The Wind in His Heart

by Charles de Lint

  But Pela was just a girl and the medicine hadn’t yet come to her. She wasn’t as fearless as her grandmother. When they heard something moving in the scrub nearby, she thought: demons, where her grandmother thought: some animal, perhaps a ma’inawo.

  They were both wrong, though Pela was partly right. When the moon rose, what they saw on the trail ahead of them didn’t look like a demon—it looked like a young boy of the People—but Tía Sweet Smoke immediately knew it had the heart of a monster because she knew what it was.

  A skinwalker.

  In the dream of the world, skinwalkers are spewed forth from the darkest corners. Black witches abduct young girls from the tribe and impregnate them. The infants from these unions are nurtured with black magic and fed on the flesh of their own mothers. In time, they are taught how to take the shapes of other beings by wearing their skins. Doing this, they can even assume the likenesses of the dead.

  One such creature was fearsome enough. It would be hard, but not impossible, for an Aunt to destroy it. But Tía Sweet Smoke could hear more of them in the scrub on either side of the trail—perhaps as many as half a dozen.

  She put her mouth to her granddaughter’s ear. “When I say run,” she told the girl, “run as fast as you can and don’t look back. Run as fast as you can, and then a little faster still. If—when—you make it back to the village, tell my sisters what you have seen. They will know what to do.”

  “But—”

  “No argument. If you wish to live to see the morning, you’ll do as I say.”

  Tía Sweet Smoke straightened up and walked briskly toward the skinwalker, her granddaughter trotting behind to keep up. The semblance of a boy grinned at their approach until Tía Sweet Smoke took a few quick steps.

  “Run!” she cried as she grabbed the boy.

  Pela darted past them and took off as fast she could run.

  The skin the boy wore slipped a little under Tía Sweet Smoke’s grip, pulling tight until the seam broke at the back of his head and she was staring into the face of a nightmare. A skinwalker’s true shape has no skin, only a translucent sheath to hold the muscles and organs in place. Undaunted, Tía Sweet Smoke laid the palm of her hand in the center of the creature’s face and spoke the beginning of a blessing ceremony.

  Her medicine flowed forth, and where she held the skinwalker, his skin began to smoke, then burn. He cried out, writhing in her grip, but she held fast. She had extra strength, not from concern for her own safety, but for that of her granddaughter. She knew that some of the others might have gone chasing after Pela, but as soon as they heard their pack mate’s screams, they would converge on her.

  Tía Sweet Smoke was an old Aunt, and more than a match for one skinwalker. But not two, or three, or the five that attacked her as medicine cleaned the evil from the first of them. He burst into flame before the others could pull her away.

  She fought, but there were too many. All she could do in the end was make certain that she held silent, so that no cries she might make would draw Pela back.

  But Pela was already far away. Fear lent her feet wings. The moon rose and the path was easy to see, easy to follow. She arrived breathless at the village, calling her alarm. The dog boys came first, some in their human shapes, most of them in a dog pack. The Aunts arrived almost as quickly.

  Pela told her story, tugging at the sleeve of this Aunt or another when she was done. “Come,” she said. “We have to go help her.”

  But the Aunts shook their heads. “Our sister Sweet Smoke will survive or not by her own strength and will,” Tía Marita told her. “If any of us were to go to her aid, it would leave the village undefended, for we are only strong when all are here.”

  Pela tried to pull away to run back to help her grandmother, but the Aunts wouldn’t let her go. They waited with her near the mouth of the canyon, which was the entrance to the village in those days.

  The dog boys patrolled the cliff top borders. Juan Carlos Morago, the tribal shaman, joined the Aunts. He leaned on a wooden spear that he carried as though it were a staff. Feathers and shells dangled from leather strips tied to its top, upon which a sharp flinthead stone glowed bluish-green with its own light.

  The moon rose and set. And they waited.

  The stars wheeled in a slow dance across the sky. And still they waited.

  Finally, just before the dawn, a figure came up the trail. Pela gave a cry of joy, recognizing her grandmother before anyone else did. Tía Sweet Smoke was bloodied and bruised. She walked with her head bowed in weariness and a limp so severe she was almost dragging her leg.

  But she was alive.

  Juan Carlos walked out to meet her, banging the end of his spear in the dirt with each step that he took, raising little plumes of dust in his wake.

  “Oh honourable sister,” he said when he stood before her. “We can see that you fought long and hard.”

  Tía Sweet Smoke raised her head and nodded her appreciation for his words.

  Juan Carlos banged his spear on the ground again.

  “Hey ya, hey ya,” he said.

  Then he suddenly thrust the glowing flinthead straight into her chest.

  Pela gave an anguished scream and it was all the Aunts could do to hold her back.

  But it was not her grandmother who fell to the ground. It was some awful creature, wearing her skin. A skinwalker. It writhed and tried to pull itself up the haft of the spear, but Juan Carlos kept the creature pinned down until it began to smoke and finally burst into flame. Moments later, there was only the sharp end of the spear left in the ground with a circle of ash in the dirt around it.

