Gear, W Michael - Novel 05 (54 page)

 
          
 
"Wants to know about us, coon. Yer not
married, are ye?"

 
          
 
"No."

 
          
 
Travis's hands molded the response.
Willow
continued her inspection of Richard, then
she signed again.

 
          
 
"She wants to know why you keep staring
at her that way. She says it's a lost-puppy look."

 
          
 
Richard blushed and avoided her eyes. Good
God, what would Laura think? "Tell her. .. Tell her I. .."

 
          
 
But
Willow
's hands were in motion again.

 
          
 
Travis chuckled. "She says that I look at
her with lust, but you look at her with a different eye, the soul's eye."

 
          
 
Richard glared hotly at Travis. "Stop
looking at her that way!"

 
          
 
Travis laughed out loud, winced, and placed a
hand tenderly to his side.
Willow
glanced curiously between them.

 
          
 
"What about this soul's eye?"
Richard asked. "The soul doesn't have an eye."

 
          
 
Travis made his signs.
Willow
started a response, then made a cutoff
sign. She stood, walked over to Richard, and settled herself immediately in
front of him. She placed cool hands on either side of his head. Then, her face
inches from his, she looked deeply into his eyes.

 
          
 
Richard fell into those endless pools. Brown,
limpid, they expanded and engulfed the world with their soft strength. She
probed, challenged, and waited for a reaction.

 
          
 
It's as if our souls are touching. Richard's
heart leapt, rising to the challenge. He reached up, cupping her face with his
own hands, meeting her challenge and searching as she did. The blood had begun
to pulse in his veins.

 
          
 
How long were they locked like that? An
eternal moment.

 
          
 
She nodded then, lowered her hands, and backed
away.

 
          
 
Richard sat like a statue, hands frozen in the
air, still caressing the memory of her soft warm cheeks. His heart slowed its
hammering beat, the blood cooling in his veins.

 
          
 
Her hands formed graceful signs, and Travis said:
"The soul's eye."

 
          
 
Richard nodded and took a deep breath as the
tingling surge slowly boiled out of his blood. She continued to watch him, her
full lips pursed pensively.

 
          
 
When her hands moved again, Travis translated:
"What did you see?"

 
          
 
Richard answered, awed, "I saw your soul,
Willow
."

 
          
 
"She wants to know if you were
afraid."

 
          
 
"No. Not at all. Why should I be?"

 
          
 
Travis made signs. "She says most men
fear women's Power. Men fear her in particular. She does not act as men think
proper. She seeks medicine Power. With it, she destroyed Packrat."

 
          
 
"
Willow
"—Richard reached out, desperate to
keep that link—"I do not fear you. I am a philosopher, a seeker of
truth."

 
          
 
"Ain't no sign fer philos'pher,"
Travis growled. "Hell, I'll just make this up."

 
          
 
"Don't!" Richard cried. "This
is important. I've been looking for her! Don't you see? She's proof!"

 
          
 
"Proof?" Travis screwed his face up.
"Proof of what?"

 
          
 
"Man in nature, Travis!" Richard
beamed in his excitement,
Willow
watching him with glowing eyes.

 
          
 
"Wal, hoss, if'n ye think's she's a man,
yer not only an ignerant Yankee, but tarnal blind to boot!"

 
          
 
Richard grinned triumphantly. "Tell her I
have hoped to meet someone like her. I want to ... to talk to her. Ask her
questions."

 
          
 
Travis translated.
Willow
watched curiously, then responded:
"What questions?"

 
          
 
"About God. About perception and the
nature of mankind, the epistemological basis of reality that dictates—"

 
          
 
"Whoa, now! Damn it, Dick! I ain't got no
signs for none of that hoss crap but God!"

 
          
 
"Dik," she said, then her hand made
a sign.

 
          
 
Travis translated: "Learn . . . Talk . ..
White man."

 
          
 
"It takes a long time," Richard told
her.

 
          
 
She gave him her challenging stare and said,
"
Willow
learn talk White man."

 
          
 
"I'll be damned," Travis muttered He
put his pipe back in his possibles and retrieved the hairy piece of hide. He
fingered the lone black hair and studied
Willow
thoughtfully.

 
          
 
Richard grinned. "I'll teach you."

 
          
 
Travis lifted an eyebrow and signed.

