by Andre Norton
They did not pause to eat; in fact they carried no food with them. Yellow Shell had only the spear Broken Claw had urged him to take, shorter and lighter than the one he had carried before, but with a very sharp point. And his two companions bore only the pipe in its wrappings, taking it in turn with its carrying strap about a shoulder.
At dawn they came out of the forest on the edge of a drop, below which, in a canyon, ran the stream for which they searched. They made their way cautiously down the rise and all three splashed thankfully into the water, the otters straight away turning over stones in search of their favourite food—crawfish.
Yellow Shell was not so lucky. There was only rocky ground here, no willows, alders, or water plants. He would have to hope that up ahead he could find something to fill his now empty stomach. Or else, if the otters were planning to rest through the daylight hours and travel at night, perhaps he could prospect downstream and return.
He signed a question and the elder of the two pipe bearers replied. There was a deep overhang ahead, if the bank had not collapsed. Scouts from the village had long ago established a resting place. As for casting downstream for food—perhaps Yellow Shell was wise to try. There was little ahead in the way of growing things and he might go hungry if he could not share their hunting.
The overhang was still there and the otters whisked into its shadow, pulling up out of the water to roll in a patch of sand, drying their fur. Yellow Shell looked around carefully, setting landmarks in his mind. Then he plunged back into the water, this time swimming with the current downstream.
For a space there was nothing but rocky walls, and his hunger grew the keener because he began to fear that he would have to go so far hunting food that he would have a long trail back. At last he came out from between those walls as one would emerge from a gate and was in a small meadow-like pocket.
A deer snorted and stamped, startled, as he edged along the bank towards a good stand of willows. But there were no wings in the early-morning sky and he crept from the water to examine the possibilities of breakfast.
In the end he was able to eat his fill, though the food was not as good as that of the otter village. And, having done that, he set about cutting such lengths of bark as would not be too difficult to carry, tying them together with twists of tough root. With the otters’ warning in mind, he thought he would do better to carry food with him up the mountain, and he hoped what he could take would be enough.
Eagles’ Bargain
When they started on at nightfall, Yellow Shell found his bundle of bark something of a hindrance, but as they went farther and farther upstream, twice having to leave the water and climb around small falls, he was glad he had it. For this was a waste sand of rocks and stones and they seldom saw a green thing. When such did grow, it was only a wind-twisted cedar or the like, which was no fit food for him.
Dawn found them high in the mountains, with one giant peak standing directly before them. The otters, Red Head and Stone Foot, signed that that was their goal and they would have to leave the stream ahead and climb that wall in order to reach the eagles’ tribal grounds.
Again they found shelter for the day. Yellow Shell ate sparingly of his food and saw that the otters were following his example, hunting for crawfish, but killing more than they ate and tying those up in thongs of fish skin.
“Where is Eagles’ lodge?” Yellow Shell signed when they returned with this food supply.
“Up and up and up—” Red Head replied.
“There is a trail?”
“Part way only, then we light a signal fire,” it was Stone Foot’s turn to answer. “If Eagle will speak with us, he will send warriors to carry us the rest of the way.”
Yellow Shell did not like the sound of that. Earth or water safely under one was one thing. To be borne aloft by an eagle who might or possibly might not be friendly was something very different. But he did not say so to the otters, since it appeared that this was a usual way of visiting Eagle as far as they were concerned—if they had visited Eagle before. But if not his present companions, someone from their village must have done so, or they would not be so sure of how one got there.
Again he slept. But this time he kept waking, and raising his head to listen. For what he was not sure but there was a strange feeling that the three in their hollow between the two rocks were not the only ones on this mountain side, that other animals—or things—moved here with some purpose. Though for all his watching, and straining his ears to hear what he might not see, the beaver sighted or heard nothing, save a flying insect or two, and once a bird that skimmed low over the water but did not wear the black feathers of a crow.
If he was uneasy, so were the otters. Twice Stone Foot, the elder of the two, slipped away from their crevice into the water, but not to swim on the surface with a flick of the hind foot to send him driving ahead as was the usual way of his clan. He vanished, diving under with such power as to hide him from sight almost instantly. Once he cast downstream, once up, and both times he returned after a short space, to sign that the river was empty of any travellers save fish. They kept watch on the land, but did not venture from the stream side, napping in turns, one always on guard.
With the coming of dusk they left the water and began the last portion of their climb. Land travel was a slower progress and both the otters and the beaver disliked it. Already clouds were blacking out what remained of the grey sky of evening, seeming to pull in a tight circle about the top of the very mountain that they climbed. Rain came, hard and fast, so that at times they had to take cover as best they could from its fury, waiting until it slackened somewhat so they could cross some open space that provided only poor footing.
Flashes of lightning were bright and sharp.
Thunderbird. His Yellow Shell mind drew a strange picture for Cory, that of a giant bird perching on a mountain top or winging in the clouds above such a peak, shooting those blasts of fire from the fanning of its sky-wide wings.
