by Caleb Fox
Zeya made a mess of one thing. He converted his beak into a nose and accidentally back to a beak. When he thought he’d finished his face, Thunderbird handed him a cloth and said, “Blow your nose.”
When Zeya honked his beak, they both laughed.
Still, Zeya got it done in short order. He looked down at himself in amazement. He studied the body he’d had all his life. Then he looked directly at Thunderbird. “Thank you. For me personally, this is the greatest gift of all.”
“No,” said Thunderbird, “for you personally this is the greatest gift.”
Thunderbird seized Zeya with one of his huge talons and held him up to an enormous eye. He blinked, and sheet lightning numbed Zeya’s brain. The bird-god pointed his beak to where Zeya’s ribs met his belly and stabbed him.
Zeya felt warm blood run down. He managed to gasp, “What are you doing?”
“Eating you,” said Thunderbird.
Quickly, the bird-god slit Zeya from sternum to crotch bone. Zeya felt the cold air of the heights seep into his being.
Thunderbird reached deep under Zeya’s ribs with his beak and drew something out. Zeya’s heart. It beat one last time in Thunderbird’s beak, and the bird-god solemnly gulped it down.
SEVEN
Triumphs and Losses
46
Zeya suddenly lay by the fire in front of them, unconscious.
Tsola reached out and took the Cape from his loose hands. Tenderly, she wrapped it in a painted elk robe. Then she stepped back to Zeya, knelt, and turned his zadayi so that the red side was out.
“Thank you,” said Sunoya.
“That, what Thunderbird did, was terrible to watch,” said Tsola.
“I heard of it, but I never saw it done,” said Sunoya.
Zeya stirred.
“You’re Okay,” Sunoya told him.
Pacing nervously, Klandagi said, “It won’t help, not yet.”
He was right, it wouldn’t. Soon the world would rotate a quarter circle to the left, or some direction, and her son’s mind would click in.
“You’re all right,” she said again.
“Zeya, can you hear me?” This was Tsola. “You’re here with your mother, and me, Tsola, Klandagi, and Su-Li. You’re fine.”
Both medicine women remembered the disorientation of their own first trips across. They looked at each other with the knowledge of how much more awful Thunderbird had made this crossing.
“The greatest gifts call for the greatest sacrifices,” murmured Tsola.
Sunoya gave her mentor a look. She didn’t need lecturing right now. “You’re fine,” said Zeya’s mother, stroking his forearm.
Su-Li said inside her mind, He will be fine, better than fine.
Still, he lingered in an unconscious or half-conscious state. Sunoya took Su-Li outside. While he looped up the sky, she sat and watched the twilight reflect in the Healing Pool. Tsola’s daughters went about their business quietly. No one was here for healing right now. “Except,” Sunoya said out loud, “for my son, the hero of the people.” A hint of bitterness spiced her words.
And me. Being apart from Su-Li had weakened her. Her life energy was interwoven with his. She would have to spend time in the Pool. But now her son needed her.
Inside the Cavern Zeya finally woke up enough to reach down and feel his belly. When he didn’t find a wound, he drifted back to sleep.
Later he whispered, “Thirsty.”
Sunoya gave him broth. Klandagi said with a chuckle, “He won’t want any more of that special tea for a while.”
Zeya’s first sentence was, “How long was I gone?”
Tsola spoke up. “Not even long enough for my arm to get tired from drumming.”
Zeya blinked at his companions, the Cavern, and this world that was not beyond the Sky Arch. He shook his head as though to chase memories away. “I went a lot of places. I did a lot of things.”
“I know,” said Tsola, “I was there.”
The panther raised his purr to a hum.
“I told Sunoya and Klandagi everything,” said Tsola.
“I am in awe of what you accomplished,” said the big cat.
Zeya shook his head again. Clearly, he didn’t know what to make of that, or anything else.
“I died,” he said.
“And came back to life a new man,” said Tsola.
