***
David was perplexed. He knew he had a stake in what had just happened in this woods clearing. He had a life-and-death problem with Katsuk, but the contest between Katsuk and old Ish had gone beyond any question of a captive’s fate. It had gone into another world, into that place of the spirit dreams. David knew this. It no longer was a problem of the world in which he lived with his body.
He wondered: How do I know this?
It went against everything he had been taught to believe before Katsuk. There were two problems, or one problem with two shapes. One involved his need to escape from the crazy Indian, to get back with people who were sane and could be understood. But there was another part of this thing—a force which tied together two people called Katsuk and Hoquat.
He thought: I’m David, not Hoquat.
But just by answering to Hoquat he knew he had formed a link of some kind. If he were to escape, he had to break both bonds. Ish had understood this, but Tskanay had not.
Tskanay still stood where Katsuk had left her. There was a worried look on her face as she studied the boy who had been put in her care. A wind from the lake ruffled her hair. She brushed a lock from her forehead. There was anger in the movement and frustration.
Ish had gone off into the forest with a purposeful, long-legged stride. It was her problem now.
Tskanay stood firmly in this world, David realised. She held only half the vision. It was like being blind. Ish was another matter. He could see both worlds, but he was afraid. Perhaps Ish felt fear because he could see both worlds.
David stilled a spasm of trembling.
Tskanay’s long silence bothered David. He looked away from her toward the lake, disturbed by the steady pressure of those dark eyes. What was she thinking? The sun stood high over the hills, now, throwing dappled light onto the floor of the clearing. Why was she staring like that? Why didn’t she say something? He wanted to shout at her to say something or go away.
She was thinking about Katsuk.
He knew this as surely as though she had said it. She wanted to talk about Katsuk.
It was dangerous to talk to her about Katsuk. He knew this now. But it had to be done. The problem with Katsuk. The danger had something to do with the spirit dream which Katsuk had experienced but refused to describe in detail. It had been a powerful dream. That was obvious. David wondered suddenly if his Hoquat-self had been caught up in Katsuk’s dream. Could that happen? Could you take another human being into your dream and hold that person captive there?
With a chill shock of awareness, he realised that he had favored Katsuk over Ish in their contest. How could that be? The realisation filled him with guilt. He had abandoned himself! He had weakened the David part. Somewhere, he had made a colossal mistake.
His mouth opened in dismay. What power had commanded that he strengthen the Hoquat-Katsuk bond?
Tskanay stirred, said: “Are you hungry?”
David wondered if he had heard her correctly. What did hunger have to do with anything real? Hungry? He thought about it for a moment.
“Have you eaten?” Tskanay insisted.
David shrugged. “I guess so. I had some peanuts and a chocolate bar.”
“Come with me.” She led the way across the clearing to a gray mound of ashes outside the end hut.
David, following her, noted there were several such ash mounds in the clearing. Some of them were smoking. Tskanay had chosen one that smoked. It had a charred log behind it and a pile of bark at one side.
As Tskanay walked, David noted the edges of her skirt were damp from dew. She had been out in the tall grass already this morning. The skirt showed dirt and stain marks all around the hem. She squatted by the ashes.
David asked: “What do I call you?”
“M—” She glanced at the hut where Katsuk had gone. “Tskanay.”
“It means Moon Water,” David said. “I heard him.”
She nodded, picked up small branches from a stack beneath the bark, scraped coals into view, and piled the branches over them.
David moved around the charred log. “Have you known Katsuk very long?”
“Since we were kids.” She leaned close to the coals, blew them into life. Flame climbed through the piled branches. She put bark around the flame.
“Do you know him very well?” David asked.
“I thought I was going to marry him.”
“Oh.”
She went into the end hut, returned with two old enamel pots. Water sloshed in one of them. Huckleberry leaves floated on the water. The other contained a gray-blue mush.
“Salal berries, tule roots, and tiger-lily bulbs,” she told him when David asked what was in the mush.
David squatted by the fire, enjoying its warmth.
Tskanay put both pots into the coals. She went into the hut, returned with an enamel plate and cup, a tinned spoon. She wiped them on her skirt, served up the mush and a steaming cup of huckleberry-leaf tea.
David sat on an end of the charred log to eat. Tskanay sat on the other end, watched him silently until he had finished. He found the mush sweet and filling. The tea was bitter but left his mouth feeling clean.
“You like that food?” Tskanay asked. She took the utensils from him.
“Yes.”
“That’s Indian food.”
“Katsuk doesn’t like you to say Indian.”
“To hell with Katsuk! Has he hit you very much?”
“No. Are you going to marry him?”
“Nobody’s going to marry him.” David nodded. Katsuk had gone into a world where people didn’t marry. Tskanay said: “He was never cruel before.”
“I know.”
“He calls you his Innocent. Are you?”
“What?”
“Innocent!” David shrugged. This trend in the conversation embarrassed him. “I’m not,” she said. “I was his woman.”
“Oh.” David looked away toward the lake.
“You know why he named you Hoquat?” she asked.
