Shaman's Crossing (8 page)

My father did not touch me as he bade me farewell. His paternal gaze reassured me even as he told me, “Make me proud of you, son.” Then he mounted Steelshanks and led Sirlofty away. He rode away along a gentler path than we had come by, out of consideration for the women who followed him in their high-wheeled cart. I was left standing beside the Kidona with no more than the clothes on my back. I wanted to gaze after them, to see if Sergeant Duril abandoned his watch post and followed them, but I dared not. For all the times I had resented the sergeant’s eagle-eyed supervision, that day I longed for a guardian to be looking down on me. Dewara held my gaze, measuring me with his steely gray eyes. After what seemed a long time, for the sound of departing hoofbeats and wheels had faded, he pursed his lips and spoke to me, “You ride good?”

He spoke broken Gernian. I replied in my equally awkward Jindobe, “My father taught me to ride.”

Dewara snorted disdainfully, and again spoke to me in Gernian. “Your father show you, sit on saddle. I teach you, ride on
taldi
. Get on.” He pointed at the three creatures. As if they knew we spoke of them, they all lifted their heads and gazed at us. Every single one laid its ears back in displeasure.

“Which
taldi
?” I asked in Jindobe.

“You choose, soldier’s boy. I teach you to talk, too, I think.” This last comment he delivered in the trade language. I wondered if I had gained any ground with him by trying to use the trade language. It was impossible to tell from his implacable face.

I chose the mare, thinking she would be the most tractable of the three beasts. She would not let me approach her until I seized her picket line and forced her to stand. The closer I got to them, the more obvious it became to me that these were not true horses, but some similar beast. The female did not whinny, but squealed in protest, a sound that did not seem horselike at all to me. She bit me twice while I was mounting, once on the arm and once on my leg as I swung onto her. Her dull teeth didn’t break the skin but I knew the bruises would be deep and lasting. She snorted, plunged, and then wheeled in the midst of my mounting her. With difficulty, I managed to get a seat on her. She turned her head to snap at me again and I moved my leg out of reach. As I did so, she wheeled again, and I felt sure she was deliberately trying to unseat me. I gripped her firmly with my legs and made no sound. She plunged twice more but I stayed on her. I tried to ignore her bad manners, for I did not know how Dewara would react to me disciplining one of his mounts.

“Keeksha!” Dewara exclaimed, and she abruptly quieted. I did not relax. Her belly was round and her hide was slick. The only harness she wore was a hackamore. I had ridden bareback before, but not on a creature shaped like her.

Dewara gave a grudging nod. Then he said, “Her name is Keeksha. You tell her name before you get on, she knows obey you. You don’t tell name, she knows you are not allowed. All my horses are so. This way.” He turned to one of the other taldi. “Dedem. Stand.”

The beast he spoke to put his ears forward and came to meet Dewara. The Plainsman mounted the round-bellied stallion casually. “Follow,” he said, and slapped his animal on the rump. Dedem surged forward, leaping out in an instant gallop. I stared in surprise, and then copied him, giving Keeksha a slap that set her in motion.

For a time, all I could do was cling to Keeksha’s mane. I jolted and flopped about on her back like a rag doll tied to a dog’s tail. Every time one of her hooves struck the ground, my spine was jolted in a different direction. Twice I was sure I was going to hit the ground, but the mare knew her business better than I did. She seemed to shrug herself back under me. The second time she did it, I abruptly decided to trust her. I shifted my weight and my legs, swaying into her stride, and suddenly we moved as one creature. She surged forward and I felt that we almost doubled our speed. Dewara had been dwindling in the distance, headed away from the river and into the wastelands that bordered my father’s holding. The land rose there, the rocky hillsides cut by steep-sided gullies prone to sudden flooding during storms. Wind and rain had carved that place. Spindly bushes with gray-green leaves grew from cracks in the rocks carpeted with dull purple lichen. The hooves of his mount cut into the dry earth and left dust hanging in the air for me to breathe. Dewara kept his horse at a dead run across country where I never would have risked Sirlofty. I followed him, sure that soon he must rein in his mount and let the animal breathe, but he did not.

