Spirit and the Skull

by J. M. Hayes

  “You hid the bleeding? You mixed with men, touched their belongings and food while you were unclean?”

  Any other woman would have averted her eyes with shame at such an accusation. Down met my stare.

  “I did,” she said. “I thought I could make my father change his mind, especially if I could persuade Fire to offer a generous gift for me.”

  I wasn’t as angry as I pretended, though nearly all our band would be outraged. I wasn’t frightened because I served whatever spirits might exist. I knew protections in case the spirits actually cared what we’d done. And, I confess, there’d been times when I so needed a woman that her bleeding hadn’t prevented our coupling. Even that threat to my manhood hadn’t deterred me. Those acts caused me no harm. Of course, I’d never become a leader. None of my children had survived. Perhaps such things were my punishments or, more likely, I was simply unlucky.

  On the day Fire died, it had been so long since I’d had a woman that bleeding wouldn’t have stopped me. But the band must never know I’d violated that taboo and would be willing to do so again. Even more, they must never know what Down had done. They might judge Down’s contamination as the cause of Fire’s death. In fact, they could blame the murder on her acts. Then, even though I’d purify them, and even with Stone as her father, they might drive her away—send her onto the tundra alone and unarmed.

  If they did that, I wondered if I’d offer to go with her…and if she’d have me.

  “How did you manage to hide it?” How would a child like Down—a child just becoming a woman—know what to do to disguise her condition?

  Down turned her face away. “Someone helped. I won’t tell you who. I told her about Fire and Walks Like Ox. She said a woman should have the same right as a man to decide who she couples with. She said there were ways to hide my condition. Plants, herbs. Dressings I must secretly wash and change. And ways to avoid having a child.”

  “Gentle Breeze.” Who else? Down’s mother had died the year after bearing her. Stone’s woman, Blue Flower, didn’t like Down. Down was much smarter than Blue Flower and they were nearly the same age. It had to be Gentle Breeze. I’d coupled with Gentle Breeze when she bled, I remembered, back when she was my woman. And on occasions, after that.

  “No, not Gentle Breeze,” Down said. “I can’t tell you who.” She wouldn’t meet my eyes as she said it.

  Of course it was Gentle Breeze. But that didn’t matter. “Don’t ever tell anyone else. Not about Gentle Breeze. Not about Hair on Fire. And most especially, not about hiding your bleeding. Imagine how the band might punish you.”

  “Not so badly as you think, Raven. I’m not the first girl to hide her bleeding in order to be available to the man she wanted.”

  That took me aback.

  Down must have seen it on my face. “I thought our Spirit Man knew everything.”

  “No,” I confessed. “About some things I’m just an old fool.”

  “I was sure you knew. And that you knew I’d become a woman. I thought that was why you were paying me so much attention lately. I was flattered.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, and then another problem struck me. “Are you bleeding now?”

  Men didn’t ask women such things. When her time came, a woman simply packed what she needed and went to stay in our Women’s tent. Only other women could enter there for their own bleeding, to bear children, or to visit those who stayed there while they were unclean. Residents of the Women’s tent spoke to no man, met no man’s eye, touched no tools except women’s tools which had to be cleansed and purified before being used by anyone else. Even visitors had to wash and ritually purify themselves before reentering the main camp and coming in contact with men.

  “No,” Down said. “I’m not bleeding now.”

  “When your next bleeding comes, it will be your first. Be certain Blue Flower knows when it happens. As soon as you’re through, Stone will host a great celebration of your womanhood.”

  “And give me to Walks Like Ox.”

  “No. Ox won’t get you.”

  “Why not? Will you stop him?”

  “Trust me.”

  I didn’t know how, but I’d find a way. Ox didn’t deserve someone as precious as Down. I wouldn’t mind having her for myself, though I had no more idea how to arrange that than how to keep her from Ox. Not yet, anyway.

  When she looked in my eyes, I saw she did trust me. I hoped I’d prove worthy. I’d certainly try.

