Fur Magic (12 page)

His only relief was that the odour of water grew ever stronger, drawing him forward with longing to plunge into some river, even into a pool, with cool wet all about him. Then he stiffened and crouched low in the shadow of a bush, hoping he had taken to that cover in time. The loud, ear-hurting call of a crow, of more than one, sounded clearly across the land.

Turning his head up and back, Yellow Shell was able to sight them as they passed overhead—three of them, southbound as himself but angling a little more to the east. If he dared believe they were on their way to the coyote village, then there was a hope that he could still reach water some distance away from the enemy, for the scent seemed to run from east to west.

Making very sure that the crows were well away before he left his bush shelter, Yellow Shell stumbled on. He marked ahead every bush or stand of tall grass in which he could
crouch if the need for hiding arose, and he made the best speed he could in a zigzag path from one to the next.

The water scent was so strong now that he had a hard time keeping from breaking into a run. But he held to his caution and kept up his move from cover to cover, waiting in between times. The sun was growing hotter and there were more birds, but no lizards, to be seen. Once he sighted a pair of rabbits. They were painted for a raid, and were moving with caution like him. Young bucks, he thought, perhaps out in a daring attempt to count some coup in coyote country—though he thought that their daring was that of young fools and that any coups counted in that way should be their shame and not their glory.

Beavers counted bravery a virtue as much as any other of the People, but a brave fool got no praise from them for his folly. Yellow Shell kept carefully out of sight of the pair, when in other times he might have asked for directions. If they did fall to the coyotes, which was only too possible, he wanted no tales told about his presence in a place where a lone beaver could be so noteworthy a happening as to attract instant attention and investigation.

The ground suddenly ended in a sharp-edged drop and he looked down into a gully. Perhaps at other times of the year the stream at the bottom of it was a sizable river. But now it had shrunk into hardly more than a series of pools, all shallow—too much so, at least the ones he saw, for swimming. But it was water and his whole body longed for its touch.

Only the gully was so open. To venture down there where
there was no shelter was only asking to be sighted by crows, by any coyote on scout.

Yellow Shell angled along the bank, looking longingly at the pools that at another time would have disgusted him by the murkiness of their water. As he went, the pools did grow larger and joined with one another, and there were actually signs of a sluggish current. Perhaps closer to the source of this dying river there was more water.

At last he caught sight of greenery growing in the gully and, with a thankful sigh of relief, he half tumbled over the edge, to slip and roll down to the stream's edge. But he was not so forgetful of danger not to turn and hide as much of the signs of his passing as he could by wide sweeps of his tail.

The growth was scrub alder and he feasted upon it. But he was careful to take his twigs and bark from spots where the breakage would not be easily seen. And he also cut a small bundle for future use as he had before they had climbed the mountain. In a semidesert land one could not depend on too much to be found.

There was one pool that gave him a chance to sink deep beneath the surface, wet through his sand- and soil-burdened fur, ease the smarting of his paws. He dove and swam, always staying in the shadow the growth threw across the water, until he felt almost his old strong self again.

By the measurement of the sun's path, it was now past noon. He half floated on the water, trying to plan. As with most of the People, the coyotes preferred the night to the bright of day. And dark would find their camp alert and awake. To push on now for a first look around, if the village did not lie too far ahead, might be wise. He tightened the
reeds binding his bundle of food and began to swim, taking to the bank again only when the water grew too shallow. But there were not many such places now. In fact the stream soon became a river instead of a series of pools, and he was able to make faster time than he had all the earlier part of this day.

I
t was sunset, the sun having already dropped behind the mountains to the west. Yellow Shell crouched in a thicket while he rubbed vigorously into his coarse upper fur pawfuls of bruised, strongly scented leaves. His hope that this might cover his own musky odour was perhaps wrong, but it was the only protection he now had. And to get into the coyote camp, to that lodge that stood just a little apart but was the same one he had seen in the spirit dream, was now necessary.

He had watched it for a long time. But the door flap had remained down, whereas those in the others of the camp were propped open, lashed to small sticks to keep them so. This could mean one of two things—that the lodge was indeed empty, or that its owner was at home and desired no visitors. And for the beaver's purpose there was a vast difference between those two facts.

It had been late afternoon when he had found the village on the north side of the shallow river. On the south bank were more patches of sand until the land began to be true desert country.

Yellow Shell had not had much time for exploring or scouting the camp, for the coyotes were already stirring. Young squaws came down to the water's edge, bringing skin bags rubbed with fat to make them water-tight, taking the liquid back to their tepees. Cubs ran about, playing wild pounce and chase games. And the beaver watched yawning warriors come out of their lodges, stretch, grimace to show long fangs, snap at flies, rouse for the night's hunting hours. He wondered then about the two rabbit braves—would they be caught in this territory before they could retreat?

One coyote, or two, or even three, he would dare to face by himself. His teeth, his tail, his spear were deadly weapons. But to be set upon by a pack—that would be like the ambush of the minks all over again. So Yellow Shell prudently withdrew downriver into hiding, to consider what must be done.

He might, of course, go into hiding to wait out the night, try to reach the lodge again the next morning when the village was once more asleep. But time was important. He could not be sure how he knew that, only that it was so.

There was this—he could watch for his chance, and after the hunting parties had left and the life of the village began to follow the usual pattern, he might be able to reach the medicine lodge unseen. He was lucky in that it was not the chief's, which was set in the middle of the circles of tepees, but apart on the northern edge. And perhaps, though he dreaded leaving the water, he could work his way around to it, using the tall grass for cover. If there was no one inside, he could get in easily enough, for the skin wall at the back would split under his teeth.

So, patiently, Yellow Shell lay in the water, only his head, under the shadow of a willow, above the surface of the stream, watching carefully all he could see of the camp.

