Shadows in the Cave (4 page)

6

C
halu said, “Let me show you a good place to build your houses.”

Oghi signed the words, and Aku told them to his father.

The crowd was filtering out of the arbor, back to their huts or their temporary camp. Chalu asked Iona to stay behind while he led Shonan, Oghi, and Aku up a little hill to the north. He pivoted back, gestured to his people’s circle of huts, and said, “You see there’s no room in between.”

There wasn’t. The Amaso circle was tight, with the traditional opening to the east, and in this case to the sun rising from the sea. He turned to the north and spread his arms. “But this is a good spot.”

Shonan was on guard.

The place Chalu had picked out for the Galayi circle was fine, a wide space of dirt mostly free of trees and brush. It was bigger than the Amaso circle. The only disadvantage was being further from the river, making a long walk to get water.

Aku was surprised when his father said, “No. No, no, no.”

Chalu looked like his face had been slapped. “It’s a beautiful place,” he said. Oghi watched the war chief curiously.

“I want our peoples to live right together,” Shonan said. “We should mingle constantly. I want your people to have a chance to learn the Galayi language fast. We shouldn’t be
two villages side by side. This is where we make a choice to be one people.”

“But there’s no room,” said Chalu.

“We will make room.” Shonan turned back to the Amaso circle. “I think we should build another circle just outside yours. The ground is not quite as even, but we’ll make do. And in a couple of years it will all solve itself.”

Chalu looked at Shonan, puzzled. “We’ll teach you to build bigger houses out of posts and limbs.”

Chalu said, “War Chief, we use these little huts because the weather is mild, and they’re warm enough.”

Oghi hesitated before he spoke. “Besides, sometimes a big storm comes in from the ocean and blows our homes to little pieces. If we build bigger ones, it will just be more work to rebuild them.”

“We’re going to have big families and lots of people,” Shonan said. “We’ll need bigger houses. If there are storms, we’ll just build them stouter.”

Aku thought of dragging posts from the stands of timber several miles back. He also thought of his father’s will.

Apparently, Chalu felt that will, too. “All right,” he said, “War Chief.”

Aku thought,
My father will be principal chief soon
.

A hard time started for Shonan’s group. He drove them to get their brush huts built in a couple of days. The huts were easy. What was hard was learning when the river was sweet and when it was salt, according to the tide. When people forgot to get water at the right time, they went thirsty.

But the days were sweet for Aku and Iona.

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.

7

R
ed 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.”

“Her body goes to the Darkening Land?”

“Without a spirit.”

Shonan turned to Chalu and let his disgust curl his words. “This is childish talk.”

The Amaso chief glared back. He had thoughts, but he didn’t speak them.

“A chief who is a true ally would warn us before inviting us to live here.”

Chalu had nothing to say. Aku knew he held himself back out of sympathy for Shonan’s grief.

“What do you think we should do?”

Chalu pieced words out. “You can send a runner to your nearest village and get enough men to go against the Brown Leaves.”

“My daughter would be dead before they started.”

No one had anything to say.

Shonan turned back to Aku. “My son and I will leave at first light. We need to know where to go.”

“Come eat at my hut,” Oghi said, “and our men will tell you what we know.”

Aku saw a flicker in his eyes, the eyes that were old and young at once, serious and funny at once. He wondered what this meant.

Outside the council lodge Iona wrapped both her arms around Aku and looked at him with love. “I’ll miss you tomorrow evening.” At every sunset they slipped away and took pleasure in each others’ bodies.

“Every evening,” he mumbled.

“I better kiss you good-bye now.”

Oghi gave everyone roasted chestnuts and tea. His uncles and cousins had to crowd into the small hut.

Aku nibbled at his chestnuts. Shonan waited hardly longer than he could have held his breath, while the Amaso men spoke of where the Brown Leaf village was, how many people the Brown Leaves had, and how many fighters. At the first pause Shonan asked in the Galayi language, “What way will they go?”

Feeling embarrassed for his father, who resisted learning the Amaso tongue, Aku signed the words haltingly. Though Oghi understood some Galayi, a host had a right to use his own language.

Taking his time, Oghi got a hairless deer hide from a pile at the back of the round hut and took a half-burnt stick from the fire. He sketched a very irregular first line and said, signing his own words, “This is the shoreline.” He drew lines to show two streams flowing to the sea. “Two wide rivers. There’s a trail here that warriors use sometimes,” he said. “It’s shorter, but you’d get lost. There are big stretches to swim. For sure they won’t take a captive on a litter this way.”

He kept drawing until he made a third stream. “This is Big River,” he said. “Along it a path runs back inland to the main trail.”

Now he changed burned sticks and made a thick, weaving line that led from the Amaso village away from the coastline. He sketched in bumps to show where it went through the hills, long lines to show creeks. “This is the main trail. The streams are not too deep or wide,” he said. “Women and children can use this trail.”

He brought the main trail to Big River. “The two trails meet here.”

Then he extended the thick line much further north and drew a huge inlet protected by an arc of land. “Brown Leaf Bay,” said.

He fishhooked the trail line toward the sea and drew a circle. “The Brown Leaf village, near the shore.” He ran his finger along the thick line. “This trail is easy to see, easy to walk. They’ll take it.”

“You’re sure they won’t worry about us following them?”

Oghi shrugged. “They’ve never been afraid of us before.”

“Can we catch them?” asked Shonan.

“No doubt,” said the sea turtle man. “Carrying a litter, it’s more than a quarter moon’s journey. We can run.”

“Damn right,” said Shonan.

They all studied the map, thinking separate thoughts.

“We have two days after they get back?” said Aku.

“The stories say the sacrifice is made like that, yes, in a ceremonial way.”

“That ceremony will never start,” said Shonan.

His eyes on Aku’s felt like a strong grip.
How?
Aku wondered. How, with two men against a dozen or a score? Shonan the Red Chief was sure of everything. Aku was sure of nothing.

Oghi said, “Why not get ahead of them? Use the coastal route and beat them to the junction of the two trails?”

They looked at him. His eyes were jumping and hallooing now.

“I like surprises,” said the sea turtle man.

“You said we’d get lost,” said Shonan.

“Not if you have a very good guide. Such as me.”