Hanging within the bower, the Hair of the Mother enclosed her—valerian bines, tannis roots, nettle berries, drake nuts, and strips of resin-beaded bark—whose uses she had been taught beginning that night. She reviewed each carefully, not wanting to slight any of them for fear of losing their potency. She recalled the ills and aches she had seen the medicinal plants heal in her body and in others, and as she did so, she gathered them in the bride's wallet of many pouches given her by the Mothers.
She fingered the acorn shells she implanted as cervical contraceptives, which she had been using faithfully since First Blood, and thought of the boys and men she had favored since her womanhood. There had been others before Hamr, blown off now like seed tufts into the sky.
As a girl, she remembered, she had feared Hamr. He had been a bully, always fighting and taunting the other boys, ignoring the girls. As the two of them had grown, both had come to stand apart from the others—she by her beauty, which the tribe honored, and he by his strength, which the tribe feared.
She had not favored him until recently. He seemed so aloof and strange, talking aloud to himself, braving seastorms when no one else would fish, as if spirits did indeed ride him. He was too strong to be possessed. Many of the women favored him and bragged of his stamina and erotic cunning.
The summer before, when she had finally mustered the courage to call him into the bushes, he had surprised her with his gentleness and humor. They found they could play together, chasing butterflies and diving for starfish. It surprised her to find this boy in a man's body. As she put aside the acorn shells, she remembered the times he had made her laugh, which made him dear to her.
Last came the nuts and bark whose paste she could use to choose the gender of her children. For herself, of course, and for the Mothers, the first would be girls. The Mothers, the oldest of them wise to the needs of the tribe above the desires of the families, had sworn her to birth at least two boys. The man she had chosen had the marks, at least superficially, of a great man, and his boy children would strengthen the hunt.
When the bride's wallet had filled, Aradia sang her beckoning cry. By now the moon neared the horizon, the first full moon after the time of equal day and night that began the season of spring in the sky. Iris light purpled the east, and the Mothers began filing down from the bluffs and assembling around the bower.
Aradia's mother stood behind her daughter, and Duru meticulously plucked fallen blossoms from her sister's panther wrap.
Then came the men, hunters of the Panther cult and the far more numerous fisherfolk of the Tortoise clan. All wore feathers. The seal hunt had been poor this winter, so the fisherfolk as well as the hunters had killed instead many more hawks, owls, and eagles. Now they displayed their trophies in hair-crests, capes, bands around their elbows and knees.
Timov walked at the head of the Panther procession, taking Father's place. He held high a belt of white and red feathers that Father's friends had made for the bride. He presented his offering and took his place beside Duru, who thought he stood too close and gave him an elbow jab. Mother frowned at him for whining, and he glowered at Duru.
The Tortoise men carried gifts: seal furs, narwhale horns, baskets of brilliant shells, coils of edible seaweed, wet pouches of mussels—all the sea's treasures, in gratitude that their son, Hamr, had been chosen worthy of a bride.
Last of the men to arrive, Spretnak, the groom's sponsor hobbled proudly to the threshold of the bower and presented Aradia with a rainbow necklace of the rarest abalone shells and polished discs of sea-amber. And then, he produced from under his tunic an odd object, a small round plate of tortoise shell with a reed lancing the bore hole at its center.
Timov had often seen Spretnak and Hamr playing with that toy, and he leaned closer to hear what the old man said.
Spretnak spun the wheel as he handed it to the bride. "Give this to your husband if he should ever act childish," he said softly, for her alone to hear. "It will remind him of everything good I have taught him."
Duru shoved Timov aside to hear better, and the boy was about to step on her foot when Spretnak lifted a conch shell from the base of the bower.
The old man blew long and deep before stepping back among the Tortoise men.
As the green filaments in the east brightened to red, Hamr came up from the sea. He rode Blind Side of Life, a tall, majestic shadow against the brightening sky. He climbed the long trail that wound through a cleft in the giant sea cliffs and trotted between the eastern knolls to the meadow, where the tribe and his bride waited.
