Zadayi Red

by Caleb Fox

  When people got a good look at the intruders, they dropped their jaws. Tsola was blindfolded, steadied on one side with a hand on the back of a black panther. On the other side Sunoya bore a buzzard on her shoulder and held Tsola’s arm.

  Courtesy swerved like a drunk. A child cried. People spoke aloud. Some of the twelve chiefs half-rose—not a single Peace Chief or War Chief had ever seen the Wounded Healer. Every head craned toward the slight figure of the tribe’s Seer.

  Sunoya didn’t know which was bigger, astonishment at the unprecedented appearance of the most powerful chief of the nation, or fear of the black cat.

  “She’s not blind,” stage-whispered several people. “It’s just that the light hurts her eyes.”

  “Look at the bundle.”

  Tsola carried in one arm a bundle of white buckskin, held in reverence.

  They threaded their way to Talani. Tsola set the bundle gently in front of the fire and asked, “May I smoke?”

  It would never have crossed Talani’s mind to refuse this request from the Seer.

  Tsola puffed ritually. The panther stood beside her, flicking his tail. Sunoya resisted touching the deerskin wrap again. Klandagi had dreaded taking it out of the Cavern. His predator hearing brought him people’s whispers.

  “Look at her dress.”

  “She’s amazing.”

  His mother’s entire appearance was a declaration. Her daughters had woven a dress from the inner bark of the mulberry tree and dyed it emerald. They rubbed her high moccasins with clay until they were a deep red-brown. They dyed a red stripe in her silky, silver hair from forehead to waist, to show that she was of the Paint Clan, the traditional clan of medicine people. They made her a blindfold and colored it with brown and yellow stripes on the top and bottom and a broad band of green down the middle.

  Klandagi was tickled to see the awe on the faces of the chiefs. Green signified Turtle Island, brown was the color of the underworld, and yellow represented the realm above, where the spirits dwelled. Only the Medicine Chief of the Emerald Cavern, the Seer, had the power to travel freely in all three realms, and show others the way.

  She handed the pipe to Sunoya, pushed a little on Klandagi’s back, rose to her feet, and faced everyone. Seeing her full on, people oohed and aahed.

  The Seer said to Sunoya, “Please give me the bundle.”

  Her heart pounding, Sunoya did. She murmured, “Forgive us, Powers.”

  Tsola unfolded the deerskin, lifted out the Cape of Eagle Feathers, held it high overhead, and turned it slowly in a circle in front of all eyes. The feathers were the reddish brown of the war eagle, with a wing sewn on each side of the front opening. The eagle’s golden head made a cap for the one person who had the authority to wear it, the Seer.

  The people were wonder-struck. This totem was as old as the Galayi people themselves, given to them when death first came to the living creatures of Earth. It was a symbol of their great pact with the spirit beings. Over all the generations since, only the Seers had actually laid eyes on it.

  Klandagi knew the people didn’t understand its true power. Some had even believed it to be an idle tale for children. He knew his mother would not put the Cape on, not as it was now.

  The Seer began to speak of the totem. “Every Galayi has heard of the Cape of Eagle Feathers, but you do not know that its power has been spoiled. I want you to see for yourselves,” she said. In a mottled voice she added, “And smell.”

  Klandagi looked at the chiefs’ eyes when they heard that word. Anyone could see right away that the Cape was spotted with blood and blackened with mold. But Klandagi doubted that their noses were keen enough to pick up the putrid odor.

  Now the Seer called upon her own eloquence, even finer than Talani’s. “This Cape,” said the Seer, “was given to the Galayi people by the spirit beings who live beyond the Sky Arch. It is our means of communication with them.”

  She hesitated. Every Galayi knew this tale, more or less, but surely none ever dreamed they would ever hear it from the Seer herself. “The Seer is caretaker of the Emerald Cavern. One of the responsibilities of the position is to fold yourself in the Cape at appointed times and listen to the wisdom the spirit beings have for us. The Cape has been our font of wisdom.”

  Klandagi’s legs itched to spring. He could smell danger. He liked attacking and hated waiting.

