Great Sky Woman

by Steven Barnes

  Horrible silence followed, its own damnation.

  “I say test him!” Dry Hole clenched his fists and screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. “Test him, or I will take my children and join another boma. I will not live in the same thorn ring with a witch, to wither my root and starve my spear!” Some of the others took up that call. Frog wanted to run and stand beside his friend, but Fire Ant’s hand clamped hard on his shoulder. Despite his dismay, Frog was secretly glad for the restraint.

  Fire boma’s elders took to the meeting hut, where the door was closed and the children were warned to stay away. They remained, chanting and singing, until late into the night, when a grim-faced Break Spear emerged and said: “Accuser and accused must be tested.”

  Runners were sent racing toward Great Sky. Two days later, Cloud Stalker himself appeared. Although his spine was not so straight, Stalker was still the tallest Ibandi Frog had ever seen. His skin was more weathered than it had been just two springs ago, his hair now streaked with gray. But his muscles were still strong and full as a young hunter’s, his eyes still sharp enough to drive an arrow through a hawk in flight. And he could still outrun most of the younger hunters.

  Frog saw him speak to Uncle Snake. The hair on the back of Frog’s neck burned. Earlier he had seen Dry Hole hand Snake a sliver of black rock wrapped with leather: a knife, and a good one, gained in trade with one of the eastern bomas. Frog’s belly twisted. He knew that soon “the gods” would pass a decision, and without a word spoken he knew exactly what that decision would be.

  “This is a serious thing you say,” Cloud Stalker told them after he had rested awhile. He listened to their concerns, spoke to Deep Dry Hole and Lizard. Then after a smoke, he began to dance.

  Lizard Tongue and Dry Hole sat in the men’s circle, with the women forming another, looser ring outside them. Although Lizard was not fully a man of the tribe, with such a serious accusation all within the boma walls were granted protection of their laws. Challenger and challenged alike were equal in Father Mountain’s eyes.

  “I call a trial,” Stalker said. “Earth, wind, water”—as he said them he danced to their directions—“and fire.”

  Lizard trembled. It seemed to Frog that Deep Dry Hole was hard-pressed to conceal his smirk.

  “The fire trial,” he said. The tribe moaned and swayed, agreeing, eagerness simmering beneath the surface. All the hunters had struggled recently. Ever since the washing of the spears, their luck seemed to have gone bad. Any change of luck was sincerely prayed and danced for. And if that called for the sacrifice of one terrified boy, then so be it.

  First, as the elders beat the leather-headed drums, the men’s fire was built into a blaze, then the coals and glowing ashes raked out in a long bed. Dry Hole and Lizard each had to scoop up a coal and then walk barefoot out on the glowing bed.

  The rules were simple: they could throw the coals into the air again and again, but the first to drop it, or leave the bed of coals, would be he for whom Father Mountain felt no love.

  Lizard scanned their faces, seeking compassion, and found it only within Frog’s eyes. Even his lover Wind Song would not look at him.

  For tens of breaths the two, Lizard and Deep Dry Hole, sat as the hunt chief danced before them with such liquid motions that Frog grew sleepy just watching, nearly entering the world of the dream even though his eyes were open.

  Hot Tree and Thorn Summer brought forth ostrich shells filled with water. Dry Hole and Lizard were allowed to sop their bare feet.

  Then with no apparent discomfort Cloud Stalker picked up two dusty, glowing coals from the bed and placed one in each of their palms.

  “Dance,” he said.

  They stepped onto the coals and began their dance and chant. The steam hissed from their hands and feet. The water swiftly evaporated, and their chants grew louder, tinged now with pain as smoke rose from hands and feet.

  Every eye in the boma was fixed upon them. All but one pair. Frog crept away, into the hut where Cloud Stalker had left his sack. And there, in the darkness, he opened Stalker’s sacred belt, and committed a great sin.

  By the time Frog returned, tears streamed down Lizard’s swollen face. He screamed and stumbled from the coals, sobbing uncontrollably, pouring water on his burning feet. Dry Hole stepped off, sat on the ground with a thump and almost casually dribbled water on his toes, lips curled in a contemptuous smile.

