Spirit and the Skull

by J. M. Hayes

  The string was tied at the ends to two pieces of wood. Not the tips of a bow—willow branches, fresh cut and green so they wouldn’t snap, and thick so they wouldn’t bend. I was surprised Stone hadn’t noticed. Or had chosen not to mention it.

  I recognized the garrote that killed him. I’d made it. Several days ago, Down had asked how to avoid the unwanted attentions of certain men. Men who thought all women wanted them and only resisted because it was expected. Having several extra bowstrings, thanks to the elk, I’d made her a garrote and taught her how to slip the cord around an assailant’s throat while seeming to cooperate with his desires. I’d told her to be careful, of course. Not to squeeze it too tight. To immediately yell for help so the band could catch the criminal in the act and render a suitable punishment. But this garrote had been pulled so deep into Tall Pine’s flesh that I doubted Down could have done it. It would have taken terrible anger, additional leverage, or someone very strong, like Stone or Bull Hump or Takes Risks.

  I coiled the sinew and sticks and put them in my jerkin. Then I cut off the tip of Tall Pine’s right thumb with my blade.

  Tall Pine had been second in the band behind Stone—smarter and stronger, but not so ambitious. Still there’d been power in the man. I would burn away the flesh before it began to smell and save the bone. I’d keep it in my medicine pouch. Hears Voices, the old man who taught me how to listen to the spirits, told me there was much power to be gained by taking another’s bones. Much danger, too. I’d be cautious, but while I held part of Tall Pine, it was said I could bend his spirit to my bidding. I doubted that, but confronting his killer with this bone might be useful.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon filling the mouth of Tall Pine’s grave with rocks. It probably wouldn’t matter. The scavengers would smell him, dig him out, feast on him. Yet his spirit would know I’d tried.

  Thoroughly exhausted, I went through the rituals to purify us, then stumbled to my tent and Stone’s. As I crawled into my sleeping robe, I realized I hadn’t shared any of the news of what I’d discovered on scout. It was so important before I learned about the murder. Would the spirits let us take the pass to the south and The Earth Mother’s promised land before we revenged Tall Pine’s death? Would Stone and the other leaders agree to proceed before we found the killer and cleansed our band? If not, would we need the mammoth’s flesh and a lucky twelfth tent? My eyes grew heavy wondering if anything mattered now but the murder.

  Bone

  I’d hardly closed my eyes before I no longer had eyes to close. No eyes at all, though I could “see” that I was in a strange hut. To my horror, a stranger held my bones in his hands. And strange is the right way to describe him.

  His hair was short, but neatly tapered to varying lengths. I couldn’t imagine how he’d gotten it to look that way. His beard and mustache were graying and likewise short, but they grew only around his upper lip, the corners of his mouth, and neatly down his chin. His cheeks were smooth and hairless.

  He wore something faintly like a snow mask over his eyes. We cut slits in a strip of leather and wrap the masks over our eyes when bright sun turns the snow into frozen fire. Without those masks, a few hours’ exposure can literally burn a man’s eyes out and leave him forever blind. This man’s mask was made of something like clear, thin ice surrounded by narrow dark bands that bridged his nose and disappeared behind his ears. They wouldn’t hide his eyes from the sun. In fact, they made his eyes seem larger. He looked at me through this impossible mask and said, “I don’t think our friend is happy with his fate.”

  He couldn’t begin to imagine. My bones in his hands…?

  He spoke a language I’d never heard, yet I caught the meaning and understood him.

  Another voice spoke. A woman’s. I didn’t understand her at all, but I had at least a sense of what she said because he understood her.

  “Put him down. We need to talk.”

  He glanced from me to her. His eyes were the palest I’d ever seen.

  “You should learn patience, like our friend here. I’d say he’s spent at least fifteen thousand years waiting to tell us his story.”

  The number astounded me. It took me a moment to comprehend because The People arrived at large numbers by multiplying tens. I had no time to consider the meaning of such a vast sum because he began bouncing me in his hand. Then he turned me to face the woman.

