People of the Raven (North America's Forgotten Past) (23 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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“
A
re you afraid?
”
I listen to the seagulls crying on the river bank. There must be ten tens of them perched on the wind-smoothed rocks around us. Occasionally, they get into fights. One squeals and another flaps. Tomorrow, the children will run along the bank, searching for feathers and wisps of down to sew onto their clothing.
“No,” I say. “I’m not afraid.”
The old Soul Keeper shifts, as though that is the wrong answer, as though standing on the edge of Death, I should be afraid. “Fear is good, Chief. Don’t shy away from it.”
“Courage is better,” I whisper.
I was a war chief for many summers. I have seen men lying prostrate on the battlefield, wounded and dying, screaming in fear. They terrified everyone around them. I have also seen men and women who did not cry out. Warriors in the truest sense, boldly standing up to Death, pulling it into them like a lover. They gave their friends strength.
I long for that kind of bravery.
It will not be easy to attain. My injuries are severe. The pain is already beyond imagining. Every time I breathe, broken fragments of rib restrict my lungs. I’m suffocating, slowly but surely.
“Do not crave courage so desperately,” he says. “It is only when we are frightened that the gods know we love them.”
I wheeze as I cautiously take a breath. “You tie fear and love together … like the severed ends of a grass cord.”
“The cord was never severed.”
I wonder about that. “Opposite ends, then.”
“If you like.”
“Any god,” I say defiantly, “who requires that I feel … fear … to know that I love him … is cruel … A vindictive child masquerading as a god.”
“Is he?” he whispers, and I catch him looking up at the cottonwoods where eagles float as though weightless. “If a dying man cries out for mercy—should he hate the gods for making him cry out? Or thank them?”
“That depends upon whether or not … they grant him mercy.”
He expels an annoyed breath. “Seeking mercy is always good.”
“Like fear?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because men who do not seek mercy have no need of gods.”
“My point exactly.”
He leans over me, pulls the blanket up to cover my throat, and says, “They do not need gods, because they believe they
are
gods.”
T
hat morning Hunter was on guard duty. He reached for another crab claw and sat back to watch the sun rise above the mountains. It shot rays of light like beams across the chilly winter sky. From his position on the hill above Wasp Village, he could look out across the round bark lodges to Mother Ocean. The water had just started to turn a pale pink. The waves glistened like the insides of abalone shells. He watched a procession of canoes crest the lazy breakers as fishermen paddled out in the endless quest for fish and sea mammals.
Several small Raven People villages had located in the fertile valley, and shrines, studded with their Spirit Boards, perched on every hilltop. Dark lines of worshippers encircled them, waiting to offer their morning prayers to Raven.
In contrast he could hear Wasp Village’s Starwatcher, her voice wavering as she stood beside Ecan and Sang the story of Old Woman Above. The morning ceremonies were a reminder of the differences between the people.
How could the Raven People have gotten it so wrong? Everyone knew that Old Woman Above carried the sun across the sky on her back. But somehow, the story had begun to circulate that instead, Raven had stolen the sun from a box in Old Woman Above’s house and that he
flew
it across the sky each day. Nonsense!
He cracked the crab claw with his teeth and sucked the sweet meat out. While he chewed it, he smiled at the impossibility. Below him, in Wasp Village, the children had picked up the Song:
Old Woman Above lives in the sky with her granddaughter. Her granddaughter. Her granddaughter.
Every morning she leaves her house carrying the sun in a basket. A basket. A basket.
She comes home late at night with a backache. A backache. A bad backache.
Her granddaughter rubs it with duck oil. Duck oil. Duck oil.
But the oil is almost used up. Up. Up.
When it runs out Old Woman Above will die. Die. Die.
The world would come to an end. End, end, end.
The last words were called quickly, like a drumbeat.
Hunter chuckled. Some people worried about such curious things: the End of the World? He was far more concerned with where his next meal was coming from.
He sucked another crab claw and chewed the meat with his eyes closed. Delicious. The crabs had been boiled with ferns and had a wonderful tang. The matron of Wasp Village, Round Hoof, had truly seen to the comfort of Ecan’s warriors. Hunter had slept in a lodge, on a soft stack of hides. Then, before dawn, slaves had delivered a basket of crabs and a big bowl of boiled seal. Both had tasted especially good after the long days on the war trail.
