“How do you know all these things?”
“The Old Moonkeeper Raga taught me. The Moonkeeper before taught her, all the way back to First Woman. Coyote Spirit took First Woman on a trek to show her the plants that help people.”
Tahna said, “Plants want to help people? Now I know why I’ve always liked them.”
“Not all plants want to help. Some will kill. It is part of the Balance.”
“Oh. Well, I still like them. Learning about them makes me like them more. It’s like having a secret.”
“That’s the way it is for me,” Ashan said.
“Did you teach the Other Moonkeeper Tenka about medicine plants?”
“Yes. If something happens to me, the people must still have a medicine woman.”
“Oh,” Tahna said with a sigh.
As they headed back to the camp, Tahna said, “Moonkeeper, did you know the God Wahawkin brings my sister and me gifts in the night?”
This child was always surprising her… the God Wahawkin was just something Tor made up when he needed to control the Tlikit people. Ashan was quite sure that there was no such creature.
“What kinds of gifts?” she asked.
“Sometimes a fur, or a special piece of leather. Or good things to eat, like crystal honey. Wahawkin brought us some huge huckleberries just before this trek.”
Huckleberries…
“How do you know who brings these things? Have you ever seen him?”
Tahna shook her head.
“I’ve tried to stay awake, but I never can. But I know it’s Wahawkin. Who else could it be? The god is our father, you know.”
Ashan cleared her throat. She couldn’t think of what to say.
“Well, you are lucky girls.”
Ashan, Ashan… how can you be so blind? Tor, who claims to be Wahawkin when it suits him? These twins who claim Wahawkin as their father? If she allowed herself to think that Tor might have fathered Tsilka’s daughters—no!—it was much too painful to consider for even one heartbeat.
You know how little ones are. They lie. There are no gifts brought by Wahawkin, or Tor, or anyone else, she told herself until she believed it.
Tor had chosen a spot for himself and Ashan at the back of the meadow on a low rise. She lay there that night, snuggled against her sleeping mate. With the sweet warmth of lovemaking still pulsing through her, she gazed at Alhaia, the Moon… Alhaia who had sent no more babies to her and Tor. Kai El was enough for any mother—and Ashan was Moonkeeper as well. But she had always thought there’d be others. Her son was eleven summers now. Ashan was twenty-eight. She’d known for a long time that there would be no other little ones. She accepted it, never forgetting how lucky she was to have Kai El.
As she drifted between waking and sleep, her thoughts wandered.
Tahna… while I’ve been teaching her, I have learned.
Tahna was no ordinary child. She would use terror to get what she wanted. She loved medicine plants. She told lies for no reason. These things did not go together. It was as if Tahna were more than one person.
Yet we get along, Ashan thought. We enjoy each other’s company. I like her… more than like her.
It was that time of night when thoughts go where they will, even bad, bad thoughts… .
I wouldn’t mind having those twins. Maybe I’ll put a spell on their mother. I wouldn’t want to kill her, but Alhaia sends us no more little ones, and Tsilka’s not a good mother, and they don’t have a father. They’d be better off here, with us. They’re special. They deserve…
She drifted off to sleep filled with thoughts she would never allow in the day, and a desire too wrongful to act upon… asleep or awake, Ashan honored above all others the relationship between mother and child.
CHAPTER 28
IN THE AFTERNOON OF THE FIFTH DAY, A CLOUDMASS strode out of Warmer, covering the sun. Bursts of lightning lit it from the inside, turning the sky underneath dark orange-gray. A smell that was other smells missing came before it. The Moonkeeper knew that thunderstorms of the greatest power sucked smells from the land. This storm would be different from the dry storms of other afternoons. It was coming straight for them, and fast.
Ashan and Tahna ran all the way back to the camp.
