Captive Spirit (6 page)

I passed out from hanging upside down over the man’s shoulder.

All the blood rushing to my head threatened to strangle me. When I woke, the sky was silvery grey from early light. My hips ached, my forehead pounded, and I shivered. Oh, how I shivered.

When I raised my head, a white light sliced across my forehead. After my eyes cleared, they found my feet. They were bare and black from dirt. I must have lost my sandals in the struggle at the river and I instinctively pulled my legs closer to my chest, mostly for warmth. When I breathed, tiny white clouds circled my nose. There wasn’t a fire anywhere, only unfamiliar deerskin sacks strewn haphazardly and just out of my grasp. One lumpy one was partially opened and I licked my lips, both of them cracked.

Water
. I needed water.

The taste of my own blood still lingered inside my mouth.

Two strange men slept opposite me, their legs extended and crossed at the ankles. I sucked back a breath as I considered whether to close my eyes and pretend to be dead. One of the men snored through his long nose. Loudly. He slept on his back in the dirt with his arms crossed over his shoulders while a strange brown hat hid the top of his face. Like me, he had black hair, although his skin was lighter than mine, more yellow than brown. Another man, a smaller one was similarly complexioned and dressed—brown pants and strange dusty black pointy sandals that completely covered his feet. He slept next to the man that snored, although he didn’t stir or make a single sound.

And where was the third one? The thicker one with the wide hands? The one who carried me over Sleeping Mule Deer like I was an animal carcass from a hunt?

Then I stopped and listened to what I was saying inside my head.

Over Sleeping Mule Deer? The other side
?
Is this the world I’d dreamt about? Is this where they brought me? The World Beyond?

I rubbed dryness from my eyes. Anxiously, my eyes scanned plants and trees that I’d never seen before. Instead of saguaros with ripe red berries and endless sage, I was surrounded by round thick-leaved bushes as green as river moss. And instead of earth the color of my skin, my fingertips dug into the dirt as grey and hard as animal bone. The air was cooler, thinner, and harder to breathe.

Where was this place?
What
was it?

The land surrounding me stretched endlessly with no protective mountains to stop it. And how was that possible? I scanned the horizon for Sleeping Mule Deer and its jagged edges but, like everything else, she was missing. It was as if my world had simply disappeared.

A heavy hand pressed on my shoulder, startling me.

“Don’t touch me!” I screamed instinctively, but the man laughed, the same laugh I remembered when the village burned, deep and throaty. His shoulders quaked more than he made laughing sounds. It belonged to the third man, the thicker man, the same one who carried me over Sleeping Mule Deer. I immediately recognized his smell, a mixture of sweat and spices that wrinkled my nose.

The man released my shoulder and tilted his head in a half-smile as he circled, studying me.

“You’re much prettier in the light,” he said.

I only understood some of his words but I knew what he meant. His words rose and fell differently than mine. But he looked at me the way that Pakuna would, like he owned me. Instinctively, my eyes lowered and through my eyelashes I watched as his dark ones traveled along my body like a lazy paintbrush, before stopping at my feet. Then his brow furrowed at the dirty toes that peeked from underneath my dress. I pulled my knees closer. My knees began to tremble.

I watched him warily as he walked to one of the lumpy deerskins beside his sleeping partners. He reached inside one and pulled out two grey skins—rabbit, from the looks of it—and tossed them at my feet. I fingered the soft fur and watched as he crossed the dirt and kicked the feet of the other two men. They stirred, reluctantly, and the third man sighed and shook his head like an impatient father.

Then without another sound or a glance in my direction, he trotted away toward a ridge of leafy green trees, so green that I had to squint against its brightness. But then my throat tightened in fear, not at the lushness of the strange trees or the bright colors.

I suddenly wondered if I’d have been safer if the thick man hadn’t abandoned me for the trees.

***

With no one to watch me, I started to stand, one silent finger-length at a time.

Then, barely leaving a print in the dirt, I crept away from my spot on the cold ground. I left the rabbit skins and the sleeping men and tiptoed till I was far enough away to draw back a breath.

And then I started to run.

I ran toward my village—at least in the direction where I thought it would be. With the sun over my left shoulder, I was certain I could find my way back home.

My legs and hips still throbbed from pressing against the thick man’s shoulder, but I ran as fast and as hard as I could anyway. Instead of leaping over pale green sage brush, I leapt over round bushes with leaves so green they were almost black. When I landed, the balls of my feet slammed against dry pointy leaves that covered the dirt. It was like landing on a bed of cactus spines. I winced but kept running. There was no time to think about pain. No time to think. Running was my only chance at escaping from the World Beyond, my only option.

