The Mammoth Book of the Best of Best New SF

by Gardner Dozois

  When I was discouer’d the Master was most wroth, and commanded that I be put to the hardest Labours, and giuen onely the poorest leauings for food. So it went hard for me on that Voyage: but the Saylors learn’d that I could sing diuers Songs, and new Ballads from London, and then I was vsed better. Anon the Captaine, Mr. Edward Spicer, ask’d whether I had any skill in Armes. To which I reply’d, that a Player must needs be a Master of Fence, and of all other Artes martiall, forasmuch as we are wont to play Battles, Duelles, Murthers &c. And the Captaine said, that soone I should haue Opportunity to proue my selfe against true Aduersaries and not in play, for we sayl’d for the Spanish Maine.

  All this time, you understand, there was a great deal of talk concerning the white man. Most of the people came to like him, for he was a friendly fellow and a willing worker. And the Tuscarora girl was certainly right about his singing and dancing. Even Bigkiller had to laugh when Spearshaker went leaping and capering around the fire, and when he walked on his hands and clapped his feet together several women wet themselves – or so I heard.

  His songs were strange to the ear, but enjoyable. I remember one we all liked:

  “Wid-a-he

  An-a-ho

  An-a-he-na-ni-no!”

  But not everyone was happy about his presence among us. Many of the young men were angry that the women liked him so well, and now and then took him aside to prove it. And old Otter told everyone who would listen that once, long ago, a great band of white men had come up from the south, from the Timucua country, and destroyed the finest towns of the Maskogis, taking many away for slaves and killing the others. And this was true, because when the People moved south they found much of that country empty and ruined.

  Spearshaker said that those people were of another tribe, with which his own nation was at war. But not everyone believed him, and Otter kept insisting that white men were simply too dangerous to have around. I began to fear for Spearshaker’s life.

  At length we came vnto the Indies, being there joyn’d by the Hopewell and other Ships whose names I knowe not. And we attack’d the Spanish Convoy, and took the Galleon Buen Jesus, a rich Pryze: and so it came to pass that Will Shakspeare, Actor, did for his greate folly turn Pyrat vpon the salt Sea.

  Then, early next spring, the Catawbas came.

  This was no mere raid. They came in force and they hit us fast and hard, killing or capturing many of the people working in the fields before they could reach the town palisade. They rushed out of the woods and swarmed over the palisade like ants, and before we knew it we were fighting for our lives in front of our own houses.

  That was when Spearshaker astonished us all. Without hesitating, he grabbed a long pole from the meat-drying racks and went after the nearest Catawba with it, jabbing him hard in the guts with the end, exactly as you would use a spear, and then clubbing him over the head. Then he picked up the Catawba’s bow and began shooting.

  My friend, I have lived long and seen much, but I never was more surprised than that morning. This pale, helpless creature, who could not chip an arrowhead or build a proper fire or even take five steps off a trail without getting lost – he cut those Catawbas down like rotten cornstalks! He shot one man off the palisade, right over there, from clear down by the council house. I do not think he wasted a single shot. And when he was out of arrows, he picked up a war club from a fallen warrior and joined the rest of us in fighting off the remaining attackers.

  Afterward, he seemed not to think he had done anything remarkable. He said that all the men of his land know stick-fighting and archery, which they learn as boys. “I could have done better,” he said, “with a long bow, and some proper arrows, from my own country.” And he looked sad, as he always did when he spoke of his home.

  From that day there' was no more talk against Spearshaker. Not long after, Tsigeyu announced that she was adopting him. Since this also made him Bigkiller’s brother, he was safe from anyone in our town. It also made me his uncle, but he was kind enough never to call me edutsi. We were friends.

