People of the Earth (24 page)

 
          
 
"Ready," he told Left Hand. He
paused, smiling at Trouble. "Come on."

 
          
 
Trouble jumped and spun around as if he could
sense the importance of this leaving. He lowered his chest and clawed at the
cold ground, his tail whipping back and forth.

 
          
 
Together they walked down the beaten trail
that led toward the Cold Water.

 
          
 
Bad Belly settled under the weight of the
pack, walking slowly until his leg muscles warmed up, feeling the stiffness in
his joints. They'd watch him until he'd passed from sight. For that, he refused
to look back, refused to give them the satisfaction of a final wave to assuage
their consciences.

 
          
 
As he and Left Hand passed the toe of the ridge,
Bad Belly recognized Tuber's silhouette in the morning light. The boy stood on
the crest of the dune where Warm Fire was buried, staring down at the ground.

 
          
 
"Left Hand? Wait a moment." Bad
Belly gave Trouble a hand command to stay and started in the boy's direction.
This good-bye couldn't be ignored. Poor Tuber, he'd suffered as much as Bad
Belly had, maybe more.

 
          
 
Tuber heard him coming and raised his head.
Then, like a frightened jackrabbit, the boy leaped over the other side and ran
full tilt into the sage, clearing the low brush, racing as if the ghosts of the
restless dead pursued him.

 
          
 
"Hey! Tuber! It's Bad Belly!"

 
          
 
Tuber only ran faster.

 
          
 
Bad Belly frowned after the disappearing boy.
Then he glanced down . . . and saw the hole where Warm Fire had been laid. The
coyotes had been at it, digging up the frozen chunks of dirt. They hadn't
managed to pull all of Warm Fire's body out, but they'd ravaged what they could
get to.

 
          
 
Bad Belly closed his eyes for a moment,
seeking to still the suffocating grief. It was the way of the world. Coyotes
had their own nature. Cattail and
Flatsedge
should
have dug the grave deeper, though.

 
          
 
Turning away, he started back to the trail,
where Left Hand waited.

 
          
 
Cries of joy rose from the White Clay as Wind
Runner led them onto the ridge top where the buffalo had been killed. Blood
stains still marked the trampled snow.

 
          
 
"Looks like the Wolf People didn't find
them," White Ash observed, unable to share the joy that filled her
companions. Here was food. But she would have to face Sage Ghost.

 
          
 
Several of the hunters waved, coming toward
them from the makeshift shelters, woven out of sagebrush, that guarded the
meat. In the forefront, White Ash could make out Sage Ghost's muscular figure.
Brave Man pushed past her father, breaking into a run.

 
          
 
Cramps
spasmed
in
White Ash's legs, and the hunger knot in her belly constricted. Her throat
tightened.

 
          
 
Brave Man raced up to her and stopped. His
knowing grin widened while a gleam lit his dark eyes. The black crosses
tattooed on his face seemed to stand out from his chilled flesh. "Meat.
For all of us. Share my fire and my meat with me. We must talk, you and I,
about the—"

 
          
 
She pushed past him, hating the smirk that had
molded his face, hating him with a bitter futility. How did I ever love him?
Sage Ghost came next, smiling—a happy light in his eyes as he looked beyond
her, expecting Bright Moon.

 
          
 
"Sage Ghost?" she called softly.

 
          
 
He turned a penetrating gaze on her. That warm
smile of greeting destroyed her, ruined all the words she'd so carefully
composed.

 
          
 
The bright blue sky, the warm batting wind,
the smell of sage and melting snow—all dimmed. The earth itself seemed to
darken as he met her gaze, smile fading.

 
          
 
"What happened?" His words cut with
the sting of an obsidian sliver.

 
          
 
"Come with me. We have to talk." She
dropped her head; tears battled to break free. She led the way down the
windward side of the ridge, away from the milling people. The sound of Sage
Ghost's hurried steps shredded her composure.

 
          
 
At the foot of the ridge an outcrop of
sandstone raised its barren bones from the embrace of the soil. Snow had
drifted against the base of the rocks, curving in a crescent around the angular
boulders. She turned, letting the breeze whip her long black hair around her
face.

 
          
 
Sage Ghost studied her through worry-bright
eyes. The five circles tattooed on his forehead stood out starkly from his
suddenly pale flesh.

 
          
 
"Bright Moon?" His voice quavered.

 
          
 
White Ash bit her lip, slowly nodding her
head.

 
          
 
His strong hands gripped her shoulders. She
was scarcely aware of the pain as his powerful fingers ate into her numb flesh.
I'll never forget his expression. Never forget his pain. "Her soul . . .
split from her body. I was there the whole time. She didn't suffer. I—I felt
her go. Felt her soul go free in the night. Warm. Happy with the One."

 
          
 
She forced herself to look up, to fall into
the pits of misery reflected in his eyes.

 
          
 
His grip on her shoulders trembled and
loosened. "No." "There was nothing we could do. Flying Squirrel
..." He broke away and turned. Hiding his face, he took two stumbling
steps and stopped. "Where . . . where is she?"

 
          
 
"Back at the old camp. We placed her on
the ridge to the west and prayed. Her soul floated free in a wonderful warm
mist. She smiled, Sage Ghost. She smiled."

 
          
 
"I'll go back. Go back and stay with her.
Watch over—"

 
          
 
"No!" She grabbed him and pulled him
around. The tears streaking down his face frightened her. "She wouldn't
want that. You'd just torture yourself. Maybe die, too."

 
          
 
"What if I do?" His voice cracked.
"Without . . . there's nothing . . . nothing."

