People of the Earth (11 page)

 
          
 
Brave Man whooped, slipping to one side as he
nocked
his second dart. A yearling, barely more than a
calf, bleated in terror, its frozen breath rising on the chill air. Brave Man
laughed as he stared into its fear-bright eyes. He launched his missile as the
calf tried to wheel. The dart struck a rib, separating the
foreshaft
and snapping the
chert
point off even with the
binding.

 
          
 
Brave Man growled to himself as he
nocked
his third dart, hopped forward, and cast. This time
he hit his mark perfectly and drove the killing point deep into the calf's
chest cavity.

 
          
 
He turned, his last dart ready to cast at the
remaining buffalo. Wind Runner's broad back blocked his aim.

 
          
 
A possible vision of the future struck him:
his dart driving through Wind Runner's coat, piercing the skin of the man's
back, slicing through the muscles as it crushed the ribs and drove into the
pink-white tissue of Wind Runner's lungs. Sharp stone would lance the heart to
spill bright red blood into the chest cavity before the needle-sharp point ate
into the breastbone on the other side.

 
          
 
An accident! the voices chortled. No one could
know. Accidents happen in the middle of the hunt.

           
 
Wind Runner's body contorted as he drove a
dart into a struggling buffalo cow.

 
          
 
Brave Man heard the
thwok
of impact and watched the dart shaft bounce back, sailing high to be caught by
the wind and whisked over the edge of the drift. The cow bellowed in fear and
pain as she jumped, getting one foreleg onto the crusted snow. She bellowed
powerfully again, her weight collapsing the crust. Blood blew out of her
nostrils, spattered across the snow.

 
          
 
Brave Man looked around. The fourth buffalo
lay on its side, chest heaving, blood draining from the nose and mouth.

 
          
 
He turned back, glancing at his own animals,
collapsed onto their bellies, and supported by the deep drift.

 
          
 
"Food," Wind Runner whispered as he
dropped to his knees and lifted his hands to the cloudy skies. A Song of thanks
broke from his lips.

 
          
 
Accidents happen, the voice whispered in Brave
Man's mind. He bent down, picking up one of his dart shafts. From the pouch
dangling at his belt, he took a
foreshaft
, slipping
it into the socket and twisting it to set it in place. All he needed to do—

 
          
 
"Ah-hey! They did it!" Whistling
Hare cried as he trotted over the crest of the ridge. "All four! Dead!
Food! Food!"

 
          
 
Warm Fire's body looked terrible. His flesh
might have been pinched from the lifeless clay of the riverbank. The skin hung
loosely, sunken around the skull. Still, Larkspur and
Limbercone
had painted his face gaily, and the finest of leather clothing adorned his
corpse. Rabbit-bone beads> bear claws,
olivella
shells, and brilliant tanager feathers demonstrated his place in the hearts of
the clan. Now he lay next to the rounded hole that would be his final resting
place. Wind played with his lifeless braids on the frozen sand.

 
          
 
They had walked down the trail from the camp
as they sang the song of mourning. Cattail,
Flatsedge
,
Black Hand, and Pretty Woman's husband, Big Willow, bore the body on their
shoulders. Behind came
Limbercone
, Larkspur, and
Bitterbrush, the children, and then Bad Belly's aunts and their children.

 
          
 
Larkspur had decided where to bury Warm Fire:
on the windblown crest of a sand dune that overlooked the valley and the rising
bulk of
Green
Mountain
to the south. Warm-Fire's spirit would have
a good view of the Coldwater valley. Sagebrush thinned out into thick grass
near the river. The dune had formed off the end of the worn granite that
protected Round Rock camp from the prevailing wind. Beyond that, the rounded
gray peaks caught the morning sun. Here, in the dunes, Warm Fire's spirit would
feed the phlox and curly dock, the sagebrush and grease wood. If a person had
to die, there were worse places to be buried—but then, Larkspur had no doubt
looked for a place were the digging would be easy, too. Sand dunes, even when
frost-hardened, were not difficult to excavate.

 
          
 
Bad Belly waited at the rear of the line of
mourners. Trouble stood beside him, ears pricked while the wind teased his
black-and-white fur. Larkspur had given the dog a terrible look as they'd
walked down from the camp. Bad Belly hadn't been able to send him back—not
after all the times that Warm Fire had played with the dog and saved him
special treats. Trouble whined softly as if he, too, understood that a kindness
had left the world. Only Bad Belly would save him bits of meat now.

 
          
 
Tattered clouds scudded across the gray sky,
driven by the bitter wind that whistled out of the west. Existence had turned
as cold as the frozen ground the mourners stood on.

 
          
 
What would life be like without Warm Fire? Who
would Bad Belly talk to? Bitterbrush? No, she would be too busy with her
children now that Warm Fire was no longer around to help. She'd remarry at the
Gathering, of course; as a young widow capable of childbirth—and heir to the
camp and its resources—she'd be fought over. When not with Tuber and Lupine,
her time would be spent listening to
Limbercone
and
Larkspur plan the next seasonal rounds.

