Spirit and the Skull

by J. M. Hayes

  I breathed again. I’d thought she might be on the verge of talking to me about my dreams. I couldn’t decide whether there really was something magical about this woman I’d known so well many years before. Or whether her strangeness came as a result of nearly dying in that distant river.

  At that moment, Willow suddenly looked at me out of The Mother’s eyes. A wistful look I hadn’t seen in this new Willow, but one I recognized from our youth at times when she was troubled.

  “Oh, Raven,” she said. “You should sleep. But you can’t, can you?”

  She reached into her robes and pulled out a piece of pemmican.

  “Eat this,” she said.

  If I was going to eat, I’d prefer the stew, but I didn’t argue. I only wanted to turn around and hurry back to Down. I bit off a piece. It had a strange flavor.

  “This will ease your aches and give you some energy—for a while at least.”

  To my surprise, it seemed to help almost immediately.

  She took my hand in both of hers, the way she used to, and backed toward the cave’s opening. “Come with me, Raven. I want to show you something.”

  Her voice sounded young and excited. Her smile told me she expected to surprise me with something wonderful. She’d done this once when she led me to a flower unlike any I’d ever seen. Soft and pink and nearly as beautiful as the young girl who showed it to me.

  This time, she led me out of the cave, her pace quick and girlish. She almost skipped up the path. I couldn’t help but smile as she dragged me behind her. We followed a twisting trail that snaked across and up the side of the mountain. I had to trot to keep up with her.

  And then she stopped and turned and smiled at me again. “I loved you very much, Raven. But we both have different partners now. We can’t go back, but it was sweet that you wouldn’t mate with Down when you saw me watching. Thank you for that.”

  It had been The Mother’s aspect more than Willow’s, but I didn’t correct her.

  “I have a surprise. Cover your eyes.” That was like her. She’d reveal it in her most dramatic fashion, as she used to when we were young and in love. Once, when I uncovered my eyes, Willow waited, naked and willing. So young, then. So beautiful. Did she remember that moment?

  I covered my eyes. I should have worried, as she led me up the path and around a corner. There might be some terrible drop this new Willow planned to shove me over. But I was with the old Willow now. For the moment, I trusted her absolutely.

  A cold wind struck, so we’d come around a bend in the trail. That nearly made me peek, but she didn’t give me enough time.

  “Now.” She pulled my hands away from my eyes.

  We were higher than I’d thought and near the edge of a dangerous cliff. But that wasn’t what she wanted to show me. Below us, from horizon to horizon, the earth moved. Not the earth, of course. Because what moved was brown and beige and tan and shaggy and the earth lay still beneath a cover of trampled snow.

  The mammoths were the first animals I identified. A dozen of them, some with frolicking calves. And mastodons. Their pace seemed slow but purposeful. They moved in the middle of a tremendous mass of caribou. Further from the base of the mountain were horses. Nearly as many as the caribou. And bison. Elk, too, and moose and ox. All the great animals. They filled the earth. Why didn’t I feel the mountain shake with the weight of their passage?

  Here and there, bright spots of snow stood out. In them, predators paced among the herd animals. Lions, tigers, bears, wolves, wolverines. They flowed toward the mountains and the ice, all of them together, as if some temporary truce had been struck so they might all successfully reach the land that had been promised us.

  “Amazing!” I breathed. I had never seen so many animals at one time in one place. I probably never would again.

  “Isn’t it?” Willow squeezed my hand. “Aren’t they magnificent?”

  “Yes.”

  “Our allies. They share the world with us. They compete with us and make us better, stronger, and wiser. They feed us, clothe us, provide tools and weapons. And they teach us not to take them for granted. They show us that life is as precious to them as it is to us.”

  Willow shook her head. “We need, them, Raven. The part of me who’s The Mother believes we’ll come to waste them. Fail to revere them. That we’ll worship our wealth and comfort at their expense. That part of me believes we’re here, now, because this place is one of the last on Earth where the great herds will prosper in abundance.”

