Soul Catcher (20 page)

He leaped off the sleeping bag, jerked it
aside, began gathering up the boughs. He carried them outside,
stacked them in the rain. His skin glistened with water when he
returned. He squatted, gathered the fallen needles, sweeping them
together, searching out every one. When he had them all, he took
them out into the rain, scattered them.

“Cedar!” he shouted. “I give you back what I
took! I beg forgiveness! I ask my spirits to give you this message.
I did not mean to harm you. Cedar, forgive me!”

David squatted by the fire, watched
wide-eyed. Katsuk was insane!

Katsuk returned to the fire, put a damp
spruce limb into the flame. “See,” he said, “I do not burn
cedar.”

David stood, pressed his back against the
rock wall.

Katsuk nodded his head to the flames.
Falsetto whines came out of his throat, monotone grunts.

David said: “Are you praying?”

“I need a language to explain how I feel. I
need a language that has never been heard before. Cedar must hear
me and know my prayer.”

David listened for words, heard none. The
sounds were hypnotic. He felt his eyelids drooping. Presently, he
went to the sleeping bag, wrapped himself in it, stretched out on
the hard ground.

Katsuk went on with his odd noises,
groaning, whining. Even after the fire had reduced itself to a
glowing, orange eye, the sound went on and on and on. The boy heard
it occasionally as he half awoke from sleep.

***

From a note left by Katsuk in the abandoned
shelter at Sam’s River:

Hoquat is an innocent without father and
mother. He says his father will pay me. But how can people who do
not exist make payments? Besides, I do not ask ransom. I have the
advantage over you. I understand your economics. You do not
understand mine. My system goes by vanity, prestige, and ridicule,
the same as the hoquat. But I see the vanity. I see the prestige. I
see the ridicule. This is how my people made potlatch. The hoquat
do not have potlatch. I know the names and shapes of everything I
do. I understand the spirit powers and how they work. That is the
way it is.

***

The first thing David saw when he awoke was
thin pillars of rain slanting across the mine entrance. The world
outside was full of dawn’s broken light, misty gray-white. Katsuk
was nowhere to be seen, but ravens clamored somewhere outside.

David trembled at the sound.

He slid out of the sleeping bag, stood up.
It was cold. Moisture filled the air. He went to the mouth of the
shaft, stared around him, shivering.

The rain slackened.

David turned, peered into the shaft. Not
likely Katsuk had gone back deeper into there. Where was he?

The ravens called from the trees down by the
lake. Mist hid them. David felt hunger grip his stomach. He
coughed.

The wind remained strong. It blew from the
west, pushing clouds against the peaks beyond the lake valley.
Branches whipped in the wind atop the ridge, chopped the light.

Should I go down to the huts?
David
wondered.

He could see the game trail they had climbed
in the night. The rain stopped, but water dripped from every leaf
he could see.

David thought of the huts, the people. They
had allowed Katsuk to take his captive away. They wouldn’t help.
Cally had said as much.

He heard splashing on the game trail,
grunting.

Katsuk climbed into view. He wore a
loincloth and moccasins. The sheathed knife flopped against his
side with every step. His body glistened with wetness, but he
seemed unaware of water or cold. He climbed onto the ledge at the
mouth of the mine and David saw that he carried a package. It was
wrapped in dirty cloth.

Katsuk thrust the package toward the boy,
said: “Smoked fish. Cally sent it.”

David took the package, opened it with
cold-stiffened fingers. The fish was bright red, oily, and hard. He
broke off a piece, chewed. It tasted salty and sweet. He swallowed
and immediately felt better.

He took another mouthful offish, spoke
around it: “You went down to see your friends?”

“Friends,” Katsuk said, his voice flat. He
wondered if a shaman ever had friends. Probably not. You went
outside human associations when you gained spirit powers.
Presently, he glanced at the boy, said: “You didn’t try to escape
again.”

“I thought about it.” Defiant.

“Why didn’t you try?”

“I heard the ravens.”

Katsuk nodded. It was logical. He said:
“That lightning last night—it hit the big spruce beside the house
where my
friends
were talking. They were arguing whether to
turn me over to the hoquat police when pieces of the tree smashed
through the roof He smiled without mirth.

