People of the Earth (64 page)

 
          
 
"We'll see, Brave Man. We'll see who you
come back to," Pale Raven replied in a thinly veiled threat.

 
          
 
Brave Man limped off toward a large lodge that
stood alone in the center of the camp, calling, "Bring her. She is mine
now.''

 
          
 
Lame! Brave Man had been lamed! A lame
warrior, Bad Belly had said on the night of his terrible Dream. Thunder-bird,
no!

 
          
 
Buffalo Jumps caught her deftly as she tried
to leap away and picked her up. The way he held her, she could do no more than
flop about foolishly on his muscular shoulder.

 
          
 
"Relax, White Ash." Pale Raven spoke
in smooth tones as she followed. "I've trained him for you. His soul has a
vigor that possesses his manhood. He's been an eager student, and I have taught
him well. You'll find this much better than rutting with the average
warrior."

 
          
 
"Speak for me," White Ash pleaded.
"Don't let him do this! Don't you care? If you love him, do you really
want him taking me?"

 
          
 
Pale Raven's voice dropped sensually.
"Oh, I think I'll have him back in the end. All he wants from you is a
child— and to gain your Power. Let him plant his seed, White Ash. You might as
well enjoy it. Like I told you ... he is quite good."

 
          
 
Buffalo Jumps stopped before the tall lodge.
White Ash could see the symbols of Power—the Spirals, Wolf, and the Sun—painted
on the hides.

 
          
 
"Place her on the furs, here." Brave
Man ordered. "What will happen will be seen from the Camp of the
Dead."

 
          
 
Buffalo Jumps lowered her to the piled furs.
White Ash clamped her jaws, futile tears blurring her vision. It would happen
again. She couldn't fight so many.

 
          
 
"Brave Man?" White Ash asked, trying
to keep her voice steady. "What happened to you? Don't you remember what
was between us? What happened to the young man I laughed with? What happened to
the kindness ... to the man I loved?"

 
          
 
He raised his head to the night sky, where
stars had begun to twinkle. Yellow firelight lit the soft folds of his
clothing. "Power called me. Power has no use for the soft of heart, or the
sentimental. That Brave Man you knew died in the Camp of the Dead. The Camp of
the Dead stripped off the parts of my soul that were weak, like bark from an
old tree. Only the hard wood remains."

 
          
 
"For all that's behind us, don't do this.
Let me leave. I'll never come back. I just want to—"

 
          
 
"It's too late for that." He raised
his hands to the stars. "A new way has come, and Power has chosen me to
lead it."

           
 
She chewed her lip. "Why me?"

 
          
 
"The voices told me so long ago. You're
Powerful. Through you I will find the way to the golden haze. Through your
Power I will learn how to control that place and make a new way. The voices
tell me that tonight I shall plant my child—and he shall be great and Powerful
as no man has been Powerful before."

 
          
 
Brave Man reached down and grunted, as if in
pain from his leg. He lifted a leather object from a willow tripod. "See this?
It's the Spirit heart of the Wolf People."

 
          
 
The Wolf Bundle! Bad Belly's vision from the
Dream played in her head. Too late. We are too late. Bad Belly, I'm sorry. I
should have rushed us—driven us—to get here. I'm to blame. I hung back. My fear
of the Wolf People . . .

 
          
 
"And you will throw it in the fire after
you're done with me." The words felt like gravel in her mouth.

 
          
 
Brave Man nodded. "You are Powerful. You
know . . . and you know why I must have you. You know what Power has in mind
for you ... for me. It will be, White Ash. No matter how much you hate me, I
must break you to my will. You can't deny Power—and I have it." He shook
the Wolf Bundle. "This object tried to kill me . . . except, Brave Man
resisted. Even now it tries, but the Spirit voices warn me first so I can
defend myself.''

 
          
 
His speech sounded slurred, like that of an
elder who'd lost his teeth. White Ash braced herself. "The One and the
Dream of First Man aren't for you. You don't know what you'll create with your
Power."

 
          
 
"The One?" He cocked an eyebrow.
"Is that what you call it?"

 
          
 
She turned her head away.

 
          
 
Brave Man gestured at the two warriors.
"You may go. You have earned the gratitude of Brave Man. If I need you,
I'll call." Five Darts and Buffalo Jumps grinned before they walked off
toward the fire. A new pride filled their steps.