Behind me, the men yelled. I didn’t understand their words but their message was clear. After a while, their angry voices grew fainter and I was grateful for that. So I pushed harder, wanting to put as much distance between us that I could. I didn’t know how far I needed to run to reach Sleeping Mule Deer and my village and it didn’t matter. I’d run till I saw them. I’d run forever if necessary.

Sweat beads trickled down my forehead even though the sky was still cold and grey. My dress stuck to my legs and my necklace bounced against my chest with each step but I got further and further away, despite it all. I ran until my feet turned numb. One more bush to jump over, then another. They were endless and covered this new world, the World Beyond, as far as Hunab Ku allowed me to see.

And then suddenly, over the steady drumming inside my head, I heard a growl in the distance, a low, deep, gurgling sound. There was no time to track it. I sucked back an anxious breath and kept running.

But then the growl echoed and seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Only for a moment, my pace slowed as my eyes swept in frantic circles across the grey morning light, looking for what belonged to the sound, tracking it but seeing nothing. I suddenly wondered,
Is the hunger and thirst in my belly playing tricks on me?

I squeezed my eyes shut only a heartbeat but kept my fast pace. The sweat from my forehead stung my eyes. I blinked again and just as soon as they opened a large shock of grey and white charged into my chest, pushing me backwards with its claws.

I screamed as I fell to the ground. I landed on my back, hard.

Instinctively, I curled into a ball as soon as I crashed to the ground and covered my face but the beast continued to growl next to my face. Its breath was hot and sticky. And then its growl turned into a bark when it had me trapped. I couldn’t escape its teeth. It yelped and barked so loudly and close to my ears that my head began to ring like one of Onawa’s wooden flutes. I crouched low to the ground, screaming, shielding my face with my arms but the growling beast wouldn’t back away. The more I screamed, the louder it barked, triumphant, as it stood over me, baring its fangs with front teeth as long as my finger. I was certain that it planned to feast on my flesh. And there was little I could do to stop it.

And then one of the men appeared out of nowhere. He laughed as he towered over me, blocking me from the sun. It was the thicker one. Mercifully, he pulled the beast back by the scruff of his neck.

“Up,” he commanded, although that’s what I think he said. I finally lowered my arms from my face, breathing so hard that my chest threatened to split open. I didn’t dare take my eyes off the beast. I feared him more than the strangely dressed man. The beast looked back at me uneasily with golden eyes, his yelps reduced to a soft growl, as if waiting for me to flee again.

At first I thought the beast was a coyote. But it was no coyote that I’d ever seen. I’d seen plenty when they ventured into our village searching for discarded bones and meat scraps. Coyotes never scared me; they were too small. But this beast was bigger and broader across the haunches, and its paws were as big as my palms. The man, remarkably, patted the animal’s head and stroked the back of its grey coat like they were old friends. The beast finally stopped growling and licked the man’s hand with a long pink tongue before it nuzzled its snout against his knee.

“Lobo,” the man said to me.

I watched him numbly.

“Lobo,” he said again, nodding to the beast.

“Lobo,” I finally whispered. It was a name I’d never forget. I blinked, unable to look away from the beast.
Lobo
was a word I recognized, although until that moment I thought that wolves were only found in Yuma’s stories.

I had never been a prisoner before, although I guessed that’s what I was. Why else would the man tie my hands?

With a thin piece of cotton rope, he took my hands into his rough ones and wrapped the rope three times around my wrists until my skin burned. I wanted to cry out but I didn’t. What would crying accomplish?

With my hands tied in front of me, the man and his wolf led me back to where we had left the other two men and the deerskin sacks.

The men were standing when we returned, paying me scant attention. They moved between the sacks with a sense of urgency and purpose. They’ve done this before. Traveling. Lots of times. I could tell.

One of them, the shorter man, stood alongside three enormous animals that I had never seen before in all my life. Like me, they were tethered to the man with a long, dark rope. Were they prisoners, too?

I stopped walking at the mere sight of them, afraid that they could charge at me like the wolf. The ropes hardly seemed a deterrent to beasts their size. One was as wide as a pit house. All three were taller than even the tallest man among them.

When I stopped to gawk, the thick man pushed me forward and said, “Horse.”

“Horse?” I whispered, although I said it like a question.
Horse
was not a word I’d heard before, not even in the old stories told by Yuma or Ituha. It was a strange word that hissed through my teeth, like a deep exhale. There were no horses in my village, only deer that we hunted in the mountains. It would have been as easy to put a rope around the neck of a deer as it would to catch a lightning bolt in the sky.

I assumed the men would eat the beasts, maybe one of them, but it seemed like too much meat for three people—four, if they planned to feed me. The horses were muscled across the chest with silky coats, reddish brown like my skin and blue-black like a night sky. It didn’t seem possible that their four skinny legs could support their bellies. Yet I wondered what the meat would taste like, especially as my stomach growled. Would it be dry like deer meat or greasy like rabbit?

