People of the Raven (North America's Forgotten Past) (21 page)

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Authors: W. Michael Gear,Kathleen O'Neal Gear

BOOK: People of the Raven (North America's Forgotten Past)
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“What difference did it make to you?
She considered and found no answer. “Everyone should be allowed a moment of privacy to weep for the dead.”
“And for themselves,” he added as he took a breath. “You have a sense about you, Matron. I would have done well to have listened more carefully to you. Stay. Help me. Not just for my people, but for yours.”
She swallowed against the sudden sense of falling she felt down in her gut. She gave him a quick nod. His hands tightened on her shoulders as he drew her to him, brushed his lips across her forehead, and stepped back. In the descending darkness, she couldn’t see his expression, but her forehead tingled as if afire.
 
 
S
now fell silently through the firs and dusted Ecan’s small camp. It settled on the sleeping forms of warriors who lay wrapped in hides
and bark blankets. It drifted down onto the packs lying about, and sizzled as it touched the hot ashes in the smoldering fires.
The warrior known as Hunter sat guarding the prisoner, Dzoo. Flakes began to dot his hair, giving it a gray look where he sat before a small fire. He pulled up his hood and went back to sharpening his deer-bone stiletto. He’d broken the tip during the War Gods Village fight. The weapon made a soft zizzing sound as he drew it back and forth across a piece of sandstone.
Every now and then, he shot a glance at Red Dog, his companion on guard duty this night. The old warrior sat cross-legged two paces away, eating a long strip of elk jerky. He had a puzzled expression on his battered face. He chewed and gave Dzoo a perplexed squint. Red Dog’s nose had been broken in the past, but it hadn’t healed well. It had a bend in it that made people stare. This night he wore a tattered deerhide cape with patches of missing hair. He swallowed and twitched his lips thoughtfully.
“What are you looking at?” Hunter asked.
Red Dog cocked his head, clearly lying when he said, “Nothing. I was just thinking about Mica.”
“What about him?”
“This is the third time in six moons he’s been selected as ‘most valiant warrior.’”
“Well,” Hunter growled, “for all the stomach you showed at War Gods Village, I don’t think you’re in danger of being awarded the head.”
“I was too busy packing weapons to Ecan. What kind of a fool surrenders his weapons just before a battle, anyway?”
“Rain Bear demanded it.” Hunter tapped the side of his head with the stiletto. “It’s strategy, planning. Things you’re too dumb to do.” But he glanced over at the rolled figures around Mica’s fire. Earlier that evening, and with great ceremony, Mica had roasted the head, cracked the base of the skull open, and spooned out the old woman’s brains.
Red Dog finally muttered, “I’m glad I’m never selected as most valiant warrior. I don’t have the stomach for brain.”
“Few warriors do. Most carry the heads home and give them to their slaves to clean before hanging them on the wall. I think Mica really believes he’s going to get smarter. He’s ambitious enough to wipe Ecan’s ass twice a day as it is.”
Red Dog’s worried gaze was fixed on Dzoo again.
“Yes?” Hunter prompted.
“I wish Wind Scorpion hadn’t given us this detail. If he wants to watch her, he should do it himself. Me, I don’t like being this close to her.”
“Nothing scares Wind Scorpion.”
Red Dog ripped off another hunk of jerky and slurred, “White Shtone says he’s going back to shearch for the boy tomorrow. Will you go with him?”
“Only if ordered,” Hunter answered, and leaned back against the old stump. “But if he asks for volunteers, I’ll tuck my tail between my legs and run straight home to Fire Village. If Tsauz is still alive—and that’s a big if—Rain Bear has him by now.”
Red Dog narrowed an eye. “What do you mean ‘if’?”
“It was dark.” Hunter lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. “People were running, screaming. I killed three different kids. You know, they just ran by in the darkness and smack, you bash their brains out. Now, if Tsauz came running up to some warrior, bawling like an orphaned elk calf, well, you know …”
Red Dog grunted.
“And if he’s alive?”
“Rain Bear will use him as bait. Whoever goes with White Stone is a dead man.”
Red Dog used his teeth to rip off another chunk of jerky before examining their prisoner again.
Dzoo sat on a log, bound hands in her lap. Snow coated her buffalo cape. In the past four hands of time she hadn’t so much as blinked, shifted, or made a sound.
