Spirit Walker (7 page)

But when he was done, the beautiful green woman turned her back upon him. He went to stay with her in her home of living trees, but she took no notice of him. During the day she foraged for the dung of giant elks, and buried it at the roots of the pines.

And in the night she did not give love to him the way that a wife should. Instead she searched among the needles of the pines for grubs and caterpillar nests and then she would squash them, and since she barely took time to find food for herself, she fed upon the dead insects, instead.

In time, she learned to speak, but at night, she talked only of her work and of her love for the trees, but she never spoke of her love for Tchulpa.

If he left the room to get firewood, she would take no notice. If he fed her, she did not thank him. Sometimes, even if he tried to simply speak to her, she would only stare away, as if lost in thoughts of trees.

Tchulpa became sad with the despair-that-leads-to-death, and he realized finally that she had no love in her. Instead, he thought she must be a demon, created by the earth to punish men for how they treat the forests. He remembered his wife, and wished he could see her, but each day he would look upon the Dryad and the kwea of the moment when they first met would come upon him. He would think back on the magic of that time together and become her slave all over again, as if he were a Thrall held in chains by a Slave Lord, and he could not leave.

Days melted into months and months blended into years.

After three summers, the Dryad bore a daughter with skin as green as pine needles. Tchulpa became angry, for she had not made love to him during those three years, so it seemed obvious that she had borne a child from another man.

One day, the Dryad wandered away, and in her devotion to the trees, she stayed away for nights catching moths that were laying their eggs. When Tchulpa found her again, he was furious, for he felt sure she had gone off to sleep with another man while he tended her child. (In those days, the Pwi did not know that Dryads mate only once and give birth slowly over the years; so Tchulpa did not imagine that the green daughter was his.)

He dragged his second wife home by the hair and tried to make love to her, but she fought him. He screamed and tore his hair in frustration, but she said, “I love only the pines!”

Tchulpa wondered if she had made love to a tree spirit, and the tree spirit had fathered the green daughter. So he went crazy in his grief.

This was in the month of Dragon, and the forest was at its driest.

Tchulpa picked up a brand from his cooking fire and ran outside and tossed the torch into the pines.

The Dryad ran from the hut with her daughter, and when she saw the fire raging in all the trees, madness came over her. She screamed, and twisted her face into a mask of rage, and took a stick and speared Tchulpa in the shoulder. She leaned toward him, as if she would rip his throat out with her teeth.

In that moment, Tchulpa saw into her eyes and realized that she was an animal. He had not fallen in love with a goddess, or even a woman, only a lowly beast.

He ran from her then, and heard the Dryad give a blood-curdling call, a wail more like that of a wolf than a human. It was a pure expression of her grief for the dying forest.

Tchulpa thought that he was free then, but as he looked back into the forest, he saw many green women with doe eyes chasing toward him, for the Dryad’s call had alerted others of her kind.

Tchulpa ran for his life. Some Dryads ripped him with their fingernails and bit him with their teeth, while others clubbed him with sticks, but Tchulpa escaped them all.

The Dryads’ cries haunted him through the forest, until he reached a band of oaks, and the pine women stopped.

The Dryads would not leave their beloved forest.

Tchulpa’s heart was torn, for he remembered his love for his wife and children. Now, he wished only to return.

For a time, he would not eat, but so great was his sadness that he hoped only to find comfort in the House of Dust with his ancestors. Yet, he knew he could not let himself die without first telling his family what had happened and begging their forgiveness.

When Tchulpa reached his village, his back and legs were swollen and infected with green pus that ran from him like sap from a tree—the worst kind. For this is what comes from the bite of a Dryad.

He told the Pwi his story, but everyone imagined that it was only fever talking, for none had ever seen a Dryad in those early days. So they brought him into the house of the healer, lanced his wounds, and washed him gently.

They thought he must have gone through a terrible ordeal, to be gone these three years. They wondered if slavers had captured him. His wife was elated to have her husband alive again, for she thought he had wandered off a cliff and died, or perhaps had become food for a smilodon.

