People of the Fire (3 page)

 
          
 
The old man looked back. "Too bad about
that spiral getting busted."

 
          
 
"You sure there
ain't
any bad luck in that? Some hoodoo Injun magic or something?"

 
          
 
"Hell no, that's just silly superstition.
What harm could it do?" Burt paused, sucking on his beer. "Yep,
that's a big shelter up there. We'll be able to dig for years in that one.
Completely clean it out. Good money. I can just feel it!"

 
          
 
"To Power, time means nothing. Everything
belongs to the Spiral—be it the path of the universe, the rotation of the
Starweb
itself or the path of Father Sun across the sky.

 
          
 
"And where does Power come from? Like the
storms, it comes from earth, and sky, and water, and the Power of Father Sun,
and the Wise One Above—the Creator. Of all the sources of Power we know, the
Wolf Bundle is most Powerful on earth. Once, back when First Man—the Wolf
Dreamer-led the People from the
First World
to this one, the Wolf Bundle was made. Born of a Dream, it suckled itself from
the minds of the People. Because the People believed in it, it grew in strength
. . . warmed by as many hands as held it so reverently . . . powered by the
spirit breathed into it from a thousand lungs; it is our soul, our Power as
humans.

 
          
 
"The People carried it protected in the
sacred wolf hide. They guarded it from rain and snow and dust. Men and women
were born under its Power . . . or died with it in their arms. Sometimes it
soaked up the blood of those who died to protect it from desecration or
sacrilege. Part of their souls joined with the Wolf Bundle, as did the spirit
of the rocks and trees and animals and the People themselves. Nothing on earth
is more sacred than the Wolf Bundle. It's the Power . . . the Dream that gives
the People life.

 
          
 
"That's what brought me to you. The Power
of the Wolf Bundle. I don't know why. I don't know how. But (he Circles are
turning and the earth is changing. Something is trying to unravel the
Starweb
woven by the Wise One Above. The Circles . . .
always the Circles, and time
doesn
'f mean much to
Power. Who knows how long we have left?

 
          
 
"I learned this in a Dream. There, in the
Dream, in the vision, I talked to the Wolf Bundle and heard the voice of First
Man. So I followed . . . I came here to you . . . and the Wolf Bundle.”

 
          
 
—White Calf to Cut Feather

 
          
 
Pain twisted the old man's belly—the sensation
that of a keenly flaked
chert
knife cutting his soul
loose from his backbone. How long now? How long until it severed the tenuous
threads of life?

 
          
 
Cut Feather tried to settle his aching back in
a comfortable position. Inside the lodge, the heat seemed to intensify,
stifling, raising a sweat sheen on his ancient wrinkled skin. He rolled the
bottom of the lodge cover up, allowing the hot breeze to blow through, using
the cover for a sunshade; it didn't help much.

 
          
 
He blinked against the constant gnawing pain,
lifting his hands to look at the knobby bones under the crinkled thin leather
of his skin. Old, so old. His hair gleamed white, braids worn ever shorter
where they framed his withered face. His eyelids had sunk around the orbits,
leaving hollows that gathered the shadows cast upon his soul.

 
          
 
/ look like a winterkill carcass in
spring—dried out, shrunk over brittle bone. Not enough of me left for the
maggots to chew.

 
          
 
About him, the final remnants of his long life
lay ready for inspection—all but the sacred Wolf Bundle, its place suspiciously
empty on the little willow tripod. Beyond the door hanging, dogs yipped and
growled. The soft voices of the Red Hand band, his people, carried in the dry
air. Even here, high in the mountains, continued drought burned the land. How
long since rain? Drought led to war.

 
          
 
Buffalo
had become scarce in the wide plains to the
east, so the Short Buffalo People had come here, seeking the herds that grazed
the high meadows where the peaks scoured the clouds for what rain they could
glean. The Short Buffalo People wanted to call this land theirs. The two
peoples could not coexist. The plains hunters wanted only meat, disdaining the
roots and pine nuts beloved by the Red Hand. Plains hunters used special Power
to ambush buffalo—from which they obtained robes, hides for shelters, and all
their food, even roasting the entrails. Their language made no sense, like the
clucking of a grouse. Worse, they spat upon the Red Hand as eaters of plants.