“Do you think she’s breathing?” Red Dog asked.
Hunter rolled his stiletto to sharpen the opposite side. “If she were dead, she would have fallen over by now.”
Red Dog lowered his jerky to his lap. “I haven’t seen her take a breath. The snow’s not even melting on her hands.”
Hunter blew the ground bone from his sharpening stone and gave Red Dog a reproachful look. “You’ve seen three tens of summers; that’s ten more than I have. You ought to know by now that a determined warrior is a lot more dangerous than a sleeping woman.”
Red Dog wet his lips. “Maybe she’s Soul Flying. I’ve heard that Soul Flyers often look dead.”
“Soul Flying,” Hunter grumbled under his breath. “The way she’s bound, that’s the only part of her that could move.”
Red Dog’s burly shoulders hunched as he leaned toward Hunter to whisper, “I thought I saw something earlier.”
Annoyed, Hunter asked, “What?”
“Well, I’m not sure. It was tiny, Dancing around her, spinning like a child’s top.”
“Windblown snow.”
“This windblown snow had rocks in its fists and was covered with thick red hair.”
“For something you
thought
you saw, you saw it pretty clearly.”
“And it had antlers.” He held his fingers spread over the head. “Just like a deer’s.”
Hunter set his sharpening stone aside. “You’re telling me you saw one of the Noisy Ones?”
The story was told among the North Wind People that the Noisy Ones were miniature creatures covered with hair. In the day they were invisible and could throw rocks with great accuracy and kill people. Holy people said that the Noisy Ones walked the thin thread of light that separated life and death, light and dark. Hunter believed none of this. He leveled all of his disdain into a hard glare.
“I’ve heard stories that the Noisy Ones are her Spirit Helpers.”
“So you thought … what? The Noisy Ones had come to free her?”
Red Dog swallowed, big-eyed. “Doesn’t that worry you?”
Hunter threw up his hands. “If she really had Powerful Spirit Helpers like that, you and I would already be dead, and she would be on her way to Rain Bear.”
Red Dog considered that. He tore off another bite of jerky and, around the mass, said, “Maybe the Noisy Ones are waiting for something.”
Hunter pointed his stiletto at Red Dog’s bent nose. “The next time I have to stand guard, I’m … . Oh, never mind.”
Red Dog’s bushy brows lowered. Time passed before he added, “You’ve heard the stories about Dzoo? About when she was a child?”
“What stories?”
“White Stone told me that a terrible priest among the Striped Dart People saw her fly into his village on wings like Owl’s. Dzoo could send her souls flying at the age of four summers! That’s why the old priest sent a war party to steal her away.”
“Stories change over time, Red Dog. Who knows what really happened?”
Red Dog looked at Hunter askance. “She’s got a small soapstone bowl in her pouch. White Stone said she uses it to see long-dead people.”
Hunter wiped the stiletto on his hide pants and tested the sharpened
tip on his thumb. “Did Mica tell you that Ecan forced him to examine that pack?”
“You mean Ecan was afraid to look inside the pack himself?”
“Apparently.”
“And?”
Hunter made an airy gesture with his stiletto. “He found the soapstone bowl and six leather bags.”
“What was in the bags? Witch pellets? Evil charms?”
Witches shot enchanted pellets into their victims to cause illness or death. The area around Hunter’s heart started to itch. He scratched it and answered, “Mica said three of the bags contained dirt. Another had twigs and bark. Yet another was filled with bird droppings. And the last apparently had bat dung in it.”
“Bird droppings and bat dung?” Red Dog said as though disappointed.
“Mica claimed he had to open two outer bags before he got to the tiny inner bags with the dirt and droppings.”
“She triple-bagged droppings?”
“Yes,” Hunter said in a scary hiss, “as if she’s afraid they might get out.”
Red Dog’s brows lowered. “You know, truly, someone should take that pack away and burn it.”
Hunter shrugged. “Ecan peered into each bag that Mica opened. He said everything looked harmless.”
“Dirt and droppings,” Red Dog mumbled. Gray-streaked black tangles framed his round face. He shifted uncomfortably before saying, “Doesn’t it worry you that Ecan wouldn’t touch the bags himself?”
