In the Season of the Sun (21 page)

“He is my son,” Lone Walker said.

“That cannot be,” Wolf Lance replied.

“He … is … my … son.” The man on the travois replied. His voice faded and his eyes closed. He seemed to shrink into his blankets. For a moment the blood chilled in Jacob's veins as he expected the worst. He leapt down from horseback and placed his ear to his father's chest and listened, gratefully, to the beating of the wounded man's heart.

Wolf Lance stood and walked away from the travois to the edge of the trail where it wound from the creek bed in a series of switchbacks that led to the lodge, back up on the hillside.

“They must stay with us, my father,” Tewa called to him.

“You don't know what you are saying.”

“It's the time of the Cold Maker. Though the valleys are clear, many of the passes are blocked. It is too long a ride to Medicine Lake. Snow Eater has left. I do not think he will return.”

Wolf Lance knew his daughter spoke the truth. The chinook wind that had howled through noon had died to a whisper with the setting sun, and under cover of encroaching night, a chill stole across the land. If the snows returned and caught Lone Walker and his white son up on the divide or anywhere without adequate shelter, it would mean disaster for both.

“I'm not waiting for you to decide.” Jacob remounted and caught up the reins to the travois mount as well and resumed his climb to the Lodge.

Wolf Lance moved to block the trail, rifle in his hand.

“You are rude,
Apikuni.”

Jacob caught his meaning, referring to him as a white robe, one without fur, not quite a true robe or, in this case, a true Indian. “I am Blackfoot. The People call me Jacob Sun Gift. And I am rude … to save my father's life.” Jacob glanced around at the man on the travois and then returned his attention to Wolf Lance in the middle of the switchback. “I don't know why you chose to live apart from your village. But I tell you this, I'm taking my father to shelter, so fill your hands or get out of the way.”

Jacob thumbed the hammer back on his Hawken rifle and started his horse forward. For a moment he actually thought Wolf Lance would fight. The flintlock was cocked. All he had to do was turn and fire. Instead, Wolf Lance retreated a step, then another, and another, and eventually he stood aside and allowed Jacob and the horse he was leading to pass. He looked at his old friend unconscious on the travois and sighed. Wolf Lance could not bring himself to deny shelter to one who was like a brother to him.

Tewa rode up to him, relieved there had been no violence.

“It is good, Father. We have been alone too long. My heart is happy that we are among our own people. There is magic in this. Powerful medicine.”

“You don't understand, little Earth Daughter,” Wolf Lance said.

“I understand I am happy,” Tewa replied and rode after Jacob.

Wolf Lance watched her leave. In stillness came the night. The trail to the lodge became more difficult, even treacherous. No matter. Wolf Lance knew the way. Powerful medicine, she had said. Bitter medicine, he corrected in his thoughts.

He had lived a long time here on the backbone of the world. After the death of his wife, he taught his daughter to be a shadow like himself, to hunt with bow or snare, to avoid all contact with others—to treat everyone as an enemy to be avoided.

And over the years he had almost forgotten the dream that had forced him to abandon his own kind and live like a phantom in the mountains. Now the Above Ones had taken a hand. There was no escaping what was to be.

Before another spring, there would be grief on the wind and blood would cover the moon.

23

“M
y mother sleeps there,” Tewa said, pointing toward a wooded hill just barely seeming to rise out of the darkness. The high ridges already sported the yellow-golden glow of morning. Feathery clouds dotted a deep azure sky. The Chinook wind had lasted but a day. With the night, the temperature had fallen, and this new day had dawned brisk and cold. There was no wind. Jacob did not need a capote with the air so still. And as the sun continued to bathe the valley in its fragile warmth, Jacob was glad he had left the cumbersome coat back in the lodge.

He looked in the direction Tewa indicated and thought he could make out a burial scaffold in a clearing on the opposite slope.

“She died two winters ago,” Tewa continued. “I was not so lonely while she lived. My mother told me stories of her people and the village by Medicine Lake.”

“It is good there,” Jacob said.

“I should like to go someday,” Tewa said. “But my father will not permit it.”

“Why?”

