People of the Fire (46 page)

 
          
 
Blood Bear cleared his throat. "What
about this Heavy Beaver? You've met him. What do you think of him?"

 
          
 
Three Rattles frowned as he stared into the
fire, choosing his words. "I think he's . . . well, touched by something.
But I don't know what kind of Power it is. He's different. He doesn't act like
any Dreamer I've ever known. He's not anything like White Calf, who lives with
Power and knows its good and bad uses. He's . . . listen, don't think I'm
crazy, but I think he made his Power up. Imagined it and it came true."
Three Rattles looked up to gauge the impact of his words. "You know, like
when you believe a lie for so long you begin to think it really happened—even
when you know it didn't."

 
          
 
An uneasy shuffling filled the lodge. Outside
of the mention of White Calf—that brought bile to Blood Bear's throat— the
speculation on Heavy Beaver struck very close to home. Heavy Beaver was the one
who had thrown the Wolf Bundle into the dark to land in the weeds. Perhaps . .
.

           
 
“Surely someone would see through it,"
Green Horn snorted. *'Someone would challenge him, use real Power to break him
and his hold, if it were all a lie."

 
          
 
Three Rattles lifted his hands, palms up.
"I don't know, Grandmother. I thought that a couple of years back after he
started Cursing people who opposed him. I thought then that someone would stand
up to him, make a liar out of him. No one did and everyone he Cursed died.
Maybe he really has Power or maybe they willed themselves to death."

 
          
 
"But the Wise One Above would strike him
down!" Ram-shorn insisted, disbelief on his strained face. 'Tower doesn't
like to be made a fool of any more than a hunter likes to have someone tell him
he brings home winterkill for a trophy!"

 
          
 
"Maybe," Three Rattles agreed.
"I don't pretend to know the ways of Power, but I can tell you Heavy
Beaver has more control over the plains now than any man I've ever heard of.
His warriors run from south of
Sand
River
to north of
Big
River
. When the hunting is poor, they raid the
peoples who have what they need."

 
          
 
"They haven't been too keen to raid
us," Never Sweat added, staring at a dart point he'd taken from his pouch.
"They caught us once, and we learned. They won't do that again. We know
the trails. They don't."

 
          
 
Three Rattles pursed his lips, frowning into
the coals. Blood Bear placed another chunk of thick sagebrush on the red eye of
the hearth.

 
          
 
"Maybe not yet," Three Rattles
conceded, "but I wouldn't count on that for very long."

 
          
 
"How so?" One Cast asked, cocking
his head attentively.

 
          
 
Three Rattles shifted to unlace his outer
moccasin. Mostly dry now, the hair had started to singe. As he undid the laces,
his sober voice held them. "I think Heavy Beaver wants to cover his
backside. He's like a bull elk in rut. For the moment, he's managed to kick the
five-point bulls off his flank. At the same time, he's heard another six-point
whistling in the next valley and that thought's eating away at him. For years,
the joke has been that only crazy kids and people who eat larkspur war on the
Red Hand."

 
          
 
"That's right,"
Ramshorn
growled, shaking a fist.

 
          
 
"But that's changed. Heavy Beaver
surprised a Red Hand camp." Three Rattles looked around. "The White
Crane split off from the Red Hand for a couple of reasons. There was a
disagreement over the Wolf Bundle. We also had too many people hunting the same
game, digging the same roots. The White Crane moiety went north to the
Big
River
. In doing so, we pushed the Short Buffalo
People south against the Cut Hair. They never forgave us. But then, over the
years, we always beat any ambitious young man who came to take the land back.
This time, it wasn't just an ambitious young man. It was Heavy Beaver—and he
killed and wounded a lot of our warriors."

 
          
 
"We're Red Hand," Blood Bear
reminded—and wished he'd kept his mouth shut.

 
          
 
"You are." Three Rattles didn't seem
to take offense. "But the Red Hand have never faced a man like Heavy
Beaver. He's driving his closest competitors away, cowing them, just like that
bull elk I was talking about." Three Rattles pulled off his outer moccasin
to expose another layer, also waterlogged. "Once he's reasonably sure he
won't need to worry about rivals nipping at his heels, I think he's going to
come up here, and he won't leave until one bull or the other controls all the
herds."

 
          
 
Blood Bear tried to smile, but he could feel
his lips quivering with the strain. Without thinking, he turned his eyes to the
Wolf Bundle. Well, if it came to unfold as Three Rattles suggested, he could
still inspire his warriors. The raiding would be long and drawn out, both sides
sneaking through the trees, ambushing, moving. An interesting way to fight. He
had little doubt he would triumph over Heavy Beaver. After all, he was Blood
Bear, Keeper of the Wolf Bundle.

 
          
 
A tingling irritated the stump on his little
finger.