“He’s a Starwatcher. He would have known if she’d carried anything dangerous, like Spirit plants or witch amulets.”
Red Dog crossed his arms. “Her pack should be destroyed. Just in case.”
Hunter waved a hand. “Fine. Reach over, take it away from her, and throw it in the fire.”
The furrows in Red Dog’s forehead deepened. “Me? This is Dzoo we’re talking about. If it were up to me, I’d untie her, dust her off, give her everything I own, and set her free.” He rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. “Then I’d pray like I’ve never prayed before.”
“You are such an old fool!” Hunter got to his feet, stiletto in hand, and boldly walked toward the prisoner.
Red Dog looked like he was going to throw up.
Hunter circled her. Snow coated her hood and cape and shimmered
in the firelight. “Woman? Are you alive? Or just off somewhere Soul Flying? Can you hear me?”
Nothing.
Red Dog hissed, “See, I told you. She’s dead.”
Hunter used the tip of his stiletto to poke the woman in the shoulder. She might have been clay.
Hunter bent down, whispering, “Hey, camp bitch, you want a man to share his heat with you? I could be talked into warming you up.”
Red Dog warned, “I wouldn’t be doing that!”
Hunter grinned at Red Dog, jabbed her again with his stiletto, and cooed, “I could warm you with something a lot stiffer than—”
She moved.
Red Dog leaped to his feet and shouted, “Blessed Ancestors, she’s alive!”
Hunter spun too quickly, tripped over his own feet, and tumbled to the ground a handsbreadth from her feet.
Dzoo fixed Hunter with shimmering black eyes that seemed to burn out of the blackness inside her hood.
“Careful, warrior,” she said in a soft deadly voice. “Or I’ll take you with me the next time I visit the Land of the Dead.”
Hunter was so busy scrambling away in terror that he didn’t see the triumphant gaze Red Dog was giving him.
N
ight lay cold upon the tree-timbered slopes. The breeze blowing in off the ocean carried the cool moist air of a coming storm. A spotted owl hooted in the shadows, its call wavering among the dark branches of fir and hemlock.
“There’s someone out there,” Chert whispered, and tiptoed to one side of the tree he hid behind. He glanced over the brow of the low hill to examine the starlit slope. The old burn was grassed over, dotted with saplings and brambles. From his vantage, Chert could just see Ecan’s camp. Hide-wrapped warriors lay among the trees far below, their shapes dark and quiet. “Did you hear it?”
“What?” Split Head whispered as he came up behind Chert. He’d gotten his name two summers ago when a thrown war ax had glanced off his skull. A long, hairless gash marked the spot. “I don’t hear anything.”
Chert put a finger to his lips and listened. No sounds came from the enemy camp. War Chief Sleeper maintained strict rules as they shadowed Ecan’s party. They couldn’t speak above a whisper, couldn’t move about unnecessarily. Instead, they slipped along quietly, seeking some opportunity that would allow their small party to strike, to rescue Dzoo, or perhaps kill Ecan himself. To date, no such opportunity had presented itself.
Curiously shaped rock outcrops fringed Ecan’s camp. They resembled
crouching monsters. The only sound Chert could hear was his own shallow breathing.
Split Head used a bone stiletto to poke Chert’s shoulder. “What did you hear? Someone talking?”
“No, it was rocks.” He shook his head. “Or maybe gravel rolling. As though beneath a foot.”
“Pack rat?”
“Maybe, but it sounded heavier.”
“Probably a badger.”
They both stood listening for a while longer, then Split Head whispered, “I’d better return to my post on the hilltop. If you see anything? If one of the guards nods off …”
“I’ll send immediate word.” Chert watched as Split Head started back up the rocky slope.
In the past three moons Sleeper had personally killed four warriors for disobeying orders. Two of those had left their posts for brief periods.
No one argued with Sleeper’s punishments. According to the story, a sentinel had fallen asleep, and three tens of Ecan’s warriors had sneaked in, burned Deer Meadow Village to the ground, and killed scores. When Sleeper had been elected war chief, he had vowed such a thing would never happen to his people again.
Vigilance had to be maintained.