Zeya gawked at her. Then he closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep.
“We’d best take our time, talk to him only as he’s ready for each part.”
“Yes,” said Tsola. She looked urgently at the Cape. “Waiting is hard. I’m dying to put it on.”
Piecemeal, Zeya came to understand what had happened. Or at least he listened attentively to what they said and marked it in his mind. He would ponder it in his own time.
“I guess I’m all right with the journey across,” he told the two women, his mother and his teacher. “The enemies I met—the dogs, the snakes, all that—I created them myself. They were my fears, so I had to deal with them. I got the new cape.” He looked at the bundle. And I got a gift”—the next words were hushed—“I can turn into an eagle.”
Both women nodded. They’d been over and over these things.
“And I had to die to come back?”
“Yes.”
“But when you went, you didn’t die.”
“No.”
“Because . . .?”
Tsola said, “Over time, you will know. You are still called on to do great things in the future.”
“And a better man was needed to do them?”
Tsola chuckled. “You might put it that way.”
“It’s too much.”
“Let’s give him something,” said Klandagi. He looked at his mother and Sunoya. “Zeya, here’s an idea, this will be good. Change yourself into an eagle. Do it. Right now.”
Zeya looked at the panther hesitantly. He started to speak.
“Just do it,” said Klandagi.
Zeya did, foot to claw, arm to wing, flesh to feather. “I can’t imagine ever getting used to this.” As though to convince himself, he pecked at his neck feathers, looked at his companions, and flashed his wings out.
“And what do you want to do now?”
“Fly!”
“Go to it.”
The eagle hopped toward the cave entrance and launched into the sky. Su-Li flew with him, wing tip to wing tip.
“Bring him back soon,” called Sunoya.
47
Winging over his home country was spectacular. He knew the Cheowa village, the path up to the Emerald Cavern, the trails to the Soco and Cusa villages to the south, and to the Tusca village in the east. He knew the mountains, he knew the rivers. But to see them as a pattern, how everything flowed together, was amazing. The landscape came together with a kind of sense he had never known. The river started in the mountains high above the Cheowas, came crashing down to the broad, flat valley where the houses stood, and wandered in snaky curves to the south. Halfway down the valley the stream turned fast and roily. In the distance he could see where the trail from the Tusca village dropped in and the river trail ran on south, with a sharp bend westward and then south again, to the Soco village.
He could see how the ridges came down from the balds. They divided as they descended, and a creek formed between each two ridges. A mountain, he realized, had a logic all its own.
What do you want to do? said Su-Li.
I don’t know. Dweller-in-the-Clouds looked wide-eyed at his companion. How are you talking to me?
The same way you’re talking to me.
We can communicate directly now, mind to mind?
When you’re an eagle.
Believing—accepting this fact—was swallowing a big lump for Zeya. Can you do this with Klandagi?
When he’s a panther.
I didn’t know that.
No one else does. Best to keep some things to yourself. So what do you want to do?
They were gliding south along the river, not even fl
apping their wings. Go see Jemel.
She’s back home in the Soco village, with her parents.
Let’s fly.
Easily, comfortably, they flapped and floated down the valley.
How far can you go in a day?
About a week’s walk.
I can’t believe this.
Do you realize we’re flying down the route you took to get to the Socos twenty winters ago? Let’s circle down, and I’ll show you something.
Zeya hadn’t realized Su-Li could be so chatty.
Here’s what’s funny, said Su-Li. When you’re a human being, you’ll go back to thinking I can’t talk. Okay, there it is. That’s the waterfall where the caves of the Little People were, and were not. Also the frozen waterfall that shattered and saved your life when you were a tiny baby.
Zeya had heard the story a hundred times, how he, Sunoya, and the dog swam the flooding river and Inaj’s men got bashed by the icefall when it crashed down.
The first time your grandfather tried to kill you, said Su-Li. One of many.
He’ll never quit, will he?