By one such flash he saw that Stone Foot had smeared mud across his muzzle below his eyes, and knew that the otter had taken the precaution of claiming protection from the earth. Now Yellow Shell reached out a paw to scrabble in a small hollow by a boulder and pick up enough of the wet soil to do the same. For earth stood fast against the force of wind and water, and to claim such protection now was what they must do on this mountain side where wind and water attacked.
At length Red Head, who was in the lead, turned from a last straining climb, and they came out of the full force of the wind into a cup-like space between two rocks, part wall of the mountain, and a spur that shot out from the cliff. Water ran in a steady stream through it, but as the otters hunkered down in that hollow, Yellow Shell followed their example.
The dark was so thick that even his night sight could no longer serve him. Now the lightning ceased and the storm began to slacken so that the runnel of water became a trickle and then vanished altogether.
Yellow Shell had held his paws in that water as long as it had lasted. Never meant for such hard scrambling over a rough surface, the pads on all four feet were scraped and raw, but the water eased their hurt. He expected the otters to move on, but they did not, and he began to think that perhaps this was the place where they must signal for aid into the eagle country.
For what was left of the night they dozed together in the cup, sheltered from the last of the storm, the bundles of food at their feet, the well-wrapped pipe safe between the two otters. But at dawn they stirred, and Red Head brought out just such a shell fire-box as Cory had used to escape the minks.
Yellow Shell looked about for wood. If Red Head wanted a fire they must have some. But he could see nothing save a withered-looking bush fighting hard to keep its hold against a steep slope.
“That?” he signed and pointed to the bush.
The otter nodded and Yellow Shell pulled out of the cup to go and cut it down, an action he did not find easy since he feared starting a landslide that would take him with it. But sha
rp teeth served him well, and by patient effort he brought down a tree. In two trips he had dragged back all that piece of growth to the crevice.
Just as Red Head had produced the coal of fire to start new flames, so did Stone Foot now bring out a small pouch that he held waiting in his paw. The first otter took bits of branch and twig that Yellow Shell had sheared off for him and with care built them into a tripod of small sticks. It was small, too small, Yellow Shell thought, to last long, but he could see nothing else usable anywhere about them now.
As the clear light of morning finally touched the mountain side where they had sheltered, Red Head set the coal within his tepee of brush and they saw a curl of smoke wreath up. When the first small flame broke, Stone Foot reached out to quickly dump the contents of his pouch on it. The answer was more smoke, but much thicker and darker, with a reddish colour such as Yellow Shell had not seen before. Channelled by the rock walls of the crack in which they crouched, it rose up and up. There was no wind this morning, as if the storm last night had exhausted it. And the smoke trail was like a ladder climbing into the Sky Country itself.
Yellow Shell remembered old tales of such ladders and how the people of under earth had sometimes climbed them, not many finding the Sky Country ready to welcome such intruders. Did—did the otters believe that Eagle indeed lived in the spirit world?
But his companions were making no effort to climb any such way. Instead they ate from their packets of crawfish, and with appetite, as if they saw no use now in saving any of the food for later. Following their example, Yellow Shell finished the last of his now dried bark and withered leaves, and found it not nearly enough to satisfy him.
The beaver had no way of measuring time in a world where watches and clocks were unknown. But the fire burned itself out swiftly, he thought. Yet the otters made no move to travel on, or to hunt more wood for another fire. Having eaten all their food bag, they settled back again, one on either side of the pipe, as if to sleep away the day.
Yellow Shell was restless, wanting either to go on ahead or to retreat down the mountain. Retreat was possible, for he could see their back trail plainly by day. But the otters were right, there was no way ahead. They were faced with a sheer wall of cliff, as if some giant had at one time used his knife to cut down a slice through the mountain.
A shadow swept across the cliff. Yellow Shell froze as that winged shape wheeled about, circling, and, at each circle, dropping closer to where the fire had burned.
Out of the crevice came the otters. Still guarding the pipe between their bodies, they reared up on their haunches to their greatest height. The beaver did the same. The winged shape came in, to perch upon a pinnacle of the spur that had been part of their shelter.
It was an eagle and, though Cory had never seen one so close, he thought that this one was far larger than the birds of his own world—as were also the beaver shape he wore, and the otters.
It turned its head from side to side, looking down at them, its wings still a little out-held and not folded against its large body. Yellow Shell had to tilt back against the firm support of his tail to see it well. But now he noted that around its feet it wore bindings of coloured stuff from which hung seeds and the rattles cut from snake tails.
The eagle carried no weapon. Cory thought that it did not need any but its own cruel-looking beak and talons. And now it opened that beak in a screaming cry that shook Cory, and that was echoed faintly from the heights behind from which it had come.
The otters used sign language, taking turns. And Yellow Shell read those signs. They were few and plain, telling that they were pipe bearers, on a peaceful mission from tribe to tribe.
Done with that, they sat waiting. The eagle appeared to be thinking, as if he were making sure of the truth of their statement. Then once more he gave that piercing scream. And, in answer, more shadows flapped down along the face of the cliff, two of his fellows.
The otters, as if this were the most natural welcome in the world, moved out into the open, and Stone Foot made the cord of the pipe package tight to him, using as an additional lashing the thong that had tied his crawfish bag.
