People of the Earth (27 page)

 
          
 
"Looking for Sage Ghost. But I could ask
you the same."

 
          
 
He lowered his head, features hidden in
shadow. "I don't know. Just a feeling. I couldn't sleep."

 
          
 
She rubbed her arms, looking around. To the
west, the
Red
Rock
Mountains
lay in shadow. The uplifted sandstone
ridges to the north looked as though they'd sprouted from a ghost world; they
thrust up raggedly in blue-white light and shadow. The wind had stilled.

 
          
 
"It's not a night for sleep. Power is
loose."

 
          
 
He scuffed the ground with a
moccasined
toe. "You feel like something is about to
happen. Like all of our lives are going to change on a night like this. You
wonder if morning will ever come."

 
          
 
She glanced at the stars. "It will. Soon,
in fact." She paused. "Why are you up here?"

 
          
 
"I'm trying to decide what to do."

 
          
 
"What do you mean, what to do?" A
fist clenched in her gut.

           
 
"I think I'm leaving tomorrow."

 
          
 
"Leaving?"

 
          
 
"Going north. To the Black Point."

 
          
 
Stunned, she shook her head. "You can't!
We need you. You're one of the best hunters."

 
          
 
He stepped close and grasped her by the shoulders.
She could feel his penetrating stare. "I'm doing it for you."

 
          
 
She broke away. "For me? No. That doesn't
make sense. It's . . . it's . . ."

 
          
 
"It makes perfect sense. I can go to the
Black Point. Renounce my clan. Earn a place among them. And when I do, I can
ask you to marry me. My family will be declared dead. I'll have no relations
then."

 
          
 
For a moment, she couldn't form words. Finally
she cried, "That's crazy! Marry me now. I love you! You're playing a game
with this kinship thing as it is. I'm no more your sister than . . . than these
rocks are. Let's run off ... go somewhere where there are no Sun People. Just
you and me."

 
          
 
"I can't," he told her. "These
are my people. How would they feel if they knew we ran away to live in
incest?"

 
          
 
"How will they feel when you run off and
call them dead? Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

 
          
 
"But they'll understand why I did it—that
it wasn't done to hurt them, but because I honor their traditions." He
lifted his hands, let them fall. "Look, people have to live by rules.
We've been given ours. You and I both know this is the only way."

 
          
 
"Don't do this."

 
          
 
She could see his smile. "A man could do
no less for the woman he loves. For you, I'd challenge all of the Black Point
and come for you at the head of ten tens of warriors."

 
          
 
"You'll break your relatives'
hearts."

 
          
 
He asked softly, "Do you love me? Tell me
now. Tell me from your soul."

 
          
 
She swallowed hard, torn by her duty to the
people. Learn yourself. The voice echoed in her head.

 
          
 
"Yes."

 
          
 
"Would you be my wife?"

 
          
 
"Yes."

           
 
He nodded, moonlight gleaming in his long
black hair. "Wait for me. Promise me that you won't accept Brave Man.
Promise me that you'll give yourself to no other man of the White Clay."

 
          
 
"There aren't many left to choose
from."

 
          
 
He grinned then. "I know. Better yet,
come with me now. You and I together, we'll go north. That way I won't have to
come back. Won't have to take the chance of having to fight for you . . . and
maybe kill one of the White Clay in the process."

 
          
 
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"I can't. You know that. Sage Ghost needs me. The people here need
me."

 
          
 
He turned in profile, staring out over the
lines of irregular ridges shining in the soft white light. "I'll be back
for you. I'll follow the way south until I find you."

 
          
 
"If they don't kill you during the
challenge." Her heart began to ache. "You'll have to face their best
warrior, a man who's killed many—"

 
          
 
"They won't kill me. Not with the most
beautiful woman in the world waiting for me."

 
          
 
"Don't. Please. For me, don't do this
thing."

 
          
 
"When you said you would marry me, my
decision was made."

 
          
 
"Then I won't marry you."

 
          
 
He lifted her chin. "Can you look me in
the eyes and tell me that?"

 
          
 
She shook her head. "But I can't send you
off to your death, either."