  She turned and took my hands in hers. “But there’ll come a time when even this place is threatened. The Mother dreams. She traveled to a time when many of the beasts you see below us will have vanished. When we might stand on this spot and not see a single animal.”

  “Surely not.”

  “No, it’s true. I shared The Mother’s dreams.”

  “What else did she dream of?”

  Willow shrugged. “You know. You’ve had troubling dreams, too, Raven.”

  “Was she…were you a skull?”

  A small tear brimmed in the corner of Willow’s eye. “Yes. A skull. Someone carried The Mother and me to this spot and showed us where this tundra used to be. I don’t know how to describe it. It was almost unrecognizable, and there were no animals.”

  I reached up and wiped the tear away, peering deep in those familiar eyes. “It’s only you right now, isn’t it Willow? The Mother’s gone.”

  “She’s always here, Raven. But she’s given me control of our body for this conversation. She knows you don’t believe she saved my body and shares it with me. So, for now, though she hears, it’s I, only Willow who speaks.”

  “Can’t you keep her out?”

  Willow smiled. For the first time since we left the cave I saw the wrinkles in her face. She had aged, though not so much as me. Her face had become more weathered and fuller. Still attractive, but the texture of her skin had hardened from when I’d known her.

  “Raven, I don’t want to keep her out. She’s The Mother. Our Mother. The Earth Goddess. And she saved me when I died. She isn’t evil, only…only pragmatic. She does what she must for the Earth’s good. For the animals’ good. Her children’s good, and we are among her children.”

  It didn’t matter whether Willow truly had become one with The Mother or simply believed something that wasn’t true. I honored The Mother, and believed in her. I believed in a Goddess who cared about every life she allowed to end, but who didn’t interfere in them.

  “Raven,” Willow said. “She asks me to tell you that she does care, but sometimes has no choice but to interfere. Each life is precious to her. That’s why, when life ends, she guides its soul to the stars to join with the spirits of the dead. And then, sees that it’s born again. She says she could force you to believe in us, the two of us in this one body, if she wanted, but that she allows her children to accept her or not, as they wish. She promises you’ll always have that option, though she hopes you’ll keep an open mind about our union.”

  I looked deep in Willow’s eyes again. No hint of the mother stared back at me.

  “I’m trying.”

  “Good. Now, we need to go back to the cave. There’s more she wants me to show you.”

  Would she show me how I’d die? Where my skull would rest? But I didn’t think so. If it were something as cruel as that, I reassured myself, my Willow didn’t know it yet.

  ***

  Willow took me back to the cave. Takes Risks saw us coming and raised an eyebrow, obviously wondering if it were time to leave. I shook my head and followed Willow. She guided me to the deepest corner of the cave. A heavy robe hung against the stone wall there, weighted along a jutting seam at its top by rocks the size of my skull, not that I had any reason to compare things in that way.

  It was pitch black behind the robe. Willow pulled it aside and I saw rocks and a wolf’s skul
l on the floor. The wolf’s skull chilled me. I felt sure it occupied the spot where Ice Eyes would find me.

  “The Mother usually keeps the figurine you carved of me beside the wolf’s skull,” Willow said.

  Yes. I would replace the wolf.

  The world whirled, as if my head might come off and roll to its predetermined spot just in front of my feet. I nearly pitched over against the cavern’s walls before Willow steadied me.

  “Are you all right? Do you need more pemmican?”

  I closed my eyes and concentrated on steadying my feet and breathing. When I finally found my voice, I told her I was fine. But I ate the last of the pemmican, hoping it might help.

  “Be careful and stay right behind me,” she told me. “Our path follows a narrow seam through the rock here. The floor is uneven and it twists and turns. Hold my hand and I’ll lead you.”

  “Why not bring a torch?”

  “We never bring torches in here, and we won’t need one. Trust me.”

  I managed to avoid stepping on the wolf, in its role as temporary substitute for my skull, and followed Willow into the crevasse. Narrow hardly described it. We twisted left, then right, making headway only a few feet at a time. I barely kept my feet under me. Then the walls grew wider and I realized I could see. Not much, to begin with. Only Willow’s dim outline revealed itself in front of me at first. Was there another entrance? As the light became brighter, I could tell it flickered.

