People of the Earth (76 page)

 
          
 
Her soul had touched that freedom; she knew
his words.

 
          
 
He lowered his head, staring down at his
age-withered hands. "Some men are obsessed with coupling. Others with the
hunt. Some with status and prestige. For me, there was only the One." He
took a breath and said, "How could I give this up? I wasn't strong
enough."

 
          
 
She could feel the Power of his soul. In an
awed whisper she asked, "And you think I am?"

 
          
 
He lifted his hands. "To me, the Dream is
everything. For you, it must be only part. I feel First Man's worry. The Sun
People can't destroy the One—but they can change it, change all that First Man
Dreamed. They can change the Spiral into something else."

 
          
 
"But why doesn't Power interfere?"

 
          
 
The wrinkles on his ancient face turned
sorrowful. "The ways of men are no concern of Power. First Man Dreams the
Spiral, but the One doesn't interfere with this world, although it runs through
it. Do you remember the Creation story you were told as a little girl at Three
Forks?"

 
          
 
She tilted back her head to the infinity of
sky. "The Creator made the
First World
.
And he made all the animals and plants and insects and people. But people began
to cause trouble. The animals got mad because people thought themselves better
than even the Creator. When the Creator saw what was happening, he made the
Second World
in the sky and fashioned the sun and moon
and stars. The Wolf People say he turned himself into a giant spider to do
that. The Earth People say he did it just to get away from people, but the
souls of the People started to rise and make trouble up there in the
Second World
. That's why the Earth People bury their
dead—put them back into the ground that nourishes them. The Creator thought
that if he made a Third World, he might be able to solve the problem. In the
Third World
, he put Spirits to help and guide the
people. In the meantime, things had gotten so bad in the
First World
that not even the Spirits could help.
Finally the Creator made a Fourth World—this world—and made a hole in
First World
through which First Man led the good
people."

 
          
 
"That's right." Singing Stones
nodded. "In the
First
World
, people
became lost in illusion and forgot their place."

 
          
 
White Ash glanced nervously at Singing Stones.
"The Sun People have a different story. They say that in the beginning,
the whole world was made of water. That Thunderbird had no place to land and
called out. Bear heard Thunderbird's pleas and dove down and brought up mud for
Thunderbird to sit on. Thunderbird was so happy that he mounded up the mud and
made it into a great mountain and Bear went to sit at the top of it. The
Creator saw what had happened and made men and animals from the mud. When Bear
looked down and saw all the animals and people, he descended and taught men how
to live."

 
          
 
A twinkle lit Singing Stones' eyes. "A
good story. I would like to hear other Sun People stories sometime. Stories
have Power. They are a trail to knowledge . . . they free you to know more than
you think you do. Tell me, White Ash, do you remember what happened when First
Man came through the hole between the worlds?"

 
          
 
"I remember that First Man had an evil
brother who led other wicked people into this world. But I don't understand how
the One and the Creator and—"

 
          
 
"The One is the heartbeat of the
Creator." Singing Stones filled his lungs, then let his breath drain away.
"Remember the onion? Layers within layers? The worlds are that way. Each
is a layer. The One runs through them all. Think of it as the odor of the
onion."

 
          
 
"The onion is like the whole
Creation."

 
          
 
"You are wise, White Ash. We can close
our noses to the odor of the One, deny it through illusion. Only in Dreams can
we experience the One. It is the same with the Spirit World. That is why First
Man must Dream the One. Only through the One can the Spirits touch this world.
The Sun People Dream the Camp of the Dead, but in their illusion, they ignore
the One. It is a thing of the soul. You must be the bridge."

 
          
 
She swallowed and massaged the back of her
neck. "Or the Spiral and the Spirit Power will change into something
new?"

 
          
 
"Brave Man will Dream a new way for this
world. In doing so, he will change the Spiral. Only you and Still Water can
challenge his Dream. The choice is still yours." Singing Stones' gaze
filled her like sunlit honey.

           
 
"We came back, Singing Stones. Still
Water and I. We're here. Tell me what we must do."

 
          
 
"Learn . . . before it's too late."

