Owl spotted the next rabbit ahead of him near the path. A clump of dry grass formed an arching protection, and hunched comfortably beneath the concealing stems sat a fluffy long-ear. The protective coloration was so complete that Owl would have entirely overlooked the hiding animal except for the bright, shining eye. He began his stalk.
It was important, he reminded himself, not to look directly into the animal’s eye. That would enable the rabbit to read his thoughts. He casually continued his unaltered pace, pretending not to see his crouching prey. Then, at the right moment, without even breaking stride, Owl struck with the throwing stick. Not a throw, just a quick backhand blow, and the rabbit lay kicking in the snow. Good. This would enable him to conserve his dried provisions.
Yet another rabbit was added to his food supply in the same manner before he climbed the bluff again. The most important find of the day, however, was merely an observation.
He saw the deer herd at a distance, and noticed again how the aspens around him were marked by their chewing. The tree beside him bore black scars on the smooth white bark. He reached up and touched the highest of these marks, just above his head. Suddenly the significance sank home. He looked quickly around at other trees. He could see no marks of the animals’ feeding activity that were any higher than his reach.
This gave him invaluable information. If the snow in the valley became deep, the deer would be unable to move about to any extent. They would stay in one area, and their combined trampling would pack snow firmly beneath their feet. Then, they would reach upward to chew the bark during the hardest part of the winter. And, he reasoned, if snow depth were great, they would be standing on the deeply packed substance. Then the scars on the bark would be higher than those he now observed. The marks would be visible for several years. His conclusion was very gratifying. There had been no great depth of snow in this valley for at least five or six seasons.
Owl was elated as he climbed back to his cave, carrying firewood, and with his two rabbits swinging by the hind legs. He was pleased no less by his discovery than by his use of observation and reason. White Buffalo would be proud of his pupil. He must remember to tell the medicine man when he rejoined the People.
With added confidence, Owl settled in for the winter. Each day brought, in its own way, an improvement in his condition. He improved his weapons and his garments. True, they would be objects for amusement when he rejoined his tribe, but for now they were more than adequate.
He was able to kill a fat yearling buck with his spear. By means of covering himself with his rabbit cape over his head, he found that he could move among the deer with little trouble. The technique, after all, was not much different than working among buffalo with a cape made of a calf’s skin. The deer seemed merely to regard him as a strange new sort of animal, more curious than dangerous.
The food and skin of the young buck were put to good use. Owl was already planning his journey back to the People. It would begin as soon as the weather would permit. Much of the meat was dried and stored for traveling. Once he started, Owl did not want to be encumbered by stopping to hunt.
The Moon of Long Nights passed, and the Moon of Snows. At least, Owl believed them to be. He could gauge somewhat by the daily journey of Sun Boy with his torch, swinging in a low curve across the southern sky. Owl would sit at the mouth of his cave and sight across a distant mountain top, estimating the height of Sun Boy’s arc at the zenith. Finally, after many days, it appeared Sun Boy was rising higher. That would signal the end of Long Nights’ Moon, he believed. In a land so different from his own, it was difficult to be sure. The prediction of the deer proved accurate, and at no time were there heavy enough snows to prevent his moving about for more than a day or two.
He contrived a small waterbag from the skin of a porcupine, with hair and quills removed, and thereafter could make less frequent trips to the stream. In addition, he accidentally discovered, on a morning of melting snow, a depression in the rock near his cave. Melted snow was trickling into the basin in a steady stream. With surprise he realized that this collecting pool was intentional. The Old Ones had scraped grooves in the soft rock to channel precious drinking water into the basin for use. Thereafter, his trips to the stream were even fewer.
The Moon of Hunger followed. Owl had wondered, as a child, at the strange name for this moon. The name, he finally came to understand, had been given before the People had the advantage of the elk-dog with which to hunt buffalo. Winter had been a terrible time, a time of starvation.
Just now, however, the foremost thing in his mind about the Hunger Moon was not the Hunger Moon itself, but that which followed. Next in the order of things was the Moon of Awakening. Then the buds would begin to swell and Sun Boy would drive Cold Maker back into the mountains.
Then, Owl told himself, he could start the long journey back to his people.
23
It was in the moon that Owl believed to be the Moon of Awakening that he prepared to depart. Buds were swelling, and on the sheltered slopes where Sun Boy’s torch could reach most of the day, green sprigs of grass were showing.
He had become impatient lately, each succeeding thaw giving him hope that the season was changing. Now, with all signs pointing the way, he was eager to continue his journey home.
Owl had wintered well. Long hours and days he had spent in working on and improving his few possessions. He had killed a deer during the second big snow, by standing immobile beside one of the deer paths in the woods. His spear had functioned well. He had abandoned the idea of trying to construct a bow. The available trees were not familiar to him, and he was unsure of which wood to try. Anyway, he did not appear to need a bow. His present weapons were doing nicely for his needs.
Owl glanced for the last time around the shelf that had been his home during the moons of the winter, and shouldered his pack. He had carefully extinguished his fire after making a final sacrifice of meat to the Old Ones.
