Shadow Valley (4 page)

The lead dream dancer sat at the edge of a log, her elbows resting upon her knees, her weathered face tilted up to the darkening clouds. Stillshadow rested her hand over her heart. “I die soon.”

Fear tightened T’Cori’s throat. “Mother! Do not say such a thing.” Then she paused. “When?”

“Not today or tomorrow,” the old woman promised, “but there is much to teach and little time to share it.”

Relief flooded T’Cori’s heart. She could lead, alone, if she must.
But please, Great Mother, not yet.

“Where do we begin?” Sing Sun asked.

“When we find our new place,” Stillshadow said. “We must make a new drum.”

“What is wrong with this one?” T’Cori asked. She reached down and ran her hands along its worn sides. The drum was as tall as her forearm, as broad as a large man’s hand. It was formed from a hollowed willow log, with deerskin pegged with bone splinters stretched around the rim. T’Cori had owned it since childhood, and she slapped her palm against the drumhead to make a high, mellow thump.

“It is a fine drum,” her teacher said, “but a new land needs new music. We make it from the trees, from the animals. In that way, when we play, we speak to the land itself. We will walk on. We need to be swift but careful.”

Her brow wrinkled. “I feel that in a new land, we need a dance as quick and light as rabbits. Bring the drum, and we will teach our men the rabbit rhythm.”

“Yes, Mother,” T’Cori said.

“Sky Woman, tell them the story of Zomo the rabbit drummer,” Stillshadow said. “Hunters use Rabbit when they must run fast and quiet for a short time. This is Zomo’s rhythm.”

T’Cori’s hand fluttered on her drum, tapping out a song. As the thumps triggered memories of dance and song and mushrooms, she searched her memory, hoping to earn a smile, or an affirming nod, from her mentor….

Zomo was not very big or strong, but he was a very clever rabbit. But Zomo was greedy and wanted something more than cleverness. He wished for wisdom. Father Mountain told Zomo that in order to earn such a boon, he would have to do three things.

First, he would have to bring the scales of Big Fish to Great Sky. Second, he would have to bring the milk of Buffalo to Great Sky. And third, he would have to bring the tooth of Leopard to Great Sky.

Zomo promised Father Mountain to do exactly these things.

First, he traveled to the edge of the sea seeking Big Fish. There he sat and began to play his drum. He played so loudly that Big Fish heard the music and swam up to dance upon the sand. Zomo beat his drum faster and faster. Excited, Big Fish danced so fast that all his scales fell off. Naked and embarrassed, Big Fish leapt back into the sea.

Zomo scooped up all the scales in his sack, wiggled his tail and hopped off into the forest. While hopping through the trees, he saw Buffalo. He insulted Buffalo by telling her she wasn’t big or strong. Zomo dared Buffalo to knock down the little palm tree.

The little rabbit made Buffalo so angry she ran to tear the tree up by its roots. But because the bark was soft, her horns got stuck fast.

While Buffalo struggled, Zomo slid down, reached under her and filled his drum with milk.

Then Zomo went to the top of BreakClaw hill, a place where Leopard was known to hunt. He tipped his sack and sprinkled scales on the path, and then tipped his drum and spilled a few drops of milk into the dust.

Zomo went to the bottom of BreakClaw and hid behind a big rock. Soon Leopard came walking over the hill, where he lost his footing on the slippery scales and the milk. Leopard slid all the way down the hill. His face hit a rock, and a tooth popped out of his mouth. Zomo grabbed that tooth and ran away just as fast as he could.

So he took the three things back to Great Sky and climbed it, and at the top he found Father Mountain. “See?” he said. “See! I did what you asked me to do.” The little rabbit stood proud and tall. “Give me wisdom!”

But despite all he had done, Father Mountain just laughed at Rabbit. “You are clever enough to do what cannot be done,” Father Mountain said. “So now I will give you wisdom. Three things are worth having in this world. Courage, good sense and caution. Little rabbit, you have much courage, a bit of quickness and no sense at all. So the next time you see Big Fish, Buffalo or Leopard—you’d better run!”

