Zadayi Red (19 page)

Perfect
. The eagle felt like a good omen.

He splashed his way across the river. Since he first crossed it on the back of his mother’s pack dog as a newborn, he’d
waded it at low water several times. The river was rising now, the spring runoff flowing in, and he had to swim a few strokes in two different places.

Odd that he was leery of dogs. Maybe he picked it up from Su-Li. The buzzard had seen them in packs, and said they were vicious.

On the far side he scrambled up the mountain like he’d seen elk bound up. He climbed above the shelf with the nest and looked at the home of the war eagles.

It was empty—too early in the year for the grown birds, eggs, or fledglings. He noticed several feathers in the nest, white near the quill tip, brown below. He thought they were beautiful. He knew, though, why the people didn’t gather them for decoration. One of the old stories told about a man punished by the eagles for approaching their nest. He was a long way above the nest, and above danger.

So. He would do his own vision quest. Was he not the medicine bearer? Why would he need help?

He chose his small space, prayed and sang all day long. He kept an eye on the weather, though. Sodden clouds were bunching up on the peaks and ridges. By mid-afternoon he could smell rain, and the drizzle began just as the sun dropped out of sight.

He began to wonder whether he should have done this by himself. His mind shook a finger at him—arrogant.

He dreaded the night. Since he had a bare chest and no robe, the wet and cold could be miserable.

He shook his head sharply. The danger was not the rain or the temperature—it was the distraction.
I have come to get a vision, see an animal helper, and earn a name. My mind must burn with my intention.

Within an hour he began to shiver. In two hours he was shaking uncontrollably. He ordered his mind and spirit to ignore his foolish body. Instead they ignored his will. He knew that he was to watch for a sky parade put on by the spirits, but
no sky was visible. He couldn’t even see clouds, but just a shapeless, shifting, formless gray mush of nothing.

Hours and hours of shaking. He gave up hoping for a vision. He thought only of getting through the night.

At dawn he appeared at the door of his home. His mother and Ninyu were outside, waiting for him.

Dahzi started to stammer something out.

“We know what happened,” said Sunoya. “Come inside and I’ll make you some tea, and then some food to break your fast.”

Dahzi liked the fire even better than the tea. He wished he could take his skin off and spread it out to dry and warm up.

He looked at his hand and noticed that the cup was the same one his mother used to brew something yesterday for another seeker. “What did you make tea from yesterday?”

Ninyu said, “You’re putting off what we have to say to each other, so I will say it. You suffered terribly from the rain and cold. Your mind got preoccupied with earthly matters like staying warm, staying alive. You didn’t have any energy to seek a vision.”

Softly, “Yes.”

“You disobeyed us. You dishonored us.”

Now firmly, “Yes.”

Sunoya said, “You dishonored the spirits. That’s why they didn’t come to you.”

Dahzi didn’t dare look his mother and grandfather in the eye.

“When you come to him with a proper attitude,” said Sunoya, “your grandfather would love to put you on the mountain.”

“That’s true,” said Ninyu.

Dahzi didn’t hear the words. He told himself,
I’m ashamed. I’m angry. I’m afraid of losing my chance at Jemel.

J
emel sat herself down and talked sense to herself. Good sense? From a devoted Moon Woman? That was funny.

Her mother had told her the way to get a man’s genuine love, and to connect two bodies and two souls. Also, her own body told her how. It was time. She wondered whether, in true Moon Woman style, she should be flagrant about it. She decided that deviousness was also the Moon Woman style.
Anything and everything
, she thought,
as long as I do it all the way.

When her group of men dispersed one evening, she asked Dahzi to stay a moment. Walking away, the other men traded smiles and odd looks. The request could be innocent, for a woman her age might ask a young man to do her various small favors. She could ask for turtle shells for making rattles, or for the tips of deer antlers to hang from the hem of her skirt and clatter when she danced, or other things. Intriguingly, the request could also indicate where her affections pointed.

The oldest man said, “I don’t think so,” glancing back. He was about thirty winters old and had one wife.

“Of course not. He’s much too young,” said a second, eyes straight ahead. This fellow, whose wife had died bringing forth their first child, had taken a fancy to Jemel.

The young lady herself said to Dahzi, “Meet me on the water path tomorrow morning—I want to show you something.”

Dahzi was so stunned that he could only nod.

She watched him walk away. He’d seemed sulky the last two nights, but she didn’t care. Her mind was made up.

The next morning Jemel told her mothers that she was going with two friends to get some watercress. She was fond of watercress leaves, not to put into soup or stew as her mothers used them, but to eat alone and fresh, as soon as possible after being plucked from the water. The watercress grew thick in a certain place a couple of miles up the creek, so her mothers expected Jemel to be gone all morning.