Rapidly he retraced his trail of moons before, and crawled through the cleft in the rock beside the picture stone. For no good reason, he replaced brush and debris, concealing the entrance to the Valley of the Old Ones. He had grown very close in spirit to these people during the long winter. Somehow, it pleased him to think of their valley as he had found it, undisturbed, with their spirits at rest.
Turning, Owl estimated his direction of travel, and sighting on a tall peak in the distance, began a ground-covering stride. Now, he realized, was the most important time for good judgment. It would be easy for him to become so engrossed in trying to cover distance that he would forget the dangers. His longing for the open prairie and its far horizons was so strong that he found himself wanting to push on. He must remind himself continually to rest, eat, and sleep properly.
In addition, he must increasingly be on the lookout for enemies. He had moved well to the north of the Hairfaces’ colony. He felt that he was also out of the country of the Mud Lodge people, but he wasn’t sure. He could perhaps tell more when he reached open country.
That, of course, would bring new dangers. He must cross the territory of the Head Splitters. Although that phase might be the most dangerous of all, Owl faced it with the most confidence. The Head Splitters had customs more like his own. He understood their ways and could cope with them better than with those of the strange tribes he had met. They were, after all, buffalo people. Additionally, if he could locate a band of Head Splitters, he might be able to steal a horse and travel better.
Owl traveled for as many days as one has fingers. Then, one morning, he topped a ridge and could see, through a pass in the mountains ahead, the plains spread before him. The grassland stretched on and on until the blue of distance blended with the blue of sky. The young man felt that he could see his homeland, and the thrill of victory kept him traveling late that night, against his better judgment.
It was still three more days before he actually left the broken foothills behind and traveled out onto the plains. It would be many days more befo
re he found the rich deep-grass country of his people. Meanwhile, travel was faster. He must keep a close eye out for the smoke of the Head Splitters’ campfires. Especially, he thought, at dawn and dusk, when the women are cooking. With this in mind, Owl spent a few minutes in a ritualistic search of the horizon twice each day. Still he had seen no sign of human life.
Almost daily, he saw bands of antelope, who watched him curiously as he passed. There were occasional small herds of buffalo. Always a few stragglers wintered in the sheltered gullies of the plains. The great herds had not yet moved from their wintering-places in the south. Owl spoke to the buffalo as he passed. The great shaggy beasts merely stood and nodded massive heads at him. Still, he began to feel that he was approaching home. He had not seen a buffalo since leaving the captivity of the Head Splitters two winters before. Now, they seemed like old friends as he spoke to them in passing.
This reminded him that it seemed like endless time since he had heard a human voice. Not since the fateful day of the escape, with the smoke-log booming and bleeding prisoners screaming. He shook his head at the - unreality of the memory, and jogged on at a steady, ground-eating pace.
Then came the morning when he spied smoke on the horizon. It was merely a smudge at the rim of the world, far to the northeast. He studied the gray blur for a long time, and finally decided to travel straight toward it. Best to know exactly where he stood, he convinced himself. He must find if this band were really the enemy. After all, this could be a band of his own tribe, the People. The Red Rocks band sometimes came this far west, he thought.
With this sort of reasoning, Owl may have been deceiving himself a little. He was so starved for human contact that the existence of a camp, of whatever tribe, drew him like a moth to the flame. Even an enemy band were human beings.
This did not prevent caution. He estimated the camp to be more than a day’s travel away, so he leisurely moved in that direction, constantly watching for any stray hunters. His caution was rewarded late that afternoon, as he spotted the stripped carcass of a buffalo at a little distance. He moved in that direction.
There was little left but the skeleton, but he could read the story easily. The skin was gone, so the animal had been butchered, not eaten by wolves and smaller predators. There were numerous hoofprints of horses, and the grass had been trampled and disturbed, verifying the presence of people.
He almost overlooked the most important sign. Protruding from under a well-cleaned shoulder blade was an arrow shaft. Owl seized it eagerly and examined its construction. The shaft had broken a hand’s span in front of the feathers. Some hunter would be disappointed to lose such a well-made shaft, he knew. The stone tip was missing. It could be used again. His attention turned again to the feathering of the arrow. There were subtle differences apparent here. Even allowing for individual variation in skill and in preference, this arrow was not exactly like those of the People.
In all probability, then, the camp, less than a day’s journey ahead of him, was that of a band of Head Splitters.
24
The knowledge that the camp ahead was that of the enemy made very little difference to Owl. His course was still directly toward the smoke stain on the far horizon. Now he must merely be more cautious, to avoid detection. He stayed on high ground whenever possible to improve his field of observation. Yet, he was careful not to make himself too conspicuous. When approaching the crest of each low, rolling hill, he sought the concealment of broken, rocky terrain, or the irregular lines of vegetation. His camp that night was without fire.
By late next afternoon he had moved to a jumble of boulders overlooking the distant encampment. It was a large cluster of conical skin lodges, looking much like that of his father’s own band. A wave of homesickness washed over him for a moment before he reminded himself that this was the enemy. Still, these were buffalo people, men of the prairie, and he felt a strange contradictory kinship with them.