  “Down, prepare yourself. We must act for our dead. Come, do exactly as Scowl and I tell you. When we’ve put him in his grave, I’ll send you and Scowl to wait until I purify all of us before we return to camp. But you’ll slip away from Scowl and sneak back to the grave. There are things a woman should do for her man to free his soul so it will be at peace and move on.”

  “What things?” Acting as Hair on Fire’s woman strengthened her.

  “A woman should caress her man’s genitals one last time before they’re washed and purified. A hair from between her legs should be left with him, that he may carry her sex to the spirit world and not need to come in search of it here. That’s all.”

  “I plucked those hairs so no one would see them and know I’ve become a woman.”

  I rolled my eyes. She’d gone to a great deal of trouble for Fire. I hoped he’d been worth it. And I wished some woman felt that strongly about me.

  “Perhaps a few have grown in since.”

  “I can check.”

  I remembered the hairless sex of the perfect woman in my dream. I wondered whether Down needed help searching for such a hair. The timing of my thoughts and the stirring that accompanied them couldn’t have been more inappropriate. I turned and focused on Fire’s battered corpse. The thoughts and stirring subsided.

  “Come help Scowl and me now. Your friend deserves the best we can give him.”

  ***

  It was a long day. Two days, actually. I only realized we’d begun the second when we lost the sun behind the mountain.

  Down had rejoined me at the rock shelter I’d discovered on the stream’s side of the peak by then. She hadn’t needed to sneak away from Scowl. When they reached the river to wait for me, Scowl felt exhausted and took a nap among the willows. Down had hurried back to perform her duties for her man, acting with a gentle fondness that made me jealous. And she found new hair between her legs. Several, all plucked for Fire’s pleasure and without my help. I didn’t offer. She was young and in love for the first time. It ended tragically. I remembered my first lover. I’ve always remembered. Sex first shared is special. I’d loved other women more, and more skillfully but memories of that first time remained precious. Down’s newfound sexuality combined with her youth and innocence reminded me of what that felt like. I longed to offer her comfort, but she had no need of a suitor just then. My age let me understand that.

  She cried giving him his final caress, and came into my arms for reassurance. I held her until I began to feel aroused. Then I put her to work, helping me fill the chamber in which he lay. Stacking the rocks was hard work. She felt useful focusing her mind on the task instead of on her loss. If Scowl should wake and notice Down was gone, I told her to say she’d taken a walk in the willows. Doing so would have been foolish, but the young do foolish things.

  There was bear scat on the stony slope below the rock shelter. In this country, rock shelters were about the only place we could use for burials. But they weren’t secure. This one certainly wouldn’t be. I’d removed a few bones and other evidence that a bear had used this place from time to time. A big grizzly, I thought from the scat’s size. If Down saw evidence of the bear, she ignored it. We piled layers of rocks over her lover, maybe enough to deter the animal, especially if it caught wind of the mammoth carcass down below. Of course, the bear would have to contest the wolves for that meat, but wolves might be less trouble than the rocks Do
wn and I moved.

  After I purified Scowl and Down and myself because of our direct contact with the dead, I joined the men bringing firewood to cure and cook the meat we’d butchered. Scowl and Dawn got scrapers and worked helping the women clean flesh from the mammoth’s hide. We wouldn’t have time to cure it properly. We’d have a new tent by the time we next pitched camp again, big enough to relieve our crowding, but pungent.

  Boys who weren’t yet men kept the fires burning under the strips of meat we’d hung from green willows. We found dry wood and dung to feed those fires. We had taken enough meat to provide for the band for at least a moon.

  The sun had worked his way around from behind the mountain again by the time I left the boys to their task and went to Stone’s tent. Stone slept. Bull Hump slept. So did a few others. I crawled into my own bedding and tried not to let the comings and goings of others disturb me. I must have been successful. I woke and the light was brighter outside. Stone stood over me, frowning. I wasn’t sure why, at first. Then I realized Down had crawled into my arms while I lay sleeping.

  “She should have come to you for comfort,” I told him.

