by Andre Norton
Somehow the thought of hunting brought with it an instant feeling of hunger. Cory remembered the lunch he had not so much as tasted, the plates of hot food, both of which had been cleaned up by Black Elk. What did beavers eat? Wood, or bark, or something of the sort? He looked around him, wondering what thing growing along the pool side might be best, and thought that he would have to let this new body decide for him, just as it had when it brought him down to the river.
It pointed him now to a low-hanging willow, and shortly Cory was relishing bark his strong front teeth stripped from the branches. He ate well and heavily, intent for a moment on the filling of his too empty stomach. And it was not until he was finished that he began to think again.
What had happened to him, he could not guess, unless he was dreaming. If so, this dream was not only longer than any he could remember, but far more real. He could not recall any dream in which he had eaten until comfortably full, or gone swimming and actually felt the touch of water. Now, though, the fright that had sent him running to the river was fading. What he felt was more curiosity as to what was going to happen next.
Absent-mindedly he kicked some remaining shreds of willow bark into the pool and looked around him. The need to explore was part of his curiosity. He would travel by river, instead of clumsily waddling on land. It only remained to decide which way, up or down.
Perhaps it was a desire to make his travel as easy as possible that sent him finally down. But he soon discovered that the waterway was not lonely. It had its own population, and he watched the life he met there carefully.
Fish wriggled about, and there were birds that skimmed above the water or waded out to hunt frogs. There was no sign of any animal, until he came to an untidy mass of dead twigs and the like wedged against a hole under the water line of a clay bank.
“Muskrat!” Cory could not have told how he knew this, but know it he did. The lodge in the clay bank was deserted, however, more so than if deserted by chance. His lips wrinkled back from his chisel teeth as he tracked a scenting of the story to be read there. Death—and something else—
MINK!
His beaver paw closed tightly about the haft of his spear.
Mink and danger . . . but not recently. . . . The war party that had raided here had been long gone—at least two suns, maybe three dark times. Without realizing how or why, Cory’s thoughts began to follow another path. And then, it was almost as if he had opened a door—or perhaps it would be better to say the cover of a book—so that he could read—not much, but enough to warn him.
Mink warriors raiding upriver. And a beaver scout—that was he—questing down. Not in advance of a war party—no. Rather to seek out a new village site because shaking of far hills had opened a path in the earth to swallow up the pond that had held their lodges for a long time.
Mink—one mink he, Cory-Yellow Shell could grapple with—could gain battle honours perhaps just by touching without danger to himself. But a war party of them—that brought the need to go softly and avoid notice. And he had been in the open, swimming as one of the finned ones with no need to fear except from the long-legged walkers.
He raised his head well out of the water, shadowed by the mass of bedding that had been cast forth from the muskrat den. Some of that had been clawed over by the mink; their scent was all through the top layer. And the strong musk of the lodge’s rightful owner did not hide it completely. Now Yellow Shell listened and a distant cawing made him tense, very still.
The Changer! Or rather one of his crow scouts. The beaver did not so much as twitch a whisker until he heard a second call, farther from the river and to the north. When he took to the water again, it was with all of Yellow Shell’s skill and not Cory’s blundering. Yet Cory’s wondering, his fear, his need for knowledge was still there, sharing the beaver’s memory.
Yellow Shell worked his way along the riverbank, using every bit of cover. Twice more he scented mink. And then another and more pleasing and friendly odour—otter. There was a slick mud slide down the bank and to that the otter scent clung, though over it the mink taint was strong as if the enemy had nosed up and down that clay surface for some time.
Half buried in the mud at the edge of the water, Yellow Shell nosed out a broken necklet of shell beads. There was a spot of blood on its stringing thong. So the mink had counted coup, killed or taken a prisoner here. He climbed out on the bank and went scouting.
One otter, he decided. Perhaps young. And the minks had lain in ambush beside the slide. They had rolled in sage to cover their scent. He finally found the scuffed marks of battle, two more splashes of blood, and followed that trail back to the water’s edge. They had taken a prisoner, then.
Again Yellow Shell snarled silently. Slinking mink! He dug the butt of his spear into the soft earth of the bank with a quick thrust. By now the otter was dead, or had better be. The mink had evil ways of dealing with captives.
This was no beaver affair. Only mink was enemy all along the river, for long ago beaver and otter had smoked a pipe in a lodge they had both had a share in building and made peace, which had thereafter lain between their tribes. They were no menace to each other, though both were water peoples. For the beaver liked roots and bark, the otter hunted meat. And sometimes it chanced that they camped together and had gift givings and song dances.
Cory stirred. How did he know all this—what otter smelled like, or mink? And those scraps of memory about things that seemed to have happened to Yellow Shell before he became Cory, or Cory him? This was the strangest dream—
He turned his spear around in his forepaws. Maybe if he went upriver again, right back to the place where the fire had been—he could wake up in the right world, stop being Yellow Shell, be Cory Alder again.
Then a shadow swept overhead, making a dark blot first on the bank and then on the water. Again, for the third time, that chilling fear gripped Cory. He screwed up his head, which was never meant to rise at such an angle from a beaver’s shoulders. A big bird—black—coasting along—crow!