“His dreams brought him here. They have not led him back yet. Maybe one day,” Tewa said with a sigh. She paused in her climb and checked a snare she had set beneath a thicket of chokecherries. She and Jacob had left at first light to make the round of the snares she had set. The trail she had left ran the length of a narrow gully winding away from the house and zigzagging back into the eastern foothills.

Tewa's valley seemed hemmed in on all sides by mountain ranges. And that was nearly the case save for a narrow gorge that split the humpbacked ridge to the east and a dogleg break in the bald-faced cliffs to the west.

Tewa knelt to inspect the fresh droppings on the path and announced that a small herd of antelope had passed in the night. Jacob shaded his eyes to the sun's glare and studied the rocky battlements that lay ahead. Up near the wall's serrated crest, a dozen or so mountain goats gathered at a salt lick. They maneuvered with sure-footed ease over what seemed impossible ground, their shaggy white fur like patches of living snow constantly rearranging its pattern on the cliff.

“I should have my Hawken right now,” Jacob sighed.

“No,” Tewa replied. “My father has seldom used his gun. And never in our valley. There are no friends in these mountains, my father would say, only enemies. A gunshot speaks long after the gun has killed. It brings down food but calamity as well, alerting our enemies. My bow shoots swift and true and silent.”

“Your bow,” Jacob scoffed. “A woman's place is in the village or gathering roots, making shirts and leggings for her husband. Hunting is a man's work. Trapping or stalking game is no task for a mere girl.”

“Saaa-vaaa-hey!”
Tewa exclaimed, straightening. “I will show you what is woman's work.” She trotted down the trail and away from Jacob. Tewa moved with expert grace. She ran effortlessly, her elk horn bow swinging in her left-handed grasp, her wolf-pelt-draped shoulders bowed forward.

“Wait! Tewa, wait!” Jacob called after her. She was heading straight for the cliff where the mountain goats had arranged themselves around the lick. She'd have to work her way in awfully close with a bow that had such short range, Jacob thought. Just climbing the cliff face would be treacherous enough. Stalking across that weather-worn granite without spooking the animals was next to impossible.

Jacob cursed himself for his own stupidity and resolved to follow the girl. Maybe he could keep her from breaking her fool neck. Jacob hefted his own willow-wood bow and started down the path. By the time he'd covered fifty yards, Jacob had come across three snares that Tewa had set and there were plump rabbits in two of them. So much for the trapping skills of this “mere girl.” Jacob sighed, feeling the guilt of his thoughtless remarks settle on him like a black cloud.

If Tewa were injured proving her worth, it would be Jacob's fault and none other's. He broke into a run, hoping to overtake her. He had a long stride, but Tewa knew the lay of the land and the quickest route to danger. He only hoped he could catch her.

Wolf Lance stepped into the shadowy recesses of his lodge. It was built of hand-hewn timbers, mud chinking, and stone, built like the fair-skinned frontiersmen constructed their lodges down in the Wind River range. Wolf Lance had been to rendezvous long ago. He had watched and learned from the trappers.

Now he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim interior. Sunlight streamed through gaps in the chinking like buttresses of gold holding up the walls; sunbeams rooted to the floor. The floor was covered with hides, the walls too in some places. A crudely fashioned door hung ajar on its cracked leather hinges.

“Your lodge has no circle of life,” Lone Walker dryly observed, his voice issuing from the darkness.

Wolf Lance glanced around at the four walls. True, a tepee had no walls; as in a circle, beginning and end were the same. But the winters at this altitude could be brutal. “Sometimes it is better to abandon the circle of life and live than to walk in it and freeze to death.”

“Sometimes it is better, when the Cold Maker comes, to ride down from the mountains and be with your people again.” Lone Walker lay upon a bed of buffalo robes and was semi-reclining on a willow backrest.

Wolf Lance crossed to his side and held a water bag out to the wounded brave. The water bag was made from a length of buffalo gut, and Wolf Lance wore it across his shoulder like a bandolier.

“I have brought you living water, my old friend,” Wolf Lance said.

“Your woman has you well trained,” Lone Walker said. Then he remembered what he had earlier overheard, that Berry was dead. “How did she die?” he asked, the weak smile fading as he accepted the water bag. But he could only use one arm, so Wolf Lance trickled water into his mouth.

