People of the Fire (29 page)

 
          
 
Why won't they just leave me alone?

 
          
 
A shadow detached itself from the blackness.

 
          
 
Little Dancer gulped at the sudden shiver of
fear, tensing.

 
          
 
The big black wolf might have been a dream
image, so silently did it slip into the trees.

 
          
 
How long had the animal stalked him? How long
had it watched? On rubbery legs he stood and retraced his way to the game
trail. Exhausted and drained, he set his steps toward the meadow where he knew
his father had started a buffalo trap.

 
          
 
Elk Charm huddled inside the wrap of her soft
elk-hide robe, bending low to peer under the flap of the menstrual lodge toward
the camp. The Red Hand always put the menstrual lodge uphill and downwind.
First Man had told them to do it that way.

 
          
 
She wrinkled her young nose. For the life of
her, she couldn't imagine why. Did the old men really think they could smell a
woman's bleeding? She remembered sniffing the breeze surreptitiously to see
once, and had only detected the more powerful odor of camp: smoke, feces, dog
and human, and the faint tang of cured hide over the light scent of boiling
foodstuff's and roasting roots.

 
          
 
She tensed as Blood Bear walked past the edge
of camp, his black silhouette framed by the fires. The Keeper of the Wolf
Bundle paused for a moment, staring as if his eyes could make her out in the
night-shadowed lodge.

 
          
 
For a long moment, she held her breath. Then
he ducked into his lodge.

 
          
 
Had Tanager forgotten? Had she skipped out on
some crazy adventure in the timber again?

 
          
 
Elk Charm exhaled wearily. Would her mother
never come? The menstrual lodge confined her like a mountain sheep in a catch
pen. If only Blood Bear didn't stalk the night, waiting. If only she didn't
understand why he lurked in the darkness. Would it always be this way? Would
each time be this terrible? Silently, she reminded herself that after all, this
was her first time. That it had happened so soon had been a rude surprise for
her.

 
          
 
At first, she couldn't understand what had
gone wrong. When the cramps hit, she just knew it must have been the pine-nut
patties she'd stolen from old Green Horn's grinding stone—that the old woman
had cast some sort of enchantment to give young-girl thieves a bellyache. But
Elk Charm should have known. The budding of her breasts should have been a
clue. The broadening of her hips—which had become so pronounced in her
shadow—hadn't prepared her. Not even the downy-dark tracery of pubic hair had
warned her. When the blood first appeared, she'd almost panicked.

 
          
 
“It's your time," her mother, Rattling
Hooves, had told her proudly. "My daughter's become a woman."

 
          
 
In utter spiritual chaos, Elk Charm had simply
stared, mouth open, unable to speak. In all her life only the tragic death of
her father had left her so off balance and devastated.

 
          
 
Ushered to the menstrual lodge in great
ceremony, she'd spent four days under the shelter, alternately confused,
ecstatic, bored, excited, or miserable. Then her mother and grandmother and
most of the other women had come, plucked her eyebrows, and stripped her bare.
With gaudy colors, they'd painted her body as all women had been painted the
First Man had shown them the way up from the First World and exposed them to
the light of Father Sun. Her mother had dipped both hands in wet ocher and
clapped them to her breasts, symbolically dedicating her future milk to the Red
Hand. They had painted her face white with a blue circle on her right cheek to
indicate the sky and a brown circle on her left to indicate the earth. Down
from her breastbone, they had painted the yellow Path of Light to cross her
navel and end on the rise of her pubis. Green Horn had used charcoal to draw
arrows pointing up the insides of her thighs. "To lead these stupid young
men to the right place, you see!" And she'd cackled to the immense delight
of the other old women.

 
          
 
Flushed with embarrassment, Elk Charm had
swallowed hard, certain the old hag knew just who had stolen her pine-nut patties.

 
          
 
Orange was painted in a big circle on the flat
of her abdomen, a symbol of the morning sun and the new life it brought to the
day just as her loins would bring new life to the Red Hand.

 
          
 
Through it all, she endured, knowing the
ritual as every young girl somehow did. No one ever really discussed it openly;
nevertheless, she had known from whispered conversations shared with her
friends, Cricket and Tanager. Somehow, it hadn't seemed real until afterward.
The old women had left, accompanied by her mother. They'd gone, singing and
rattling their deer-hoof noisemakers. A new woman had come to the Red Hand.

 
          
 
Elk Charm had straightened to watch them go,
feeling the difference in her life. The men had been waiting, laughing,
singing, and clapping their hands as they danced along with the procession.
Cricket and Tanager had observed from the edge of camp, wide-eyed, knowing
their old easygoing relationship had changed. Elk Charm could no longer laugh
and joke with them like a child, or play games like hoop and stick. She had to
assume the duties of a woman—and she had no idea how women laughed, or what all
their jokes meant.

 
          
 
A man would want her. That thought had
possessed her, going through her thoughts like a cool breeze on a hot day.
She'd been so preoccupied, she'd barely noticed at first.