  “You’re wasting wood or dung, keeping a fire going in here when there’s no one to see it.”

  “Wait.” She led me deeper still.

  We emerged into a large, domed chamber, not that I could see the roof clearly. The fire that illuminated the place was tiny and the cavity was huge—and surprisingly warm.

  “Look at the fire,” Willow said. “Tell me what it consumes.”

  I looked closer and discovered it consumed nothing. There were no logs, sticks, dried dung…nothing. It danced and wavered above a small crack in a great stone. I bent closer still and reassured myself that I could feel its heat.

  “Is the fire underneath, or does the rock burn?”

  “Neither.” She pulled her robe off her shoulders and swung it through the air. “Watch.”

  She dropped her robe over the flame and we stood in total darkness. I heard her pull the garment aside but the flame didn’t reappear.

  “Give me your hand,” she commanded.

  I did and she held it over the hot stone.

  “Feel that? Not the heat, the breeze.”

  I hadn’t noticed until she mentioned it. “Yes. I feel it.”

  “That’s what burns—the breeze, the mountain’s breath. The earth itself breathes through the crack in this stone. Now watch. I brought a piece of flint with me. See how I restart the fire.”

  I saw the sparks walk across the stone. There was a tiny boom as if a clap of thunder had just been born and voiced its first complaint. The sound was accompanied by a flash that momentarily reached far above us, nearly to the distant ceiling. Then only the little flame danced along the fracture in the rock again.

  “My man, Mammoth Rider, found this place. A band of his people lived in this country then. Hardly anyone else. The main entrance to this cave was higher up the slope than the one we use now. It opened on the view I showed you—the place where we saw the animals.

  “Mammoth Rider’s band thought it would be a perfect place to camp. They could watch the herds and protect themselves from the weather. His band celebrated their find by collecting wood for a great fire just inside the cave’s mouth. They planned to roast a pair of freshly killed caribou and rejoice over finding such an ideal place for their new home. The young men gathered dead willows by the stream and carried them up the mountain. Mammoth Rider tried to outdo all the others. He gathered wood until his arms were completely filled. Then, as he started up the mountain, it exploded like a volcano.”

  “A volcano?”

  She nodded. “You remember the mountains that smoked. We passed them on our way toward the new land. Mammoth Rider tells me it was like those explosions, but different. The fire didn’t tear off the top of the mountain. It blasted out from the mouth of the cave. Mammoth Rider dropped his wood and ran up the trail. He passed a smaller cave that had also exploded and set fire to the brush that had masked it. That’s the entrance to the cave our band uses now. The opening to the larger cave disappeared in the explosion. Part of the mountain fell and sealed it. He called and searched, but none of his band survived.

  Eventually, he explored the little cave. He found the crevice that leads to this chamber. And discovered the small fire that burns here now.

  “You see, Raven. The roof here extended above the mouth of the cave. The breeze that seeps from this crack is made of something that burns. Whatever it is, it floats on the air the way a stick floats on a stream. Over time, the mountain’s breath had gathered above us. Above the place his people lit their fire. You saw how, when I relit the flame, it briefly became so much larger, reaching for the roof. Mammoth Rider thinks the air up there had filled with the mountain’s breath. The Mother says it’s a special gift from Grandmother Earth, but that we’re not yet ready to receive it. She’s not certain we’ll ever be ready. For now, we keep this passage secret and see that this flame continues burning, so the breeze from inside the Earth can’t build up in this cavern again and destroy some other band who might happen on it.

  “When my body dies, The Mother plans to have the entrance to this cave sealed and to bury me just inside, like the wolf’s skull—a warning to her people that they must not go beyond that spot.”

  “That won’t happen for a very long time, Willow.”

  “It will come when it comes, Raven. You know that. The Mother is in no hurry to do without me, but she’s begun arranging what must be done when my time here ends.”

