People of the Fire (37 page)

 
          
 
"But I-"

 
          
 
"Be quiet, Blood Bear. You’re almost
finished. Oh, you've some time yet. You'll be able to delude yourself a while
longer and enjoy your status." She turned, cocking her head to stare at
the nervous warriors of the Red Hand. "Go home. Trouble is coming, but it
isn't here yet. Not this year. The storm's brewing out on the plains. You'll
need to guard the trails ... but not this winter. Go. Get on with you. Hungry
Bull here killed some buffalo. Take what you can pack with you. My blessings on
you."

 
          
 
Ramshorn
stared back
and forth, desperately seeking a solution. Hanging Rock reached up, pulling
Ramshorn
back, and the rest faded, backing away. Snaps Horn
stood resolute, and only Hanging Rock's unsubtle tug got him to move.

 
          
 
White Calf shooed them along, getting them
moving before Blood Bear could figure out what had happened. But what had that
look of frustration in Snaps Horn's eyes been for?

 
          
 
Blood Bear stood, filling his lungs to shout.
White Calf banged him on the shin with her walking stick, causing him to jump,
the order lost on the wind.

 
          
 
"What? You want to make a fool of
yourself again?" White Calf asked.

 
          
 
The anger flooded back. "Beware old
woman! You're—"

 
          
 
"Bah!" She spat at him. "You
had one chance today. Hungry Bull took it from you. So long as you killed me
with the first cast, you could have saved something, maybe changed the Circles
and affected the world. But you've lost. Power's not with you, Blood Bear.
You've done something I don't understand. You offended the Power so completely
it's left you like an old blind bull run out of a buffalo herd."

 
          
 
As he gaped at her, she shook her head.
"I don't envy you. You're a tool whose life is past. Like an exhausted
obsidian core. Only you've cut too many of the toolmaker's fingers to simply be
left behind. Even being around you scares me—like standing on a high peak in a
lightning storm. That kind of scared."

           
 
"And what of the Short
Buffalo
People?" Rattling Hooves looked at the
last of the Red Hand vanishing up the trail, the warriors happy to be going
away from White Calf and the trouble brewing in her camp.

 
          
 
"They'll stay." White Calf sighed,
as if deflating. "Not here. I can't handle so many people. But I know of a
shelter down on the south slope of the mountains. Two Smokes can take
them."

 
          
 
Rattling Hooves glanced at her daughter and
then back at Blood Bear. He watched her, a threat in his eyes. At the look, her
heart thumped dully. He'd make her . . . and Elk Charm, suffer for this day.

 
          
 
White Calf tapped her stick on the rock behind
him. "You have anything else to say?"

 
          
 
Blood Bear gave her a wicked smile. "No,
old woman. Not this time. But one day soon, you'll wish my dart had passed
right through your heart."

 
          
 
White Calf laughed. For a brief instant, the
years seemed to fall from her ancient body. "You'll never know what you've
given me this day, Blood Bear. You'll never understand the depths of what
you've let loose." She laughed again and clapped her hands together,
almost dancing as she rocked back and forth.

 
          
 
Blood Bear straightened and lifted the Wolf
Bundle from the rock behind him. Without a glance he turned and began running
up the trail, legs pumping powerfully.

 
          
 
Rattling Hooves exhaled, feeling suddenly
weak-kneed. A strong hand at her elbow led her to the rock where Blood Bear had
sat. She looked up, seeing the concern in Hungry Bull's eyes.

 
          
 
"It's been a hard journey for you. Thank
you for acting when you did. It took courage."

 
          
 
She blinked up at him. "Why did you stand
up for me?"

 
          
 
He looked away, a pain stealing into his soft
eyes. "You were brave. You spoke for my friends. Once, long ago, no one
stood up for my . . . Well, I wouldn't see that happen again. I wouldn't have
your husband feel what I did that day."

 
          
 
She spoke without thinking. "My husband's
dead." She cocked her head, wondering what One Cast would think to hear
that. But she knew. She'd always been outside the circle in One Cast's lodge.

 
          
 
He didn't give her a chance to clarify. "
So's
my wife. Killed by a man like Blood Bear."

 
          
 
Stunned, she studied his sober face. He smiled
shyly, but the pain in his eyes touched her own, blending. Startled by her reaction,
she forced her gaze away from his, wondering at the rapid beat of her heart.

 
          
 
Little Dancer stared up at the stars. The
biting chill of the night ate into his bones. The crystal air burned in his
lungs as his thoughts continued to whirl—dust in the wind. His world had come
undone as if someone had pulled every peg from the lodge cover of his life. He
felt open, exposed to the sight of things he couldn't even conceive. He tried
to think, lost in the sensations of that afternoon.

 
          
 
The Wolf Bundle had burned his soul—the same
as a boiling stone would his hands if he tried to pick it up without hearth
sticks. He'd felt the longing, the Power, the need of the Wolf Bundle. He
clamped his eyes shut at the memory. Power had played around him like the flickering
light of an evening fire.

