People of the Nightland (North America's Forgotten Past) (37 page)

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Authors: W. Michael Gear,Kathleen O'Neal Gear

BOOK: People of the Nightland (North America's Forgotten Past)
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W
indwolf glanced across at Dipper, where she hovered beside Silvertip’s bed, a stricken look on her face. Then he glanced at Lookingbill. The old man’s lined expression and distant eyes reflected sober thoughts. Ashes looked oddly cowed as she sat with her war club across her lap.
Outside, Fish Hawk said yet again, “The chief is in Council with Windwolf. You may not go in. We will send news when they have finished.”
More questions were called, to which Fish Hawk replied, “Silvertip used the Wolf Bundle to Dream the boy’s soul back into his body. Beyond that, I don’t know.”
Windwolf ignored it, turned his attention to the roast haunch of beaver, and took a bite. With this new development, who knew when he’d get to eat again. He chewed the sweet dark meat, swallowed, and looked at Ashes.
“Tell us the whole story. How long have you known?”
She glanced nervously at him and then Lookingbill. “Since the night he woke up. He was different.”
“We thought that was due to the wound,” Lookingbill said. “People are often introspective after such a blow to the head.”
“Tell us everything,” Windwolf coaxed.
“He says he died.” Ashes fingered the handle of her war club. “That he watched his body laid out on the high rocks, and then Condor came and ate him.” She made a face. “He told me it was horrifying as it pulled out his insides and swallowed them. Then, when the bones were picked clean, he watched them fall apart, and then everything went gray. That’s when Wolf Dreamer came to him and told him he was dead.”
Lookingbill nodded. “Great Dreamers often have to die to be reborn. What did Silvertip come back as?”
“Condor. Wolf Dreamer taught him how to fly, and then they flew west, along the Ice Giants. He saw big lakes, and then, the biggest of all, somewhere beyond the Southwind People.”
“I know the lake,” Windwolf said. “A huge thing—to skirt it takes moons of travel.”
Ashes nodded. “Silvertip saw a great ice dam, a place where the water is backed up.” She looked up at him with a piercing stare. “He says the ice is melting. Sometime soon, this entire country is going to be washed away.”
Lookingbill frowned. “That’s impossible!”
“Our world is ending,” Ashes snapped. “I believe Silvertip.”
“But Raven Hunter whispers in your Dreams,” Lookingbill snapped back.
“We are opposites.” She narrowed an eye. “Silvertip and me. That is what is going to make our marriage so Powerful.”
Windwolf raised a hand, stilling Lookingbill’s response. “Your ear is bleeding. Did that happen this morning?”
She shook her head. “It’s for my mother.”
“But you don’t know she’s … Did Silvertip tell you she’s dead?”
Ashes pursed her lips, then shook her head. “He said that she would come back, but the mother I knew wouldn’t be there.” She raised her eyes. “By offering for her soul now, it won’t be as hard when she comes back.”
“So you’re saying she survives this flood?” Lookingbill asked skeptically.
“Silvertip does.”
“What about the rest of us?” Windwolf asked. “Did he tell you anything about the people?”
“Only that they have to go west. Some will follow him to safety; others won’t.”
Windwolf nodded. “What about me? What does he say I’m supposed to do?”
Ashes shook her head. “I don’t know. He just said that you, Kakala, and Keresa were struggling over the future. Something about bargaining between Wolf Dreamer and Raven Hunter.”
“I see.”
“Well, I don’t,” Lookingbill muttered. “He’s just a boy!”
“One who carries the Wolf Bundle,” Windwolf corrected. “And apparently speaks with it.” He took another bite of his breakfast. Swallowing, he added, “I was there this morning. Bear Boy was dead. What I felt …”
“Yes?” Lookingbill prodded.
Windwolf shrugged. “I’ve never been what you would call a strong believer in Power, Chief. But I felt it. Silvertip called it to him, and then, I’d swear, I saw great wings.”
“Raven Hunter?”
He met Lookingbill’s eyes. “Condor. I think the boy called his Spirit Helper, and used Power to save Bear Boy’s life.”
Lookingbill shot a worried glance at his grandson, now sleeping soundly on the hides. “But he’s still a boy. What do I do?”
“Begin preparing your people to travel west, Chief. Until Silvertip wakes, we’re not going to know how much time we have left. Meanwhile, I need to hear what the new refugees have to say.”
 
 
K
eresa sat with her back to the stone, as far as she could get from the others. She had pulled her cape tightly around her shoulders, attempting to keep some sort of warmth around her body, because her soul was most definitely shivering.
She glanced up at the thin spear of light shining down from the mouth of their prison.
She gave Kakala a warning glance as he stepped over and lowered
himself beside her. He had a puzzled look as he draped his hands on his knees.
In a kind voice, he asked, “How are you doing?”