And with that recognition his fear grew stronger. He was no longer the beaver Yellow Shell with powers of scent, hearing, sight. He was Cory in a strange body and in a frightening world.
And he was Cory just long enough to be betrayed.
Out of nowhere—for he still watched the crow wheel over the river—fell a rope of twisted hide. It looped about his chest, jerked tight enough in an instant to pin his forelegs to his body, and dragged him back from the water towards which he made an instinctive start. The force of the pull overbalanced him so that he toppled on to his back, scraping across the ground, striking the slick clay of the otter slide, up which he was drawn, still on his back.
Before he could gain his feet at the top or make use of his quite formidable beaver weapons of teeth and tail, he was struck on the head, and both sun and day vanished completely in the bursting pain of that blow.
It was with Cory’s bewilderment that he awoke again. His head ached and there was a sticky mass on one cheek that his exploring tongue was able to touch enough to tell him it was blood. His forepaws were tightly roped to his sides, his tail fastened with a loop the other end of which was about his throat, so should he try to use his tail as a weapon the movement would strangle him.
He lay on his side under a bush and there was the stink of mink all around. Also, there was a mink curled up not too far away, a plaster of fresh mud and leaves across foreleg and shoulder. The warrior faced away from Cory. He had several thongs around his neck, now pushed to one side by the plaster on his wounds, and those were strung with rows of teeth, among which—Yellow Shell brought his front teeth together with an angry click—were several from beaver jaws.
The mink kept shifting position and it was plain that his wound pained him. Now and then he turned his head a fraction and snapped at the edge of the plaster, as if that gesture gave him some relief from his misery.
By the wounded guard’s side Yellow Shell counted at least five war pouches, three of the
m fashioned from turtle shells. This told him that he faced an experienced and wily adversary. For those who counted turtles among their dead enemies were the best of their tribe. As well as he could, Cory tested the strength of the cords that held him. They were of hide, braided, and there was no breaking them. Now his fate would depend upon chance and upon the very important point of how far they were from the mink village. For it was apparent he was not to be killed at once, but saved for some unpleasant later purpose.
It must be, beaver knowledge told Cory, close to evening. And night was mink time, even as it was normally for beaver also. If they went on by water in the dark, his captors might have to loosen him to do his own swimming, and that would give him a chance—
But he was not to be so lucky. The wounded mink suddenly raised a war club, a knot of stone tied to a shaft, the ball having several ugly, stained projections. Perhaps that was what had brought Yellow Shell down. Crouching, the mink listened.
Beaver ears caught what human ones might have missed, a stealthy slithering sound. Then three more minks appeared, as if they had risen out of the earth.
They did not speak to the guard, but half ran to their prisoner, the last one dragging something. What that was, Cory discovered a moment later when he was roughly rolled on to a surface made of saplings still studded with branch stubs. To this his captors made him fast by vicious pulls of rope. Then he was dragged along and dropped, to land with punishing force at the bottom of a cut, again to be pulled along.
Here the drag did not catch so easily, but slipped better behind the two minks pulling it, giving the two coming from the rear little need to lend a push. The sled balanced on the top of another incline, was given a vigorous shove by the minks behind, and plunged on down what could only be the otter slide, to land in the stream.
Travel by land became travel by water, and the push and pull of the mink party appeared to be taking them along at a swift pace. Cory, unable to move, the painful up-twist of his tail beginning to hurt almost as much as the pounding in his head, felt himself borne along on the surface of the river, eyes up to the night sky. Though he could not turn his head far enough to see, he was aware, shortly after, that the first party of his captors had been joined by more of their kind. He wondered if they had an otter in their paws also.
A moon rose soon and its clear light on the water did not appear to alarm the mink party. If they had any enemies in this part of the country, they did not fear them. Perhaps they claimed this whole section of the river as their territory and had long since cleared it of any who might dare to challenge their rights to it as a hunting ground.
Cory was carried on under a place where long willow branches hung close to the water, reminding him that it had been some time since he had eaten. A long—How long would this dream last?
Dreams—what had someone said way back at the beginning of this day which had ended so strangely—about dreams? Something about someone who dreamed? Oh, Uncle Jasper—He had said it about Black Elk. Medicine dreams—Didn’t the Indians believe that a boy must go out and stay without eating until he dreamed about an animal who was to be his guardian for the rest of his life?
Black Elk—and that bag he had said was strong medicine. The bag and the fire and the smoke, and Black Elk making him hold the bag into that smoke. This dream had started with that—as if it were a medicine dream. Only Cory was not an Indian boy, and these minks were certainly not guardian spirits out to help him. What he had of Yellow Shell’s thoughts told him that they were exactly the opposite.
And what about the black crows and the Changer, who could change animals, and tried to make man, or had made him, and who was finally beaten because he could not change or move mountains?