  Pela was never the same again after that night. She turned her back on the Aunts, and trained instead with the warriors, intent on learning dog magic from Marco Little Tree, the chief of the dog boys. But that magic he wouldn’t teach her because, while she could outrun and outfight even boys older than her, she was always angry. She had focus, but no stamina because everything she did was fueled by anger, and that anger burned too bright and hot inside her. She was fierce, but she could never stay the course for any of the exercises they practiced.

  Finally, Marco took her aside. He made her sit with him on the red rocks that jutted out high above the canyon. For a long time, neither of them spoke. They watched the Yellowrock Canyon crows ride the winds above the canyon, chasing each other in a rough and tumble game of catch-me-if you-can.

  “You understand,” Marco said finally, “that it wasn’t your grandmother that Juan Carlos killed.”

  Pela didn’t look at him. “It doesn’t matter. I still hate him. But I hate the skinwalkers more. I’m going to kill every last one of them.”

  “We defend. We don’t take the fight to the enemy.”

  “You don’t know what it feels like, this awful hole I have to carry around in my chest. How everything I see reminds me of her. It hurts so much. All I want to do is break everything around me.”

  “You’re not the first to lose a loved one,” Marco told her, “and sadly, you won’t be the last. At some point in our lives, we’re all forced to take up that burden, and there’s nothing any of us can do to make that feeling go away. They say time heals, but I’ve found that all it does is blur the rawness.”

  “Then what’s the point? Why love anything?”

  “Love doesn’t have a point,” Marco told her. “It just happens.”

  Pela shook her head. “I don’t want it to—not ever again. It hurts too much.”

  “Would you rather never have known your grandmother?”

  Pela didn’t answer. She kept her gaze on the distant mountains.

  “Pela?”

  Finally, she shook her head.

  “The anger and hate you feel does you more harm than anyone else,” Marco told her.

  “But how do I stop feeling this way?”

  “I don’t know. What I do know is that each of us has two spirits constantly warring inside us. Think of them as hummingbirds fighting over flowers—and in this cas
e, we’re the nectar. One is made strong by our anger and greed and ego, the other by our love and kindness and compassion. In the end, we become whichever of the two spirits we allow to be the strongest.”

  Pela thought about that, then asked, “How do we know which one will win?”

  Marco smiled. “That’s the simple beauty of it. The one that wins is always the one that you feed.”

  * * *

  “That’s a terrible story,” Sadie said. “I mean, it was a good story, but jeez, the crap Pela had to go through. And her poor grandmother.”

  Aggie nodded. “Remember what I told you when you stayed with me at my house? How the stories the People tell help us to understand the world we live in, and our neighbours?”

  Sadie nodded.

  “This is a story for the landscape that lies inside us,” Aggie said.

  “Yeah, I got that,” Sadie told her, then she sighed. “You make it sound so easy. Feed the good spirit, starve the bad one.”

  “It’s simple. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. At times in our lives, it becomes the hardest struggle we will ever face.”

  Sadie nodded.

  Aggie took her hand. “I meant what I said. Come back when you are in balance with the physical world, and I will help you as best I can.”

  When she let go, Sadie stood up. She looked from Manny back to the old woman in her hospital bed. The hospital bed that she had put her in.

  “Why would you want to help me,” she asked, “after all I…after everything?”

  Aggie smiled. “Maybe I’m just feeding the good spirit inside me.”

  Sadie nodded. She felt weird and flushed, but for some reason she wasn’t itching to be alone somewhere with her utility knife.

  “Okay, then,” she said. “I hope you start, you know, feeling better and everything.”

  “Thank you. Ohla, Sadie.”

  Sadie nodded again. There wasn’t anything left to say. She sidled past Manny.

  “Sadie,” Manny said as she reached the door.

  She turned to look at him.

  “You might think about tattoos instead of cutting. You still wear them like a scar on your skin, but they can tell different kinds of stories than the ones you’ve been putting on yourself so far. Better ones.”

  “Like you give a shit,” was out of her mouth before she could stop herself.

  “Actually, most people do.”

  “Not the ones I know.”

  “You need to meet some new people,” Aggie said from the bed. “And remember which spirit to feed when you’re with them.”

  “I guess I could give it a try,” she said.

  Then she was out the door and walking down the hall under the watchful gazes of the crow men guarding Aggie’s room and the elevator.

  65

  Thomas

  The Corn Eyes’ house was dark when Reuben let Thomas and Steve off at the end of the driveway. They thanked Reuben, then watched as he backed the ATV around to return the way they’d come.

  It wasn’t until the sound of the engine faded that Steve faced Thomas and extended his hand. “Drop by and say goodbye before you leave the rez,” Steve said as they shook.

  “What makes you think I’m going anywhere?”

  Thomas could barely make out Steve’s smile in the dark.

  “What makes you think you’re not?” Steve said. “Remember what I told you before. We can see that your family’s taken care of while you go do a walkabout.” He clapped Thomas on the shoulder and started up the road to where he could catch the ridge trail back to his trailer.

