The Sacrifice

by Diane Matcheck

  18

  The moon when the berries turn red had waned when she began to talk. The squash and bean fields were like dark green lakes in the waist-high prairie grass. The cornstalks had grown taller than a man, and their pale yellow tassels fluttered in the wind as she and Wolfstar walked and talked among the whispering plants. The sun was burning hot, much hotter than it had ever been in her valley. On the hottest days, they spent afternoons in the earthen lodge.

  Wolfstar had grown used to his name for her, and kept calling her Danger-with-snarled hair. In kind, she continued to call him Wolfstar.

  “Wolfstar is not my name; I am merely keeper of the Wolf Star bundle,” he insisted one afternoon as they sat in the lodge on her bed. He had been teaching her new Pawnee words by carving their pictures into the floor with his knife. Outside, the sky was white-hot, but in the lodge it was dim and cool. Most of the Stay-at-homes were working or playing indoors. Her-corn-says-so and the other women sat with their backs against the tree trunks encircling the fire pit, chatting over mounds of dried corn they were grinding. The children squirmed restlessly on their grandmothers’ laps.

  “Do you know about sacred bundles?” Wolfstar asked.

  “Yes, my people also have them,” she said. “Sometimes we wear small ones about our necks as medicine.”

  “Ah, I had one of those,” Wolfstar said wistfully, fingering where the small yellow buckskin bag had hung from his belt. “It held my own sacred objects. The Wolf Star bundle is much larger, and it belongs to our whole village, the Village-across-a-ridge. I am its keeper.”

  “As you are my keeper.”

  Wolfstar pursed his lips. “Yes,” he admitted.

  Silence hung between them for a time before he spoke again.

  “The Wolf Star bundle is almost as old as the land,” he said in a hushed voice. He turned to her with a strange intensity. “You see, the stars are very powerful—like gods. In the beginning of the universe, all the stars held a council.” He carved a circle of crosses in the dirt, then a lone cross. “But they forgot to invite the Wolf Star. This angered him, and he became their enemy. When Paruksti, the storm god, carried human beings to earth in his whirlwind bag, the Wolf Star created a wolf to stalk him.” From the boy’s knife a storm god spiraled up in the dirt; then came a wolf, as he had drawn it that first night.

  “While Paruksti slept, the wolf stole the bag of humans and let them out. The people set up camp and feasted the wolf on pemmican.” Wolfstar illustrated each turn of the tale with deft strokes of his blade. “When Paruksti awoke and saw they were entertaining the intruder, he was angry. Realizing their mistake, the people chased and killed the wolf,” he finished, stabbing the picture wolf.

  Wolfstar wiped his knife on his breechcloth as though the dust were wolf’s blood. “But the wolf’s death did not satisfy Paruksti. Although the gods had meant human beings to live forever, Paruksti told them that now they must be visited by death. He made them dry the wolf’s skin and make a sacred bundle with it. From that day they have been known as the Wolf People. These are my people.”

  The girl watched the wolf undulating in the firelight like a ghost.

  “The sacred bundle was entrusted to one man, who handed it down to his son, and he to his son. This bundle has passed from father to son for a thousand lifetimes,” Wolfstar said gravely. “Through wars, through famines, through sicknesses—the long line has never been broken. Now it has been handed from my father to me.”

  She looked at the boy beside her with new eyes. This was no mere boy—a carefree, joking boy who could not even shoot straight.

  She said quietly, “Two-voices adopted you because he had no son?”

  “Yes. He had one son before me, but he was killed by Comanche.” Wolfstar tapped the blade of his knife against the palm of his hand. “I was very nearly killed myself once,” he said as though it surprised him. “When I was very small, in a raid. My father brought me to live here with the Wolf People, and nursed me back to health. Though he was not yet my father then; that is when he became my father.” Wolfstar squinted at the reflections in his knife. “He sat by my bedside night and day until I was well, tending me with his own hands.”

  His words awakened the pang that had been sleeping in the girl’s chest since the morning Wolfstar and his father had said goodbye.

