Fur Magic (11 page)

Yellow Shell was too tired to lift his paws in any language sign. But he nodded, first to the lake and then to the spillway he had made, hoping that the eagle, if he were a messenger, would understand that the task was done.

The bird's sharp eyes shifted from the animal to the cut leading to the dark hole in the basin side. Then his claws formed a series of signs.

“This is a way through the rock?”

Yellow Shell pulled his sore paws from the soothing water to sign back:

“A way through the mountain wall. When the water rises, pull the stones now under you. There will be a new way to drain—”

The eagle bent his head to survey the dam on which he perched, touched his beak to one of the topmost stones as if testing its stability, or else estimating his chance of being able to move it when the need arose. Apparently he was satisfied,
for without another sign to Yellow Shell he took wing and was out over the lake in a couple of sweeps, heading, the beaver noted, not for the village on the island but up to the crags where Storm Cloud and his escort of warriors had gone the day before.

Yellow Shell combed at his muddy fur, wincing when his sore paw hurt, but intent on making himself clean if the eagles were to come to inspect his handiwork. Their pride was known to all the tribes, but the beavers were certainly not the least among the People. He wished he had his boxes of paint, his ceremonial beads and belt, that he might make a proper showing. For, looking at his work of the past hours, he thought he could take pride in it.

The eagle who had come to inspect did serve as a messenger, for more mighty wings were visible in the morning air and very shortly Storm Cloud, together with those who must be his subchiefs and leading warriors, settled on the dam. They looked at the dam, at the cut behind it, at the crevice into which the waters would be funnelled when the need arose. Yellow Shell signed to the eagle chief the purpose of each part of the spillway.

Now—would the eagles demand from him a demonstration—one which would mean that he must somehow dam that other river outlet and turn the water into this? At the very thought of such labour, his paws burned and his back ached. But it would appear that Storm Cloud was not so suspicious of the beaver's skill.

The eagle chief himself walked along the now dry funnel, thrust his head and shoulders well into the hole of the crevice. But he did not go all the way through. Perhaps he
could see the light at the other end, which was now more visible since Yellow Shell had also cleaned the exit to allow easy passage.

The eagle chief came back to face the beaver.

“It is well,” he signed. “You have made what was needed. Therefore we shall now do as we promised.”

He must have given some signal that Yellow Shell was not aware of, for one of the waiting warriors suddenly caught the beaver and rose into the air. Yellow Shell closed his eyes against that fear of being so far from the safe ground and hung motionless in his bearer's hold as the wind blew chill about him.

They did not return to the shore across from the village island where he and the otters had been deposited before. Rather they climbed up to the crags from which Storm Cloud had come. Here was a flat shelf on which the beaver was dropped and he sat carefully as close to its middle as he could without his distrust of these heights being visible to his hosts—or so he hoped.

The rock about him was cracked and broken and these holes and crevices seemed to serve the birds as lodges. One such opening faced Yellow Shell now. They were all patterned with drawings to celebrate coups and deeds, not only of the living warriors who now inhabited them but those of their ancestors, for the eagles must have lived here a long, long time. But the lodge of stone that Yellow Shell faced was very different from the others in that its painted border was all of pictures showing strong medicine. And, as Yellow Shell hunched there looking at those, Raven hopped forth from the crack of the doorway. He clapped his wings vigorously
and, at his summons, two young eagles came from behind him, one carrying a small drum painted half red, half white, the other a bundle that he put down carefully beside a spot on the rock stained black by many past fires.

The eagle who had brought out the bundle now went to one side, pulling back to the fire site in three or four trips short lengths of well-dried wood that he built up into a tepee shape. This done, he went to perch with the other eagles, except for the one with the drum. There were rocks for their sitting all around the open space. Yellow Shell turned his head from right to left and saw that all the birds had settled down quietly in a ring, though he did not turn his back on Raven to see if they were also behind him.

