Zadayi Red

by Caleb Fox

  To get it done, she, Su-Li, Dak, and Mother had to walk to the village of the Soco people and present Dahzi to his father.

  She looked up at the ridge top. They had to cross that ridge and several more ridges on a trail that was steep but easy to see. Then cross the Soco River and walk downstream to the village. Difficult, but she would do it. And receive a small additional blessing—she had spent her girlhood in the Soco village.

  She covered Noney’s bloody belly, glad to get it out of sight. She set stones on her breasts, and another one just below her neck.

  She stood up, panting, partly to get her eyes away from Noney, partly to catch her breath. She saw Su-Li gliding down toward her. She waited for him, arm extended.

  The instant he landed on Sunoya’s shoulder, Su-Li said, Time to get out of here. Inaj and four other men are coming up the trail.

  Sunoya packed Dak, lifted Dahzi into her arms, told Mother to come, and barked at Su-Li, “Do something.”

  He winged his way back down the trail.

  Sunoya took one last look around that awful place. Her eyes lingered on Noney’s young and beautiful face uncovered by rocks, eyes staring at the sun. Sunoya reached down and closed them.

  Then she scooped handfuls of gravel on Noney’s face and ran.

  10

  Inaj’s mind was all rage at his renegade daughter—he refused even to think her name. He’d bet she intended to rendezvous nearby with the bastard who stuck a baby into her belly, the Soco—where else would the girl run?

  So he plunged upward in a huff, paying no attention to his men. Flee to the Socos, his own daughter!

  “Ow!”

  He threw a hand at whatever jabbed at his head. What the hell was that?

  He felt the outside corner of his right eyebrow and his finger came away bloody.

  “Ow!” Left eyebrow!

  Inaj hit at it, and swiveled his head in all directions.

  “Ow!” Now the top of his head.

  His men were chuckling, even his sons Wilu and Zanda.

  Inaj looked straight up and saw a blue jay fluttering in his face. He cuffed at it, and it dodged.

  “What the hell?!”

  The men were laughing out loud now.

  “Shut up! What is this damn thing doing?!”

  The blue jay whirled in midair and dive-bombed him.

  Inaj flailed the head of his spear at it and missed foolishly.

  The bird fastened on his nose with both claws and pecked fast and hard at his forehead.

  Inaj bellowed. Then he remembered he was a warrior and slapped his own nose. He nicked a feather out of the jay’s tail as it squirted off.

  “What in hell?” he shouted.

  The jay landed on the branch of a pine tree and gibed at him. “Shkrr,” it said, “shkrr.”

  “Bastard thinks he can make fun of me?” Inaj hurled his spear at the jay, which simply bobbed to a higher branch and watched it sail below him.

  “Ja-a-ay!” it screeched, a shrill cry from high to low. “Jaa-ay!”

  “He’s lecturing you now,” said the round son, Wilu. The other son, Zanda, was hard-bodied.

  Inaj whirled on Wilu and stalked toward him, brandishing his war club.

  Wilu backed up. Laughter choked in the men’s throats and died.

  The muscular son, Zanda, said in a sharp tone, “Chief!”

  “Too-li-li!” shrieked the jay. “Too-li-li! Too-li-li!”

  Inaj turned and took a long look at the bird. “To hell with being mocked.” He glared at his sons. “Let’s move.”

  Sunoya stopped in the cover of the last trees before the ridge and looked down. “Spirits, help us,” she murmured. She could see Inaj and his comrades on the trail below. And when she stepped into the open, followed by Dak and Mother, Inaj might easily see her. She looked at the sky and cried out, “Immortals, help us.”

  An idea came to her. A woman followed by two dogs—we won’t look like Noney. And a sadder idea: When he finds Noney, he’ll stop thinking about us for a while. She shook her head to clear it and stepped cautiously into the open, peering downward.

  Suddenly Inaj flicked a hand at his head. He waved at it over and over. After a moment he stomped off the trail and threw his spear at . . . some pine needles?

  Sunoya laughed. She understood. She broke into a run for the top.

  Inaj brushed the pebbles off his daughter’s face. He looked at her—dead, dead, dead.

