Children of the Dawnland (North America's Forgotten Past Series) (7 page)

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Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear,W. Michael Gear

BOOK: Children of the Dawnland (North America's Forgotten Past Series)
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“Twig, did you ask your grandfather to take you to see Cobia?”
She gazed up into that long, beaky face with its unruly frame of gray hair. “He won’t take me. He says it’s too dangerous. There are raiders on the trails, and Grandfather Brown Bear’s people live all around Cobia’s cave. Besides, he said you could teach me just as much as she could.”
Screech Owl tilted his head as though he did not agree and said, “Are you sure you want to study with me? The last time we talked, you said you didn’t—”
“I—I know, but I guess I have to. Grandfather said so.”
He patted her shoulder gently. “Well, I’m a poor substitute for Cobia, but I will do my best. Which means we should immediately start teaching you how to see through the eyes of Snake and Bird. The sooner the better.”
She glanced up at him from the corner of her eye. “Will I have to give up my human soul, like you have?”
“Yes, for a while.”
Her heart started to pound against her ribs. “Screech Owl?”
“Yes, Twig.”
“What if I’m scared?”
He smiled. Father Sun cast reddish light over his face, and his wrinkles stood out like dark cobwebs. “You should be scared. Spirit quests are very dangerous. I wish … well, I wish you could come and live with me for a while. That way I could teach you all the little things about changing souls.”
Twig tried to imagine what it would be like to live with Screech Owl instead of Mother. She didn’t know if she liked the idea. She had always lived with Mother, and close enough to Greyhawk to hit him with a rock if she wanted to. But she loved Screech Owl just the same. Maybe she could. She would talk to Grandfather about it.
“Will the Spirits let me choose the kind of bird and snake souls I get? Maybe I could get Water Snake’s soul or Falcon’s soul?”
“You can try. But often when you’re looking for a new soul, one comes to you that you didn’t expect.”
“You mean like the mink that’s trying to take over yours?”
Screech Owl looked around uneasily. “I wish you hadn’t mentioned that, Twig. He could be out there right now, ready to pounce on me.”
“I don’t blame you for being scared. I’ve seen minks
attack animals ten times their size, pull them down, and chew their throats out. They’re very fast and ferocious.”
“Yes.” He gulped a swallow. “I know.”
They reached the foot of the trail and walked toward the plaza, where dozens of people stood talking.
“Screech Owl? What if I never learn to see through the eyes of Bird or Snake, No matter how hard I try?”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” he said mildly. “Eagle-Man will help you. Besides, it’s usually when you give up searching for Spirit power that it leaps upon you like Grandfather Wolf with his teeth bared.”
Twig frowned at the sunlight slanting across the village. She decided not to ask him the next question, but it repeated in her soul anyway:
And he chews you up? Does Power chew you up? Is that how it kills your human soul?
W
HEN THEY WALKED into the village, people started pointing at Screech Owl and whispering behind their hands, but he didn’t seem to notice; he just smiled at everyone.
Twig took Screech Owl by the hand and led him to Grandfather’s place around the central fire where the buffalo roasted. It was a special place, close to Chief Gill’s family. Mother wasn’t there yet, but Grandfather was. He sat with an old mammoth-hide cloak around his shoulders, staring blindly out at the western trail. Mammoths were so rare these days that having such a hide was a mark of great honor.
Twig sat down cross-legged beside Grandfather and said, “Look, Grandfather! Screech Owl came!”
Grandfather turned, and his long graying black braid pulled over his shoulder. “Screech Owl? Is that you?”
Screech Owl crouched before Grandfather and said, “Yes, Elder Halfmoon, thank you for your kindness. It’s been a long while since I was invited to a village ceremony.”
Grandfather smiled. “Well, I always liked you. You know that.”
“Even after I chewed up your moccasins that day?”
“Well, not as much after that. Those were my favorite moccasins. But, yes, even after that.”
Grandfather gazed, again, up the western trail, and Twig wondered if he was afraid that the Thornback raiders were about to attack them. Then she remembered War Chief Puffer saying that she would try to be back before the Buffalo Way ceremony started. She searched the village, and didn’t see Puffer. Was Grandfather worried about her?
