She reminded him of the lynx kitten left behind when his family abandoned Ehr’s cave—Ayah was its name. Tsagaia would be soft like that kitten, he could tell, though he’d never touched her… except once, when they’d huddled together in a creek while wildfire swept over them. He liked her scent. He liked the way her long hair hung down her back, how it swayed when she walked—a graceful walk that made her seem smaller, and somehow vulnerable. Tsagaia was a quiet girl, but Kai El knew that didn’t mean she wasn’t thinking. She was comfortable to be with, like being with the grandfather Ehr, who’d had no tongue and couldn’t talk.
Ehr had taught Kai El and his mother to speak with their thoughts. Kai El missed thought-speaking, now that Ashan was dead.
I should teach Gaia. We could have secrets, laugh at people without their knowing why, tell each other things that would get us in trouble if we spoke them out loud.
The long climb brought them near the top of the cliffs. A level stretch of trail opened onto the place Ashan had loved—and disappeared from: the Moonkeeper’s takoma, overlooking Teahra Village and the Great River beyond.
Kai El and Tsagaia sat on the stone seat, leaning back, not quite touching. The mysterious carving called She Who Watches was above and behind them.
Hearing the cry of a hawk, Kai El looked up. A pair of red-tails soared above the Great River. He wondered if they were fishing, or just enjoying being here, being with each other. As he was.
“Skaina, the Hawk, is your Spirit Guardian,” Tsagaia said. “I think hawks are beautiful.”
Kai El was surprised, and flattered, that she knew it.
“Why didn’t you take your guardian’s name?” she asked. “Why did you keep your birth name?”
“You Tlikit people think one name is enough. I like my name. How it sounds. What it means.”
“Sun River.” Her voice was easy in his ears. “That makes a nice picture. I like it, too.”
Kai El felt wonderful.
“Were your parents angry?” she asked.
He snorted. “Tor has never forgiven me, though he’s the one who named me Kai El. He has names of his own to call me when he’s angry.”
“Ohh,” she said with sympathy, her lips forming a shape that should be kissed. Kai El took a deep breath, and talked instead.
“But my mother… she’s the one who taught me to follow the voice inside. She let me do it.”
“You were young to be so bold.”
He shrugged, but Tsagaia’s words made him proud.
“Now it’s every child’s choice,” she said.
“Why did you keep your name?” he asked.
She hesitated, as if deciding whether to tell him.
“I like Shahala ways, but I was afraid to go on a spirit quest.”
Kai El caught himself just before he laughed. A spirit quest was nothing to fear.
She continued. “So I decided to keep the name Tsagaia. Big Tan Cat. I admire the cougar.”
“Yes,” he said. “The most magnificent, beautiful animal. There is nothing more wonderful than a cougar.”
But praise that would make Kai El puff up made her pull inside herself. He let some quiet time go by in the pleasant, sun-drenched place, until he felt a little melting from her.
“Would you mind if I called you Gaia?”
“Kitten? I suppose you may. But why?”
She gazed at him. Her beautiful eyes invited him to share himself.
He began, “Once my mother and I lived with an old man named Ehr. He taught me how to make animal friends. You just feed them at the same place and same time, every day. There was a lynxcat, and some kittens—”
Kai El was so focused on Gaia’s eyes that he did not hear his father coming.
“What do you think you’re doing!” Tor yelled.
Kai El stammered. “I—we—”
“This is a sacred place, not a place for children to make trouble!”
Kai El felt Gaia shrink beside him. Tor was scaring her.
The young man stood—tall as his father, defiant. On the small piece of flat ground, they were closer than angry men should be.
“It’s my mother’s place. I have the right to be here. What kind of trouble could we make sitting here looking at the river?”
Tor’s face was red. A vein in his jaw throbbed.
“You don’t know anything!” he shouted in his son’s face,
The argument of loved ones brought the Spirit of Ashan. The colors swirling around and between them were awful—hot muddy reds and oranges, sucking and pulling at each other.
They had to stay close. They needed each other’s strength.
She hovered over them.
… Please don’t hurt each other…
Tor’s shoulders slumped, as if a heavy weight had settled on them.
Kai El looked up, feeling something in the air, not knowing what.
Tsilka’s daughter, Tsagaia, sat on Ashan’s stone seat: tight, small, trying to be invisible. Ashan sensed Kai El’s fierce passion to protect the girl, a passion growing under Tor’s attack.
… Oh Amotkan…
It dismayed her that spirits did not know everything.
… My boy is falling in love… with his sister…
“Just go, Kai El,” Tor said in a voice choked with anguish. “Don’t bring anyone here again.”
Kai El led the way. Gaia followed with downcast eyes. Ashan knew her son’s thoughts: The girl would never look into his eyes again, shy as she was. Tor came right behind them, as if they couldn’t be trusted. Humiliation burned around Kai El, fire flashes leaping from the sun.
The angry young man thought, And I felt sorry for Gaia because of her crazy mother.
Tsilka came running up the narrow trail.
“Daughter! Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”
The girl said, “I thought you were asleep. I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Why would I sleep in the day? You should have let me know. I worried.”
