The Sacrifice (14 page)

“I feel as if I could almost reach up and touch those clouds,” he said. He lay down and stretched his arms above his head. “I have always wondered what they feel like.”

She brushed a biting ant off her leg. “They feel cold and wet,” she said. “You would not miss much if you never touch one.”

“Have you touched a cloud?” he asked incredulously, sitting up and twisting to face her.

“I walked right through it. It was like fog.”

“You honestly touched a cloud?”

“It is not so difficult,” she said irritably. She was trying to console him, since in this low-lying country he would never come close to a cloud. Wolfstar was staring at her as if she were a spirit.

“You must climb a mountain,” she added, since he kept staring. “Mountains often reach into the clouds.”

“I would like to climb a mountain,” he said, trying to recover himself. “I have never even seen one.”

“Someday you can travel to my country; there you can climb as many as you like.”

Wolfstar sighed. “I don't think so…”

“Something else you should see, on the way to my country,” she said. “Once in your life you should visit the Land of Boiling Waters.” She told him about the steaming holes in the ground, the black cliff, the yellow-canyon waterfall, the burbling pools. The one thing she did not tell him was how she loved the colors, how they made her feel like singing.

Wolfstar was absorbed in her telling of the place. “That I would like to see with my own eyes,” he almost whispered. “You have been so many places. I have never been outside my own village.”

“But you could go.”

“I cannot go far.” He let himself fall back into the grass. “I cannot even marry outside my village,” he said in the voice usually reserved for Dreamer.

He seemed to be thinking of a certain girl—an outsider—whom he wanted to marry.

“If I did marry outside the Village-across-a-ridge, we would lose the Wolf Star bundle, for then it would belong to
her
village,” he said.

The girl looked over at him, but he was hidden in the long grass. “Who would you want to marry from outside your village?” she asked.

He waited a long time before answering. Quietly he said, “I wanted to marry Hummingbird-in-her-hair. And she wanted to marry me.”

“Oh,” the girl said, feeling like a stone. “Why is she with Dreamer?”

“We could never wed,” Wolfstar said. “She is from the Village-in-the-bottomlands.” He began tearing a weed into small pieces. “Anyway, I had nothing to offer. She needed someone older, useful to her family, to protect them and provide for them. Girls always marry someone older. That is the way of things.”

She crawled over to Wolfstar and crushed down the grass near his head so she could see him. “You could have married her anyway,” she said.

“That was long ago,” he said, sounding tired. “And it is not that simple. Our lives are not really our own. You of all people should understand that. The gods wanted you to become great among your people. That is your path. We must all follow the path given us. Mine is to be the Wolf Star bundle keeper.”

“You know nothing,” she said. “Do you think my path was handed to me, just like that? No. I had to fight for it—with all my strength, from the instant I was born. They all thought my twin brother was the Great One, and I was nothing. Even my own father. I grew up like an orphan.”

Confusion clouded Wolfstar's face.

“I worked hard,” she murmured. “By the time I was eight winters old I could shoot three arrows through a hoop before it fell. That was when my father finally believed. I said to him, ‘Look at me! My brother is dead. I have survived. Have you ever thought that
I
am the one?' But no one else believed.”

Wolfstar stared at her.

“I know, you are thinking I am bad in the head. I am used to that,” she said and laughed hollowly. “Everyone in my village thinks I am bad in the head, like my father. Even
I
didn't believe myself, until this.” She shook her bear-claw necklace. “You see this? And this robe? They are all I have to prove that I am not no one—that I am the Great One.

“Now you know the truth,” she said bitterly. “I did not want you to.” The wind kicked her hair up in her face, and she did not brush it aside. “I tell you so you will see that you do not have to lie down and die simply because your village expects you to. Even if your own father expects you to.”

After a long moment, he said, “I see. But if I refuse to do what is asked of me, my people will perish.”

She was stunned. How could it be—that this boy should be responsible for his whole people?

Finally she shook her head. “I do not understand any god that asks you to go against your heart,” she said.