  Lizard rubbed water into his feet, trembling like a gazelle in a leopard’s jaws. “Please,” he whispered.

  Cloud Stalker frowned. Did he want to condemn Frog’s friend? Frog could not know. But he guessed that the knife that had passed from Dry Hole to Snake could now be found in Stalker’s pouch. “I see stones in your body,” he said, peering deeply at Lizard’s chest.

  Stones? Stalker turned and left them to go to the meeting hut, the flap closing behind him. Would Stalker discover what Frog had done? And if he did, would Uncle Snake’s dead left eye light on Frog, blasting his soul? Frog shivered.

  Stalker emerged, draped in his lion skin, wearing his gorilla skull. White bone marks were painted upon his face, as though his skin was transparent.

  He did not walk back to them, he danced, one step at a time, singing a death song.

  He held out a ball of dried herbs, opened Lizard’s mouth, and forced it in. As the drums thundered, Lizard and Cloud Stalker danced together, Lizard struggling to match Stalker’s movements as the hunt chief transformed himself into snake, and eagle, and lion, and gorilla. The herbs began to take effect, and Lizard fell to the ground, bucking and writhing, and calling out to the gods for mercy.

  As the people screamed and sang, Cloud Stalker hunched over, seeming to reach into Lizard’s abdomen. Did he, really? Frog could not see clearly enough to be certain, but the hair on the back of his neck itched, and his eyes opened wide, imagining such an intrusion into his own body. The boma folk screamed, and some of the women fainted, as Stalker howled and held his bloody arm aloft, holding—

  A black stone, signifying life. Cloud Stalker’s eyes widened with shock.

  Frog sidled behind his mother, afraid to let Stalker see his face, lest his guilt betray him. What must the mighty hunt chief be thinking? Of a miracle, of the hand of Father Mountain in men’s affairs? Or would he know that human will had determined hunt chief justice?

  Frog snuck a peek at Uncle Snake, who looked at him, mouth thin with anger.

  He knew. But would he speak, betraying Frog?

  Cloud Stalker threw the stone down at his feet. “The boy is not a witch,” he said.

  “No!” said Deep Dry Hole. Frog saw his lips twitch, trembling. Finally, with venom enough to kill a man at ten paces, he leaned over Lizard, who was still curled, moaning on the ground, wiping flecks of foam from his lips. “You are a weakling. You will never be a hunter. The jackals will kill you for me.” And stalked back to his hut.

  Cloud Stalker’s face was set grimly. “It is done,” he said, and without another word turned and began his walk back to the mountain.

  Dry Hole washed his burned feet with water, and glared at Lizard and then at his wife. Frog knew: regardless of Lizard’s fate, Wind Song had earned a bone-rattling.

  Had Frog sinned terribly against the gods in doing what he had done? For replacing the white stone held on the left side of the belt with a second black one? Was this an inexcusable sin?

  Or worse…

  What if there was nothing atop Great Sky? What if there were no gods at all? The thought hit him like a rock to the base of his skull, a thought so terrible and enormous that he dared not even whisper it to himself.

  What if there was nothing?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Frog’s eyes misted with tears as Cloud Stalker, Break Spear and even Uncle Snake declared him corrupt and evil. Lion Tooth, Lizard, Scorpion, even Ant and Hawk turned their backs. Under point of spear he gathered his meager belongings and wandered into the brush, until he was found, not by dream dancers or hunt chiefs or even bh
an, but by leopards who sprang upon him, bore him to the ground just as he had seen one take down a springbok. And then, even as he prayed for Father Mountain to end his agony, they devoured him screaming. Horribly, nothing they did to him, no savaging of fang or claw, brought the healing arms of death and darkness. He lived through all, screaming until his throat tore.

  “My brother,” Fire Ant said, shaking him. Frog could just barely make out his sibling’s face in the darkness. “My brother. Frog. Wake up.”

  Frog came to waking slowly, like one swimming up through mud. He saw his brother’s face in the moonlight streaming through the air hole. The bits of good-luck bone dangling from the willow branch ceiling swayed slowly in the wind, mocking his nightmare.