  Next we turn’d north for Virginnia, Capt. Spicer hauing a Commission from Sir Walter Ralegh to calle vpon the English that dwelt at Roanoke, to discouer their condition. The Gales were cruel all along that Coast, and we were oft in grave Peril: but after much trauail we reached Hatarask, where the Captaine sent a party in small Boates, to search out the passage betweene the Islands. And whilst we were thus employ’d, a sudden greate Wind arose and scattered the Boates, many being o’erturned and the Mariners drowned. But the Boate I was in was carry’d many Leagues westward, beyond sight of our Fellowes: so we were cast vpon the Shore of the Maine, and sought shelter in the Mouthe of a Riuer. Anon, going ashore, we were attack’d by Sauages: and all the men were slaine, save onely my selfe.

  Poor fellow, he was still a long way from home, and small chance of ever seeing his own people again. At least he was better off than he had been with the Tuscaroras. Let alone those people on the coast, if they had caught him. Remember the whites who tried to build a town on that island north of Wococon, and how Powhatan had them all killed?

  Yet hauing alone escap’d, and making my way for some dayes along the Riuer, I was surprized by Indians of another Nation: who did giue me hard vsage, as a Slaue, for well-high a Yeere. Vntil I was taken from them by these mine present sauage Hostes: amongst which, for my Sinnes, I am like to liue out my mortall dayes.

  I used to have a big pile of these talking skins of his. Not that I ever expected to have a chance to show them to anyone who could understand them – I can’t believe the white men will ever come up into the hill country; they seem to have all they can do just to survive on the coast – but I kept them to remember Spearshaker by.

  But the bugs and the mice got into them, and the bark sheets went moldy in the wet season, and now I have only this little bundle. And, as you see, some of these are no more than bits and pieces. Like this worm-eaten scrap:

  as concerning these Indians (for so men call them: but if this be the Lande of India I am an Hebrewe lewe) they are in their owne Tongue clept Anni-yawia. Which is, being interpreted, the True or Principall People. By other Tribes they are named Chelokee: but the meaning of this word my frend Mouse knoweth not, neyther whence deriued. They I think one reason he spent so much time on his talking marks was that he was afraid he might forget his own language. I have seen this happen, with captives. That Tuscarora woman who was with him still lives here, and by now she can barely speak ten words of Tuscarora. Though Muskrat will tell you that she speaks our language entirely too well – but that is another story.

  Spearshaker did teach me quite a lot of his own language – a very difficult one, unlike any I ever encountered – and I tried to speak it with him from time to time, but it can’t have been the same as talking with a man of his own kind. What does it sound like? Ah, I remember so little now. Let me see. . . . “Holt dai tong, dow hor-son nabe!” That means, “Shut up, you fool!”

  He told me many stories about his native land and its marvels. Some I knew to be true, having heard of them from the coast folk: the great floating houses that spread their wings like birds to catch the wind, and the magic weapons that make thunder and lightning. Others were harder to believe, such as his tales about the woman chief of his tribe. Not a clan mother, but a real war chief, like Bigkiller or even Powhatan, and so powerful that any man – even an elder or a leading warrior – can lose his life merely for speaking against her.

  He also claimed that the town he came from was so big that it held more people than all of the People’s towns put together. That is of course a lie, but you can’t blame a man for bragging on his own tribe.

  But nothing, I think, was as strange as the plei.

  Forgive me for using a word you do not know. But as far as I know there is no word in your language for what I am talking about. Nor in ours, and this is because the thing it means has never existed among our peoples. I think the Creator must have given this idea only to the whites, perhaps to compe
nsate them for their poor sense of direction and that skin that burns in the sun.

  It all began one evening, at the beginning of his second winter with us, when I came in from a council meeting and found him sitting by the fire, scratching away on a big sheet of mulberry bark. Just to be polite I said, “Gado hadvhne? What are you doing?”

  Without looking up he said in his own language, “Raiting a plei.”

  Now I knew what the first part meant; rai-ting is what the whites call it when they make those talking marks. But I had never heard the last word before, and I asked what it meant.

  Spearshaker laid his turkey feather aside and sat up and looked at me. “Ah, Mouse,” he said, “how can I make you understand? This will be hard even for you.”