Tor shouted, “I told them to never go up there again! They shouldn’t even be together!”
Tsilka said, “Tor, don’t be an old bear. There’s nothing wrong with two young people going walking. Remember when we—”
The Spirit of Ashan swirled around Tsilka so fast that it chilled the air. Tsilka shivered, not finishing her words.
Tor said, “Tsilka, you know as well as I that these two must never—” He stopped himself.
“What are you talking about?” Kai El said, getting angry at all these half-spoken allusions. “Why shouldn’t Gaia and I—”
Tor raised his hand as if to strike his son.
“When I want to hear from you, I will ask you to speak!”
Tsilka did not give up. ’Tor, remember when you and I—”
Ashan wrapped the chill around her tighter.
“Oh, forget it!” Shivering violently, Tsilka grabbed her daughter’s hand and hurried toward the village.
“My son,” Tor said.
The young man turned burning eyes on his father.
“What right do you have to humiliate me before a woman?”
Fourteen summers hardly made a woman, but Tor didn’t want to humiliate Kai El any more than he already had.
… Tell him, Tor, tell our son what he must know…
Tor wanted to speak. He tried to speak.
… TELL HIM…
“What?” Kai El demanded.
“Nothing! Just don’t ever do that again.”
“We weren’t doing anything.”
“Stay away from her. Those two are strange, born at the same time, with no father, or any father, who knows. They’re bad luck. They’ll bring you nothing but trouble.”
“I’m not a little one. You can’t tell me what to do.”
“Your mother would want a better mate for you than the daughter of crazy Tsilka.”
All his life, Kai El had done what his mother wanted.
Fathers knew the weapons to use against their so
ns.
CHAPTER 37
CURSES AND GROANS AWAKENED KAI EL, SOUNDS OF angry pain: Tor thrashing under his sleeping skins.
Worse than an old man, the young man thought.
It was bad enough before as father and son struggled with the loss of the woman in their lives. Now they could not move beyond what had happened in the cliffs. Days went by with few words. Kai El left early in the morning and didn’t return until night. Some mother or daughter was always happy to feed him. Tor spent more and more time alone in the hut. Kai El didn’t know what, or if, he ate.
“Smells bad in here,” Kai El said, shoving the skins from his naked body and getting up.
“Dung!” his father said. “This hurts!”
What was it today? Kai El wondered. Ankle? Shoulder?
“This elbow is swelled like a condor egg. Your mother would have made me something to put on it.”
It’s your mind hurting your body, Kai El thought. But he didn’t say it… he didn’t know what it meant to lose your mate.
He knew what it meant to lose your mother. If only he did not. Amotkan, how he missed her. Needed her. She knew how to soothe his father. Most important, she would answer Kai El’s questions about Gaia.
Beautiful Gaia filled his thoughts.
As young men do, Kai El wanted many things at once. He would like to think about his dead mother ten times a day instead of twenty. He’d like to feel comfortable with his father again.
But most of all, his young body demanded a new kind of satisfaction, never before experienced, except in his mind uncountable times each day. He wanted to know Gaia’s mind, but more, he wanted to be naked with her, roam her body with his eyes and hands. He couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Kai El wanted her even more because his father said he could not have her.
He’d tried talking to Jud, but his friend was only interested in whether he had “buried his love-spear.”
Tor’s unfairness bothered Kai El the most. Once, he would have avoided the argument brewing in the hut. But this morning he couldn’t leave it alone.
“How could you treat me like that in front of a girl?”
“How many times are you going to ask the same question?”
“Until I hear an answer I believe.”
Tor’s voice was weary. “If you never in your life do another thing I say, just leave the twins alone.”
“Why?”
“I’m your father and I say it. That’s reason enough.”
Kai El clenched his jaw, shook his head. A little one might have to accept such an answer, but he was seventeen summers.
There was reason to stay away from the few girls with whom he shared blood. But he would never have such thoughts about them; they were like sisters; it was disgusting. Of course, they were Shahala girls. Sharing blood with a Tlikit, like Gaia, was impossible. He hadn’t met the Tlikit people until he was five summers.
“I don’t understand your problem, Father.”
“Craziness comes from the mother,” Tor said. “Look at Tsilka. Do you want your little ones to be crazy?”
Kai El laughed. Tor must have stayed awake late to think of that.
“I’m not talking about little ones. I just want to be her friend,” he lied. “And their mother—she’s different, but she’s not really crazy.”
Tor shouted, “You don’t know anything!”
Kai El hated those words. He wrestled clothes on, and stamped out of the hut.
The sky was blue, and it would be warm after the chill of early morning—another late summer day to push the rainy season back. These were some of the best days, because they were unexpected.
Kai El put his father out of his thoughts. He would enjoy this day. He’d found a cluster of rock pictures yesterday worth looking at again.
Rock pictures had been found before. The largest and best was the one called She Who Watches, which had appeared in the cliffs above the village at the same time his mother the Moonkeeper disappeared. People had different ideas about rock pictures. The Tlikit thought their ancient ancestors created them. Others believed they were spirit-made.