  His mouth was sour with terror. In his dream, Frog had been unable to defend himself, to change their minds, and nothing could keep them from seeing him for what he really was. Beside him, Scorpion and his younger brother, Wasp, were rolled onto their sides, moaning with early morning visions. Gazelle was still fast asleep, but Uncle Snake’s place at her side was empty. Hunters needed their sleep. Had his anguish awakened his uncle? Guilt added its weight to fear.

  He clung desperately to his brother. “I am safe?”

  “Safe,” he promised. “What did you see?” Frog’s dreams were still so real that he would have sworn the straw beneath him was slick with blood.

  Despite his trembling, he thought clearly enough to ignore the question. “Brother,” he asked, “have you ever been afraid?”

  Fire Ant squeezed his shoulder. “I am too strong for fear, tadpole. In time, you also will grow strong.”

  Frog gripped desperately at his brother, lowering his voice so that young Wasp could return to sleep. “But I don’t want fear!”

  “Fear can be a gift. It makes us strong,” Ant said.

  “I do not want this gift,” Frog said. “I will learn. I will grow, and learn enough, and one day I will never be afraid again.”

  Ant yawned and rolled over. “Go back to sleep,” he said.

  But Frog could not, and instead crawled up and out of the hut, squatting in the doorway and then walking toward the men’s fire, happy for the solitude.

  The boma was silent except for soft, burring snores. A hand fell on his shoulder, and Frog wheeled, startled, to find Uncle Snake behind him.

  “Your friend is safe now,” he said. “I could not sleep either.” There was more to say, and both of them knew it. And knew just as well that those other words might never be spoken.

  “Then why do I still feel afraid?” Frog said instead of the questions he really wished to ask. “I do not want fear, and it seems that no matter what I do, it just grows worse.”

  Uncle Snake shook his head. “If you ever learn how to stop it, if that day ever comes, I hope you will teach me your secret.” He rubbed Frog’s head. “You think if you learn enough you will not fear. Not die. Never be alone. It is not true.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it is not the way Father Mountain made us. We are what we are, Frog. There are things that cannot be changed. Should not be done.”

  Frog thought that there was some hidden fire in Snake’s eyes, a warning that he ignored. “Why not? How do you know?”

  Uncle Snake shook his head and cupped the back of Frog’s neck with his callused, powerful hand. The gesture started rough but then became more gentle. “Perhaps one day you will be a hunt chief and can brave the spirit world to ask Him yourself.”

  The two looked up at the dark, looming expanse of Great Sky. It disappeared in the clouds almost as if there was no top there at all. Did Father Mountain, from his awesome vantage, hate Frog for what he had done? Great Sky had taken Baobab before he could teach Frog to walk or talk, let alone to hunt or tie knots. Was it too much, was it too evil for Frog to cling to a friend?

  There was only one thing he could think to do. One day, he would climb to the top of Great Sky itself, and ask his father. For if his own flesh and blood was angry with him, that was even worse than if the great god who made them all saw young Frog as unfit. In that case, he didn’t know what he would do.

  Or…perhaps there was no Father Mountain. Perhaps there were no spirits. Perhaps…perhaps…

  Frog climbed back into his mother’s hut and tried to sleep. But as he turned restlessly on his straw, he renewed his promise that one day he would climb the mountain. He could not quiet the part of him that whispered: There are no gods. Surely, such a thing as had almost happened to Lizard could not happen if Father Mountain watched and protected. No. No matter what the hunt chiefs said, there might be nothing, nothing, except darkness and death.

  On the other hand…was it possible that he was Father Mountain’s tool? Had he been fated, perhaps intended to save Lizard? All his life, he had felt that there was something different about him. Could this be it?

  His head hurt. Could the hunt chiefs be lying? They knew so much. Everything that the hunt chiefs taught kept the Ibandi alive, kept flesh in their pots. They seemed so wise, so good.

  Then why the pretense?

  Frog vowed that he would not die without learning the truth of this, without climbing Great Sky to see if Great Mother and Father Mountain were things as solid as wood. Or were They more like shadows? Did the dream realm genuinely exist, or was it merely some strangeness in their heads, with no connection to the world of flesh and stone? There was no one he could say such things to, no one he dared ask.

  So all he could do was swear to make the climb, as Uncle Snake had done, and learn for himself. At the top of the tallest mountain in the world, where, the wise ones said, their ancestors danced in dead water.

