Forbidden Land

by neetha Napew

  He had no idea how much time had passed or how long he had been away, but one morning he awoke, and it was morning. The sun was rising to the east. He was certain Mahnie must be gone from the mountain by now. Slowly, he left his hut of snow and walked back to the place where she had been waiting for him.

  She was gone—at least her spirit was.

  Her body was still waiting for him by the icy ashes of the last fire that she had made, beside the few scattered bone fragments that had been the last of his winter rations. She was frozen solid and must have been dead for weeks.

  Winter refused to release its grip upon the land. It seemed that the sky had fallen onto the tundral steppe. A thin, constant snow blew across the world, causing Cheanah’s people to wonder if the stars would ever shine for them again.

  “We must go on,” he told his hungry band. “Somewhere ahead of us there is bound to be meat. Somewhere ahead of us the shaman of Torka tells the spirits of the wind to put this bad weather upon us. We must find him and silence his song forever!”

  They trekked on until meat was sighted—a sickly old stallion that had neither the strength nor the inclination to outrun the hunters; this was a good thing, for Cheanah and his hunters had little strength. The horse fell to their spears. At last they ate until the edge of their hunger was gone; what was left was for the women. Only Zhoonali was singled out to share in the larger portions of meat.

  Kimm glowered jealously. “What about us?” she whined as annoyingly as her daughter. “Xhan and I have made your camps, carried your loads, and given you children! Do we not deserve as much meat as Zhoonali, or more?”

  Cheanah eyed his women coldly across the pit hut. “As long as the talking bones and the wisdom of our ancestors speak through the mouth of Zhoonali to bolster the courage of our hunters as well as to affirm the wisdom of Cheanah, Zhoonali will not go hungry!”

  Xhan’s face twisted with resentment. “Zhoonali is indeed a wise woman.”

  “Yes,” agreed Kimm with open sarcasm. “Wise enough to make herself important. Wise enough to say nothing definite when she speaks in the ‘voices’ of the bones! Wise enough so that no one can or will ever be brave enough to point a finger at her and say: “Old woman, you are useless to this people! Go! Walk the wind forever and take your talking bones with you, for look where they have led us! “

  Cheanah hit Kimm so hard that he broke her jaw. “Never speak so against the mother of Cheanah! You are the useless one, you barren, sag-tea ted snorer. Why do I feed you at all? No sons have you ever made for me to replace those I have lost!”

  Kimm was sobbing as through clenched and already swelling jaws she fought to speak in defense of herself. “Twin .. . shonnsh .. . onsh ...” She could say no more.

  “Twins! What are twins? Things forbidden by the forces of Creation!” Zhoonali, on her feet now, never took her eyes from Cheanah as she raged. “As Cheanah killed the twin sons of Kimm, so will he kill the twins of any woman. I tell you, Kimm, when those we seek die, you will cease to be barren. Then will our camp be full of meat. Then will Honee stop hating Mano for riding her in the night, for he will have Torka’s women to use—and hurt as they deserve!”

  Ekoh would watch for signs of Cheanah. Now and again, if the wind was right, they caught scent of his encampments or heard high, strident wisps of sound that they recognized as Zhoonali as she cried out in the Voices’ of her talking bones.

  “It’is amazing that she lives so long,” Bili mused. She paused, suddenly troubled. “Why does Cheanah keep moving to the east? Is he also seeking Torka?”

  “Why would he do that?” asked Seteena.

  Ekoh paused to think. “Long ago, when we were still members of the band of poor old Zinkh, I heard it rumored that in bad times the people of Cheanah made their luck by stealing the luck of others—by raiding camps, by stealing meat and women! These are bad times. Perhaps Cheanah returns to his old ways?” He did not want to speak the thought aloud; the spirits might be listening. “It would be a good thing to find Torka before Cheanah does.”

  Several days after Cheanah broke Kimm’s jaw, the headman’s second woman became very ill as the result of complications from the injury. She moaned and muttered in fevered delirium, alternately snoring and snorting. In the darkness of Cheanah’s pit hut, the headman lay naked with his daughter and tried not to listen. Impatient for release, he forcibly positioned Honee to his satisfaction while wishing someone would smother Kimm.

