Someday… Time moved slower than a forest slug. Tenka wished she could get behind it and push. She had wonderful dreams of walking out of a forest one morning to find that summers and winters had passed like a storm, and she had grown older, taller, and fiercer. But every morning brought the realization that she was still a small, timid girl that even the wind could blow around.
One morning in early spring, Tenka and Ashan were alone in the Moonkeeper’s hut, smudging sage, shaking deer-hoof rattles, and praying for a sick man named Snomish. In less than one moon, he had changed from a strong hunter into a creature too weak to stand alone.
His daughter, Mani, came to tell them that Snomish had gotten worse in the night. The Moonkeeper, Ashan, tied on her medicine pouch. The Other Moonkeeper, Tenka, checked hers, and added things they might need. They hurried across the fog-shrouded village.
Snomish’s mate, four sons, and Mani waited inside the sour-smelling hut. They clustered around Ashan, twisting their hands, shaking their heads, whispering.
The sick man lay on a raised earth shelf across from the door. Drowning from within, his chest rattled with liquid that took up space where air should go, making breathing hard. He coughed, snorted, and spat. He choked, gasping, and the hut seemed to hold its breath. When choking quieted to gurgling, the whole placed sighed in relief.
His head protruded from furs. Framed in black hair, his skin was so pale that Tenka wondered if it would bleed. His half-open eyes stared at nothing.
His mate, Kish, whispered, “Snomish believes he’s going to die. This morning he told me who should have his favorite things.”
“Everyone dies,” the Moonkeeper said.
“I know, but Snomish is not an old man. This is no way for a warrior to die.”
“Is there nothing more you can do for my father?” Mani asked with tears in her eyes.
There should be, Tenka thought. But there isn’t.
Amotkan had given people medicine for this sickness: the inner bark of pine, made into steam with water and hot rocks. Inhaling the steam made breathing easier, and sometimes the person got better. But pine—so common in Shahala land—had not been found here.
The Moonkeeper cleared her throat. “I haven’t tried passinowik. Did you bring it, Tenka?”
From her medicine pouch, Tenka took powdered orange-brown leaves—meant to be mixed with fat into salve for itching—a pinch for Ashan, one for herself. Tenka was proud. She always liked to have medicine for whatever might happen. But she wondered how Ashan would use passinowik. If Snomish itched, that was the least of his problems.
Ashan said, “Get our rattles, Mani, the ones we were shaking when you came.” Mani nodded and left.
“Wake up this fire,” Ashan said to the oldest son.
With a wedge of sharpened oak and a pounding stone, he split thin strips of soft riverwood, laid them across the resting coals, and blew on them. A flame awoke, then another. He stood more splits with their tops together, and the dancing flames reached higher.
Tenka noticed that the family had calmed down the moment Ashan began speaking with a shaman’s authority.
Ashan and Tenka chanted, and danced around the eager fire. Mani brought their rattles. They stood over Snomish, and shook the rattles like snakes about to strike. They shouted at the spirits making him sick. Ashan opened her hand, blew, and passinowik puffed over him.
The powder in Tenka’s sweaty hand had turned to mush. She flicked it on the sick man with her finger.
“Thank you, Moonkeepers,” Kish said, holding out wooden beads.
Pretty, Tenka thought.
Ashan said, “Keep them, Kish. I can’t promise this will work.”
Tenka pulled her hand back. The Moonkeepers walked out into the crisp, clean fog.
“What was that all about?” Tenka asked. “I thought passinowik was for itching.”
“It is. But those people needed medicine for their feelings. Just seeing us do something made them feel better.”
“I noticed that, too. When you demanded the use of your rattles, everyone changed.”
“Add that to your knowledge of healing. I have seen made-up things like that help someone get better. Hope and belief are powerful medicines.”
Tenka nodded.
“But Snomish needs more,” Ashan said in a worried voice. “He must have pine steam to breathe.”
“We’ve spent days looking.”
