“Well, yeah, the other permanent residents, but that’s thirty people, at most. They’ve sort of become our new people, the ones we guide and protect, as my ancestors did for the Maya. They come to us when they’re sick, we keep pests out of the crops, we help them. In return, they swore an oath to never reveal our secret to anyone.”
“And how do you guarantee that they keep this oath?”
“How do you guarantee that your people keep your laws?”
Tuku’isa snorted. “We have strict punishments. Everyone here knows the consequences for violating those laws.”
“Didn’t stop Dazi from telling me, did it?” Mateo crossed his arms and smirked.
“Dazitam is speaking to the chief at this very moment,” Nattusu said. “Werama will decide if his exile will last a few years or the rest of his life. Should it be the latter, he will be stripped of his puha, his memories, and left to fend for himself. That is the consequence that members of our tribe face, and never in my lifetime has anyone risked it.” She clenched her jaw. “Until now.”
Holy fuck. Dazi put so much faith in me before we even truly met. He was willing to give up his entire life, his family, his powers. Fool. Beautiful frustrating fool. “Dazi no doubt thought that I was another skin-walker, one who was already aware of you.”
“We didn’t know there were any other skin-walkers,” Tuku’isa said. “Frankly, I was surprised to hear you existed. There are legends, of course, and if circumstances were different, if you had come to us on your own, if some other force had guided you here, perhaps we could have learned from one another. As it stands, you came across this knowledge in a disquieting fashion. We must be careful what steps we take next.”
Mateo’s mind spun. Among the haze a memory arose. “There once was a young man out hunting, who stopped at the river to drink. Something beneath the water caught his eye, and for three days and nights he pursued it. When it revealed itself as a water buffalo on the fourth day, he was afraid, but he did not run. His curiosity was too great. He desired wisdom. When he proved to be no threat, the water buffalo revealed its true form: a harmless muskrat, and in this form he provided the wisdom the young man sought.”
“So Dazitam told you of our origins as well.” Tuku’isa’s lips drew even tighter. “I see the parallel you are trying to draw. Our Dazitam is the young man, and you are the water buffalo. Or are you a muskrat? Or perhaps both? There is only one way we can know for sure.”
A shiver ran up Mateo’s spine. The moment he had been putting off was here. He sniffed the air. “So there is. I smell you have the sage and dragon’s blood.”
“Of course,” Nattusu said.
“Very well then.” Mateo pulled off his shirt as his hearing began to fade. “I’ll meet you there.”
* * * *
Meanwhile, Dazi was dragging his feet down the hall from Chief Werama’s office. After his unsuccessful return, he had hidden away for a few minutes while he cried out every last tear of sorrow and frustration. The only thing left for him to do was face his own punishment. Drying his eyes, he had walked back into town with his head low. The chief was waiting for him in his office.
“Dazitam, I know I said we would discuss your exile when you returned,” he had said. “However, Kuhma came in to see me shortly after you left. He told me a little about your adventures among the fake-skins and how Mateo was the one who made sure the four of you were on your best behavior. According to him, Mateo didn’t act like an Outsider, but rather a skin-walker making do without a true tribe. Therefore, I have come to a decision.”
Dazi had lifted his head. His heart started beating again. Can it be?
“We will postpone our meeting until after Mateo’s…evaluation. If he can be trusted, then perhaps there wouldn’t be much need to exile you. After all, Mateo would be a valuable ally, and you could keep tabs on him better than the rest of us. Despite his sudden exit, Kuhma assures me the two of you got along well these past few days. If not, then, well, I am sorry, but the laws must be upheld, and if they are broken then there must be consequences. I will call for you again once the shamans have made their decision.”
Teiku stopped Dazi on his way out. “What were you thinking? Bringing someone as dangerous as that here?”
Dazi scowled. “Mateo isn’t dangerous.” He didn’t blame her entirely. She had a mule deer skin, so, much like Kuhma, she had a natural and understandable wariness around predators. What irked Dazi was the fact that everyone in his tribe assumed the worst about Mateo before they even knew him.
