Broken Promise

by Theresa Scott

  He thought about that. Since the Great Spirit was not answering him, Falcon could say anything he wanted. He felt marvelously free.

  "I am being truthful with you, Great Spirit! You are a sham! The shaman lies about you! People lie about you! You do not create, you destroy! I have seen enough to know this! You destroyed my son and my first marriage! And now you are waiting for me to destroy myself!"

  Again, no answer.

  "What does it take to move you, Great Spirit? What does it take for you to answer me? I stand here a broken man. Broken in body, broken in spirit. Will you still give me no answer?"

  Silence.

  "Have it your way then, Great Spirit! You are not great. You are puny. I spit on you! I am angry at everyone you have sent to me in my life! I am angry at everything you have done in my life! But most of all, I am angry at you! You are uncaring about the death you deal us! You do not care about me! You do not care about anyone. Not my son! Not my wives! Not me!"

  Silence. He glanced down into the yawning darkness on the canyon side of the wall.

  "Have it your way, then, Great Spirit," he said wearily and sat down to wait for the dawn.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Falcon stared out across the yawning maw of the canyon and watched the sun come up behind the distant mountains. As it cast its yellow glow, disgust welled in him. He had received nothing but silence from the Great Spirit. Tula had betrayed him; his father had made false promises. His beloved son had died. His life was a mess. He was alone, and no one was there to help him. No one.

  He watched the rays of light grow brighter and expose more of the land and he found it difficult to hold on to his anger. The sharp hills and river valleys were bathed in gold as the sun rose.

  Falcon's heart softened at the beauty he saw. He wondered if his father had ever sat here on the high slope and watched the sun rise. Perhaps he had; he had been enthralled with this place when he'd brought his only son to see it.

  Falcon thought about his father, how his father had taught him to hunt, how his father had tried to guide him. He had done what he could for his son and Falcon had grown up to become a fine hunter. He was glad of the skills his father had taught him, for he seldom went hungry.

  But his father had been wrong about Falcon and his own son standing here someday. Falcon realized now that he had badly wanted his father's prediction to come true, felt that he would please his father by taking his own son here. And it was not to be. His father's experience was not to be his.

  He wondered if his father would have understood that. "I tried, Father," he whispered. "I tried to raise a son that I could teach to hunt as you taught me. I would have brought him to this wall and shown him the vast land. But I could not do it!" A sense of failure rose in Falcon, failure that he had not lived up to his father's hopes and dreams for him. He had the sudden realization that he had lived with that failure for a long time.

  A whisper of wind blew on the canyon wall. Was it his father saying he understood? For some reason, Falcon thought it was. A rare peace descended on him.

  He sat there for a long time, thinking of his father, realizing the hopes he himself had carried, which he could not fulfill. Perhaps it was time to let them go.

  There was a sadness in him as he watched the sun rise. A sadness, but an acceptance, too. He sat with those feelings inside him as the sun came up.

  And then something odd happened. In this land of dryness, of long periods of time of drought, a strange thing happened.

  It began to rain. Little, light, sprinkling drops landed on Falcon's face and hair. Rain was always greeted reverently by his people, for rain brought life to the land.

  Falcon lifted his face and felt the sweet drops skim his face and he wondered if perhaps the Great Spirit had heard him after all.

  He rose and let the rain pelt him as he descended the slope. Going down did not take as long as going up. By the time he reached the bottom of the slope, it was raining heavily. He needed to find shelter. He passed by the entrance of the canyon. He knew from past explorations that though the canyon stretched back for a long, long distance, nowhere in it was there a place to shelter himself. He must look elsewhere.

  When he passed the canyon, he started up a small ravine, the rain and wind driving him before it. The sun was long gone and all the sky was a dark gray. It would rain all day, perhaps into the night.

  He trembled from the cold. He was hungry. Where was he going to find shelter?