  “Thank you for sharing this sacred place with me. Or shouldn’t I thank you? Doesn’t The Mother have a purpose for me here as well?”

  “I’m sorry, Raven. I’m afraid your dreams have already answered that question. And it’s why The Mother wants you and your band to be brought back into harmony with the Earth and the spirits, and into The Mother’s Way. Accomplishing that is part of why you must find and punish the murderer before tomorrow ends.”

  Somehow, she knew the deadline Stone had set me. And I’d been right about the wolf’s skull at the entrance to this place. “I see,” I told Willow. And I did. But that didn’t mean I had to like it. Or even to let it happen.

  Questions Without Answers

  Takes Risks didn’t seem interested in what had happened between The Mother and me. He didn’t even ask if I’d gotten what we came for. Still, he was more talkative on our return trip. Just as well, since the effects of Willow’s pemmican soon began to wear off. A deep, aching exhaustion nearly persuaded me to lie down and curl into a ball and sleep right there in the middle of the tundra. Sleep until I froze, or until something came along and ate me. Takes Risks kept me going by giving me things to think about. He kept me moving and made my mind stretch to understand what he had to say.

  “You know, Raven, Stone hasn’t been an effective leader. It might be best for all of us if your investigation discovers he’s the killer.”

  I had to ski a dozen strides before I realized Takes Risks thought the person I accused and punished didn’t have to be guilty. Whoever murdered Tall Pine was a secondary issue as far as Takes Risks was concerned. Might that be because he’d done it or expected to be the one who’d replace Stone? Stone had persuaded the band to back him after his father died because the old man had led them successfully for many years. Stone’s size and strength reinforced the idea, especially when he didn’t turn out to be as wise as his father. The size and strength of the three men he surrounded himself with helped him maintain his position. Now, one of them, Tall Pine, was dead. Would Bull Hu
mp support Takes Risks, or would he want the role of band chief for himself? All I knew was Bull Hump had no intention of letting me accuse him. Takes Risks was the smartest of the three who remained. Or, at least, the cleverest and most creative. Would our men prefer Bull Hump the bully or Takes Risks the devious? Takes Risks had just proved his skill to me by suggesting something outrageous and making it sound like no suggestion at all.

  What if Stone really was the killer? Would the band select one of his supporters to replace him? Might they select someone else all together? Someone less threatening, say? And, if the band did that, how would that man rule if Bull Hump and Takes Risks combined against him? I didn’t know. Exhaustion engulfed me like a growing avalanche. I understood what Takes Risks said, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around what might happen if I took his suggestion.

  “And Bull Hump… How do we know he didn’t stick that arrow in his own neck just to avoid suspicion? Maybe the two of them, together…”

  It would be so much more convenient if I eliminated both the men Takes Risks perceived as rivals.

  “I want you to know,” he continued, “I’ll support you, even if you discover reasons to challenge someone in authority. In fact, if I should become headman, I’d want you beside me as my main adviser. You’d be second in the band only to me.”

  Well, that was interesting. But what, I wondered foggily, if I accused all three of the crime? Would the men of the band let me go that far? Not that the three were guilty. I felt all but certain of that. But how bizarre a decision would the band let me get away with? Would they accept it because my choice might make us more likely to succeed, even if I let the murderer continue to live among us? And what of Willow? In her role of The Mother, I knew she wouldn’t let me get it intentionally wrong. Or would she…if my decision coincided with an outcome she wanted? Would even The Mother let me bend justice? Or could I fool her?

  Just before Takes Risks, still rambling about the wonderful life I’d have as his second in command, led us up the ridge toward where our camp lay, a warm wind rolled across the tundra. The snow, already mushy from hours of sunlight, began melting almost immediately. Takes Risks and I removed our snow masks and our skis because the path we had to climb led up a steep slope. The stone would be as slippery wet as when covered by snow, but it would no longer accommodate our skis. I got mine off, but wouldn’t have managed to get back up that slope if Bear Man hadn’t come bounding down the trail. He picked me up, grabbed my things, and set off in the direction of the Women’s tent.