That night, as his wife Azha tended him, so happy to have her husband home again, she put him by the fire and fell asleep.

She woke to the sound of Tchulpa’s cry. A nude woman with skin the color of pine needles stood above Tchulpa, and she ran from the room as quickly and quietly as a dream.

Tchulpa cried out again. Azha rushed to her husband, and he coughed blood into the air. In his chest was a stake, whittled from a branch of blackened pine.

Tchulpa raised his head and said, “Remember the kwea of the night we became husband and wife? That kwea is upon me. I feel nothing for that animal anymore.”

Azha nodded and took her husband’s hand. With his own blood, Tchulpa drew joined circles, the symbol of eternal love, upon her hand before he died.

Tull listened and smiled. Years ago, he’d realized that humans always seem to tell stories of conquest, of men who bulldog mammoths into the ground and slaughter each other in battle, but the Pwi always seemed to tell stories about reconciliation.

Pwi often told of brothers or lovers or friends who went to war in their youth, and only a great act of love or sacrifice could heal the evil kwea built up over the years. Such stories seemed odd—as if the Pwi believed that every fence could be mended, all hate and anger washed away.

Tull only had to look at his relationship with Jenks to see how false this notion was.

Yet the story of Tchulpa and the Dryad made Tull laugh, for somehow it seemed backward: Tchulpa did not find happiness with the Dryad at all.

He had to fall out of love, and that seemed important to Tull.

The silly ending, with Tchulpa drawing the symbol of eternal love on his wife’s hand, seemed more like a fable than something that would really happen.

Instead, Tull imagined that Tchulpa would have gasped “Oh shit!” as he died.

After the story, Zhopila went to her room to sleep, and the rest of the family lay on the floor in the living room, on piles of soft bearskins, and talked late into the night.

Little Chaa, although he was only twelve, talked of his plans to accompany Tull and Ayuvah to Seven Ogre River, until finally he fell deeply asleep, as if lost in pleasant dreams.

Ayuvah lay on the floor next to his wife and daughter. Fava, Tull’s new sister, lay to Tull’s right. Fava’s five little brothers and sisters slept on the other side of her. With so many people in the house, and with the embers still glowing cherry-red in the hearth, the room was very warm.

Tull could not sleep, lying so close to Fava. Her legs were long and bare in her summer dress, and he could feel the ribbons that signified her maidenhood around her hips as she snuggled against him. Her hair was scented with vanilla water; she smelled fresh and desirable.

He could not detect any beer on her breath, perhaps because it was still so strong on his own. He sat up on one elbow, and his head spun.
It should not be so hard to love,
he thought.
Even ignorant children can do it.

He knew by Fava’s breathing that she was still awake, so he wrapped his arm around her to see what she would do, his clamshell bracelet rattling in the dark. She squeezed his hand and placed it on her stomach, drew figure eights on the back of his hand. The figure eight, two circles forever joined. It was more than a symbol of love, it was the Pwi symbol for marriage.

Tull did not know if it was better to leave his hand and encourage her or to pull it away and deny his attraction. Among the Pwi, marriage was sacred. When a man and woman married, they mated for life, and the kwea became so strong that when one spouse died, unless there were children, the other mate stopped eating, stopped drinking, and followed his or her beloved to the grave.

Only a heartless man would encourage a Pwi maiden to love him if he was not willing to return that love. Tull pulled his hand away.

This of course is what had happened with Tull’s own father. Jenks was incapable of love, and Tull’s mother had becomed so bonded to him that she could not break away, even to save her own children.

Somehow, Tull expected better from his mother. She should have been strong enough to leave the man.

Fava sat up, very quietly, and turned to look into Tull’s eyes. She reached forward to trace the shape of his brows with gentle fingers. Her cool lips gently brushed his jaw..

“Now you are truly Pwi,” she whispered. “One of The People. My people. Now you will find
hathna,
a woman who shares her soul with yours.”

Tull stroked her cheek for a moment, wishing he could kiss her. Then he stopped and gently pushed her away, knowing how unfair it would be to entice her further.