As the cloudmass marched toward them, women and little ones hurried to cover the drying berries with skins and mats. They layered cedar branches for a rough shelter, and crouched together inside, laughing at the men who’d be caught unprotected. Wind tore at the shelter. They had to hold on to the branches to keep them from blowing away. Thunder booms came one on top of the other, shaking the ground. Through the cedar needles, they saw lightning flashing.
How frightened the little ones must be! Ashan shouted encouragement, but only the closest ones heard her above the noise.
Rain slashed through the cedar branch shelter, drenching them in the short time it lasted. When the rain passed, the women threw off the branches. The wet air was cleaned of late summer dust, charged with power from the lightning. The sun made steam rise from the ground. They laughed without knowing why.
Kai El and several other little ones were missing, but Ashan didn’t worry. It was only a storm. No one died from being wet.
The storm caught seven little ones away from the camp playing Find Me. When Kai El—at eleven summers the oldest in the group—saw how fierce it would be, he yelled for the others. They huddled together with skins over their heads, shrieking and laughing to hide fear of thunder and lightning, until the pounding rain decided they were wet enough.
Terrible hot wind followed the rain. Strong enough to knock a small child down, it whipped branches, swirled, changed directions, like a thing mad and confused. It howled coming through the thick fir trees. Behind the howling, Kai El heard a muffled roar.
Life along the Great River came with many kinds of winds, but he had never known one like this. He didn’t know why, but it scared him.
The sky was wrong, too—low, heavy with fast-moving clouds, and darker than any daytime sky should be. Above the tall, pointed treetops, it looked thick and orange-brown.
Kai El smelled smoke.
His friends were afraid.
“What it it? What is it?”
“I don’t know,” he shouted over the wind, “but it’s bad! Run!”
They ran for the camp. Undergrowth tripped them; wild dashes across open spots made the slower ones fall.
“Stay together!” Kai El yelled.
They helped each other, jerking up a downed one, dragging a slow one.
“Faster! It’s coming!”
The sky got darker, the wind fiercer, the strange roaring louder. Thickening smoke burned their eyes and throats and made them cough. Something evil was after them. They didn’t know what it was. They were terrified it would catch them before they reached the parents who would save them.
The little ones slid down a dirt bank, splashed through a creek, scrabbled up the other side, and out into a small clearing—
Kai El froze.
Wildfire—coming too fast to outrun, chasing tumbling clouds of orange sparks along the ground in front of it. Bushes burst into flame before the fire reached them. Behind the sparkclouds, the sky—which had been getting darker—was now becoming brighter. The trees were black shapes against pulsing red-yellow-orange. One by one their tops exploded, turning them into torches that burned from the top down.
With every heartbeat, the fire became bigger and brighter. Kai El’s eyes cried. His skin burned. He coughed. He could barely breathe for the smoke and heat.
He wanted to run! Run for his life! He pawed at small hands clinging to his leg—
The voice of Tsagaia jerked him to his senses.
“Get in the creek!” she yelled. “Get your clothes and hair wet!”
Nissa cried, “There’s not enough water! The fire will boil it away! Boil us like roots in a stew!” Screaming, “Run!” she took off across the open ground.
“Get her, Kai El!” Tsagaia shouted, as
she shoved the others toward the creek.
Tackling Nissa, he dragged her—shrieking and fighting—to the edge of the small ravine, and tumbled her over. She landed on her rear—babbling—crazed eyes darting. Tsagaia took her hand, and she hushed. They lay down and squirmed among the others.
The water fell over a heap of rocks and splashed into a little pool. Kai El looked through smoky air at his friends—stretched out on their stomachs; arms around each other; heads in the waterfall; coughing and gasping. Some cried; some were terrified beyond tears—except Tsagaia, comforting the others. Shoulders and rears stuck out of the water. Kai El thought of digging at the rocky bottom to deepen the pool, but there wasn’t time. The heat was unbearable; the fire would be on them in moments.
“Come on, Kai El!” Tsagaia yelled.
Kai El slid down the bank and got in the water.
“Breathe through this,” she said, giving him a wet piece of her woven grass skirt. She was very close, but he barely heard her voice above the roar.