  He threw up on the mound. Incapable of words, he let out a croak as from a dying raven. He lay down, one arm in his own vomit. His body heaved up and down with emotions. Grief, rage, grief, fury, grief . . . He yelled. He beat his fists on the stones that buried his daughter’s body. He kicked his feet. He roared like a man impaled on a spear.

  Then he lay on the grave, silent, utterly still.

  Wilu edged forward and touched Noney’s fingers. Zanda looked contempt at his brother.

  After too long Inaj got onto his hands and knees and said, “Sunoya did this.” His voice scratched like a mountain of sliding gravel. He started taking the stones off Noney’s body, one by one. He brushed the sand out of the creases in her eyelids and the corners of her mouth. He uncovered her shoulders and her breasts, which were hidden by her skin dress. He came to the belly—and jumped at the sight of the gaping wound.

  He stared. His sons crept close and stared.

  Inaj’s rage froze, molten lava turned to ice. “Murdered,” he whispered. “Murdered by that bitch!” he said. Again in a low, howling whisper, “Murdered.”

  Wilu and Zanda backed away, queasy.

  “Because she can’t have a child, she stole ours.” He glared at Wilu.

  The voice quaked, but the men couldn’t tell whether it was shaken by rage or despair.

  “Help me,” Inaj growled.

  Warily, the warriors uncovered Noney and lifted her.

  Inaj slung her over one shoulder and stalked down the mountain, bearing his cold, stiff daughter home.

  That afternoon the family buried Noney in a proper way. Then Kanu gave them tea brewed from a willow root. To purify themselves from their contact with the dead, they drank it and then washed their bodies with it.

  Afterward Inaj assembled his men and a dog packed with dried meat.

  “My husband,” Iwa said.

  One by one Inaj threw words at his wife. “Our daughter has been murdered.” He waited a moment and threw words again. “Our grandchild has been stolen.”

  Iwa murmured, “I . . .”

  Inaj knew he was violating custom. A quarter moon of mourning was required after a death, the family cloistered in the house. What he didn’t know was that his wife wondered whether he would bring back the grandchild or bash in its head.

  His voice was low and taut. “Vengeance rampages in my heart.”

  11

  Sunoya sang softly to the child, an old song, a song that spoke of the joys and griefs of life, all of it.

  Stop that, said Su-Li.

  Sunoya stopped and eyed him. Then she stroked Dahzi’s hairy head.

  If they hear you, said the buzzard, they’ll trap us in here. He was perched on a rock outcropping at the mouth of a cave, sniffing into the darkness for Inaj and his men.

  “I know you don’t like caves.” This was their second night in one.

  You’re one of the People of the Caverns.

  “And you can’t stand being shut in. But before we get to the Socos, we’re going to have more nights in caves.”

  Sunoya put Dahzi, the Hungry One, on one of Mother’s tits. No one else paid attention. Dak gnawed on his piece of dried meat. Mother dozed and sometimes growled at Dahzi.

  You’re not taking this seriously.

  She saw his words painted in lurid colors in her mind. She said, “You said they’re far behind us.”

  Maybe they’re moving to night, Su-Li said, catching up.

  “No.” She looked into Su-Li’s eye and thought her calm made him back him off a bit.

&n
bsp; They’re fast and we’re slow, he said. If you were sure I’m wrong, you wouldn’t be whispering.

  Sunoya reflected that it was odd that, though he didn’t have a voice, Su-Li could take a tone with her.

  Tomorrow we run like hounds toward the Soco village, said Su-Li.

  “All right.” She cradled Dahzi and rocked him. She gazed into his face in a dreamlike state.

  Finally she stroked Su-Li’s feathers. “The Immortals forbade me to bear a child, and then gave me this one.”

  When Sunoya ducked out of the cave the next morning, she gave thanks to Thunderbird again. Though the little party had climbed higher and higher into the mountains, the weather was still warm. “Doesn’t feel like Falling Leaf Moon,” she told Dak. “The day is good.”

  She had the elk robes for blankets, but both days and nights were the temperature of a cave, and that was a blessing.