  “She did. I told her she was too old for such nonsense.”

  “Not today.”

  He scowled at me, but he left.

  Maybe I only dreamed that. Down was gone when I woke again and Stone never mentioned the incident. Neither did anyone else. And again, my dreams were normal enough—death, blood, the mammoth, and the feel of Down in my arms. Not of the ice-eyed stranger who’d found my skull.

  Trial

  The camp echoed with chaos and shouting when I next woke. Bull Hump’s booming roar rose over a chorus of angry voices, so many I couldn’t make out what they said. I rolled out of my robes, struggled into my boots, grabbed my spear, and went to see.

  Bull Hump, Stone, and Takes Risks formed a half circle around Walks Like Ox and a pair of his friends. They all shouted at each other.

  I saw Ox every day, but I was surprised at how big he’d grown. He was bigger even than Bull Hump. Softer, maybe, but Bull Hump had just taken an arrow in the neck. Even in his rage, Bull Hump held his head at an angle to ease the pain. Gentle Breeze had made him a poultice for the wound, but the skin around it was red and swollen.

  I leaned my spear against our tent when I saw we weren’t under attack. Ours wasn’t the only tribe crossing the tundra. Occasionally, quarrels broke out between bands within The People. Stone had thought the price asked for Blue Flower was too high, so he’d never finished paying it. That was two summers ago. We still heard rumors that Blue Flower’s band intended, one way or another, to collect in full.

  For a squabble within our band, it was better not to be armed. I was much smaller than Bull Hump or Walks Like Ox. Smaller, too, than Stone and Takes Risks, and the other men in this argument. But they weren’t arguing with me. Perhaps I could mediate.

  “Tried to kill…” Bull Hump bellowed.

  “Beside him…” a boy interrupted.

  “Challenge you now…” Takes Risks yelled.

  I stepped between them, holding my hands up. “What’s this about?”

  They all shouted at me at once.

  “Quiet!” I said. “Our headman should speak first, then someone may answer. That’s how The People solve disputes.”

  The custom was for them to do this in front of a wise man, a respected elder. I was old enough and had plenty of experience. But I didn’t have Stone’s respect. Not much of it, anyway. The same could be said for Bull Hump and Takes Risks. Still, they all grew quiet. Stone puffed himself up, turned, and began addressing me.

  “We’ve discovered who shot Bull Hump. Or who shot at me while we hunted the mammoth. Walks Like Ox did it.”

  “Did not,” Walks Like Ox replied.

  Thinks like ox, too, I decided, if this was an example of the clever defense he’d use against Stone’s accusation. Definitely not one of our brighter sparks above the fire. I raised a hand and stopped him. “Let Stone finish, then respond.”

  Stone seemed surprised to be expected to continue. He’d stated what happened. As far as he was concerned, that should be enough. I decided some prompting was in order.

  “Why do you say that? Did someone see Walks Like Ox shoot that arrow?”

  Takes Risks answered. “We found this hidden among his sleeping robes.”

  He held up another arrow and I examined it. Well made, undecorated, tipped with sharp flint, and fletched with ptarmigan feathers.

  “Do you have the one that struck Bull Hump?” I already knew this was a match.

  Bull Hump handed it to me. The second arrow was so like the first there could be no doubt they’d been made by the same hand.

  “It’s not mine,” Ox said. “Someone must have put it in my things.”

  “Enough,” I said. “A band member has been murdered. Another has been shot. Now Walks Like Ox stands accused. We must hold a council. The men must gather and hear the claim that Walks Like Ox shot the arrow. Next, they’ll listen to him defend himself. Anyone with knowledge of what happened must speak at the council. Then our band will decide what to do.”

  ***

  Gathering the men wasn’t hard. Most had been drawn to the confrontation. The few still butchering the mammoth, or gathering wood and dung for fires to cure meat, quickly formed a circle around the great fire. Not a very great fire just then, since we needed most of the fuel for curing the mammoth. We’d built a central fire out of habit. We hadn’t cooked over it. All of us had gorged on the fresh kill.