As Chert returned his attention to the camp below, he heard Split Head stumble and hissed over his shoulder, “Watch your step. All of these rocks are loose. If you—”
The impact sent Chert reeling forward. For a moment he couldn’t comprehend. Had Split Head struck him from behind? In that instant, the jarring of the impact became a violent pain that burned through his chest. He could feel the thing wiggling, vibrating inside him. When he looked down, a dark point jutted from his chest. He grasped the spearhead with his hands, feeling the slick blood. The force of his grip sent a shiver through the spear that his punctured lungs and heart could feel.
With one hand, he tried to grab on to a boulder to steady himself, missed the rock, and fell. He landed on his side with his arms flailing. Down the slope, Split Head’s body lay like a twisted bark doll.
He tried to fill his lungs to scream, but his mouth only gasped emptily for air.
Near one of the sandstone outcrops, eyes glinted: silver flashes in the starlight. A dog’s eyes? As the animal lifted its head, dark pointed ears appeared. But they didn’t twitch, didn’t move at all. Dead ears.
Then they were gone. Only the quivering of a winter-bare branch marked the presence.
An instant later, Sleeper scrambled down the slope with three men following closely behind him.
The war chief’s cape seemed to spread like protective wings as he dropped to his knees. “Where did he go, Chert? Did you see him?”
Chert’s mouth had gone as dry as dust. “Just … eyes … ears … there.” He weakly tipped his chin and whispered, “Coyote.”
Sleeper waved to the outcrop. “Crater, take Kit Fox. Go.”
The warriors scrambled in pursuit.
Chert stared at Sleeper. He’d never understood why the man had never married. He had rugged, chiseled features, and his gray temples sparkled. He’d come to Deer Meadow Village two summers ago, and many women had offered themselves to him. Matron Red Kestrel said his heart still bled over the deaths of his family, but …
“Sorry,” Chert managed to whisper before blood came bubbling up his throat, shutting off his air.
Sleeper clasped Chert’s hand in a hard warrior’s grip. “It’s not your fault. Somehow they’ve discovered us. The fault is mine.”
A warm floating sensation filled Chert. He might have been a feather, rising into the air.
Sleeper drew Chert’s hand to his chest and held it.
Chert looked at the Star People until they became fixed white dots … .
 
 
T
he storm blew down from the northwest, dull and gray. Streamers of cloud bunched against the cliffs and shredded into misty fingers that drifted through the trees. During the night snow had turned into a cold rain that whispered as it fell on Sandy Point Village. Somehow it was colder. The chill seemed to suck the heat out of the fires, and even snuggling deep into the robes didn’t help.
So it was that a shivering Rain Bear threw back his bedding, crawled over to his door, and looked out at the predawn village. Through the graying light he could make out new rivulets that ran down the trails and melted the patches of snow. A soft melody of raindrops pattered on his roof.
He turned a longing gaze on Evening Star’s small lodge. Hornet stood by her door, head bowed under a thickly greased hide.
“He looks as miserable as I feel,” Rain Bear muttered, and blew to
see his breath mist white in front of him. His chilly sleep had been haunted with the knowledge that Evening Star slept so close, yet so far away. In his half-wakened fantasy, her smooth body had molded against his. Warm and soft, she had wrapped herself around him, her legs locking behind his knees; her blue eyes burned into his. The moment his hard penis slid into her warm sheath, his loins had exploded in a tingling rush that brought him wide awake.
How long had it been since any Dream woman but Tlikit had done that to him?
Rain Bear hooked his door hanging on a peg and sank down to brace his back against the frame. Cool wind Danced with the rain, and swept patterns over the village. It brought him the scents of wet earth and conifers. People had trickled in from the trails, shouting about the atrocity at War Gods Village, for much of the night. Whimpers still seeped from a few lodges beyond the screening of trees that separated him from the rest of the village.
Today, people were in shock, overcome by grief. Tomorrow, their hearts would be kindling the fires of revenge.
He could not allow petty attacks against the North Wind People. It would keep the enemy on alert and rapidly deplete his forces. They had to save their strength, build it for one fierce blow.
Five paces away, Rides-the-Wind threw back his lodge flap and crawled out. He wore a woven spruce-root hat and cape that shed the rain. The old man shivered and walked back under the trees to relieve himself. When he tottered back, he stopped, thoughtful gaze fixed on Evening Star’s lodge. He stood a long while, just looking.
