Most of the people were hidden inside, behind their doors, but the hearths along the center of the lodge gave some light, and she picked her way down the whole lodge to Eonta’s hearth, at the far end. Sheanoy went ahead of her most of the way, but coming to her own place, turned aside there. Epashti was surprised, she had expected her sister to be one of this council, and for a moment her steps lagged.
Ahead of her, at Eonta’s hearth, Anapatha looked up. “Come along!” She waved her hand. Epashti quickened her steps.
She took her place at the foot of the fire circle, across from Eonta, at its head. Anapatha sat on her left, and old Merada on her right. Eonta had wrapped a soft deerskin over her, covering her head, so that only her eyes showed. She held the deerskin closed with one hand; Epashti saw that her hand now missed two of the fingers, up to the first joint, the new wounds burnt black to seal them. Eonta had done it herself; she had not asked for help, she would not ask for help now.
Epashti said, even so, “Grandmother, do you need me?”
Eonta lifted her head, and let the shawl open a little. Epashti caught her breath. The old woman’s face was sunken down, her eyes watering, her lips loose, her skin pallid; she looked near to dying.
Eonta said, “I am beyond needing you, my dear one. I am going to the Old Wolf, wherever she is, and to whatever she wills for me, after I killed the greatest of her children. I am only one old woman, and the people need you.”
She stopped to breathe, her mouth ajar, and Anapatha leaned forward to speak.
“We have asked you here, Epashti, to speak for us to the men. You are the medicine woman. They know you well, better than they know any of us. You’ve healed them and mended them. You went on the long raid. They’ll heed you.”
Outside, down by the oak tree, there was a great bellow, like the wind out of a cave, a hot gust rising. All the women turned their heads that way, to hear it.
Anapatha faced the fire again. She said, “They will tear the village to pieces. We have to have a sachem. But who? Miska had no nephew. He had no sisters. All his lineage died with him.”
Merada said, “The men will choose.”
There was a little silence, when Eonta should have spoken. All looked at her but she was silent under the shroud of the deerskin, and the trail of talk seemed to end.
“No,” Epashti said suddenly, into the silence. “The men won’t choose. They’ll only follow whoever is strongest.”
Now they all turned toward her, pushing on. “Who is strongest?” said Ahanton.
“Lopi,” said Anapatha, and, “Hasei,” said Epashti, and, “Faskata,” said Merada, all at once.
Surprised, they looked at each other, their faces ruddy in the little light, and Epashti said, “Yes. That’s the first trouble. There are many strong ones, and if they fight, what will become of us? We must get them out of the village before they start.”
“Then what?” Anapatha said. “Are we to be a village without men?”
“We are a village without men half the year anyway,” Epashti said. “We do well enough, better even, maybe, when they’re gone. But we must have a leader, for all of us. We will choose the sachem. We will send them away, and once they are gone, we will decide.”
“Why should they agree to that?” Anapatha frowned, the shadows over her face like Wolf paint, her eyes glittering. “They are stronger than we are, and they have their own ways. Why shouldn’t they just do as they please?”
“They will agree,” Epashti said, “because we must all agree, or there is no village.”
Merada spoke suddenly. “If they leave the village now, they will consent later.”
Epashti’s gaze went from one to the other of them, Anapatha and Merada, and Eonta at last, sitting across the fire, covered in her shawl. Her grandmother said nothing, but she nodded. Her hand clutched at the shawl, the lopped fingers twitching. Epashti imagined her hurt, and longed to take her hurt away, and knew Eonta would not allow it.
There was this other thing first. She said, “Then I will go, and tell the men they must leave.”
Anapatha looked at her, her eyebrows arched, and old Merada said, “You are brave, girl.”
“Stay here,” Epashti said. “Watch over Corban.” Rising, she went out of the lodge.