“Well,” Teiku said, her nose in the air. “I guess we’ll see if the puhagant agrees with that.”
Dazi’s stomach knotted. He wanted to barf. The fresh air outside didn’t do much to help, since he was lost in his own worries. Mateo is no threat. I could tell that right away. Then again, he and I have a lot in common. Maybe I am biased because we’re both big cats, but something compelled me to follow him, to confide in him. Something is guiding me, and maybe it has been since that first dream all those years ago. Dazi couldn’t see why any of this would happen if Mateo was doomed to forget it all a few days later. Then again, if he—
The sound of drums hit Dazi’s ears and heart a second before he smelled the smoke. His chest tightened. The ground swayed beneath him. “No…” he whimpered. “No no no, they can’t…” In his blind panic, Dazi sprinted towards the drums. He didn’t know how he would stop it, and he didn’t care. All Dazi thought about was Mateo. “They can’t, they can’t, they were supposed to talk, just talk, and see who he is, they can’t do this, it’s not fair…”
Someone tackled Dazi to the ground. Dazi struggled to stand and get free. Kuhma held him back and said, “I heard it, too. You know what that means. The ritual has begun. There’s nothing you can do for him now.”
Dazi feebly fought to escape Kuhma’s grasp, but in the end he surrendered and collapsed back to the ground, sobbing. He was too late.
* * * *
Chapter 16
Mateo was dizzy. Traveling this far into the Spirit World took a lot out of him, but now that he was here he could feel his strength returning. “This is where our ancestors have gone,” his grandfather once told him. “Here they bestow their blessings on those who are open to them.” Mateo thought he saw them in the mists, shadows in the corner of his perception with human faces and yellow eyes. Ancestors guide me.
Some of the mists cleared as the Mukua’poan arrived. Tuku’isa and his wolf, Nattusu and her fox, and Natiam with his wolf, eagle, pronghorn, and otter following beside them and inside them. The land behind them was more green than most of what Mateo had seen in their territory.
“That’s where you’re from, isn’t it?” There were few private thoughts here. Such was the nature of the Spirit World. Little could remain hidden, and only truth could be spoken, cryptic as it may be.
“Those are the lands of our ancestors, yes,” Tuku’isa said. “Though we have never been there, we carry them in our hearts.”
Mateo looked over his shoulder. There was only mist and the faint outlines of a dense jungle. “I have never been to my homeland either. I hope to visit someday, perhaps find out if any of my people are still there.”
“I wish you luck in that endeavor,” Tuku’isa said. He was younger here, his hair as jet black as the others’. His wolf was taller than his hip, and its tail stuck straight out behind it, a sign that it knew it wasn’t the dominant creature here, but it was not the type to submit either. All Mateo could hear from Natiam and Nattusu was deliberation and wonder.
“How do you see me?” Mateo asked them. Though only truth could be spoken in the Spirit World, Mateo had no true form. He was as much a jaguar as he was human, though he spent more time in his human form. When he was with family here, they saw each other as both simultaneously, but from the few times Mateo’s grandfather had guided a human to this place, Mateo knew perception of them could shift, gravitating to either see them as mostly human or mostly jaguar.
Tuku’isa said, “I see a man with skin black as night and the face and tail of a jaguar.”
Nattusu said, “I agree, except you seem more like a jaguar standing with human posture to me.”
Natiam stared at Mateo for a moment or two, his thoughts a swirl of light and shadow around his head. “I don’t know what I see. When I think of you as human, that’s what I see, but when I look for the jaguar in you, I see that instead.”
Mateo nodded. “Excellent perception. Many people let their biases determine what they see, but you know how to look for all sides of the truth. Listen well to him, he is indeed wise.”
“Thank you.” Natiam liked the flattery.