  She looked up at Su-Li, high as the tops of the nearest balds. He flashed a warning to her: Get going.

  They trundled down and down and on downhill. “Not fair,” mumbled Sunoya, out of breath. “Downhill hurts my legs just like up.”

  Still, at midmorning they stood and gawked at the Soco River, the only big stream they had to cross. It was running full and wild.

  Su-Li landed on her shoulder. “The Immortals, are they abandoning us?” Sunoya said.

  They gave you this child for a reason, said Su-Li.

  Sunoya eyed the raging river. The rain had swelled it, and the warm days were melting snow off the summits.

  It’s not deep here, Su-Li told her.

  “But it’s rough.” She hesitated. “I might fall.” She thought of the waves jostling her and the slippery rocks on the bottom and clutched Dahzi a little tighter.

  There’s no better ford downstream, said Su-Li. I’ve checked. Look upstream yourself.

  The river was a huge, frozen waterfall. It was beautiful, high as a hill, sparkling like a thousand suns.

  She looked at her companion. “Right. No time for sightseeing.”

  I’ll see how far back they are.

  Sunoya gazed at the river and thought. Once her people had lived at the seashore, so the old story said, until they were driven out by a larger tribe. In those days they paddled about the water like turtles, and some swam underneath the surface of the sea, like fish. The Galayi were still strong swimmers. But people said you could go into a freezing river in a cold moon and lose your mind and drown.

  Sunoya looked from Dahzi in her arms to Dak, lapping at the edge of the water. She took a deep breath, swallowed a horrible glop of fear, and set to work.

  When Su-Li wheeled back toward them, she was done. Dahzi lay facedown, lashed to Dak’s back and bawling. She’d wrapped him in fur as well as possible, but he wanted only to be held. “I carry you,” she told him softly, “and we both die.”

  Su-Li landed on the sandy bank. Get going!

  Sunoya looked back at the turbulent water, glinting with threat.

  Inaj will rape you and kill you, said Su-Li.

  “Let’s do it,” she said.

  The first step was immersion in a painful world. The cold—Sunoya wanted to bellow. The ache in her legs—breath clotted in her throat.

  Dak swam alongside, looking at her, trusting her. So far the baby was dry.

  Sunoya scooted one foot forward. She wanted to holler and wouldn’t let herself. Then she picked up the other foot and took a firm step. She shouted for her own benefit, “I don’t get across, he dies, too. Go!” Six steps, eight steps, ten. A wave splashed high as her right breast, and her nipple pinched until it hurt.

  Ten more steps and she grabbed onto the trunk of a dead tree stranded in midstream. She gripped a limb hard and hoisted her bottom onto the trunk. She sat for a moment, the water only up to her calves. Then she realized that, with the wind, she was still cold. Very cold. She slipped off the trunk.

  And went under.

  The current was a maelstrom. Her body was down, sideways, up, down—and then was flung underwater beneath the trunk. She reached up blindly and found a limb with her hands. She grabbed it but couldn’t pull her head above water. Air! Air! I’m going to die.

  A monster heaved her upwards by the shoulders. She beached on the trunk.

  A war eagle retracted his claws from her hide dress. Su-Li was twice the size of a buzzard, and she could read his thoughts.

  “Thank you,” she wheezed.

  I can’t carry you, but I can give you a boost.

  When she got her mind and emotions sorted out, he said, It’s shallower at the downstream end, and you won’t be sucked back under the tree.

  “I can’t do this,” she said.

  You have to. He turned his handsome russet head across the river. Both dogs stood on the far bank looking back at her, panting. You hear Dahzi bawling?

  She crawled to the downstream end and, before she could think, flung her feet at the bottom. Waist deep.

  In two dozen steps she was sprawled on her belly on the sand. She doubted that anyone could feel this cold and be alive. She crawled to Dak, unstrapped Dahzi, turned him over, and held him tight.

  He hollered.

  She mumbled, “I’m not warming him up . . . I may be freezing him.”

  Wrap one of the robes around you. Her spirit guide was back in Su-Li’s familiar shape. She liked him that way.

  And let’s get moving.

  “I ca—”

  Sunoya passed out.