And that is why to this day we sing: Rabbit is not big. Rabbit is not strong. But Rabbit has wisdom, so he runs very, very swiftly.

At the same moment T’Cori finished singing her story, her fingers fluttered to a rest.

The six women around the fire had been joined by others, including men
and children, come to hear the tale. They smiled and clapped along, and laughed with pleasure as she came to a close.

While warming, their praise skimmed the surface of her heart. Only Stillshadow’s approving nod warmed her to the core.

T’Cori, Sky Woman, had done well.

T’Cori lay on her back beneath their lean-to, her stepson Medicine Mouse sleeping at her side, his wet nurse’s milk moistening his breath.

Throughout the rest of the camp soft burring snores replaced conversation and laughter. The twin fires burned low.

For a time she thought that Frog lay sound asleep at her side, then felt him nudge her ribs. The shadowed darkness barely revealed his form, but she felt him jerk his head toward the lean-to’s open side.

Taking care not to awaken his son, T’Cori followed Frog out.

Their tens of families had clustered their skins and lean-tos around the fires. With the exception of a pipe-smoking shadow to the south, all seemed quiet and still.

They moved around to the other side of the acacia’s trunk, sitting close enough for thigh to brush warm thigh. “What is it?” she asked.

“I have thought long about this, and come to a decision.” He paused, as if gathering strength. “I want you as my woman.”

She stared at him for a moment, and then struggled not to laugh. “I cook your food, I share your roof. I spank your son when he is bad and kiss him when he is good. What more remains?”

“My tongue tripped. I want you to be my
wife”
he said. “For us to make ceremony before the tribe, before Father Mountain and Great Mother. I want us to own each other and proclaim that bond before all: to the sky, the mountain and the earth.”

She sighed, mirth gone. “Great Mother’s children have needs. And those she provides. We do not get everything we want.”

He smacked the flat of his hand against the ground. “Why not! So many things in the world have changed. Why not this?”

She waved her hand at the lean-tos and twin campfires. Peaceful now. Tomorrow, they would rise and walk another day. And a few days after that, another walk. And on and on, until Stillshadow and Sky Woman told them they had found a home. “Look upon them, Frog.”

“Upon who?”

“Our children,” she said.

“Children?” He rested his hand on her rounded belly. “Do you see the future now?”

T’Cori laughed. “No, fool. I mean our people. The ones who follow us. They trust us. Need us, like children do. Hands of hands of families.”

“I see them,” Frog said.

She leaned her cheek against his shoulder. “Just as you see the faces in the clouds. Watch them. They watch us. They try to laugh, to sing, to dance. They try to be brave … but they are afraid. Too many things have changed. If all things change, they will have nothing to hold on to. We must wait.”

“Wait?”

“Yes,” T’Cori said. “Yes. In seasons, all things come. You and I can love, because more and more every day our people see you as our great hunt chief. But if I became your wife too soon, they would say you had taken Great Sky’s woman. Then, what if the
jowk
makes evil play with us? If a hunter is gored or if plague falls? If a baby is born with six toes, they will say our union is cursed. Please, my love. We must be strong.”

“But … you will still share my hut?” he asked, irritated by the pout in his own voice.

She nodded. “Only as long as you will have me.”

“Then you are mine forever.”

T’Cori sighed, and nestled closer. “We have lost so many things.”

“My father,” Frog said. “Three brothers.” Scorpion and Fire Ant, dead in fire. Hawk Shadow, torn by wolves.

“And I, four sisters.” Small Raven, dead of cold. Fawn Blossom, killed by a crocodile. Dove and Sister Quiet Water, lost to the Mk*tk

Could such tragedy be overcome? Dared they even to hope?

“Can we hold on to each other?” His voice was a little strained. Anxious.

“Of course, big ears.” She laughed. “Who else would have either of us?”