For a long time he lay on his belly and studied the camp. Judging from the number of lodges, there might be fifty or more warriors. This might even be, he realized with a start, the band of Bull’s Tail, his previous captor. He was unsure how many bands there were in the Head Splitters’ entire tribe. Maybe six or seven. They were constantly shifting, changing in size and strength like the bands of his own people. Political pressures, prestige, even a successful hunt or war party could attract warriors to join with an influential chief for a season.
The lodges were too far away for him to see any of the markings painted on the skins. Strange, he pondered. At a great distance, color became meaningless. One’s eye could see motion or form at a much greater distance than color. He knew that many of the lodge paintings would be bright reds and yellows, but at this distance, all were hazy shades of gray-blue.
It was the same with the herd of elk-dogs, scattered in the prairie behind the camp. He could see motion and the familiar shapes, but could not identify colors of individual animals. He must get closer as darkness fell, and steal a horse to continue his journey.
Owl was so intent on the panorama before him that he committed a near-fatal mistake. He had focused his entire attention on one direction, the camp to the east of him. His usual caution had been neglected, and for the moment he had forgotten to sweep the horizon with a glance from time to time. Therefore, he overlooked the buildup of dirty-gray clouds on the horizon to the northwest. For a while, they appeared little different from the gray-blue of the distant mountains, and were easily overlooked.
By the time Owl noticed the threatening change in the weather, the storm front was rapidly developing. Cold Maker, in one last belated effort of the season, came pushing over the mountain ranges, sliding down the eastern slopes and spilling out on to the prairie. Sun Boy’s torch was quickly obscured, and the changing winds carried promise of frost and snow.
Owl, trapped in the open, could do very little until darkness would hide his movements. He wrapped as warmly as he could in the assortment of skins he possessed, and waited, shivering, for nightfall. By the time of darkness, snow was falling, being driven almost horizontally by the cutting wind. Owl’s feet were numb and wooden as he stumbled to his feet and started toward the camp.
He could almost believe that Cold Maker had taken a personal interest in the destruction of Owl. It was logical, his half-frozen brain told him as he plodded across the prairie. He had had the audacity to challenge Cold Maker in his own domain, and had survived. Now, the vengeful deity had waited for the proper moment, and had caught Owl off guard. The full force of the storm had been unleashed in destruction.
There was a time when he was almost ready to concede that he was beaten. He could see no way that he could possibly drag himself as far as the cluster of lodges for shelter. He was tempted to lie down and rest for a moment, to regain strength to continue. Then he remembered. This was a favorite ruse of Cold Maker, to delude his victims into a sense of security.
“Cold Maker is a liar,” Coyote had once said. “He tells his victims that all will be well if they will only lie down to rest.”
Those who did so, of course, never rose again, but would be found frozen after Cold Maker’s departure.
Somehow, this was the focus of Owl’s thoughts. His resentment of Cold Maker’s treachery made his heart race and his blood pump faster. He had conquered too much treachery, he vowed, to give up now. He moved on, jogging to cover distance faster.
He must be cautious, he realized. Another of Cold Maker’s tricks was to cause one to walk in a circle. Many had followed their own tracks to their death. In the darkness, this would be an easy mistake. Owl avoided this error by keeping the blast of the north wind continually on his left cheek. Eventually he would come to the camp or to the strip of timber along the creek below.
He considered for a time walking boldly into the camp and seeking shelter. He could profess friendship with Bull’s Tail, one of their respected chiefs, and acquire shelter in this way. Even if they regarded him as a prisoner, there was the possibi
lity of future escape. Persons who died under Cold Maker’s onslaught had no such chance. Before he was forced to make such a decision, however, he recognized this line of thought for what it was. Anger welled up in him again at Cold Maker’s treachery in confusing his brain. It was unthinkable to give one’s self to the enemy. He jogged on.
Suddenly, ahead of him, out of the white wall of the driving snow, loomed darker shapes. He paused momentarily, then recognized the bending forms of trees and brush. Almost at the same time, he fell, rolling into the depression of the stream bed. Fortunately, there was no water at the point where he landed, and the clatter of gravel was obscured by the howl of the wind.
Owl sat up. The thin shelter of the strip of trees and the stream bank made the area seem like the warm inside of a lodge by comparison with the open plain. He gathered his possessions and moved among the trees, searching for the most sheltered portion of the area.
Visibility was so poor, with darkness and wind-driven snow, that he stumbled against a warm furry shape before he had any warning. There was the startled snort of a disturbed horse, and the animal moved away from him.
Aiee, what good fortune, thought Owl. He had blundered into the timber that the elk-dogs had chosen for shelter. Other dark forms moved restlessly, dimly seen among the trees. Owl shook out a length of rawhide rope from his pack. During the Moon of Long Nights he had worked on the plaiting of this device. Sooner or later, he had told himself, it would be needed. He had intended to obtain a horse when he could, and of course, one cannot steal a horse without a rope.
The animals were skittish, but he had no difficulty in slipping the rope around a neck, and the elk-dog responded to restraint. Once his hands were on it, the animal quieted. Owl ran exploring fingers over the head and neck, attempting to identify in the dark what sort of individual this might be.
Buffalo Medicine Page 11