No.
Zeya felt blood lust in his heart. He had to be honest. I want to kill him.
Yes.
But I can’t commit a crime against the new Cape.
No.
They flapped along in silence.
Let’s do something about your blood lust.
Zeya looked at him nervously.
Hunt.
They glided along the grassy hillsides. Su-Li saw the rabbit before Zeya did. Dive, the buzzard said, fast and hard. Use your talons, not your beak.
Zeya shook his head to clear it, and found out that didn’t work with an eagle’s neck.
Dive! said Su-Li.
Zeya did. He was thrilled at his own speed. He eyed the rabbit fiercely and felt in his blood the old fever of the hunter for prey.
He made a clean miss.
His wings carried him up while his heart sank. He didn’t know whether the rabbit darted away at the last second, or whether his aim was bad.
Wheeling back toward Su-Li, he spotted a gopher. Without thinking, he hurtled toward it. He hit it with one talon but didn’t get a grip on it. The gopher scurried off.
Another rabbit. Zeya used himself like an arrow plummeting to the ground. And this time he hit. The rabbit squirmed, but Zeya used his other talon to break its neck.
He arrived at the height of the mountaintop to fall in with Su-Li, rabbit dangling.
Dweller-in-Clouds? said Su-Li.
I am now.
Let’s light on a bald.
They did. Zeya started to invite Su-Li to join him in eating, then interrupted himself. Is this carrion?
It is now.
Have you gotten to like carrion?
Mortality stinks, said Su-Li.
They fed.
As they lifted off, Zeya said, Small but good.
When you’re a human being, you’ll need more to eat.
They flapped downriver.
There it is, said Su-Li.
The Soco village, his home. Zeya glided sideways a little to get the best view of where he grew up. He felt his heart touched. He pictured childhood friends playing in the creek, racing across the fields to see who was fastest, giving and getting bloody noses. He remembered seeing Jemel for the first time . . .
After he got oriented, Zeya started wheeling in tight circles over Jemel’s house. That will be my house soon, he thought. I hope.
Nothing. No sign of anyone.
Across the village he saw Ninyu walk away from his house, maybe to talk to someone or do one of a hundred chores. He felt a longing to see everyone again, his grandfather and grandmothers, aunts and uncles, cousins.
He let himself glide down toward Jemel’s house—he was good at flying now. Still he saw no one from her family.
I think that’s enough, said Su-Li.
Has our marriage been arranged?
That’s a question to ask Tsola.
They winged back up the river. Zeya thought of the woman he wanted. She was a Moon Woman, full of wild feelings. He had no doubt that if she saw a man she wanted, another man, she would take him.
Zeya was worn out by his flight and, from the look of the light outside the cave, slept from dusk one day to dawn the next. Or was it dusk the next? He went to the cave entrance, looked at the world, and saw that it was dawn.
“I’m starved,” he told his mother.
She gave him plenty to eat.
“I think you need to understand better what happened on your journey,” said Tsola, sitting in the shadows.
“I need to talk to Jemel.”
Tsola started to protest but said instead, “Whatever you want.”
“Inaj is looking for you,” said Sunoya.
“I’ll fly,” Zeya said.
“He’s got spies in the village,” his mother said. “Count on it.”
“Do you want me to go along?” said Klandagi.
“Tsola needs you,” Zeya said.
Tsola was picking up the wrap that held the Cape. “No,” she said, “I’ll be in the Emerald Dome. It’s safe there.”
But Zeya had had a guard for too many years. “I’ll be all right.”
“You want Su-Li with you?” said Sunoya.
He kissed his mother. “You need him,” he said, “and I don’t.”
“Fly,” said Klandagi. “Fly away home.”
Where is Jemel?
Zeya watched the village from the top of the snag. People coming and going, children playing, dogs running around, young women walking to and from the fields to gather the last of the harvest, young men making spear heads and old men sitting with them, probably telling hunting stories. He knew many of the old women were sitting inside, near the light from the doors, sewing. They liked to be near the fire.