A group of young women walked out of one of the lodges carrying baskets. Their laughter rode the breeze as they fell into line and marched happily toward the central plaza fire.
The shape of Wasp Village was dictated by the long ridge on which it sat. The plaza lay between two lines of lodges that seemed to clutch the rocky ridgetop where it jutted out in a small peninsula. Trails led down the steep slopes to the wave-scrubbed rock and then to the beach.
He fingered his chin as he chewed. Rumors were circulating that the Council wanted to move the North Wind elders here, that they wanted to abandon Fire Village for the more defensible Wasp Village.
“They’re crazy,” he muttered. Sure, Wasp Village was easier to defend. Any approach by land was restricted to the ridge’s narrow neck. And the steep trails leading down to the beach could be held
by a handful of warriors. Assuming, of course, that Wasp Village had any warning of approaching danger.
To his left, more lodges—quarters for the slaves—sat atop a low bluff. They had shaded from blue to salmon with the dawn. Slaves climbed up the hill from the spring with water-filled bladders propped on their hips.
Hunter finished his crabs and wiped his hands on grease-streaked buckskin leggings.
Ecan, having finished the morning ceremonies, stood beside Matron Round Hoof outside her lodge. As always, he looked regal. He’d pulled his hair away from his face and coiled it into a bun at the back of his head. The style accentuated the sharp angles of his handsome face. He waved his hands emphatically, and even across the distance Hunter could see her expression of distaste.
Hunter laughed. Round Hoof had a fuzz of white hair clinging to her age-spotted scalp and a nose like a squashed beetle. In all the time he’d known her, he’d never seen her smile. She always wore a dour, vaguely threatening expression. The more Ecan talked, the more Round Hoof scowled. If only she would—
“Hunter?” a voice called.
He turned to see skinny Thunder Boy climbing the hill. The youth had an odd, melon-shaped skull and wasn’t known for being particularly intelligent. His shoulder-length black hair flopped around his chin.
“What is it?”
Thunder Boy trotted toward him. “Deer Killer wants you to come immediately.”
“Deer Killer?” Hunter rose and quickly strode down the hill. “He’s supposed to be keeping an eye on the witch.”
Thunder Boy said, “He sent me to get you. Something’s wrong with Dzoo.”
“What?”
Thunder Boy gave him a blank look. “I don’t know.”
“Go tell Wind Scorpion. He’s supposed to be in charge.”
“He’s not around.”
“He’s never around! The coward.”
Hunter picked up his weapons and followed Thunder Boy down through the trees to the village. It had been such a nice, peaceful morning. Now the breakfast he’d so enjoyed churned in his stomach as he hurried toward the lodge where they’d imprisoned Dzoo.
Ecan, with his guard, Black Stone, behind him, was still arguing
with Round Hoof. The Starwatcher shifted to study him. Hunter tried to act nonchalant, but Ecan seemed to sense something amiss. The Starwatcher’s gaze might have been a physical thing as it burned through Hunter’s back.
Dzoo’s lodge sat on the farthest point above where rolling surf crashed on black rocks. From this height, Hunter could see a scalloped line of sea foam and glittering shells that marked the night’s high tide.
“Thunder Boy? Guards are supposed to be standing outside her lodge. Where’s Deer Killer?”
“Inside, I think.”
“Inside?” Ecan had threatened to roast Hunter’s liver if any of his warriors so much as laid a finger on the woman. He’d figured that ordering them to stay outside would alleviate some of their natural male desires. What they didn’t have to stare at, they couldn’t want.
Hunter stalked to the door. “Deer Killer?”
A pathetic voice answered, “In here, Hunter.”
Hunter ducked beneath the flap and had to push himself between five warriors crowded near the door. One held a guttering torch that cast a dim light over the dark interior. Deer Killer looked like a whipped puppy. Meeting Hunter’s eyes he swallowed hard.
With a glance, Hunter reassured himself that the figure standing in the back was Dzoo. Her clothes were still on, she was obviously alive, so why was Deer Hunter looking as if his guts had gone to water? “Is there a problem?”
The other warriors faded away—except Deer Killer, who stood with his jaw clenched and his spear clutched in a death grip. Damp strands of long black hair framed his thin face.