“Confused,” she admitted.
He made a halfhearted gesture toward the high opening. “Kind of them to lower food down this morning. But it was almost a fight to ensure it was portioned out fairly.”
“Half of a yearling caribou.” She rubbed her face. “It was generous, considering the mouths he has to feed.”
“How many camps?”
“The hollow below the hill is filled with them. Too many, Kakala. He could have found plenty of reasons to ignore our wants.”
Kakala grunted assent. “I’m beginning to understand how he wins the hearts of so many.” He glanced at her. “What happened last night? When you came back, you looked terrible.”
She shot a look at the warriors, thankful they knew enough to give their war chief and deputy privacy. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m so confused. But I can tell you now, the ruse of playing Bramble isn’t a good idea.”
“Oh?”
“Kakala? Do you trust me?”
“With my life.” He smiled. “I’m sorry you thought you had to ask.”
She lowered her voice. “I offered to stay with him last night if he would let you and the rest go. He said he would, provided you swore never to raise your hands against the Sunpath or Lame Bull again.”
He studied his hands, flexing his fingers and watching the tendons work under his scarred skin. “He offered me that same option. He asked if there was a way we could go back without ending up in the cages. I thought it was some sort of trick.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s a trick.”
“Why?”
“Because he respects us. Isn’t that odd … after the things we’ve done to him and his people?”
“We did as our Council ordered. Nothing more, and as it turns out, often less.” He gave her a knowing appraisal. “I’ve watched you since you’ve been meeting with him. I was curiously affected when you tried to kill Goodeagle yesterday. This offer to stay, was it more than just acting for the rest of us?”
She felt her soul tumble. “I would love to lie and tell you it was a calculating move to enable you to escape.” She stared at her hands. “But I am drawn to him as I have been to no other man I’ve ever met.”
“I see.”
“Do you?” She searched his face. “I feel torn in two, Kakala. I don’t know what’s right anymore.”
His lips curled in a faint smile. “I know you, Keresa. Perhaps better than I have ever known anyone … even Hako. You need a man who is your equal.”
She gave him a sidelong stare. “No jealousy?”
“A little. But not like that. We share our souls, our trust, and hopes. I depend on you. But our lives are separate.” He met her gaze. “If you can find more with Windwolf, take it.” He glanced away,
“Though, Raven Hunter knows, it might be short and miserable. The Council has no doubt learned what has happened to us by now. Karigi will be coming, and this time, not even Windwolf can stop him.”
“And when Karigi frees us?”
“You and I both know the penalty for failure.” He swallowed hard, a shiver tracing down his spine. “I won’t … can’t …” She saw his great muscles knotting, swelling the war shirt under his cloak.
“There is a sickness in our people,” she said bluntly. “It began with the return of Nashat, and has grown worse with the rise of the Guide.”
“Who do you serve, Keresa?”
“You, and these warriors here.” She gestured toward the huddled men who now used stones to smash the marrow bones of the caribou. They lifted the fragments, sucking out the pink delicacy. “Who do you serve, Kakala?”
His voice was wistful. “I don’t know anymore.”
She stared at her hand, remembering Windwolf’s touch. She had gone to his arms willingly, and for that one blessed moment, her soul had been at peace.
“I’d almost think I was witched. Could that be it?”
“It was that way with Hako and me.” He smiled, remembering.
“I don’t even know him.”
“Oh, yes you do. You just can’t find it in your soul to trust him. He’s fed us one bitter meal after another each time we’ve tried to kill him.” He lowered his head. “And then there’s Walking Seal Village.”
“It haunts him.”
As it haunts us.
She couldn’t help but shoot a
glance toward the back, where Goodeagle sat, his eyes focused on the distance.
Kakala placed a hand gently on her shoulder. “It’s a terrible problem, isn’t it? No matter what we choose, we will condemn ourselves in the end.”
She nodded, glancing back at Goodeagle. That was the price of betraying one’s people.
But if I help Kakala kill Windwolf, I will never forgive myself.
W
indwolf leaned forward to warm his hands over the flames. In the slanting afternoon light, the crude lodges thrown up by the Sunpath refugees resembled dark round dots scattered through the forest. Tens of new lodges had appeared overnight. As soon as he’d stepped out of his chamber at dawn, he’d sent a runner to arrange a meeting with the village chief, a man named Sacred Feathers. They had barely begun their discussion when Bear Boy was struck down.
Sacred Feathers sat across the fire from Windwolf next to his grandfather. Sacred Feathers had seen perhaps three tens of summers. His grandfather, Drummer, had seen at least two tens more.
“So you think the boy is a Dreamer?” Drummer asked.
“You saw what he did.” Windwolf studied the old man. “I was beside him; I
felt
the Power.”