  The ravine ended with a cornered overhang. He spotted the black shadow of the overhang and headed for it. It looked large enough for him to crouch underneath. He could wait out the storm there.

  He reached the overhang and crept under the rock. To his surprise, he found that the dark shadow extended back into the rock. It was a small cave. Pleased at his discovery, he pushed his way a little further and found that it was a narrow tunnel. A cool breeze blew on his face when he looked into the black tunnel. Air with a strong, earthy scent stung his nostrils. He wondered what was on the other side of the tunnel.

  He waited awhile, but the rain poured down. He would not be going anywhere this day. Though he had no wood and no fire, under the overhang it was dry. The air was warm because it was summer, and he felt comfortable. After sitting and watching the rain for a while, he decided to explore further into the tunnel.

  He pushed his spear ahead of him and crept through the narrow opening. Dusty debris and gravel littered the tunnel floor. He would have turned around, but the space was too small and the air touching his face smelled fresh. The tunnel would end soon.

  And it did. He came out of the darkness into daylight. And into a large, scooped-out area that looked like it had been hand-carved out of the rock around it. But it was too big for men to carve, he saw, and then he chuckled to himself. A great clump of earth in the center showed him what had happened. It had once been a hollow cave and a part of the roof had collapsed, leaving a giant overhang and part of the walls standing.

  Falcon crawled out of the tunnel and landed on the ground. The rain still beat down mercilessly but he was able to stay dry under the partial roof over the enclosure.

  He glanced around at the walls and beheld a startling sight. He stared about him, whirling from first one painted beast to another.

  Carved and painted on the exposed cave walls were strange animals, animals he had only heard about in stories told around the night fires by the old people. Animals his ancestors had hunted, but he had never seen.

  Yet he recognized thema painted mammoth, its long, waving trunk unmistakable. A sloth, its huge, meaty body bulging with spears. The old hunters must have enjoyed hunting sloths, he thought, for there were many on the walls.

  And then his eye caught a dab of yellow ocher with dark spotsan animal that looked like a giant jaguar!

  Drawn to it, he came closer. Though it looked like a jaguar, yet it was not one, for the canine teeth on it curved around and down. A fearsome-toothed animal, he thought, and then he remembered: a saber-tooth!

  He stood in front of the painting. A saber-tooth! He had heard of them, knew the old ancestors had fought them. He was glad suddenly that he had never had to face one. No hunter he knew had. Yet they were here, on these walls.

  The paintings looked very much alive.

  A sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead as he stared at the likenesses.

  Suddenly he realized how quiet it was in this place. Something tickled at the back of his mind. He had heard about this place, but where? When?

  He prowled along the walls, scanning the pictures. With his finger, he traced the thick muscular neck of a huge bison.

  But darkness was falling and he could not see the animals as well as before. He was feeling hungry and earlier he had spotted a berry bush where the cave's roof had collapsed. He went over and picked the fruit, eating in gulps. The berries tasted sweet and good.

  He darted back under the roof. He would spend the night here. The rain pelted down.

  He
could sleep in the roofed area. And since the only opening into this place was the small tunnel he had entered through, he would be safe for the night. He still had his spear for protection.

  He propped himself against a rock, his spear by his side, and fell asleep.

  He awoke to an amazing sight.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  ''This is the Cave of the Dead," said the man standing in front of Falcon.

  Falcon gasped and sat up. "Who are you?" He reached for his spear.

  "Do not fear," said the strangely garbed man. "I will not hurt you."

  The man was dressed in soft, tanned skins and he had a glow of light surrounding him. On top of his head he wore a fierce saber-tooth head, the jaws open, the red mouth of the animal agape. The polished, yellow teeth of the saber-toothed tiger curved down over the man's forehead like small tusks.

  "Who?" began Falcon again and then he noticed that he was not actually speaking, but rather he was thinking his question. Before he could finish his question, Falcon knew where he had heard of this cave before: in the story Star had told about Darkstar. He had stumbled into the very cave that Star's ancestress had found!