“Nor do I,” Wolfstar said in less than a whisper.

*   *   *

The corn was twice her height and “in the milk,” as Wolfstar called it. It would soon be ready for harvest. The squash and pumpkins glowed in yellows and oranges, and some of the beans were bursting their pods.

Wolfstar was pouring his last skin of water on a row of pony-spotted beans. “The rest of the village will be home from the hunt soon,” he announced, and tossed the empty waterskins and pole aside on the dirt.

The girl was not certain how she felt about this news. She looked forward to the return of excitement and games, but she did not want to give up the quiet summer she had shared with Wolfstar. The fondness she felt for Hummingbird-in-her-hair had changed to confusion. She did not like to think of Wolfstar loving Hummingbird-in-her-hair, even if it was in the past, though she told herself she did not care.

“We will not have many more times,” Wolfstar continued, “alone together.” Looking around furtively, he beckoned her into the sunflowers. “I want to give you this, before the others return.” Uncertainly, she followed.

Wolfstar held out a fist and opened his fingers.

In his palm lay a small, narrow arrowhead, crudely cut of bright blue stone marbled with shades of green. A thin strip of pale orange metal had been coiled around the stem and curled up from it in a hook.

“It's an ear pendant, since you already have a necklace,” he said shyly. “I worked on it while you were shooting with the boys. It's your colors. See, the colors of your favorite time of day?”

She tried to say something, but all she could do was bite her lip. She was afraid to reach for the gift.

“I know your ears are not pierced, but that's easy to do. I would have made two, but I only had stone enough for one.”

Pressing down a powerful urge to run away, she nodded.

Wolfstar walked over to the field and peeled the silk back from an ear of corn and broke off the tip of the cob. “Don't worry, I've seen this done many times,” he said, slipping a bone needle from a flat pouch. “Which ear?”

Raising both hands nervously to her throat, she touched a finger to her left ear.

Her hair was covering the ear, and as she began to brush it away, Wolfstar lifted the thick strand and smoothed it back. She felt the moist corncob behind her earlobe, the heat of his hands, then the sting of the needle, and the thread of blood dribbling down the side of her throat. Most acutely of all, she felt the absence of his touch.

He slipped the hook into her earlobe and twisted the wire around itself. With a bit of cornhusk he whisked the blood off her neck.

“Just keep the wound packed with grease for a few days and it will heal.” He stood back to look at her.

“You should not—I cannot—” she stammered.

Abruptly he turned and walked toward the village.

She stood trying to keep her balance; was it the sunflowers swaying or herself?

“Wait!” she called after him, and raced down the path. “What am I to you, Wolfstar? Please don't joke with me now,” she pleaded as she caught up to him. “A sister? What? I must know.” She reached toward him and he shrank back in alarm.

Very slowly, Wolfstar said, “I am sorry. I can't explain. I can't—”

“Am I so horrible that you can't stand the thought of touching me?” she cried.

“Don't be foolish,” he said fiercely, grasping her arms through her calfskin dress. “I have responsibilities.” Wolfstar flung her arms down. He rubbed his hands over his head as if trying to hold it together.

“I can't explain,” he said quietly. “Please do not ask me to.”

He strode away. This time she let him go.

*   *   *

That evening they trudged up the long hill to their sentinel post in silence. The sun was still burning red atop the horizon. The girl sat on her feet, trying to summon the courage to speak the words she had been practicing in her mind.

“Wolfstar,” she said finally, too loudly, “I have something I want to give you, also.”

Wolfstar looked at her, puzzled, perhaps wondering what she possibly had to give.

She slipped her hands under her hair and unlooped the leather clasp of her bear-claw necklace.

“No, I couldn't take that!” Wolfstar exclaimed.

“I want you to,” she said, holding it out with trembling hands, as she would offer a sacred pipe.

“I can't. This necklace means too much to you.”

“That is why I want to give it to you,” she said. “Don't worry—I will still have my robe.”

