Fur Magic (15 page)

For a time the Changer made no move, though now and then he turned his head with the coyote ears a-prick as if he were listening. The sun went down, to leave them in the night. No fire burned and Cory's human sight could not pierce the darkness as Yellow Shell's had done. But, almost as if he wanted to prove to Cory that he had won, the Changer rebuilt the fire, though it was not in the same place as the other and he did not toss into it the contents of leaf packets.

There came a fluttering out of the dark, and feathered shapes lit on the ground, hopped into the circle of light about the fire. Crows—ten—twenty—more—coming and going so that Cory could not count them, or even be sure that they were not the same ones over and over. As each hopped past the Changer, he spat out on the ground a mouthful of yellow-brown clay, which the beast-man mixed with the other mass. And that grew taller and taller. Now he scraped and mixed it well, working the new and old clay together as he sang in a voice hardly louder than a murmur, as if he feared being overheard.

Some of the crows settled down on the other side of the fire. Cory noted that they showed interest, not in what their master was doing but in the medicine bag that lay close to him, for he had not returned it to hiding after using it to drive off the storm. And the boy knew that if he could but get it out of the Changer's reach, he could put an end to all that was happening here. But he could see no chance of that.

Knead, pinch, pull, shape—the Changer's human hands
moved faster, with a greater sureness than they had before, as if, having once made the manikin, his fingers remembered their task. But this time the figure he wrought was larger, was as tall in fact as a man, as Uncle Jasper.

Uncle Jasper. Cory blinked. That other world seemed so far away, so lost to him now. Yet, when he had thought of Uncle Jasper—Yes! His hands had been able to move: Uncle Jasper, the ranch—Dad—Just as he had seen the Raven, White Eagle, and that shadowy other in his mind, so now he tried to picture all he could that was most important to him of his own world and time. But, as he felt his bonds loosen, he did not try yet to move. Patience he had learned from Yellow Shell, and the determination to fight for survival, but some of this stubborn will to face danger was now Cory's own, either newborn or simply newly roused from a spark that had always been there, but that he had not known he had.

Let the Changer become so interested in his “man” that he would forget Cory. Even now he seldom looked at the boy; he appeared no longer to need him as a pattern.

And the birds—They had eyes only for the medicine bag. To reach it Cory would have to half circle the fire, but in a second, before he got so far, the Changer could snatch it to safety. His only hope was to wait for some chance.

Again the body stood finished, the head remaining a round ball. But this time the Changer went to work on that. He made no attempt to give it a human face. Instead the clay moved under his fingers into the shape of a long narrow jaw and nose, pointed ears—the head of a coyote, twin to the one on the Changer's own shoulders. He stood back at last to study it critically. Then, with finger-tips, went to work again,
modifying the beast look somewhat. Still it was far more an animal's mask than any face. But that apparently was the result the Changer wanted.

Now for the first time in hours he looked directly at Cory with a tooth-showing grin.

“How like you my man?” he barked.

“It is not a man.” Cory told him the truth.

“But it is the new man,” the Changer told him. “For this is a man as he should be for the good of the People. And for the good of the Changer.” Again he laughed, though it was more of a yapping.

“Yes,” he continued, “this is man as the People need him, for to us he shall be a slave and not a master. These—” he touched the dangling mud hands almost contemptuously, “shall serve the People as sometimes paws cannot. These—” now he rapped the wide mud shoulders, then stooped to run a finger-tip down the clay legs, “shall bear burdens, run to our command. This is man as the Changer has made him, shaped from the earth, hardened, as he soon will be, by fire, made ready for the life—” now he turned to look at Cory with those evil, narrow eyes, “you shall give him!”

Cory cried out; he thought he screamed. And in that moment he was answered out of the dark, out of the sky—with a shriek that set the very earth trembling under them.

O
nce more the sky was torn by broad purple flashes of lightning and a chill wind blew about them. In a half crouch, snarling, the Changer turned to face the dark beyond the fire.