  “Now .. he said, mounting the girl, forcing her wide, handling her, and easing entry as he began to probe the depths of his daughter’s rigid and unyielding body with his equally rigid member.

  “No!” She was crying, trying to push away from him.

  He rammed deep, smiling with satisfaction; because she was tense, he was too big for Honee. When something tore inside her, he felt a long, hot shiver of ecstasy ripple through his loins. He thrust deeper and rode harder, pumping now.

  Distracted by Kimm’s endless moaning, his organ began to shrink, and the feeling of heat and pleasure began to ebb. With a curse he hurled himself off Honee and made certain that Kimm would not disturb him again. She resisted; it did no good. It only took a moment for a big man to smother a sick woman. When it was done, Cheanah looked around. Watching from the shadows, Mano smiled. Xhan nodded with approval. Zhoonali sat up and began to toss the bones of telling. Cheanah turned to intercept Honee as she tried to crawl out of the hut. He caught her by her heel and dragged her back to his sleeping skins. He was on her, mounted well and driving deep, before she could catch her breath. And when he was finished, drained but still probing, Mano came close.

  “I have need,” he whispered.

  And for Honee, the pounding began all over again.

  The beastling was glad to be back in the mountains, although the threesome of beasts seemed intimidated by the heights. The beast ling watched them as they moved slowly through the canyons, searching for charred holes in the ground, which determined their path.

  Meat was everywhere; although the beasts could not always find it, he hunted in the way of the wanawut and knew no hunger as he led Sister deeper into the range. He found himself thinking of the faraway mountain where Mother had taught him to hunt, and where he had learned how to survive in the wild land. How he wished that Mother could see the way he was caring for Sister, and how well he was living now.

  The family of beasts continued to pick their way upward through the mighty range. They were ascending a narrow pass toward a high black ridge, beyond which was the smell of ice and open grassland far beyond.

  Gradually, subtle changes were occurring in the land and sky. Each day the sun rose higher above the summits of the snow-clad peaks. Each night, the wind sang a different song and wolves howled in the far-flung canyons.

  On clear nights, while Sister curled up close beside him, the beast ling would lie on his back and stare up at the red star. Its tail seemed to be longer, and it was larger, brighter, redder, than when he first set eyes upon it.

  And then one night, the sound of a lone wolf reached his ears, and he rose from his dreams as though the sound had the power to lift him to his feet. Although wolf song was a part of the night, this particular song touched him to his soul. The beast ling stood very still, tensely listening. He turned toward the sound. He knew then that it was not a wolf but a beast sounding in the most terrible pain and anguish that he had ever heard:

  “Mah .. . nee .. . my .. . mah .. . nee .. it cried. “Mah .. . nee ... for ... give .. . mee .. . mah .. . nee!”

  He cocked his head. The sound went on and on, and it hurt him to hear it. Yet he strained to hear, to understand its meaning.

  Sister awoke, sat up, listened briefly, then frowned, covered her ears, and gestured for him to come back to sleep.

  He ignored her and stood transfixed, for the sounding of that faraway beast burned his senses and struck a chord of kinship within him ... a need to soothe ... a need to empathize.

  Suddenly, although he
did not intend to do it, he was sounding back, imitating the sound and forming his own articulation:

  “Mah .. . nee .. . foh .. . giv .. . mee .. . mah .. . nee! My .. . mah .. . nee! Mah ... na ... rah .. . vak!”

  The sounding stopped. He listened. It was gone. His hands went to his throat. It hurt him to breathe. He wanted the sound to continue. He needed it to continue.

  “Mah .. . nee!” he cried to the wind. As tears welled beneath his lids, he threw back his head and howled, “Mah .. . nah .. . rah .. . vak!” He waited for the distant beast to hear him and howl back to soothe his pain as he had tried to soothe the pain of the beast.

  But there was no answer to his cry.

  “Did you hear it?” Torka was wide awake, cold, yet every nerve was aflame. “Manaravak! Someone called the name! Didn’t you hear it?”