  Chapter Sixteen

  In their dusty, cautious hands of hands, the herds had begun to return to the brush-dotted plains surrounding Fire boma. By their lameness or slowness or pretended unawareness some revealed their desire to return to the spirit world. Slowly, song and dance returned to Fire boma. No one spoke of what had occurred, but once again smiles appeared on people’s faces. What remained unsaid was as important as what was spoken aloud.

  Lizard seemed more pensive, laughed less often and stayed as far as he could from Dry Hole’s wife, who limped for most of a moon after the trial.

  The rest of the boma seemed to accept Lizard, and in so doing forgave themselves for sins real or imagined.

  We did what we had to do, they said.

  We saved our children. Who can say we were wrong? The hunting is good. The flies are gone.

  Life has returned.

  Then one day Frog went looking for his brother Fire Ant and could find no trace of him. He looked by the men’s fire, in the storage hut and down by the banks of Fire River. Nothing.

  “Where is my brother?” he asked his mother, Gazelle. She smiled wanly and turned away. He sought Uncle Snake and could not find him either. Anxiety blossomed.

  “Where is Fire Ant?” he asked Hawk Shadow. None of the adults would speak to him about it, and it was later that he realized that Lizard, too, was gone.

  “And where is Lizard?” he asked, and was given no answer. He was afraid. Had his actions been discovered? Had Deep Dry Hole or Cloud Stalker fulfilled the will of the gods after all? Could Frog have been so terribly wrong about the thing to be done? Hawk would not respond to him save to say: “Do not ask.”

  So Frog sat in a shaded nook behind his hut, knuckled his chin, furrowed his brow and tried to think. He remembered that the same thing had happened to his eldest brother, Hawk Shadow, the year before. Hawk had been gone for two hands of nights, returned briefly, then disappeared again for two moons. When he returned, he carried a gutted warthog across his shoulders. There was great celebration, and soon afterward he was declared a hunter. When Frog asked about it, he was told not to question.

  Was this the unnamed mystery by which boys became hunters? Sometimes he thought that everyone knew the answer except poor Frog.

  Fire Ant returned after a few days with a single scab-crusted scar on either ch
eek and a dazed look in his eyes. Frog felt great relief: Fire Ant had not suffered for Frog’s sin! His joy was almost uncontrollable when Lizard appeared only a few breaths later, similarly scarred and dazed.

  What had happened?

  Ant barely spoke to Frog. Instead, he went to the straw nest built onto the side of the family hut and lay down to sleep. The next day Frog saw him speak to Uncle Snake, but again he had no words for Frog. He left the next morning, carrying nothing but a knife. No food. No spear. But he did rub Frog’s head on the way out of the boma. That, at least, was a sign that he still knew his brother.

  Lizard avoided him as well, did not meet his eye, would not reply to his questions. Frog could not understand, and at last went to his straw with unanswered questions in his mind. His stomach was as queasy as in his fifth spring, when he had almost died with fever.

  Late that night, just before dawn, a stick poked through the side of his hut, scratching Frog’s head and waking him up. At first he was disoriented, wondering what had happened, then realized someone had called for him, and crept out.

  The older boy looked haunted and terrified. The single scar on either cheek had scabbed but still oozed fluid.

  “What happened to you?” Frog asked.

  Lizard shook his head. I cannot say. His lips twisted in a sad sort of smile. “Don’t ever let them know.”

  “Know what?” Frog asked.

  “Your mind.” His fingertip brushed Frog between his eyes, a touch like a feather. “They would fear you if they knew you.” He sighed, a huge, heavy sound. “All my life I have been different, as you are different,” Lizard said. “All my life I have feared this day, and now it has come.”

  “Then stay,” Frog said, feeling himself grow desperate. “You can be a Between, like Thorn Summer.”

  A flash of panic flared in Lizard’s black eyes. “Dry Hole would find a way to kill me,” he said. Then he straightened, perhaps trying to be brave for his young friend. “No,” he said. “You should not have done it. Even if they had banished me, I would have found my way. There would have been something for me. I can feel it. I would have found another boma, or survived on my own. You have angered the gods.”