Then the eagle who had first arrived pounced, and Stone Foot was borne aloft. A second came for Red Head, and the third black shadow was over Yellow Shell. In that moment the beaver wanted to flee. This was too like real dangers he had known in the past, not an act of any friendship. But he had no time to move. The claws closed about him and with a lurch, sickening to him, he was in the air, the safety of the ground left rapidly below.
There was a vast difference, Cory speedily discovered, between travelling in a comfortable plane in his own world, and by eagle power in this. He closed his eyes, trying not to feel the tight and painful grip of the claws, the rush of wind, only hoping that the journey would be a very short one.
He was dropped, rather than set down, rolling over in a painful half bounce. Opening his eyes, he struggled to his feet—to face what he was surprised to find lay at the crest of that tall mountain.
Perhaps the tower of rock and earth had been born a volcano, and they were now where the inner flames had burned. For this was a basin sloping from ragged stone edging. There was a lake in the centre around an island of stone outcrops. About the outer edge of that body of water were trees and grass, a miniature woodland.
It was the island that Yellow Shell now faced, having been dropped with the otters on a sand bar reaching into the water. And the island was the eagle village, their bushes of nests mounted on blocks, broken pillars, and mounds of stone.
It was a crowded village, and there was much coming and going—mostly of parent birds supplying their screaming young with food. But those eagles who had brought the animals did not stop at the village, rather they spiralled up to the wall of the basin valley where Yellow Shell caught sight of other birds moving in and out of fissures in the rock.
The otters were busied with the pipe bundle, loosing its wrappings, pulling off the fish-skin protective covering. But still the four layers of painted skins were about it as they laid it carefully out on the sand, the bowl end pointing towards them, the stem to the village on the lake.
However it was not from the village that the chief came. He wheeled from the crags, circling down to perch on a big rock by the shore, one worn in hollows where his huge feet rested, as if generations of eagles had sat there before him.
Tufts of weasel fur, for the weasel is a valiant warrior and skilful in evading pursuit, hung from a necklace about his throat, together with the tooth of a cougar, as if he had indeed counted coup on that mightiest of four-footed enemies. He was a proud and fierce chief, more for leadership on the warpath than on the peace trail, Yellow Shell thought, as he looked upon him with awe.
Several lesser eagles settled down on lower rocks. And every one of them wore coup necklaces laced with that which told of their past victories. But the last comer was no eagle.
At first Yellow Shell flinched at the sight of those dead black wings—a crow? Then he saw that this was a raven, larger than the crows he had seen scouting when he fled upriver with Broken Claw.
No coup necklace was about the Raven’s throat. But the rattles of a rock rattler were tied to his legs, and he carried on a thong a small drum, hardly larger than Yellow Shell’s hind paw. He did not have the painted circles of red or yellow that marked the eagles about their eyes. A dab of white, spirit white, made a vividly plain mark just above the jutting of his beak.
The eagles and the Raven folded their wings as the otters moved with a slow ceremony to unveil the pipe, wrapping by wrapping. They worked in silence, nor was there any sound from the birds who sat in such quiet that they might have been carved of the very stone upon which they now perched. Even the noises from the village lessened and Yellow Shell saw that there were fewer comings and goings from there. Many of the parent birds settled down on the nests, all facing towards the shore and the meeting between the animals and their chief.
At last the pipe was fully expo
sed and lay in the sunlight. It seemed to shine, as if the sun put fire to the red of its bowl. For the first time Stone Foot spoke, his voice rising and falling in a chant that the beaver, while he did not understand it, recognized as a medicine song, and not addressed to the eagles but to some protective spirit.
When he had done, Red Head, moving with care, dropped a pinch of tobacco into the bowl and brought out his shell box with its smouldering tinder. But he did not light the pipe as yet. He waited.
Again a long period, or it seemed long to Cory, of just waiting. Then the eagle chief moved from his rock perch to a lower stone set closer to the otters. From that he stretched forth his leg, his claws closing about the pipe stem. Red Head lit the pipe, and the eagle chief raised it to the sky, pointed it to earth, and then to the four corners of the world, even as Long Tooth had done with that other pipe when he welcomed Yellow Shell to the otter village.
The chief smoked, expelling a puff from his bill, passed the pipe to the Raven. And the Raven in turn gave it to Stone Foot, Stone Foot to Yellow Shell, and then to Red Head. Having blown the last ceremonial curl of smoke, the otter tapped the tobacco ashes from the bowl and laid the pipe back on its wrappings, the stem still pointed arrow straight at the chief.
A great clawed foot rose so that the claws could move in signs.
“I am Storm Cloud of the Swift Ones, the Mighty Wings.”
Stone Foot signed in answer. “We are Stone Foot, Red Head, bearers of the pipe. And this is Yellow Shell, who is—”
The Raven hopped down from his stone perch. Among the eagles he had seemed small. Standing thus on the ground to face the beaver, he proved to be almost as large as Yellow Shell. He moved with a lurch and Cory saw that his left foot had lost a claw. But he steadied himself well on it as he signed: