Runestone

by Don Coldsmith

Nils lay awake, snuggled in the sleeping robes on a sandbar on the east bank of the Big River, Beside him, Calling Dove’s soft regular breathing told of restful sleep. He could clearly see the still forms of the others, around the coals of the dying fire.

  He was unable to sleep. The moon was full, and was silvering the whole world with its soft light. What is it about such a night? he wondered. He had experienced such a feeling before, on calm moonlit nights at sea, or on the fjords at home. Something about the full of the moon, maybe. It was a time of excitement, of restlessness that he could not explain. It was as if he did not want to sleep, because something might happen in the magic of the moonlight. Something that would be so wonderful that it would open to him all the mysteries of the universe.

  He wanted to shout, to howl at the moon, like his brother the wolf, heard in the far distance across the river. A band of coyotes answered from nearer their camp, the chuckling chortle that made two or three sound like a dozen. Odin would have been amused had he been awake, Nils knew. It was Odin who never let him forget the bizarre event, the berserk when Nils had earned his name, White Wolf. The one-eyed Skraeling, now his closest friend in the world, had teased him gently ever since about his affinity for the wolves.

  “Your brother, the wolf,” Odin always said, when the spine-chilling song floated across the mountains and valleys. And Nils always felt that although Odin said this in mild amusement, he was quite serious. There had been a bond of spirit, somehow, since that day. It was an ethereal thing. There were times when Nils had observed Odin telling other tribes they met about the incident. He knew that Odin’s main purpose was to impress the strangers with the power of the People’s holy men. But there were times when he thought that Odin actually believed his own story, that the light-haired Norseman had changed into a white wolf.

  Sometimes he even wondered himself. Something had happened, that fateful day when death had come so near. It was mildly disturbing that he still had no memory of it. Odin always told him not to worry about it, or to try to understand it.

  “Some things are not meant to be understood,” Odin had told him. “Just enjoy the results!”

  Maybe it was like the night of a full moon, he now pondered as he watched the still yet exciting night around him. He remembered the old women back in Stadt talking of someone who was moonstruck, a little bit crazy. He felt that way tonight, but it was a wonderful, thrilling sort of craziness that made him feel he could do anything. He felt that way now. He rolled over and sat up, careful not to disturb the sleeping Dove. He wanted to see better, to experience this night. The moon was setting in the west, turning from silver to flame as it neared the dark treetops across the river. Its reflection fell across the water in a sort of pathway that seemed sprinkled with magic. The ripples in the water’s surface distorted the image so that it shimmered and danced, yet remained there, stretching all the way across the river to end at the sandbar under his feet. He had the strange feeling that he could set his steps on that silvery trail and walk across, clear over the river and up, over the dark trees on the other side, up and into the moon itself.

  He almost decided to try it, but it was only a passing thought. He shook his head to clear it. Was he going crazy? Moonstruck, whatever that might mean? Or, in this strange land, so different from the land of his youth, did the moon affect people differently? He looked at the still forms around him, all resting peacefully. But he was the only Norseman here. Does the moon here affect only Norsemen? he wondered in his flight of fancy. But there lay young Bright Sky, sleeping peacefully beyond his mother. Sky was half Norseman, yet seemed unaffected.

  Odin’s words came back to him. Do not try to understand … just enjoy….

  Maybe that was the answer. Nils had been raised to learn and understand the latest in Norse achievements as their ships probed the seas around Europe and the North Sea. He felt a need to understand everything he saw or did. The People, on the other hand, seemed to have a feel for things of the spirit. Not to understand, but only to enjoy. He envied Odin sometimes his ability to listen and enjoy stories of other tribes they visited, without wondering which story was right. Nils’s Christian teachers would probably have been scandalized by his own tolerance of others’ legendry. But his grandfather would have understood. Maybe that was what his grandfather had tried to give him, with all the tales of the Norse gods and goddesses. He had not fully understood at the time Grandfather’s reluctance to take the new Christianity too seriously. Now … yes, that must be it. … Grandfather was afraid that it would thwart the imagination. If only one story can be true, all other versions are lost. He was aware that his parents’ generation quietly disapproved of Grandfather’s stories, but was only now beginning to understand why. His grandfather had given him a rich legacy, which had stood him well in learning to live with the People.

  “Thank you, Grandfather,” he whispered to the setting moon. He did not understand exactly why, only that he did not need to understand.

  The moon was lower now, partly hidden by the trees. The silvery pathway had turned reddish and was now breaking up in dull rusty fragments as the moon disappeared. The gray-yellow of dawn was paling the eastern sky, and the day was coming, and it was good.

  He looked again at the river, and it murmured gently to him. A fish jumped beyond a log that lay partly on shore downstream, and he heard the splash of a beaver from another area. The coyotes were silent now, ready to turn the world over to the creatures of the day. An owl passed soundlessly overhead, a ghostly form on soft-spread wings.

  The river … his dream … He had not even thought about it for some time. Travel was going well, the weather had been good, and he had not dreamed at all. Could it be that, having been warned, he was now to receive no more warnings? What a strange thought! He must be thinking more like the People, expecting spiritual help, or mystical information. He was sure that the priest would have disapproved, and muttered about demons. The priests seemed to worry a lot about demons.