  Stone took his traditional place at the head of the circle. He held the sacred short lance, the one with which I’d killed the mammoth. It was both a functional tool and a symbol of his leadership. Bull Hump and Takes Risks sat on either side of Stone. Walks Like Ox and his two friends sat across the fire, but within the circle. Crooked Nose and Seven Fingers were both younger than Ox, and much smaller. Crooked Nose had been dropped on his face as a baby. Soon after he learned to walk, Seven Fingers had tried to take meat away from one of the dogs.

  No women joined the circle. They had no place there. But they gathered just outside it, listening. Though women may not participate in a band’s council, I’ve heard more than one make pointed comments to her sisters, comments later brought up among the men and acted upon. Women speak among themselves from just beyond our circle, stating how foolish the men must be to make such decisions. Foolish men might sleep alone or expect to prepare their own meals and mend their own clothing. Few men were foolish enough to ignore comments like that, even if they pretended not to hear.

  All our men formed the circle. I was inside it. Since I’d called the meeting, leading it was my responsibility. None of the accusers or the accused could do that. And, though the band wouldn’t act unless all the men agreed—and none of the women objected too strongly—the person who ran a meeting like this could make lifelong enemies. I wasn’t surprised when no one suggested I step aside.

  By the time we started, everyone knew what Stone and Bull Hump and Takes Risks accused Ox of doing. It was tradition, though, for someone to explain. I did, beginning with Tall Pine’s death, reminding everyone that these latest accusations might have larger implications. I didn’t name Tall Pine, of course, nor Hair on Fire. I spoke of lost friends. Of those we buried.

  I asked that the two arrows be passed around the circle. And I asked Stone, as headman, to explain how the second arrow was found.

  “We discovered it while we searched the camp,” Takes Risks answered for him. “It was hidden in Walks Like Ox’s bedding.”

  That led to general muttering among the band. I waited until they quieted.

  “Is there any other evidence against Walks Like Ox?”

  None of the men spoke, though I heard Gentle Breeze remind someone that our strangled friend had been very strong. It would take another strong man to overcom
e him. That was likely, if not necessarily true, and there were others as strong as Ox. I didn’t mention any of that. I wasn’t there to defend him. Not if doing so helped him get Down as his woman. Ox could speak for himself. Or call on others who might sow doubt. Including me.

  “It’s not my arrow,” Ox said. “I’ve never seen an arrow like this before. I don’t say Takes Risks lies when he says he found it in my bedding. But if that’s where he found it, someone who wishes to harm me put it there.”

  Seven Fingers spoke next. “I’ve never seen an arrow like this, either. I stood beside Walks Like Ox when we killed the mammoth. We were well down the line from Bull Hump and Stone,” he said. “Walks Like Ox would have had to turn away from the beast to aim at them. Walks Like Ox had only a few arrows and I saw him shoot all of them at the mammoth.”

  Crooked Nose said he and Ox had left their bedding out of the tent for young men without women so it would air before the hunt.

  “There were no arrows in Walks Like Ox’s robes,” Crooked Nose said. “Walks Like Ox fletched all his arrows with the feathers of the goose we killed when we camped by the lake thick with waterfowl. I stood between Walks Like Ox and Bull Hump and would have seen if Walks Like Ox shot an arrow toward Bull Hump or Stone. And, if Walks Like Ox had shot it, the arrow couldn’t have gone by Stone’s ear and would have hit Bull Hump on the other side of his neck.”

  “The young man makes a good point,” I said.

  “I stuck my arrows in the ground beside me,” Bull Hump said. “One of them fell over. I’d just bent and turned to pick it up when Walks Like Ox shot me. That explains where it struck.”

  I’d known Bull Hump would have an explanation.

  “And I stepped around Bull Hump to get a better shot when the arrow just missed me,” Stone said.

  Takes Risks pointed at each of the boys. “I think these three planned to replace us as leaders of this band. I think they started with the one who was strangled. If the arrow had flown true, only two of us would be left.”