Red Moon Rising (13 page)

20

TEMPLE CHATTERS WITH THE OTHER
children around the fire. She speaks Cheese with them so naturally that you would never guess it's not her native language. Her hair has started to take on a more natural red look, I don't know how. Maybe it is absorbing the mud and dirt her Cheese people keep caked on her head.

“Tootie!” she yells, running to me in a whirl of hair and wind. Her dress is made from dactyl skin—it is a beautiful yellow that makes her blue eyes appear startlingly bright. I still wear the fabric pants from my first day. They are growing short on me and are so threadbare and grotty they will probably be ripped off my body with the next strong gust from Mara.

Temple hugs me tightly. We do not see each other
often, but tonight the whole village is gathering for a feast. This happens every so often. I think it is like a town meeting. The Cheese give updates on projects they're working on, air their grievances, that kind of thing. There is always plentiful food, and Temple and I have an evening to speak of our days and how we are doing.

She grins up at me and I see yet another sharpened tooth. “You haven't moved on to people yet, have you?” I ask her.

Her head tilts, mimicking the movement of many of the Cheese when they do not understand what I'm trying to say.

“
Naa owa'a
 . . . uh”—I point to myself—“
ke'ekutaat
.” Invaders. Temple pretends again that she can't understand me. We have been together only two minutes and I am already irritated with her.

“Temple,” I say. “Stop this. You understand my words. Explain your tooth.” I tap gently on her mouth. “Four sharpened teeth?”

Temple rolls her eyes and I fill with relief. There she is. There is my sister. “My name is Kalashava. Or you can call me Kaye as my people do.”

I feel less relief now.

“I am quite good with the bow, Tootie,” Temple con­tinues with a grin. “I have advanced past all the children my age. My people say I shall be a fine warrior. Even a raider if I want.”

I choke on the seeds I'm eating. “A raider? Temple.
You can't be serious. You are not even ten summers.”

Her mouth forms a thin line. “Why wouldn't I be serious about that, Rae?” She shakes her head and scowls. “I mean, Mayrikafsa,” she says. I have flustered her with my anger. Good.

“Tootie.”
She draws out the “Tootie,” as if she is Natka, taunting me. “Why shall I be a young warrior? A
Kihuutkafsa
? Because I am a strong fighter. I have the best aim of anyone in this village. I will not just go on raids one day. I will lead them.” She lifts her upper lip in a Cheese snarl, showing off two of her sharpened teeth. In that moment—in the evening light of the Red Crescent—she looks vicious. I barely recognize her. Who is this small, boastful girl, speaking in such a thick Cheese accent, her human language coming in stops and starts?

“And I have not been killing
people
, Tootie,” she says, stepping back from me, putting her hands on her hips. “Not yet, anyway.” She smiles again and runs off to where the other children her age are playing.

My heart stills in my chest. Surely she was joking—giving me a difficult time for still acting as her protector when she is growing so strong. Surely.

I am shaken by the encounter throughout the entire evening, paying no attention to what the Cheese are saying. Klara leads the Kihuut in chants and songs and reenactments of raids. She renders justice upon those who need it. There is even a moment when Klara breaks up a fight
between two of the men, but I miss what the fight is about.

Natka sits next to me on the rock bench and offers a handful of hashava fruit. I take it from him and mutter a quick thanks.

“Your head is in the clouds tonight, Tootie,” he says. “You offer no insult to me? This make me
gagagaga
like a
kakee
.” He pretends to cry like a baby, then shoves me hard in the shoulder. It is a joke that reminds me of Rory. Kamino. I offer him a half smile and he seems pleased with this, taking a few of the hashava fruit from my hand and popping them into his mouth one by one as if it is a game.

Natka's stump is bandaged lightly, and no longer bound to his chest. I have seen him walking to the healer woman's cave often. Her poultices must be very effective, because he seems healthier than he has ever been—he is still impressively strong, even with only one good arm.

“The arm is doing well?” I ask after a moment. He tilts his head in that Cheese way and I look to the sky, trying to find the right words. “
Lomtar
,” I say, pointing to the bandage. “
Ooma?
Okay?”

Natka nods. “
Ja.
My
lomtar
is oh-kaye.” He smiles. I notice for the first time that he has the same number of sharpened teeth that Temple does.

“When will they let you ride again?” I ask, my eyes on my battered boots. “Suu must miss you.”

Natka's voice lowers. “This thing that happen. This thing you cause”—and here he shoves my thigh with one
of his pointed claw-nails, scratching me lightly—“it never happen before.
Kaykani
 . . . they all
loota
.”

I scrunch up my forehead, not understanding his words. “The breakfast biscuits are bathing,” I say. “Of course.”

Natka snuffles out a laugh. “Not
kayKI lootAR
, you
ro-ri-ta
gum human.
KayKANI looTA
.”

It is my turn to laugh. “You said ‘gum'! Ha ha! I shall slowly conquer the Cheese with my human swearing!”

Natka scratches at the bandage. “They not know what to do,” he says, his voice growing serious.

“New rules,” I say. “
Loota kaykani.
That's what you were saying. They are having to make new rules because of what has happened?”