David swallowed a bite offish. “Was anybody
hurt?”

“A fish rack fell on Tskanay. It bruised her
arm. Ish was burned. He tried to jump across the fire. They were
not hurt much, but they no longer discuss what to do with me.”

David chewed silently, studying his captor,
trying not to betray awe at this revelation. It was one more thing
to confirm the powers Katsuk controlled. He could bring down the
lightning.

Katsuk said: “They don’t want me to send
more lightning.

David sensed something cynical and doubting
in Katsuk’s tone, asked: “Did you make the lightning?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. But that’s what they
think.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told them an owl’s tongue will bring
rain. I told them Raven can create fire. They know this, but
they’ve been taught the hoquat ways of doubting their own past.
Have you had enough of that fish?”

“Yes.” David nodded numbly. To have
lightning silence those who could harm you! To know what would
bring rain and fire! What powers those were.

Katsuk took the package of fish from the
boy’s hand, wrapped it tightly, thrust it into his pouch. He said:
“Will you follow, or will you try to escape?”

David swallowed a lump in his throat.
Escape? Where could he run that Katsuk’s powers would not follow?
But there had to be some way out of this nightmare. There must be
some way to break free of Katsuk.

“Answer me,” Katsuk ordered.

David thought:
He’ll know if I try to lie
to him.
He said: “If I can find a way to get away from you, I
will.”

The honesty of innocence,
Katsuk
thought. Admiration for this hoquat youth rose in him. What a
magnificent sacrifice Hoquat would make. Truly, this was the Great
Innocent, one to answer for all of those the hoquat had slain.

Katsuk asked: “But will you follow me
now?”

“I’ll follow.” Sullen. “Where’re we
going?”

“We will climb today. We will go over the
mountain into another valley where there are no man trails.”

“Why?”

“I am pulled in that direction.”

“Shall I get the pack and the sleeping
bag?”

“Leave them.”

“But won’t we ...”

“I said leave them!” There was wildness in
his voice. David backed up into the mine.

Katsuk said: “I must discard hoquat things.
Come.”

He turned to his right, went up around the
mine shaft on a deer trail. David darted into the open,
followed.

Katsuk said: “Follow close. You will get
wet. Never mind that. The climb will keep you warm.”

They stayed on the deer trail until the sun
began to break through the overcast. Tiny cones like deer droppings
covered the trail. Ferns blanketed the ground on both sides. Moss
obscured all the downed trees. The trail dipped and climbed. Water
ran in the low spots.

As the sun came out, Katsuk took to the
ferns and moss, climbing straight up a steep ridge side to another
trail. He turned right on this and soon they encountered snow on
the ground. It had collected along the hill margin of the trail but
had melted away on the downhill side. They walked the thin strip of
open ground. Urine-colored lichen poked through the snow in the
thinner places.

Once, they heard an aircraft flying low
under the broken clouds. It could not be seen through the heavy
tree cover.

As they climbed, the trees began to thin.
The deer track crossed a park trail with a signboard. The sign
pointed left:

KIMTA PEAK.

Katsuk turned right.

They began encountering long stretches of
snow on the trail. There were old footprints in the snow. The flat
inner surfaces of the prints had almost lost their foot shape. Rain
pocked the prints. Some of them showed mud stains

Once, Katsuk pointed to the prints, said:
“They were going over Kimta Peak. It was last week.”

David studied the tracks. He couldn’t tell
toe from heel. “How do you know?”

“Do you see how we leave mud in the snow? It
is always after we cross open ground. They left mud on the downhill
side. The tracks have melted for at least a week.”

“Who was it, do you suppose?”

“Hoquat searching for us, perhaps.”

David shivered as the wind gusted. The air
carried the chill of snow and ice. Even the effort of keeping up
with Katsuk failed to warm him. He wondered how Katsuk could endure
it in only loincloth and moccasins. The moccasins were dark with
water. The loincloth appeared soggy. David’s tennis shoes sloshed
with each step. His feet were numb with cold.

