People of the Fire (54 page)

 
          
 
"I guess I'll always have the memories.
Dung and flies, I knew I'd have to share him with the Dreams. I could have
stood that. At least I'd have him part of the time. But dead is . . .
forever."

 
          
 
"Come on. Let me take you back to the
shelter. I made some biscuit-root bread this morning. It should be about baked.
I'll bet it's steaming and hot and so sweet your teeth will ache to bite into
it."

 
          
 
She hesitated for a moment while he stood.
"I don't know. Maybe I'll just-"

 
          
 
"Girl, you haven't eaten for days. Come
on. If Two Smokes has lived through all the terrible times he has, then he's
learned something from it. Food first. Keep your strength."

 
          
 
She let him pull her up. With her helping him
over the rough spots, they worked their way along the slope. In places, the mud
remained slick and treacherous.

 
          
 
As they topped a rise, the camp lay visible.
The hangings looked worn and tattered after the winter. The yellowed sandstone
of the outcrop looked dingy as did the trampled trails through the willows and
along the slopes.

 
          
 
I'll never be able to come back here, she
thought, hearing Two Smokes grunt as his bad leg took a jolt.

 
          
 
"Look! Someone's coming." Two Smokes
paused, lifting a finger to point.

 
          
 
She squinted up the hill, seeing a person
walking with a big black dog. "Looks like he's had a tough trip. Almost
staggering as he walks as if . . ."

 
          
 
And she was running, pounding up the hill,
barely aware of the throb in her lungs as she ran out of breath.

 
          
 
She slowed to a stop, lungs exhausted, legs
trembling as she looked at him. He smiled weakly. A terrible cut on his cheek
had scabbed over. His clothing hung in tatters, muddy and dirty.

 
          
 
The huge black dog had become a wolf, staring
at her with wary yellow eyes.

 
          
 
"I'm back," he said in a raspy
voice.

 
          
 
And she threw herself into his arms.

 
          
 
"Where are you?" Wolf Dreamer called
from the shimmering wealth of the Spirals.

 
          
 
"Death . . . all is dying," keened
the Wolf Bundle.

 
          
 
“The time has come.''

 
          
 
"Hear their pleas? Hear the last calls of
suffering?"

 
          
 
"Wolf Bundle, the time has come."

 
          
 
"Perhaps . . . too late . . ."

 
          
 
The hot wind blew down from the northwest,
sucking the last remaining moisture from a land that had had no winter. The
faint dusting of snow that had fallen at the height of the deep cold had
vanished like the memory of a wistful smile from an old man's lips.

 
          
 
A man could count the number of rainstorms
that had passed this year on one hand—and those had been cloudbursts that
scored the earth and filled the drainages with muddy water, only to vanish into
the hot air.

 
          
 
Where buffalo had once grazed, whirlwinds—said
by some to be the unhappy ghosts of the dead—lifted yellow-white dust plumes to
the skies and exhausted themselves.

 
          
 
Among the buffalo, the old and weak collapsed
on the long trek between water holes. The cows remained gaunt. Fetuses aborted
from the stress, their fragile carcasses marking the back trail of dusty
imprints left by cracked hooves on the
sunbaked
clay.
Behind the dwindling herds, buzzards and ravens followed, waiting their turn.
The gorging wolves left red, chewed remains for the coyotes. After the coyotes
slunk off with full bellies, the birds got their chance, and when they left,
only the rodents could make use of the bleached bone. Not even enough remained
for the shining bottle flies to blow.

 
          
 
Through it all, only the wind seemed eternal,
blowing, grating on the souls of human and beasts as it lifted silts and sands,
driving the grit with a force to fill every crack and crevice. The hollows
behind hills puffed underfoot, while the windward side consisted of deflated
rock denuded of grass, dotted here and there by a sandblasted skeleton of
sagebrush. When rain fell on the exposed rock, it could only run away to the
sheer-walled drainages, carrying more of the dying soil with it on the long
march to the sea. The rivers ran so turbid even the wiry antelope hesitated to
drink.