  Thomas stood a moment longer before he trudged across the packed dirt of the driveway toward the porch. He was halfway there when he heard the rustle of a bird’s wings. Peering closer, he saw one of Auntie’s visitor crows opening and closing its wings as it strutted back and forth along the railing. Thomas smiled. The bird’s antics made him think of a circus ringmaster.

  Then he realized that someone was sitting in Auntie’s chair.

  He had almost reached the steps before he saw it was Auntie, still up, with Santana beside her in another chair. Santana stood up and met him with a big hug when he got to the top of stairs.

  “What’s this for?” Thomas said into her hair.

  Santana pulled back to look him in the face. “I was so worried. Auntie said you were dead.”

  “I did not,” Auntie said. “I told you he was in the land of the dead. It’s not the same thing at all.”

  “God. You didn’t tell Mom that, did you?”

  Santana shook her head. “Auntie had me brew up a tea for her with special herbs that made her fall asleep.”

  “Really?”

  “We kind of had to. She was so mad that Auntie had gotten you to go off with Morago and the others, we had to do something.”

  Thomas could just imagine the state their mother would’ve been in. “I’m surprised it worked,” he said.

  Santana shrugged and returned to her seat.

  “And Naya and Will?” Thomas asked as he pulled over another chair for himself. “They’re okay?”

  She nodded. “They’re sleeping.” Before he could ask, she added, “Without the help of any tea. I was sleeping too until I woke up for no reason and came out to find Auntie talking to her crows.”

  One of which was still on the railing, though there were probably others in the old mesquite and saguaro that overlooked the yard. The one on the railing cocked its head, regarding Santana as though it understood the conversation.

  Thomas sighed. Who was he kidding? It was less likely that it didn’t understand.

  “So spill,” Santana said. “Where’ve you been?”

  Thomas ran a hand through his hair. He looked from his sister to Auntie. “Where haven’t I been?” he said.

  “Yeah, that tells us a lot.”

  So Thomas told them everything that had happened since he’d left to join Morago and the others at the community center. As he spoke, the first crow was joined by others. By the time he was done, a whole row of them lined the railing, following his every word. Considering everything he’d been through, Thomas was surprised at how unsettled he felt by their rapt attention.

  Beside Santana, Auntie stared off into the growing dawn, her mouth set in a straight line, eyes flashing. The crows, picking up on her anger, stirred and clacked their beaks, making a small chorus of rattling sounds.

  “If she ever shows her face in the Painted Lands again,” she finally said, “I will kill that woman.”

  Thomas was sure that the shocked look on his sister’s face mirrored his own. “Auntie!” he said.

  But Auntie was unrepentant. “She crossed the line, doing what she did to you.”

  “Hey, I get that you’re mad. She’s not exactly my favourite person either. But what happened to your telling us that the Kikimi are a peaceful people who don’t go looking for trouble?”

  “Did I say I would seek her out?”

  A couple of days ago, Thomas would have described Auntie as frail. Right now, she looked like she could take on a mountain lion. And win.

  “No,” he said. “You’re just acting a lot…fiercer than I thought you were.”

  “I wasn’t always trapped in an old woman’s body. There was a time I could outrun and outfight any of the dog boys.”

  “You were in the Warrior Society?”

  “No,” Auntie said. “But who says they’re the only ones who can be warriors? When I was young, we all had their skills. They have a calling, but we were still of the People. We were all strong.”

  Thomas thought of his dead Aunt Lucy, beyond in the otherworld. Young, powerful, determined. That was what Auntie had been like when the two were girls growing up in the Painted Lands together. Formidable.

  All things considered, Consuela Mara would be well advised not to show her face anywhere around these parts—not with Auntie gunning for her.

  Daylight began to pink the sky behind the mountains and the crows rose up in a crowd to fly off c
awing, all except for one. It might have been the bird Thomas had seen when he’d first arrived, or perhaps it was another. He had no idea.

  “So are you going to study with Morago now,” Santana asked, “and become a shaman?”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “I doesn’t mean I won’t at some point. It’s just I’ve never seen anything except for the rez and Santo del Vado Viejo. There’s a whole world out there that I don’t know anything about.”

  Santana nodded. “I get that.”

  Of course she did. The two of them had often talked about it, sprawled out on the big flat rocks behind the house, trying to imagine what lay beyond the expanse of desert they could see from that vantage point. Thomas had always thought that Santana would be the one to go, while he stayed to take care of the family. He was the oldest, and she still had a year of school, but he wanted his sister to have every opportunity she could, and if that meant him staying, he was okay with it.

  But if Steve was on the level—if he really could help them out—maybe they could both go.

  “Did you ever go away?” Santana asked Auntie.

  Auntie shook her head. “Lucy was the wanderer, in this world and over in the ma’inawo lands. I’m like your mother. I never needed to travel because everything I’ve ever wanted in this life is right here in the Painted Lands.”

  “Red rock, dust and desert,” Thomas said in a tired voice.

  “That’s right,” Auntie told him. “But also friends, family and community.”

  The crow on the railing ruffled its feathers and made a hoarse chuffing sound.

  Auntie laughed. “I think that would be included in all three, Jorge.”

  “What did he say?” Santana wanted to know.

  “He wanted to know where lovers fit in.”