  “Now we have lost this power. For us the spirit beings are distant and weak. We are like a man lying at the bottom of a lake. He can see the sun vaguely, but it has no meaning to him. Like him, we are dying.”

  She paused, letting them think about it.

  “There is worse. The Cape is made of the feathers of the war eagle, as you see, and it binds the eagles to carry our prayers to the spirit beings. Since we are without it, the eagles do not help us. Why are we living in such a pitiful way? You need wonder no longer.”

  Now her voice burned with intensity, and she did something stunning. She switched away from the formal style of the Galayi language used for prayer and council speech to the idiom of everyday talk. After her earlier avian flights of beauty, these words sounded rough as an axe breaking a stone, a spear thunking into a tree.

  “We are walking in darkness because we commit acts unworthy of the Galayi. I can barely bring myself to utter these next words.” Now her voice frothed with disgust. “We fight against each other. We kill each other. And in that way we have destroyed the Cape.”

  Klandagi and Sunoya snatched and held their breaths in the same moment. Tsola was taking a terrible risk. No one had ever spoken like this in council. Would it make her words repugnant to the people, especially to the chiefs? Or shock them into realization?

  Klandagi growled and looked the chiefs in the eyes. See how lethal I am.

  “Today I am taking an unprecedented step, showing all of you this totem. I do it to bring a lightning bolt of understanding to our minds: We must strive to find a way to restore the Cape, or persuade the Immortals to give us another one.

  “The first step is to return to the basic virtue of all Galayi. None of us may kill another—not ever, not for any reason.”

  Tsola turned and looked at the Soco War Chief, then at Inaj.

  Klandagi gathered his feet beneath him. He flicked his eyes up at Su-Li. The buzzard was ready, too.

  The Seer went on in smoldering words. “The fault lies with the Red Chief of the Tusca band. The fighting need never have started, except that to feed his thirst for vengeance, and his ambitions, he instigated it.”

  Klandagi watched Inaj. The man was still as a star, just as the panther would be in the moment before he struck. Your damned ego.

  The Seer took a deep breath, switched back to formal language, and made her voice into a great call to all the people. “Grandparents and grandchildren, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, let us now all join together. Let us pledge ourselves again to what it means to be a Galayi. Let us all promise never to shed the blood of any other Galayi again.”

  Klandagi knew the worst would come now. Tsola would loose a whirlwind wrath and never be able to stop it.

  “To cleanse ourselves of wrongdoing, to renew the Cape of Eagle Feathers and reestablish our connection with the wisdom of the spirits, we must take one action, and do it today. This step is severe but essential. If any Galayi has slain another in the last winter, his War Chief must step down now. Tonight. Then his band may elect a new man.”

  Murmurs rumbled through the room like wild river rapids.

  “I call on the Red Chief of the Soco band to speak.” She chose him because he’d been elected only recently, and might waver. She stepped sunwise around the circle and handed him the white pipe.

  As though opening the door to words will matter to them, thought Klandagi.

  As Tsola passed Inaj without a glance, the Tusca War Chief felt rage like howling winds in his guts. He almost grabbed the Seer.

  The Soco chief lifted the pipe to the sky, and he seemed to consider it. When at last he
spoke, his voice quaked. Inaj wanted to throttle him.

  “I regret these moons of enmity between tribesmen.”

  Liar, thought Inaj. You like fighting as much as I do.

  “Like all the Galayi people I yearn to see them come to an end.”

  Inaj heard an undertone in his enemy’s voice that hinted at other feelings. But you are a coward and will not speak them.

  “I don’t know whether this is the right step. It may be. In the hope that it is, I step down as Red Chief of the Socos.”

  Are you getting in line to be a revered elder? I would have crushed such a weakling easily.

  The Soco chief seemed to ponder whether he had more words. Even the manner of his pause was self-effacing.

  The hush was transitory and precious, like the last glimmer of bronze light before the sun gives way to darkness.

  Inaj leapt to his feet and broke the silence. “You know nothing,” he barked at the Seer.

  People were so shocked they barely knew why. Because a Galayi was interrupting a speaker in council? Or because he was insulting the Wounded Healer grossly?

  Inaj’s words crawled forward in a tone so low the people could barely hear him. “You know less than nothing.” He spat on the ground at Tsola’s feet.