“Hunter”—he wet his lips—“I don’t know how this could have happened. I swear we have been here every moment! No one passed us!”
“What’s wrong?”
Deer Killer gestured toward the far side of the lodge. “See for yourself.”
Hunter shoved him out of the way. “Give me that torch.”
Deer Killer pulled it away from the man who held it and thrust it into Hunter’s hand.
In the flickering light Dzoo had her head tipped back, as though studying something on the domed roof. Her long red braid hung down the back of her rumpled dress. In the torch’s glean, her beautiful face looked eerie, inhuman, as though carved from translucent chalcedony.
“Witch?” Hunter lifted the torch higher. To his right, he saw her pack and cape, and a small bowl sitting on the floor.
She turned so slowly it was hard to see her move. Then she whispered in sibilant and totally incomprehensible words.
“Witch, I don’t understand. If that’s the language of the Striped Dart People, I don’t know it. Speak to me like a human being!”
Her black gaze drifted aimlessly over the bare walls, then came to rest on Hunter. As her gaze sucked at his, he swore his heart tried to scramble out of his chest.
Deer Killer whispered, “I give you my oath, Hunter, I did not abandon my post, not even for an instant!”
Hunter swung around. “I don’t see the problem. Dzoo’s here, she’s alive, and—”
“Her
ropes
, Hunter. They’re gone!”
Hunter whirled to look. He hadn’t even noticed. He’d bound her himself, but she stood with her hands free at her sides. Bloody wounds encircled her ankles and wrists.
“Who untied her?” Hunter demanded.
Deer Killer shook his head, and the warriors behind him began to mutter, “Not me.” “I didn’t do it.” “I wouldn’t touch her for all the—”
Deer Killer said, “I stood right here all night!”
“You stupid fool!” Hunter gestured to two of the milling warriors. “Get in there and retie her. Do it right!”
“But, Hunter, she’s a witch. What if she uses her Powers to change me into a woman, or a wolf spider or—”
“Get over there, or by the Blessed Ones, you’ll rue the day you were made a man!” Hunter stuffed the torch into Thunder Boy’s hand. “Go on!”
Deer Killer edged across the lodge as though walking through a sea of rattlesnakes.
Hunter muttered, “I tied her up like I’ve never tied anyone before. I pulled the ropes so tightly her ankles and wrists bled. Then I used a third rope to tie her ankles and wrists together behind her back. She was trussed up like a dog over a spit! If she got loose, it was because you were as negligent as a—What’s the matter?”
Deer Killer looked around the bare beaten floor. “Where are the ropes?”
Hunter’s brows lowered. “They must be here. Where else could they be?”
“I tell you, there are no ropes here. And I don’t see any loose dirt where she might have buried them.”
One of the warriors snickered, and Hunter glared at him. “The
rest of you, go gather your things! We will be on the road to Fire Village shortly.”
Hunter turned back to glare at Deer Killer. “Am I the only one here with wits? Give me that torch!”
Thunder Boy held it out in a trembling fist.
Hunter tugged it away. “I’m surrounded by idiots!”
“She hasn’t blinked since we got here,” Deer Killer said. “I’ve heard people say she looks into that bowl to send her souls flying.”
“Just find the ropes!” Hunter walked across the lodge, hit her pack with a fist, then lifted and threw her buffalo cape against the wall. Finally, he leaned over the bowl. He froze when he saw someone looking back, then realized it was his own reflection. He dumped it out onto the dirt. “It’s just water, you brainless rabbit.”
“But …” Deer Killer cautiously looked around. “Where are the ropes? If she just untied herself and took a drink from that bowl, where—”
“Have you considered that she might have stuffed them into her clothes?” Hunter bravely stalked over to stand in front of Dzoo. He looked her over carefully, trying to see a bulge beneath her dress where she might have hidden them.
“Find them,” Hunter said. “She might use them to strangle you the next time you sleep through your duty.” He motioned. “Search her.”
Deer Killer hesitated. “Me? Search her? A witch? What if she … she …”
“What’s going on?”
Ecan’s deep voice called from beyond the lodge flap. The white hem of Ecan’s cape brushed the sand like gossamer wings as he ducked through the door. A faint hissing filled the air as he came forward. Wind Scorpion, returned from wherever he had been, walked behind him, his pinched expression reminding Hunter of a starved fox’s.

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