At the sight of him, the drummers in the throng beat a cadence to his advance—a new rhythm in time to the horse's stride, unheard before at any Blue Shell wedding. None among the tribe had ever seen the likes of this, and an excited murmur flashed through the gathering as he approached.
In the month and five days since he had captured his horse, Hamr had lived with the animal, feeding him tender shoots, filling a large basket he had lined in octopus-skin with fresh water twice a day.
For a long while he had not mounted the stallion again but instead laid blankets atop him. Slowly, as the horse had become comfortable in his presence and had begun to anticipate his feedings and the songs Hamr would sing to him, Hamr had increased the weight with rocks wrapped in pelts. Only after Blind Side came to him for his food when he called had Hamr put the rocks aside and hoisted himself onto the steed's back.
Over the last ten days, Hamr had taught Blind Side of Life to take direction from the pressure of his knees. They had wandered miles along the beach.
Spretnak, too, had mounted Blind Side and at last felt animal strength muscling under him. With his will melded to animal power, the elder guided the large creature, clopping along the firm sand, His heart breathed joy, mute with the wonder of his dream made real.
The horse had already worked for the tribe: Hamr had fastened a fishnet across the stallion's chest, strung braided lengths of hemp from the net, attached them to another net dropped into the bay by the dugouts, and with Blind Side's strength, had trawled to shore large caches of fish. In like fashion, they had made new tidepools by moving boulders, a labor that would have been unthinkable by men alone.
His legend assured,Hamr rode proudly to his wedding. The faces, like pale petals in the early light, stared up at him in awe. He noticed all of them and acknowledged none—his attention reserved for the lone figure of his bride, who watched him with a demure joy from under the blossomy bower.
Gobniu the chief did not gawk, though Hamr noticed the hard stare of amazement in his face and the nod of acknowledgment as he rode by. Hamr ignored him as he had the others. He looked down only once, when Spretnak swung into view. Hamr stared him full in the face and received the old man's beneficent smile and salute.
Hamr dismounted at the bower, palmed a sweet-root to Blind Side to keep him still, and joined his bride. The drum-throbbing stopped.
Duru kicked Timov, then deflected his anger by pointing behind him to an antelope pelt folded on a reed mat. The boy hurriedly picked it up and glared at his sister, but she held his stare easily.
The antelope should have been hunted by him, the pelt flensed from the hot animal by his own flint blade. But he had no flint and had never killed anything bigger than a hare. One of Father's friends had presented the pelt and Mother and Duru had tanned and tailored it.
Timov should not even be under the bower, Duru thought. He should be with the children.
And he would have been except that Aradia had insisted he offer the wrap. The older sister expected some of her husband's greatness to pass to her diffident brother and, no doubt, some of Timov's idleness to pass the other way and keep her Hamr close to home.
Hamr removed the seal-fur loinwrap and jerkin and stepped out of the tortoise-leather thongs with their fishskin toppings to stand naked before Aradia.
Gobniu, as head of the Tortoise clan, took the doffed garments, and Timov, as the bride's eldest clansman, offered the groom the antelope-skin.
Hamr wrapped the pelt about his nakedness and fastened it with a bone clasp. At his feet, Duru placed boar-skin sandals, bristles standing straight out from the straps. The horseman stepped into them and into his new life.
The crowd broke into song, and drum flourishes and conch bleats announced the culmination of the wedding ceremony.
Agog with the focused excitement of the gathering, Timov and Duru stepped back. As one, they recognized that their lives would—again—never be the same: Father's going had weakened them all, and now Hamr's coming would give strength to everyone. They clasped hands and moved closer to Mother, to share the tribe's joy for their family.
Blind Side shuffled nervously under the burst of sound, until Spretnak gentled him with a reassuring pat at the neck and another sweet-root. Patiently, the horse hung his head and chewed the root, pausing to lift his long face. The noise had stopped. Warmth touched everything.
Hamr and Aradia embraced, and the sun cast first light over them.