 
          
 
She nerved herself and straightened her back.
"I need you. We all need you. She's gone. Let her go." She shook her
head, seeking to rid herself of the images her thoughts conjured: of Bright
Moon's body chewed by scavengers; of Sage Ghost on the freezing ridge top,
lonely company for a rotting corpse. "I don't know about the Spirit World,
but what if you hurt her? Kept Thunderbird from taking her to the Camp of the
Dead? Caused her to come back from the stars? She died in peace. Let her go,
Father."

 
          
 
His haunted stare gutted her. "I need
her!" She broke then and wrapped her arms tightly around him. He hugged
her to him, crushing her against his chest as she buried her face in the soft
leather of his coat. His worn clothing carried the familiar scents of his body,
odors of stale sweat and buffalo blood, of winter fires—of a life that would
never be the same again.

 
          
 
On the ridge top, Brave Man stepped out from
the tangle of people clustered at the kill site. The voices whispered in his
mind, urging him after White Ash. He slipped off to one side, circling to place
the bulk of the ridge between himself and prying eyes. Moving carefully, he
reached a spot where he could look down.

 
          
 
He watched as White Ash and Sage Ghost hugged
each other, buried in the dark pain of their grief. One less obstacle in my way
to possessing you, White Ash. You won 7 be able to deny me much longer. Sage
Ghost will falter. He won V be willing to argue while his soul is pining for
Bright Moon.

 
          
 
The voices in his head whispered, Soon.
Something is going to happen soon. Be ready . . . ready to take your chance.
Power comes.

 
          
 
"Power comes," he whispered, looking
up at the endless blue of the sky. "Hear me, Spirit World." The
voices in his head stilled for the moment. "Wherever I have to go,
whatever I have to do, I will have White Ash. On my soul, I swear it! I will
use her strength. With her Power, you can't cast me out of the golden
mist."

 
          
 
The voices chuckled agreement in his mind.

 
          
 
"What good is it to go farther
south?" Bobcat demanded from his spot in the council circle. The chiseled
lines of his weathered face, reflected in the flickers of firelight, showed his
unease. The tattoos of footprints on his cheeks thinned with his expression. He
sat wrapped in a worn buffalo robe. "I can't see it. We haven't spotted a
single moose since we left the
Dangerous
River
. This land looks drier than what we left
behind us. The buffalo are scattered, few and far between. The grass isn't as
lush. Different kinds of plants grow here. I don't know what good can come of
moving into lands where there aren't as many game animals."

 
          
 
Overhead, the star-shot sky had paled in the
glow of the rising moon. The White Clay had pitched camp in a hollow that
gouged the lee of an uplifted sandstone hogback. The hollow offered protection
from the brunt of the wind and enjoyed a southern exposure that caught the
sun's rays. The sandy soil drained well, unlike the sloppy clay in the flats.

 
          
 
While wolves howled in the night, the
firelight flickered off the lodges and cast elongated conical shadows on the
trampled snow and sagebrush. Somewhere in the background a dog barked and went
still. For once, the cool breeze blowing down from the mountains didn't carry
the bite of winter.

 
          
 
Whistling Hare, the band's old leader, spread
his hands wide, the fringes of his elk hide jacket waving. His eyes had lost
their luster, worry betrayed by the shrunken skin of his face. "I'm not
sure we have any choice. We're being hunted by Wolf People. I think they expect
us farther to the north. And behind them come the Black Point and the Broken
Stones. Last summer those clans spent most of their time warring against each
other. Next summer they might turn their attention to us."

 
          
 
"I've never been as hungry as I have been
this winter," Bobcat's wife, Grasshopper, declared, her hot gaze shifting
from face to face. Grunts of agreement echoed from the others.

 
          
 
White Ash sat in Sage Ghost's place in the
council circle. Since setting up camp, her father hadn't stirred from the
lodge. He stayed on his robes, staring emptily at the spot where Bright Moon
should have been.

 
          
 
The central fire flared as young Drummer
dutifully cast more sage onto the flames. The White Clay leadership sat around
the dim light, grim-faced.

 
          
 
"We can't stay here," Old Flying
Squirrel insisted from her place beside Whistling Hare. She ran absent fingers
down the worn
breastpiece
she wore; her thumbnail
clicked over the lines of rabbit-bone beads separated by disks cut from sea
shells Traded from the west. "Wind Runner barely escaped with his life as
it was. Those war parties—they'll find our trail, if they're not already sniffing
along it. Bobcat, no matter how well we liked it in the north, we've wasted
enough of our energy trying to hold land. We've sung too many of our warrior's
souls to the sky and Thunderbird. They do us no good in the Camp of the Dead. I
have one son left alive. One son, out of four."

           
 
She shook her old head, burdened by her
thoughts. *'Maybe it's Power doing this to us. We're the Sun People. Maybe the
Sun is forcing us south for some reason. Other People live in the south. It's a
land that will support us."

 
          
 
White Ash started as the old woman looked at
her. All gazes turned her way.

 
          
 
White Ash collected herself, looking from face
to face. "People live very well in the south. They don't hunt as much as
we do—but they don't suffer from famine either. On the other side of the
Sideways
Mountains
, the Earth People have lived for many
generations. The camps were few and far between at first. As they grew, some
broke away and made new camps. Unlike us, they collect seeds and plants and
store them for the winter."

 
          
 
"But they live in lodges made of
dirt!" Brave Man cried. "You'll never catch me living in dirt!"

 
          
 
"Their elders don't freeze to
death," White Ash replied hotly. "They don't have to die on long
marches either, because the people don't have to go as far to seek food."