 
          
 
To Pale Raven, he said, "I can't take the
chance of untying her. Use your knife to cut her shirt."

 
          
 
Pale Raven knelt beside White Ash. "He
has Power, and he knows how to use it on a woman."

           
 
White Ash closed her eyes as Pale Raven sliced
the beautiful shirt Singing Stones had given her down the front. The night air
blew cool across her skin as the leather parted. Pale Raven's fingers worked at
the laces of her pants. With surprising strength, the woman pulled them from
her hips.

 
          
 
White Ash couldn't stop the trembling that
possessed her. A sickness grew in her gut.

 
          
 
"How will it be, White Ash?" Brave
Man asked. "Will you accept me without a fight? Or must I call Five Darts
and Buffalo Jumps to hold you? Will you meet my Power . . . accept it? Or will
the Camp of the Dead and my warriors watch you?"

 
          
 
She swallowed her panic and hissed, "Get
it over with!"

 
          
 
Brave Man placed his hands on Pale Raven's
shoulders. "Go. Start the Dancing and Singing. Lead them in the call to
Power. Tell them to Sing with all their hearts as they call Thunderbird to
watch."

 
          
 
Pale Raven nodded and walked off toward the
fire.

 
          
 
"Don't do this, Brave Man. Remember who
we were, remember what our ancestors—"

 
          
 
"I am the new way." He pulled his
shirt over his head. Firelight gleamed on his powerful chest. He undid the
laces that held his fringed leggings, and grunted again as he kicked them from
his bad leg. The joint of his knee looked knotted and lumpy as burl wood on a
pine.

 
          
 
Wild whoops rose around the fire as men began
to Dance and Sing their prayers to the night sky.

 
          
 
He faced the fire then, raising his arms.
"Hear me, Thunderbird! I have followed the way of Power! I have Dreamed
the destruction of the Wolf People! This night, before you, Power is united. A
new Dreamer will be made in this place, born of my seed and nurtured in White
Ash."

 
          
 
His breath caught as he lowered himself next
to her. "Join with me, White Ash. You know the way of Power. You know what
must be."

 
          
 
How could she fight? Her hands remained bound
behind her. The pants that wadded around the tethering thong on her ankles
wouldn't even let her kick at him.

 
          
 
She whimpered as he reached out and touched
her, running light fingers over her skin. Her stomach knotted and twisted, and
the urge to vomit tickled her throat. She turned her head—and in the dancing
firelight, the Wolf Bundle looked bloody. As she watched, she could feel its
Power penetrating her fear. She couldn't ignore its draw, despite Brave Man's
fingers on her breasts.

 
          
 
Bad Belly, I failed you . . . failed Power. If
I could do it over. Oh, Bad Belly . . .

 
          
 
Brave Man's fingers traced down her stomach.
She struggled to swallow the bile in the back of her throat.

 
          
 
Bad Belly ran as fast as he could. A man with
one arm couldn't balance as well as a man with two, and he had to use his good
hand to hold his pack strap. Not only that, he had simply never been a runner.

 
          
 
“White Ash," he groaned as he vaulted a
deadfall in the trail. His pack bounced from side to side on his back and
almost toppled him.

 
          
 
Having found no trace of Trouble, he'd paused
to take one last look at the star wheel, despite fretting about his dog and the
warriors running through the trees below. He couldn't help stooping to sight
down the lines of stones one more time. In the center of the huge wheel stood a
stone cairn. Unable to resist, he walked over to look at it.

 
          
 
The central cairn appeared old, and cycles of
frost and thaw had spread the rocks over an area two paces wide. Red-orange
lichens had grown over most of the head-sized stones, and many of them had sunk
into the soil, almost covered by the sparse grasses. A gleam caught his eye,
and he bent down over the cairn. A sliver of stone protruded from the windblown
silt. He pulled at it; it didn't move. He took a bone awl from his pack,
squatted on his heels, and gouged at the soil. The sliver of stone became a
dart point. He dug around it, curious that he couldn't lift it from the soil,
and uncovered a bone—a vertebra into which the tip had stuck. With fevered
haste he dug the bone out. Roots had woven their way through it, but there was
no mistaking the find. A human being had been darted through the belly, and the
point had lodged in the front of the vertebra.