Screech Owl sat down beside Twig, and she felt better, safer, sitting between two of the people she loved most in the world. “See?” she said to Screech Owl. “I told you everything would be all right.”
“So far. But keep your eyes open for thrown rocks. You can never be too sure.”
A sudden hush fell over the village. All heads turned toward Twig’s lodge. She got up on her knees—wincing at the sore one—and saw Mother duck from beneath
their lodge flap and walk across the plaza toward the fire. She looked beautiful. Her long cape was painted with red, white, and black pictures of running buffalo and yellow suns. Her hair had been freshly washed, and she’d coiled her black braids around her ears and pinned them with polished fish-bone combs. She carried a hollow buffalo horn in each hand.
No one spoke as she made her way through the crowd to stand before the fire where the buffalo roasted.
Mother stopped and lifted her hands toward the heavens. The village went totally quiet.
In a ringing voice, Mother called, “When legends die, dreams end, and there is no more greatness. Remember that every buffalo is a legend. They are not like oak leaves that fade and fall to the ground to be blown away by the slightest breeze. Instead, they are like the Star People who shine forever. Let us thank Buffalo Above for the gift of her children’s lives.”
Mother carefully placed Buffalo’s horn sheaths before the fire, pointed west, and everyone in the village rose to their feet.
When Mother started the sacred song, Twig closed her eyes and sang. The words came from the depths of her soul, eddied around the village, and seemed to hang like a veil.
She sang:
Look upward, Brother Buffalo, to the Road of Light that streaks the night sky.
We pray that Buffalo Above will come and take your soul running to the Land of the Dead, where you will never be hungry again, where it is always warm, and you’ll never have to shiver in deep snow.
We thank you, Brother, for giving your life to us, so that the One Great Life of all might continue unbroken.
Come, Buffalo Above. Come and take the soul of our Brother running on the Road of Light.
When Twig opened her eyes, she saw Screech Owl smiling down at her. His gray hair looked like handfuls of frosty twigs. The ragged wolf-hide shirt that he wore beneath his cape had been worn so thin she could see his knobby ribs sticking out through the hide.
“You sang well,” he praised.
“So did you. I didn’t know you had such a deep beautiful voice.”
One by one, people sat down on the hides spread over the ground. Twig, Grandfather, and Screech Owl kept standing until the Buffalo Dancers appeared out of the darkness and shuffled to their positions around the fire to begin the dance.
Twig studied the dancers. Their painted faces gleamed in the firelight, as did the decorated buffalo headdresses they wore. The thick brown fur of their capes had been turned inside for warmth, and the outside was painted with magnificent hunting scenes.
Twig started to say something to Grandfather, but Grandfather made a small sound of surprise, rose to his
feet, and hurried to where Chief Gill sat with his family. By the time Grandfather got there, Chief Gill was standing. They headed out into the darkness. Twig couldn’t see anyone out there … but she hoped Puffer had returned.
“Screech Owl? I’ve never seen Grandfather this worried before.”
“I noticed that War Chief Puffer was not at her position guarding the trails as we came into the village. Is she gone on another battle-walk?”
“Chief Gill sent her to find Cobia and ask if she will dream the future for us, and help us defeat the Thornback People. Grandfather is afraid they’re going to raid us. That’s why we’ve been building the rock wall around the village.”
Screech Owl looked out at the half-finished rock wall. “Then it’s no wonder your Grandfather is worried.”
“Do you think Cobia can help us defeat the Thornback raiders?”
“She may be the only person who can … if she chooses to. Her soul walks constantly in the Land of the Dead. Powerful Spirits are always close to her. Once, when she was just thirteen summers, she got into a fight with a village boy, and I saw her kill him with a word. Cobia pointed at him and shouted a strange word, and the boy fell down stone dead.”
Twig pulled up her knees and hugged them to her chest. That scared her. “What was the word?”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t our language, or any language I had ever heard before. It frightened me.”
It scared Twig, too. Is that what Chief Gill wanted Cobia to do to the Thornback raiders? Kill them with a word?
“Then there was the death of Minnow. That’s when she left.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, it was a long time ago, twenty summers. Cobia had just learned the truth about her past. She—”
“What truth?”