 
          
 
"What's that?" Richard asked.

 
          
 
"I asked if she was going with us up the
river."

 
          
 
Her fingers flew.

 
          
 
Travis related: "I will travel with you
for a while. It would be wise to know more about the White men. You have not
been what I expected." In English she ended, "I will learn. Eye of
the soul."

 
          
 
"Eye of the soul," Richard agreed.
"One day we will talk about God, and nature, and man's place within
it."

 
          
 
Travis scraped his piece of hide.
"Careful, coon. I gotta hunch she ain't just any old squaw."

 
          
 
"How's that?"

 
          
 
"I believe that bit she said about
Packrat. She said she destroyed him. Watch yer topknot, coon. See that she
don't destroy yer soul whilst she's a-looking at it."

 
          
 
"What do you mean?"

 
          
 
Travis studied
Willow
thoughtfully. "When she walked up and
looked ye in the eyes, didn't ye feel it?"

 
          
 
"I did indeed."

 
          
 
"Power, coon. Heap big medicine. I felt
it afore, at Okipa and Sundance, but never from no woman. I reckon she kilt
Packrat, all right. And saved our bacon in the process. Reckon she knew what
she's about the whole time."

 
          
 
Richard gave Travis a quizzical glance.
"How could magic kill? It's irrational. Ask her, Travis.
Willow
, how did you kill Packrat?"

 
          
 
Travis made the signs, and read
Willow
's answer "I drove his soul from his
body and made him insane."

 
          
 
Why am I doing this? Heals Like A Willow
walked barefoot along the muddy bank of the
Missouri
, as the Whites called it. The golden
morning had dawned cool, with a light mist rising above the water.

 
          
 
Throughout the long night, she'd dreamed of
Dik, of the way his soul had reached out to touch hers. She had never dreamed
that a man would look at her with such fearlessness. What kind of man was Dik?
She'd seen him shaking after killing Packrat, and yet he had no fear of her.
Even the Bear Man now looked at her with reservation. Deep in his soul, Trawis
understood what she'd done to Packrat, if not the exact way of it

 
          
 
She crossed her arms, wisps of hair blowing
around her like a cloak. I used my puha. I didn 't hesitate, didn 't worry
about acting correctly, or as other people expected me to, I used all of my
puha, and Packrat is dead If I had used all of my puha, instead of being so
cautious, would my husband and baby be alive today?

 
          
 
She drew a deep breath to counter the bitter
ache in her soul. Her husband's face hovered at the edge of her thoughts—but
she dared not reach out to him, fearful of what the attempt would do to his
souls on their journey to the afterlife.

 
          
 
If only I had allowed myself to use all of my
Power. . . . But she had been frightened of where that would lead, and what
would happen to her. And if there is a next time?

 
          
 
She knotted her fist, refusing to consider the
possibility.

 
          
 
The roiling water flowed past—an incredible
moving sheet of brown that shaded into gleaming silver before it met the far
wooded shore. Behind her, the new cottonwood leaves rattled in the breeze from
the bluff tops. With it came the smells of grass, wildflowers, and dry earth.

 
          
 
Far out in the river, a giant cottonwood
rolled with the current, the branches yellow and pointed, scrubbed bare of
bark. Two great blue herons flapped slowly upriver, their needle beaks and
trailing feet thin against the sky.

 
          
 
Trawis said that a huge canoe was being pulled
upriver, that it would meet them here. She tried to comprehend what he'd told
her. A canoe longer than fifteen men. She couldn't form the image of such a
thing in her mind.

 
          
 
I will ride this big canoe, and learn more.
She stopped, toes in the lapping water, and looked up. An eagle soared in easy
circles against the morning sky. Is that you, husband? Are you still watching
out for me?

 
          
 
No answer came to the aching loneliness
inside. What would he say at the sight of so much moving water?

 
          
 
Dry-eyed, she blinked, clearing her soul's
vision of his smiling face. Killing the desire in her heart for his gentle
touch.

 
          
 
Perhaps getting captured hadn't been such a
bad thing. She'd had no time for grief. During that long ride with Pack-rat,
her concentration had centered on endurance, and the battle of wills with her
captor. Like two otters on an ice floe, they'd teetered back and forth, but in
the end she'd worn him down. Right down to the moment when he drew an arrow
back to kill Trawis.