“To begin, let me show you more about what I told you.” Mateo dove into his memories and brought up images for the shamans to see. He showed them his childhood, his family, his struggles, even a few memories of Alejo slipped in, along with the assurance that Alejo had kept his secret to this day. He showed them memories of the past few days, including when he met Dazi, the numerous times he had to tell the Mukua’poan how to blend in, and, because he couldn’t stop himself from remembering, he showed them how he felt about Dazi. The shamans watched, their emotions and reactions carefully guarded. Mateo tried to go back to the things his grandfather had shown him about his ancestors, but he didn’t have as much of a grasp on them as he did with his personal past.
“By these ancestors, I swear unto you that I would do my best to protect your secrets. Let me show you the measures we have taken to protect our own.” Mateo reached out and grabbed something from the mist beside him. Once his hand closed around it, it became visible, a looped chain of a few dozen links. “This is the oath to protect my family’s secret. I know the name and face of every link. Notice how each one is as strong as the last.”
“What is that light around the links?” Natiam asked. “The pattern is sporadic.”
Mateo turned the chain loop in his hands. “In our community, each person is free to worship their own gods. That means when they swear an oath, they swear by that pantheon, and their gods hold them to their promise.” He pointed to each link. “Zeus, Tyr, Jehovah, Djehuti, and this bright one here was sworn on the Mother Goddess herself. Your oaths are bound by law, ours are bound by faith. Anyone who breaks it suffers the wrath of the gods.” He smiled. “Then there’s my family. You need the guilty brought before you for punishment. I could track a betrayer to the ends of the earth and punish them for violating our confidence.”
“That is regarding your secret,” Nattusu said. “What protection would you offer for ours?”
“It is a jaguar’s nature to be secretive. We are loners, keeping to ourselves unless necessity calls for it. I have no interest in telling others about you. No one else needs to know. My family are black jaguars because we thrive in the shadows, out of sight until we strike. You are not prey, and therefore have no reason to fear.” Mateo slung the chain over his shoulder nonchalantly. “That is what I know to be true in my heart. If I am lying, that would mean I can overpower even your minds in this sacred place. Think what I could do to an average human. But, if I am telling the truth, then I should have earned your trust by now.”
The three shamans turned to one another and quietly deliberated. What Mateo could hear was positive. That was a relief. He was putting most of his energy into amplifying his aura, making himself seem larger and more powerful, the same way he would fluff his fur as a jaguar to intimidate a threat. However, this was far more exhausting, and he wasn’t sure how long he could maintain it. Deep in his heart where the others could not hear, he planned for one final argument and prayed it would work.
Tuku’isa’s wolf was the first to face Mateo again, and Tuku’isa soon followed. “You have a strong hold on your people,” he said. “I do not believe you could be stronger than us, though. A jaguar’s nature may be secrecy and deceit, but you are human as well. We see you are telling the truth. We have decided to trust you.”
“Good, because there’s something I must ask of you.” With a flick of his wrist, Mateo cast the oath chain back into the mist surrounding him. Its part was done. “Lift Dazi’s exile.”
“Why?”
“Because if I can be trusted, then Dazi did nothing wrong.”
Tuku’isa frowned. “The laws are clear. Simply because you can be trusted with our secrets doesn’t mean we can allow anyone to tell them to people they think are trustworthy. An example must be made of him.”
“What if I—” Mateo felt a familiar presence, but one so unexpected that it interrupted his thought. He turned, and sure enough, emerging from the mists was a feline form much like his own, though larger and more feral. His grandfather’s ethereal tail bobbed behind him as he walked, a ghost of the one he cut off with his own two hands to hide his identity.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “You hide well. It took me a while to track you.”
“Mam? What are you doing here? Did you sense I had entered the Spirit World?”
Mateo’s grandfather smirked with a proud glow. “Actually it was your mother. She sensed you might need my assistance. I don’t know if she gets that from my side of the family or her mother’s, but I trusted her. Good thing, I see.” He lifted his head and sniffed. “It’s good to finally meet you myself,” he said to the shamans. “I’ve had suspicions about you for a while, but I thought it best to leave you alone, whatever or whoever you were. What has my grandson done to warrant an interrogation like this?”