 
          
 
The Red Hand had repeatedly driven the Short
Buffalo People back into the basins and river bottoms to the south and east.
Only the elk knew the mountains as well as the Red Hand. In the mountains, he
who controlled the trails controlled the country. In the process of ambushing Short
Buffalo People, the Red Hand had earned a new name:
Anit’ah
.
That's what they were called in the Short Buffalo People's tongue.
"Enemy."

 
          
 
Cut Feather stared thoughtfully at the
smoke-browned hides overhead, knowing the shapes of each of the slender lodge-poles
he'd trimmed by hand, knowing each stitch Clear Water had sewn so carefully. A
fly buzzed behind the lodge where he'd relieved himself. Time for the camp to
move again, time to allow the Sun Father to cleanse the wastes of the Red Hand.
All part of the Circles, even flies and beetles had to eat. Circles like the
ones he'd pecked so laboriously into the rock panels in imitation of the
constant Dance of the Wise One Above who watched from the
Starweb
.

 
          
 
Only this time, I won't be going. Here, this
is the end. The last camp for Cut Feather. It's a good place . . . a place to
die high on the mountain where the soul is free to rise to the stars and meet
the Wise One.

 
          
 
As if it heard, the knotted pain in his belly
tightened, stealing his strength and breath, trying to twist his soul from his
body. His body continued to waste, thinner and thinner except for the hard lump
he could feel when he pressed under his ribs on the right side. The lump got
bigger, and he grew less.

 
          
 
And I am left to the final Dream. . . .

 
          
 
Smiling wearily, he remembered Clear Water's
face, the glow of youth in her full cheeks. She'd been the true Spirit Woman.
She'd been the one who paused, eyes suddenly vacant, to tell him about the Wolf
Man who whispered in her ear.

 
          
 
He'd listened . . . always listened, and told
the People what to do. They'd never suspected the Power had come from his
daughter. Never suspected Clear Water's counsel guided him. She'd seen, and now
she'd gone, fleeing her man, Blood Bear. She'd left quietly in the night,
accompanied by the odd
berdache
, Two Smokes, who
watched the plants, picking the grasses and chewing the stems.

 
          
 
Angry shouts outside gave him the bit of
warning he'd hoped to have. The rasping swish of moccasins in the grass allowed
him that final instant to compose himself as a strong hand ripped the hanging
aside.

 
          
 
"Where is she, old man?"

 
          
 
Cut Feather smiled up into Blood Bear's
smoldering features. His son-in-law's strong face had flushed, dark eyes fired.
Muscular, hotheaded, Blood Bear had always been trouble. In the short time he'd
been married to Clear Water, he'd beaten her more than once. People had turned
their heads at sounds of violent coupling in the lodge at night, shamed by her
whimpers of pain.

 
          
 
He'd been helpless—an old Spirit Man without
power. Clear Water had no other relatives to protest her treatment, to seek
justice. And Blood Bear had no fear of a Spirit Man's threats.

 
          
 
"She's gone."

 
          
 
Blood Bear leaned forward, black eyes burning.
"I know that, you simple old fool. Where did she go?"

 
          
 
Cut Feather reached for the gourd, half-full
of water, extending it. "Come, sit. You are a guest in my lodge. Drink
and-"

 
          
 
Blood Bear smashed the gourd away, spattering
water about the worn hides, soaking the sacred bundles. "Where, old man ?
'
'

 
          
 
Cut Feather winced at the mess, blinking as he
looked up. "You know, Blood Bear, you're not doing yourself any good.
Shouting at me just undercuts your position. I'm dying and everybody knows it.
Rage has stolen even your cunning."

           
 
"Hush and hear me out. You're a
laughingstock. Your wife ran away with another man. The People—"

 
          
 
A hard hand clamped on his throat. The heat of
Blood Bear's breath warmed his skin as those burning eyes searched his.
"What man, Cut Feather? Speak quickly, or never speak again."