They came to another sign. THREE PRUNE
SHELTER. It pointed downhill to the right.

Katsuk left the park trail there, took a
deer path that went straight up the hill. David was pressed to keep
up.

Whenever he could see up through the trees,
the sky showed blue patches. David prayed they would come out into
warm sunshine. The backs of his hands were wet and cold. He tried
to put them into his jacket pockets, but the jacket was
soaking.

They came to a rocky ridgetop. Katsuk
followed it, climbing toward a mountain which lifted itself against
clouds directly ahead. Trees on both sides of the ridge were
gnarled, stunted, wind-bent. Wrinkled patches of lichen marked the
rocks.

Katsuk said: “We are near timberline. We
will go down soon.”

He spoke above the sound of water roaring in
a deep gorge to the right. They came to an elk trail which angled
down toward the sound. Katsuk scrambled down onto the elk trail.
David followed, slipping, avoiding snow where he could. Katsuk was
covering the ground in great long strides. David ran to catch up,
almost overran Katsuk. An outthrust arm stopped him.

“Dangerous to run down such a hill,” Katsuk
said. “You could run right off a cliff.”

David nodded, shivered. He felt the cold
seep through him. It was that way every time they stopped. How
could Katsuk stand it?

“Come,” Katsuk said.

Again, they went down the trail. Presently,
they came out on a granite ledge above the river. The roaring milky
water below them filled the air with cold mist. Katsuk turned left,
upstream. Soon, the stunted trees gave way to tiny clumps of
huckleberry bushes. They encountered smaller and smaller bushes
until there were none. Lichen lay on the bare rocks. Tufts of
greenery speared through snow patches. The river became narrower,
gray rocks thrusting out of it. The sound of it was loud beside
them. The water was gray-green with snowmelt, no more than six feet
across. Patches of vapor drifted on its surface.

Katsuk came to the place he had been
seeking—rocks like stepping stones across the river. Water piled
high against the upstream sides of the rocks. He looked upstream.
There was the ice wall from which this tumbling water flowed. He
stared at the cold, dirty-white fountain-head of all that water.
Ice ... ice ...

The boy stood behind him, huddled up,
shivering with the cold. Katsuk glanced at Hoquat a moment, then
peered down to the right where the river plunged into the
trees—far, far down there. The sun came through the clouds. He saw
a deep pool in the river’s middle distance: scintillant water, its
current pulled taut against the deep unrest beneath. He felt the
river ceaselessly churning in its depth. Who counted that water or
cut it into bits? The water was bound together, one end connected
to the other.

“Why’re we waiting?” David asked.

Katsuk did not hear him. He thought:
All
things start downstream from this place. Here is the
beginning.

There were river spirits here. The spirits
permitted no leisure for this torrent of water or the torrent in
his own breast. Each would run until it broke its energy into other
forms. All was movement, energy, and currents—never ceasing.

He found a deep, calming enjoyment in this
thought. His mind had taken a leap, not asking why, but how?

How?

The spirits told him: “Never ceasing, one
energy into another.”

“Come,” he said, and crossed the stream,
jumping from rock to rock.

The boy followed.

***

Sheriff Pallatt:

Hell, I know the FBI thinks he’s gone
underground in some city. That’s nuts! That twisty-minded,
goddamned Indian’s in there someplace. I’m sure he crossed the Hoh.
I saw tracks. Could’ve been a man and a boy. Right up near the
middle fork. How they got across there, though, with the river that
high, I’ll never know. Maybe he’s a woods devil. I guess if you’re
crazy enough you do impossible things.

***

A vine maple shadow stretched out into the
river below Katsuk. The maple leaves above his head shone as though
polished. He squatted beside an old elk trail whose edges had
tumbled into the water, stared at the tree shadow, thinking.

The boy lay stretched out, belly down, on a
thin strip of grass upstream. The grass blended gradually into a
moss-covered ledge of rock which the elk trail skirted. The
inevitable blade of grass protruded from the boy’s mouth and he was
picking red ants out of the grass, nipping off their heads, and
eating them. He had told Katsuk he was going to try not
thinking.