  The saber-tooth man responded. "The Great Spirit sent me."

  "There is a Great Spirit?" asked Falcon.

  "Of course," answered the saber-tooth angel.

  "Where is he?" asked Falcon.

  The saber-tooth angel laughed. "Ah, it is not your time to see him yet."

  "I want to!"

  But the saber-tooth figure merely smiled patiently.

  Falcon liked him. Then the angel pointed to the walls, distracting him. "I was sent because you like jaguars."

  "Yes, I do," acknowledged Falcon, "though I had to kill one not long ago."

  "Yes," answered the angel and there was acceptance, not judgment, in his answer.

  "Why are you here?" asked Falcon.

  "To tell you that the Great Spirit heard your cries."

  "That is all?"

  "What more do you want?"

  "II" Falcon did not know what he wanted.

  "Your son?" asked the angel.

  "Oh, yes, I want to see my son! I love him so."

  "Yes, you do." Behind the angel peeked out a little boy. He clutched the angel's leg but he would not come forward.

  "Hawk?" cried Falcon. "Is it you?" He leapt to his feet and tears sprang to Falcon's eyes as he beheld his son.

  The boy giggled and nodded, and Falcon saw that it truly was Hawk. But a different Hawk. A Hawk whose eyes were clear, who understood what was said to him.

  "Oh, Hawk, how I love you!" cried Falcon. The boy gave him a wide smile, then hid behind the angel again.

  "He loves you, too." The angel laughed. "He has had much to teach you," added the angel, more soberly. ''He had much wisdom to impart to you."

  "Yes," said Falcon, "he did." Now he understood the purpose of Hawk's life. It was to allow Falcon and Tula to love someone who was unable to love them back.

  "He brought you a gift," said the angel. "An unselfish gift."

  "Yes," acknowledged Falcon sadly, "but I did not want his gift. I did not understand how important it was for me to love him as he was. I wanted him to hunt and run and speak. I thought then I would love him."

  "You understand now?" said the saber-tooth angel.

  "Yes."

  "I wanted love for me, too," said Falcon. "I wanted it from Tula, from Star. I wanted it no matter what I did to anyone. I thought that love for me was important."

  "It is. How can you love others if you do not love yourself? When you love yourself, you want to love others, too. It flows out of you."

  It sounds so simple, thought Falcon.

  "It is," agreed the angel.

  "What about Tula? Did she learn to love?"

  "Tula will learn, but in time," said the saber-tooth angel gently. "I am here for you."

  By this, Falcon understood that the angel was reluctant to impart more about Tula.

  "That is true," acknowledged the angel. "I can tell you only one thing more about Tula. And that is this: your son's sickness was caused by his long, difficult birth, not by anything you or Tula did. It is useless to further blame yourself. Or her.

  "And the Great Spirit cut short your son's life to prevent further suffering for him. Hawk's sickness would have continued to get worse and he would have lived in much agony and pain. The Great Spirit did not want that for Hawk."

  Falcon wanted to cry with gratitude. Now, now he understood. "I, too, love Hawk," he said. He heard a giggle from behind the angel's leg and was rewarded with another peek from those trusting brown eyes. Hawk beamed at him and then hid again.

  Falcon smiled. Then his smile disappeared; there was something more he must ask.

  "What is it?" asked the angel.

  "What of Star?" asked Falcon at last. "I fear I have hurt her terribly. Andand what of our babe?" The thought was out before he could call it back.

  "Ah, yes," said the angel. He stepped to one side. Standing behind him, holding Hawk's hand, was a little girl, her black hair down to her shoulders, her eyes bright with curiosity.

  Love such as he had never known welled up in Falcon. "That is my child?" he breathed, but he knew the answer by the shy smile on her face.

  "Yes, this is the child you and Star share."

  The little girl pulled up Hawk's hand and covered her face, then peeped out between their entangled fingers at Falcon. She laughed mischievously.