Something moved there. Cory could not see it plainly; the clouds were so thick, the night so very dark. But he thought that great wings fanned, that a head as large as his own body turned so that burning eyes might look upon them. And the boy wanted to throw himself to the ground, dig into the sand, as if he were Yellow Shell diving into the river water.

The crows cried out, but they did not take to the air. Instead they cowered close to the ground, as if seeking shelter where there was no cover left. But the Changer now stood tall, his back to the fire and to his man of mud, facing the fluttering in the night.

“Hear me.” He spoke as he would to Cory, yet even above the noise made by the crows, the drumming of the thunder, he could be heard. “I am He Who Shapes, and this is my power. You cannot deny it to me for it is mine!”

And he spoke as if he knew very well who or what was in the dark there, and felt confident that he could safely face it so.

Who—or what—This was the shadow that had risen behind the White Eagle in Yellow Shell's vision—this was the
Thunderbird!

To Cory, Yellow Shell's memory supplied the rest—this was the Thunderbird whose presence was in the storm, the wind, the lightning, the pound of thunder, the rise of wind. The Thunderbird spoke for one being only—the Great Spirit.

“I am He Who Shapes, who changes,” the Changer repeated, still confident, but faintly angry now. “This is my power and I hold it against all the spirit ones, great or small!”

The crows cawed together harshly. Then, instead of taking to wing, they scuttled out of the circle of light, taking shelter in the shadow of one of the trees lying prone. If they could dig their way into the sand, thought Cory, seeing their flight, they would be doing that right now.

There was a fanning of wings, so huge they could be felt as a rippling of the air, and after that a new crackling of lightning. But as yet no rain had appeared.

“Elder Brother, listen. We have no quarrel, no spear, no claw or fang now bared to make a red road running between us. You lead the storm clouds into battle, as was given you to do. I but do as was given me, I shape and change, shape and change. And now it is in me to shape one who will serve the People, who will not say ‘Do this, do that,' ‘Come be my meat and let me eat,' ‘Come be my robe and let me wear.' For
if I do not breathe life into this one, there shall come another somewhat like him but of another shaping, and then it shall be ill for the People, and all their greatness shall be gone. They will dwindle into less and less, and some shall vanish from mother earth, never to be seen again. I, the Changer, have foreseen this evil thing. And because I
am
the Changer, it is laid upon me to see that it will not come to be so.”

“The time is not due, the shape is not right. It is not for you, Younger Brother, to do this, which is a great, great thing that none but the
ONE ABOVE
may do.” The words rolled out of the dark with the beat of thunder, as if they were a chant sung to a drum.

“I am the Changer, Elder Brother. So was the power given me in the First Days, so it has always been. Such power once given cannot be taken away. That is the Right and the Law.”

“That is the Right and the Law,” agreed the voice from the dark. “But also it is the Right and the Law that one may challenge you, is that not also the truth?”

The Changer laughed in a sharp, yelping sound. “That's the truth, Elder Brother. But who can do so? For mine alone of the earth spirits is the shaping power. You, Elder Brother, can control the wind, the clouds, the lightning and thunder, the pound of rain, the coming of cold moons' snow. But can you shape anything?”

“The power is yours only—on earth,” again agreed the shadow.

“And it is on earth now that we stand, Elder Brother. Therefore, I say that this shall be done—that I shall shape this ‘man' to be a servant to the People. Nor will you again
raise a storm to stop me, for when I have so spoken, then it becomes my right.”

“It becomes your right,” again echoed that mighty voice. “But still you may be challenged—”

“Not on my making of this thing,” returned the Changer quickly.

“Then otherwise,” replied the Thunderbird. “For it is this message that I bring—there shall be a challenge, and, if you lose, then you shall with your own hands destroy this thing you have shaped, and you shall forget its making and not so shape again. Instead you shall be guided for a space by the will and wishes of he who challenges.”

“And if I win?” There was such confidence in the Changer that he seemed to be growing taller, larger, to match the shadowy giant Cory could more sense than see.