 
          
 
On the plains, buffeted by the wind, continually
grimy from the blowing silt, the People cast tired gazes to the heavens,
following the cycles of day from
bloodred
sunrise to
flaming sunset. Weary eyes forever searched the western horizon for storm
clouds that never came. When the People ate, blown sand grated in their teeth.
When the young men returned from the hunt—usually with empty hands—the faces of
the People turned to their Spirit Dreamer.

 
          
 
Heavy Beaver stepped out behind where his camp
lay sheltered in the lee of a sage-studded bluff. He'd chosen this place just
up from the brown waters of the
Moon
River
. As he stood, arms crossed, the sun lowered
in the west. This day, the gaping red eye of light—a macabre wound—bled through
the dust-heavy air. It settled on a specific rocky
tor
high in the
Buffalo
Mountains
. Even from where he looked to the west,
Heavy Beaver could see the retreating snow line on the high peaks. As usual—no
matter what the drought in the plains— the mountains had snow. Where snow
melted, the plants grew green and the buffalo grew fat.

 
          
 
"This year," he promised. "This
year we come,
Anit'ah
. With all our young men, we're
taking your mountains. I'm the new way. You can't stand before my mother's
vision. I'm the new Dreamer for all men. I'm the cleanser of pollution."

 
          
 
The time had come; he had no choice. If he and
his frustrated warriors didn't take the
Anit'ah
lands, the People would starve. When a people starved, they came looking for
the Spirit Dreamer who'd led them falsely. Already, too many whispered behind
their hands that Heavy Beaver's Power had begun to slip, to fade into memory
like the rain that never fell.

 
          
 
If he couldn't keep Two Stones, and Seven
Suns, and Elk Whistle crushed under the weight of his power, then one day soon,
a dart would transfix Heavy Beaver's guts and a different man would take his
place . . . and his barren women.

 
          
 
And if that man begot a son from Heavy
Beaver's wives, that would be an even more damning indictment.

 
          
 
"Prepare yourselves,
Anit'ah
.
This year we're coming. We have nothing left to lose." And Mother, even
possession by the evil ghosts would be better than failure.

 
          
 
Elk Charm's calves ached, a stitch burned in
the joint of her hip, and every muscle in her lower back and pelvis screamed
for relief. But she could not remember being happier.

 
          
 
Not every day turned out like this one. Elk
Charm followed the trail that skirted the cap rock where it hung out over the
canyon. Behind her, to the east, the tall peaks rose, snow-packed and glaring
white against the crystal-blue dome of the sky. Spring had come again—another
cycle finished, a new one started.

 
          
 
Ignoring the ache in her back and the strain
in her legs, she grinned at the whole world. Outside of the exertion, her
biggest worry was that the bottom would split out of the pack she carried. This
was, indeed, a special day. She had gone to dig roots where the
snowbanks
fed the verdant green slopes and the prize
biscuit root that grew there. No more than an hour's worth of driving her hard
chokecherry digging stick into the ground had netted an entire
packful
of roots and greens. She'd stopped to pick some
newly sprouted yarrow for seasoning and heard the doe.

 
          
 
Purely by luck, the deer had stepped out from
where she'd been bedded in the juniper, ears pricked, curious at the
disturbance to her morning nap.

 
          
 
Without a second thought, Elk Charm's arm went
back and she drove a finely fletched dart through the deer's chest. The doe
jumped, wheeled, and made no more than fifty paces before her knees went weak
and buckled. Reeling on her feet, she'd fallen, struggled to get up, and fallen
again.

 
          
 
Wary, Elk Charm had frozen in place, waiting.
Only a fool rushed up to a wounded animal. To do so might lend the prey that
final rush of fear and send the quarry on a wild run. Accidents happened that
way. Hunters lost their fatally wounded game. On such an occasion, a wounded
animal's spirit might stalk the hunter, watching, scaring away other game and
causing bad luck.

 
          
 
Elk Charm had stood still as lightning-
riven
deadfall, waiting, watching the doe bleed out, her
sides working harder and harder as the blood emptied from her pierced lungs.

