People of the Fire (60 page)

 
          
 
Tanager watched her warily, some of the
trembling gone from her limbs. The gooseflesh had eased to reveal reddened,
scratched skin.

 
          
 
White Calf winced at the pain the girl must be
feeling as she cleaned the wounds; but Tanager showed no change of expression
on her stoic face, despite what had to be agony.

 
          
 
"Like I said, you've got an inner
strength." White Calf frowned. "Perhaps that's what I never had. Ah,
well, this is an age for heroes."

 
          
 
"I still don't understand."

 
          
 
White Calf found a robe and handed it to
Tanager, who'd begun to fidget and finally stepped back from the fire, a faint
sheen of sweat on her muscular legs and belly.

 
          
 
White Calf waved the words away. "You
don't need to. Not yet. The thing you have to remember is that you've got to
trust the Dreamer. You've got to be the strength of the Red Hand. Do you understand?"

 
          
 
"Trust the Dreamer?" A wry smile
began to bend her lips until she flinched from the pain.

 
          
 
"Trust the Dreamer," White Calf
agreed fervently. She cocked her head. "Tell me, Tanager, are you strong
enough? Can you—"

 
          
 
The keen tip of Tanager's dart dimpled White
Calf's throat. She looked down the shaft into the deadly eyes of the young
woman. "I killed two of the crawling maggots that raped me, old woman.
Don't tell me of strength. Where I should have been a broken wreck, I killed
and got away—and so help me, by the Wolf Bundle, I'll make them regret
it!"

 
          
 
White Calf ignored the prickle of the
razor-edged stone. "That's passion, the need for revenge. Anyone can whip
themselves to rage and attempt the impossible. I asked you about strength. Can
you do what you have to? Can you rise above yourself? Can you carry the weight
and responsibility of the Red Hand on your shoulders? Can you lead them, no
matter what it costs you?"

 
          
 
"I killed, didn't I?"

           
 
“Any damn fool can kill. Can you give all of yourself
for your Red Hand? Can you force yourself to look beyond your rage? That's what
I'm asking. I'm looking for strength—not another weak fool like Blood Bear.''

 
          
 
“You call him a weak fool?"

 
          
 
White Calf nodded, feeling a trickle of blood
down her neck. “He's no better than Heavy Beaver—just less capable. He, too,
spurns the Power."

 
          
 
The dart tip withdrew. Tanager shook her head.
“I’m surprised. Had it been me on the point of the dart, I'd have thought my
life over. Don't you fear, White Calf?"

 
          
 
She dabbed at the blood. "I fear. But not
death. I've been waiting for it. I have a lot of questions I want answered. But
that's not the issue."

 
          
 
“My strength is?" She lifted an eyebrow.
“Right now, I could kill the world to pay it back for—"

 
          
 
"That's what worries me." White Calf
filled her lungs. “I want to know if you're strong enough to use your wits over
your anger. Can you do that?"

 
          
 
"Wits? Anger? What are you talking
about?"

 
          
 
“If you can't figure it out, then Wise One
Above help us, you'll probably kill the Red Hand."

 
          
 
Tanager simply stared, the hot burning of fury
pulsing behind her eyes.

 
          
 
"Forget it. There's the stew bowl. You're
about to fall over from fatigue. Eat and sleep, and if we have time, we'll
discuss it in the morning."

 
          
 
Little Dancer took another handhold on the hot
rock and pulled himself up, panting as he fought for breath. Below him, a sheer
cliff dropped away to tumbled and broken rock. Wolf sat below, watching, tail
wrapped around his front feet.

 
          
 
From where he'd climbed, the view could
literally steal a person's breath. Even eagle didn't have a better perspective
of the world. To either side, the sandstone cliffs dropped away from the
pinnacle Little Dancer scaled. The land had been thrust up here, and he could
see out across the entire basin to the blue-green mountains to the west. There,
the peaks rose gray and jagged to rake the blue eminence of the sky.

 
          
 
The flanks of the
Buffalo
Mountains
stretched in buckled and dissected
shoulders, each stippled with pine and juniper. Higher, dense mats of fir and
lodgepole
blanketed the slopes until the rounded peaks
protruded like eroded and cracked skulls from tattered scalps.

 
          
 
Against this vista, Little Dancer pitted
himself, trying to sweat out the misgivings and queer fingers of fear that
gripped and slipped along his very heart. The danger of a fall, the chance of a
misstep, only heightened the challenge—and the gnawing question that ate away
inside him.

 
          
 
He couldn't go. He could feel the call, feel
the pull of the Wolf Bundle—but Elk Charm pulled him more. He couldn't look
into the eyes of his children and walk away to follow the call.

 
          
 
"I promised," he rasped through
clenched teeth. "I made my decision!" Under his sweaty cheek, the
gritty sandstone bit into his flesh.