“We’re going to die!” a little one cried.
“No, we’re not,” Tsagaia said. Her soothing voice was sure of itself.
“Keep your heads in the waterfall. Listen to the splashing. Focus on the sound. The water will save us. Think of nothing else. Listen to the splashing. Breathe the wet air… ”
As she talked, Kai El found himself pulled into watersound, lifesound, foreversound…
Wildfire swept over the gully. Kai El did not look up. Heat seared his back through wet deerskin. He thought he heard animal screams in the deafening roar.
“Listen to the water,” she kept saying, and he did, and the awful sounds faded.
“The water’s getting hot!” a little one cried.
She had answers for everything.
“As long as you can hear the waterfall, the fire hasn’t boiled it all away.”
But the stench, the choking smoke. Kai El tasted ash in the splashing water. He thought he smelled cooked meat. He prayed to Amotkan and Skaina and all the spirits who love people: Idon’t want to die! His back must be blazing! He rolled over to get it wet.
Looking up at the yellow bottom of the wildfire, Kai El thought no one who had seen such a thing could live. It was so hot! Flames raced overhead, dropping burning twigs. As fast as the flames moved, more were right behind.
He realized that the wildfire—in its hurry for bigger prey—was jumping back and forth across the gully with its puny willows. Thank Amotkan for the creek that had carved this gully. Maybe they would survive, after all.
But how long can we stand this? he thought.
His friends cried in pain, but Tsagaia’s voice controlled their panic. Kai El wet them down, put his head in the waterfall, and gave himself to her voice.
Everything changed so fast! Surrounded by frightened women and little ones, Ashan stared at the pulsing orange-brown sky. Wind whipped and howled. Burning things flew through the hot air.
Kai El! Where are you?
The men who had been out hunting burst from the trees.
“Wildfire! It’s coming fast!”
“We know! We see it!”
Voices rose to a clamor.
“We have to run!”
“No!” Tor yelled. “We have to get in the creek!”
“It’s too small! It’s in the path of the fire!”
“We have no choice.”
But some of them—Tlikit and Firekeepers—took off up the slope.
“You can’t outrun it!” Tor yelled. “You’ll die!”
Ashan grabbed his arm. “Kai El is missing!”
“What?” he said in shocked disbelief.
“Kai El is missing, and some others! We have to find them! I think they went down the creek.”
Those who had listened to Tor were in the water, scrabbling at the bottom, making deeper places to hide.
“Little ones are lost!” he said. “Who will save them?”
More than enough men stood.
“I’ll take the fathers and a few more. The rest of you stay with your families.”
Ashan said, “I’m coming.”
“No. The people need you here.”
Tor shouted to the men as they rushed away from the camp, into the wind and smoke.
“The Moonkeeper saw the little ones go down the creek. Stay by the water. That’s where they’ll be. If you find them, throw yourself over them. If the fire gets too close before you find them, get in the water and save yourself.”
Ashan ran with the men. Nothing had ever kept her from Kai El, and nothing ever would. They searched in fear—fear of what they would find, and fear for themselves—shouting their little ones’ names, even though they knew the children could not hear them.
They saw the wildfire’s face.
“Get in the water!” Tor yelled.
“No!” Ashan screamed and kept running. Kai El might be just ahead. She could save him with magic.
Tor slammed into her. She pitched to the ground. He picked her up and carried her. She fought him, screaming.
“Let me go! My baby! I can save him!”
Tor slid down a bank, dropped Ashan on her back with a splash, and threw himself on top of her. The water was deep enough to cover her body, but not his. He held her face out with his hand. She struggled against him, but she couldn’t move. Her screams became sobs, and then coughs and gasps as she fought for air in the smoke. She smelled burning hair, saw Tor slap his head.
“We’re going to die,” she screamed. “All of us. Even Kai El.”
But the wildfire did not bother burning out little gullies.