Now the drummer began to thump with the claws of his right foot, first gently, then with more force, so that it sounded at the beginning as might the mutter of thunder as yet far off, growing stronger and stronger.

Raven took a coal from a firebox, set it to the tepee of wood, tossing into the flames that followed substances he took from his bundles.

Smoke came, and it was coloured, first blue, then red—and there was a mingling of strange odours to be sniffed. The puffs of smoke did not spread, but rose in a smooth, straight pillar to the clouds as had the signal fire of the otters. Yellow Shell, straining back his head on his thick neck to watch them climb, thought that this looked more and more like a rope reaching to the Sky Country—which, here on the mountain top, could not be too far away.

Was Raven planning to use that to reach the Sky World and talk there with the spirit peoples?

It would seem not. Once the smoke was thick and climbing well, Raven fastened dance rattles to his feet, took up turtle shells filled with pebbles. Then he began to dance about the fire, and as he danced he sang, though the words he croaked had no meaning for Yellow Shell.

Tired as he was, the beaver tried to fight sleep; yet in spite of all his efforts, his head would nod forward on his chest and his eyes close. Then he would straighten up with a start, glancing around hurriedly to see if the eagles or Raven had noticed.

But they were watching only Raven. Finally the fight became too much for Yellow Shell and there was a moment when he did not wake again, but went further into sleep.

And he dreamed, knowing even as he dreamed that this was a spirit dream and one he must remember when he awakened.

He was flying high in the sky, not borne so by one of the eagles so that the dread of falling was ever with him, but as if he, too, had wings and had worn them all his life.

Below him stretched all the world as was known to Yellow Shell. There was the lake from which his clan had begun their march south. And he saw them now, recognizing each and every one of them. They had an otter in their midst and were watching that animal's flying forepaws. So Yellow Shell knew that the warning against the south had reached them and they would now turn back, or perhaps east or west, to safety.

And he saw the river, and the swamp marsh of the otter village where warriors now made new spears and squaws were working on a mighty gathering of food, as if they thought that their island home might be under siege.

There, too, was the mink lodge where he and Broken Claw had been held captive, and there he saw the minks lashing beaver slaves, thin, worn, undersized, to work building new canals. And Yellow Shell ground his teeth together in hot anger at the sight.

But all this was not what the spirits wished him to see. He was swept along, rather than flew, to the southeast, with the mountains of the eagles now at his back. So he came to a land that was prairie, changing to desert in places. There was a village and he saw that it was one of the coyotes, and now he knew that what he was to be shown was the stronghold of the Changer.

Down and down he dropped over that village, until he feared that any one of those there would raise head to the sky and see him. But none did, for the spirit dream was his protection. And he came to ground before a skin-walled lodge set a little apart from the rest. On it were pictures of great and strong medicine, so that he feared to put out a paw to raise the flap of the doorway. Yet that he must do, for the need that had brought him there so ordered him.

Thus he came into the lodge and recognized it for one of a great medicine person. But the spirits of his dreams raised his eyes to the centre pole of the lodge and to the bundle hanging there, and he knew that this was what he must have for his own if he would be only Yellow Shell again. But when he reached up his forepaws to seize it, there was a billow of dark and stinking smoke from the place of fire and he leaped back, a leap that took him through the door flap into the open again. Then he found that he could not return, rather he was again soaring into the air, heading away from the coyote
town, back to the eagle mountain. And at last he sat in the rock crags, across the smoking fire from Raven, who no longer danced. The drumming had stopped and the drummer was gone, so were the eagles who had watched. It was the beginning of night.

“You know,” Raven did not sign that but croaked the words in beaver, which, though harshly accented, were plain enough for Yellow Shell to understand.

“Yes, I know,” the beaver returned.

“To that place you must go, and the medicine bundle you must take, then shall you be able to force the Changer to make the wrong once more right. For that bundle is his strength and without it he is but half of what he wants to be.”

