by Sharon Sala
He’d stationed half his men on the East mesa and taken the other half onto the West mesa with him, giving them a clear view into the pass below.
It was all about finding the witch among her people and taking her down. He didn’t know what she looked like. All he knew was that she was tall. People weren’t tall in this land and especially women. She should be easy to pick out.
They’d been in place for almost two hours, watching the approaching dust trail when they got their first glimpse of the people.
Although he and his men were high above the pass, he was struck by their long arms and legs and the men’s long easy stride. When he saw the leaders looking up as they entered the narrows, he flattened down even more, scooting backward so that his head would not be visible from below, and his men did the same.
Ten minutes later, Yaluk was in shock at the number of people still coming into the pass. And with no end in sight and many tall people, he had yet to pick out a woman who looked significant.
His men on the other mesa were waiting for his signal. He could start the avalanche of rocks he had at the ready and be done with it, but if the witch got away, this would only make things worse for him in the long run. He did not want to be a target for her magic.
And then he heard a man let out a loud whoop of delight and knew they people down below had finally found the water. He smiled.
****
Tyhen was uneasy. The moment they’d started into this pass the hair stood up on the back of her neck.
“Yuma!”
He turned. “I know. It’s like your dream, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“What do you want us to do?” he asked.
She glanced up again and in that moment, knew she needed to be on the mesa, not looking at it from below.
“You keep them moving through. I’m going up,” she said and saw disapproval in his eyes.
“And let you out of my sight? What if they hurt you?”
“Then they will be dead and I will heal.”
Her anger stirred the air around him, lifting the hair from his neck and cooling the sweat on his brow and still he frowned.
“You don’t make this easy. The day is bound to come when you meet something you cannot control.”
“I cannot die.”
“But I can die, and one day you are going to scare me to my grave.”
She frowned. “You do not say that and we have a purpose. I know mine. Do you know yours?”
He threw his arms around her neck and kissed her hard and fast, uncaring who might be watching.
“Yes, I know my purpose,” he said, and the minute he turned her loose, she ran back in the direction they’d come from and disappeared.
He headed toward the front of the line at a lope. They needed to know something was going to happen and he didn’t have much time.
Precious minutes passed as he ran past the straggling line of weary walkers. He came around a bend in the pass just as he heard a yell of jubilation and was guessing someone had found water. At least he was hoping that was it because they were in serious need. However, finding water was going to stop progress through the pass, which would make them sitting ducks for an attack.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The moment Tyhen found a place to be alone she began to chant, feeling the power of the earth coming through her feet, up her body, and out of her hands. When it began to turn the air around her, her heart skipped a beat. The feeling was an anxious anticipation like just before she and Yuma became one. She hastened the chanting which turned the air faster and faster until she was standing in the midst of a wild, spinning vortex that took her up onto the mesa.
****
The men were poised for attack when they heard a roar. They turned, saw the spinning wind behind them, and panicked.
To Yaluk, it was frightening and unlike anything he had ever seen. It swept across the mesa like a ghost wind. Before they could run, it blew them off their feet and began dragging them across the rocky ground through rocks and cactus and leaving skin and blood behind.
They were screaming in pain, begging for the wind to stop, begging the Old Ones for mercy, but to no avail.
****
Tyhen already knew Yuma had done his part to get everyone to safety. When she saw the people running away from the water, she shifted the force of the wind and blew Yaluk and his men off the other side of the mesa, away from Cholla Pass.
Their screams ended abruptly when they hit the ground, but Tyhen’s heart was hard. Better their screams than the screams of her people, she thought, as the funnel took her across the pass onto the East side of the mesa.
Having witnessed their friend’s demise, those warriors were already in flight, but they didn’t get far.
One by one, the spinning wind picked them up and took them high, then let them go, dropping them down onto the mesa below.
The New Ones below heard the screams, got brief flashes of the wind funnel, then a few minutes later it sailed down the length of the pass in an “all clear signal” and disappeared.
Yuma waved his arm. “It’s safe. Back to the water,” he yelled and began leading the New Ones back to the spring.
The pool of water was small and there were many people lined up to refill their water jugs, so it took a long time.
When Tyhen suddenly appeared in their midst, no one commented on her absence or what they’d seen. She was the Windwalker’s daughter fulfilling her promise, and they showed their appreciation by quietly handing her a drink or a piece of food or offering her their seat in the shade.
Yuma had been watching for her and when he saw the look on her face, he knew she would remain silent for many hours now. It was how the violence affected her. He ached for a way to make it better, but as long as there were people willing to kill their own, she would not stop, and he could not spare her heart.