Wolfstar shook his head. “There is so much you don't know…”

“I know enough. I know that your star gods have commanded you to go against your heart,” she said. She dared to look into his eyes. “But they cannot command me to go against mine.”

Wolfstar looked away. “As you wish,” he said heavily.

She stood and walked behind him. Then she draped the heavy necklace over his chest. Her stiff and nervous hands needed several attempts to hook the clasp. She walked around and sat beside him. He had only needed a necklace; he was a fine-looking young man.

“It feels as though it's yet glowing with the grizzly's spirit,” he said, touching the thick fur reverently. “Or yours. Your spirits are much the same.” He breathed in deeply. “I will remember you by this, Danger-with-snarled-hair.”

She looked out at the evening sky darkening to her favorite time of day. From this day on, the green and blue would no longer be simply her favorite colors, but also the colors of Wolfstar's gift to her.

She did not say that she was certain he would not need to remember her, that in the end his heart must win out over the stars. She merely began singing, “Even worms…”

20

Though she was target-shooting for arrows down in the bottomlands, she saw the movements from a long way off. They were the movements of people on horseback, heavily laden and dragging travois.

“The village is coming,” she exclaimed, and ran toward the lodges. Sticking-his-tongue-out and Yellow-tail came running after her.

They reached the lodges just as three scouts were galloping in.

“Was the hunt successful?” shouted Yellow-tail.

The scouts' victorious shrills answered plainly. They wheeled their horses around in front of the communal lodge and began tossing packets of meat to the women gathering in the doorway. The Stay-at-homes crowded around to hear the news.

“The buffalo were so thick, we could hardly get among them to hunt,” one of the scouts called out with a laugh.

“What of our men?” asked Her-corn-says-so.

“Your husband is well,” the scout said. “Three men injured, but none were lost. We did lose many horses.”

“Which horses?” the girl wanted to know. “What about the big black-and-gold gelding?” The scouts seemed taken aback at her speaking to them in their own tongue, but they had no response, for none had given a thought to individual horses.

Wolfstar pushed through the crowd. “Did Dreamer take a fat cow?” he asked, but his voice was drowned in the clamor as the rest of the party began pouring over the ridge.

Dreamer led the way on foot, trailing his horse behind him. On its back was strapped a slaughtered buffalo cow, feet upward.

She pointed it out to Wolfstar. “Is it important?”

“It's important to a ceremony we will soon hold,” he said, squinting.

“Then it's good that he took the cow.”

“I don't know,” Wolfstar said vaguely, as if he had forgotten the question. He rushed on to meet his father.

The girl caught sight of Hummingbird-in-her-hair in the crowd, and lifted her hand shyly, but the Pawnee girl did not see her.

The Stay-at-homes ran up the hillside, darting among the swarms of horses and travois and people and yapping dogs, searching for their loved ones. She ran with them, nearly colliding with the priest astride his buffalo pony. Tied behind, Bull labored under several large rawhide packets of buffalo meat. She raced to him and rubbed his broad face and laughed as he snorted and tried to nip her.

“Bull, you big puppy,” she said in Apsaalooka, “I'm so glad to see you. Are you all right? You are covered with dust! Did they treat you well?”

Bull sneezed in response. She tried to pry up his burden to check his back for raw spots.

“Get back from there!” called the priest, twisting around in his saddle.

“I will see you at pasture, Bull,” she said into the horse's neck, and with an affectionate slap she ran on.

She spotted Two-voices on top of the rise, sliding off his horse into the arms of Her-corn-says-so. He threw his arms around his wife and clasped her against him. They were still standing there holding each other when the girl arrived, just behind Wolfstar.

“My son,” Two-voices said with mostly his squeaking voice. He reached a hand behind Wolfstar's head and pulled the boy to his chest.

“Father,” Wolfstar said quietly. “Dreamer killed a fat cow.”

“Yes,” Two-voices said, and released his grip on Wolfstar to look into his eyes. Wolfstar looked away, chewing on his lip. Two-voices put an arm around him and, with his other arm around Her-corn-says-so, clucked at the horse, and they all started down the hill.