  I’d thought Blue Flower was beautiful. This woman was…perfect. Flawless as a child and yet with the full curves of womanhood. Amazing curves, all perfect. Too perfect. And the skins she wore…they were as perfect as she, and dyed in colors I’d never seen. Once, I’d come across a flower of a similar hue to the leathers that clung to her amazing breasts, but it hadn’t been nearly as bright. The clothing clung to her without wrinkles, seams, or stitches.

  “Your woman suspects that I’m not just overseeing your work,” the perfect one said, “so she’s going to make you choose between us.”

  Woman wasn’t quite the word she used. She meant something more formal but I had no way to express it. I found it hard to imagine a woman being in charge of a man’s work. But none of this made any sense.

  “Look at his teeth,” the one with ice eyes said. “Remarkable condition but see the wear? How old do you suppose he might have been?”

  The woman touched her skins. They fell away and shocked me yet again. Her sex was as hairless as a pre-adolescent’s, and yet her shape was very much that of a woman. Her breasts were full and incredibly upright for their size. Unlike any I’d ever seen. Her waist was slender, taut with muscles. Her navel had been pierced with something that gleamed.

  “When she makes you choose, ask yourself if she can give you this.” The perfect woman removed me from his hand and put me on a flat slab of wood. I could see them no more. Instead, a world filled with exact angles and incredibly smooth surfaces lay in front of me. The place was brightly lit by strips of fire that burned white-hot along the roof of this astounding hut. Yet they produced only light and did no damage. Amazing!

  I heard noises below the slab on which she’d put me. At first, I didn’t understand. Then I recognized them. Sounds like that had kept me awake and frustrated in Stone’s tent. Imagining how the perfect woman looked as they made those sounds should have held my interest. Except I suddenly realized my head rested on the wood with no room for more of me below. The rest of me was missing. I wasn’t bones. I was only skull.

  ***

  I bolted awake, drenched in cold sweat. Around me, others in Stone’s tent slept the sleep of exhaustion. I felt at least as done in by yesterday’s events, but I knew I wouldn’t sleep again. I scrambled out of my bedding, still in my leathers. As I fumbled my way into my boots, my right hip complained. There was a sore spot, as if I’d foolishly made my bed without clearing away all the rocks that lay underneath. I pushed my robes and some grass padding aside. There was no rock. Instead, I uncovered a crude doll, a human figure formed of willow twigs tied with strips of leather. The knot that tied them was peculiar, unlike any I’d seen before.

  Even though I’m not convinced of the existence of the spirits I serve, or their interest in our daily lives, I reacted with a shiver. A doll could be an innocent child’s toy. But not this one. Its head had been soaked in blood—dry now. Someone had used it to cast a spell on me. Could having the head covered in blood have something to do with my dream of being a skull?

  I slipped quietly out of the tent flap, disturbing no one. The sun had only begun rising along its summer circle of this northern sky. Our central fire still glowed in its pit. I tossed the doll on the coals and watched it begin to burn. I spoke the words, sprinkled a little pollen, and brushed myself clean with a grass whisk. The doll blazed, quickly gone.

  I took the trail that led down to the stream. I’d wash myself clean of the dream and start this day fresh. I’d cleanse my body, then more fully purify my soul with the spirits a
gain, just in case.

  Before I reached the stream, I paused. I’d heard a quiet coughing in the willows. I should have brought my spear and bow. There wasn’t time to go back for them. I picked up a heavy stone, suitable for throwing, and slipped into the thicket.

  I heard the sound again. Clearer, this time. I recognized it. I pushed aside enough branches to confirmed my suspicion. She was bent over, vomiting in the scraggly grass.

  “I told you not to eat it.” I dropped the rock and stepped into the little clearing.

  Down swung in my direction, wiping her mouth but grinning in pleased surprise.

  “I didn’t. Well, only a tiny bit just after I got up. The plant, it’s to purge someone of a poison they ate, right? Or of meat gone bad.”

  “Obviously,” I said. “But why eat it yourself?”