 
          
 
Black Crow walked down off the steep slope, a
heavy pack on his shoulders. Hungry Bull rose, leaving the white willow stems
in the pile of shavings he'd made as he peeled and straightened them for dart
shafts.

 
          
 
The sun added a bit of warmth to his cold
body. On days like this, people stayed outside as much as possible, avoiding
the constant crowding in the shelter.

 
          
 
Hungry Bull met Black Crow part way up the
slippery trail.

           
 
“Good to see you back. Rattling Hooves has
been worried sick."

 
          
 
"Rattling Hooves? What about my
wife?"

 
          
 
"I don't think Makes Fun understands the
hazards of the mountains like Rattling Hooves does. Have a good hunt? Pack
looks full."

 
          
 
"Three porcupines—skinned, of course."

 
          
 
Hungry Bull took the heavy pack, swinging it
over his shoulder.

 
          
 
“I just had to get out. Be by myself for a
while." Black Crow winced as he straightened his back. He rubbed his
rotund belly with a
mittened
hand.

 
          
 
“See anything?"

 
          
 
Black Crow shot him a quick glance.
"Tracks."

 
          
 
"Tracks make thin stew. Fortunately you
found porcupines standing in some. I suppose you had to kill them to see just
how fresh the tracks were?"

 
          
 
“Man tracks."

 
          
 
Hungry Bull stopped short, turning.
"Fresh?"

 
          
 
"Maybe a week old." Black Crow
squinted up at the sun. Frosty breath curled around his face. "Someone's
up there. I wonder how much an
Anit'ah
hunter would
hesitate running a dart through one of us out alone like that."

 
          
 
"They know we're here, that we're not
enemies."

 
          
 
Black Crow lifted a shoulder. "I cut
short my hunt. I found a place where he'd crossed elk tracks. He looked at
them, and continued on his way.''

 
          
 
"Too old?"

 
          
 
“Maybe. They'd drifted the same amount as his.
I'd say he found them fresh."

 
          
 
"Blood Bear?"

 
          
 
"Or someone else. But you and I think
along the same lines. Whatever he's hunting, it isn't elk."

 
          
 
Around him, the trees burned, fire leaping
orange and yellow, searing, crackling and roaring, as entire conifers exploded
in waves of flame. Blinding tongues of light leapt for the night-black sky,
illuminating the cloudlike masses of tumbling smoke in an eerie reddish tint
that receded into charcoal smudges of ruby and maroon as they rolled higher and
higher into the flame-streaked sky.

 
          
 
The air roared and rushed to feed the
tremendous inferno. Entire trees cracked like thunder as the trunks split,
steaming and whooshing flammable gasses into the wall of racing flame.

 
          
 
The heat of it beat down like a fist, crushing
him into the parching soil, grinding him down flat as the world burned around
him.

 
          
 
In the heart of the roaring incineration a
figure moved, stalking the white ash like a shadow.

 
          
 
Heart pounding, Little Dancer watched as Wolf
pulled up, pointed ears pricked.

 
          
 
"Why don't you burn? What are you?"

 
          
 
"I'm the Dreamer of the People." And
the figure blurred as a wall of flame swept past, searing an afterimage onto
the back of his eyes.

 
          
 
Shielding his gaze with an uplifted arm,
Little Dancer squinted, expecting Wolf to have been charred to sizzling grease
and blackened bone. Instead, a man stood there, tall, handsome, the gaudy light
of the burning world reflecting on his smooth skin.

 
          
 
"Wolf? What . . . Who are you?"

 
          
 
"I'm you, Little Dancer . . . and not
you. I'm the Dream and the reality. I've led you here . . . and followed you.
I'm who you will be one day, and who you'll never be. I'm the Way, the Spirit
of the People. I drank from the Wolf Heart. I Dance among the stars and beneath
the rocks. I Sing with the winds of the Sun, and hear the sigh of the Moon. I
am Wolf, the guardian of the People."

 
          
 
Fear rose within while the roar of the fire
grew louder and softer with the vision's words. With a throat gone dry, Little
Dancer tried to swallow. He turned to run. Flames whipped and popped as sparks
twirled like mosquitoes in the lee of summer willows. Fire leapt, searing
tortuous paths across the crackling landscape.

 
          
 
"We're One, little friend," the warm
voice cooed. "You see, I'm within. I am everything you are . . . and all
that you are not."

 
          
 
"Go away! Leave me alone!
Vm
not the one!"

           
 
"Go away? And leave you to burn?"
The voice mocked him, taunting with reality as a spear of fire lanced Little
Dancer's heart. He yipped, jumping back only to feel a searing on the nape of
his neck.

 
          
 
"Join me. I'm your path through fire. I'm
your path through Power. Live in me. Dance in the One, and you'll rise above
the world that deludes you, but you must prepare. One day you must answer for
yourself. What will you give for the Power? What will you give for justice?
What will you give to Dance with Fire, and heal the burns? Are you strong
enough?"