  “He must have wanted very much for you to live,” she said.

  “Yes. And I would lay down my life for him.”

  Suddenly a squealing little girl raced over the sleeping pallet and skidded behind Wolfstar, clutching his shirt.

  “Save me! Save me!” she shrieked in delight as a pack of pursuing children piled into Wolfstar. He crushed the little warriors in a hug, growling like a bear and pretending to maul them. One by one they squirmed out of his grasp and threw themselves back on top of him with childish war whoops. Overcome with excitement, the little girl he was protecting tackled him, too.

  “Look!” Wolfstar said, shaking one of the boys by the scruff of his shirt. “How did a Lakota raider sneak right into the middle of camp?” Wolfstar sent the boy off with a spank and instantly the children stampeded after him.

  “Well, then, your name is not Wolfstar,” the girl allowed after a moment. “But of course I do not need to know your name, anyway, since the Pawnee refer to each other by kin terms.”

  Wolfstar smiled uncomfortably and seemed to shake his head.

  “You told me yourself—the people do not call Her-corn-says-so by her name but mother or aunt or sister, remember?” she said. “So, how should I address you? Brother?”

  “Son!” Her-corn-says-so shrilled across the lodge. “I have told you a hundred times not to stir up the children inside. Now look at this mess.”

  Rising more quickly than most boys would rise to such a call, Wolfstar looked down and said, “Call me Wolfstar, then, if it pleases you,” and strode away to clean up the cornmeal.

  * * *

  They spent cooler days on the trail from the river to the fields, hauling water to the crops, or hunting for bread-root or other foods for the women to prepare. Wolfstar never required or even asked the girl to help with the chores, even those which she thought unsuitable work for a man, especially a man of Wolfstar’s stature. After the work was done, or sometimes before, they joined Wolfstar’s friends for a swim in the river or a shooting match.

  Evenings after supper, Wolfstar was always careful to retie her hands; then they climbed to the top of the high ridge above the village, where he took up his post as sentinel. There they would sit together and talk. Often Wolfstar sang, to let the enemy know someone was watching, and, depending on the winds, they sometimes heard other sentinels talking or singing in the distance. As the stars appeared, Wolfstar would tell her about them.

  “See that fiery star?” Wolfstar cried one evening at dusk. “Over there—the Spirit Star. You don’t often see him glowing like that.”

  They watched it burn low on the horizon for an instant, then disappear.

  “That is a bad omen,” Wolfstar said somberly. “When the Spirit Star rises thus, it means that a great person will soon die.”

  Reminded of what Sticking-his-tongue-out had called her, she asked, “Why did your friend call me the Morning Star girl?”

  Wolfstar hesitated. “We believe everyone is under the guidance of a certain star.”

  After thinking awhile, she said, “I do not think I believe in your star gods.”

  “Hmm,” Wolfstar said absently. “What do you believe in?”

  “In dreams,” she said, not certain she should reveal this. Though she was not cold, she pulled her grizzly robe close about her shoulders. She did not look at Wolfstar but at a weed sticking up between her moccasins. “I believe in one certain dream. My father dreamed it before I was born.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Wolfstar was watching her intently. “He dreamed that I would be special,” she ventured, not daring to say the full truth.

  Wolfstar smiled his
crooked smile. “He was right.”

  She felt as if a sun were burning in her. Her palms were sweating. Finally she said, “The dream said that I would number among the greatest Apsaalooka ever to live.”

  Wolfstar was not smiling now. She could feel respect in his gaze, and something else as well.

  “We, too, believe in dreams,” he said.

  A long, uncomfortable silence fell over them.

  “Why is Dreamer called Dreamer instead of a kin word?” the girl asked.

  “That is a long story,” Wolfstar said.

  “Tell it to me.”

  Wolfstar drilled into the dirt with his knife. “He had a dream that we consider very important,” he said at last.

  His hesitant manner sharpened her curiosity. “What dream?”