“We couldn’t get close,” Sacred Feathers muttered. “That little girl would have broken our knees with that war club she was swinging around.”
“I have heard the boy’s story.” Windwolf shifted. “I saw his body after the fighting. I thought he was dead. His recovery is as much a miracle as his saving Bear Boy this morning.”
“It is the talk of the camp.”
“The Wolf Bundle speaks to him,” Windwolf added. “Chief Lookingbill gave it to him for safekeeping during the attack. Silvertip belongs to it now.”
“Then perhaps the prophecy is true?” Drummer mused.
“Perhaps. We will see. But for the moment, I need to know what happened at your village. Tell me everything.”
Drummer nodded, thinking for a moment. “I told my grandson people were missing from the surrounding camps. He wouldn’t believe me.”
His face had a skeletal appearance. Every bone stuck out through the thin layer of skin, which made his deeply set brown eyes look cavernous. Two long gray braids fell over the front of his worn tigerhide cape. He shook a fist at Windwolf. “Old Woman Rust never missed the meetings we held every full moon to worship Wolf Dreamer. First she disappeared, then Coal Lion vanished. I knew something was happening.”
“They were old and from nearby camps,” Sacred Feathers pointed out. “I thought maybe they’d gotten sick or hurt, or just couldn’t make the walk any longer.”
Windwolf said, “What happened to them?”
Sacred Feathers waved a hand in a helpless gesture. “We found out that just before Deputy Karigi attacked their villages, he sent warriors in to kidnap a few of the Elders.”
Sacred Feathers had a birdlike face with closely set eyes and shoulder-length black hair. “He used them as hostages. He told people to put down their weapons or the Elders would be killed. Many people did.” Sacred Feathers’ head fell forward. He stared blindly at the fire. “Then he killed everyone.”
A cold breeze blew through the spruce trees, fluttering the lodge door curtains, and carrying the aroma of roasting grouse.
Drummer glared at his grandson. “They did the same thing to us.”
Sacred Feathers crossed his arms over his yellow-painted cape. “I thought if we just did as Karigi said, we’d be all right. For many summers, I’ve been telling my people that the Nightland clan Elders are not monsters. They’re human beings, just like us. I hoped that if we treated them with dignity, they would leave us alone.”
“Fool!” Drummer’s wrinkled face tensed. “The Nightland People are monsters straight out of Raven Hunter’s Long Dark.”
Sacred Feathers pointed to an old woman sitting in front of a lodge scraping a fresh deer hide. She used her hafted chert scraper to carefully remove the last bits of flesh, preparing the hide for tanning. “The morning before our band was attacked, a Nightland warrior ran through, gave her a freshly killed snowshoe hare, and ran away. I thought it was kindness. A gesture of—”
“He was a
spy
! It got him into our camp so he could look around. I told you we should have killed him before he could run away.”
Sacred Feathers threw up his arms in exasperation. “Grandfather, Nightland warriors have been traveling through our territory for many summers. They stopped, they Traded, they told stories. Most Nightland warriors are peaceful!”
Drummer leaned forward and squinted an eye malevolently. “It’s a lot easier to kill people when they still think you want peace.”
Windwolf watched the conversation with an ache in his chest. He’d heard these same words so many times. There was always a peacemaker and a warrior. And depending upon the circumstances, each might be right.
“When did Karigi strike?” Windwolf asked.
Sacred Feathers threw another branch on the fire and watched the flames. “Two moons ago. We didn’t know what to do. We just crept northward, hunting, fishing, hiding by day, hoping to find sanctuary in other Sunpath territories.” He hung his head. “Most of them had already been abandoned.”
“What brought you here?” Windwolf said.
“We met other fleeing people on the trails. They said Chief Lookingbill had promised sanctuary. And we heard you were here.”
Windwolf let out a breath. “You are safe here. For the moment. But you can only have a couple of days to regain your strength. I will appoint a couple of warriors to escort you west. We are building a new home in the Tills.”
Sacred Feathers ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “I don’t know. This is the land of our Ancestors. I’ve always believed that we could negotiate with the Nightland People, establish agreements for Trade, or the use of certain hunting or gathering grounds, but now … now, I don’t know.”
Drummer banged his foot on the hearthstones, as though to get everyone’s attention. “The only time talk has ever helped the Sunpath
People was when Windwolf rammed it down their throats with a war party at his back.”
Windwolf nodded in gratitude, but deep inside him, a voice asked,
“There are fewer Sunpath bands now than when I started protecting our people. Have I helped them?”
Drummer continued, “The only reason Karigi didn’t capture me is because I was afraid to return to my lodge. After the snowshoe hare was delivered, I walked all day to get to Walnut Creek Camp, spent one day there, and moved on. I just kept moving.”
“How did you hear about the attack?” Windwolf asked.