  I sat down on the other side of the fire. “Try,” I said.

  O what a fond and Moone-struck fool am I! Hath the aire of Virginia addl’d my braine? Or did an Enemy smite me on the heade, and I knewe it not? For here in this wilde country, where e’en the Artes of Letters are altogether unknowne, I haue begun the writing of a Play. And sure it is I shall neuer see it acted, neyther shall any other man: wherefore ’tis Lunacy indeede. Yet me thinkes if I do it not, I am the more certain to go mad: for I find my selfe growing more like vnto these Indians, and I feare I may forget what manner of man I was. Therefore the Play’s the thing, whereby Ile saue my Minde by intentional folly: forsooth, there’s Method in my Madnesse.

  Well, he was right. He talked far into the night, and the more he talked the less I understood. I asked more questions than a rattlesnake has scales, and the answers only left me more confused. It was a long time before I began to see it.

  Didn’t you, as a child, pretend you were a warrior or a chief or maybe a medicine man, and make up stories and adventures for yourself? And your sisters had dolls that they gave names to, and talked to, and so on?

  Or . . . let me try this another way. Don’t your people have dances, like our Bear Dance, in which a man imitates some sort of animal? And don’t your warriors sometimes dance around the fire acting out their own deeds, showing how they killed men or sneaked up on an enemy town – and maybe making it a little better than it really happened? Yes, it is the same with us.

  Now this plei thing is a little like those dances, and a little like the pretending of children. A group of people dress up in fancy clothes and pretend to be other people, and pretend to do various things, and in this way they tell a story.

  Yes, grown men. Yes, right up in front of everybody.

  But understand, this isn’t a dance. Well, there is some singing and dancing, but mostly they just talk. And gesture, and make faces, and now and then pretend to kill each other. They do a lot of that last. I guess it is something like a war dance at that.

  You’d be surprised what can be done in this way. A man like Spearshaker, who really knows how – ak-ta is what they are called – can make you see almost anything. He could imitate a man’s expression and voice and way of moving – or a woman’s – so well you’d swear he had turned into that person. He could make you think he was Bigkiller, standing right there in front of you, grunting and growling and waving his war club. He could do Blackfox’s funny walk, or Locust wiggling his eyebrows, or Tsigeyu crossing her arms and staring at somebody she didn’t like. He could even be Muskrat and his Tuscarora woman arguing, changing back and forth and doing both voices, till I laughed so hard my ribs hurt.

  Now understand this. These akta people don’t just make up their words and actions as they go along, as children or dancers do. No, the whole story is already known to them, and each akta has words that must be said, and things that must be done, at exactly the right times. You may be sure this takes a good memory. They have as much to remember as the Master of the Green Corn Dance.

  And so, to help them, one man puts the whole thing down in those little marks. Obviously this is a very important job, and Spearshaker said that it was only in recent times, two or three winters before leaving his native land, that he himself had been accounted worthy of this honor. Well, I had known he was a didahnvwisgi, but I hadn’t realized he was of such high rank.

  I first purpos’d to compose some pretty conceited Comedy, like vnto my Loue’s Labour’s Lost: but alas, me seemes my Wit hath dry’d vp from Misfortune. Then I bethought my selfe of the Play of the Prince of Denmark, by Thomas Kyd: which I had been employ’d in reuising for our Company not long ere we departed London, and had oft said to Richard Burbage, that I trow I could write a Better. And so I haue commenced, and praye God I may compleat, my owne Tragedie of Prince Hamlet.

  I asked what sort of stories his people told in this curious manner. That is something that always interests me – you can learn a lot about any tribe from their stories. Like the ones the Maskogis tell about Rabbit, or our own tale about the Thunder Boys, or – you know.

  I don’t know what I was thinking. By then I should have known that white people do everything differently from everyone else in the world.