Hasei sat before the fire, staring into the flames, his mind too stuffed with memories to let him think. Miska’s face floated always before his eyes; he saw the Wolf in the crackling flames, he expected with every breath to hear him, giving orders, giving praises. Miska was there still, although now his bones lay in the empty pot; Hasei felt him watching, as if his looks were darts coming out of the empty air.
He glanced at the pot. Miska was inside him too. He put a hand on his chest, glorified, unworthy, shaken by the enormous burden of it, to bear Miska in his heart forever now.
He rocked back and forth, his arms around his knees. The other men leapt and danced around the fire, letting out howls and wails. Even Lopi, with his bad arm, bounded up and cried out and flung himself down on the ground. Faskata had gashed his chest with his knife, over and over, until his body was streaming blood. Other men were gashing their cheeks, their arms.
Miska would not have let this happen, what weakened them all. What they did for his sake meant that he was gone.
What else could they do? He remembered Miska’s words: There will be no other like me. I am alone.
There was no one to follow him, no sister-son, no heir. Miska had always been apart, first set against them, outcast and despised, and then up above them, their master. Hasei gripped his hair in his hands, his head full of agonies.
He felt the rough hair under his hands, long and shaggy, as Miska had worn it. He gripped his hair back with both hands. He would bind his hair, from now on, if he could not follow Miska anymore. The best part of his life was gone. He shut his eyes, heartsore. The dancing and shouting around the fire smothered out the rest of the world. Lopi’s voice rose above the others in a shrill shriek.
Lopi might be the new sachem, he thought, and that made him want to spit into the fire. He hated Lopi.
He wasn’t sure why he hated Lopi, except that he thought Lopi hated him. He had not noticed it before but he was sure now. He reached out and touched his war club, lying on the ground next to him, glad to have it near him.
Faskata came up toward him, glittering with blood. He sank down on his heels next to Hasei. “What are we going to do?”
“Do you want to be sachem?” Hasei asked him.
“Me? Never.” Absently Faskata wiped his bloody hand over his face, already shining with blood. “What about you?”
Hasei pulled his hair back again. “Tie up my hair for me.”
The other man blinked at him, his mouth opening to argue. Then his head swiveled, looking off, and Hasei followed his gaze.
Down through the flickering shadowy darkness, Epashti was walking toward the fire.
Hasei stood up; he thought suddenly of Corban, and looked at the stake and for the first time realized he was gone. The other men were still dancing. He got into Epashti’s way, so that she had to stop before she reached them.
“Don’t come down here, my sister, you see how it goes.”
“I have to speak to them,” Epashti said.
“It was a woman who killed Miska.”
“I have word of that, too,” Epashti said; her eyes were steady, her face calm. He remembered her quietly closing up a wound in his leg, giving him something to drink for a headache, laying her hands on him, healing him. Respectful, he stepped back, out of her way.
Faskata shouted. The other men broke off the dance and turned around toward Epashti. In the abrupt silence she stood small before them. She spoke in a clear, little voice.
“I am come from your mothers, with this requirement. You have to go out into the forest. This is the women’s place, not yours. You have to leave the village.”
The men closed in around her, all shouting at once, leaderless. “Why should we go?” “M
ake us go!” “We won’t go!” Lopi’s voice rose suddenly. “Where is the old woman who murdered Miska-ka?”
Hasei stepped forward quickly, in between his sister and the men, and put his aims out to shield her. “Leave her alone! Are you all crazy?”
Lopi wheeled around in front of him, his broken arm crooked against his chest. His face twisted. His eyes Were red and swollen. “Why should we leave the village, when they killed him?” He swung his good hand up to push Hasei out of the way, and the other men let out a hoarse yell.
“Let the women repay us what they have stolen from us!”
Hasei stood fast, his arms spread, protecting his sister and all the other women. He spoke straight to Lopi. “You speak of repaying. Epashti healed you. Will you harm her in return? Is that how you repay?” He held Lopi’s eyes with his gaze; something else came to him, a longer view. “Eonta struck, but the knife was from the sky. Miska brought this on himself. He brought it on all of us.”
