by S. L. Viehl
I couldn’t help smiling. “That means they’re married now?”
“Yes.”
I looked at Reever and remembered the daylong ritual he’d made me go through on Catopsa. “The Hsktskt could learn a thing or two from these people.”
Rico called for everyone to begin the feast, and Hok went with us to the tables set up along the back wall of the hogan. We were handed enormous plates of food and servers of hot tea, and smiled at by everyone.
“They seem pretty happy, don’t they?” I said in a low tone to Reever when we sat back down. “I guess no one cries at Navajo weddings.”
“Not every culture considers marriage a tragedy,” Reever said.
Hok left us there, and we listened to some of the bride’s family talking about another wedding being planned. Veda, I noticed, was missing. When I asked where she was, so I could thank her for allowing us to attend, one of the bride’s brothers explained the custom of the mother-in-law leaving after the presentation of the bridal corn mush.
“It is so she can avoid looking upon her daughter’s husband,” he told me. “It is bad manners for her to stay, just as it would be impolite of my sister’s husband to enter our mother’s hogan.”
“Why?”
The man shrugged. “It prevents trouble in the family.”
The feast was delicious, and I was happy to see Reever eating well. Once everyone was done, one of the groom’s relatives stood up and made a speech. He thanked the bride’s family for the food and their reception, and the gift of their daughter.
When he was done, Rico stood over the bride and groom, and started instructing them on how they should conduct themselves as man and wife, including what they needed to do on their sleeping mat. The latter was put in such frank terms that I was appalled.
“Whiteskins never talk about proper conduct in the making of children,” the bride’s brother said, when he saw my wide eyes. “That is why we think so many never stay together.”
The Night Horse had no problem with Rico’s candid instructions, and joyously accompanied the bridal couple to their new lodge.
That left me and Reever and Hok standing in the ceremonial hogan. “They will stay in there together for four days and nights,” Hok said. “We will go back to Leyaneyaniteh now.”
“May we have a moment alone?” Reever asked him.
Hok nodded and limped out.
“Don’t,” I said, as soon as we were alone. “You’re already exhausted, and we still have a long walk ahead of us. We’ll find another way out of this, when you’ve recovered.”
He brushed his lips over my hair, then my nose. Then he hugged me, hard enough to displace a few vertebra. “I could distract them while you go.”
“I’m not leaving. I’m never leaving you.” I was instantly, irrationally furious. Bad enough I had to deal with my own desperation, but did he have to keep pushing me away? “Don’t ever ask me to do that again.”
He sighed. “We’ll go back.”
Once we returned with the Night Horse to the underground tunnels, I took Reever to Medical and performed a thorough scan.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” I went to get a syrinpress, and found my wrist clamped by his hand.
“Come with me.”
I went, mostly because I didn’t want to fight with him anymore. Then I saw his eyes as he hauled me into the hogan we’d been given in the central cavern. They weren’t cold and gray any longer.
“You’re in no shape to do this,” I said as soon as he let go of me. “You’ve already pushed yourself too hard tonight. I should have you on continuous monitor in Medical. Your incision hasn’t healed yet, and your kidney—”
“My kidney will be fine.” He closed the door flap and reached for me. “I have other concerns.”
“Oh? Like what?”
“I’m not sure what the source of this perpetual ache is. Perhaps you should examine me.”
He wasn’t angry—he was teasing me.
By the light of the small fire in the center of the hogan, I could just make out the muscles flexing as he pulled off his borrowed shirt. For the first time since his surgery, I didn’t use my physician’s eye to inspect him. Tonight I could relax for a few hours and be a woman.
His woman.
I moved closer and placed a hand in the center of his bare chest. “Something wrong with your heart?”
“Here.” He pressed my fingers against his skin, rubbing them over the strong, steady pulse beating there. “It sometimes aches.”
“Angina attacks. Hmmm, not a good sign in a man your age.” I leaned forward and kissed the smooth skin. “What else hurts?”
“My hands.” He moved them up my arms, over my shoulders. “They feel heavy. Empty.”
“Could be osteoarthritis setting in.” I took his wrists and moved his hands down, until I could slide them under the hem of my tunic. “Try to keep them warm. Anything else?”
His eyes became glittering slits as he pulled my tunic over my head and dropped it behind me, then stared down at my breasts. “My … mouth. It aches, too.”
“You’ve been depriving yourself again.” I lifted a hand and traced the firm line that never seemed to bend. “Maybe you’re just a little hungry.”
“Hungry.” He bent down, pulling me up off my feet at the same time. “Yes. That’s it. I’m hungry.” His warm breath touched my lips. “For you.”
More like starving, I thought, my neck arching back under the force of his kiss. But he shouldn’t have been lifting me. I wiggled out of his grasp, backed up to our sleeping mat, and held out my hand.
“Come to me, Duncan.”
The firelight made small, jumping shadows that passed over his face, briefly illuminating, then hiding the beads of sweat on his brow. He came toward me, then paused and pressed a hand to his side.
The physician in my head mentally kicked me in the libido. “Maybe continuing your, um, deprivation is the best.”
“Give me a moment. It will pass.”