Natka sighs and looks to the stars. “Is because I did not fail test, but also did not succeed. I defied Ebibi,” he says, giving me a sharp look, and quickly touching his chest and closing his eyes. He opens them and stares hard at me. “But was not my fault.”

“Do they seek to punish me?” I ask. Other than the sharp hit to my face that knocked me out, Fist has not come to me with any punishment. I was allowed back in the cave several days after the incident and no one has spoken of it since. This continues to surprise me, but certainly I will not seek out punishment. I am not that much of a gum
ro-ri-ta
human.

Natka shakes his head. “They decide Ebibi willed it. Is . . . out of their control.”

I nod, happy for the confirmation that I will not be
dragged from my bed and fed to the
Kwihuutsuu
as punishment for being a vile rule breaker.

“I know what they think, though,” Natka says, pulling tight at his horsetail with his good hand, his mouth going rigid. “They think I never be warrior. Never
Kihuutkafsa
.”

A wave of guilt strikes me nearly as hard as Fist's open hand. By saving Natka's life I may well have ruined it. Will he be relegated to work with dregs like the scheming Ben-ton? Surely not. But what
will
he do? If Temple has already four teeth sharpened, she will overtake him when her age allows.

I run my tongue over my smooth teeth, wondering about all the training I've had, and how I have never once shot an arrow at anything other than a rock, or at Fist—but only when he forced me. They are training me to be skilled, to have stamina, to fight, but not to kill. They have given me a name that ends with
kafsa
, but why? And what does
Mayri
mean? I have been too afraid to ask.

I push these questions from my mind. I will worry about them later. Now I must do something to help Natka. His life must not be ruined because of a classic Rae mistake. A thought strikes me. It is crazy. And it, too, might be another trouble-causing, Rae-tries-to-solve-a-problem-by-creating-worse-problems idea. But it gnaws at me, climbing through my head, branching out into my brain like shine tree poison. I do not hear what Natka says, as this poison of an idea invades every thought.

“Natka!” I say, jumping up. “Let us make up their minds for them.”

He looks at me as if I have a prairie beetle climbing from my nose.

“I need materials,” I say. “Metals, wire, cutters, fabric. Do you have these things somewhere in the village?”

Natka squints, working out my words. “Come with me,” he says. I follow him away from the fire and to the edge of the village. The other Cheese are eating and merry­making as Klara speaks and no one misses us as we move away from the crowds. After several minutes of walking, we stand in front of the healer woman's cave.

I shake my head. “I am not looking for poultices, Natka.”

“
Naa
,” he says, rattling the beaded curtain that hangs over the cave entrance—a curtain that looks to be made of night beetle carapaces. “Wantosakaal will have these . . . things . . . you need.”

She appears then, poking her face through the beads, a puff of smoke around her head. She says something to Natka in a low scratchy voice that I do not understand. He shakes his head, points to me, and says something back. She nods once and holds the curtains aside for us.

I follow Natka into the cave. It looks different from the last time I was here. Bigger, and yet filled with more mysteries; details I missed in my panic of that night that seems so long ago. There are pots boiling over a fire in the front of the cave, the smoke stretching its fingers through the
opening and stinging my eyes. Variations of scrub hang upside down, drying over the fire, and also in other places around the cave. Aunt Billie would feel very at home in this cave. I realize with a start, I feel very comfortable, too.

Clay jars fill almost every space on several tables and the large stone table is still in the center, scrubbed clean, showing no trace of Natka's blood, which flowed so freely several weeks ago.

“Show her,” Natka says, indicating I should use my hands. “She will try to find what you need.”

So I do. I run through a list of all the things I'm looking for and the tools I think I will need. I pantomime, and say the few Cheese words I know to describe them. The healer woman nods or shakes her head each time, and leads me to a small alcove in the back of the cave. She rummages through piles and boxes, producing the objects I've asked for one by one.

As my eyes grow wider, Natka laughs. “Wantosakaal has many, many, many summers, Tootie. She knows all and has all.”

Wantosakaal chatters in her prairie beetle voice and Natka laughs, throwing his head back, his snickers climbing all the way to the ceiling and down again.

“What?” I say.

“She say everyone think Klarakova is leader of Kihuut peoples, but really it is Wantosakaal.”

I smile. It is just like home. That causes a pang deep inside me and I try to shake it off. Everyone in Origin
Township knew that Papa was the Sheriff Reverend, but they also knew if someone was sick or injured or needed a tincture for some ailment or other, or even a special seed for a difficult-to-grow plant, Aunt Billie would have it, or make it, or do her best to find it. She would be grouchy about it, but she would have it, even old medicines scavenged from the
Origin
. Papa keeps the township safe and blessed, but Aunt Billie keeps it alive.

I swallow hard, and gather the supplies in my arms. I lay them out on the table and study them. This is not going to be easy, but I remember Aunt Billie teaching guest lessons at the schoolhouse. She told us of Old Earth and the almost magical answers they had for the maladies of their people. She said we could not replicate these answers because so much had been destroyed on the
Origin
. But we still have books and stories and maybe one day we will be able to make our own similar technology.

I gently pull Natka down to sit beside me, and place his stump on the table. I measure and trace and then when he retreats back to the shadows to watch I begin to cut and sew and saw and burn and I work through the night, sweating in the damp heat of the cave, everything dropping away as my vision comes to life before me.