The shamans were taken aback. The two wolf puha raised their hackles and growled. Natiam’s pronghorn balked and his otter chittered and hid behind him. Mateo could read the colors and sounds of their emotions, but their thoughts were too much of a whirlwind to understand clearly. They were confused and afraid and curious and in awe at the same time.
“This is my grandfather, Pakal B’alam, the third,” Mateo said. “I am technically Pakal B’alam the fourth, but my parents gave me another name that would help me blend in with the others, and Pakal became my middle name.”
“What do you mean you had suspicions about us?” Tuku’isa asked.
“I didn’t know exactly what you were, but I have sensed you.” Mateo’s grandfather padded forward to stand between Mateo and the Mukua’poan. “Ever since I fled to this country I’ve felt the lingering magic from before those damned invaders came and bulldozed everything with their gods. The largest concentration was in your direction, but I thought it best to leave you alone since you do outnumber me and I had no reason to speak to you, as far as I was concerned. I told Mateo such when I visited him in a dream at the Con-fur-ence. He wanted to meet you regardless.” He narrowed his eyes. “I see you wouldn’t have let him come back to me without coming here first. You’re lucky he’s so compliant. I wouldn’t have taken that well.”
Tuku’isa’s wolf growled again. “What do you mean by that?” Tuku’isa demanded.
“I mean that with my people narrowed down to just my family, I am highly protective of them. I had my hesitations about the furries as well, but Mateo has always been on his best behavior and the furries accept him. Should any of them ever harm my grandson, I would do more than simply toy with their memories.” Mateo’s grandfather swished his tail aggressively. “And if any of you were to do likewise to him, when he is clearly innocent, I would have done even worse to you.”
The mists around them solidified into shadows, shadows with dim yellow eyes. Mateo could feel each one. They shared his powers and his blood. All of his family stood behind him. Nattusu’s fox yipped in alarm, and all the puha cowered in their presence.
Mateo’s energy rippled a frustrated grayish orange. “Mam,” he scolded. “There is no need to show off. My transgressions were already pardoned. I was testifying on Dazi’s behalf.”
“Oh? What was the punishment he feared?”
“Exile.”
Mateo’s grandfather chuffed. “That’s not so bad. He could come live with us until it passes.”
“Dazitam will lo
se his puha as well for violating our laws of secrecy,” Tuku’isa said.
“What sort of overreaction is this?” Mateo’s grandfather flicked one ear. “Next you’re going to tell me the punishment for an unsuccessful hunt is a public hanging.”
“As we told Mateo, an example must be made of him. The rest of the tribe must know what the consequences are.”
“The cub knew what the consequences were,” Mateo’s grandfather said. “I saw that when I checked in on Mateo last night. Even in his sleep, he was terrified, but that didn’t stop him from trying to be Mateo’s friend. These two care about each other. Surely you can sense that. From what I saw in Dazi’s heart, something in him recognized Mateo for what he was before the two officially met, and he has been following that guide ever since.”
“Their tribe was founded thanks to one man’s curiosity,” Mateo told his grandfather, passing along the rest of the story.
Mateo’s grandfather watched for a moment. “There you have it. In a sense we are like this water spirit. Yes, we are dangerous at times, as is our nature, but we offer you more good than ill. Had any of you noticed me prowling around down south and invited me to learn about your tribe, I would have gladly done so, and there wouldn’t have been such a fuss about it because you would already understand that I’m no mere man. That is how it was for Dazi and Mateo, but they met in a different realm, one that happens to be occupied by lesser minds.”
Tuku’isa nodded. “Those lesser minds are a threat, though. Any of them could have overheard.”
“Mateo is too clever to allow that. Besides, if your punishments are so severe, I can’t imagine Dazi would take that great of a risk.” Mateo’s grandfather paused for a moment. “Yes, I say they have done what they can to make this work. You should applaud them, not separate them and abandon Dazi to an unknown fate.”
“Dazi offered to marry me,” Mateo said.
“So he did. I daresay your reaction broke his heart.”
Beasts Like Us Page 16