“And if you win, then it shall be as you have said. Though this thing is wrong, yet it shall live and be all you have promised, a servant to the People, never more than that.”

“So be it! Such a tossing of game sticks pleases me. But since I am the challenged, I say that this testing shall be rooted in mother earth, for I am
her
son and not one who commands air, wind, and water as my right.”

“So be it,” agreed the Thunderbird in turn. “You have the choice that this contest be of the earth. Mine is the second saying, which is this—”

There was movement in the night as if mighty wings were spread, and Cory felt those eyes burning not only on the Changer and the image of mud but on him also. And in that moment he guessed that soon, if ever, would come his
chance, and he must be ready to seize it. That binding the Changer had laid upon him still held in part, but suppose the Changer would be so occupied with this contest that he must use all his power for it? Then Cory would be wholly free. He could see the medicine bag still lying beside the fire, very plain in the light.

The Thunderbird had paused for a long moment, as if he were turning over in his mind several different possibilities of a challenge. At last he spoke.

“Of the earth, yet in a manner of seeing of my sky also. Look you to the north, Younger Brother. What see you?”

There was a vivid flash of lightning to tear aside the night, holding steady as no lightning Cory had ever witnessed before had done. Against it stood the black outline of a mountain, one of lesser width but greater height than the eagles' hold.

“I see earth shaped as a spearhead aimed at the sky,” replied the Changer. “This is a piece of medicine to be thought on, Elder Brother. Perhaps it does not promise good for you.”

“A piece of earth,” answered the Thunderbird. “As you have asked for, Younger Brother. Now this be my challenge—which is not really mine but that of One Above speaking through me—that you take this earthen spear and without changing its form you lay it upon the ground so that it no longer aims its point to the sky, but into this desert country, even at this fire where you would harden your shaping into life.”

Still that lightning banked behind the mountain, showing
it plainly. And the Changer looked at it steadily, nor did he show that he thought the task impossible.

“It is of the earth,” he said, “and so must obey me.” And to Cory he sounded as confident as ever.

Facing the mountain, he uttered some sharp howls, as if the huge mound of earth and stone were alive but sleeping, and must be so awakened to listen to his orders. Then his feet began to stamp, heavier and heavier and heavier, as he put his full force into each planting of those coyote paws.

Stamp, stamp, right paw, left paw—

Under his own feet Cory felt an answering quiver in the earth, as if the force of that stamping ran out under the surface.

Stamp, stamp—those paws were now digging holes into the ground where the Changer brought them down with all his might. At the same time he began to sing, pointing his human hands at the mountain peak against that light which could no longer be considered lightning, for it remained steady and clear.

And having pointed out the mountain, the Changer now went through the motions of hurling at the peak, although his hands held nothing Cory could see.

Stamp, hurl, stamp, hurl. Cory watched, yet the peak remained unchanged. And the boy wondered if there was any time limit placed upon this contest.

With a great effort he dragged his eyes away from the Changer and looked to where the medicine bundle lay. Now he began to try his strength once more against the spell the Changer had held him in. His hands moved to answer his will, and then his arms, stiffly, with pain, as if they had been
cramped in one position too long. He tried not to flinch lest the Changer notice him. But the coyote head remained steadily facing the mountain.

Cory glanced up to see that the hurling motions had come to an end. Now the Changer moved right hand and arm in a wide, sweeping, beckoning. It might be that in answer to his signal he expected that distant humping of earth to take to itself legs or wings and come forward at his gesture.

If he expected such, he was doomed to disappointment. But Cory gave only a short glance at what the Changer did. He was edging, hardly more than an inch at a time, out of the place where he had been rooted for so long at the other's pleasure. Now the image stood between him and the Changer, and he had yet some feet to go around the fire to get his hands on the medicine bag. So much depended upon whether the Changer would remember him, or whether he would need the bag for his present magic. Cory could only try, for he believed that he would not get a second chance.