  “If I’m going to use this to treat anyone else, I have to understand just how it will affect them. What healer would fail to know the consequences of the cure she prescribed?”

  “Clever girl,” Gentle Breeze agreed, slipping through the willows behind me.

  Down smiled again. “I thought this might be an agent to purge someone’s stomach. That’s why I only tasted a little. I didn’t manage to try it yesterday because of all the excitement. So I woke early and came down here into the willows to test it.”

  “Good for you, Down,” Gentle Breeze said. “Between Raven and me, we’ll turn you into an amazing healer. But right now, I need to speak to Raven in private.”

  “I’ll go wash my mouth out in the stream,” Down said. “Your plant left a bitter taste.”

  As soon as the girl was gone I apologized. “I hope you don’t mind that I’m also teaching the girl. Do you think she’d be interested in learning about the spirits, too? You and I are getting old and there’s no one else in the band smart enough to take our places.”

  “It’s a good idea,” Gentle Breeze said. “But that’s not what I want to talk to you about.”

  I raised an eyebrow in question while she sorted through her pouch.

  “I couldn’t get you alone yesterday, but you need to know about this. Look what I found on the chest of the one who was murdered.”

  She pulled out a doll like the one I’d found this morning and handed it to me. There was no blood on this one. Its crude arms had been tied so they bent across its chest and held a small yellow wildflower.

  “Does anyone else know about this?” I said.

  She shook her head.

  “Let’s keep it that way for now.”

  I took the doll apart, undoing the same strange knots, then led her to the stream. I purified the pieces before I let them float away. Then I purified both of us.

  “Bad enough that we have a murderer among us,” Gentle Breeze said. “Worse to have a witch.”

  Hunt

  The mammoth had moved upstream from where I first saw her. A pack of wolves had been at her and she bled from fresh wounds. The crushed corpses of two pack members showed she was still capable of defending herself.

  Because of the wolves, perhaps, she’d climbed to a shelf a man’s height above the river. The water skirted the foot of a solitary mountain there. Great slabs of gray rock sprinkled with red and orange and gold lichens stood out from the soil to support the earth’s grasp for the sky. The mammoth cow had placed her back against one and limited the ability of the wolves to get at her hindquarters. It would limit us, as well.

  We’d taken four days to get there, though I’d traveled the same distance in less than one. Moving the band was always slow, but we’d wasted time while Stone and his seconds bickered and slowed our journey. Tall Pine had them scared. Everyone was afraid. The murder obsessed us all, made us suspicious. Stone and Bull Hump and Takes Risks kept together, covering each other’s backs. They were our leaders, as Tall Pine had been. That might mean they were most at risk. They thought so.

  I finally persuaded Stone we couldn’t stay where we were until the crime was solved. With Tall Pine’s corpse just above us on the ridge, staying made it far too easy for his angry spirit to find us. We’d be safer heading for the passage between the glaciers I’d found. On the way we could guarantee we had plenty to eat—to say nothing of increasing our luck by adding a twelfth tent.

  I’d said I would discover the murderer, so I circulated among the band and asked people where they were the night Tall Pine died. I spoke to those who shared tents. No one had left a tent that night, I was told. But sneaking in and out of tents while others slept was easy and common. I asked Down if she still had her garrote. She couldn’t find it. That troubled me, but I didn’t believe she was strong enough to have pulled the cord so deep into Tall Pine’s throat. I believed her when she denied killing him.

  I looked for dolls, and listened for word of people finding them. If anyone else in the band had been a victim of witchcraft, I heard nothing of it.

  I searched through people’s belongings when no one watched me. I asked everyone what they might have heard, both that night and in discussion within the band. Who did they think might be guilty? I watched to see who acted abnormally. That didn’t help because no one acted normally. Why would they, when one of us had just been murdered? I particularly watched Stone and Bull Hump and Takes Risks, and enjoyed it because my watching made them uncomfortable. But I didn’t learn anything I hadn’t already known.