Drummer extended a hand to his grandson. “The great chief, Sacred Feathers—his tail stuck between his legs—and a handful of survivors came running into the village where I was staying.”
“Oh, Grandfather.” Sacred Feathers exhaled the words.
Windwolf interrupted. “I need you to help me understand what Karigi is doing.” He pulled his stiletto from his belt and started drawing in the dirt around the firepit. “These are the bands I know he has recently attacked.” He poked holes into the soil. “Do you know of any others?”
“Yes,” Sacred Feathers said. He used his fingers to poke two more holes. “Both of these. We met survivors on the trails.”
“The survivors were not headed here?”
Sacred Feathers shook his head. “No. Many people do not believe that the Lame Bull Elders will keep their word when Karigi finally arrives here. But they haven’t heard you are here, either. Or that you’ve trapped Kakala.”
Why do they have such faith in me? I’ve failed them all.
“Given what you’ve heard, where is Karigi now?”
Sacred Feathers seemed to be thinking about it. Finally he said, “He could be on his way back to the Nightland country. He’s moving very fast.”
“How many warriors does he have?” Windwolf’s stomach muscles clenched in preparation.
“Six tens, maybe seven tens. We didn’t have time to count.”
Six tens? With Hawhak and Blackta’s warriors, plus any others the Council can scrap up, they could hit us with more than ten tens.
Were it he, he’d attack with two tens of warriors coming from five different directions. There could be no defense.
But Karigi’s moving fast. His men will be worn out.
Down the slope in the village, a little girl let out a shriek, then broke into tears. Sacred Feathers whirled to look.
Windwolf followed his gaze. A girl, perhaps eight summers, ran up the trail, whimpering. Tears streamed down her face.
Sacred Feathers opened his arms, and the girl ran straight to him and climbed into his lap, sobbing, “Father, he
hit
me!”
Sacred Feathers examined the scrape on his daughter’s cheek. “Oh, Elk Leaf, what happened? Did you get into a fight?”
She nodded against his shoulder, trying to suppress her tears.
“You didn’t hit first, did you?”
“No, Father, no.”
“All right. Hush, now.” He stroked her back tenderly, and kissed her forehead. “Did you say something you didn’t mean and somebody—”
“No, I don’t know why Little Calf hit me! But Tusk Boy hit him back.”
“Good for Tusk Boy,” Drummer muttered furiously. His ancient face had taken on the alert, dangerous look of a wolf on the hunt.
Sacred Feathers glared at him. “Elk Leaf, next time Little Calf hits you, you just cover your head with your hands and tell him you’re sorry—even if you didn’t do anything. He’ll stop hitting you.”
“I will, Father,” she moaned and sniffed, burying her face in his shirt.
From the corner of his eye, Windwolf caught Drummer’s enraged expression.
“I love you, Elk Leaf,” Sacred Feathers said. “Are you better now?”
She sucked in a deep halting breath and looked up, giving him a frail little-girl smile. “A little.”
“Good. Why don’t you run down to Aunt Wren’s lodge. She made cattail root bread this morning.”
“Does she have any left?”
He winked at her excited expression and set her on the ground. “Go see for yourself.”
She smiled broadly and ran away down the trail.
Once Elk Leaf had vanished, Drummer violently shoved Sacred Feathers’ shoulder, swinging him around to face him. The old man’s cheeks blazed. “You want to get her killed?”
“No, I want to keep her safe!”
“You’re teaching her to be a mouse. You think she should get used to being a victim? That she should come to like it, maybe?”
Sacred Feathers met Drummer’s hot stare with one of his own. “Maybe being a victim isn’t as bad as being dead.”
The anger drained from Drummer’s face. He stood up and straightened to his full sapling-thin height. They stared at each other in silence.
Then Drummer’s hard eyes turned to Windwolf. “Tell him, will you? Tell my grandson that all the
I’m sorry’s
in the world won’t make murderers put down their clubs.”
Drummer turned and stamped away down the trail, following behind Elk Leaf.
Sacred Feathers had his eyes closed and his teeth gritted. “He’s old,” Sacred Feathers said. “He doesn’t think as well as he used to.”
“I’m afraid he’s right, Chief. When your enemy is bent on killing you and taking your lands, you must fight.”
“But that is Raven Hunter’s way!”
Ashes’ words from that morning echoed in his head. “I fear that we have lost our balance.”
Windwolf looked out at the village. Sunpath children played in the trees, chasing each other and laughing. Old men knapped out new stone tools in front of the lodges. One of the women sat weaving a basket from strips of tree root: a fine basket, the weave tight enough to hold water.
Windwolf said, “The search for the One does us no good if we Dream it as dead men.”
Sacred Feathers frowned at the Headswift Village rockshelters. “Well, you won’t have to worry about my people. We will start for the Tills today. And you don’t need to provide warriors.”

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