 
          
 
He chuckled easily. "I'm not going to my
death. I can feel it. No, I'll be back for you."

 
          
 
He caught her and pulled her to him. His arms
went around her in the way she'd always dreamed about. For long moments she
clasped him to her, the need for him pulsing with her blood.

 
          
 
Finally he pushed her away to hold her at
arm's length. "I won't be long. I'll be coming for you no later than the
first snowfall. Be very careful of Brave Man. He's dangerous—but after last
night, he won't stay." He paused. "Funny how things work out. I am
headed for the Black Point, he to the Broken Stones. When we played together as
boys, who would have thought we'd end up as such bitter enemies?"

 
          
 
“Is there nothing I can say to stop you?"

 
          
 
He shook his head. "No. It's a way out
for us. We both know that. Now, go find Sage Ghost. Take the People south
tomorrow. Tell them what I've done, and why. They'll understand."

 
          
 
She nodded, a new numbness inside. He stepped
over to some sagebrush and picked up his darts and
atlatl
,
then slung his small pack. He paused. "No matter what happens, I'll always
love you."

 
          
 
"And I'll love you."

 
          
 
He turned to go.

 
          
 
"Please! Wind Runner, don't do this
thing."

 
          
 
"Before the fall snows. I promise."
And he waved as he began picking his way through the sage, heading north.

 
          
 
She watched him go until the shadows hid his
form.

 
          
 
White Ash bowed her head, misery hanging about
her like dead moss.

 
          
 
By the time she reached the foot of the slope,
she'd managed to control the ache inside. Would everyone she loved always have
to leave her? Why couldn't she have lied, told him she'd never marry him?
Blessed Creator, I've condemned him to death. Except . . . he'd seemed so
certain, so assured of his victory, despite the knowledge that he'd have to
face the best of the Black Point's powerful warriors.

 
          
 
She looked back at the ridge, graying now in
the first strains of dawn. I'll never see him again.

 
          
 
She started to make another circle of the camp
and noticed the shadow in the sagebrush. She stepped closer, peering. A man lay
there, facedown. A chill washed through her soul. "Sage Ghost?"

 
          
 
He didn't move. She could sense the wrongness,
the feeling of abused Power. She bent down and laid her fingers against his
flesh: cold as the frozen ground. She grabbed his buffalo-hide coat and rolled
him over. In the dim twilight of dawn she could make out his features. Old
Falcon!

 
          
 
She gasped at the dark stain on his forehead.
The blood had frozen and clotted where his skull had been split open.

           
 
She staggered backward, a hand to her mouth.
Then she screamed into the still dawn, "Whistling Hare! Come. Come
quickly! Old Falcon's dead! Murdered!"

 
          
 
No sooner had she screamed than the air
erupted with shrieks and yells. Dark forms charged in from the sage, weapons
raised over their heads. Too shocked to understand, White Ash fell into a
crouch. Not for several seconds did she realize that the shadowy forms darting
between the lodges were warriors. Enemy warriors! She knew the tongue they
shouted in—familiar, yet so different. The words sounded slurred; the raiders
shrieked insults and cries of triumph: Wolf People!

 
          
 
Dogs yipped and barked. Someone screamed in
pain. Five, ten, then a flood of the howling warriors burst through the camp.

 
          
 
No. No! This can 't be. There are too many.
The White Clay were hopelessly outnumbered. Rock Mouse, who had survived the
attack on the Fat Beaver, stumbled out of her lodge, hair flying as she ran. A
war club smacked
soddenly
into her skull. Whistling
Hare emerged from his lodge, fitting a dart to his
atlatl
... as a stone-tipped lance slapped into his abdomen. Bobcat rushed from his
lodge, and bellowed his rage as he charged into the melee—and staggered as
fletched shafts pierced his body.

 
          
 
A massacre was taking place before White Ash's
eyes. In desperation, she looked around. Enemy warriors were everywhere.
There's no chance! We can't fight them off. . . can't escape!

 
          
 
A dart hissed by her ear—the cast misled by
the poor light. The deadly missile freed her from the grip of terror. She
turned, running with all her heart.