  Lonit stirred beside him.-“Only the wind .. . and wolves. Go back to sleep, man of my heart. You were only dreaming.”

  Torka was up, dressing, and pulling on his boots. Others had been disturbed by the sound, but not so much as he.

  “What is it?” Simu asked, propping himself onto an elbow.

  “Wolves in the mountains again, yes?” mumbled Grek.

  “Not wolves or wind.” Torka paused, squinting across the darkness of the cave. He saw that Umak was wide awake, staring straight at him.

  “I heard the wind and wolves.”

  Torka frowned. Why did the boy look as though he was lying?

  “I heard.” It was Demmi, wide-eyed in the dark. “It was terribly sad. Two sounds: one crying for Mahnie. Then another crying my lost brother Manaravak’s name!”

  Umak turned to glare at his sister. “You don’t know what you heard! You hear with the ears of a girl, not of a hunter!”

  Torka was across the cave, reaching for his spears. “By the forces of Creation, it has been too long since we have seen a fire on the western ridge. Something’s wrong up there.”

  Simu and Grek were also on their feet now; the women were awake and staring as their men fumbled their way into their clothes.

  “There is still ice in the gorge,” cautioned Simu.

  Grek bore an expression of grim determination. “My Mahnie is on the mountain! Ice or no ice, if the magic man has let her come to harm, I will break his neck with these two hands, yes!” Torka laid a staying hand on the old man’s arm. “You will not break any neck but your own, old friend. You stay here. Simu, Dak, Umak, take up your spears and ice creepers and come with me!”

  Although the time of year still made the way up the ridge cold and difficult, there was less ice than they anticipated, because the gorge faced directly into the rising sun. Once, briefly, they glimpsed a figure whirling and dancing on the ridge high above them ... a man dressed entirely in the white skins of n winter-killed caribou .. . with black hair whipping in the wind, a braided forelock festooned with the white flight feathers of an Arctic owl .. . and a high-pitched chant vibrating with madness.

  “Karana?” Torka’s heart sank as he spoke the name. Yes. He knew the face, the form, and the set of the shoulders. And yet, impossibly, the figure that stood above him on the heights was not the boy he had raised to manhood; it was a haunting from the past. It was Navahk .. . Spirit Killer .. . alive within Karana’s skin!

  No! thought Torka. It cannot be! He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes; as he had hoped, when he looked again, the figure of the man was gone.

  “Did you see him?” asked Dak. “Why would he dress like that? Why would he risk his safety by dancing to the edge of the ridge? Do you think he’s all right?”

  “No.” Torka’s voice was as bleak as the cold wind and as bitter as the scent of glacial ice and rotten rock that blew from the banks of the great highland lake and the north canyon glacier. “Karana has not been all right for a long time now.” They went on in stunned silence. They found Mahnie laid out tenderly on a bed of lichens, with spruce bo tented over her, and her body wrapped within furs that had once clothed the magic man. But of Karana, there was no sign. The little shelter in which Torka had last seen him had become a tomb for Mahnie. The feeling of death was strong around it. They drew the branches and the furs away just enough to see her face, to be certain that it was indeed the woman of Karana and the daughter of Grek and Wallah who lay alone upon the mountain. Time was usually quick to put its mark upon the dead; but it was still rarely above freezing this high on the mountain—neither time nor predators had disturbed her ... or had Karana found a special magic to keep them both away?

  They called to him. There was no answer. They waited. He did not come.

  Simu drew in a steadying breath. “Mahnie had not been strong. Eneela was worried about her. I am sure that Karana did all that he could do to prevent—“ “Did you see him?” Within his black-maned winter tunic of golden lion skins Torka was cold, and his face was granite hard. He told himself that he should feel pity for Karana, but he could find no room for pity in his heart. The image of the magic man dancing on the heights would not go away. “I am sure of nothing about Karana these days—except that he was right: He is not my son. He is Navahk’s spawn. Where is he now? What is he now? If Mahnie took sick, why did he not bring her down to us, or come himself so that we could have helped her? Why does he not come now to tell us how she died? What sort of a man would leave his woman like this—alone, with no one to mourn her?”

  “He mourns her, Torka,” said Simu sadly. “He is a healer. If he could not help her, what could we have done?”