 
          
 
Someone had placed the body here, on the
cairn. When the flesh had rotted away, the bones had fallen down among the
rocks, where silt had blown over them. Who? How long ago?

 
          
 
Bad Belly's scalp prickled as he glanced
anxiously at the wind-scoured star wheel. He could feel Power growing around
him, ominous, pressing down like a wall of warm water.

 
          
 
Voices that spoke a language Bad Belly had
never heard rose above the whisper of the breeze.

 
          
 
"Ghosts?" he wondered. At that
moment a whirlwind arose in a sucking rush from the very ground. Violent winds
battered him, whipping his braids and fluttering the fringes on his shirt. He
hunched against the fury of the air, eyes closed against the stinging dust that
prickled his skin.

 
          
 
A haunting voice—old and scratchy, like that
of an old woman gasping for breath—called from the vortex: Dreamer . . .
coming. Tell . . . all the People . . . they’ll have to Dance with fire. A new
Dreamer is coming. Run now. Run like you've never run before, boy.

 
          
 
The whirlwind lifted into the sky, and the
grass at Bad Belly's feet went still. He carefully replaced the bone and its
gruesome point the way he'd found them and brushed the dirt until only the base
of the point was visible.

 
          
 
The voices grew louder, and he realized with a
start that they came from below, from . . . where White Ash is! . . .

 
          
 
He jumped to his feet and grabbed his pack,
then peered over the edge of the flat-topped knob toward the camp. Two men had
White Ash down, binding her hands and feet with thongs.

 
          
 
"My fault," Bad Belly whispered.
"Mine and Trouble's. Why didn't I listen to her? Why didn't we run?"

           
 
White Ash struggled to her feet, talking to
the men in an odd tongue. Sun People! Broken Stones!

 
          
 
The warriors started down the steep trail
through the timber to the grassy valley below.

 
          
 
Bad Belly scrambled down the slope, slinging
his pack over his shoulder, peering this way and that while his heart raced. He
could see where the warriors and White Ash had bent the grass. Muscles
quivering with fear, he stepped into the open meadow.

 
          
 
Run . . . run as you've never run before, boy.
The old woman's voice had repeated in his mind.

 
          
 
And now he ran, charging across the clearing
and into the trees. What if I lose them? What if they take White Ash to the
lame warrior? In his panic, he almost betrayed himself, sliding to a stop as he
rounded a bend in the trail and ducking back into the timber. The warriors were
lifting White Ash over a pile of deadfall that blocked the trail. Only the
crackling of branches as they struggled covered the sound of Bad Belly's mad
scramble back into cover.

 
          
 
Bad Belly kept just out of sight, reading the
trail from the scuff marks White Ash's hobbled feet made. Through thick patches
of timber and across open, grassy meadows, he lurked on their trail. In the
process, he alternately suffered through fear, hope, and despair as he tried to
decide on a course of action.

 
          
 
My fault. He ducked around a spruce and almost
stepped on an old woman. She lay in the middle of the trail, facedown, the back
of her head split open.

 
          
 
Bad Belly's stomach churned. Flies had already
laid eggs in the wound, and the insects rose in an angry buzz as he picked his
way past.

 
          
 
He went on. Spruce and fir rose in dense
patches of somber green, their branches interlacing over the trail. His scalp
prickled as if haunted eyes watched from the silent shadows. No more than ten
paces later he stepped into a stand of thin
lodgepole
pine, and then he was creeping across a bare meadow, knowing that a cry of
warning would be raised at any moment.

 
          
 
What am I going to do? He looked up at the
darkening sky. I'm not a warrior. Not a hero. He gestured in despair.
"Wolf Bundle? Couldn't you have picked someone better? Someone brave?”

 
          
 
As the sun settled in the west, he hurried
faster, afraid he'd lose the trail in the darkness. Pine needles crackled under
his moccasins, and once he stepped on a stick that snapped like a bone
breaking.

 
          
 
Bad Belly started at the sound. Be quiet, you
fool.