Jemel started along the water path with her friends, and when they came upon Dahzi and his guard, she invited him to join them. In a little while she pulled Dahzi off the path, under a huge weeping willow that overhung the creek. “Wait,” she ordered the guard. Jemel’s girl friends walked on, giggling.

Dahzi started to ask whether they were going to gather branches—women used the pliant willow limbs to make baskets—but something stopped him from speaking. He later decided that this hesitation saved him from a good deal of teasing.

The moment they were fully in the dense shade of the branches, Jemel put her arms around him, put her lips to his, and showed him a new use for his tongue.

Abruptly she paused and held him at arm’s length. She eyed him hard and said, “I am a Moon Woman. You know what that means.”

Unable to speak, Dahzi nodded yes.

“I want you. I want to fill you with passion and get passion back from you.”

Dahzi nodded again.

“Do you have big feelings to give me? If you don’t, tell me now, and we’ll act like this never happened.”

Dahzi squeezed out three words. “I love you.”

She cocked her head and waited.

“I adore you,” he said.

She pulled him to her, kissed him, reached for his breech-cloth, and . . .

That’s how Dahzi’s sexual education began. Jemel knew nothing from experience but had a lot of tips from her mother. Her body guided her to the rest. They loved each other every way people can.

Hours later, Jemel led Dahzi back to the edge of the village. He was so dizzied he thought he couldn’t have found his way home without her. The guard idled along behind them. Dahzi hated his presence more than ever.

That evening he went to her parents’ house before the time for suitors. She came out to sit with him. He felt like every eye in the village was trained on him. “I went out to cry for a vision,” he said.

“I know.”

“I saw nothing.”

“I heard that.”

“I can’t try again until the next new moon.”

She knew what he was telling her. He wasn’t a man yet and couldn’t ask to marry her.

“I don’t care about any of that. We mounted the panther this morning. Wherever it goes, we’ll ride it.”

Dahzi nodded, accepting.

Soon her other suitors arrived.

After she’d been hearing the gossip for about a week, Sunoya decided she’d better do something. She made some of the honeyed seed cakes Dahzi liked so much. When Dahzi came back from his morning excursion, she took him down by the river, a cool place they liked to talk.

After he’d eaten two of them, she said, “You like Jemel.”

He nodded. She gathered he was tongue-tied.

He believes he loves her,
Su-Li said quietly.

“Lots of boys like her,” she said. “Men, too.”

Jealousy made a ring of fire in Dahzi’s heart. He swallowed the rest of his cake and said, “She loves me. She told me so.”

Sunoya took thought. Without words she said to Su-Li,
If I try to cut off this flirtation, he’ll always yearn for her.

Yes,
said Su-Li.

“She looks like a nice girl,” said Sunoya. “Medicine bearers can marry.”

“Yeah,” said Dahzi.

Sunoya eyed him, thinking,
He’s not wide-eyed about his destiny as a man of medicine. Not anymore. And he’s not a boy now.

“Unless you want a spirit guide, like Su-Li.”

“I don’t think so,” Dahzi said. He ate the last bite of his seed cakes and rinsed his fingers in the river.

His
do-wa
doesn’t think so
, said Su-Li.

“I worry about your future.”

“You can count on this much. Jemel and I are going to get married.”
Unless one of the other suitors gets her.

“When?”

“I don’t know. Look, there’s something I have to explain. Big passions don’t happen very often. That’s what we have.”

“Dahzi . . .”

“Wait. I know. I know the stories about Moon Women. I know the usual stuff about going with big feelings.” Now he looked at her with flame in his eyes. “But I also know about passion. It’s real. I didn’t know until now.”

“Dahzi . . .”

“Mom, listen to me. No one who’s lucky enough to have this big feeling will walk away from it.”

“Dahzi . . .”

“Mom, you don’t know. You’re a virgin.”

She flinched. The way he spoke to her was . . .

Easy
, said Su-Li.

Sunoya controlled her breathing. “It might happen. But so much else has to happen first.”

“Right. I have to get a vision. I have to get a name. On the next new moon I’ll do that.” He couldn’t wait. She might choose someone else. “I’ll be a man, and Jemel and I will be together. We’re not asking permission from anyone.”

He let her see that in his eyes.

Sunoya waited. For two days she noticed that Dahzi and Jemel came back to the village about midday, not together, but one shortly after the other. She wondered how Jemel gave her family the slip so easily.

Dahzi found the morning’s breakfast still on the coals and wolfed it down. He’d been away since dawn. Sunoya watched him with a smile.

Then he stretched out on his robes for a nap.

“My son,” she said, “I want you to have whatever you want. If you want Jemel, I want her for you.”

Now he opened his eyes, held hers briefly, and closed them again.