 
          
 
He reached for another handhold. "Wolf
Dreamer!" he screamed. "Where are you?"

 
          
 
Despite his bleeding hands, he braced himself
and pushed up, torn fingers reaching frantically for another hold. He found a
slight fissure in the rock and pulled himself higher. His muscles quivered and
ached under the strain.

 
          
 
"Wolf Dreamer?"

 
          
 
He got his foot propped on an angular
projection and forced himself up. With a final burst of effort, he flopped over
the top of the rock, gasping, sweat tickling as it dribbled down his fevered
cheeks and traced irregular paths under his scalp.

 
          
 
Flat on his back, he stared up at the sky. The
endless blue seemed to beckon, to call him into an eternity he couldn't reach
no matter how high he climbed. There, up beyond the vastness of sky, lay the
land of spirits.

 
          
 
"Wolf Dreamer?"

 
          
 
He closed his eyes, the faces of his wife and
children spinning out of his memory. "I can't go, Wolf Dreamer. I can't
leave them. I love them too much. I like being who I am. Not who you'd make me.
I'm not a hero , . . not like you. I'm only a man, a husband and father. Take
someone else, someone stronger to fight your war for you."

 
          
 
Tears trickled down, mingling with the sweat
on his cheeks. "Please, Wolf Dreamer. Find a hero to do your work. I can't
save the Wolf Bundle. I can't destroy Heavy Beaver. I love too much. I can't
fight."

 
          
 
Only the hot whisper of the wind sounded
around him. Somewhere below, a raven cawed—bringing a chill memory of Heavy
Beaver's curse. A vague flash of Sage Root, wrists gaping, flies buzzing,
passed like a snow flurry through his mind.

 
          
 
"
Aforme
!"

 
          
 
He rolled over and pushed himself to his feet.
He stood on a rocky flat no more than four paces east, west, north, or south.
Small tufts of bitterbrush and saltbush clung desperately to cracks in the
rock. Washed by rains, scoured by the wind, nothing but a scatter of head-sized
rocks remained.

 
          
 
He froze, heart thudding dully in his breast.
The work looked ancient, weathered away in places, clear in others. Dirt had drifted
to fill part of the grooves, scrubby grass having taken root. He choked a hard
swallow down his throat. The entire top of the rock had been laboriously pecked
into a large Spiral. He shook his head, trying to back off the huge carving,
realizing he had nowhere to go. Numb, he looked up at the sky, at the glaring
sun.

 
          
 
He faced the east, raising his hands.

 
          
 
"Wolf Dreamer? Come speak to me!"

 
          
 
The sun burned down on him, baking his body. A
pleading in his soul, he stepped forward, grasping fingers trying to pull the
sky down. Scaly brush crackled underfoot, scratching his ankles.

 
          
 
''Wolf Dreamer ?''

 
          
 
The sting seemed to come from the trampled
brush at first, then the burning reached past his desperation. He looked down,
seeing the triangular head where it stuck to his leg, injecting the venom of
its wrath. Black slits of pupils stared malevolently up at him, the scaled
diamond patterns catching the sun in a gray-buff sheen.

 
          
 
He cried, kicking out, snapping the reptile
loose to coil in the corner of the rocks, the tail that he'd crushed buzzing
furiously.

 
          
 
"No," he croaked, bending down,
staring in horror at the punctures in his dark skin. "No!"

 
          
 
He fell, hard stone beating against his flesh
as he grabbed his ankle. A searing dizziness gripped him, his stomach
convulsing as he fought the urge to vomit.

 
          
 
“No!"

 
          
 
Through fear, he felt the world lurch. He
blinked with glassy eyes, feeling the poison working within him, burning along
his veins. Frantically, he looked around, seeing nothing with which to puncture
the wounds—perhaps to bleed some of the poison out, for he couldn't bend to
suck it.

 
          
 
The clicking sound came from his chattering
teeth. He rubbed tears from his eyes. He could feel the grooves that had been
pecked into the rock. He blinked, seeing he'd fallen in the center of the
Spiral. Beginning and end—birth and death.

 
          
 
He waited as the sun angled across the sky.
Sick, nauseated, he felt death eating its way up his throbbing, swelling leg.
The sun slanted to the west.

 
          
 
The words spun out of the clear air. Little
Dancer stared up into the weaving glazing of sky, hearing the old woman as
clearly as if she stood above him.

 
          
 
Monster Creatures on bellies crawl. Bite a
man's foot. Watch him fall. Legless, armless, hair of scale. Shakes a rattle on
his tail. Teeth of poison, hollow flail, Makes blood black and frail.

 
          
 
“Who . . . Who are you?"

 
          
 
The Sky? Aye, always the sky.

 
          
 
Blazing hot, and white the land,

 
          
 
Scorched as by burning brand.

 
          
 
Dream the big beasts to the stars, away.

 
          
 
Their corpses bleach on dusty clay.