“Because I’m white.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirteen.” David looked toward the big hut. “What happened to Katsuk?”
“He hates.”
“I know, but why?”
“Probably because of his sister.”
“His sister?”
“Yeah. She committed suicide.”
David looked at Tskanay. “Why’d she do that?”
“A bunch of white guys caught her alone out on the Forks road and raped her.”
David read the hidden enjoyment in Tskanay’s recital, wondered at it. He asked: “Is that why Katsuk hates whites?”
“I guess so. You never raped anyone, huh?”
David blushed, felt anger at himself for this betrayal of his feelings. He turned away.
“You know what it means, though,” Tskanay said.
“Sure.” His voice sounded too gruff.
“You really are innocent!”
“Yes.” Defiant.
“You never even feel under a girl’s skirt?”
Again, David felt his cheeks flame hot.
Tskanay laughed.
David turned, glared at her. “He’s going to kill me! You know that? Unless you people stop him!”
She nodded, face suddenly sober. “Why don’t you run away?”
“Where would I go?”
She pointed toward the lake. “There’s a creek goes out the other end of the lake. Follow it. Lots of game trails. You come to a river. Turn left, downstream. You come to a regular park trail and a bridge. Go over the bridge. Got a sign there. Trail goes to a campground. That’s where we left our cars.”
Cars! David thought. The image of a car represented safety to him, release from this terrifying bondage.
“How far?”
She considered, then: “Maybe twenty miles. Took us two days coming in.”
“Where would I rest? What would I eat?”
“If you hold to the north side of the riv
er, you’ll find an abandoned park shelter. Ish and some of his friends buried a steel drum in it. Got some blankets, beans, stuff to make fire.
It’s in the northeast corner of the shelter, I heard him say.”
David stared out at the lake. Shelter ... blankets ... bridge ... cars ... He glanced at the hut where Katsuk had gone.
“He’ll kill you if I escape.”
“No, he won’t.”
“He might.”
“He’ll scream for his damned Raven!”
David thought: He’ll send his birds after me!
“He won’t hurt me,” Tskanay said. “Don’t you want to escape?”
“Sure.”
“What’re you waiting for?”
David got to his feet. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
David looked once more at the lake. He felt elation grow. Follow the creek to the river. Go downstream to the park trail. Cross a bridge.
Without a backward glance or thought for Tskanay, he strolled down to the lake, making it casual in case Katsuk was watching. At the lake, he found a flat stone. He skipped it into the reeds to make it appear he had just come down to the water to play. Another stone went into the reeds. It startled a drake from hiding. The duck went squawking out of the reeds, beating the water with its wings, settled at the far end of the lake. It shook its feathers, stretched.
David swallowed, forced himself not to look back at the camp. The drake had made a lot of noise and it had made him bird-conscious. Watching for ravens, he skirted the meadow, found a game trail with water running across a low spot. The wet grass around him was waist high. His knees and feet already were sopping. He hesitated at the edge of the trees. Once he entered the trees he was committed.
A raven called.
David whirled left, looked down the lake. A whole flock of ravens sat in a tall silver snag beside the lake. The trail would go directly under them!
He thought: If I go close to them, they’ll fly up. They’ll make a big fuss and call Katsuk.
Through the trees in front of him, he could see the hillside above the lake: no trail, a tangle of closely packed spruce and hemlock, roots, mossy logs.
Anything was preferable to the ravens.
David moved straight into the trees, up the hill. It was hard climbing—over logs, slipping on moss, falling between logs, getting himself caught on brush and broken limbs. He lost sight of the lake within two hundred steps. Once, he confronted a moss-topped stump with a grouse sitting atop it, blinking at him.
The bird twisted its head around to watch him pass.
Except for the constant sound of dripping, the forest felt silent to him. He thought: When I get to the top of this hill, I’ll turn left. That way, I’ll come back to the lake or the creek.
His feet hurt where the wet socks chafed them.
The hill was steeper now, trees smaller and thinner. There were blackberry vines to catch at his clothing. He came out into a small clearing with twisted black roots ahead of him. They snaked down over the foundations of a granite steeple—straight up! No way to climb it.
David sat down, panting. Roots and rock formed a cup, blocking his way to the left, but a narrow deer trail angled up to the right. He thought: When I get to the top, then I can turn left.
Taking a deep breath, he got up, climbed into the deer trail. Before he had climbed one hundred steps, he was confronted by a thick wall of brush. The wall ran up to his left toward the rock steeple, curved away from him on the downhill side. He tried to press into the brush, saw it was useless. Fur on a limb above the brush told him the deer had leaped this barrier.
Winded, frightened, he studied his surroundings. Downhill to the right was back to Katsuk ... unless he crossed the valley above the Indian encampment. That way, he could go down the left side of the lake, away from the ravens. There was a trail there, too: He and Katsuk had come up that way.
Decision restored some of his hope. He angled downhill, trying to move with the caution he’d learned from watching Katsuk. It was no use: He continued to step on dead branches which broke with loud stumblings; he continued to stumble through limbs and brush.