“We have to try one more time. I don’t know if it will save him, but without it, he will die.”
The Moonkeepers dressed in warmer clothes.
“Walk fast to cover the most ground,” Ashan said. “Check rocky places and canyons. Look all day, and come back a different way. Be home by dark. I don’t want to worry about you, too.”
They set off into the fog, Ashan going downriver, Tenka upriver.
It was another gloomy day in early spring when Tenka could throw a rock farther than she could see. This was not ordinary gray fog. Tlikit people called it ty ash, silver mist, because it turned into frost that stuck to every leaf, rock, and piece of grass. The air stayed too cold for the frost to melt. Every day it got a little thicker. At first she thought it was pretty, but… it had been like this for more than the days on two hands, and people, especially Shahala people, wanted some sunshine, or at least a nice, warm rain.
Hoping to leave the freezing mist, Tenka climbed up to the prairie, but it was just as foggy, and even colder because of wind.
The seeds of the morning bear the fruit of the day. The Shahala saying proved true: Beginning the day in the presence of a dying man, Tenka thought about death, even as she searched for a lifesaving plant. Her mother, Luka. Her brother, Beo. Too soon dead. A long time dead. Her chest still ached when she thought of them. Death might be good for the dead person, but it hurt the ones who were left—more if the dead one hadn’t lived long enough.
Like Snomish. Tenka thought about him. He was different things to different people, as everyone was… mate, father, grandfather, friend, maybe even someone’s secret enemy. But too young to die.
Ashan had made a mistake that many might die from—though Tenka would never say those words out loud, especially since her own mistake with the blue spear. Certain that there must be pine everywhere, Ashan hadn’t brought much to the new land. A medicine for many things, the supply of pine was quickly used up. And now a man faced death with no help from plant spirits.
Tenka came to a fold in the land and headed down it, stopping here and there to sing to the Pine Spirit, and listen for an answer, which never came. When she heard the Great River, she thought of warmth and food. Lingering thoughts of Snomish almost made her go back and search some more. But how could she find anything in this fog? She was lucky to have found her way home.
If Ashan’s luck had been no better, Snomish would be dead soon. Too bad, but there was only so much that Moonkeepers could do. Not every life could be saved. Tenka was coming to understand and accept this.
As she came into the village, she heard Mani and the Tlikit woman, Akli, shouting at each other. Surprised, she hurried toward them. It’s not like Mani to yell, she thought.
The women stood too close together, leaned inward, looked like they were going to tear into each other.
People gathered to watch—not too close—they didn’t want to get hurt if the argument exploded into a slapping, hair-pulling tumble on the ground.
Some of them would love to see that, Tenka noticed with disgust.
Where was Ashan? Still hunting pine? Sitting up on that rock of hers? It didn’t matter… she wasn’t here. Tenka would have to do something.
Akli yelled: “I not be going to your women’s hut anymore!”
“Good! You make it stink!”
“Stop it!” Tenka shouted. But they didn’t listen.
“I rub your face in dirt!”
“Then it will look like yours!”
Tenka strode to the women, both a head taller than she, and stepped between them—just en
ough space so the hot bodies didn’t touch her. She shoved on their chests, and they moved a bit.
“What’s wrong?” she said. “I thought you were friends.”
Akli looked down on Tenka. She spoke in the Shahala that Mani had been teaching her, which was good since Tenka had a hard time understanding Tlikit.
“We not friend! I hate how Mani treat me!” Akli looked over Tenka’s head to the watching people, and said, “What wrong if we eat on mat? I threw away Mani wood plate. Anyone find, can have.”
Mani shouted. “You are lucky, and you don’t even know it! I take my time to be your friend, teach you things, try and make your life better… and… and… you turn into a screech bat and fly in my hair!”
They were closing again. Tenka felt their heavy auras squishing her, felt their heat. But she would not move. They’d have to fight with her in the middle.
Akli screeched. “You not understand pride! You right. Your way better, you, you, you Why? Who say you can treat me like little one?”