  It snowed one afternoon. Then the sun broke through and turned the tundra so bright that we strapped on our snow masks. That was the first I’d thought of my terrible dream since the morning I woke from it. I shivered, not from the cold. But then I wiped the dream from my mind again. I’d slept since. Dreamed again, without more visits from the stranger or the perfect woman. It was odd that I’d dreamed myself a skull. I’d never heard of anyone dreaming something like that. But I’d destroyed the doll from my bedding as well as the one Gentle Breeze found. And I’d done what I could to protect us all from witchcraft. The dream must have been a peculiar nightmare that wouldn’t happen again.

  The snow had melted by the time we reached the mammoth. Burned off but for a few patches high up the mountain’s side where dall sheep grazed.

  While the women set up camp on an island in mid-stream, Stone led our hunters to the mammoth. Much of the hair about the old cow’s face and shoulders had gone gray. One of her tusks had broken in some long-ago battle. So long, that the shorter tusk was nearly smooth on the end. Her right rear leg still supported no weight. I was surprised she’d managed to climb the ledge, though wolves provided ample encouragement.

  For the first time in days, the band felt comfortable to me. We had food to gather. Danger to face. We were about to do something that required all of us to play roles we knew. Tall Pine’s murder became secondary to taking the mammoth.

  The wolves didn’t challenge us as we approached. They simply melted away like yesterday’s snow, hurried a little by our dogs. We were too few to take all the meat the cow carried. It was as if the wolves decided to let us suffer the danger and losses, then satisfy themselves on our leavings. It struck me as a wise strategy.

  Stone and Bull Hump and Takes Risks looked the cow over and then gathered apart from the rest of us to decide how to take her. While they did, we gathered the dogs and tied them so they wouldn’t try to help us and get themselves killed for their trouble. Then all the adult men stripped down to our breechclouts, left our belongings in neat piles, and took up our spears and atlatls and our bows and arrows.

  I walked forward and stopped in front of the mammoth. Dangerously close if she still had the use of all four legs. She watched me through ancient bloodshot eyes, weary but angry. I spoke to her.

  “I apologize for what we are about to do to you. Though it’s a kindness, really. You’ll suffer less from us than from the wolves. Even if you drive us away, your days will be numbered and miserable. We appreciate what you’ll give us. Full bellies on whi
ch we may make a long journey, and your hide for a new tent. We’ll carve wonders from your precious ivory—tools and carvings that will be appreciated for generations. You’ll join the Spirit of the Mammoths and The Earth Mother in the sky pastures until you’re reborn and given back your youth. You’ll be a ruler of the tundra again, so great and powerful you need fear no other creature.”

  I didn’t mention that she’d have to grow old again. It was time to celebrate what she’d been and would be again. Not remind her of endings.

  She grumbled at me and rocked back and forth on her forelegs, as if impatient to get on with it. I could see that, while she might agree with my logic, she’d give us another gift as well. The gift of resistance. She intended to teach us how to fight for life because it was precious. If she must die, she’d show us how to die well.

  “See how she watches Raven,” Stone called. “Fan out along her right side from Raven to the wall of stone. Make noise. Keep her attention.” Stone stepped over and tapped Hair on Fire, handing the young man our sacred spear—the mammoth killer. Hair on Fire smiled and nodded and hugged the edge of the ledge as he circled around to the beast’s left. Did I see someone above and behind him for a moment? One of the wolves, probably. Or my imagination. All the men were where they should be.

  Hair on Fire? I hadn’t expected him. Usually, it would be an experienced hunter, one of the leaders. Stone or Bull Hump or Takes Risks or, until four days ago, Tall Pine. Hair on Fire was a surprising choice. He was young, but strong and quick. His confidence growing. He’d asked Stone for the right to a woman of his own a few months ago. That was when Slender Reed came of age and everyone knew the young couple wanted each other. She was beautiful, except for the scar a fox had given her when she was a child. The scar hadn’t spoiled her body though. There was promise in her youthful curves. But Stone gave Slender Reed to Tall Pine, instead. Tall Pine already had a woman, one he shared with the rest of the leaders.