When Tull was a child, he heard the word
love
, but by the age of twelve he realized that he no longer believed in it. Having never felt loved by others, it was hard to feel for them in return.

To him, love was an emotion that people only pretended to feel, or perhaps it was a common delusion held by many in the world.

But in his twelfth summer, Tull’s parents had moved to Smilodon Bay, and he’d met Ayuvah’s family—a father who felt pain for his children and cried with them when they hurt; a mother who not only spoke of love but showed it in every small deed. Zhopila took great pains to cuddle with her children, to tend to their needs, and to encourage them to be the best people they could become.

For the first time Tull had become convinced that there really was such a thing as love in the world. Some people felt it, at least.

Like a tender forest plant that grows in feeble light, he searched inside himself for the ability to love another. He wasn’t sure yet if he could do it.

Until tonight, Tull had always envied Ayuvah for his parents. But now Chaa was his father, and Ayuvah was his brother.

Fava is right,
he thought.
Today, for the first time, I am Pwi
.
I am a person. I am family. For now, that is enough.

He knew he could take Fava to wife, but for the moment, he contented himself with the simple feeling of belonging to a real family.

Tull awoke late that night to the soft sounds of children breathing, and a queer thought came to him. Chaa had stayed outside after the ceremony, and Tull began to worry.
He should have been home hours ago.

The Neanderthal shaman was still weak from his Spirit Walk, and Tull wondered if he had fallen along the path.

Tull imagined that Chaa could come home already, could have stepped over all the sleeping bodies in the dark, crept back to his bedroom with Zhopila, but that seemed unlikely.

Tull had keen ears, and the slightest noise woke him from sleep. He wasn’t sure if he’d grown wary as a child, for Jenks would often wake him with a beating, or if he’d simply grown accustomed to the solitude of his own little neck of the woods.

At any rate, the sounds of a crowded room kept him fluttering at the edge of sleep, and he felt certain that he would have noticed if Chaa had come into the house.

Tull climbed up from the floor and picked his way over the sleeping bodies. He stepped outside the house where the night air smelled fresh, and the scent of the woods mingled with sea air.

The night was still. Freya and Woden, the two smallest moons, shone blue and white in the night sky. He stood listening for a moment, but did not hear Chaa anywhere. Tull softly sang an old Pwi song:

The sun has finally fallen. Now the stars shine on the sand,

And I hear the Darkness conjuring dream images again.

Night brings peace to those who seek it, and scatters wisdom where it can,

For darkness is lover to the poet, the dreamer, and the solitary man.

It was a song made for lonely people.

From the side of the house, Chaa said, “There is no vessel as empty as a life without love. You should go into the house, open your heart to Fava.”

Tull could see his silhouette in the moonlight. The old shaman stood with his head tilted to the side. Chaa’s face was wet, for he had been crying softly. As he drew closer, Tull could tell by the smell that the old man was drunk on warm beer.

“What is the matter?” Tull asked. “Why do you cry?”

Chaa said bitterly, “If there are gods, I hate them.”

“Shhh—speak softly,” Tull warned. “They might hear you.”

“They know when we will blindly fall into a pit, yet they do not warn us,” Chaa said.

“That is why we have a Spirit Walker. That is why we have you,” Tull offered. “You are afraid things will go bad for us on this journey. It is drawn on your face. I think you fear for your sons. If you do not want Ayuvah and Little Chaa to come to Craal to catch the serpents, tell me. But if you want them to come, I will protect them—even from slavers.”

Chaa did not speak. He stood for a moment, peering through his drunken haze at Tull. He wished that Tull could let go of his fears, his fear of love in particular. There were things that Tull needed to learn if he was going to grow and become a proper shaman, and learning to care for others, to love deeply, was the most important.

Had Tull opened his heart to Fava, he could have averted much catastrophe. Now, the path before him was set with snares and riddled with pits.

Gently, Tull reached out and took Chaa’s hand, then led him into the house. Chaa staggered about, as if he’d just stepped off a boat.