I was surprised that instead of butchering one of the horses, the third man, the tall one with the scar across his mouth, began to hoist deerskins atop their broad backs. One of the horses made an anxious, high-pitched screeching sound as its long snout snorted into the cool air. It had strange, tiny black eyes on either side of its long snout that regarded me warily, like the wolf.

The man with the scar clucked his tongue and talked to the horse as he worked. His deep voice soothed the horses, oddly.

Everyone was busy packing, moving, talking—everyone except me. All I could do was stand, motionless. Staring. With the wolf at my side, I didn’t dare run again. I’d be more successful lifting my arms and soaring into the sky.

So I stood there, my knees wobbling from hunger, cold and thirst, watching the men load their horses. I still didn’t know why they had carried me away from my village or where they planned to take me but I was theirs now, like one of their deerskin sacks, until I figured how to escape.

And I would escape. That much I promised myself.

I looked over my shoulder toward my village. I couldn’t see it but I knew it was there, over mountains that disappeared from the horizon, waiting for my return. A lump grew deep in my throat as I regarded the lonely horizon. So many hours spent dreaming about the World Beyond and now all I wanted was to be back home, safe, working alongside Gaho at the hearth, running after Chenoa in the saguaro forest, watching Honovi play in the ball court. So many lost memories spinning around inside my head.

Until finally I spun around and faced the men, my nostrils flaring.

“Water,” I said. My tone was urgent.

The men stopped, no doubt surprised by my tone.

“Water,” I said again, louder, even as my voice cracked from the dryness coating my throat and the building tears behind my eyes. I blinked them back. Tears wouldn’t return me to my village. I needed water and food to think clearly. I made a drinking motion with my hand. Surely these oddly dressed men with the strange voices wouldn’t allow me to die of thirst or starve. Why go to the trouble to take me in the first place?

The wolf lay close to my legs, keeping me captive by its nearness. Its fur brushed against my leg, rough and scratchy like a dried cornstalk, as the thicker man reached into one of the sacks and pulled out a deerskin pouch no bigger than my hand. He walked to me from where he stood next to the horses. He raised the pouch to my lips. A few drops dribbled onto my lips but I wanted—needed—more. He pulled it away but I surprised myself again by shaking my head. “More,” I begged. “Please, I’m so thirsty. I need more.”

The man sighed and then, reluctantly, raised the pouch only to pull it back abruptly. He smiled. Then he said, “If you behave, you’ll get more later. Food, too. If you’re good.”

“Please,” I begged again. “Just a little more.”

He sighed again and then raised the pouch. The man with the scar glared at him but said nothing.

I took another greedy gulp, not caring that some of the water dribbled down my neck, before he pulled it away.

But the man beside me surprised me again. He reached inside his pocket and put a strip of something soft in my hands. He pressed it against my palm until he was sure that I wouldn’t drop it. He raised his hands to his lips, motioning for me to eat, before returning to the sacks and the horses.

I watched him walk away and then, very carefully, I raised my tied hands to my lips. I inhaled the strip. The smell was sharp and spicy and wrinkled my nose. Curious, I licked it once before stuffing one end of it inside my mouth. Was it a trick? Would it make me sick?

No.

I sniffed it again and smiled, relieved. It was only a piece of dried meat—maybe rabbit or squirrel—and it was so delicious that I could have eaten a handful, not just a thin morsel no longer than my tongue. Lobo’s tail thumped steadily at my feet and I paused from savoring the dried meat when his tail whacked against my leg. It thumped steady like a drumbeat and reminded me of everything I left behind.

I stared down at him. The tip of his tail was white as a cloud and matched the streak down his chest. My eyes traveled to his face. Lobo gazed up at me with strangely curious eyes. Slowly, I split my precious piece of dried meat into two pieces with my teeth. I stuck one of the pieces into my mouth, savoring it, letting it roll underneath my tongue, while I lowered my tied hands to Lobo’s snout. Warily, I opened my hand and waited for him to take the second piece. He took it with his long tongue, not his teeth, and I drew back a relieved breath.

Lobo’s half disappeared in a heartbeat, but then he nudged closer and continued to study me, his tail thumping faster, his head tilted. Suddenly his paws didn’t seem so enormous or his fangs so terrifying.

And I couldn’t help myself.

I smiled down at Lobo. That’s when his cold wet nose nuzzled my hands and I very carefully stroked the top of his head with my fingertips. The fur on his head was as soft as bird feathers. His ears flopped backwards while I scratched and stroked. And then I knew.

In the unlikeliest of places, I had found a friend.