Thinking what?
Rain Bear wondered. Surely she didn’t fill the old man’s Dreams the same way she filled his. Longing grew within him as the Dream replayed in his memory. His lips still burned from the fleeting contact with her skin the night before.
Their three lodges sat in a triangle around the firepit. Rain Bear had originally selected the spot because a fifty-hand-tall cliff rose behind his lodge. He’d thought the cliff would make it harder for some sneaky North Wind warrior to creep up on him in the night. It would never have occurred to him that he might some day purposely surround himself with North Wind People.
An odd turn of events.
Rain Bear pulled his rain cape and conical hat from the pegs on the bark wall, then grabbed a handful of dry kindling from the woodpile beside his door. He used two sticks to lever a glowing coal from his fire and eased out into the morning.
Rides-the-Wind turned. His gray hair and long beard blew around his oblong face. “Are you feeling well, Chief?”
“I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“All those despairing sighs and deep exhalations … Why would they wake anyone?”
Gods! How many of his Dreams had the old man been able to interpret? Rain Bear sheepishly knelt beside the firepit and used a stick to scrape away the wet ash as he crouched over the smoldering coal. “Forgive me. I’ve been thinking about the next two days.”
“Ah, that explains it,” Rides-the-Wind murmured.
Rain Bear arranged the dry kindling over the coal and blew. It didn’t take long for the wood to catch. Flames crackled up. Rain Bear gradually added larger branches until he had enough fire to beat the drizzle.
“How many warriors did Sleeper take to track Dzoo?” Rides-the-Wind asked.
“Ten.”
“Will that be enough?”
“Ten is all we could spare, Elder. Our hands were full at War Gods Village.”
Rides-the-Wind’s expression turned somber. “Well, you will probably be able to recruit from the people who come for the Moon Ceremonial.”
“Possibly.”
I’d better.
The rain eased a little, falling in a light mist around them. Rain Bear gazed out at Mother Ocean. Through gaps in the trees he could see waves crashing upon the shore and gulls running before the surf.
The old man extended his bony hands to the flames. “People should start arriving this morning. That will give you a full day to gather forces before the Moon Ceremonial.”
“If they stay long enough, Elder. We have nothing to feed them. We sent all of our stored food to Cimmis to pay the tribute we owed. Since the refugees started pouring in, we’ve been eating half rations.”
Rain Bear wiped his wet hands on his black leggings and stood. Elder Rides-the-Wind stood a good head taller than he, but was half as wide. He resembled an ancient wind-gnarled stick with thick gray hair.
“May I offer you some advice?” Rides-the-Wind peered curiously at Rain Bear.
“Your counsel is welcome anytime, Elder.”
“Have you thought about what motivates Ecan?”
Rain Bear smiled humorlessly. “I’ve thought of little else. He seems intent upon destroying our people. Some of the things he did to the bodies of the dead before he ordered them bound to the pillars …” He shook his head. “Well, unbelievable.”
“I suspect they were no more terrible than what the Raven People did to his parents when he’d seen six summers. I understand that the sight of their bodies was most hideous. As I recall, the Raven People justified the mutilations by saying his parents were witches.”
Rain Bear’s mouth tightened. “One hurt does not heal another.”
“Yes, true, but those who are hurting rarely understand that.” Rides-the-Wind gestured to the lodges that filled the meadow. Somewhere, far out in the trees, a man wept. “Not only that, Ecan is just following orders.”
“I know.” Rain Bear bowed his head.
A gust of wind almost blew off Rides-the-Wind’s hat. He clamped it to his head, and said, “The Four Old Women can look into the future as well as you can, Rain Bear. What do you see ahead?”
“More hatred.”
“Perhaps they do, too. Perhaps they think if they can make you fear them enough, hate them enough, you will hesitate to strike out at North Wind villages. Brutality now might win them some breathing space.”
Rain Bear blinked against the rain. “Do you believe that?”
Rides-the-Wind gazed at the fir branches that dipped and swayed. “I believe we are all one, Rain Bear. Your life, the lives of tens of creatures unseen, living beneath the rocks, or in the highest treetops, is One Life. When we kill the other, we kill ourselves. There is only Life.”

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