 
          
 
One man didn't join the dancing. The Keeper of
the Wolf Bundle simply looked on, stern face expressionless. Across the
distance, she'd felt the anticipation in his eyes. Head up, alert, the
consummate hunter had found prey.

 
          
 
He'd looked in her direction, smiling to
himself, a gleam in his eyes. The realization had hit her like a thrown rock.
Her soul tightened and twisted in on itself: Blood Bear wanted to have her
first!

 
          
 
Desperate, she'd sent Tanager for her mother,
unwilling to elaborate on the reason why. Even as she'd struggled to explain,
will-o'-the-wisp Tanager had slipped away into the night.

 
          
 
That afternoon, as singing and chants rose
from the camp, she'd huddled under her robe. They'd expect her to leave the
lodge tomorrow morning. What then? Blood Bear would lie in wait. How could she
refuse him if he caught her outside the camp? What could she do? No one denied
the Keeper of the Wolf Bundle. Blood Bear had returned the stolen heart and
spirit of the Red Hand. He could take what he wanted.

 
          
 
She bent down to peer under the cover again,
seeing a dark shadow detach itself from the camp to walk up the flat-trodden
path. The familiar stride warmed some of the desperate chill within. Tanager
had managed to slip into her stepfather's lodge and catch her mother's ear.

 
          
 
Soft-skinned moccasins whispered on the path,
a swish of fringed hide brushed against skin as Rattling Hooves bent down.

 
          
 
"Hello, daughter. What's this I hear? You
wanted to see me?"

 
          
 
"I need to talk."

 
          
 
Her mother chuckled in her throaty manner and
ducked through the flap. She sighed as she sat down and rolled onto her side on
the padded hide floor of the lodge. Relaxed, she kicked her legs out, leaning
on one arm to stare across in the darkness.

 
          
 
"Worried about being a woman? Tanager
wasn't any too specific.”

 
          
 
Elk Charm swallowed hard, nodding in the
blackness. The old familiarity they shared—that close link between a mother and
daughter who'd suffered together—communicated more than words

 
          
 
"Well, don't. There's not much you can do
about it. I gue88 I made it, huh? Just be yourself. Wait and I thing happens
like it will happen. You don't need to be afraid of the future. Life just comes
and you live it day by day.

           
 
Right now you are scared of what it will be
like. When you've cleaned your first grandson's runny butt, you'll wonder where
it all went."

 
          
 
"It's not that." Her heart started
to race.

 
          
 
"Oh?" Her mother's warm voice rose
in question. "That's what worried me."

 
          
 
"It's . . . well, Blood Bear." The
charcoal arrows Green Horn had drawn on her thighs itched in the darkness: a
premonition?

 
          
 
Her mother sighed. "I see. He's been
watching the lodge?"

 
          
 
"Ever since everyone left. He knows I'm
ready. Only . . . Mother, not him. I don't ... I mean ..."

 
          
 
Her mother moved closer in the darkness,
shifting. A warm arm settled around Elk Charm's shoulders. "I think I
understand." Silence stretched. "Is it all men? Or just him?"

 
          
 
"Just him. I hoped it would be Snaps
Horn. He's said some things—well, maybe even promised. I don't think he was
teasing. I've seen him watching me. I wish it could be him. I really do. But
other men, well, I can say no to them."

 
          
 
"That's right."

 
          
 
"But Blood Bear keeps the Wolf Bundle. No
one says no to him. I can't ... I won't let him touch me. I don't want what he
does. He hurts women. I heard about what he did to Soft Spring Shower her first
time. He made her bleed. That's not right. I don't want to hurt."

 
          
 
"
Shhh
! I know.
If it were me, I wouldn't want to either. I got lucky. When I left the lodge, I
had wonderful men to choose from."

 
          
 
"But I-"

 
          
 
"Hush, girl. I'm thinking."

 
          
 
Long moments passed. Elk Charm kept looking
under the flap toward the camp. The evening fires had been lit in the lodges.
The cone-shaped tops of the hide shelters glowed yellow brown, lit by the
firelight within. She knew the scenes from experience. Inside, people sat,
laughing, telling stories about Elk Charm's childhood, wondering who she'd
marry in the end. Most of the tales began with, "Remember when Elk Charm
was five? Remember when she ..." and they'd go on.

 
          
 
Why did these cold fingers of dread trace
through her soul

           
 
despite the celebration? Why did Blood Bear
have to want her?

 
          
 
“White Calf."

 
          
 
“What?"

 
          
 
Her mother nodded slowly in the darkness. “That's
the answer. I'm sending you to White Calf's. In the meantime maybe Blood Bear
will forget you. Or maybe you'll find a man somewhere, eh?"

 
          
 
“But why would I go to White Calf's? I
don't—"

 
          
 
"Where else would you be safe? Hmm? Fast
Runner's? Blood Bear would just go there . . . and besides, your family is all
here, so you wouldn't have an excuse. We've got to get you someplace that you'd
be expected to go. White Calf's is perfect."