Tyhen had shut down. Not thinking about what happened was her way of getting past it. When they were ready to leave, Yuma searched her out at the spring and found her sitting quietly in a place of shade with her hands lying loosely in her lap, her gaze focused on a wet spot on the earth where someone had spilled water a short time earlier.
A large lizard was resting in the sun about ten feet above her head but no one noticed, or if they had, had simply let it be. Enough death had happened this day and no one had the stomach for killing a lizard that would not feed them all.
The sun was hot on the top of his head, but in that moment his body felt light, so vividly alive that if they had been alone, he would have taken her in his arms and loved her back to health. She was his heart—his mate—the other half of his soul, and when she hurt, he felt her pain.
He knew she sensed his approach because she suddenly raised her head and the look in her eyes made him hurt.
Save me. Love me.
He read the plea and took her hand.
She stood as he pulled her into his arms and then held her so close against him that they were bonded by the heat.
“You saved many lives. It is done. Hold onto my love, little dove. Let it go. Let it go.”
He felt her shudder and then slowly slid her arms around his waist. The longer they stood together, the tighter her hold became until she was shaking.
It was his reminder that this woman/child was not yet seventeen. In his world, before Firewalker, she would have been a long-legged girl on the brink of becoming a woman in lust with some equally lustful boy who would most likely break her heart.
Here, she was a warrior with the power of a god, battling daily for the people to whom she belonged. She had lost her innocence even before she was born, but she would never lose her man. He would cut his own throat and die bleeding to save her and she knew it.
He was her strength.
He heard her whisper his name.
“Yuma.”
“I am here.”
“Do we leave now?”
“Yes.”
“Good. There are too many g
hosts here. I am ready.”
He frowned, and then pushed her back until her could see her face. “Remember what I told you? Why men like those raided and killed?”
She saw her own reflection from the sunlight in his eyes and shivered. “For women.”
He nodded. “So if you had done nothing, which women among us would you have chosen to give away knowing the deaths they would suffer would be long and brutal?”
She blinked. “None.”
He nodded and held out his hand. “Good answer. I have your pack. We go now.”
She threaded her fingers through his, taking strength from the firm grasp as they left the ghosts of Chollo Pass behind.
They walked north as she had ordained, and when the sun went down, they set up another camp. They were less than two miles from Rio Yaqui, unaware of how close they were to their destination.
Yuma put up their tent and laid down their sleeping mats, gave her a drink of water, then held the flap back for her to crawl in. She had refused food and he did not insist.
Later, Johnston came over to check on her and found Yuma sitting quietly at their fire watching a small grouse cook that he’d shot with his bow and arrow. They visited a few moments and then Johnston left, but not before leaving a piece of Shirley’s bread for them to eat.
Luz Reyes brought a small pot of the mashed Yucca leaf and told him how to use it for soap to wash their hair.
Montford came a little later with some cactus blossoms and told him how to prepare and eat them.
And so it went until the people began bedding down for the night. They wanted to thank her for saving their lives but since she slept, they thanked Yuma instead.
When the last fire was banked and the coyotes began their nightly chorus of singing to the night sky, he took off his loincloth and took Warrior’s Heart into the tent with him, laying it within easy reach.
Tyhen was curled up on her side, but he could see tears. She was crying in her sleep.
He scooted up behind her, put his arm across her waist and pulled her close.
She murmured something aloud, and he slid his arm beneath her neck, and then pillowing her head upon his shoulder, he quietly rocked her back to sleep.
****
Tyhen was dream-walking.
In the dream she was looking out across a land so vast it was like looking at the reflection of the sky, a place with no beginning and no end. No matter where she turned, the land was the same, seemingly flat with no trees or mountains, only knee-high grass waving in the wind.
And as she looked off into the distance, she saw many huge blackish-brown animals with mountainous humps on their shoulders and curved horns on their wooly heads.
Then something made them move, and when they did, they came toward her. They ran as one, sweeping ever so slightly in one direction, then rolling gently back in another, spilling down the slope toward where she stood until she could feel the vibration of their approach beneath her feet. She thought she should run, but there was nowhere to go, and so she stood in their path as they came toward her.
Their eyes rolled wildly like they could see her even though she was a wraith. The grunting and huffing of their collective breathing only added sound to their terrifying approach. The air around her was cold, but she could see heat waves rising from their backs, and when they were finally close enough to touch, she held out her arms and closed her eyes as they ran through her. And then she wept, knowing them as one living being knows another while the thunder of their hooves and heartbeats pulsed within her.
They ran and they ran until, finally, they were gone and she felt heavy and empty, like her ability to move had gone with them. Sad that they had passed, she looked to the direction from whence they’d come and this time she saw people. Like the animals, they came toward her, too, and she wondered if the animals had led them.
She heard an eagle cry and looked up. It was circling over her head without flying away. Yuma, she called, but it did not hear her.