After it had gone, Ashan and Tor crawled up the bank and looked at a gray, smoking world, with black leafless trees still burning, and death everywhere.
She stood in dazed horror. What could have survived—
“Amah! Adah!”
Oh Amotkan! Kai El and the little ones were running toward her!
“Kai El!” she cried, and beat Tor getting to him. She swept him in her arms, covering him with weeping kisses.
No one died in the wildfire. It seemed as if the spirits came together to tell them what to do. The creek saved the little ones and those at the camp who trusted its wet shelter, though many had blisters and painful red skin.
The Tlikit and Firekeepers who had run were even luckier. Fire swept up the huckleberry field after them, but with little to burn, it lost power. They made it over the top of the ridge. That’s where the wildfire died.
The people from Teahra spent a few more days in the gray-and-black place. A few swelled up and had fever. The Moonkeepers treated burns with beaver fat and herbs to soften skin and ease pain.
People needed rest. They needed to talk about what they’d been through.
Good friends Kai El and Jud were usually together. But on that terrible day, when Kai El had taken the little ones for a walk, Jud had decided to stay in camp. He was interested in Yohee, who would be picking berries.
Jud had said, “I will get her to sneak away, for some—you know—kissing.”
“Blah,” Kai El said, sticking out his tongue. “Why would you want to do that?”
Jud shook his head. “Are you ever going to grow up?”
“Not if it means kissing girls.”
So Jud had stayed in the camp, surviving the fire in a hole he dug in the creek bottom to share with Yohee, her sister, and her mother.
Kai El told Jud what it had been like for him, leaving out the moments when he’d felt like deserting his friends and running for his life.
“Of course I was brave,” Kai El said. “But Tsagaia surprised me. I thought I knew her, but she changed into someone different.”
“What do you mean?” Jud said. “She looks the same to me. Same old Tsagaia, too shy to look in anyone’s eyes, too scared to speak.”
“She was different out there. She took over and told us what to do, talking all the time in this soft voice almost like magic. It was like she sucked fear out of us and turned it
into a blanket to protect us from the fire.”
“You don’t make sense.”
“I know, but that’s what happened. Tsagaia saved our lives.”
“Maybe you should think of kissing her.”
“Blah! Don’t make me throw up.”
Kai El told his mother what Tsagaia had done. His mother thought everyone should know about her bravery. But the girl was her old, scared self again. She said she hadn’t done anything but save her own life. And that’s what she would tell anyone who tried to make a heroine of her.
CHAPTER 29
AMEAN SICKNESS STRUCK TEAHRA VILLAGE THAT autumn, forcing many people to their beds. They ached in every part of their bodies; guts cramped and they threw up food; waste came in uncontrollable rushes of stinking brown water. Weak as newborns, feeling horrible, some thought they were dying.
The Moonkeeper danced, sang, and shook rattles over the sick, gave them some kind of tea, and comforted with promises of recovery. No one refused the shaman’s medicine—even the few Tlikit whom Tsilka could always count on to stir up trouble begged Ashan to help them.
Tsilka, who didn’t get sick, prayed that some would die. Then maybe people would see that the Moonkeeper’s medicine was useless, that the woman herself was a fake. Tsilka never stopped hoping to destroy Ashan by destroying people’s belief in her.
But after a few days the sick began to get better. Today some had come out to sit under the pale autumn sun. Watching them heap their gratitude on Ashan, watching her accept it as her due—Tsilka couldn’t stand it. Boiling with rage, she stamped away from the village.
I hate my life! I hate my fate! she thought, tramping along with her head down, not knowing or caring where she was going. I hate the way everything works against me!All I want and cannot have, all my misery—it’s all Ashan’s fault!
Tsilka’s poisoned thoughts were not unusual. Hatred filled her all the time, spilling onto everything she did or thought about. Almost equal to her hatred for Ashan was disgust with herself: In five turnings of the seasons, Tsilka had not been able to harm her enemy in any serious way.
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