Rachel’s teeth finally stopped chattering and her body ceased its shivering. She rolled up in the blanket and lay next to the fire, lulled by the conversation that picked up again, although she was now the subject of it.
Loud, angry voices woke her the next morning. Terrible Snows had run her to ground, and Buffalo Robe was giving her opinion of the case. But the People almost never interfered with another family’s affairs. The old woman watched helplessly as Rachel stood and collected her crying baby again. She followed Terrible Snows out into the glittering day, the ice-frosted lodges shining like fat icicles in the pale light of the winter sun.
She looked down at her child. The ache in her chest made her short of breath as she studied his thin, pinched face, his spindly arms and legs, and his tiny, bulging stomach, swollen with malnutrition. His cries were getting weaker, and he stopped from time to time to pant with the effort. She clutched him to her, planning to sneak back to Buffalo Robe’s lodge and leave him there, hoping she would defend him against Terrible Snows. For now, Rachel would lay him on the dirty, lice-ridden robe where she slept at the foot of her master’s bed. Then she would take her beating and warm herself with her drudgery.
Terrible Snows had other plans. If she had tried to learn more of the People’s language in the eight months she had been with them, she might have picked up what he was muttering as he stalked ahead of her. But there would have been little she could have done anyway. As they approached the lodge, Rachel’s heart jumped and her throat tightened. Bundled in a robe and squatting by the door, like a rattlesnake coiled to strike, was Cruelest One. When he saw them coming, he rose and stretched like a cat, throwing the robe loosely around his thin shoulders. Rachel moved to one side and tried to scuttle past him through the lodge door, but he grabbed her arm, and his bony fingers dug in like talons.
She tried to pull away from him, too hysterica] with fear to notice Terrible Snows coming at her from the left. He snatched the baby, wrenching him from her while Cruelest One held her. Terrible Snows waddled away, casually swinging the screaming child by one foot, like a saddle bag. As usual, his lodge was on the outskirts of camp, and he headed out onto the plain. Only a few people stopped to watch him. A Little Less and Mountain cheered him on.
Cruelest One gave Rachel a shove that sent her sliding across the slippery ground. She fell, ice scouring patches of skin from her knees and elbows. Kneeling there, her bloody knees and palms freezing to the ground, she threw back her head and wailed as Terrible Snows raised the baby over his head and threw him down. The tiny body bounced and slid. Cruelest One picked him up and tossed him ahead of him, then kicked him, as though playing a game of kickball.
Rachel covered her head with her robe and doubled over. She rocked back and forth, shutting out with her own screams the sounds of laughter and the dull thud of the infant hitting the earth again and again. The child that had clung to life so ferociously in the face of overwhelming odds, refused to die easily. When Terrible Snows finally turned to give the broken body back to its mother, he felt a faint flutter in its breast. He held it out for his friend’s inspection.
Cruelest One pulled a coil of rope from his belt and tied it under the child’s arms. As though casting bait he tossed him into the middle of a dense clump of prickly pear, a huge thicket seven feet high and twice that around. They dragged the body back toward them and threw it again. When they tired of that, Cruelest One tied the end of the rope to his saddle and rode gleefully through camp, whooping, with the bloody mass bumping along on the frozen ground behind him. When they finished, there was little left that.. Rachel could recognize as her child.
The men dropped it in front of her and, tired of the fun, went off to brag about it with their friends. As she held it in her lap, she began to laugh. Her face lit up with joy, and she smiled at those around her, trying to share her happiness with them.
“He’s dead now, see?” She held him up, babbling in English, tears streaming down her face. “He’s really dead now. He won’t cry anymore or be cold. He’s with Jesus. I’m so happy.” Then she fainted and pitched forward to lie face down on the ice.
She awoke when Buffalo Robe gently shook her. The mangled body was gone, and she never asked about it. She followed Buffalo Robe to her lodge and sank into delirium and a restless sleep, crawling with nightmares. The struggle now was not to be alive when traders or soldiers found her, but to be sane.
