Soul Catcher (4 page)

Softly, Katsuk bent close, whispered: “Don’t
waken the others. Get up and come with me. I have something special
for you. Quiet now.”

Hesitant thoughts fleeing through the boy’s
mind could be felt under Katsuk’s hand. Once more, Katsuk
whispered, letting his words flow through his spirit powers: “I
must make you my spirit brother because of the photographs.” Then:
“I have your clothes. I’ll wait in the hall.”

He felt the words take effect, removed his
hand from the boy’s mouth. Tension subsided.

Katsuk went into the hallway. Presently, the
boy joined him, a thin figure whose shorts gleamed whitely in the
gloom. Katsuk thrust the clothing into his hands, led the way
outside, waiting for the boy at the door, then closing it
softly.

Grandfather, I do this for you!

***

Fragment of a note by Charles Hobuhet found
at Cedar Cabin:

Hoquat, I give you what you prayed for, this
good arrow made clean and straight by my hands. When I give you
this arrow, please hold it in your body with pride. Let this arrow
take you to the land of Alkuntam. Our brothers will welcome you
there, saying: “What a beautiful youth has come to us! What a
beautiful hoquat!” They will say to one another: “How strong he is,
this beautiful hoquat who carries the arrow of Katsuk in his
flesh.” And you will be proud when you hear them speak of your
greatness and your beauty. Do not run away, hoquat. Come toward my
good arrow. Accept it. Our brothers will sing of this. I will cover
your body with white feathers from the breasts of ducks. Our
maidens will sing your beauty. This is what you have prayed for
from one end of the world to the other every day of your life. I,
Katsuk, give you your wish because I have become Soul Catcher.

***

David, his mind still drugged with sleep,
came wide awake as he stepped out the door into the cold night.
Shivering, he stared at the man who had awakened him—
the
Chief
.

“What is it, Chief?”

“Shhhh.” Katsuk touched the roll of
clothing. “Get dressed.”

More from the cold than any other reason,
David obeyed. Tree branches whipped in the wind above the cabin,
filled the night with fearful shapes.

“Is it an initiation, Chief?”

“Shhh, be very quiet.”

“Why?”

“We were photographed together. We must
become spirit brothers. There is a ceremony.”

“What about the other guys?”

“You have been chosen.”

Katsuk fought down sudden pity for this boy,
this Innocent.
Why pity anyone?
He realised the moonlight
had cut at his heart. For some reason, it made him think of the
Shaker Church where his relatives had taken him as a child—hoquat
church! He heard the voices chanting in his memory:
“Begat,
begat, begat ...”

David whispered: “I don’t understand.
What’re we doing?”

The stars staring down at him, the wind in
the trees, all carried forboding. He felt frightened. A gap in the
trees beyond the porch revealed a great bush of stars standing out
against the night. David stared into the shadows of the porch. Why
wasn’t the Chief answering?

David tightened his belt, felt the knife in
its sheath at his waist. If the Chief were planning something bad,
he’d have removed the knife. That was a real weapon. Daniel Boone
had killed a bear with a blade no bigger than this one. “What’re we
going to do?” David pressed.

“A ceremony of spirit brotherhood,” Katsuk
said. He felt the truth in his words. There would be a ceremony and
a joining, a shape that occurred out of darkness, a mark on the
earth and an incantation to the real spirits.

David still hesitated, thinking this was an
Indian. They were strange people. He thought of Mrs. Parma.
Different Indian, but both mysterious.

David pulled his jacket close around him.
The cold air had raised goose pimples on his skin. He felt both
frightened and excited. An Indian.

He said: “You’re not dressed.”

“I am dressed for the ceremony.”

Silently, Katsuk prayed:
“O Life Giver,
now that you have seen the way a part of your all-powerful being
goes ...”

David sensed the man’s tensions, the air of
secrecy. But no place could be safer than this wilderness camp with
that cog railroad the only way to get here.

He asked: “Aren’t you cold?”

“I am used to this. You must hurry after me
now. We haven’t much time.” Katsuk stepped down off the porch. The
boy followed. “Where are we going?”