  But the river, and the dream. No one had mentioned the danger that old Broken Tail had warned about, since this voyage began. Nils had not thought of it, because he had not dreamed. Should they be worried? Or, at least, concerned?

  As he was thinking these thoughts, Dove stirred behind him and sat up sleepily.

  “You are awake,” she said.

  “Yes,” he told her, “I was watching the moon.”

  “But it is gone,” she said, puzzled.

  “Yes. Just now.” He wished that he had wakened her to share the beauty of the night. He was afraid, though, that she might not have appreciated what he felt if she had been wakened from a sound sleep to experience it.

  He wondered something else, now. At the time that Odin had talked to Broken Tail about the dream, Dove’s reaction had been strange. She had acknowledged that the dream meant danger. Yet she had been eager for the trip, and had not mentioned it again. Was he missing something here?

  “Dove,” he began, “you remember my dream of the river?”

  “Yes! You had it again?” She seemed concerned.

  “No. I have not, and that is strange, too. But you said something. … Broken Tail warned of danger, but not to me, or to the dreamer. You remember Odin told him.”

  “Yes,” she smiled. “That was clever of you and my brother.”

  “It was his idea. It did lead to questions. Danger … to whom? Not to the one with the dream, we thought.”

  “I remember.”

  “But Dove, we have not spoken of this since, you and I. Are you not worried about the danger?”

  “I had not thought about it,” she pondered.

  Why not? He wanted to shout. You have been warned, but are not worried? He decided to try another approach.

  “Dove,” he said, “I wonder who is in danger. I dreamed the dream that Broken Tail heard, and he said the danger was not to me. Odin does not believe he is the one. Maybe it is you, maybe our son …”

  Dove was quiet for a little while, and then answe
red, slowly and thoughtfully.

  “My husband,” she began, “I know that you are a great holy man.”

  “No,” he protested, “that—”

  She waved aside his protest. “I understand that a holy man must be humble about it, even deny it, as you do. That is part of your gift, Wolf. And holy men among your people are probably different, too.”

  Yes, he thought, you have no idea.

  “Now,” she went on, “think about this dream, and of any holy man trying to tell you of it, and of our journey.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Remember when you told me of this, and we agreed that any journey has danger?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “It would be foolish for a holy man not to mention it. If someone is hurt or killed, the holy man should have warned him. He would lose the respect of others if he did not warn. So a holy man always says that, no? If nobody is killed or dies, it is forgotten. Maybe he is even praised for stopping it!”

  Nils began to understand. It was a clever approach, and even more clever of Dove to have reasoned it out. But a question or two remained.

  “Dove,” he persisted, “there is something else. Broken Tail warned of danger, not to the dreamer, not to me or maybe to Odin, but to someone else. How is this known?”

  She smiled quizzically. “Let us think about that, Wolf. First, I do not know the ways of holy men, as you do. Maybe Broken Tail has a way to tell. But think about it. If you were explaining a dream, would you tell anyone, especially the party’s leaders, that they will die?”

  He was silent, thinking hard, and Dove continued.

  “Of course not. It would hurt the party’s success. But you would warn of death, in case someone is killed. If they are not, the party is a success because it was avoided. If they are killed, the holy man has said so.”

  “But what if the leader is killed?”

  “Ah, then the holy man has warned of it, but did not clearly see who. Or, something else interfered. The holy man is still right.”

  “You mean, Dove, that your holy men have no real powers?”

  Her eyes widened in astonishment and alarm. “Oh, of course not, Wolf. Where did you get such an idea? Of course they have gifts of sight, and powers to make things happen and to tell what will happen. But they must also know how to explain, how to tell others. Is it not so with your holy men?”

  Now Nils felt he was more confused than ever.

  “Maybe so,” he agreed.

  The holy men of the People did have powers of some sort. There were things he had seen that could not have happened, except that he had seen it. Things he could not explain, but that were real.

  “It is like your sun-stone,” she was saying. “I do not know how it knows north, but you do. That is why you are a holy man.”

  He saw no reason to tell her again that he was not really a holy man, and that he had no idea how the sun-stone could find the North Star.

  78

  With the conversation behind him about the warning and the dream, Nils began to enjoy the journey more. On the long overland trek he had forgotten, almost, the pleasure of travel by boat, especially for a Norseman. His preoccupation had been with adjusting to the culture of the People, to his marriage, and family life. Ah, that was a distraction.

  Now the tasks of travel were slight. The river was doing most of the work, and he had time to look around him, to think, to watch the creatures who made their lodges along the great watercourse. The days were thoroughly enjoyable, with warm sun and fresh breezes and the scent of blossoms in the gentle air. He had never before realized that there was a sweet fragrance, like that of honey, in the flowering of grapevines. The flowers themselves were quite unremarkable, small and greenish in color, but their fragrance seemed to affect him beyond all belief. It carried a sense of romance that kept him constantly alert and acutely aware of the presence of the woman who sat in the front of the canoe. Maybe it was partly her natural perfume, the powerful yet almost unnoticeable woman-scent, that drew him.