My little mare steadily gained on them. As we entered rougher country, climbing toward the plateaus of the region, it was harder to keep them in constant view. Hollows and mounds rumpled the plain like a rucked blanket. I suspected he was deliberately trying to lose me, and set my teeth, resolved that he would not. I well knew that one misplaced step could break both our necks, but I made no effort to pull Keeksha in, and although her sides heaved with her effort, she did not slow on her own. She followed the stallion’s lead. Her rolling gait ate up the miles.

We were climbing, in the almost imperceptible way of the Plains. We emerged onto the plateau country. The flats gave way to tall outcroppings of red or white rock in the distance. Scattered trees, stunted and twisted by the constant wind and the erratic rains, offered clues to watercourses long dry. We passed a disconnected towering upthrust of crumbling stone like rotted teeth in a skull’s jaw or the worn turrets of the wind’s castle. Hoodoos, my father called them. He’d told me that some of the Plainspeople said they were chimneys for the underworld of their beliefs. Dewara rode on. I was parched with thirst and all of me was coated with dust when we finally topped a small rise and I saw Dewara and his taldi waiting for us. The Plainsman stood beside his mount. I rode Keeksha down and halted before him. I was grateful to slide from her sweaty back. The mare moved three steps away from me and then dropped to her knees. Horrified, I thought I had foundered the beast, but she merely rolled over onto her back and scratched herself luxuriously on the short, prickly grass that grew in the depression. I thought longingly of my water skin, still slung on Sirlofty’s saddle. Useless to wish for it now.

If Dewara was surprised that I had caught up with him, he gave no sign of it. He said nothing at all until I cautiously asked, “What are we going to do now?”

“We are here,” was all he replied.

I glanced about and saw nothing to recommend “here” over any other arid hollow in the Plains. “Should I tend to the horses?” I asked. I knew that if I had been riding Sirlofty, my father’s first admonition would be to look after my mount. “A horse soldier without his horse is an inexperienced foot soldier,” he’d told me often enough. But Dewara just wet his lips with his tongue and then casually spat to one side. I recognized that he had insulted me, but held myself silent.

“Taldi were taldi long before men rode on them,” he observed disdainfully. “Let them tend to themselves.” His expression implied I was something of a weakling to have been concerned for them.

But the Kidona animals did seem well able to care for themselves. After her scratch, Keeksha heaved herself to her feet and joined Dedem in grazing on the coarse grass. Neither seemed any the worse for their long gallop. Had I put Sirlofty through a similar run, I would have walked him to cool him off and then rubbed him down thoroughly and given him water at careful intervals. The Kidona taldi seemed content with their rough forage and the grit they had rubbed into their wet coats. “The animals have no water. Neither do I,” I told Dewara after a time.

“They won’t die without it. Not today.” He gave me a measuring look. “And neither will you, soldier’s boy.” Coldly he added, “Don’t talk. You don’t need to talk. You are with me to listen.”

I started to speak again, but a brusque gesture from him quieted me. An instant later, I recalled his earlier warnings about what he would do if I disobeyed. I sealed my dry lips and, for lack of anywhere to perch, hunkered down on the bare earth. Dewara seemed to be intently listening. He bellied quietly up the side of our hollow, not so far that his head would show over the lip of it, and lay flat there. He closed his eyes and was so still that, except for his intent expression, I would have thought him sleeping. His intensity warned me to keep still in body as well as voice. After a time, he sat up slowly and turned to me. He gave me a very self-satisfied smile; the row of pointed white teeth in his mouth was a bit unnerving. “He is lost,” he said.

“Who?” I asked, bewildered.

“Your father’s man. Set to watch over you, I think.” His smile was cruel. I think he waited for an expression of dismay from me.

Instead, I was puzzled. Sergeant Duril? Would my father have commanded him to watch over me? Would Duril have done it on his own? Some of my doubts must have shown on my face because Dewara’s look became more considering. He came to his feet and walked slowly down the sloping bank toward me “You are mine now. The student pays best attention when his life depends on it. Is it so?”

“Yes,” I replied, feeling certain it was true. I wondered uneasily what he intended.