  12

  Su-Li watched nervously as the shadows stretched from the western mountains onto the water. Once in a while he glanced up toward the frozen waterfall. The slanted sun lanced light onto the branches of the laurels along the bank and the ice above. Not a bad place sometimes, this Earth.

  He had done all he could, covered Sunoya and the baby with elk robes. Even partly wet, the robes held some warmth. Beyond that, he had to wait, which was driving him crazy. Damned fear. It was the true affliction of the realm between the upper and lower worlds, Earth.

  He watched Inaj and his six men picking their way down the steep clay trail, its surface not quite dry. When they got to the river, Su-Li, Sunoya, and the dogs would be directly in view.

  His brain whirled around, searching for ideas. He could hope for darkness, but it would probably come too late. He could hope that Inaj would make camp back from the river and not see the fugitives through the trees. He mocked himself. How desperate you are.

  He nudged Sunoya with his beak. He pushed at her face until he made her blink.

  “Hunnh?”

  We’ve got to get going. They’re almost here.

  “Hunnh-hnn?”

  Sunoya!

  Suddenly, Inaj and his men appeared on the opposite bank. They pointed toward the helpless band. A couple of them shook their spears. One jumped up and down. Their pack dogs milled, eager for excitement.

  It’s over.

  Su-Li felt a great infusion of sadness, like a dye in his blood.

  Maybe they won’t kill her, he thought.

  But Inaj will still rape her, he told himself honestly. Hopeless.

  He missed the Land beyond the Sky Arch. So why am I not glad for this chance to go home?

  He stepped onto the back of this human being he liked and flexed his claws into her. Anything, anything to get her to try.

  Across the river two warriors jumped into the water up to their knees and dashed back out. All the men looked at each other. “Let’s go. It’s almost dark!” yelled Inaj. He shooed the dogs into the water. Then the whole gang jumped in and waded forward.

  CR-R-ACK!

  Su-Li jumped. That sounds like thunder. He looked around and saw geysers of water shooting up at the bottom of the ice-fall. The entire upper half of it was gone.

  CR-R-ACK!

  The lower half avalanched into the river. The ice looked like mountain goats running off a cliff.

  Inaj and his men looked around and gawked at each other. Su-Li could almost see them wondering, could a
lmost hear them asking each other what those world-shattering noises were.

  They were standing in the middle, the deepest part, when the first ice blocks hit them.

  Some ice was the size of pebbles, some as big as fists. Other pieces afloat were the size of human heads. A few bergs were as huge as the canopies of oak trees.

  Ice floated downstream like a herd of sheep, bunched up, bumping. It knitted into a force as unstoppable as a landslide.

  Inaj realized at the last instant what was bearing down on him. He screamed at the others and hauled himself onto a block bigger than he was.

  It flipped and dunked him.

  He fought his way back to the surface, got his feet under himself, and was clobbered again.

  Underwater he lost sense of direction for a moment and was sure he was going to die. When a drifting piece of ice slammed him against the bottom, he figured out where to plant his feet.

  Coming up for the second time, he sucked in half a world of breath and looked desperately upstream. A berg as big as a hillock was bearing down on him.

  He launched himself into the air, pricked the ice with his knife, and clung like a spider.

  The berg rocked, crunched, and ground against other pieces of icefall. Panicky, Inaj scrambled to a better position on the top and used his knife tip as a flimsy anchor. He looked back at his sons and the others and got an impression of an arm here, a head there, but could identify no one. Imperiously, his chariot swept him downstream.

  13

  Inaj crept along the bank on his side of the river, the near side, through the darkness, crawling over and around and through downed trees, boulders, and eddies. He kept going. Moving kept him warmer than sleeping. He cursed with every step.

  He found his sons and two others shivering around a fire on the riverbank. Apparently two were missing, and all the pack dogs were gone. Faces were glum. They’d lost all their food, all their gear, half their weapons, and a third of their man strength.

  “Get whatever sleep you can,” he muttered. Like the others he stretched out close to the fire. All night he flip-flopped back and forth, like he was on a spit, broiling one side and freezing the other. He woke up feeling like he’d been hunted down, cut up, and roasted.