Screech Owl bowed his head for a long moment before he said, “I’ll tell you, if you promise not to hold it against your grandfather. He was just obeying the orders of his chief.”
“I promise.” But her heart started to pound. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear anything bad about Grandfather.
“When Halfmoon first arrived with Cobia, she’d seen less than two summers. She grew up knowing she’d come from the Duskland, but she didn’t know her mother had been murdered, or that she had been pulled from her dead mother’s arms and kidnapped. She learned that from a visiting trader when she’d seen nineteen summers.”
“Is that when she left?”
“Yes, but not before she took her revenge on the man responsible, Old Minnow.”
Twig’s mouth had gone dry as dust. When she spoke, her voice was gravelly. “What did she do?”
“She walked up to him, opened her hand, and blew across it, and he fell dead. Then Cobia turned around and left. No one has seen her since, though people have hunted for her many times.”
“To get her to dream the future?” Twig shivered.
“Yes.” Screech Owl put his arm around her and hugged her. “Let’s talk about your dreams instead. Are you well? Have you had that dream again?”
“About the ball of light that roars over the top of me? Yes.”
“Did you tell your grandfather?”
She nodded. “He said he would talk to the council about it. I think we should move our village, Screech Owl.”
“Move where?”
“Far to the west. That’s all I know.”
Screech Owl ran a hand through his gray hair while he stared absently at the dancers. The flames leaped and crackled behind them, turning them into dark moving shapes. When they shook their buffalo hoof rattles, the very air seemed to shudder.
People started joining the Buffalo Dancers, singing with all their hearts.
Screech Owl said, “I fear you are right, Twig. Buffalobeard Village should move. I’ll try to talk with Chief Gill about it. I hope he listens.”
T
HE MUSIC OF a bone flute woke Twig where she dozed, shivering, beneath her cape. She’d danced for as long as she could; then she’d eaten a big helping of delicious buffalo meat and gone to join the other children who sat on the south side of the village. Most were curled beneath their hides, sleeping. Moon Maiden had just peeked over the eastern horizon, but her light was faint on this cold night. Twig pulled her cape up over her icy nose so she could breathe down the front and warm her chest.
Old Man Blood Duck, with his maimed leg, stood at the edge of the dance circle and sang as he swayed. He
had the scratchiest voice in the village, but it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered tonight was that Earthmaker saw the goodness in their hearts. If they kept their souls pure and treated each other and the buffalo well, as Earthmaker had taught, then great herds of buffalo would come. The raiding would stop. And they would never be hungry again.
Greyhawk mumbled something in his sleep and elbowed Twig before he rolled to his side.
“Are you awake?” she asked.
“No.”
She looked back at the dancers. They blurred together in her tired vision, seeming to sink into the darkness and cold. Only their voices and the shell bells on their moccasins told her they hadn’t been sucked up by the Water Spirits that haunted the ceremonies. All of the colors that humans used for painting their bodies came from the bones of the Water Spirits, and on nights like this one, when so many colors flashed, the Spirits were drawn to the souls of their dead ancestors. They came to watch from the shadows, sometimes to dance, and sometimes to steal a bad child and take him to their home beneath Ice Giant Lake.
A gust of wind swooped over the rocky ridge and soared down to blast Twig and other children. Several groaned and slid deeper under their hides.
Greyhawk said, “I’m cold. When is the dance going to be over?”
Ice had formed on the edge of the hide next to his nose.
“I’m cold, too. But you know we can’t go in until the dance is finished. Buffalo Above might get angry and take her children away.”
“I know.” He propped himself up on one elbow. “Twig, what did you and Screech Owl talk about this afternoon?”
She hesitated, not sure she wanted to tell him yet. “Nothing. Just about the ceremony.”
“I don’t like him. He’s too strange.”
She shifted to study Screech Owl. He stood a head taller than anyone else in the village, so it was easy to spot him in the dance circle. He looked skinny, the way he twisted in the dance. He had been dancing next to her mother all night, which Twig found very odd, since Mother didn’t like Screech Owl. “I might go live with Screech Owl for a while, Greyhawk.”