“I never treated you—”
“You too stupid to understand. We not friend. I not visit you again. You not visit me.”
The Tlikit woman turned and stamped away.
The Shahala woman yelled after her. “I hate that stinking cave anyway!”
Mani stalked to her hut and jerked the doorskin closed after her. The people seemed to melt into the fog.
Tenka sagged, letting out a huge breath.
For a Moonkeeper, it was just as important to keep peace within the people as to keep the moon healthy. Tenka asked herself how she had done. Bad would have been a physical fight that might have spread to others. Good would have been to get the women talking to each other again. The confrontation had ended somewhere between.
Could Ashan have done better? Maybe, but Tenka decided that she had done well enough. She was proud of herself. It had taken courage to put her body between theirs.
Ashan returned to the village after the fight was all over. She had found a low, creeping shrub with a piney smell. She told Snomish it was called ground pine, and his eyes glimmered with hope.
Better than nothing, Tenka thought, if only for the effect on his mind.
But she was wrong. Nothing would have been better. The steam of the ground pine blistered the inside of the sick man’s nose, mouth, and throat. He died.
CHAPTER 17
ASHAN BROODED OVER THE DEATH OF SNOMISH.
“Men die,” Tor said, wishing he could help her get past this feeling of failure. “There’s only so much a Moonkeeper can do.”
“I should have saved that one, Tor.”
“It’s not your fault Amotkan didn’t tell the Pine Spirit about this place.”
“I should have brought more pine from the homeland.” She shook her head; her voice was dull. “How many are going to die because of my mistake?”
If Ashan would just cry like other women, Tor would act like other men, hold her in his arms, comfort her, and she would get over whatever bothered her. Fathers taught their sons that women needed comforting. But Tor’s mate, chief of a great tribe, believed she must always appear strong, even with him.
To see her like this gave him a helpless feeling that made him want even more to do something.
“My love,” he said, “I’m going to find you some pine. Then you’ll never have to feel like this again. Those hazy blue mountains where the sun goes down remind me of the sacred mountains of our homeland. Pine must grow there.”
Hope shimmered in her eyes.
“How lucky I am to have you, Tor. What a good mate you are,” she said, and all those other things he loved to hear.
Tor headed out in the direction Where Day Ends. The prairie rose and fell in gentle slopes. Bright green grass pushed through last summer’s bent, gray stalks. Tribes of birds heading for Colder filled the wide blue sky with loud, sharp barks.
Half a day away from the village, Tor saw two antelope herds, and decided to have a hunt as soon as he returned. After a long winter, the people were hungry for fresh meat.
The sight of a third herd made him ask questions. Spring had barely arrived—why did antelope come to this part of the land so much earlier? Did they live here all the time? If men could hunt all winter, people wouldn’t have to live on dried fish. Tor thought fish tasted fine, but Ashan didn’t. “Don’t tell anyone, but I hate fish mush,” she’d said more than once.
The prairie was mostly barren, but he did find trees: scattered groves of leafless oaks, and others with leaves just starting to show, whose names he didn’t know. Trees with thick, prickly leaves. Trees with bare branches that draped down. Different kinds of bushes and shrubs.
In Shahala land, there were many different kinds of pine. Here he couldn’t find one. He wondered if he might have to go back to the homeland, so Ashan wouldn’t think she was killing people because she made a mistake.
Are you crazy? said a voice in his mind. Do you know how far it is?
Returning to the home of the ancestors was a staggering thought. How long would it take? Could he find the way? Would he go alone or take someone? How much pine bark could a man carry? Would they have to do it forever, every autumn, like they used to get huckleberries? Was pine really worth that much trouble?
Do you see why the ancestors called this the tabu land? asked the voice in his head.
Tor said, “I’ve known for a long time.”