 
          
 
"Too late?"

 
          
 
The old man cocked his head to stare out into
the basin. "Last night I Dreamed. I saw Sun People in the
Wind
Basin
. I saw a lame Spirit man standing over the
body of a young warrior. The young warrior was a handsome man, with blue lines
tattooed in his forehead. The Spirit man raised a bloody knife to the Sun—and a
new way was born."

 
          
 
Brave Man . . . and Wind Runner! Her soul
curdled.

 
          
 
Larkspur struggled to catch her breath and
feed her starved lungs. She stopped on the trail that led up the Gray Wall. To
either side, the ridge they followed dropped off into steep-walled drainages.
Occasional sage and
rabbitbrush
dotted the slopes.
The gray-white soil produced a powdery dust that coated her moccasins. Here and
there, light tan sandstone outcropped on the slopes around them like lines of
scales. High above, scattered juniper and limper pine grasped the crumbling
land with tenacious roots.

 
          
 
Fear clutched at her heart. We are
tainted—unsafe even here in broad daylight. Her soul quaked at the thought. We
're all unclean. By the Spirits of the land and the sun in the sky, we'll
suffer for this foul abomination. Why. . . oh, why did it have to happen to
Black Hand? To Round Rock? She blinked to stop tears of defeat and futility.

 
          
 
Her legs were trembling. She propped herself
on Cattail's arm and looked back at the
Wind
Basin
. The tree-shadowed bottomlands along the
Spirit
River
were hidden by the folded ridges of layered
gray-and-blue clays that rose between.

 
          
 
Better that way. If only we could flee—could
go far from this terrible place. She swallowed hard. How did a person flee from
a defilement of the soul?

 
          
 
After the discovery of Black Hand's body,
people had stared at each other in horror, collecting their children and
huddling by the fires. Many clutched fetishes to guard them from evil. Before
the first morning light had filtered into the valley, camps had packed up and
clans melted away like spring snow. A murderer, a terrible murderer, had
stalked one of the People.

 
          
 
Larkspur puckered thin brown lips over her
shrunken gums and glared in the direction of Three Forks. What sort of evil
possessed the fiend who had bashed in Black Hand's head? She shivered at the
thought. And it had struck her clan! Everyone suspected
Owlclover
,
but who could prove it? Who could level the charge against her, or against her
clan?

 
          
 
Larkspur glanced at her people. They waited in
silence on the trail while her strength recovered. A grim anxiety hung about
them like late-afternoon smoke. Bitterbrush stared out of hollow eyes,
expression ashen. Only Tuber's spirits had returned. The boy looked reborn.

 
          
 
"This will be a bad year," Bone Ring
had said as they lowered Black Hand's body into a quickly dug grave. Only the
Badwater
and Warm Wind clans had stayed behind to help with
the burial. Then they, too, had hurried away, shunning the place where Black
Hand's angry ghost would prowl.

 
          
 
No offense against the People could compare
with murder—not even witching. The ghost of the violently killed would stalk
the night, seeking the murderer. It would vent its wrath on any who happened
near. If
Owlclover's
witch existed, he would seek out
the spot of Black Hand's murder and ally himself with the Spirit. The innocent
would pay for what had been done.

 
          
 
Larkspur glanced up at the long climb before
her. The summit seemed beyond her reach, as did hope for the People.

 
          
 
She started forward again, refusing to break
the silence, refusing to let herself mourn the only man she'd ever loved. He
would live in her memories the way he'd once been: a passionate young lover who
had shared his body and soul with hers.

 
          
 
Resolutely, Larkspur placed one foot after the
other, forcing her old body up the long climb.

 
          
 
I have seen my last Gathering—and it shivers
my soul. A deep-twisting anguish filled her. What next for the People? What
misery will come of this?

 
          
 
The sun burned into Still Water's back as he
and White Ash rested in a protected hollow that lay between pale, square
boulders that had broken off from the sandstone
caprock
above. The breeze made sighing sounds in the limber pine that grew around their
hidden alcove. In the brush, rosy finches chirped and insects whirred.