  First he started to tell me about a dream somebody had on a summer night. That sounded good, but then it turned out to be about the Little People! Naturally I stopped him fast, and I told him that we do not talk about . . . them. I felt sorry for the poor man who dreamed about them, but there was no helping him now.

  Then Spearshaker told me a couple of stories about famous chiefs of his own tribe. I couldn’t really follow this very well, partly because I knew so little about white laws and customs, but also because a lot of their chiefs seemed to have the same name. I never did understand whether there were two different chiefs named Ritsad, or just one with a very strange nature.

  The oddest thing, though, was that none of these stories seemed to have any point. They didn’t tell you why the moon changes its face, or how the People were created, or where the mountains came from, or where the raccoon got his tail, or anything. They were just . . . stories. Like old women’s gossip.

  Maybe I missed something.

  He certainly worked hard at his task. More often than not, I could hear him grinding his teeth and muttering to himself as he sat hunched over his marks. And now and then he would jump up and throw the sheet to the ground and run outside in the snow and the night wind, and I would hear him shouting in his own language. At least I took it to be his language, though the words were not among those I knew. Part of his medicine, no doubt, so I said nothing.

  God’s Teethe! Haue I beene so long in this Wildernesse, that I haue forgot all Skill? I that could bombast out a lyne of blank Uerse as readily as a Fishe doth swimm, now fumble for Wordes like a Drunkard who cannot finde his owne Cod-peece with both Handes.

  I’m telling you, it was a long winter.

  For who would thus endure the Paines of time:

  To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow,

  That waite in patient and most grim Array,

  Each arm’d with Speares and Arrowes of Misfortune,

  Like Indians ambuscaded in the Forest?

  But that the dread of something after Death,

  That vndiscouered country, from whose Shores

  No Traueller returnes, puzzels the Will,

  And makes vs rather beare that which we knowe

  Than wantonly embarke for the Vnknowne.

  One evening, soon after the snows began to melt, I noticed that Spearshaker was not at his usual nightly work. He was just sitting there staring into the fire, not even looking at his skins and bark sheets, which were stacked beside him. The turkey feathers and black paint were nowhere in sight.

  I said, “Is something wrong?” and then it came to me. “Finished?”

  He let out a long sigh. “Yes,” he said. “Mo ful ai,” he added, which was something he often said, though I never quite got what it meant.

  It was easy to see he was feeling bad. So I said, “Tell me the story.”

  He didn’t want to, but finally he told it to me. He got pretty worked up as he went along, sometimes jumping up to act out an exciting part, till I thou
ght he was going to wreck my house. Now and then he picked up a skin or mulberry-bark sheet and spoke the words, so I could hear the sound. I had thought I was learning his language pretty well, but I couldn’t understand one word in ten.

  But the story itself was clear enough. There were parts I didn’t follow, but on the whole it was the best he’d ever told me. At the end I said, “Good story.”

  He tilted his head to one side, like a bird. “Truly?”

  “Doyu,” I said. I meant it, too.

  He sighed again and picked up his pile of raiting. “I am a fool,” he said.

  I saw that he was about to throw the whole thing into the fire, so I went over and took it from him. “This is a good thing,” I told him. “Be proud.”

  “Why?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Who will ever see it? Only the bugs and the worms. And the mice,” he added, giving me his little smile.

  I stood there, trying to think of something to make him feel better. Ninekiller’s oldest daughter had been making eyes at Spearshaker lately and I wondered if I should go get her. Then I looked down at what I was holding in my hands and it came to me.

  “My friend,” I said, “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we put on your plei right here?”

  And now is Lunacy compownded vpon Lunacy, Bedlam pyled on Bedlam: for I am embark’d on an Enterprize, the like of which this Globe hath neuer seene. Yet Ile undertake this Foolery, and flynch not: mayhap it will please these People, who are become my onely Frends. They shall haue of Will his best will.

  It sounded simple when I heard myself say it. Doing it was another matter. First, there were people to be spoken with.