As his shadow lengthened behind him, he realized that the blue mountains were much farther than they had seemed. He stopped at dark by a tiny spring-fed pool. Willows garbed in new leaves made the place smell fresh and alive. He drank woody-tasting water, ate leathermeat, rolled up in a carrying skin, and stretched out under the stars with his head on a sweet grass clump. Chewing a manroot, he saw the star group Hunter and Bear low in the sky toward Colder.
“Well,” he said, “I haven’t found what I’m looking for, but I did find another water place. A hunter can never know too many. Isn’t that right?” he asked the star man with his spear raised to the star bear.
He was glad that the tabu land had the same sky. What if people had to learn new stars and their stories, along with everything else?
Tor thought of Shahala land and its bounty of useful trees.
Mountaintop pine, gnarled and tough, clinging to Takoma’s flank higher than anything else—too rare to be touched by men.
Grandfather pine, in forests that reached the sky, giving people many things they needed.
Ridge pine, short and round, with excellent nuts if you could stand the sharp needles. Of course, women had to worry about that, he thought as he fell asleep.
In the morning, Tor noticed an unmoving heap on the ground nearby, and went to look.
It was an eagle, with black wings spread, white tail flared, head thrust to one side, dead eye fixed on the sky.
He fell to his knees. His stomach lurched. Shahala people revered eagles, sacred to Amotkan, not to be killed. No one loved eagles more than Tor. They were sons and daughters of his guardian, Takeena, the Eagle Spirit.
Filled with sadness, he stroked the feathers on its back. For a moment he thought he would weep. But however sacred, it was only an animal. And as he’d told Ashan, everything dies.
He turned the stiff bird over. One taloned foot was tangled in a cord weighted with stones—a Tlikit sling.
Tor ripped the sling off and threw it to the sky.
“I warned them!” he cried. “I’ll kill whoever did this!”
Tlikit men were good at sling-hunting, and took many ducks, geese, swans, and other fat low-flyers. To bring down an eagle would take impossible skill. Tor never imagined they would try. Then one day some proud fool had brought a dead eagle to the village.
Tor was shaking the man by the throat when Ashan came running and tore them apart. She called the Tlikit together and told them about sacred animals.
“Wear what you want, eat what you want. But you must not kill sacred animals, or terrible things will happe
n.”
Tor had said, “I will kill you, that’s what will happen.”
He’d thought they understood. Until now.
“Kree-e-e!”
Tor looked up. The eagle’s mate circled above the desolate plain. He felt her sorrow like cold, invisible rain. She spoke in his mind.
Sky Dancer should not be wasted. Use him to make people learn.
Closing his eyes, Tor saw a deadly predator: A winged man… Eagle from the Light and Sky Dancer become one. He opened his eyes and searched the sky. He wanted to tell her that he understood. But the eagle’s mate was gone. Tor made a promise to the sky where she had been.
“When I finish with them, the men of Teahra will never kill another eagle.”
As if they knew he would need them, a flock of geese landed at the spring. Tor lobbed a flurry of rocks. They squawked away, except for five. He killed and gutted them and tied their feet.
He headed out for Teahra Village with geese slung over his shoulders, an eagle in his arms, and fury in his heart. Stopping in a grove of oaks, he made a fire and kept it going as he worked, pulling out coals before they turned to ash.
Tor plucked the geese, thanking them for their feathers, and the yellow fat he would use later. He took the eagle apart, cutting the wings off as one piece, connected by the muscle and bone of the back. Straightening the long flight feathers, he wondered how it felt to glide. He plucked the remaining feathers, cut off talons and beak, and put what was left on the fire.
“Sky Dancer,” he said to the rising smoke. “Go to Takeena. Say hello to your mate on the way.”
From the white feathers of the eagle and the geese, Tor made a tailpiece that covered him from his rear to below his knees. The remaining goose feathers were brown. Rubbing them with coals made them black like the eagle. He tied them in bunches with strands of his hair.
He blackened the soft leather of his loinskin, and stripped thongs from the long side, keeping one piece just wide enough to fit between his legs and hide what made him unmistakably a man.
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