In girlhood, Hot Tree had danced from dusk until dawn, but those days were now gray ghosts. Muscles once tireless now felt like rotted string.

“My bones are heavy,” she said more to herself than anyone else. In still water, when the sun was just so, her grandmother smiled back at her. So strange. How could this be? Where had this old woman come from? Deep within the cocoon of fatigue, Hot Tree still felt like a girl.

A boy with a round head and a huge nose tugged at her arm. “Gramma? Is there something you need?”

She shook her head. “No, Snail. Just gather the firewood. Pick up branches in the firebreak. Be a good boy.”

“Always,” Snail said.

Imitating his full name, Snail Crawling Backward dropped to his hands and knees and scurried away giggling, toward the boma’s walls and safety. She barely noticed, looking off toward the south, her brow furrowed.

Something was wrong. She could not
see
it. Could not
hear
it. But whatever the danger, Great Mother would protect them. She knew it.

Ibandi men had beaten the Mk*tk. Surely now their gods would smile upon them and protect them.

Surely, the Mk*tk would not dare strike their hallowed ground.

That evening, Hot Tree served her family yams and monkey meat on a bed of crossed broadleaf Most of those remaining in her daughter’s boma were old men and children—barely enough hunters to provide flesh.
There was rarely as much meat to share as there had been before Great Sky had died.

Nor were there enough men to protect them. Something tickled at her nose, a scent … sweat? Perhaps—if that sweat mingled the musk of man and lion.

“The wind stinks,” Hot Tree said.

Snail hugged her leg with all the strength in his small arms. “I smell nothing, Gramma.”

“Go to your mother,” Hot Tree said.

“Nana,” Snail Crawling Backward begged, “come with me.”

“Never you mind,” the old woman said. “Just go.”

Hot Tree shuffled to the gap in the boma’s bamboo wall. It was a man and a half tall, its poles sharpened at the top and lashed together with vines and leather strips. Its door of woven thorn branches was open during the day and closed at night. Although dusk had descended, the door had yet to be lashed shut. She squinted toward the east. Nothing but dried grasses and flat-topped acacia trees, dappling the plain as far as the eye could see. She started to turn and then changed her mind. If there was nothing out there, why did her spit curdle in her mouth?

Then as she turned, she used a hunter’s trick: from the sides of her eyes she caught something she could not see straight on. Men thought this secret belonged to them, but women could use it as well.

Every moon, hunters set fire to the brush around her daughter’s boma, to deny cover to lions and leopards. The edge of the blackened zone snarled with dense brush. Her tired old eyes detected one shadow oddly
… different
within that tangle of moonlit thorns and stalks. Larger than a man, but smaller than a lion. It was darker,
harder
than the other night shapes. Motionless as a cactus, it crouched.

Then it began to move.

Stealthy as a spider, the shadow crawled toward the boma.

Her muscles became bones.
Now
she detected other forms, humping across the burnt grass, blending with the shadows as clouds throttled the half-moon. Hot Tree might have been in the dream world, her arms and shoulders struggling to run, her feet rooted to the earth, stuck as fast as her namesake.

Thick, twisted silhouettes stood erect, shadows casting shadows. Stillness. Apish faces stared through her, past her, intent upon the boma walls to her rear.
One. Two. Three. Another. A hand. Two hands of two-legged shadows.
Spears and clubs bristled. As yet unmoving, they regarded the woman standing in the gap in the boma’s thorn walls.

She backed away, at first unable to speak, then suddenly unable to stop screaming,
“MK*TK! MK*TK!”

Fighting panic, Tree barely dragged the thorn wall halfway closed before the first wave of attackers fell upon her. Agony drove thought from her mind as a spear point pierced her belly She fell back, blood clotting the breath in her throat. The Mk*tk stomped on her chest and wrenched his weapon free, then leaped toward the huts.

Inside the boma, her people screamed and ran, trying to claw their way through the thorn walls. There they were caught by the Mk*tk, trapped by the very walls that had once sheltered them.