No, it wouldn’t. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was in pain. With a silent, admittedly selfish groan, I resigned myself to another couple of nights of chaste cuddling.
I lifted my outstretched hand and faked smothering a yawn. “You know, I’m really tired. How about a rain check on this?”
“You are a terrible liar.” Reever eased down beside me and took my hand. His breathing sounded rapid and shallow, and his skin temperature felt icy. “Im sorry, Cherijo.”
“You can make it up to me when you feel better.” I pulled a blanket over us and warmed him with my body. “Go to sleep, Duncan.”
He fell asleep in my arms.
I wasn’t so fortunate. Reever had a way of arousing all the basic feelings in me, and they weren’t going to let me get off that easy. Eventually I extricated myself from his embrace, rose from the mat, and wandered out in the cave. Everyone was still asleep, but someone had left a pot of tea warming beside the banked fire. I poured myself a cup, and sat down.
Hok had been very canny, to invite me to the wedding. No doubt all part of his campaign to have me voluntarily join the Night Horse. It was even logical, in a sense. I needed sanctuary. The tribe needed a doctor.
What would it be like, if I had no other choice but to stay with them? Would they allow me and Reever to live on the surface? Could we make a place for ourselves with these people? My ancestors had once lived like this, and for the first time in my life I understood the allure of a simple, uncomplicated existence.
Like the wedding ceremony. A “whiteskin” couple in my former social sphere would have spent thousands of credits on a huge, elaborate service held in some pristine religious shrine. Compared to the Navajos’ simple bonding act of sharing food and gifts, a traditional Caucasian wedding seemed almost sterile.
Then I thought of what I had left behind, and all the attraction abruptly faded. These weren’t my people, this wasn’t my world. I needed to get off it, to get back to my real family.<
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Something made the back of my neck tingle, then a long shadow fell over me.
“You do not sleep tonight, little patcher?”
I put aside the cup. “No, chief, I was only thirsty.”
“Stay. I wish to speak with you.”
That was the very last thing I wanted to do, but I couldn’t think of a plausible reason to go—not counting this bizarre, unwelcome awareness I had of him.
He sat beside me. “What did you think of our ceremony?”
Might as well be honest. “It was lovely.”
“You have done well with my players. Small Fox no longer must shave before and after the games. Blood Warrior’s legs grow straighter. And Spotted Dog now seeks a new name.”
“My success rate isn’t one hundred percent.” I thought of the one player I had sent back to Rico untreated. Removing the hard layer of keratin plaque covering Black Otter’s entire body would have killed him.
“You do what can be done. That pleases me very much. I am glad you have joined us.”
“I haven’t joined anything. I can’t live in a cave forever.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, I guess I’ve been spoiled by the little comforts, like running water and automated waste disposal.”
“You will grow accustomed to our ways.” He chuckled and put his arm around me. I felt him tug at my braid. “You should wear your hair like our women do.”
He was suggesting hairstyles, while putting his hands on me and radiating what felt like intense, focused desire. I didn’t think it was due to the fact he wanted to see me look like an Indian maiden. Reever lay sleeping just a couple of yards away. If he woke up—
“I’m not a member of the tribe.”
“You have been made welcome, haven’t you?”
“I have my own people, my own clan.”
“Tell me about them.”
I told Rico how the Jorenians had saved me from being abducted by the League from K-2. He asked about the year I’d spent serving on the Sunlace, and what my visit to Joren had been like.
When I was done, he said, “They are not your blood.”
“No.” I thought of Joe, and Maggie. “But they are my family.”
“We are your family now.”
I stared at him. I’d never really looked at his face before, never noticed that his eyes weren’t brown or black, but dark blue. He had the Navajo bone structure, and the dark skin and hair, but I’d bet there was some Caucasian blood in his veins. The narrowness of his face, the long chin, and his height indicated that.
He was without a doubt the handsomest man in the tribe. I could acknowledge that much without violating my commitment to Reever.
He yanked on my braid again. “Loosen it for me.”
“Why?”
Rico’s gaze wandered over my face, then went south. “I have never seen you with your hair down.”
He had never seen a lot of other things, either. The trouble I was in abruptly quadrupled. I felt like slugging him, but I suspected one shout from Rico and I’d find myself nailed to the nearest hogan door.
I’d try to be diplomatic. “That’s getting a little too personal.”
He moved closer, until his mouth hovered just above my ear. “When I get personal with you, patcher, you will know it.” Then he grabbed my braid and started unraveling it himself.
The hell with diplomacy. “Please don’t.”
He ignored that, and put his other hand on my arm to keep me from moving away. I thought frantically, and recalled what Hok had said about attending the wedding ceremony.
“Wait. I just started my menstrual cycle; it’s what woke me up.”
He took his arm away as if I’d scalded him. “You’re unclean.”
“Yes.” Thank you, Hok, for your ridiculous taboos.
Rico got up and turned his back on me. “Return to your hogan.”
I did, and nearly broke the speed of light.
After I fastened the door covering and curled back up beside Reever, I listened. If the chief left the fire, I didn’t hear him go.
Finally I fell asleep, and dreamed of the Night Horse ceremony. This time I was the bride bearing the basket of corn mush. I set it down in front of my dark groom, and took my place at his side. When he turned to me, he was smiling.