CHAPTER 22
The combined winter encampment of Old Owl, Pahayuca, Tosa Wanauhu, White Robe, and old Mookwarruh, Spirit Talker, was huge. Four hundred lodges were strung out for eight miles along the river’s edge. And each band was bigger than in the summertime, because the individual families that had gone off on their own hunting trips had rejoined their civil leaders.
The riffles and low water falls of the river had frozen into ice sculptures—candalabras, lace doilies, fragile crystal flowers, and geometric forms. The lodges themselves sat in glowing pools of pale golden light, reflections of the flames inside onto the snow around them. The spidery, bare black trunks and limbs of the tall pecan trees seemed to weave and sway in the flickering light before soaring up into the black void of the sky.
Name Giver’s lodge was crowded with people. They sat in terraces, on the bedsteads, on the piles of thick furs on the floor, and finally, the smallest children clustered in the center of the ring, near the fire. They filled the big, pale yellow cone with warmth. Shadows from the flames leaped high on the darker walls of the lodge, like playful kittens chasing moths. A radiance from the fire flickered across the red-gold faces, painting them with brightness and shade. Young and old, mothers and fathers, grandparents and children were entranced by Name Giver’s story.
Outside, the fairy landscape was lit by a brilliant lantern moon swinging high overhead. The old shieldmaker who lived there must have been smiling down on the scene below him. The path of the moon’s light twined through filigrees of frost patterns on the stiff clumps of grass that poked up through the white snow quilt blanketing the rolling hills. Far off, coyotes sang of their hunger, an insane goblin choir that made goose bumps rise on Naduah’s shoulders and arms.
A dry snow sifted down, its needlelike crystals forming clusters like the petals of tiny flowers. Naduah hoped it would stay for a while. She and Star Name and Cub and their friends could spend the next day sliding down the hills on old, slick hides.
It was February, the Month The Babies Cry For Food. But no one in the vast camp was crying. It had been a good fall, and there were still stiff rawhide boxes of tangy pemmican piled around the sides of everyone’s lodges. There was even honey mixed with melted tallow to drip on it. And there were dishes of boiled dried plums and piles of steaming squashes.
Naduah licked the last of the sweetness off her fingers and snuggled between Star Name and Owl. The two girls had come early to visit Owl, so they had grabbed the best rug to sit on. It was the reddish-brown winter pelt of a wolf, with a double layer of fur, the outer guard hairs five inches long. Warming her lap was Smoke, curled into a ball, but with her big eyes following everything. Dog crowded close too, casually pushing against the nearest warm body that would tolerate her.
Across the fire sat Bear Cub, with his new friend. Upstream, ‘ Star Name’s younger brother. The deviltry had doubled since they teamed up, but at least they kept things interesting. Old Owl went around shaking his head and grumbling that Cannibal Owl would eat them if they weren’t careful. And Sunrise was giving them stillness lessons, the hardest part of their schooling.
“It’s boring,” Cub told Naduah. “But we have to do it.”
“What do you do?” she asked him.
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except breathe. And I think Sunrise would rather we didn’t do that if we could manage it. We stretch out on our stomachs behind a log or something and burrow in. We have to stay there until the field mice dance around us and the rabbits run over us. Did you know that mice dance?”
“Of course. I used to spen
d hours that way whenever I could get away from the fort. I’m probably better at it than you are.”
“I don’t care. I don’t like it. I’d rather be learning to shoot with Arrow Point.”
“He may be your father, but he doesn’t spend much time with you, Cub.”
Cub became defensive. “He’s Old Owl’s nephew, his adopted son, and he’s very important. He doesn’t have much time.”
Naduah sniffed. “Still, he doesn’t seem like much of a father to me.” Then she turned away before Cub could retort.
They had spent a lot of time with each other, considering they were boy and girl. Cub seemed older than his seven years and closer to her than he had ever been before they were captured. It was as though what they had suffered together had formed a bond between them. In spite of their friends and their adopted families, only the two of them knew what it was like to be both white and red.