The younger man’s face settled, still warped with his grief. His eyes shone with pain. The others had fallen still, listening.
Lopi swung back toward Hasei, angry. “Who are you to command me?”
Hasei grunted at him. “Keep your head. We have to talk, don’t we?” He lifted his voice, speaking to them all now, making use of the quiet. “Miska said there would be no other of him, but we need a sachem. The women are right. We should take this out into the forest, get off by ourselves, and settle things.”
Lopi still stood in front of him, his face grooved and old. “Who gave you the big feather?”
Faskata spoke up, just behind Hasei’s shoulder. “You have a bad aim, boy, you should watch what fights you pick. Let’s go, we don’t want the women in the way anyhow.”
All at once, the men began to move, trudging on up the slope toward the gate. Some started howling again, and singing of Miska. Hasei let them all go off without him, and when they had gone he turned to Epashti, behind him.
“Thank you,” she said. “Mind you, Eonta is dying. She avenges herself on herself. She will follow Miska by the morning.”
“Hunh,” he said.
“Go find us a sachem,” she said, “if you can,” and turned, and went back to her lodge.
She went to the lodge only to see Corban, but when she came in, Ahanton was there.
Epashti opened her arms, and the child came into her embrace. Her face against Epashti’s was sleek with tears. She said, “I have dreamt this, all along, that Mother Eonta would kill my father, but I never understood.” She began to cry in slow terrible sobs. Epashti held her, but she said nothing; she knew no words to cast over this. Ahanton slept, and Epashti laid her down next to Corban.
He was fiery hot. When she put her hand on his face she gasped. She found a gourd of water, and washed his face; he lay under her touch like a corpse.
“Sister.” It was Sheanoy, whispering at the door. “They want you again.”
“I have to stay with him,” she said, her back to the call.
“Sister,” Sheanoy said, again, patient. “They need you.”
She knew this was true. She laid her hands on Corban and felt no answer in him.
“Sister.”
“I’m coming,” she said. “I’m coming.”
Ahanton dreamed, and it was her last dream.
She saw Corban beside her in the lodge, dying. His soul left his body and ran away, looking like him, only paler. He ran into the forest, and she followed. He ran into the center of the forest, and climbed the great tree there, and she climbed the tree after him.
The tree turned thinner and smaller, until it was only a slender stick with branches on either side, and she climbed up and up, after Corban far ahead. She was running, her feet bounding from branch to branch, and looking down she saw the tree had become the serpent’s back.
The back of the serpent, glittering like fire, like beds of vermillion embers, wound away from her across the blue-black night, and far ahead, she saw something bright. She ran toward it, following Corban, and ahead of her, she saw a woman made of sunlight.
It was her mother. She sat in the coil of the serpent’s body, with its head above her, its glowing eyes like hot stones.
Ahanton ran hard to catch up with Corban before he reached her; she knew when he came to his sister that everything would be over. She ran hard, but she seemed to go nowhere. Her legs were mired. She dragged herself closer, and as she came closer she saw other people coming to her mother, other shadowy souls, and as each reached her Mav tore him to pieces and gave the pieces to the serpent.
Her father had just appeared before her, and Mav tore him like the others, as if he were nothing to her, and she gave what remained to the serpent.
Now Corban had reached her and stood by her shoulder. Ahanton gave a loud cry, and hurled herself forward to reach her mother before she tore him to bits.
Her mother lifted her gaze from the work of her hands. Her eyes were pools of stars.
“I want him back,” Ahanton said. “I have lost my first father, let me not lose this one.”
“Lucky the one who has two fathers.” Mav said. “But I do not give Corban to the serpent. He goes with me into the sunrise.”
Then Ahanton looked, and she saw the light all around her, boiling and blazing with the coming of the sun; the whole arc of the world was on fire with it. She turned and fixed her gaze on Corban, longing for him, afraid.
Corban smiled at her. “I will go back. I love them, and I haven’t seen my baby yet. I will go back.”