  "I love her," said Falcon.

  The angel laughed. "Of course you do."

  "And Star?" dared Falcon. "What of her?"

  "You must find that out for yourself," said the angel gently.

  Then, as Falcon watched and waited for more, the angel wavered in front of him and disappeared, taking both children with him.

  "Come back!" cried Falcon. "Come back!"

  There was no answer.

  Falcon sat down, too overwhelmed by what he had seen and learned to get any more words out.

  He woke up the next morning with a new feeling in his heart. He had something to live for now. He must find Star!

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Fall

  Falcon sat outside the skin tent he had made, and breathed in the hot, pine-scented sunshine. The dried grass on the hills below him had turned brown and he had not seen his people since the night he had left them to run away to the Canyon of the Doves. He wondered how they fared. But more, he wondered how Star fared. He had not been able to find her or any sign of her Badger People.

  Falcon sharpened the edges of a piece of obsidian he was shaping into a spear point. He had been fortunate to find a quarry of the precious stuff. He had set his tent in the shelter of the pine trees, next to the quarry. Whenever he needed more stone to shape he had but to walk over and pick it up.

  Sitting in the sun warmed his body and brought sadness to his heart. He thought of his son, of his sorrow when Hawk died. He glanced around, satisfied himself that no animal was creeping up on him, and brushed a tear from his eye. Since his powerful vision, it had been easier to think of those he loved.

  He had loved Hawk, wanted him to be able to hunt, to run and play as other children could do. He wanted the best for Hawk, but he had feared for him, too, feared that no one would hunt for Hawk when Falcon was too old.

  Falcon had discovered that, in his heart, under all the guilt he had felt because his son had been crippled, under all the fear he had felt that it was something Falcon had done, and under all the sorrow he had felt since his son had died, there was a deep and abiding love for his son. It surprised Falcon that it was there. He had glimpsed it that night he had had the vision in the Cave of the Dead. But now he felt it: a strong, pure love for his son unmixed with guilt or sorrow or anger.

  It was like the obsidian rock. After the sorrow and guilt and anger were flaked away, there was still a strong core. And for Falcon that core was love.

  Why did I not face this before? he wondered. Why did I do eve
rything I could to run away from my grief?

  Because the sadness was difficult to bear, he realized. He had to face the death of his beloved son and the loss of Tula to another man. His grief at their loss at times overcame him so much that all he could do was huddle in the shelter of his tent.

  But now Falcon could feel his grief. He had loved Hawk, and Hawk was gone. Nothing he could do could bring his son back. Ever.

  And it was a sad shock to him the day he realized that he had loved Tula deeply, too. He had depended on her to remain faithful to him, and though she had not, he still wanted good things for her. But the time they had shared was long gone and would never return. There was nothing he could do to bring her back, either. She had chosen to be with Marmot and to have his child.

  Falcon sighed heavily. No wonder he had not wanted to feel anything. This load of grief and sadness was much to bear.

  As he had done for so many days, sitting in the hot sun and sharpening rock, he let the sadness flood his heart. Sometimes his hands sat idle because he could not see to chip the rock through the blur of his tears. After a while the sadness passed and he was able to chip the rock some more.

  Yet besides the sadness in his life, something else strange was also happening. And he was aware of that, too. When he was not feeling the sadness, he had times of peace, real peace in his heart. Not the numbing, deathlike peace he had sought before, but a happy peace. At such times he could even wish Rapt, the shaman, well, and he could think of Betafor with gratitude for the food she had brought to him when he was alone in the cave.

  And then at other times, the sadness would come over him again. He wondered if his grief was so great that it would never end.

  But one night there came a time when he sat outside his tent and felt only restlessness. Where is this coming from? he wondered. He gazed up into the sky and he saw it: a bright, bright star. Darkstar, he thought. I wonder where my Star is this night? His grief for her loss he had not even dared to feel yet. It had been all he could do to cry for his son and Tula.