People of the Fire (24 page)

 
          
 
Indeed, she'd been right. Red
Chert
had never challenged him. Instead, she'd seen his
ability from the first. People had laughed, amused that he'd marry a woman no
one else wanted, but that was their mistake. They didn't see as clearly as he.
They didn't understand the real situation.

 
          
 
He smiled as he looked over to where Red
Chert
slept. If only he had his mother now. If only she
could see his success.

 
          
 
The shortness of breath hadn't gone away. Day
by day, she'd wasted. As time passed, and the inevitable loomed, he'd gone
slightly crazy with worry and grief. Of course, that, too, couldn't be helped.
All Spirit Dreamers got a little crazy at times. He hadn't known then that
Dreams were making him so nervous. In her final days, his mother had told him.

 
          
 
"It's the Power, boy. That's why you've
been so scared. It's Power coming to live inside you. That's why you've been
mean to everyone. Power does that. Takes some getting used to. You'll be afraid
in the future, but it's the Power. Trust it and use your head. That's why Power
chose you. You're smarter than the rest. Think, boy. Use the Power."

 
          
 
Like the patterns hot coals left in leather, the
morning when
i
he'd been awakened by Red
Chert's
soft intake of breath I burned forever in his
memory. The woman who'd borne him, cared for him, and seen his greatness lay
dead, expression slack, eyes dull in the morning light.

 
          
 
His mother's death had almost killed him. Only
the knowledge that he had Power had kept him sane through those first hard
days. But no one recognized his Power. No one except his mother and Red
Chert
had seen and understood his abilities. When he
started to preach the pollution of the People, men and women scoffed. First
came Horn Core's death, then the deepening drought, and they listened more
carefully. The young men had begun to nod when he told them how women angered
the spirits. One by one, they came to see how right he was. Each time he
predicted trouble, it came true. Now everything he claimed had come to pass.
Buffalo Above had taken his children away. The Rain Man no longer danced afternoon
showers from the clouds. The
Anit'ah
couldn't be kept
back. The People were suffocating in their own pollution.

 
          
 
Today the discipline his mother had instilled
in him would I bear fruit. He'd seen the look in Sage Root's eyes last night.
Eaten by doubt, she'd been on the verge of collapse. Such a piece of luck that
Dancing Doe had run onto Long Runner s dart. Until then, Sage Root might have
withstood his machinations despite the
datura
.
Peering through the slits in his lodge, he'd watched her go ashen and tear the
raven feathers down. To have stolen the menstrual pad from the women's bleeding
lodge had been fortuitous. Idly he wondered whose it had been. A chance gust of
wind had carried it out where he could find it. Of course, he'd had to pick it
up with sticks to keep from fouling himself. The whole idea of a woman bleeding
once a month disgusted him. In all his memory, he couldn't remember his mother
bleeding like that—but then, she'd been special.

 
          
 
He stretched and crawled across to peer
through the slit where he'd cut Red
Chert's
fine
stitching of the lodge cover. The bundle no longer hung from the
lodgepole
. She'd found it.

 
          
 
Red
Chert
stirred
where she lay on her robes and rolled over again, one arm flopping out. For a
long moment, he gazed at her. How right his mother had been to choose her for
him.

 
          
 
In his mind, he began composing the speech
he'd give over Sage Root's body. He'd tell them how Antelope Above Danced
across the sky with joy that the People had killed the defiler. People listened
when he made up stories about his Dreams. He spent most of his time thinking
them up. Then, when the days grew tedious, he'd walk up on the ridge tops and
sit, and watch the sky, and think up new stories to tell them. Bit by bit, he'd
learned the role. He knew now how to get that faraway look in his eyes, how to
modulate his voice. They'd listen, eyes downcast, and accept.

 
          
 
Now only the old ones scoffed. The worse the
drought got, the more skittish the animals, the better the People listened.
Already the younger hunters had started to berate their wives and exclude them
from the hunting councils. That had put most of the women in their places.

 
          
 
Some, like Hungry Bull, continued to ignore
him—but Hungry Bull would learn to his dismay. A slight shiver ran down Heavy
Beaver's back. How fortunate that that fiery young man had decided to go on a
long hunt. One less barrier to overcome—not to mention the fear of a dart in
the back. No telling how Hungry Bull might have reacted to his wife being
Cursed. Now he'd return to an empty lodge. Everything would be finished.

 
          
 
And if Sage Root dug up some final resistance?
Heavy Beaver chuckled to himself. He had the
datura
witching plant he'd obtained from the Trader Three Rattles. "A beautiful
thing," he'd been told. "Grows in the far southern deserts west of
the high mountains. The leaves are dark green, and in summer it has a large
white flower that opens to the day. Dreamers down there use only small
portions. Too much brings a chill to the soul—makes a person throw up and see
and hear things." Heavy Beaver had used most of it in Sage Root's stew.
Distracted as she was, she'd eaten the whole thing. What he had left would
finish her.

 
          
 
A slight pang stung his heart. Such a shame to
waste so desirable a woman this way.

