Soul Catcher

by Frank Herbert

  David asked: “Why did you stop?”

  Katsuk sat up, stared at the evil flute beside him. He shook his head. The movement was like wind swaying cedar boughs. The cedar band around his head pressed into his skull. He knew it might crush his head. He could not remove the band.

  “Keep that sickness away from me,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to be killed by that sickness.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Katsuk glared across the fire at the boy. “What has made me so unlucky?”

  “Are you unlucky?” David didn’t understand the conversation but felt his participation being demanded.

  “I am overcome by it,” Katsuk said. “I have been found by Short-Life-Maker.”

  “Katsuk, you’re talking awfully funny.”

  “Evil words have been sent against me!”

  “What words?”

  “I have enemies. They have cursed me. They wish me to die quickly. My own people! They have no mercy.”

  David moved around the fire, squatted beside the sleeping bag. He touched Katsuk’s flute. “I liked the music. Will you play some more?”

  “No!”

  “Why?”

  “Because I have discovered my omen tree.”

  The boy stared at him, puzzled.

  Katsuk closed his eyes. He pictured a cedar, a great cedar with bulging roots, glossy needles, a cedar deep in the forest, sucking at the earth’s belly and piling its boughs high, a skirt of long boughs at the bottom that leaned outward into a thick bed of leaf mold.

  “My omen tree,” Katsuk whispered.

  “What’s an omen tree?” David asked.

  Katsuk said: “I was my mother’s firstborn.” He opened his eyes, stared upward into the ruddy smoke, “Her brother carved a little canoe for me. He made a tiny fish spear. He made a rattle box. He made all of these things from cedar.”

  “That makes an omen tree?”

  Katsuk spoke in a distant voice: “My parents were in a cedar canoe when they died. Janiktaht stole a cedar canoe when she ... The splinter! I was very sick that time with the splinter in my knee. They said I could lose the leg. It was a cedar splinter. All this is very clear, Hoquat. Someone in my family has offended cedar. That is the end of me, then.”

  “Do you really believe that stuff?”

  “Don’t tell me what I believe!” He glared at the boy.

  David recoiled. “But ...”

  “We have burned cedar, carved her. We have made rafts of cedar, kindling wood, long planks, and shakes to keep off the rain. But we did not show how thankful we were to her. Cedar’s heart aches. We have stepped on her roots, bruised them, and never thought about it. I rest on cedar right now! How stupid!”

  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, s
tared 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.

  David thought: That’s a very strange thing. How do you get a nonthought into your head?

  Katsuk had started this queer train of thinking. He had accused the boy of thinking too much in words and had said this was a failing of all hoquat.

  David glanced at Katsuk. The man obviously was thinking right now—squatting there, thinking. Did Katsuk use words?

  They had spent most of a day coming down into the lowlands after crossing the high ridge and the river. There were seven pebbles in David’s pocket—seven days, a week. They had spent the night in an abandoned park shelter. Katsuk had dug up a poacher’s cache of blankets and tallow-dipped cans of food. He had built a small fire in the shelter and they had eaten beans and slept on spruce boughs over the ashes.

  It had been a long hike from the shelter. David glanced up at the sun: early afternoon. Not too long, then. He hadn’t really thought about the time.

  The trail into the lowlands had followed a watercourse. It had plunged through salal thickets, forded the river, followed dry sloughs. Once, they had surprised a cow elk poking her nose from an alder copse. Her fur had glistened.

  David gave up attempting to not-think. He began mouthing “David” silently to himself. He wanted to say his name aloud but knew this would only excite the craziness in Katsuk.

  He thought: I’m David, not Hoquat. I’m a hoquat, but my name is David, not Hoquat.

  The thought rolled through his mind: David-not-Hoquat, David-not-Hoquat ...

  The trail from the high ridge had crossed well-traveled park trails twice. One of the trails carried a pattern of recent boot tracks in mud. Katsuk had avoided the mud, had taken them up a game trail that angled across an old burn. They had crossed another river beyond the burn and Katsuk had said there would be no more man trails now.

  Katsuk seemed to go on and on without tiring. There was a nervous, sweaty energy in him even now as he squatted beside the river. He had brought the blankets from the poacher’s cache, one of them rolled and tied at his waist, the other carried loose over his shoulders. He had discarded the blankets when he had squatted beside the river. His dark, flat-cheeked face remained immobile in thought. His eyes glistened.