“What for? You might never come back! At least, not as a human.”
“I guess there are things, dangerous things, he can teach me only if I live with him.”
“You mean he’s going to teach you how to be a Spirit dreamer?”
She drew her cape more tightly around her shoulders. “Yes.”
Greyhawk obviously didn’t know what to say. He blinked and looked away, as though scared. Finally, he said, “Do you want to go live with him, Twig?”
“I don’t know.”
“Won’t you be scared to live with someone who isn’t human?”
“Of course not.” She shook her head valiantly. “I live around sloths and giant beavers and other animals right now. They don’t scare me. Do they scare you?”
“Well, no, not when they’re in their own bodies,” Greyhawk replied. “Why can’t he come and teach you here?” He paused and scowled. “No, that would never work. Somebody would whack him in the head for chewing up their moccasins, and you’d feel bad.”
“Yes. I would.”
Greyhawk combed hair out of his eyes. “Twig, I’m afraid that you’ll become a very powerful Spirit dreamer and you’ll be cast out of the village, like Screech Owl. Is your grandfather going to make you?”
“I think he wants me to.”
Greyhawk’s eyes narrowed, as though in pain, and he stared out at the dancers for a long time. “Well, if you have to go live with Screech Owl, I—I’ll try to come and visit you. If Father doesn’t forbid—”
They both jumped when Old Man Blood Duck let out a shrill cry of joy and tried to dance on his bad leg.
“Here they come!” Greyhawk said excitedly. He sat up, eager for this final moment of the ceremony.
All around the edges of the plaza, old people and children opened their eyes to look.
A rumble like an earthquake trembled on the cold air. From out in the darkness, a chant echoed, deep and powerful, calling to the Spirits of the plants and animals. Then the last dancers trotted into the plaza. Big men, they were dressed like buffalo and charged around the
fire, making the deep-throated calls of playing, happy buffalo. The first dancers fell into line behind them, and together they danced out of the plaza into the darkness.
Finally, Mother came back to the fire and began sprinkling grass seeds on the ground and on people, so that each person could carry the buffalo’s prayers for lush spring grasses to Earthmaker in his dreams. Perhaps, if they all dreamed well, Earthmaker would hear them.
Twig laughed when a huge kestrel leaned over her. Wind fluttered its feathers. Through its open beak, she could see Screech Owl’s grin. “Come on,” he said. “Your mother invited me to have nutcakes and tea, and I’m starved.”
“Mother
invited
you?” she blurted as she struggled to stand up.
“Yes. She hasn’t been herself tonight,” he answered. “It’s been very nice. I’m a little worried that she wants something.”
Greyhawk cast one glance at Screech Owl. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Twig!” he said, and ran.
“Sleep well, Greyhawk!” she answered.
Twig held Screech Owl’s hand as they made their way across the plaza. People swerved wide around them, still not sure that Screech Owl ought to be allowed in human company, even though he had danced with all his kestrel soul.
When they turned the bend in the path, she could see that firelight already gleamed around the edges of the door-hanging to their lodge. But Twig smelled something
else. She sniffed noisily. “That’s Mother’s special raspberry tea, Screech Owl.”
He sniffed too. “Yes, it smells good.”
Twig gave him a quick look, wondering why her mother would make it for Screech Owl when she wouldn’t make it for Twig except on important occasions. She slipped out from under his arm and trotted for home. As she ducked inside, her head brushed the eagle feathers that dangled from the ceiling.
“You looked beautiful tonight, Mother,” she said, and ran across the lodge to crawl into her warm buffalo hides.
Mother smiled. She had changed out of her ceremonial clothing and wore a white doeskin dress with black-and-red starbursts painted on the hem and across her chest.
“So did you, Twig. I was proud of you. I—”
Screech Owl called softly from outside, “It’s me, Riddle. Are you ready for me yet?”
“Come in, Screech Owl. We’re ready. The tea isn’t, but we are.”
Screech Owl ducked under the lodge flap. He had taken off his mask and was holding it reverently. His gray hair spiked out around his long face. He winked at Twig before crouching by the fire, where the tea bag hung from its tripod. Mother had already added hot rocks to boil it, and the lodge smelled like a raspberry patch.