 
          
 
She stood in the way, however, and he would
remake the People the way his mother would have wanted. In her image of purity
and virtue, he'd chip away at them as a craftsman did a fine point. Then, when
he'd purified them of pollution, they'd take what the
Anit'ah
kept them from. In his shadow, they'd claim the rich hunting grounds in the
high meadows of the
Buffalo
Mountains
.

 
          
 
Like a fire, his new way would sweep them up
and burn a new path across the plains.

 
          
 
Other women, just as desirable—only
obedient—would be his. Among all the People, he would choose.

 
          
 
He crawled over to his shirt, shrugging it on.
Then he pulled on the fine calfskin breeches made by Sleeping Fir.

 
          
 
"Mother?" The cry lingered in the
air outside.

 
          
 
Who? Ah yes, that little undisciplined pup of
Sage Root's. He called out again. Someone yelled at him. Heavy Beaver's heart
leapt as the boy's cries became more frantic.

 
          
 
By the time he ducked out of the lodge, the
little brat had been silenced. Heavy Beaver caught a sight of the wretched
Anit'ah
leading the lad down one of the trails. A welling
of wrath tightened around his heart. Today, once Sage Root had been removed as
an obstacle, he could deal with the
berdache
. For
years he'd accepted the irritating presence of a man in woman's clothing. He'd
egged the young men into waylaying the
Anit'ah
,
explaining that degrading rape could be permitted against a thing like Two
Smokes.

 
          
 
Before the sun dipped below the western
horizon, Smokes would be driven off—or dragged away with his brains bashed out.
By tonight, the People would be clean of pollutions and defilements like that.
What a blessing that the
Anit'ah
had stolen the Wolf
Bundle and given him the perfect lever to use against the
berdache
.
Heavy Beavers only regret was being denied the glory of burning the witch-thing
in the fire while he Sang and Danced to awe the People with his Power over the
Anit'ah
magic.

 
          
 
No wonder the buffalo had left them. His
People had rotted at the core like an old cottonwood. New strength must be
breathed into them like a spring sapling.

 
          
 
On his way to relieve himself, Heavy Beaver
stopped near Sage Root's lodge to see the bit of menstrual pad where the breeze
had blown it into the brush. Drying maggots writhed in death where they lay
scattered in the dust.

 
          
 
He chuckled softly to himself.

 
          
 
White Calf led the way down the long ridge.
The pain in her hip nagged at her while her lungs labored. Too much hurry. Her
old body couldn't take such a pace anymore.

 
          
 
Behind her, the three hunters trotted easily,
chests hardly rising and falling. Ah, to be young again. Once she'd been able
to race the wind, despite her woman's hips and muscles.

 
          
 
"There," Black Crow called, pointing
in the growing light of morning. "That's where camp is. Where the river
runs straight."

 
          
 
She grunted and turned her steps, but not
before she'd caught the strained look in Hungry Bull's face. Did he feel it,
too?

 
          
 
"Time's short," she growled.
"Let's go."

 
          
 
"Short?" Hungry Bull asked, worry
eating at his handsome features.

 
          
 
She paused for a moment. "Something in
the wind. Spirit's loose. Has been for the last four days." She hesitated.
"Listen. I don't know what's stewing in the boiling pouch, but the vision
is calling. Whatever it is, / want to handle it. "

 
          
 
The men glanced back and forth, eyes
expressing their growing unease.

 
          
 
Panic spread in Hungry Bull's gut. He'd felt
it before—the sensation he experienced when he knew the buffalo would wheel and
charge. Now a wrongness pulsed with his soul. Each moment passed with the
urgency of blood falling drop by drop to spatter in the dust. Anxious, he started
to rush ahead, only to have White Calf reach for him. Her
taloned
fingers sank into his flesh.

 
          
 
"Don't go balky on me now like some
moonstruck buffalo calf in a lightning storm. This is Spirit Power. Understand?
Let me worry about it."

           
 
Pulse racing, Hungry Bull licked his lips. '
Tve
got to go. I can feel it. I've got to go!"

 
          
 
She pinned his eyes. "I want your
promise. On your soul. Let me handle it!"

 
          
 
"On my soul." He swallowed
nervously. "I don't like messing with Spirit Power. I don't want anything
to do with it. But we've got to go!"

 
          
 
She jerked a nod. "Good. Then trust me. I
take your promise. On your soul."

 
          
 
White Calf wheeled, putting her old legs to
work again. Under her feet, dried grasses crackled as if she broke tiny bones.

 
          
 
As they continued she muttered under her
breath, "I hope we're not too late."

 
          
 
At that moment, an anguished cry pierced her
mind like a thrown dart. She forced her tired legs to move faster, wincing at
the spike of pain in her hip.

 
          
 
Little Dancer's limbs felt detached the way
they did in a strange dream. The morning might have been imagined, unreal,
something he couldn't really touch, or hear, or smell. He wasn't part of the
sunlight or the earth underfoot. He existed separately from the air and the
soul of the land. Two Smokes' arms around him might have been illusion but for
the crushing pressure in his lungs. The tears had drained away to leave a
hollow ache inside his ribs. He'd become no more than a husk with nothing
within—like the thin hulls the
berdache
peeled from
his grass seeds to blow away on the wind.