  Klandagi held himself back against a surge of energy.

  “Seer, Wounded Healer, under any title you are a relic of a time long gone, and good riddance.”

  Tsola tore her blindfold off, stepped close to Inaj, and glared into his eyes. Klandagi flinched, and then realized the council house had grown dark.

  Inaj’s fury carried him on. “The world does not wait for fools. These times require the strength of a warrior, the commitment of a warrior, the courage of a warrior. Peace makes weak men. . . .”

  “Shut up!” the Seer said.

  For a moment violence throbbed in the air.

  “Sit down.”

  Inaj did. Then he had a second thought, rose, and stalked off.

  The river rapids of murmurs ran again. Klandagi checked the Soco chief’s eyes. The man was so scared he was about to fly away in all directions at once. Klandagi turned his head to follow Inaj’s exit. He despised this chief, but respected him. Inaj strode straight away without looking back.

  In a calm voice the Seer put everything in Talani’s hands. “I think the two chiefs have stated their thoughts, one on each side. May the other chiefs now decide the fate of our people.” She passed the pipe to Talani, put a hand on the panther’s withers, and sat down.

  Klandagi rotated his head from side to side, eyeing every face. Fortunately, the human beings could barely see. Will there be a fight?

  He felt his mother’s hand on him, half for her comfort, half to hold him back.

  “I will win,” she whispered.

  “Or be exiled or killed.”

  Sunoya put her hand gently on the Seer’s.

  Talani passed the pipe, inviting the other chiefs to speak. Klandagi’s muscles began to relax. The tone of most speakers was uncertain. The words of the White Chief of the Socos were blunt. “All of us know that the Seer is telling the truth. Her remedy is the right one—to cut off two gangrenous fingers.” Then the other chiefs chimed in with reluctant acceptance of the Seer’s proposal.

  Sunoya smelled success, but all was still up to Talani.

  When all the chiefs had spoken, Talani’s words were quiet and soothing. He said that the leaders of the people were agreed that the Red Chiefs of the Tusca and Soco bands must step aside. He suggested that the bands could choose their new war chiefs here at this ceremony, so that everyone could see that good will now reigned.

  Sunoya said softly to the Seer, “You did it.”

  20

  The drum seemed to thump the news to every ear. People gathered around the dance, and they heard it. Others walked the trails toward their camps or to the dance ground, and they heard it.

  “The Seer is here!”

  “She made the Red Chief of the Tuscas stand down.”

  “The War Chief of the Socos, too.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  Men and women smiled too much. Children didn’t understand, but they played with more spring in their steps.

  From a distance, upriver and down, all heard the drum, the beat that would not cease for a moment, day or night, until the last dance ended on the last day. For the moment its rhythm was a simple heart thump, the pulse of the ceremony, the people, the earth.

  The anticipation of the dance made everyone happy.

  When musicians felt the readiness, the beat changed—a quick-footed, loose-bodied figure flew from drums and tortoiseshell rattles.

  This was the Monster Dance, robed and masked bogeymen jangling into the circle of the people. Most represented enemies from nearby tribes in caricature. The chestnut masks were elaborate and wild. Teeth stuck out of mouths like fingers, gleaming white and stained with blood. A nose ring was big enough to pass a head through.

  The monsters dashed at adults and lunged at children, but their crazy legs always made them stumble or veer off in another direction. The victims laughed and screamed at the same time, but never got caught.

  One figure was a ghost, his mask the crinkly leaves of a wasp nest, the bottom of the nest a sneaky mouth. He wandered about making eerie sounds.

  Several of the masked dancers bristled with vulgar sexuality. Two men displayed long-necked gourds as penises and scrotums. One dancer had arranged a buffalo leg bone as a dangling phallus, a buffalo tail dangling on each side, the bottom tufts of hair tied into globes.

  The women laughed and pointed and made rude jokes about the size and usefulness of the dancers’ actual equipment. They gave the monsters names spontaneously—Scrawny Dick, Mouse Tail Dick, and so on and so on.

  Everyone found these antics hilarious. The crowd favorite was a monster who had built a little bellows that emitted a huge, watery, farting sound. Whenever he sounded off, the children giggled and screamed.