All day long he’d sat here—no sign of Jemel. Her family was here. Her mother, aunts, and sisters traipsed back and forth from the cornfields constantly. Where is Jemel?
Zeya was full of odd feelings. Jemel, himself, his journey, the future—everything tumbled around inside him like pebbles in a rattle.
Maybe that was why, for the first time, he felt funny about these routines of daily life. They were the patterns of days he had lived during his twenty years on the Earth. And they were good. He felt nostalgic about them. But he also felt separated. He was different. He murmured to himself, “Sitting here in the shape of an eagle—that’s as different as things get.”
More than his body had changed. His spirit had shifted, though he couldn’t say how. His awareness was altered. Everything within the sweep of his vision seemed to him a blossom of mortality, bright and brassy and ignorant. The children who now played were on the way to turning into the old men and old women. The crops grew in the summer and died before winter. People gathered them because they lived by feeding on other living beings that they killed. The men slew the deer and sang a prayer asking forgiveness. The breath that carried their words bore the intimation of their own deaths, and their fear of it.
Even a seed bore the inevitability of death. Everything that lived died and became food, so that other creatures might live. It struck Zeya as a bizarre mixture of beauty and horror.
Where is Jemel?
He remembered to check the skies around him. Eagles had few enemies in this world, none he knew of, but he was still mortal. Klandagi reminded Zeya that Su-Li could not be killed, but the two of them could. Born to die.
The day itself was dying. The sunset oozed colors on the edges of the mountain ridges. The night would be cold.
Just then something caught Zeya’s eye. His heart quickened. It was Jemel, walking away from the house toward the creek. It looked as if she was going where the women went to pee. But why had she been inside all day? Why hadn’t she been working in the fields with the other young women?
She was with child.
He could tell by the way she walked. Though she wasn’t near birth time yet, it w
as unmistakable.
Humiliation flash-flooded through his veins.
He intended to speak to her. He intended to challenge her.
Jemel stilted toward the stream. She hated the way she walked. Her back hurt all the time, carrying this baby, and she felt like she had to hump each hip upward to get her foot off the ground to clomp forward.
She hated her life. When her father threw a fit about Zeya, she’d been whisked off to live with relatives in the Cusa village—no choice. The relatives clearly didn’t want her around. Once they saw she was with child, they treated her like a pariah, and everyone in the village snubbed her. Everyone except Awahi. He was kind.
Then, suddenly, she was brought back here without any explanation. She might as well have been a pack dog. She had to go where she was told, no choice—“Just do what we say.”
She was fierce to be finished with living this way.
She clung to one thread that kept her sane. She thought about Zeya. She fantasized about the passion of their reunion. She imagined the birth of their child, with Zeya properly there and performing the Going to Water ceremony. She pictured husband and wife hovering over the baby, cooing, enjoying seeing it learn to turn over, sit up, take a first step, speak a first word. She thought of herself and her husband getting up in the morning, starting the fire, eating breakfast together, and telling each other their dreams. Even more often she imagined what she would do with Zeya in the blankets. Thoughts like that were her salvation.
She allowed herself no doubt that they would be husband and wife. She was a Moon Woman, she had found her passion—she had found her life.
She shut out all challenges to her conviction except one. At night sometimes, in tatters of dreams or half-dreams, she saw Zeya dead. From the time Zanda’s head was dropped into the village, these dreams romped through her sleep.
That day Inaj went wild with fury, and she exulted. But tales raged like fire through the treetops. They were only bits and pieces that came to nothing, but they twanged her fear.
Inaj had sent men to kill her lover. She wished she could kill him.
What Jemel did, in her dilemma, was build a dam against her emotions. She went through the days aloof, pretending. In the evenings she sat with Awahi. He was good to her, he knew her heart, he was a friend. Unfortunately, he had no information that would help.