 
          
 
Behind her, panicked screams rent the dusky
dawn, a bedlam of death and fear.

 
          
 
Bad Belly tugged his robes closer around his
throat; he lay on his back and stared at the night sky. The powerful spring
wind rushed through the sage and whimpered around the ridge tops. Beside him,
Trouble huddled in a furry ball; his warmth seeped through Bad Belly's robes.

 
          
 
Overhead, the stars glimmered and twinkled—cold
points of light on the sable undercoat of night.

 
          
 
Curious emotions played through Bad Belly's
chest the way mice scurried through dry grass. He'd left. Fulfilled the promise
to Warm Fire. And now what? Where should he go? To the Wolf People? Did he want
to follow the path of the Trader? Was that the way of his Power? The pouch with
the stone-fish teeth lay heavy and reassuring on his chest, hung from the thong
about his neck. That gift had become his most precious possession, one he'd
never part with—not even at the cost of his soul.

 
          
 
He turned his head, studying the black shadows
of the hollow they camped in. Left Hand lay buried in his robes, his dogs in a
circle around their packs. The fire had burned down to low embers, no more than
dots of speckled red in the night.

 
          
 
The wind called mournfully to Bad Belly,
speaking in the tongues of lost souls.

 
          
 
Where do I go now? The world waited, hostile,
unfamiliar, unfriendly. Danger lurked just beyond the next ridge top, or in the
sullen shadows of the sage.

 
          
 
The days since he left Round Rock had been
filled with conversation. He and Left Hand had laughed and joked, talked of
Spirit Power and its ways, and about how other peoples lived and acted. Bad
Belly's brain pulsed with ideas; the romantic call of strange and exciting
things beckoned.

           
 
If only it weren't so frightening.

 
          
 
He resettled his head on his arm, feeling the
tug of the wind. It had buffeted them all day as they walked. Their words had
been sucked away in the mighty gusts and blown out into the stalwart sage.

 
          
 
He drifted, thoughts softening like spring
snow in the sun. The way his tired body felt, it might have been afloat on a
sultry current. The Dream came with the gentle touch of smoke on a hazy
morning, creeping around his slumber, easing itself into his soul. . . .

 
          
 
Bad Belly stood on a high, rocky point that
jutted above a cracked and worn range of mountains. Below his perch, the
mountain fell away in jagged cracks and
upthrust
folds of rock that dropped off into blue-green depths. He stood in the realm of
the eagles. The angular granite bit into his feet, harsh and unrelenting.
Above, the sky had an inflamed look. Sunset streaked the clouds with yellow and
orange. A hot wind threw itself against him, sucking the moisture from his
body.

 
          
 
On the slopes below, thick stands of timber
prickled with the lance tips of tall trees, while gaudy light shot weird
shadows into the hidden depths of the forest. The irregular outcrops of bedrock
glowed in the eerie rays cast by the bleeding sky.

 
          
 
Bad Belly's nostrils flared at the smell of
smoke. The wind died and the air wavered. Silence. Then a crackling sounded
from behind him, ominous, threatening.

 
          
 
Bad Belly's heart rose in his throat as a
squeamish feeling tickled his stomach. Frosty tendrils of fear wound through
his soul.

 
          
 
Smoke curled around him and thickened.

 
          
 
Bad Belly shaded his eyes and peered as images
formed in the smoke. He could make out men capturing antelope in a pen,
laughing as they placed braided nooses around the frightened animals' necks.
The vision changed and gangs of men labored in the hot sun, using shining
implements to hack away at a hillside. One by one they chiseled squares of rock
from the mountain's gut, hoisted them on their sweat-shiny backs, and marched
away in an endless line. In the background, the land had been changed,
flattened. In the square plots of land, a single species of plant grew tall and
straight under the sun. Between the plots strode men with gleaming spears, and
knives—as long as a man's arm—that shimmered silver in the sunlight. These they
used on the laboring people, forcing them to do their bidding.

 
          
 
“What is this?"

 
          
 
"What might be, Man of the People" a
voice answered.