The trees were bigger now, more of them, more windfalls. He was thirsty and felt the beginning pangs of hunger.
Presently, he stumbled onto another deer trail. Within a few steps, it divided sharply. One arm went almost straight up the hill to his left, the other plunged steeply into green gloom.
David stared around him. He knew he was lost. If he went uphill, he felt sure he would come face to face with another part of that rock cliff. Downhill was the only way. He would find water to quench his thirst at least. He plunged into the green gloom. The trail switched back and forth, went almost straight down in places, avoided a tall curve of roots at the base of a fallen tree.
He went around the roots, found himself face to face with a black bear. The bear backed up, snorting. David leaped off the deer trail, downhill to his right, straight through brush and limbs, panic driving him in great, gulping strides. A low limb cut his forehead. He stumbled on a mossy log, fell hard into a narrow rivulet tinkling across black rocks. He got up, mud and water dripping from him, stared round. No sign of the bear. His chest and side ached where he had fallen.
He stood, listening, heard only wind in the trees, the sound of the tiny stream, his own gasping breaths. The sound of water recalled him to his thirst. He found a hollow in the rocks, stretched out and sank his face into the water to drink. His face dripped when he sat up, but he could find no dry part of his clothes to wipe away the water. He shook his head, scattering droplets.
There was a breeze blowing across the hillside. It chilled him. David felt his muscles trembling. He got up, followed the tiny stream downhill. It ran under logs, over shallows, dropped in miniature cataracts, growing larger and larger. Finally, it came out on flat, marshy ground, ran directly into a tangle of devil’s club.
David stopped, looked at the sharp white spines of the thicket. No way to get through there. He looked to the right: That way must lead to the camp. He turned to the left, moved out across ground so spongy it sloshed and squirted with each step. The devil’s club gave way to a stand of salal higher than his head. The ground became more solid.
A deer trail entered the salal. David stopped, examined his surroundings. He guessed he had been gone at least three hours. He was not even sure he still was in the valley of the lake. There was a trail. He peered into the dark hole through the salal. The ground was gray mud, pocked with deer tracks.
Fear crept through him. He teeth chattered with the cold.
Where did that trail go? Back to Katsuk?
The constant sound of water dripping from leaves wore on his nerves. His feet ached. He sensed the silent, fearful warfare of plants and animals all around him. His whole body shook with chill.
A distant cawing of ravens came to his ears. David turned his head, searching for the direction of the sound. It grew louder, a great clatter of wings and calling directly over him, hidden by the thick tree cover.
They could see him even through the trees!
In a panic even greater than when he had seen the bear, David sprinted into the salal, slipped, almost fell. He regained his balance, ran gasping and crying to himself through the heavy shadows. The trail twisted and turned. David skidded, burst from the thicket, desperate, incoherent, his mind filled with confusion, his body teetering.
Ish stood directly in front of him. The old man put out a hand to steady the boy.
“You lost, boy?”
David, his mouth open, panting, could only stare up at the wrinkled old face, the glittering birdlike eyes. There was a clearing behind Ish, a wide circle of trees all around. Sunlight poured into it. David blinked in the brightness.
Ish said: “Kind of figured you were lost when I heard you crashing down the hill a while back.” He dropped his hand from David’s shoulder, stepped back to get a full view. “You are a mess. Had you a time out there?”
“I saw a bear,” David managed. Even as he said it, he felt that was a stupid thing to say.
“Did you now?” There was laughter in Ish’s voice.
David blushed.
Ish said: “Came looking for you because of Tskanay.”
“Did he hurt her?”
“Cast a spirit into her. Gave her a cramp and she fell down in a faint.”
“He hit her!”
“Maybe so.”
“I told her he would.”
“You shouldn’t run away, boy. Get yourself killed.”
“What’s the difference?”
Ish said: “Well, you had yourself a good walk. I’ll show you the short way back to camp. Katsuk’s expecting you.” He turned, strode off across the clearing, a limping old man with the sun beating onto his gray head and shoulders.
David, too tired to cry, trailed after the old man like a puppy on a leash.
***
From Katsuk’s “Red Power” letter to the United Indian Council:
You call yourselves Indians! Every time you do that you deny that you are People. Nehru was an Indian. Ghandi was an Indian. They knew what it was to be People. If you cannot listen to me, listen to Gandhi. He said: “Immediately the subject ceases to fear the despotic force, its power is gone.” Do you hear that, you fearful subjects? Choose your own name!
***
An old woman stood just outside the curtained doorway of the big hut. She was talking to Katsuk as Ish and the boy entered the clearing. Ish held out a hand to stop the boy and they waited there just into the clearing.
“That’s Cally, his aunt on his mother’s side,” Ish said.
She was a head shorter than Katsuk, heavy and solid in a black dress that stopped halfway between knees and ground. Low black socks and tennis shoes covered her feet. Her hair was shiny black streaked by gray, pulled tight and tied with a blue ribbon at the back. Below the ribbon, her hair sprayed out to her shoulder blades. She had a high forehead, cheeks that puffed out round and fat and dark.
Soul Catcher Page 12