The ache in Cory’s head grew worse. The brightness of the moon hurt eyes that could not turn away. He shut his eyes and tried to put all his strength into a desire to awaken from this dream. Only—how could you make yourself wake up? Usually a bad dream broke of itself and you found yourself lying in bed, with your heart pounding, your hands wet, and your stomach twisted inside you. He felt as scared and unhappy now, only he was not truly Cory but a beaver and a prisoner.
The raft on which he was tied continued to whirl along, and he felt rather than saw that two of the minks swam, one on either side, giving it a steer now and then, keeping it steadily moving. Then he heard a distant roaring and beaver mind told Cory that it was bad water—a fall, or perhaps a rapid.
His raft turned in the water as the minks shoved it out of the current. A little while later it was in the shallows, bumping around stones while the war party scraped, tugged, and lifted at it.
“You”—a mink head twisted on a slender neck was held closer to his so that he could see the glinting merciless eyes of the warrior—“walk. Stop—we kill!”
The sounds were so gabbled and ill-pronounced, it was as if the mink spoke beaver but not well. But Cory felt the freedom as the cords that had held him to the raft were loosened. Then they boosted him to his hind feet, leaving his tail still fast to his neck. The line about his forepaws was grasped at the other end by the mink who had hissed the order and warning, and a sharp pull at that started him on.
It was a rough way, and twice Cory lost footing and fell among the rocks. Both times he was prodded to his feet again by his own spear in the hands of a mink; once he was beaten on the haunches by a club. Somehow he got on, but he no longer tried to think. There was only one thing left, to watch the barely marked trail and try to keep walking it.
They had left the riverbank, but the roar from that direction grew louder. Then they turned again, and Cory, struggling to keep alert, believed that they now paralleled the water. Twice they rested, not for his sake, he knew, but because two of their own company had leaf-and-mud-plastered wounds.
The second time they pulled off the trail, Cory saw that he was not the only captive. Ahead was another wounded, bound with ropes—an otter. But that animal seemed hardly able to move, and two of the minks pushed and shoved him along.
At last they returned to the riverbank and the minks brought up the raft to which Cory was once more tied. By that time he was so tired that when afloat on the water he fell into a state that was neither sleep nor a faint, but a combination of the two.
Broken Claw
A series of wild screams and cries rang in Cory’s ears. He tried to move, but he could only turn his aching head a little. And when he did that, he looked into the narrowed eyes of a mink swimming beside the raft to which he was bound. Those eyes were ringed with red paint, which added to the hatred in them.
Beyond the mink’s head, he caught sight of a river-bank where there were more of the furred warriors slipping now into the water to head for the incoming party. Then the raft under Cory gave a leap forward as if hurled by the push of a new energy, bumped out of the water up and down over gravel and stones, adding to the aches in his helpless body.
So, still bound, Cory was towed on into the mink village. It was no small gathering place, as his Yellow Shell memories told him that of a beaver clan would be, but a number of lodges.
Sheets of bark had been set up on end, bound together with saplings, all made into cone shapes, not unlike the tepees Cory remembered from the pictures of the Plains Indian villages of his human past. To the front of most of these were planted poles from which dangled strips of fur, strings of teeth, a feather or two. No two of them were alike and perhaps, Cory thought, they stood for the owner of that particular lodge.
But he was not given time to see much, for a flood of minks—squaws and cubs—closed about him. Armed with sticks, clods of hard earth, they struck at him, all the time keeping up that horrible squalling until he was deafened as well as bruised by their blows. But finally the minks of the war party, perhaps fearing that their captive might be too battered before they were ready to deal with him themselves, closed about the raft and drove off his tormentors.
They came to one lodge set a little apart from the rest and sharp teeth cut s
peedily through those cords that kept Cory on the raft, though not his other bonds. He was pushed, rolled inside, and then his captors dropped the door flap and left him in the dusk of the interior. For it was not yet dawn and very little light entered. Perhaps not for Cory eyes, but for Yellow Shell it was enough to see that he was not alone, that another securely tied captive lay on the other side of the bark-walled shelter.
It was the otter, his fur bedabbled with blood, his eyes closed. So limp and unmoving was he that Cory thought perhaps he was already dead; though why the minks would leave him here in this way if that were so, he could not tell.
Yellow Shell memories frightened Cory; he tried to push them out of his mind. He did not want to think about what minks did to their captives; he wanted to get out of here, and as soon as he could. But all his pulling and twisting only made those hide ropes cut the more sharply into his flesh, sawing through fur to the skin underneath. He had been very skilfully roped; nowhere was he able to bend his head to get at the cords with teeth that could sever them in a moment, for the loop tying head to tail stopped that. To try was to choke himself.
After several moments of such struggling Cory lay still, looking about him in the tepee to see what might be put to his use.
Around the sides, except near the door opening, dried grass lay in heaps as if to serve as beds. But the two prisoners had been dumped well away from them. Some pouches or bags of skin hung from the upper walls, far above the reach of his head. There was nothing else—except the otter.
Cory turned his head as far as he could, to watch the other captive. He saw that the otter’s eyes were now open, and fixed on him. The otter’s mouth opened and clicked shut twice. The Yellow Shell part of Cory’s mind knew that signal.
“Enemy—danger—”