“A long way,” Yellow Shell said. “It will take much time.”

“Not too long by wing,” Raven replied briskly. “Four feet would make much of it, but we shall do better for you.”

“You are kind—”

Raven opened his beak in harsh laughter. “I do not do this for kindness, Beaver. I do it because the Changer and I have old troubles between us. Once we were friends and made medicine together. Then he learned secretly that which he would not share with me, and he walked apart, daring to laugh when I asked that we should do as brothers and have no knowledge held one from the other. Thus, bring the Changer to humbleness and I shall be glad. I would ask you for his medicine, but the spirits have foretold that that must serve another purpose. However, without it he shall suffer and that shall be as I wish it.”

He got up and the dance rattles about his feet gave off a faint whisper of sound.

“I cannot ask you into my lodge, Beaver, for there is much there that only I can safely look upon. But you will find shelter in that crevice over there, and food. Rest for a time, and then there shall come one to see you on the first part of your journey.”

Yellow Shell crawled out of the wind, which now blew very chill about him, into the opening Raven had pointed to. There he found some bark one of the eagles must have brought from below. It was not what he would have chosen for himself, and it tasted bitter. But he ate it thankfully and curled up to sleep.

Before there was any light a clawed foot shook him awake. It was the young eagle drummer who stood over him. Seeing Yellow Shell's eyes open, he signed swiftly that they must go. He did not give the beaver any time to protest or question, but, as soon as Yellow Shell crawled from the crevice, he seized him, and they were off into the dark clouds and the wind. For the third time that flight was a frightening thing and the beaver shut his eyes to endure it. To make it worse, this was a longer flight than that up the mountain or to the end of the lake. Those now seemed to have been only short moments of danger.

Over him the powerful wings beat steadily and Yellow Shell guessed that, as in the spirit dream, they were heading southwest, away from the mountains and over the prairie desert land where he had seen the coyote village. He tried to think what he would do when he got there. To secure such a precious thing from the lodge where it was hung, in the midst of an enemy village, was so dangerous an undertaking
that he could not hope to be successful. Yet the spirit dream had made most clear that that he must do.

Suddenly he guessed that the eagle was descending and he opened his eyes. Being held as he was face downward, he could indeed see the earth racing up to meet him. But morning could not be too far distant as the light was now grey—yet it was still dark and shadowed on the ground.

The eagle did not set him down gently, but loosed his grip, so that Yellow Shell fell into the midst of a bush and was fighting against its thorned branches all in an instant. When he had battled his way free of that, his bearer was only a very distant moving object in the sky, and he had no chance to thank him, if one could truly offer thanks for being dumped so unceremoniously in an unknown land, perhaps very near an enemy village.

Yellow Shell sat up on his haunches and looked about. This was plainly open prairie land and not too rich, for the only bushes he could see were stubby ones with a starved look as if good soil and much water were things they had never known since their seeding. There were patches of bare sand here and there that gave rooting to nothing at all.

He turned his head slowly. The coyote village, wherever it might lie, could not be set too far from some source of water, for water all animals must have. Now he sniffed each puff of wind that reached him, drew in deep breaths in every direction, hoping to pick up the scent of water.

Not only must he find water as a probable guide to the village but as a source of food. The withered stuff the eagles had supplied the night before had blunted his hunger, but it had not really satisfied him, and now he wanted, needed food, and must have it.

He was facing south when the very faint scent he hunted reached him. There was no help for it, he must walk, over a country that was not meant for his kind, awkward and slow on land. His only hope of ever reaching that water was to be always alert to all that lay about him.

The sun was rising as he thumped along, his paws beginning to hurt again as they met the hot, hard surface. He kept when he could to the patches of coarse grass that offered cushioning. There was life here; he saw birds, a lizard or two out in the early morning before heat drove them into cover. And once he made a wide circle around a place where the hated, musky scent of snake was a warning.