 
          
 
Images and memories shot through his mind in a
jumble: 4 "Not my son . . . " his mother's words continued to repeat.
White Calf's powerful stare burned into him with an acid intensity. Heavy
Beaver's cruel smile seeped through the pores of his thoughts, as if it were
hot bear oil. Two Smokes cried out in misery. Elk Charm's body swayed,
tempting. The deep pools of her eyes promised. He could feel the gentle touch
of her hands, his body responding. . . .

 
          
 
Everything whirled away, tossed in the tempest
of his disjointed mind. He fell into a Spiral, turning, never finding the
center. Blood Bear's smug face mocked him, the
dani
:
the deadly dart tip hovering over his life. The man -eyes pinned his soul,
sending a shiver through his quivering guts.

 
          
 
Through it all, the Wolf Bundle called to him,
the presence of it haunting, lingering in the air like the faint perfume of
spring phlox. Fragile fingers of memory caressed his soul. The familiar touch
of the Wolf Bundle reminded him of his childhood. That warmth, that wondrous
proximity of Power, wrapped around him. He could almost believe himself in his
bedding, his mother and father sleeping at the back of the lodge. If he reached
up, he could touch the decorated par-fleche, reach inside and feel the
reassuring wolf hide that protected the bundle from harm.

 
          
 
Without thinking, he lifted his hand, fingers
encountering nothing but the night sky. He raised his eyes, seeing the inky
shadows of his grasping fingers. Above, only the
Starweb
stretched into the infinity of the night.

 
          
 
"The Wolf Bundle," he whispered
hoarsely.

 
          
 
As if in answer, the weird howl of a wolf
echoed from somewhere in the night. The cry rose, ascending the scale of his
soul, sending shivers along his trembling muscles. A hole emptied in his being,
part of him draining away to float like the eerie notes on the clear air.

 
          
 
Moonlight broke over the mountains, sending
white bars of light shooting across the canyon to touch the sage with silver
and strike gleaming sparks in the whispering dry grass. The ghostly silhouettes
of black trees danced in the eerie light.

 
          
 
Little Dancer froze, looking to the west where
the clouds piled high. A man looked at him, his image formed of the mounded
clouds, moonlight shining from his eyes. The hair on the back of Little
Dancer's neck rose, chill tickling his skin like a thousand insect feet.

 
          
 
"What . . . are . . . you?"

 
          
 
"Wolf Dream." The words might have
formed of the air around him. "The time will come. You're not ready yet.
The Circles haven't turned. "

 
          
 
He swallowed, gaping into the darkness.
"I'm not the one," he insisted, heart battering fear against his
ribs.

 
          
 
Out of the faint sighing in the trees, his
mother's words spun like strands of
spiderweb
torn
loose on the morning breeze, "I forbid it. "

 
          
 
Little Dancer winced, the power of the words
engraved as deeply as the old
petroglyphs
above White
Calf's camp.

 
          
 
"And your wish, boy?" The words
uttered from a deeper throat, intense, undeniable.

 
          
 
He blinked, jumping as if physically touched.
A shadow shifted. The wolf stood silver black in the moonlight, huge, almost
the size of a four-point mule deer. It watched him, yellow eyes piercing his
wounded soul.

 
          
 
"I . . ." The words caught in his
throat.

 
          
 
"You know the Watcher," the voice
continued. "He's followed you. You are tied.''

 
          
 
The huge animal stepped closer, head lowering
as the mouth dropped open. Bright moonlight shimmered off the long white teeth
like sunlight through ice.

 
          
 
Fear coursed through Little Dancer in electric
patterns. Frozen, he could do no more than stare.

 
          
 
Wolf stopped a hand's length away.

 
          
 
"The Spiral has almost come around. The
Circles are changing—the balance shifting. The ability to Dream it back is
yours. The Power lies in you. Fire Dancer. You needn't choose yet. You have
time to learn about life . . . about what it means to be. One day, you’ll be
called. In the meantime, live . . . and learn. When the Dreams burn in your
mind until you can think of nothing else, seek out White Calf. She understands
now. She’ll listen . . . and teach. ''

 
          
 
The man-shaped clouds flickered from within,
illuminated by flashes of lightning. The man's features glowed eerily white,
watching, pensive, brooding.

 
          
 
Little Dancer gasped and looked, tearing his
eyes away from the Watcher, for the briefest instant. When he glanced back, the
animal had disappeared into the night, only the grasses waving to indicate its
passage. With trembling fingers, he reached to feel the crushed stems, almost
detecting a warmth through his fingertips.

 
          
 
The dull rumble of thunder rolled across the
mountains, the voice of Power unrestrained. Little Dancer swallowed hard and
turned toward the towering clouds; the looming thunder-head had changed form.
Where the man had watched, the head now resembled that of a huge wolf. Another
low growl of thunder echoed across the canyons.

 
          
 
For long moments he sat paralyzed. Beat by
beat, his heart counted the long moments as the thunder rumbled away for an
eternity and took his soul with it.