And then more people were coming from another direction, spilling over the rise and moving toward her as if she was the only light in a dark land.
She began hearing voices and the thunder of many footsteps, and everywhere she looked, saw people coming toward her until she was surrounded on all sides and as far as the eye could see, and they did not sweep through her.
You can see me?
They knelt.
And her heart grew big and strong as she felt the love.
****
Yuma shook her awake.
As her eyes flew open, she grabbed for his hand.
“What is wrong?” she asked.
He cupped her cheek and brushed a kiss across her lips. “You were calling my name.”
It was just turning light as she looked up at the man leaning over her. His dark hair became a curtain around their faces, and for a moment she allowed herself to think what it would be like to be only his woman, and not belong to so many others.
“I was dreaming,” she said, tracing the bottom of his lower lip with the tip of her finger. “I saw great beasts in many numbers and they ran through my spirit as I stood among them and I could feel their heartbeats. After they were gone, many people came, and I think these beasts led the people to me.”
As always, he was fascinated by her abilities, not the least of which was her sight of things yet to come.
“The people have many names for those beasts. White man called them buffalo. They were the soul of the people of the plains. They fed us. Their hides clothes and sheltered us. Their bones became our weapons. They gave all they were to us and we thanked them.”
She tugged on his hair, pulling him closer until he kissed her again. The wind shifted slightly inside their tiny tent.
“We cannot do this here,” he said.
She groaned. “I know. It was just a thought.”
“Do not lose it,” he whispered. “One day we will have time to ourselves and great peace. Then we can stir the air into a whirlwind if we want.”
“We will want,” she said softly.
He smiled, ducked down until their foreheads were touching, and the rolled over onto his back.
“I hope there are no surprises for us today.”
She closed her eyes, and as she did, saw a small village along a wide river. “I see people and I see water. It’s very close.”
He raised up on one elbow. “This is true?”
She nodded.
“The Nantays should know so we can get moving faster.”
She stretched then rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “I will join you. Today is a good day.”
“You were given many gifts last night while you slept,” he said. “One you will enjoy came from Luz Reyes. She made some soap from the Yucca leaves for you to wash your hair.”
Tyhen’s eyes widened in delight. “Soap to clean my hair is a fine gift! Where did you put it?”
“All the gifts are outside beside your pack.”
She scooted out of the tent with Yuma right behind her.
“I need to go,” she said.
He looked around and then shrugged. “Pick a bush and close your eyes.”
She laughed and strode off through camp to do just that.
****
It took almost an hour to get the people moving and another hour to walk two miles, but when they came over a ridge and saw the village and the river below, there was much rejoicing and a hastening of steps.
Tyhen was thinking about fresh water, getting wet all over and actually washing her hair, when she saw someone down in the village look up. She could tell he must be shouting because other people began appearing, coming out of the strange little houses buried partway into the ground. She saw them looking up at the ridge, and then there was much running about. She couldn’t tell if they were excited or afraid but she knew there would be no trouble.
****
Little Mouse was at the river with Chiiwi. He’d been showing her where certain water plants grew that
had roots for easing belly pain.
She was down on her knees in the mud, happily digging with both hands when she heard shouting.
Chiiwi climbed up the shore to look over the edge.
“Many people come.”
Little Mouse rocked back on her heels, then quickly washed off the mud and ran all the way up the bank without stopping. Her heart was thumping so hard she did not hear Chiiwi calling her back. She had to see. Nobody here believed that she had known a great chief or been healer to his family, and when she mentioned one day that she knew the woman they called the Dove and had often tended to her, they had laughed. She did not mind that they laughed, but if this was Tyhen, they would laugh no more. She started walking back toward the village. She would wait and watch, but she had to know if it was her.
****
“I hope their shaman has seen the vision,” Tyhen said.
Yuma nodded in understanding. No one wanted a repeat of yesterday, but then added for her understanding. “I think that in these tribes, the shaman is called a medicine man,” he said.
“This is so?”
He nodded.
“Does that mean he is their healer?”
“It means the same as a shaman. Your people believe the shaman calls on the gods for his power, and we say our man is making strong medicine when he calls on the Old Ones. So he is called a medicine man for this reason.”
“Do you have healers, too?”
“Yes, and often it is the medicine man, but sometimes it is not.”
She thought about that, and then suddenly pointed up ahead. “We must be mindful of their crops and homes. We are many and they are few.”
“I’ll tell the Nantays,” Yuma said and ran ahead to pass the word.
Tyhen was a little anxious. She wanted this meeting of a new tribe to be a good one and wondered if they would be able to understand each other’s words.
By the time they reached the verge of the small village, every citizen was waiting to greet them.