Someone beat a drum with quick, sharp taps, and then a howling call rang out in a summons. He saw braves trotting towards the centre of the village to answer. Not a war party. There had been no dancing, no singing. No, he must have been right in his guess—a hunt was now intended. And by the numbers in the pack so assembled, the prey to be was no easily attacked beast. Could they be after the horned ones of the prairie? Yellow Shell gave a short snort at the thought. What powerful medicine
must
hang in their midst if these thought they could bring down a buffalo! Yet so large a gathering of hunters could not be aimed at any lesser game.

He saw a part of the pack as they trotted out. At the fore went a mighty coyote with lighter fur that showed almost white in the twilight where it was not dabbed with paint. He was flanked by the seasoned warriors of the village. Trailing this impressive van were younger hunters, some hardly out of cubhood, bringing up the rear. These did not prance or bark, but padded humbly in their elders' wake as if deeply impressed by the task now before them.

Yellow Shell waited until they were long gone, for they headed north into the grassland, thus verifying his suspicion that it was indeed buffalo they were going to run. And he wondered at the daring of the chief who had planned this hunt, which even the Wolf Tribe would think twice of attempting, old enemies of the horned ones that they were.

By the rise of the moon the camp was not quite so busy. Many of the cubs were down splashing in the river. Yellow
Shell had edged back into the grassland, his nose wrinkling when the smell of meat from the tepees reached him. As he went deeper into the prairie, he used his keen scent to find certain leaves, pleased when he came across a sage bush very aromatic in the night wind.

Now he smeared more of the crushed leaves well into his coat, along the scaly skin of his powerful tail. As a cover it might not be all he could wish, but the coyotes were so keen of nose that he needed all the protection he could find. The wind blew now from the east, which was a small thing in his favour. But he hated to travel on land, which was always hard for him.

Once again he scuttled from bush to bush, working around in a wide half circle that he might approach the camp from the north, and thus be closest to the medicine lodge. To get right against its back was his hope. He could listen at its wall, and if he heard no movement within, he would take a chance and slit the skin.

What he would do with the bag he sought once he had it in his paws. Yellow Shell did not yet know. The spirit dream had shown him that this he must do in order to help himself, and so he would follow its direction.

When the leaves were only green-grey smears on the pads of his paws, he gave a last wipe of those paws on his haunches and moved out. There was a stir in the village, but it did not reach the medicine lodge. Perhaps the coyotes had good reason to be in awe of the Changer, though all knew that he favoured the coyotes as brothers and wore their shape more often than any other, dwelling among them for periods of time, to their great joy.

Now and again Yellow Shell gave an anxious glance to the sky. He had not forgotten the crows he had seen flying in this direction, though in all his scouting of the village he had not seen them here. Perhaps they had brought some message, and, that task done, had left again.

With a last burst of the best speed a beaver could summon on land, Yellow Shell reached the position he had aimed for, right at the back of the medicine lodge. He edged as close as he could, laying his ear against its surface, trying to hold his breath and still a little the fast beating of his own heart, so that he could listen the better and catch any small sound from within.

The noises of the camp were annoying; he could not block them out well enough to be sure that there was not a sleeper inside. But after a long wait, the beaver knew that he could not remain there, doing nothing. He would have to make up his mind before the return of the hunting party. They must pass close to where he crouched and he had little hope that his smearing of sage and other scented leaves would cover him from their keen noses.

He began to dig a little with his forepaws, pausing fearfully after every scoop or two to listen. But there was no sound. At last his fear of being discovered by the hunters' return grew stronger than his caution, and he snapped at the skin wall of the tepee near the bottom where he had made a hollow in the earth. Three such slashing attacks and he had an opening large enough for his head and shoulders.

Immediately before him, tickling his nose and providing a screen, was a heaping of dried grass and sage twigs for a bed
place. There was no fire in the circle of ash-smeared stones in the centre of the lodge. No one was there.

Yellow Shell wriggled all the way in, to sit up on the bed and look about. There were no food-storage bags or water carriers hanging from the poles set up against both sides of the lodge to support such, on the right and left of the front flap door. And under him the bedding was dusty dry, crunched as he moved, as did stuff long gathered that had not been lately put to use.

He could smell coyote, yes, but not as strongly as if one had recently lived here. And he began a wary circuit, using his nose to tell him what might have happened here.

The smell of dried meat clung faintly to the poles for the storage bags. And there was also the scent of herbs, which might be part of medicine. But he was not ready for the disappointment that awaited him as he straightened to his full height under the centre pole of the tepee and stretched back his head to see where the bundle had hung in the dream. There was nothing there.

Of course, the Changer would have taken the bag with him when he went. But where—where now must Yellow Shell follow or search? The beaver slumped to all fours, the pain of his sore feet, the aches in his body suddenly the sharper. And the misery of not knowing what to do next was a dark shadow over his mind.

As he so crouched closer to the beaten earth, he caught sight, very plain in the gloom of the lodge, of a small bit of white—a piece of eagle down. And he knew it for a thing of power. His dream—the bundle—it had been wrapped in a
skin bag with tassels of fur and feathers dangling from it. This would seem to be a part of one such tassel. Carefully Yellow Shell picked it up between two claws.

The White Eagle! Not the mighty Storm Cloud of the heights, but a far greater chief than he. Because the White Eagle truly ruled the sky below the Sky Country, and only by his will might one pass safely from the world below to the world above. Forever did he sit on a far higher peak than any Storm Cloud knew, a peak in the north. Always he faced the sunrise, but on his right and to his left sat two younger eagles. And he on the right was the Speaker who faced north, and he on the south was the Overseer. Those flew at intervals high above the world so that they might see all that happened, reporting to the White Eagle how it fared with land, water, beasts and growing things.