Her mother said, “I will give him back to you, Ahanton, but you must give me something in return.”
Ahanton faced her mother. Everything in her seemed spinning and whirling, and yet she was as still as ice. Mav said, “What will you give me?”
Ahanton held still a moment, but she knew at once the only thing she had that was great enough to ransom him. She said, “I will give you my dreams. It’s no use to know anyway.”
“I accept,” her mother said, and to Corban: “Go.”
Corban turned and reached out his hand to Ahanton. The child blinked. Suddenly there was ordinary daylight around her, and she was lying on the floor of the lodge next to him, and he was lying beside her, smiling at her, his eyes open, shining, alive. She put her hand to his face.
“Were you there?” she said, stupidly.
“I’m here now,” he said.
“I’ll find Epashti,” she said, and leapt up, and went out into the sunshine.
The women were all coming out of their lodges. Sheanoy passed her with the baby Blessing slung on her hip, and then Epashti, red-eyed and worn, her forehead fretted. Ahanton went up and caught her by the arm.
“Corban is alive. He’s better.”
Epashti looked toward the lodge and her face eased. She said, “Something good must happen, somehow, now and then. You will be an herbwoman someday, Ahanton.”
“I gave up my dreams, though,” Ahanton said.
Epashti touched her face. “You are greater than your dreams, daughter.” But she did not go to the lodge, to see Corban; she went on after Sheanoy and the other women.
Ahanton went beside her. “What is it?”
“The men have called us to the gate.” Epashti’s voice was weary. “We have been talking all night. No one has slept. I have been everybody’s enemy, and everybody friend, at least once. Come with me.”
Ahanton slipped her hand into Epashti’s. “Have you thought of what to do?”
“I don’t know,” Epashti said. “I think it may only cause more trouble.” She wiped her eyes, her mouth drooping. “But Corban is better?”
“Yes,” Ahanton said. “He’s awake and he talked to me.” She leaned against Epashti, wanting to be comforted. They went by Miska’s lodge, and she pulled her gaze away and her eyes began to burn and she scrubbed at them with her fist. Torn to nothing, all his glory; what had it meant, then? They went to the gate, where the rest of the village was crowded around, the women and chil
dren on the inside, and the men on the outside.
Hasei and Lopi stood side by side in front of the rest of the men, who were bunched together on the path. Ahanton squeezed in past Epashti, to see better. She thought Lopi looked older and not so handsome anymore. A little pang of loss bit her, as if his beauty had belonged to her also.
His bad arm was bound against his chest. He wore his hair long and down, as they all had done, while Miska led them. But now Hasei wore his hair bound in a tight knot at the nape of his neck, and so did many of the men behind him.
Anapatha, in the center of the gate, said, “What are you doing back here, when we sent you away?”
“This is our village,” Hasei said. “We will come in if we want.”
“Have you decided on a sachem for us?”
Lopi cast a quick hard look toward Hasei, and stepped forward. “No, we can’t decide. You must choose. Me or Hasei. Make a choice, now, and we will come into the village and live here, as we are supposed to.”
A growl went through the men, and their feet shifted. They glared around at each other like fighters to the death. Anapatha turned around, her gaze sweeping the crowded women, and at the desperate look on her face Epashti stepped forward. When she appeared, all the other people hushed, their gazes on her.
Ahanton went along behind her, holding on to her skirt. Epashti looked tired, old, bent, and strong, like an old bent tree, that nothing could move.
She said, “We have decided already. We will have Hasei for our sachem.”
Hasei stood motionless. Lopi bellowed, furious, and his good arm flexed. The little pack of men on the path behind him let out a single many-voiced yell. Half of them were rejoicing, their arms waving in the air; the other half stamped the ground in disgust. Half leapt to one side and half to the other, and they stood scowling at each other.
Epashti said, “And we will have Lopi for our war chief.”
Before her, the young man straightened, and his fist drooped. He turned toward her, scowling. “What does that mean?”
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