 
          
 
Warm Fire, you asked me to stay and hold you.
I would have, old friend. I would have if they had let me. He just hadn't been
able to defy the threat in Larkspur's eyes. Shame filled him.

 
          
 
Never again. I can’t do it. I can’t continue
to hate myself because I can’t stand up to her.

 
          
 
The pang in Bad Belly's gut sharpened as
Flatsedge
and Big Willow lowered Warm Fire's corpse into
the shallow hole they'd hacked out of the windward side of the
sandhill
. They had to pull Warm Fire's legs up against his
chest and bend his body so it would fit.

 
          
 
Tears streaked Tuber's round cheeks and
dribbled off his chin. At the sight, Bad Belly couldn't stop his own tears.
They shared this loss—he and his nephew. Black Hand chanted a Spirit Song to
the Earth Mother, imploring that she take Warm Fire's soul.

 
          
 
Bitterbrush held Lupine's hand in a tight
grip, as if the little girl might slip away from her, too. At five, Lupine
barely understood what was happening. She watched with wide brown eyes, a
finger in her mouth. The wind played with the fringes of her antelope-hide
dress, whipping them around her thin brown legs.

 
          
 
Larkspur stood beside Black Hand, staring at
the corpse with glittering eyes as if she remembered something long past and
nearly forgotten. Against the background of wind-drifted snow, her hunched
silhouette reminded Bad Belly of a crane stooped over the shallows, ready to
stab darting minnows from the waters. The others crowded around, hollow-eyed
glances shifting from Bitterbrush to Black Hand to the gray corpse in the
ragged hole.

 
          
 
Bad Belly turned away, hearing the rising
chant as everyone Sang, blessing Warm Fire's body to the earth, reminding his
soul that they'd been good to him, that he had no reason to come back and haunt
them.

 
          
 
Larkspur lifted her hands, stilling the
Singing. "First Man! Earth Mother! Hear us! This day we return the body of
Warm Fire to you. Take the strength of his body. Let the things that grow make
use of his flesh. Let the grass grow thick here so the antelope and buffalo can
eat it. Take his Spirit and give it a special place where the goosefoot will
grow green and rich with seeds.

           
 
"Earth Mother, from you we take our
bounty. To you, one day, we all return. First Man, as you have given to us, so
do we give back to you. Take this Warm Fire. He is a good man, a strong man,
returned to you before his time. With the gift of his body and soul, we ask you
to hear our pleas for good weather, rich plants, and many buffalo, elk, and
antelope.

 
          
 
"We, your People, remember and honor you
for the things you have given us." At that, she—the elder of the clan—bent
down and grasped a handful of cold sand. She stepped forward and sprinkled it
on Warm Fire's chest.

 
          
 
Tuber cried out, grabbing at Bitterbrush's
dress and hiding his face while he bawled. One by one, the people of the Round
Rock clan gathered fistfuls of sand and dropped them on Warm Fire's tucked
corpse.

 
          
 
Bad Belly forced himself forward, feeling as
if his limbs had been carved of wood. He bent down and gripped a handful of the
sand. The gritty chill deadened his flesh. He hesitated as he stared down at
the sand-spattered body in the hole. Not Warm Fire. No shadow of wickedness
ever lurked in that tender soul.

 
          
 
His hand shook as he opened his fingers. The
crumbled sand struck the body with a hollow sound. The welling sadness within
left Bad Belly empty, as though the spark that warmed his soul had gone dead.
He stared out over the Cold-water valley where sage and snow created a chilly
mosaic. What is left for me? What will I do now that Warm Fire's gone? Who will
love me?

 
          
 
He blinked suddenly. The black wolf stood
motionless and watching from behind a screen of sagebrush a dart's cast away.
Bad Belly started to point and thought better of it, knowing that the animal
would have disappeared into the rocks by the time people looked. From across
the distance, he could feel those piercing yellow eyes burning into him.

 
          
 
Go. Leave . . . Warm Fire's words haunted him.
Find the Dreamer.

 
          
 
A ridge top made a miserable place to butcher
buffalo.

 
          
 
Wind Runner stooped over the little fire,
extending grateful fingers. Tiny flames licked greedily around the grease-wood
and sage he fed the fire. The wind lanced knives of cold into his back and arrogantly
tossed his braids where they hung out of his fox-hide hood.

 
          
 
Through
slitted
eyes
he stared at the snow-crusted landscape surrounding the kill site. In front of
him, the hill dropped off into greasewood flats. Beyond that, the land thrust
up in a series of ridges, with bare ground exposed on the windward slopes and
snow piled into deep drifts on the leeward sides. Deflated cobble surfaces and
short fringe sage topped most of the ridges. Occasional outcrops of buff
sandstone poked through the snow. The sky hung sullen overhead—gray and heavy
with the threat of storm. Another gust of wind shoved at him, blasting crystals
of snow against his back and worrying the flames into bright yellow as ash and
embers blew out over the frozen ground.