“To the top of the ridge.” David hurried to
keep in step. “Why?”

“I have prepared a place there for you to be
initiated into a very old ceremony of my people.”

“Because of the photographs?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t think Indians believed in that
stuff anymore.”

“Even you will believe.”

David tucked his shirt more firmly into his
belt, felt the knife. The knife gave him a feeling of confidence.
He stumbled in his hurry to keep up.

Without looking back, Katsuk felt the boy’s
tensions relax. There had been a moment back on the porch when
rebellion had radiated from the Innocent. The boy’s eyes had been
uncertain, wet and smooth in their darkness. The bitter acid of
fear had been in the air. But now the boy would follow. He was
enthralled. The center of the universe carried the power of a
magnet for that Innocent.

David felt his heart beating rapidly from
exertion. He smelled rancid oil from the Chief. The man’s skin
glistened when moonlight touched it, as though he had greased his
body.

“How far is it?” David asked.

“Three thousand and eighty-one paces.”

“How far is that?”

“A bit over a mile.”

“Did you have to dress like that?”

“Yes.”

“What if it rains?”

“I will not notice.”

“Why’re we going so fast?”

“We need the moonlight for the ceremony. Be
silent now and stay close.”

Katsuk felt brass laughter in his chest,
picked up the pace. The smell of newly cut cedar drifted on the
air. The rich odor of cedar oils carried an omen message from the
days when that tree had sheltered his people.

David stumbled over a root, regained his
balance.

The trail pushed through mottled
darkness—black broken by sharp slashes of moonlight. The bobbing
patch of loincloth ahead of him carried a strange dream quality to
David. When moonlight reached it, the man’s skin glistened, but his
black hair drank the light, was one with the shadows.

“Will the other guys be initiated?” David
asked.

“I told you that you are the only one.”

“Why?”

“You will understand soon. Do not talk.”

Katsuk hoped the silence brought by that
rebuke would endure. Like all hoquat, the boy talked too much.
There would be no reprieve for such a one.

“I keep stumbling,” David muttered. “Walk as
I walk.” Katsuk measured the trail by the “feeling of it underfoot:
soft earth, a dampness where a spring surfaced, spruce cones, the
hard lacery of roots polished by many feet ...

He began to think of his sister and of his
former life before Katsuk. He felt the spirits of air and earth
draw close, riding this moonlight, bringing the memory of all the
lost tribes.

David thought:
Walk as he walks?

The man moved with sliding panther grace,
almost noiseless. The trail grew steep, tangled with more roots,
slippery underfoot, but still the man moved as though he saw every
surface change, every rock and root.

David became aware of the wet odors all
around: rotting wood, musks, bitter acridity of ferns. Wet leaves
brushed his cheeks. Limbs and vines dragged at him. He heard
falling water, louder and louder—a river cascading in its gorge off
to the right. He hoped the sound covered his clumsiness but feared
the Chief could hear him and was laughing.

Walk as I walk!

How could the Chief even see anything in
this dark?

The trail entered a bracken clearing. David
saw peaks directly ahead, snow on them streaked by moonlight, a
bright sieve of stars close overhead.

Katsuk stared upward as he walked. The peaks
appeared to be stitched upon the sky by the stars. He allowed this
moment its time to flow through him, renewing the spirit message:
“I am Tamanawis speaking to you ...”

He began to sing the names of his dead, sent
the names outward into Sky World. A falling star swept over the
clearing—another, then another and another until the sky flamed
with them.

Katsuk fell silent in wonder. This was no
astronomical display to be explained by the hoquat magic science;
this was a message from the past.

The boy spoke close behind: “Wow! Look at
the falling stars. Did you make a wish?”

“I made a wish.”

“What were you singing?”

“A song of my people.”

Katsuk, the omen of the stars strong within
him, saw the charcoal slash of path and the clearing as an arena
within which he would begin creating a memory maker, a death song
for the ways of the past, a holy obscenity to awe the hoquat
world.