Naduah looked fondly at him as he sat across the lodge from her. He and Upstream had just returned from one of Sunrise’s stillness lessons, and they were both huddled under buffalo robes, thawing out. Their teeth were still chattering, and spots of rose painted their cheeks and noses. She would be sorry to see Cub leave with Old Owl’s band in the spring.
The People said that winter was the time when love ruled the camp. When everyone relaxed, free from the need to hunt or raid or work very much outside. They were secure in the knowledge that their enemies wouldn’t be raiding either. They were free to sneak into the lodge of a beloved and lie entwined under silky robes, listening to the wind complain of the cold outside. Winter was the time to learn new dances and give feasts. To play games until the sun rose, to sing of old battles and new loves. It was a time to visit, when many bands camped together, caught under the net of twisting branches of the tall pecans spread overhead. The People saw friends and relatives who had been distant all year, and there was a great deal of gossip to catch up on.
It was the time when storytellers reigned. Each night, scattered among the four or five hundred lodges that glowed like candles in the dark, older men and women of the tribe held their audiences spellbound. Naduah had been sampling many of them, and she had decided that, of them all. Name Giver was the best.
He knew how to repeat the familiar lines worn soft and pliable with use, like old moccasins that fit better than new ones. He knew when to lower his voice so everyone had to lean forward to hear, drawing them even deeper into the web of his story. He knew how to add a new little twist to keep his listeners alert, and he could mix mystery in his tone, to give it a subtle flavor, like using dried grapes in the pemmican instead of plums or persimmons. He could make the most familiar tale seem as fresh and exciting as the first time it had been told, leaving Naduah quivering with anticipation of the lines to come.
Tonight Old Man Coyote, the Trickster, was among them. Naduah could see him clearly as Name Giver painted him. He was tall and lanky and gangling, with his thin, coarse, black braids hanging like frayed horsehair ropes on his bony shoulders. He spoke to the wind in its own voice, sometimes high, sometimes low. He spoke to all the beasts and trees, to every living thing, in its own language. Everyone liked him, but everyone was very careful around him, because he was the Trickster.
“You know, my children,” Name Giver was saying, “that you must never ask for or tell stories of the Trickster in the daytime. And he prefers that you tell about him in the winter. Because he knows that’s when his people need cheering the most.
“That’s when Piam-em-pits, old Cannibal Owl, spreads his monstrous wings and blocks the moon with his shadow, gliding silently in search of souls, like helpless little mice that he wants to devour.” Name Giver rose, spreading his arms and bending over the small children in the front rows. His face contorted into a horrible mask, and he gave the shrill cry of an owl diving for its prey. With squeals and shrieks, the children scattered, hiding behind whatever they could find. Everyone else laughed. But the look on Name Giver’s face, distorted even more by the fire’s light, gave Naduah chills.
“Nighttime is when we can gather here in the light and the warmth and leave the darkness for the spirits of the dead. Listen, can you hear them?” The crowd hushed. Outside, the wind moaned around the lodge. “Those are the spirits, riding on the cold wind, searching for paradise. And Trickster can understand what they’re saying. He can understand what everything says. Even you.” He pointed a finger at one of the braver children, who had crawled back close to the fire. Who knew how he could tell the child was there. Perhaps by the rustling. Perhaps just by the feel of the air. “Even you, when you whisper with your friends. Trickster may be listening.
“Long ago, it is said. Old Man Coyote was coming along. He strode over the plains on his long legs, and stepped over mountains. He watched all the creatures, and sometimes he stopped to talk to them, and sometimes he tricked them.
“Finally he became hungry from his travels, and he saw just what he needed. There was an entire village of beautifully colored prairie dogs, all plump and juicy. The sight of them made Old Man Coyote’s mouth water, and he began thinking of a way to trick those prairie dogs so he could make a meal of them. They called out a greeting to the Trickster as they sat at the mouths of their burrows. ‘Tdek-o! Tdek-o! Tdek-o!’.” Name Giver, with his milky porcelain eyes, turned into a prairie dog, his hands clutched to his chest and his nose wrinkling and sniffing. “Tdek-o! Tdek-o! Tdek-o!” From somewhere among the audience a child’s voice piped up in perfect imitation of Name Giver’s. Everyone laughed and applauded. There was another storyteller on the way up.