The ones Kai El found showed long-bodied people standing straight, arms at sides, short legs, small feet. They had round heads with no faces, so it must have been their stance that said pride, grace, and wisdom. Whether made by man or spirit, Kai El thought they showed a gift for creating beauty. And an ability to make a rock say something that a man can understand.
Gaia would like them.
Kai El heard arguing as he approached the hut where Tsilka and her daughters lived.
“Why would you steal my neckband, Tahna? You could never wear it!”
“I don’t know how it got there! I’ve never stolen a thing in all our life!”
“Ohhh!”
“Get out!” their mother yelled. “I’m sleeping!”
The doorskin flew open, the twins came out and stamped off in different directions.
Kai El acted as if he were just walking by.
“Gaia,” he called, then thought maybe it was a bad time. She looked angry enough to challenge a bear. But she stopped and waited.
“I found some rock pictures you’d really like. Want to see?”
“I’d love to get away from this place.”
With Gaia behind, Kai El walked up the river trail, too fast for conversation. Much as he loved to talk, glad as he was that she’d come with him, now he couldn’t think of what to say. He would talk when they got to the picture place, using between here and there to decide what to talk about. There were apologies to be made for his father, strange new feelings to understand.
Maybe unimportant talk would be better at first… what’s your favorite season?… do you like yellow?
The young man sprinted along, not looking back. He stopped at the mouth of a flood-scarred canyon to let the girl catch up, turned and looked at her—
Something was wrong with her. She plodded toward him, every step an effort.
Look what you’ve done! he thought, then answered himself: I was walking fast—well, almost running—but we haven’t come that far.
He rushed to Gaia and put his cape on the ground. She sank on it, head down, arms around her knees, wheezing, trying to breathe. Desperate gasping, noisy struggling—against what? This was more than being tired from walking too fast. Scared, Kai El touched her heaving shoulder.
“Is something in your throat?”
She shook her head. She gasped. She pulled on the air, getting some, but not enough. He could almost see her snatching at the invisible stuff that no one ever thought about.
“Tell me what to do!”
“She can breathe if she wants. She does that to get out of work.”
Kai El went for the spear he’d dropped.
It was only Tahna—a good thing. A warrior should never forget his back like that.
“Give some warning, girl! I almost put a spear in you!”
“Sorry,” Tahna said sweetly, with eyes that looked bitter.
Gaia began coughing, and in between, her breathing eased. Kai El wondered if what Tahna said was true, then felt a stab of guilt. Gaia wasn’t that kind of person.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I just”—cough—” got too tired,” Gaia said.
“It looked like more than that,” he said. It had looked like she was dying.
“I know it’s scary, but it isn’t dangerous. It always stops.”
“What is if!”
“I—it used to come when I was little. It’s like something inside closes up and won’t let air come in. But I thought I’d grown out of it, like my rabbit-fur boots.” Cough, cough, cough. “I don’t know why it happened now.”
“You should have told me. I would have gone slower.”
“Tsagaia makes her own trouble,” her twin, Tahna, said.
“Let’s go back to the village,” Kai El said.
“I am fine now. I want to go ahead.”
“Where wer
e you two sneaking off to?” Tahna asked.
Gaia gave her twin a sour look.
Kai El told Tahna about the rock pictures.
“I’m coming,” she said.
Gaia was furiously silent. The twins usually got along, but sometimes were known to butt heads like autumn elk. Kai El thought Gaia wanted him to say something to make Tahna leave, but he’d been taught to avoid rudeness. He had no reason to be rude to Tahna.
He thought… two pretty girls at his heels. That was a picture worth sharing with Jud.
“Are you sure we should go on, Gaia?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Gaia… ” said her twin. “What a pretty little name.”
Kai El felt Gaia’s heat, a different kind of heat than he’d felt when they had climbed to the Moonkeeper’s takoma. She was furious at her sister—more than she needed to be, he thought. But he didn’t know what it was like to have a sister or brother. It seemed you would love such a person, but he supposed you could hate them, too. A mate you could choose, a friend you could get away from, but a brother or sister lived in your hut.
He led the way into the canyon—going slower this time. It was like walking the bottom of a wild, narrow river whose water had been sucked out—a twisting, turning channel, scarred by long-ago floods rushing to join the Great River. Dry now, it would be a bad place to go in the rainy season.
They turned into a side gully that ended on a slope of loose scree. The remains of an old trail cut up and across the scree, heading toward smooth outcroppings near the canyon top.
’The rock pictures are up there. You girls go first. I’ll be behind if you slip,” Kai El said, thinking he’d get plenty of looks at legs in motion.
Tahna took off with the speed and agility of the cat for which her sister was named, throwing challenging glances back at Kai El. Gaia needed a slower pace, and he didn’t mind staying with her. The distance increased between them, then Tahna was out of sight. In places there was no trail, but Gaia knew about keeping hands, feet, and sometimes belly, touching the ground.
Like the shaking of a shaman’s rattle, Kai El heard the warning of the snake coiled across the trail, within distance, ready to strike. The rattler shot out. Kai El threw his spear, shoving Gaia with his other hand. The spear ruined the snake’s aim. Kai El caught it slithering away, and killed it with a blow from his spear butt.
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