  Simu’s question was valid, but Torka was sick with grief and a terrible sense of failed responsibility. “I left her here. With Grek arguing against it, I allowed her to put her life into Karana’s hands. Again I trusted him. And again, because of my misplaced trust, someone is dead!”

  Simu rested a consoling hand upon Torka’s shoulder. “This was Mahnie’s choice. What has been done cannot be undone. We must take Mahnie back down the mountain.

  Together her people will sing her life song. It is time for Grek and Wallah and Naya to grieve.”

  “But what about Karana?” Dak asked, genuinely concerned for the welfare of the magic man. “What about him?” Umak shot back, sensing the darkness of Torka’s mood, wanting to show that he was on his father’s side. “If Karana wants to follow us, he will.”

  Torka looked down at the boy. “You were right, Umak: It was only the wind and a ‘wolf that I heard howling upon the mountain. I see it now. Let the wolf be a wolf. Long ago I found Karana living wild on a mountain. Now, on another mountain, I turn him loose and let him be what he was born to be—a wild animal that has shown me time and time again that he cannot be trusted. It has been wrong of me to expect him to be anything other than what he is: the son of Navahk, a deceiver who could not have sired anything but a wolf. Forget Karana. He cannot live among men .. . not even among those who have forgiven him repeatedly and have too long named him Son and Brother.”

  The Moon of the Green Grass Growing rose and set, and there was mourning in the wonderful valley as the spirit of Mahnie walked the wind forever. Grek sat brooding in the sun on the projecting lip of the cave and knapped his projectile points with a vengeance; he ruined most of them, gouged his fingers, and did not care. Wallah spent her days in the shadowed recesses of the cave, bundled in her bearskin with her leg across her lap as she sorted and resorted Mahnie’s belongings. lana tried to re instill some small semblance of happiness into the old couple by reminding them of their responsibilities to their granddaughter. It did no good. If Naya cried for her mother in the night, it was lana who came to her.

  In lengthening days, an increasingly troubled Torka watched as Life Giver led his kindred farther and farther across the eastern edge of the valley to browse. Whenever Torka heard a lone wolf that was not a wolf howling in the western ranges, he shivered with grief.

  Lonit listened and whispered sadly to her daughters that it was a bitter thing to have three sons to mourn.

  “I wish that Father had let me be t
he one to go out to Karana in the winter dark,” Summer Moon told Lonit.

  “I think that if you had gone,” Lonit replied quietly, “Karana would still be on the mountain, and I would be mourning you as well.”

  “It was your prodding of poor Mahnie that made her go off in the dead of winter in the first place,” reminded Demmi coolly. “Your place is at Simu’s fire.”

  “Simu is with Eneela now. He likes her better.”

  “So do I,” said Demmi.

  Lonit shook her head and wondered if the siblings truly disliked each other. Demmi’s expression changed. She looked uncharacteristically and painfully sad. “You are such a selfish girl, Summer Moon. At least you have Simu. In this band, there is no man for me.”

  Lonit was taken aback. A man for Demmi? Yes! Soon it would be time. “You will have Dak,” she said lightly. “If the forces of Creation grant their favor, Dak and Umak will both complete their final trial of endurance and survival skills before the land burns with the first color of autumn. They will be men of this band.”

  Demmi sighed. “But they are boys in my eyes and younger than I am!” There was no resentment or bitterness—only a sad acceptance. “There will never be a man for me, as Torka has been for you, Mother. Never.”

  Summer Moon smirked at her sister. “Or maybe Cheanah’s band will come marching over the mountains, and you will have one of his—“

  Lonit slapped her daughter hard across the face. “Never!” she cried.

  “Never speak so! Even in jest! The spirits may be listening.”

  Cheanah was sitting in front of his pit hut, setting a projectile point into the haft of a spear, when Mano sauntered by.

  “Have you smelled the camp smoke on the wind?”

  The headman did not bother to look up.

  “I have.”

  “You don’t seem excited.”

  “Since the caribou came through, this has been a good camp. It has been good to eat again. Good to see the women smile. Soon there may be children again.”