  “Oh, it has to do with our people and the stars—too difficult to explain,” he said, and began to sing. “Tsasiri pirus, he, witi-tirak-tap-pirihuru,” he intoned in a clear voice that rang over the plains.

  “You are always singing that,” she said. “What kind of Pawnee nonsense is it: ‘Even worms, each other they-them-love’?”

  Wolfstar looked at her as though she were a small child requiring much patience. “It is far from nonsense. It means, all creatures need love. It is in their nature. Even worms love each other.”

  She turned this over in her mind. “So?”

  “So,” Wolfstar said, “you may as well not fight it.” He shook his head and laughed at her. “Why are you so contrary? Can’t anything just be? Maybe you should stop thinking so hard for once and just be. Why not sing with me? Tsasiri pirus, he … Come on … witi-tirak-tap-pirihuru.”

  “It is too foolish.”

  “Tsasiri pirus, he,” he sang louder, urging her to join in. “I am not going to stop until you sing with me.”

  She resisted, pressing her lips tightly together to keep from smiling.

  Wolfstar kept singing. Finally he stood up and began dancing. He marched with his knees high, now tossing his head back, now dropping it down on his chest. He reminded her of her own people’s Horse Dance. Even his thin strip of hair looked like the special headdress the Apsaalooka warriors wore during the dance to imitate a horse’s mane.

  “Even worms, even worms,” he sang, and paused to make a face at her.

  She burst out laughing.

  “Even worms,” he whispered, beckoning with a tiny motion of his hands.

  “Each other they-them-love,” she said crossly.

  “Come on, louder.”

  “Even worms, each other they-them-love,” she shouted, trying not to like it.

  “Sing it,” he said, tugging at her sleeve to stand up. She sang as foolishly as she could.

  “That’s it!” Wolfstar whooped as she scrambled to her feet and began mimicking his dance. “Tsasiri pirus, he, witi-tirak-tap-pirihuru,” they sang over and over at the top of their lungs. Raising her knees was awkward with her hands tied, and she finally lost her balance and collapsed onto the ground.

  “Now will you stop singing that song,” she gasped. “My ears are sick of it!”

  A faint voice down by the river called, “So are all our ears!”

  The two looked at each other mischievously. “Even worms,” they howled simultaneously, and collapsed in laughter.

  The last protests echoed between the lodges, and their laughter faded. A crescent moon was beginning to rise. Along the horizon where the sun had sunk out of sight was only a pale green glow. In the turquoise above, the Evening Star and her few companions burned.

  “This is my favorite time of day,” the girl ventured softly.

  In the waning light, Wolfstar turned and studied her. She had let the big robe slip from her shoulders, and the breeze brushed her long hair in black swirls across the blond fur. Two strands of hair had tangled in the fingerlike ivory claws of the necklace, which was so large that it covered her chest. He glanced at her scarred hands.

  “Danger,” he asked, “did you kill that bear?”

  In her mind she could see again the golden beast lying still, staring at her lifelessly. “Yes,” she said, not wishing to talk about this.

  “How did you do it?” Wolfstar asked.

  “With a knife.”

  It was not a very satisfying explanation. “I don’t believe it,” he said under his breath.

  “I am no liar,” she spat, stung by his words.

  “No,” Wolfstar said in distress. “I meant—” He leaned toward her and came so close to setting his arm around her shoulders that she could feel its heat, but then withdrew. “I know you are not a liar.”

  He began to sing again, quietly, a different song this time.

  She looped her arms over her knees and hugged them close to her chest.

  After a time, Wolfstar turned toward her again. He slid his knife out of its sheath and cut through the lashing between her wrists. Then he replaced the knife, sat back, and began to sing again.

  She looked at him sideways through her hair. “How do you know I will not turn on you now and kill you and flee?” she asked.

  Wolfstar’s eyes danced. “Because half a moon ago I cleaned your store of corn bread from your bedcovers and fed it to the dogs, and you have not even missed it.”

  In spite of the blow to her pride, she laughed. “How dare you throw my bread to the dogs?”