Hamr mounted Blind Side and offered a hand to Aradia. Though informed days before that he planned to carry her off on his horse, she hesitated. Until they wed, the Mothers, ever wary of ill-fortune, had forbidden her to ride, for there was no precedent. Better, they had reasoned, to wait until she had been ritually joined to Hamr and could partake of his power. Alas, now she felt no more powerful, and the beast looked so large and restless, its sightless sockets dark and frightening.
Hamr smiled down at her. His long hair fell past his shoulders, his eyes radiant with first light of their first day as one. She placed her hand in his, and he hoisted her into his strong arms.
He turned her about so she sat facing forward, scared and giddy. Awkwardly, she leaned back on him and straddled the beast, then clutched at its bristly mane.
Blind Side pranced sideways, disturbed by the unfamiliar double weight, and Hamr's hands at his neck calmed him.
Hamr leaned to the side and tugged at the stallion's mane to turn him about. Spretnak handed him a satchel stuffed with food and a water bladder. And then, in a graceful saunter, smelling and feeling his way, Blind Side carried the couple into the rising sun.
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Hamr directed Blind Side of Life through the hummocks past green-dotted hazel brambles and budding thornapple shrubs. They ambled along the tall sedge margin of the bog, where spring already bloomed with churlish red flowers.
On the far side of the swale, they arrived at a fern grove, where butterflies bobbled and bees darted. Here, while Blind Side browsed happily, Hamr and Aradia spent most of the day erecting their own wedding bower, one sturdy enough for them to reside in while the moon waned and then grew full again. Under this roof of lashed beech branches thatched over with eelgrass slick enough to repel the spring rains, they would make their first child.
By day's end, they sat together in their hut on a mat of fern and white moss and shared the wedding food that Spretnak had gathered for them—roe kept damp in fennel grass, dried fish, a leafpouch of honey ants, and smoked seal-meat wrapped in seaweed.
The last bees lugged their amber burdens home, and the sky above the wide sward glowed with the fires that made the world.
"Now that we are married," Hamr said, "I can tell you what I have never told anyone else, not even Spretnak."
Aradia lay with her head in his lap, nibbling on a twist of dried meat, half-listening, watching Blind Side of Life shining gold under the black trees.
"I dream of the Beastmaker, Who is the Great Mother's husband and son," he began, looking at her closely. "He's entered my dreams since I was a boy."
Aradia sat up. "Hush," she said sternly. "It's not good to talk of these things."
"I want to tell you what I've seen."
"No. I don't want to hear any more."
"And why not?"
"These are secret things."
"That is why I must tell you. The Beastmaker has shown himself to me. I've seen his hidden face. He has antlers, like an elk, and eyes like moons filled with blood. His features are human. He has a human mouth, and he has told me secret things that I can tell you."
"I don't want to hear these things, Hamr."
"The Beastmaker says that I am to be a Beastmaster, so I must know these things. And since you are my wife, I can share them with you."
"Don't, Hamr."
"Why are you afraid? We're together now. I won't let any harm come to you. The Beastmaker says we are made from pieces of the sun. That our bones were baked in the sun the way we bake clay in the fire. Our blood, too, was made in the sun, for our blood grows out of our bones. And when we die and our flesh goes to worm-dirt, we do not die. We become like sunlight, something bright and warm that we can feel yet cannot hold."
Aradia stood up. "Hamr, be quiet. If you say any more, I will leave."
"Night is falling."
"I don't care. The Great Mother does not want us to know these secrets or they would not be Her secrets. The Mother gives—and she also takes away. She has given us each other. I fear if we say too much about these things, she may take us away before our time."
"But the Beastmaker tells me—"
"Hamr! I tell you, if you want to be mine, you must never again speak of these things, to me or to anyone. Do you hear?"
Hamr stared hard at her, then nodded. Aradia visibly relaxed and knelt beside him. "Far better, my Hamr," she said, removing the bone clasp from his antelope-skin, "to live the secrets of our lives than to talk of them."
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Red evening climbed the sky, and Hamr kicked at a sponged log, watching worms pearl and shine. Aradia awaited him in their bower, but he was in no hurry to go to her.