 
          
 
Finally the head had dropped and the doe
rested her chin on the buff-colored rocky soil. She'd sighed a couple of times,
the sound rattling and loud as blood leaked from her nostrils to soak the arid
stone and dirt. Only when Elk Charm could see no movement did she creep closer.
By the time she reached the doe, the animal's spirit had passed from the body.

 
          
 
Reverently, Elk Charm had said the prayers,
Singing the spirit to the heavens above. She asked fervently that the deer's
soul might run with the wind, and Dance with the stars. Gratefully, she thanked
the doe for the gift of life and what it meant to her family. Then she
straightened and lifted a hoof, rolling the animal over.

 
          
 
Not even Hungry Bull could have made a better
shot than that! She'd pulled her butchering kit from the pouch hanging at her
waist and quickly slit the gleaming white belly hide open. With her quartzite
chopper she split the ribs from the sternum. She'd emptied the heart of clotted
blood and cut it from the tough sack that surrounded it. The windpipe came out
next. The liver, kidneys, and fetus had gone into her pack as delicacies for
tonight's feast. Then she'd halved the carcass, unloading part of the roots so
she could carry the organs and hindquarters back. The rest she propped in the
juniper branches to cool.

 
          
 
Only after she'd finished butchering did she
drain the paunch and intestines.
Tbrning
the paunch
inside out, she coiled the intestines and laid them inside where they'd stay
moist and flies couldn't get to them. She'd return with Little Dancer before
dark and retrieve the rest of her roots and the extra meat and organs.

 
          
 
Remembering the events of the day, she walked
in a glow, and grinned, and chanted a song under her breath in an attempt to
ignore the pain her load caused her. That didn't stop her from worrying about
the strain on the pack. She'd sewn the straps herself, using the finest sinew,
and most of the leather had been doubled. Still, what she carried had to be
almost half her weight. Not even the best packs could take that for long.

 
          
 
Besides, she had to get back. The milk in her
breasts had begun to ache in addition to her muscles and bones. Already she
could feel the wetness and smell the musk of leaking milk.

 
          
 
"Ho-
yeh
!"
The cry came from behind her.

 
          
 
She slowed and turned, lifting a hand to shade
her eyes. A man trotted briskly down the trail.

 
          
 
"Ho-
yeh
!"
she called back, trying to place the figure. "Catch up! This is
heavy!" And she started down the rocky path again, using her digging stick
to help with balance.

 
          
 
She heard him closing, heavy feet crunching on
the friable sandstone pebbles that littered the cap rock.

 
          
 
"Who is it?" she called.

 
          
 
"I am
Ramshorn
,
warrior of the Red Hand, and I'm betting the front side of that big pack is Elk
Charm, also of the Red Hand and my cousin on top of it all."

 
          
 
Elk Charm bit her lip, knowing full well what
he wanted. She'd hoped Blood Bear wouldn't be foolish enough to send someone
down. She'd hoped it had all gone away, blown like the dust on the west wind to
some other place far away.

 
          
 
"Ho-
yeh
,
Ramshorn
. Welcome to the camp of Hungry Bull. You've timed
it well, I've got fresh deer in the pack and roots, too—albeit a little
blood-soaked by luck."

 
          
 
He laughed. "I stopped to look. You'd
scuffed up the tracks, but it looked like a neat one-shot kill. How far did you
throw from?"

 
          
 
"Maybe twenty paces." She grinned
despite his presence; pride over something like that didn't come every day.
"When I opened her up, the dart had cut through the lungs."

 
          
 
"Well, if you do that sort of thing all
the time, why don't you leave this Little Dancer of yours and come be my
number-one wife? The others can step aside for a hunter like that."

 
          
 
"And you'd never sleep," she shot
back. "All those wives you displaced to bring me in would slit your throat
some night—and mine, too, no doubt. If they didn't, someone else would, cousin,
because marrying you would be incest."

 
          
 
He laughed with her and offered, "I could
carry something. Maybe those back legs? I see the hocks sticking out the
top."

 
          
 
"Not worth it," she puffed.
"We're almost there."

 
          
 
The trail forked. The less-traveled route to
the right continued to follow along the cap rock. The other split left and
dropped down through a crack in the thick sandstone. Elk Charm slowed, placing
each foot just so from long practice.