  “It was rancid. Fried bread doesn’t keep forever,” he said, shaking his head. “You have much to learn about our ways.”

  “Well, then, I will simply steal some pemmican from your mother’s storage pit when I escape tonight,” she said, crossing her arms.

  Wolfstar did not remind her that she had claimed she was no liar.

  She squinted into the stars, still feeling the warmth from Wolfstar’s arm. She did not think.

  19

  The prairie sky was enormous. The endless sprawling grassland seemed small and contained in comparison with the sky arching overhead. Wisps of cloud clung to its ceiling, while thicker clumps of cloud drifted so low that in the distance they seemed to be resting on the hills.

  The girl sat cross-legged on the baked earth with her hands in her lap. Her gaze floated down from the sky to the grass, grayish from the hot, dry summer, but warmed to gold now by the late afternoon sun.

  Wolfstar was leaning back on his elbows nearby. These hot, slow days of quiet talk and silences that were like a kind of talk, too, were nearly over. The moon-when-the-leaves-turn-yellow was coming, and the village would soon return. But on days like this it was as if no other season existed but summer with Wolfstar.

  “I feel as if I could almost reach up and touch those clouds,” he said. He lay down and stretched his arms above his head. “I have always wondered what they feel like.”

  She brushed a biting ant off her leg. “They feel cold and wet,” she said. “You would not miss much if you never touch one.”

  “Have you touched a cloud?” he asked incredulously, sitting up and twisting to face her.

  “I walked right through it. It was like fog.”

  “You honestly touched a cloud?”

  “It is not so difficult,” she said irritably. She was trying to console him, since in this low-lying country he would never come close to a cloud. Wolfstar was staring at her as if she were a spirit.

  “You must climb a mountain,” she added, since he kept staring. “Mountains often reach into the clouds.”

  “I would like to climb a mountain,” he said, trying to recover himself. “I have never even seen one.”

  “Someday you can travel to my country; there you can climb as many as you like.”

  Wolfstar sighed. “I don’t think so…”

  “Something else you should see, on the way to my country,” she said. “Once in your life you should visit the Land of Boiling Waters.” She told him about the steaming holes in the ground, the black cliff, the yellow-canyon waterfall, the burbling pools. The one thing she did not tell him was how she loved the colors, how they made her feel li
ke singing.

  Wolfstar was absorbed in her telling of the place. “That I would like to see with my own eyes,” he almost whispered. “You have been so many places. I have never been outside my own village.”

  “But you could go.”

  “I cannot go far.” He let himself fall back into the grass. “I cannot even marry outside my village,” he said in the voice usually reserved for Dreamer.

  He seemed to be thinking of a certain girl—an outsider—whom he wanted to marry.

  “If I did marry outside the Village-across-a-ridge, we would lose the Wolf Star bundle, for then it would belong to her village,” he said.

  The girl looked over at him, but he was hidden in the long grass. “Who would you want to marry from outside your village?” she asked.

  He waited a long time before answering. Quietly he said, “I wanted to marry Hummingbird-in-her-hair. And she wanted to marry me.”

  “Oh,” the girl said, feeling like a stone. “Why is she with Dreamer?”

  “We could never wed,” Wolfstar said. “She is from the Village-in-the-bottomlands.” He began tearing a weed into small pieces. “Anyway, I had nothing to offer. She needed someone older, useful to her family, to protect them and provide for them. Girls always marry someone older. That is the way of things.”

  She crawled over to Wolfstar and crushed down the grass near his head so she could see him. “You could have married her anyway,” she said.

  “That was long ago,” he said, sounding tired. “And it is not that simple. Our lives are not really our own. You of all people should understand that. The gods wanted you to become great among your people. That is your path. We must all follow the path given us. Mine is to be the Wolf Star bundle keeper.”

  “You know nothing,” she said. “Do you think my path was handed to me, just like that? No. I had to fight for it—with all my strength, from the instant I was born. They all thought my twin brother was the Great One, and I was nothing. Even my own father. I grew up like an orphan.”