Name Giver began the hypnotic chant of Old Man Coyote’s song, luring the prairie dogs to dance with their eyes closed so he could club them and toss them into his pot.
“In those days,” Name Giver said, “the prairie dogs were very beautiful. They were all colors—red and green and yellow and blue. But Trickster didn’t care. He killed and ate them all. All except two, who peeked and saw what he was up to. Those two happened to be brown. So now all prairie dogs are brown. They still sit on their mounds and call ‘Tdek-o! Tdek-o! Tdek-o!’ back and forth and they wag their little tails as fast as they used to. But they never listen to strangers anymore. Suvate, it is finished.”
The hide flap was pulled back just as Name Giver was ending his story and everyone was sitting still, savoring it. Lance poked his long, solemn face inside.
“Medicine Woman, Something Good’s time has come. Pahayuca asks that you help her.”
Medicine Woman stood looking down at the girl’s face, wet with perspiration. Her thick black hair, still cut just below her ears, was damp. Blocks The Sun and Silver Rain had prepared well, but the birth would be a difficult one. She was young, and her hips were narrow, like a boy’s. As the spasms of pain passed through Something Good she bit her lip and flinched, but never cried out. Naduah squatted down beside her and held her hand while Medicine Woman inspected the birth lodge. She often brought Naduah with her. She had found that the child had a natural ability to soothe and heal.
If the baby arrived with no trouble, the lodge would do very well. The shallow hole in the center of the floor was lined with several layers of thick, soft furs. A stake was driven close to one edge. In another hole water was being heated in a hide by dropping hot stones into it. The steam mingled with the aroma of burning sage. Yes, it would do very well. If there was no trouble. But there would most likely be trouble. She went to the door of the lodge and murmured to Lance, who sat outside, waiting for possible messages to deliver. He rose and raced off, his moccasin soles flashing lighter than the darkness around him. There was nothing to do now but wait for Gets To Be An Old Man.
He arrived in a very short time, and Naduah gritted her teeth through his medicine song. All those rehearsals, when he lay flat on his back for hours, shaking his rattle at the indifferent sky and chanting through his sinuses, hadn’t improved it at all. The same gangly youth played the drum, and the medicine man fanned Something Good with the same mothea
ten eagle feather. This time, though, he pulled an otter skin through the gaps between his teeth and passed it over her body as she lay writhing in pain.
He pretended to vomit, bringing up his power, and breathed it into Something Good’s mouth. Then he spit into Medicine Woman’s hands, to share the power with her. He walked around the fire, skipping a little, like a jolly skeleton. He struck a dignified pose, with his breechclout hung so low in back it revealed wrinkled cleavage, and droned one last verse of his song. If one long syllable could be called a verse. He leaped over the doorsill like an aged grasshopper, thus encouraging the baby to enter the world as easily, and disappeared into the night.
Medicine Woman spread the saliva around in her hands, then rubbed her palms over Something Good’s abdomen. As she did it she crooned her own medicine song. The other women helped Something Good to her feet, and she stood with a bare foot on each side of the hole. She grasped the stake with both hands and strained, biting her lips and pushing in an effort to squeeze the baby out. Naduah dared to speak.
“Sister, relax a little. Let the baby come when it will. When the pain comes flow with it, work with it. Don’t fight it.” She remembered the advice her real grandmother, Granny Parker, had always given. And Granny had seen many babies born.
“It hurts, little one.”
“I know. But be calm and talk to your baby. Tell it it’s welcome here. Tell it how beautiful it will be and how much you’ll love it.”
“That’s true, little one. I’ll love it very much.”
Robson, Lucia St. Clair Page 26