 
          
 
He increased the care with which he moved—and
almost ran into the warrior. Bad Belly pulled up with a start, thinking he
would die with his next breath. In the deceptive shadows, it took a moment to
see that the warrior had his back turned, his attention on an open meadow where
a fire had been lit against the gloom.

 
          
 
Bad Belly took a step to one side on rubbery
legs. Then another. Praying silently, he eased into the timber, starting to
move around the warrior. If he could get back just a little farther, work his
way around the—

 
          
 
A twig cracked under his foot. The warrior
whirled and searched the darkness with keen eyes while a
nocked
dart went back for casting.

 
          
 
Bad Belly froze like a cottontail under a
hawk's hungry eye. The breath stopped in his lungs. You're going to die!

 
          
 
The warrior took a step, craning his neck.

 
          
 
Bad Belly clamped his jaws to keep his teeth
from chattering.

 
          
 
The warrior called softly—the guttural words
meaningless to Bad Belly. Arm back to cast his wicked dart, the warrior took
another step, balanced, deadly.

 
          
 
At that moment something stirred off to the
right. The warrior pivoted on his heel, casting with the speed of a striking
rattler. But quick as his cast, the lean shape in the timber proved faster, and
the black wolf shot away into the darkness.

 
          
 
The warrior growled and climbed over the
deadfall to begin searching for his dart.

 
          
 
Wolf, bless you and all your children. Bad
Belly gingerly eased away into the trees, stepping over deadfall and tiptoeing
on the mat of dry needles. He tried to still the ragged pounding of his heart.
Close. So terribly close!

           
 
He took his time, easing around the warrior's
position and circling. Through the gaps in the trees he could see people around
the enormous fire. White Ash would be there. He paused at the edge of the
clearing. A hideous mound of corpses had been carelessly piled at the edge of
the trees. To his horror, the bodies made sounds—gurgles and hisses—as the
corruption of death stole through them.

 
          
 
Bad Belly's gut crawled like squeamish worms.
No. Visions of the Dream came spinning out of his memory. No! He backed away,
into the safety of the timber—ready to bolt away.

 
          
 
The huge fire in the clearing climbed higher,
playing yellow light on the conical lodges and scattered wreckage. People
clustered around the blaze, and there, through the silhouetted figures, Bad
Belly could see captive women being dragged inside the ring of spectators.

 
          
 
The Dream! It's about to happen. White Ash . .
. the Wolf Bundle!

 
          
 
Figures broke away from the group around the
fire, and Bad Belly strangled the cry in his throat. The shadowy leader stalked
forward on a lame leg. In the gaudy light, Bad Belly could see that an
approaching warrior led a captive—a woman.

 
          
 
White Ash! It could be no one else. Singing
Stones hadn't had a dress to offer, only the pants worn by the Wolf People. In
her need, White Ash hadn't been particular.

 
          
 
The darkness had thickened. Bad Belly nerved
himself against the panicked urge to flee. Instead, he stepped around the pile
of dead and into the darkened clearing. I'm out of my mind! These are Sun
People! They eat babies! They . . .

 
          
 
He tripped over the
outflung
arm of a corpse and fell heavily. Something hard
thunked
into the back of his head with enough force to dance lights in his eyes.

 
          
 
I've been caught. He gulped and closed his
eyes, waiting for the killing blow . . . that never came.

 
          
 
He blinked, rolled over, and his pack slipped
across his back. He reached up and rubbed his head, knowing a lump was going to
form. What had hit him? He fumbled around with his good arm and felt his pack.
The stone wood.

 
          
 
Some hero. You almost knocked yourself out.

 
          
 
''Hurry!'' The voice seemed to twine out of
the air.

 
          
 
He climbed to his feet and darted forward to
hide in the shadow of a lodge. He placed his ear against the cover, but heard
nothing. He crept around the side of the lodge, craning his neck until he made
out a group of people outlined in the fire's glow.

 
          
 
Bad Belly took a deep breath and rushed to the
shadow of the next lodge. Piles of things lay scattered around it: looted packs
and
parfleches
, robes, dog travois, and lodge covers.
He started forward, step by step. The chatter of voices alerted him. Warriors
were coming. He dropped to the ground and curled himself into a ball amidst the
wreckage.

 
          
 
The two warriors stopped several paces away
and continued their conversation. Urine pattered on the ground.