For a long time it seemed he intended nothing at all. He hunkered down on his heels not far from me. The taldi grazed on the dry forage. The only sounds were the wind blowing over the plain and the occasional crunch of a hoof as the animals shifted and the ceaseless chirring of small insects. In the hollow, the air was still, as if the plain cupped us in the palm of its hand. Dewara seemed to be waiting, but I had no idea for what. I felt I had no choice save to emulate him and wait also. I folded my legs and sat on the hard ground, my face and eyelashes still thick with the fine dust from our ride, and tried to ignore my thirst. He stared at me. From time to time I met his eyes, but mostly I studied the fine pebbles on the dirt in front of me or gazed at the surrounding terrain. The shadows grew shorter and then began to lengthen again. He stood, stretched, and walked over to his mount. “Come,” he said to me.

I followed him. The mare sidled away until I said, “Keeksha. Stand.” Then she came to me and waited for me to mount. Dewara hadn’t waited for us, but at least this time he was walking Dedem instead of galloping away. For a time we trailed him, and then he irritably motioned me to move up and ride beside him. I thought he would want to talk, but that was not it. I suspect he simply didn’t like having someone at his back.

We rode on through the rest of the afternoon. I thought he was taking us to water or a better camping site, but when we halted, I saw nothing to recommend the spot. At least our previous stopping place had offered us shelter from the relentless wind. Here, outcroppings of reddish rock nudged up out of the scant soil. Released, the ponies dispiritedly went to browse on some leathery-leaved shrubs. They, too, seemed to think little of Dewara’s choice of a stopping place. I turned in a slow circle, surveying the surrounding terrain. Most of what I could see was very similar to what was right at my feet. Dewara had sat down, his back propped against one of the large rocks.

“Should I gather brush for a fire?” I asked him.

“I have no need of a fire. And you have no need to talk.”

That was our evening’s conversation. He sat, his back against the rock, while the shadows lengthened and the night flowed slowly across the land. There was no moon that night and the distant stars sparkled ineffectually against the black sky. When it became apparent that Dewara was not moving from where he sat, I found a place where a ledge of rock jutted up from the sand. I scratched out a hollow in the sand beside it, a place big enough for me to lie with my back against the rock, mostly for the warmth that it would hold after the sun went down. I lay down, cushioned my head with my hat, and crossed my arms on my chest. For a time I listened to the wind, the horses, and the insects.

I woke twice in the night. The first time, I had dreamed of smoked meat so vividly that I could still smell it. The second time it was because I was shivering. I shouldered deeper into my hollow, for there was little else I could do. I wondered exactly what I was supposed to be learning, and then fell asleep again.

Before dawn, sleep vanished and I opened my eyes to lucid awareness. I was chilled, hungry, and thirsty, yet none of those things had awakened me. Without moving my head, I shifted my eyes. Dewara had awakened and was standing near his rock, a blacker shadowing against the steel gray sky. As I watched, he took another stealthy step toward me. I lowered my eyelids, keeping them only a slit open, wondering if his sight was keen enough to know I was awake. Another step closer. The man could flow like a snake on a dune.

I weighed my options. If I lay still and feigned sleep, I would have the element of surprise on my side. If I lay still and feigned sleep, he would have the element of being above me with his feet under him and his swanneck at his hand. I mentally tested all my muscles, and then came smoothly to my feet. Dewara halted where he stood. His expression was guileless. I kept mine as smooth. I bowed my head to my left shoulder and greeted him with, “It’s nearly morning.”

My voice came out as a croak. I cleared my dry throat and added, “Will we find water today?”

He fluttered his hands, a Plainsman’s equivalent of a shrug. “Who can say? That is with the spirits.”

It would have been a silent blasphemy and a coward’s choice to let his words stand alone. “The good god may have mercy on us,” I replied.

“Your good god lives up beyond the stars,” he replied disdainfully. “My spirits are here, in the land.”

“My good god watches over me and protects me from harm,” I countered.

He gave me a withering glance. “Your good god must be very bored, soldier’s boy.”

I took a breath. I did not wish to argue theology with a savage. I decided that the insult was to me, for having a boring life, rather than to the good god. I could let it pass, if I chose to do so. I said nothing, and after a long pause Dewara cleared his throat. “There is no reason to stay here,” he said. “It’s light enough to ride.”

I had seen no reason to be there at all, but again, I smothered my opinion. I had been riding since I was a small child, but I ached in unexpected muscles from his beast’s odd shape. Nevertheless, I dutifully mounted up and followed him, still wondering what it was this man was supposed to be teaching me. I worried that my father was getting a very poor exchange for his trade goods.