He was also Rico.
A lifetime of using synthesizer units had spoiled me, and as a result I’d never given much thought to the alternative methods of food preparation. Not until I woke up the next morning, went out to the central fire, and got to see some of the Night Horse women preparing one of their communal stews.
A long tray of vegetables sat on a flat boulder that doubled as a kind of worktable. One woman deftly plucked potatoes, onions, and carrots from the tray and sliced them up for the pot.
Her companion was chopping something else-something that lay in a small, bloody pile next to her. It took a moment for me to realize she’d skinned and was dicing up a dozen or so small animals. Rabbits. Birds. Squirrels. And last but not least, what appeared to be several large, plump rats.
“Good morning,” I said, when they looked at me. I pointed to one small corpse. “Are those rats?”
They looked at each other, then giggled. Of course, they were rats. Was I blind?
I thought of the few times I’d sampled one of their stews, and shuddered. Better to find out late than never. “Did I mention I’m a vegetarian?”
That just made them giggle harder.
A small, furtive shadow crept up to the pile of bodies, and the woman preparing them went still. A moment later, she seized and held up a small, clawing animal. “Look, sister. This will add spice to the broth.”
“Wait!” I grabbed her hand before she could slice its throat open. “You can’t eat that. That’s a cat.”
“Yes, patcher, we know what it is.”
“It was just hungry. You can’t kill it for being hungry.”
“I will kill it so our tribe does not go hungry,” she told me, the way she would a not-too-bright child.
“It’s awfully scrawny. Would you mind giving it to me instead?”
The two women eyed each other. The younger said, “Whiteskins keep useless animals as pets and waste food on them. That is not the way of the People.”
I thought desperately of how I could convince them. “A cat is not a useless animal. They hunt rats, and will bring them as offerings to the humans who care for them. Think of all the stew you’ll be able to make.”
“Ayi, is this true?” Both women seemed intrigued by the idea, and I realized that rat must figure prominently on their menu.
I didn’t think throwing up was going to support my case, so I nodded and held out my hands. “Please.”
“Very well, you may have it.”
I took the cat from the woman’s impersonal grip, and hugged it against my chest. The small feline curled up against me, yowling and shivering. “Thank you.”
It was filthy and full of fleas and in need of some immediate medical attention, so I took it to my medical alcove. Jenner followed me, griping for me to notice him, until he saw what I put down on the exam table. He jumped up to have a sniff, and nearly got his face clawed.
I’d never had Jenner neutered, so his interest was only natural. “Back off, Romeo. She doesn’t want to make friends right now.”
I scanned her thoroughly. She was female, domestic shorthair, and fully developed. She was also full of parasites inside and out, malnourished, and had a dozen infected bites in her scraggly black fur. Apparently the rats fought back.
“Well, Miss Juliet, you look like you’ve been through a couple of catastrophes.”
Juliet bit my thumb to let me know what she thought of my opinion. Jenner cried plaintively at my feet.
I hated sedating her, but it would make the worming and wound treatment easier on both of us. Once I rid her small body of all the pests, I carefully cleaned out and sutured the gashes. She’d lost part of an ear some time ago, an
d it had healed raggedly, so I fixed that, too.
Then I sat and held her until she came out of the sedation. She was already used to my stroking hands when she opened her wary green eyes, and sniffed at me.
“Hi, there.” Jenner was pacing around my ankles. “Want to say hello to your new boyfriend now?” Juliet peered over my lap at her anxious suitor, sneezed once, and curled up against my chest. “Well, pal, it looks like this one is going to take some convincing.”
“I know how he feels.” Reever stood in the entrance, arms folded, watching me.
“Nothing worth having comes along easily,” I pointed out, miffed. Then I noticed how pale he was. “You okay?”
“I feel somewhat tired.”
“Don’t eat the stew they make here anymore, okay?”
“Why?”
Reever probably wouldn’t object to rabbit, bird, and rat with vegetables, given his weird food preferences. However, I had to kiss him, and I did. “Trust me. Just don’t.”
Juliet had fallen asleep again, so I carried her over to the makeshift cat bed I’d improvised out of the supply container, and carefully set her down in it. Then I grabbed my scanner and waved Reever over to the table. “You’re next.”
I told him about how I’d saved Juliet as I went through the renal series, and saw my repair work was still holding up. We might even have as long as a month before things got critical. I thought of what would happen if his kidney failed, and what had nearly happened with Rico the night before.
“Reever, we have to get out of here.”
“I’ve done some discreet exploring.”
“What? As weak as you are?”
“I did not go far. The outlet tunnels are rigged with proximity beacons and trip sensors. It’s possible I can disable them, but without a map, I doubt we can negotiate our way out once we’re past them.”
“I don’t think they use maps.” I saw a hulking form hovering outside the entrance, and lifted a finger to my lips. “Come in, Kegide.”
Kegide went immediately over to Juliet’s container, and peered down at her. Jenner joined him, and he cautiously stroked my pet. For once, His Majesty let him without making a fuss, and Kegide grinned at me like a kid who’d been given a treat.