  More likely, however, it was simply that she was Calling Dove, his wife, his friend, mother of their child. It was very difficult for him to watch her lithe movements, hardly more than an arm’s length in front of him, without becoming aroused. He knew the feel of those well-shaped arms that plied the paddle, as they had often embraced him. The feel of the sensuous body … He must not think such thoughts now. Maybe tonight they could slip away from the camp for a little while.

  Dove glanced at him over her shoulder and smiled. He smiled back, wondering if her thoughts might be along the same lines. He hoped so. It was early in the day, though, and they would travel far before he had a chance to test that theory.

  They were on a smooth section of water that stretched on southward without any perceptible current. He knew it was there, however, because he could feel its pull on the canoe.

  One of the big white-headed eagles hung high over the water, held in precisely the same position by a fluttering motion of its wings against the wind. It was much like the action of wind on a sail, he realized. He studied the angle of the wings, thinking how one might adjust a sail, angling it to port or starboard to catch just the right forces. …

  The eagle suddenly folded its wings and dropped in a long sloping glide toward the water, faster and faster, like an arrow in flight. Nils began to wonder if the bird could pull out of the dive before it struck the surface. Then a slight change in the fixed angle of the wings, and the path of flight leveled in a powerful curve just above the water. A wingbeat or two and the bird swept across the smooth surface, little more than a hand’s span above it. A taloned claw struck downward, there was a quiet splash, and the bird rose, a flopping fish clutched tightly in its fist. The fish was large, and the eagle struggled to gain altitude. For a moment Nils thought it would drop its prize, but it deftly turned the fish to face forward, into the wind of its passage.

  Yes, he thought. The fish is shaped like a boat. It cuts the wind like the prow of a ship! How clever of the eagle to know how to use such principles to help her carry a load. She flew quite easily now, gaining altitude as she headed toward a nest in a towering cottonwood at the river’s edge ahead. Nils could see two or three small heads poking up over the pile of sticks to greet the returning parent, clamoring for the food she brought.

  He smiled. He had noticed that his powers of observation were improving. There would have been a time when he would not even have noticed the eagle. Now he not only saw and watched it, but felt a strong sense of enjoyment over the success of the eagle’s hunt. He felt like congratulating her, a fellow hunter, for a job well done.

  What was it, he wondered, that was allowing him more insight, more enjoyment of the world around him? He thought of Odin, and how the man seemed to see and understand everything, even with his one eye. It must be that the People looked at the world a little differently. … He could not define just how. It was much like the way a good sailor relates to the sea, it now occurred to him. Yes … An amateur tries to fight it, the wind and waves and currents. The one with skill and experience learns to use all of these forces, to become one with them.

  On a smaller scale, he realized, it is much like learning to use the canoe. The first time he had stepped into a canoe, the thing had seemed alive, overresponsive to his every motion. It had been necessary to attune his entire body to-its motions. As he did so, it became easier.

  “You must talk to its spirit,” Odin had told him, and so it had been. When that communication had been established, the canoe became like part of him, and he of it.

  Could it be, he now wondered, that it was so with the world, too? In a way, he had always considered himself, as well as everyone else, as outside the world, or at least separate from it, even though living in it. What was it that he saw or felt in the approach of the People?

  Finally it began to dawn on him. This was something that could not be put into words. Something, maybe, that could not even be understood. But the People seemed
to feel no need to understand it. It must be like trying to understand the spirit of the canoe as its tremulous wobble tests the senses of the inexperienced. Then he becomes one with the canoe and …

  Nils realized that he was close to the attitude of the People now. Not of understanding it. He might never do that. But he was, it seemed, experiencing it. Without realizing exactly when or how it had happened, he had-slipped into their ways. He was not acting in the world, but was apart of it, and it a part of him. Their spirits were one, though still identifiable, and it brought a joy and comfort, at the same time an excitement. He was seeing more, feeling the spirits of the creatures he saw as they traveled, understanding the mood of the beaver whose tail slapped the water of a still pool as it dived.

  For the first time he realized the importance of the apology over a kill.

  We are sorry to kill you, my brother,

  but our lives depend on your flesh,…

  We are not in the world, but part of it! he thought. He must have been learning this lesson without realizing it, over the past few seasons, he now saw. This had led to the increased acuteness of his observation, the greater enjoyment of things he saw. Like the eagle … Yes, he had, without thinking of it, wished her good hunting! It was a strange and exciting discovery, to know that such a thing had happened to him.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a call from Odin in the other canoe.

  “Wolf!”

  There was no real urgency, merely an effort to get his attention. Nils looked that way, a stone’s throw to his left. Snake, in the prow of Odin’s canoe, did not speak but lifted his paddle to point to the northwest. Nils turned to look over his shoulder. In the far distance a low cloudbank lay along the horizon, gray and ugly. He realized now that the air was still, and that the warm and gentle breeze they had enjoyed for most of the day was now quiet. Stray puffs of wind from odd directions were stirring the tops of the willows.

  “Let us camp,” called Odin, indicating a long stretch of grassy meadow along the bank by pointing with his paddle. “Rain Maker comes.”