  Suddenly, Sunoya dashed into the center of the circle, waving her arms wildly and stomping her feet. Any shaman could play this role, and Sunoya felt grand. “Tell me your names!”

  The monsters fell silent.

  “Your names!” Sunoya roared like the winds in the Moon When It Blows.

  One by one, the robed figures answered with the names assigned them by the women, Crooked Dick, Skinny Dick, and more like that.

  “Why did you come to this dance?”

  One monster yelled, “To stick our spears into your men.”

  The others bellowed, “And our pricks into your wives.”

  Immediately they ran at various women, grabbed their breasts or bottoms, got behind them and pretended to hump them.

  Sunoya whirled to face the musicians, raised her arms, and made her hands quiver. The drums and the rattles boomed and clattered a mad, deafening beat. Everyone screamed. The masked enemies cringed, fell to the ground, and covered their ears. The music banged to a climax and stopped. The monsters ran off into the night.

  With the dance ended, a single drum thumped the soft heartbeat. People talked while they waited for the next ceremony, mostly about who would be the next war chiefs. They didn’t have to say that everything would be better now. That’s what set the tongues wagging, the feet moving, and faces smiling.

  No one knew where the two fallen chiefs were—sulking, they supposed.

  An elegant figure slipped from the darkness, accompanied by daughter and panther, and sat on the grass with all the people.

  Whispers hissed around the circle—“The Seer! The Seer!”

  People gawked. This was a memory to keep for their grandchildren.

  Then the drums tapped out a new rhythm. Feet, hips, and shoulders began to jiggle. The Eagle Ceremony began.

  21

  Sunoya’s exultation was too great even to speak. Walking back to the Emerald Cavern, she clung with two fingers to the Seer’s sleeve. Though the Seer called her a friend, Sunoya always saw something
majestic in her mentor, something that set her above others.

  “I am just like you,” Tsola said, “except that my job is harder.”

  Their conversations were often like this, the Seer responding to Sunoya’s thoughts.

  Sunoya felt keenly aware of everything, Tsola’s daughter and panther son alongside her, the sounds of the night, the warm, moist air. Above, she saw the pale ghost of the new moon, fainter than light caught in a cobweb. She almost misplaced a foot and leaned on Tsola. She felt grateful for the night vision of the Seer and the panther. Su-Li perched on Sunoya’s shoulder. He was blind in the moonless night, too. New moon, the time for beginnings.

  Now, from the gentle shush, Sunoya knew they were coming to the place where Emerald Creek flowed out of the Healing Pool.

  They circled around the water toward the house where Tsola’s daughters lived. There they all sat by a low fire and took a little parched corn together, with some roasted buffalo meat. Visitors to the spring brought gifts of food in gratitude for the remedies.

  “You won a great victory,” said Sunoya.

  “We have barely begun. This is the time to talk about the bigger task. It falls on you.”

  Sunoya felt like her teacher had struck in her the belly.

  “The Immortals would never have listened to us as long as we were fighting among ourselves,” Tsola went on. “Now we have a chance to renew the Cape, or get a new one.

  “I don’t know how to do it.” The Seer let these words sit. “I will pray every day for the Cape to become clean and strong. But my thought is, that’s not the way. If I’m understanding prophesy, a daring person will get a new Cape for us.”

  The thought lightninged through Sunoya. “Dahzi.”

  “I think so.”

  Dahzi, powerful enough in medicine to go beyond the Sky Arch and persuade . . .? Sunoya said in a quavery tone, “My son such a hero?”

  “I think so.”

  Sunoya was elated and scared.

  22

  Inaj built a fire in a cave. He used the fire in his belly to run down a doe, throw her to the ground with his hands, and twist her neck until it snapped. He fed himself, he simmered, and he thought. Before the memories of the grandfathers of the oldest men, his people had lived in caves like this one all the time. He spent each Hunting Moon camping in caves, to take male deer with his spear and provide for his family against the long winter. On raids against his people’s enemies, and sometimes against the damned Socos, he and his warriors made their camps in caves. The old stories said his people had come onto the earth through caves. He was comfortable here.