid her down here,” Shonan said, “lifted her up again, and walked that way.” The two followed the moccasin tracks straight toward the trail away from the town. Anyone could read the distinctive moccasin stitch of the Brown Leaf people, who lived on the far side of a big bay to the north, at one destination of the trail.

“I can’t tell if some of these tracks are deeper than others,” Shonan said, “but I think they carried her on a litter.”

His voice was half growl. A scar flashed away from the corner of his left eye, the mark of a spear point. When his eyes became embers of anger, the scar turned white and Aku got nervous.

Shonan said, “Let’s go get her.”

Aku tried to order his thoughts. “Too tricky at night.”

“Which is why they picked it,” said Shonan. “All right, at dawn.” He had always wanted to teach Aku the path of the warrior, and often teased his lanky son about learning. Aku didn’t refuse, but he avoided.

Aku nodded his head yes. He had other thoughts he couldn’t sort out.

Iona appeared at the top of the sand hill. “This is where it happened?”

“Right back there,” said Shonan.

They all stared down at the print of Salya’s back.

Two words raged in Shonan’s mind.
My daughter.

My twin,
thought Aku.

“They’re going to kill her,” said Shonan.

Aku hesitated for a long moment. His twin, a part of himself. Though their faces were not the same, their mother always said they had the same eyes. “It’s uncanny.”

Finally, Aku said, “They could have killed her right here. They want something else.”

“We’re going after her.”

Iona said, “Let’s go to the council lodge.” The three walked back toward the village, the younger two hurrying to keep up with the Red Chief. Shonan said, “These Amasos are supposed to be one people with us, but they’re holding out.”

As they walked, Aku’s mind leapt back to when he stood at the edge of the river tying his breechcloth on. From one pine needle a single raindrop had fallen, and pinged him. Now he felt like it seeped through his skull and trickled down his veins to his heart.

Red Chief Shonan, Amaso chief Chalu, and the seer Oghi sat at the center of the run-down council house and smoked the pipe. Until now, the Amaso had never had a red chief for war, as Galayi towns did. Aku wondered how they felt about this change, and about listening to a governor who was still in truth an outsider. Aku watched the sea turtle man checking the rising smoke for omens.

Aku and Iona stood next to Chalu to sign to both peoples. “This happened three years ago,” said Chalu.

“The Brown Leaf people have stolen your women before?” Shonan’s thick eyebrows bristled.

Chalu stared into space. Beside him the sea turtle man drew his head almost down to his knees.

“And two years before that,” said Chalu.

Now the white scar blazed against Shonan’s red skin. “How long has this been going on?”

Aku wanted to apologize to Iona for his father, but he said nothing.

“Three times altogether,” said the sea turtle man.

“So that’s why you wanted to join villages with us.”

People stirred.

Pride flickered in Chalu’s eyes. “We have something to give in return.”

Shonan’s comment was hypocritical. Everyone knew the bargain was fair, and protection was Shonan’s job.

“Always in midsummer?” said Shonan. Meaning,
This moon, when you suggested we arrive?

“Yes.”

Shonan said something under his breath. To Aku it looked like, “Bastards.” He didn’t sign it.

“You never saw any of the women again?”

“No.”

Iona looked into Aku’s eyes. She wanted to slip her arm around Aku’s waist, but resisted. He took a deep breath and felt his mind get less jangly. For a moment he took her hand in his.

Shonan turned to Oghi.

“What do you think?”

Oghi tore grasses out of the ground, bunched them up, and dropped them. Then he glanced slyly at Shonan. “There are old stories. The mountain peoples used to raid their neighbors and steal one unmarried woman every summer. Stories said … they sacrificed the woman to the Uktena.”

Every Galayi and every Amaso man, woman, and child knew about the Uktena, though few had seen him and none lived to tell about it. This creature was a horned dragon with the girth of a tree trunk. Its fish scales, spotted with great daubs of color, were thick as slate. Its one eye was a blazing diamond, which blinded anyone who dared to attack the monster.

The tales came down from long ago. All the people of the western mountains told similar stories. The Uktena had many names, bedded down in many places, haunted many mountain passes, plagued many villages. It was said that the Uktena, or Uktenas, lived in caves in the mountains and left
the nearby tribes alone on one condition—that the tribes bring human sacrifices.

“Those are children’s stories,” said Shonan. “My people live in the mountains, and we have seen no sign of any dragon.”

Oghi shrugged. “The stories died out before the memories of the grandfathers of the oldest men but …” Suddenly, he looked directly into Aku’s eyes. “Maybe the Uktena has come back. Maybe he lives by the sea now, not in the mountains.”

“You’d be losing an unmarried woman every year,” said Shonan.

Aku squeezed Iona’s hand.

Oghi seemed to draw his head back into his body. “Maybe the Brown Leaf people steal women each year from different neighbors.”

“If it is the Uktena, what will happen?”

Oghi shuffled his feet in the sand. Aku noticed for the first time how odd they were, short and wide, with big toenails. “They won’t kill her right away,” he said. “It’s a ceremony, it takes a couple of days. Then the Uktena doesn’t eat her body—he sucks out her spirit. He uses her life force to make himself stronger.”