 
          
 
Gripped by fear, Bad Belly turned . . . and
the forest behind him exploded into flame. The blaze engulfed whole trees.
Branches waved and shook as licking tongues of yellow devoured them. Fire
roared, leaped and danced around Bad Belly, and he tried to shy away. The
conflagration responded by sending spears of charring fire toward him.

 
          
 
Panic flooded his veins. Frantically he looked
around, and found no way off the pinnacle of rock. Trapped! I'm trapped up
here!

 
          
 
Flames darted up to pierce the clouds and play
among them like Spirits gone mad.

 
          
 
"Man of the People?"

 
          
 
He turned at the voice, bending down, trying
to shield himself. "Help me!"

 
          
 
"Bad Belly . . . Man of the People.
"

 
          
 
"Who are you? Where are you? We're going
to die."

 
          
 
“Death is an illusion. '' Something moved in
the ash-stirred depths of the inferno. Bad Belly winced and crouched on the
rock, tears of horror creeping from his eyes.

 
          
 
A man of fire walked through the flames. The
shimmering figure stopped no more than an arm's length away, and the heat
mellowed.

 
          
 
"Bad Belly. Man of the People. "

 
          
 
"Go away! Leave me alone! I've done
nothing to the Spirits! Leave me!"

           
 
"Warm Fire?" Had his friend become
this . . . this nightmare apparition?

 
          
 
“I am First Man . . . Wolf Dreamer. I Dance
the Spiral. I am all that is . . . and is not. I Dream the One.''

 
          
 
"Why are you here? What did I do?"

 
          
 
"I am not here for what you have done . .
. but for what you may do."

 
          
 
"I won't! I won't do it. I promise. Leave
me in peace! Go away, Spirit! I'm not bad!"

 
          
 
The nightmare laughed and the sound chimed
through the rock underfoot. "You are anything but bad, Man of the People.
You are a pure soul, seeking nothing more than yourself. Will you give more?
Are you strong enough to save her? Do you have enough courage to dare
everything for the Dream? Can you save the One? Are you strong enough to risk
all for the Wolf Dream?"

 
          
 
"Risk all? I don't understand. Why have
you come to me? What did I do?"

 
          
 
"You took the first step. You fulfilled a
promise to a dying man. Are you willing to fulfill a promise to Power? That is
what you seek, isn't it?"

 
          
 
"I . . . well . . ."

 
          
 
"Go. Prepare yourself. You have within
you that which Power will need.”

 
          
 
"Why me?"

 
          
 
"Yours is the blood of First Man. Yours
is the legacy of Dreamers."

 
          
 
"But I've never Dreamed!"

 
          
 
"You have never sought. The way to Power
is unpredictable—and never free of danger. Prepare yourself. Seek the way.
"

 
          
 
Bad Belly tried to scuttle away as the fiery
being spread his arms. About him, the flames melted into a golden haze.

 
          
 
"What are you?"

 
          
 
"I am First Man . . . the Wolf Dreamer. .
. Fire Dancer. " The figure grew and changed, becoming a wolf. "The
Sun People come. The Spiral is changing. Before a tree must grow, it must wind
its roots into the ground. The tree of the Sun will grow in time. The roots
must be coaxed into the Dream now. If not, the Spiral will be turned . . . and
the world will change. "

 
          
 
An incredible despair settled over Bad Belly,
an immensity of loss so terrible that he collapsed onto the rock. Crying out in
stunned horror, he clamped his jaws against the sucking emptiness of the soul
and gripped the rough stone with fingers that cramped and bled.

 
          
 
The haze swirled and darkened, becoming a
mountainside lit by glowing lights like tiny suns. Men labored with the
gleaming implements, picking at the mountain while overseers watched. The men
pulled rocks from the bones of the mountain and piled them under the lights.

 
          
 
The vision drew Bad Belly into the very
mountain. There, like moles, men and women scurried on hands and knees through
warrens they chipped out of the mountain's belly. Dirty, bent, and miserable,
they labored to break chunks of stone loose. Some coughed, eyes gleaming, flesh
sallow. Others bore their travail in silence.

 
          
 
"What madness is this?" Bad Belly
cried—and the vision shimmered into golden haze again.