The moon would rise late tonight, seven nights after their first night. True to her word, she had not once wanted to hear his prayers, his thoughts, his dreams of the Beastmaker. Eating and rutting passed their nights, foraging and rutting passed their days. Playing, while they foraged and rutted and ate, was all she wanted to do.
Her laughter intoxicated him, made him feel light in his bones, so he was glad to splash with her in the rivulets, to catch crickets, to couple in the mud. And that was all she wanted! Nothing seemed serious to her, except her hopes for their children. That he had tired of hearing about, and they had begun to quarrel, first about the Beastmaker, then about his doting on his horse. Dearly as he regarded her, they disagreed about much.
With a mighty blow to the dead log, Hamr kicked loose wafers of light. Beastmaker! he cried in his heart, not daring to speak that name aloud. Two nights ago, after overhearing him talking to the Beastmaker, Aradia had curled up to sleep and would not let him touch her. The next morning, though, she woke him by slipping a toad into his loinstrap, and laughed as if nothing had happened.
Beastmaker—what now?
Red evening climbed the sky and vanished in violet hues. Frogs spat and creaked while mating. Fireflies blinked among rushes with the cool radiance of courtship. And out of darkness, Aradia called his name. He shrugged and turned to go to her.
What happens now?
From shreds of clouds among the stars, a slur of rain fell, and he felt the Beastmaker's answer rise in him with the odors the earth gives the sky, What did you think?
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"Saphead!"
Timov threw another pebble at Duru. She was supposed to be gathering dead grass for kindling, which she could do anywhere. She insisted on doing it here, on the knoll where he had come to watch the hunt. "Get lost, Toad. You're a girl. You're not supposed to watch. You want to kill him?"
Duru made an ugly face. "You're angry, because you can't hunt. You're still a boy—Saphead."
"Get out of here." He threw several more pebbles, harder, driving his sister into the tall grass at the toe of the knoll. Soon as she dropped out of sight, he peered down the knoll through a stand of green-budded trees to the far end of the bright meadows, where Hamr and some of the Panther men had taken the hunt.
The hunters moved at the shimmery edge of the canebrake, la
zy clusters of men slouching on their spears, just visible. They had been waiting there since midday, when Hamr and Blind Side of Life had entered, following a trail beaten down by a large boar.
From his vantage, Timov could see Hamr pacing back and forth through the clacking husks of last season's growth. His head appeared above green furls of young plants.
The boar he stalked moved invisibly among the traps and obstacles of the sedge. Father's friends called out advice from the branches of overlooking trees when they spotted it. Other hunters, returning with fallow deer slung between them and a dozen hares strung on a spear, jeered.
Timov gloated with relief that he was not Hamr, hot with mosquito bites, icy with fear, tensely reading the shadows for sharp tusks and a bristly stare. When Timov became a hunter, he would go with the other men, after hare and deer. Why had Aradia married this reckless showoff?
Each time Timov ran back to the summer camp for a drink and a snack of nutmash or salted fish, he found Aradia cool as a berry, helping the other women skin animals their men had brought in. Not once did she ask how the hunt progressed. He wanted to tell her she should be worried: The hunt had gone on too long, the horse would be tired, the boar enraged. But her gaze kept slipping off his.
Father had died on the hunt—slain by the Boar. Now Hamr would die. Timov felt the certainty of it. This was not a time of boldness but of common sense. Hamr had defied common sense too long. His time was up.
Grimly, Timov watched as Hamr's shadow drifted back and forth through the field. Every now and then, one of Timov's friends, the sons of men who had returned to camp with prey, whistled, wanting to catch the boy’s attention and wag proudly.
Timov ignored them, and wondered what they would think when they saw him smiling at Hamr's funeral.
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The boar crashed through the canes and burst into the field of marshgrass. Hunters who had gathered there—young men recruited by the Bride-Father's friends to help the newcomer—had been chatting wearily about the deer and many hares the other hunters had caught. When the bristling, humpbacked swine, big as three men, charged toward them, they scattered in a panic. Shouting confused orders at each other, they quickly regrouped and lowered their spears to block the giant boar's escape.
Hunting the Ghost Dancer Page 5