“Skagajek!” he shouted. “I am the shaman
spirit come to drive the sickness from this world!”

David, hearing the strange words, lost his
footing, almost fell, and was once again afraid.

***

From Katsuk’s announcement to his
people:

I have done all the things correctly. I used
string, twigs, and bits of bone to cast the oracle. I tied the red
cedar band around my head. I prayed to Kwahoutze, the god in the
water, and to Alkuntam. I carried the consecrated down of a sea
duck to scatter upon the sacrificial victim. It was all done in the
proper way.

***

The immensity of the wilderness universe
around David, the mystery of this midnight hike to some strange
ritual, began to tell on him. His body was wet with perspiration,
chilled in every breeze. His feet were sopping with trail dew. The
Chief, an awesome figure in this setting, had taken on a new
character. He walked with such steady confidence that David sensed
all the accumulated woods knowledge compressed into each movement.
The man was Deerstalker. He was Ultimate Woodsman. He was a person
who could survive in this wilderness.

David began dropping farther and farther
behind. The Chief became a gray blur ahead. Without turning, Katsuk
called: “Keep up.” David quickened his steps.

Something barked. “Yap-yap!” in the trees
off to his right. A sudden motion of smoky wings glided across him,
almost touched his head. David ducked, hurried to close the gap
between himself and that bobbing white loincloth.

Abruptly, Katsuk stopped. David almost ran
into him.

Katsuk looked at the moon. It moved over the
trees, illuminating crags and rock spurs on the far slope. His feet
had measured out the distance. This was the place.

David asked: “Why’d we stop?”

“This is the place.”

“Here? What’s here?”

Katsuk thought:
How is it the hoquat all
do this? They always prefer mouth-talk to body-talk.

He ignored the boy’s question. What answer
could there be? This ignorant Innocent had failed to read the
signs.

Katsuk squatted, faced the trail’s downhill
side. This had been an elk trail for centuries, the route between
salt water and high meadows. The earth had been cut out deeply by
the hooves. Ferns and moss grew from the side of the trail. Katsuk
felt into the growth. His fingers went as surely as though guided
by sight. Gently, gently, he pulled the fronds aside. Yes! This was
the place he had marked out.

He began chanting, low-voiced in the ancient
tongue:

“
Hoquat, let your body accept the
consecrated arrow. Let pride fill your soul at the touch of my
sharp and biting point. Your soul will turn toward the sky
...”

David listened to the unintelligible words.
He could not see the man’s hands in the fern shadows, but the
movements bothered him and he could not identify the reason. He
wanted to ask what was happening but felt an odd constraint. The
chanted words were full of clickings and gruntings.

The man fell silent.

Katsuk opened the pouch at his waist,
removed a pinch of the consecrated white duck down. His fingers
trembled. It must be done correctly. Any mistake would bring
disaster.

David, his eyes adjusting to the gloom,
began to make out the shadowy movement of hands in the ferns.
Something white reflected moonlight there. He squatted beside the
man, cleared his throat.

“What’re you doing?”

“I am writing my name upon the earth. I must
do that before you can learn my name.”

“Isn’t your name Charlie something?”

“That is not my name.”

“Oh?” David thought about this. Not his
name? Then: “Were you singing just now?”

“Yes.”

“What were you singing?”

“A song for you—to give you a name.”

“I already
have
a name.”

“You do not have a secret name given between
us, the most powerful name a person can have.”

Katsuk smoothed dirt over the pinch of down.
He sensed
Kuschtaliute
, the hidden tongue of the land otter,
working through his hand upon the dirt, guiding each movement. The
power grew in him.

David shivered in the cold, said: “This
isn’t much fun. Is this all there is to it?”

“It is important if we are to share our
names.”

“Am I supposed to do something?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

Katsuk arose. He sensed tensions in his
fingers where Kuschtaliute still controlled his muscles. Bits of
dirt clung to his skin. The spirit power of this moment went all
through his flesh.
“I am Tamanawis speaking to you ...”

He said: “You will stand now and face the
moon.”

“Why?”

“Do it.”