Screech Owl smiled awkwardly at Riddle, and she smiled back before rising to fetch the plate of nutcakes.
“Are you hungry, Twig?” her mother asked.
“No, just tired.”
“Then why don’t you try to sleep? Screech Owl and I are going to talk for a while.”
Twig snuggled deeper into her hides, but she kept her eyes slitted to watch what happened.
Mother knelt beside Screech Owl and offered him a nutcake.
“Thank you, Riddle. It’s been a long time since I’ve had one of your cakes.” Screech Owl took a bite and said, “They’re as good as I remember.”
Neither one of them said anything for a long time, and Twig felt the tension rising between them.
Finally Mother said, “Screech Owl, I wanted to talk to you about something that’s happening. I don’t understand it.”
His eyes widened. “What?”
“It has to do with the Thornback raiders. Do you know that Chief Gill sent Puffer and a war party to try and find Cobia?”
“Yes, Twig told me. Why?”
Mother sank down to the floor. “Just as the dance began, one man returned: young Searobin. I saw him come in, but of course I couldn’t go to him. I had to lead the dance. In the middle of the dance, Father came to tell me that Puffer and the others are dead.”
“Oh,” Screech Owl said so softly that Twig almost didn’t hear. Grief twisted his face. “Was it Cobia? Did she kill them?”
“I don’t know. Father was in a hurry. He barely spoke
to me. He and the chief were on their way to Searobin’s lodge to spend the night hearing the details of what went wrong. That’s why I wanted to talk with you.”
“Ah, I see. Are you feeling guilty because you didn’t dream about it before they left and warn them? You shouldn’t. Dreamers do the best they can, but they aren’t infallible. They—”
In a tight voice, Mother said, “Why would Cobia kill them?”
Screech Owl sat so still that his dark eyes caught the firelight and held it like polished mica mirrors. “I’m not sure she did. She might have, but Puffer’s war party might also have run into the Thornback raiders. In any case, it means Buffalobeard Village has lost many of its best warriors.”
Mother extended her hands. “What are we going to do, Screech Owl? Tomorrow we’re meeting to discuss whether we should pack up and move the village. Do you think we should?”
He sighed. “This is a dangerous time. The ice is melting; rivers have swollen to twice their normal sizes. Grandfather Brown Bear is hunting every trail. If we move, many of us could die.”
“Yes, I know. Have you … have you dreamed anything?”
He gave her a sad smile. “If you asked me here because you hoped I’d dreamed the future, I haven’t. I’m sorry. I didn’t know about any of this. But”—he took another bite of nutcake and chewed it thoughtfully before
he said—“Twig might have. Has she told you about her dreams?”
Mother shot a glance at Twig, and she pretended to be fast asleep. When Mother looked away, Twig opened her eyes again.
Screech Owl tilted his head. “She hasn’t told me any of the details,” he lied, “but I know she’s having Spirit dreams. I can feel it.”
Screech Owl’s eyes flared for a moment before he added, “Riddle, there’s something else I’d like to talk to you about.”
“What is it?”
Screech Owl’s lips pressed into a tight line. “If Twig wishes to, I’d like her to live with me while I’m teaching her. So I can make sure she’s safe.” He glanced up hesitantly. “Will you allow it?”
“Well, I—I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”
Screech Owl glanced at Twig, then stepped to the lodge flap and pulled it aside. “Please, come outside with me so we can talk about this more.”
“Don’t push me, Screech Owl. I told you I have to think about it.”
“Usually that means your answer is no.”
“If you don’t stop pushing me, the answer will be no!”
His gaze rested on Twig again. She lay absolutely still, watching the worry in his elderly eyes, as if he saw something so terrible in her future that he almost couldn’t bear it.
“Riddle,” he whispered, “don’t I even have the right to teach her how to be happy?”
“She’s my daughter, Screech Owl. You have no rights regarding her.” Mother folded her arms and turned away. “Please go.”
“You know she’ll be miserable if she can’t control the dreams. Soon they’ll begin stalking her.” At the hard look on her mother’s face, Screech Owl said, “Please, I beg you. Just give me the chance to teach her for a few days.”

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