“Does it matter? You, of all people, spirit singer, should know.”

“I ask for the sake of Two Stars, her father,” said Lone Walker.

“He still lives?” Wolf Lance exclaimed.

“And takes a woman to his bed. He has a warrior's heart.”

Wolf Lance softly laughed, set the water bag aside, and sat by his friend. He lifted his gaze to the buffalo-robe bedding on the other side of the campfire. Unable to build a fireplace or chimney, he had been forced to peel back a rawhide section of the roof to draw out the smoke whenever a fire burned. It was an efficient system, much more so than the vented flaps of a tepee. There on the robe she had trembled with fever and there, after many days, she had died.

He spoke of her death, his voice wavering at times, for deep within he felt the blame of her death. She had been gentle and kind. She had followed him, trusting in the reasons he had taken her from her family and friends. She had trusted.

And now she was dead.

“Why did you leave?” Lone Walker said.

“Why did you follow?” Wolf Lance replied.

“Saa-vaa
. Talking with you is like following a game trail over stone. I return to my cookfire with an empty belly.” Lone Walker winced as he tried to reposition himself. It only set his bullet wound afire with pain.

“Where is my son?” Lone Walker asked.

“How can a white-skinned one be your son?” Wolf Lance scoffed Realizing he had responded with another question, he said, “He is checking the snares with Tewa, my daughter.”

“And you do not wish him in your daughter's company?”

“It is not time for her.”

“It is past time, my friend.”

“Not for Tewa!” Wolf Lance hadn't meant to sound so angry. He softened his tone. “She has known only her father and mother. She is innocent of the wiles and tricks young men play. He will fill her head with nonsense. No longer will my daughter be happy here; she will long for her own people.”

“Is that so bad?” Lone Walker said, his voice weaker now. His eyes closed. His breathing grew steady, though from time to time he groaned in his sleep.

Suddenly he coughed and opened his eyes. He seemed to look right through Wolf Lance, as if he could see to the very heart of the man. Wolf Lance's blood ran cold before the spirit singer's harsh stare. Sweat beaded Lone Walker's brow and his flesh felt hot to the touch. Even when Wolf Lance touched the wounded man's forehead and cheeks, the wide-eyed gaze never wavered. Wolf Lance wanted to run from those eyes that peeled away his own thoughts and motives and fears and left him naked and even afraid.

As suddenly as it began, the wounded man's eyes closed again and his rigid muscles relaxed. Lone Walker's firmly muscled limbs settled into the bedding. He slept.

Wolf Lance, trembling, crawled to the door and staggered out of the cabin. He gulped in lungfuls of the thin air, his breath clouding before him. He looked down upon the valley that had begun as a haven but became a prison. His mind in turmoil, he shuffled forward into the sunlight. Overhead, an eagle drifted on the upper wind currents. It appeared to dangle from the firmament as if the All-Father had hung it in place as a permanent ornament.

“You should not have come,” Wolf Lance said, emotion building in him. He felt trapped by these mountains, like a wolf caught in a snare. Cornered. No way out. He tilted back his head and cried aloud. It was a purely animal sound that tore from his throat and reverberated down the valley. A cry of fear, a cry of rage. His arms were outstretched, his lips drawn back to bare his teeth, his legs splayed and firmly rooted.

The cry of the wolf ended at last. And in its place came the calm of knowing he would do what had to be done.

He was ready.

Lone Walker asked too many questions. One day soon he must learn the truth. And on that day, it would be too late for any of them. They were claimed by the dream, now.

“My dream,” said Wolf Lance in a whisper heard only by the earth beneath his feet and the breeze that plucked the branches of the firs—the silent earth, the quiet wind.

Tewa paused beneath a ledge of lichen-splashed granite and inched her way across a slide of gravel and the twisted broken trunk of a pine. She had stolen from the concealing forest and, keeping the ledge between herself and the salt lick, had managed to come within bow-shot range, about a hundred and fifty feet up the face of the ridge. The ascent was steep but not sheer. The greatest danger was the spill of loose shale just at her feet. Not only was it treacherous to climb across but the slightest misstep could cause a noisy cascade of gravel tumbling down the tree line.