 
          
 
The reflection of death watched from Blood
Bear's flushed features.

 
          
 
"Let ... go," Cut Feather croaked
over his protruded tongue. Blood Bear relaxed his powerful fingers ever so
slightly.

 
          
 
"Who?"

 
          
 
"Two Smokes."

 
          
 
"He's
berdache
!
A man who loves other men! Why would she run off with . . . with him?"

 
          
 
Cut Feather tried to swallow without success.
Instead, his saliva escaped the side of his mouth, trickling down his cheek and
over Blood Bear's iron fingers.

 
          
 
"Why? Curse you!"

 
          
 
"You still don't understand?" Cut
Feather closed his eyes, savoring the feeling of Blood Bear's choking grasp.
Could he still enjoy memories when his ghost rose to the Wise One Above? Or did
the soul evaporate like the physical body, eaten by this and that, rotted away?

 
          
 
The grip on his throat released entirely.
"Tell me."

 
          
 
"She Dreamed it. That's why she went to
you in the first place. The very sight of you disgusted her. Did you know
that?" He looked up, not surprised at the arrogant disbelief in Blood
Bear's eyes. "Yes, she thought you were no more than a surly camp
dog."

 
          
 
"For a camp dog, she came willingly, old
man. She saw I would lead the Red Hand People, saw I—"

 
          
 
"Fool! It was a Spirit Dream. I don't
know the half of it. A man doesn't guess about Spirit Power. It has its own
reasons for things. She Dreamed . . . and the Dream told her you must father
the child. As soon as her bleeding missed, she and Two Smokes left. No. Don't
threaten. I don't know where she went, or why, or what Two Smokes' part in it
is, either. But he's a good person. Maybe she needs him to care for the baby.
Maybe she needs his help for some other reason. He's
berdache
.
There's Spirit Power in that."

 
          
 
"I think you know where she is. You tell
me, old man. Tell me!"

 
          
 
"Think all you want. It's a new
experience for you, I'm sure."

 
          
 
The blow caught him by surprise, the slap loud
in the confines of the lodge. The power of it snapped Cut Feather's head
sideways, bright flashes dancing behind his ancient eyes.

 
          
 
"Sure," Cut Feather grunted through
the pain. "You can kill lots of Short Buffalo People and strut. You can
even kill me. But you're ruined here. Finished. Out there, they're listening,
hearing your rage. You would be leader of the Red Hand . . . but can people
follow a man who can't keep his wife and child from a
berdache
?
Can they follow a man who'll kill a dying old man in rage? No . . . Clear Water
and I, we've broken you."

 
          
 
The corners of Blood Bear's lips twitched and
jumped as he struggled to control himself. For that instant of time, Cut
Feather knew true fear.

 
          
 
"Where is the Bundle ... the Wolf
Bundle?"

 
          
 
"She took it."

 
          
 
"That belonged to the People!"

 
          
 
"It was Spirit Power . . . something in
the Dream."

 
          
 
"I'll find her. I'll find my child. You
hear me? I swear on the Wolf Bundle she stole. I'll find my child!"

 
          
 
"The child? Or is it the Wolf Bundle? I
think you could care less about the child. I'm dying. I have no more to
say."

 
          
 
Under Blood Bear's taut cheeks, the muscles
jumped violently, the sound of his grating molars audible. "Then die, old
man!"

 
          
 
Blood Bear turned, hesitated, and kicked Cut
Feather in the stomach. "There, that won't kill you. But you'll know how I
feel."

 
          
 
And he was gone, bursting out into the light
beyond.

 
          
 
Cut Feather grunted as he doubled over,
knotting pain burning in his belly. He felt it pull as he straightened, a rush
of warmth deep within. A queer tingling followed as he began to feel bloated
and light-headed.

 
          
 
He barely realized when he fell over. Only it
seemed that faces peered sideways at him. The hides under his cold cheek felt
wet, soaked, as if someone had spilled water on them. A dizziness swirled
around him as people crowded in, seeking to help, asking questions he could
barely hear.