by Mike Blakely
Again, he thought some time before he replied. “I wish to understand why the spirits give us things. And why they take things away.”
For the first time, the old man’s eyes appeared, twinkling in deep folds of aged, sun-baked flesh. “The dust is only a powder made of elk horn. The spirits do not wish me to say why I throw it on the fire. My medicine is very strong, young horseback. Its mysteries are my own to guard—a burden I must bear alone. To know of such power, such magic as you cannot imagine, is a very dangerous thing. It is like the horses you were riding yesterday.”
“The horses, Grandfather?”
“Do you feel their power when you ride them?”
“As you must also, Grandfather.”
“You forget, young horseback. You have known horses all your life. I am an old man upon this earth and will never ride a horse the way I saw you ride yesterday. The horse is a strange new thing to me. That is why I must ask you. I wish to learn. To understand.”
Shadow gathered his legs under him, feeling very excited that the old puhakut should ask such a thing of him. “The power is great, Grandfather. It makes me go as fast as when I jump from the bluff into the swimming place at the Timber Camp, but the ride on the horse goes longer than the jump into the water. And it is more than the speed. It is the power!”
“Explain this power,” the old man said, looking sincerely at the boy. “How does it make you feel?”
Shadow gestured vaguely. “It is like holding to the back of a great eagle as it flies low over the ground. Like riding a bull elk. It is like mastering all the wild things in the world and feeling all their great muscles between my thighs.”
“Yet, these wild things you master throw you through the air and step hard upon you. They come near to crushing you, so that you might die upon the ground, without even a weapon in your hand.”
“I am not afraid of them.”
“But it is dangerous.”
“Yes, Grandfather.”
The old man threw the dust of elk horn upon the cold ashes. “So it is with spirit medicine. It makes you feel powerful. Yet, it may rub you out if you are not careful.”
Shadow heard horses running, and looked through the opening to see them cavorting across a slope. “Why have the spirits given us horses, Grandfather?”
“I cannot say, young horseback. If the spirits wish you to know the answer to that question, they will tell you. You say you wish to understand, Shadow, but you must not wish to understand too much. Let the spirits understand. They are wiser than we are. They will tell you what to do if you listen. Now, go and eat well. Drink your fill of milk and water. When the sun rises, I will wait for you at the deep pool along Sometimes Water.”
10
At dawn, Shadow trotted in his moccasins and loin skins to the pool on Sometimes Water, carrying his favorite buffalo robe rolled, tied, and slung over his shoulder by a rawhide thong. Father Sun was yet behind the eastern skyline, but his first rays made the tall, slender tecamaca trees along the stream look like huge green feathers whose tips had been dipped in crimson paint.
Following the line of trodden earth to the pool, the medicine seeker found Spirit Talker standing there, waiting for him.
“You must wash everything away in these waters that the spirits have made sacred on this morning,” the old puhakut said.
Shadow took off his moccasins and loin skins and waded quickly into the clear, cold pool, diving headlong when he had waded thigh-deep. It felt cold, but not as cold as the streams from which he had broken ice to prove to his friends he could stay in longer than they. Coming up from the bottom of the pool, he heard Spirit Talker chanting, so he stayed in the deep middle of the pool, moving his arms and legs to stay afloat, knowing this exercise would warm him.
When the fiery gaze of Father Sun struck Spirit Walker, the puhakut ceased his chant and opened his eyes. “Come out. You are clean.”
Shadow stood in the sun, his flesh tightening all around him, feeling cleansed, indeed, very strong, very well.
“Offer your heart to the spirits,” the old man said. “Stand before them. Do not grovel, for that disgusts them. Tell the spirits you are getting ready to travel to a sacred place. Ask them to meet you there and grant you medicine. Do not be afraid. Fear angers the spirits the way it angers a great humpbacked bear.”
“I am not afraid,” Shadow said. He closed his eyes and prayed silently with the old man, feeling the crisp air dry him as the sun made him warmer.
“You are ready,” Spirit Talker said.
He opened his eyes, finding the old man standing before him, still wrapped in his robe. It seemed strange to see Spirit Talker bundled up so, for Shadow was naked and felt quite warm. He was indeed ready. He had long awaited this quest. He hoped it would be as hard and as powerful as he had imagined. As he hurriedly put his moccasins and loin skins back on, he hoped the spirits would see how sincere he was and grant him good medicine.
Now Spirit Talker revealed an elk-horn pipe he had kept concealed under his buffalo robe and handed it to Shadow along with a pouch of tobacco and a wood drill for making fire. “You will need these things. Roll them in your robe for your journey.”
Shadow rolled the things and tied the robe with the rawhide strap. Looping this strap over his shoulder, he stood to receive his last instructions from the puhakut.
“The spirits will come to you on the high bluff above the spring that feeds Sometimes Water. Go there, now, young horseback, and seek your medicine.” He turned away, leaving Shadow alone.
* * *
The medicine seeker walked until the sun was upon his shoulders, then stopped beside Sometimes Water to light his pipe. He was good with the drill, and there was much dry grass at hand to start the small fire. Stuffing the pipe with tobacco and lighting it with a burning stick, Shadow sat upon his rolled robe and prayed as he smoked.
He held his chin high as he sought contact with the spirits. Whom these spirits were, exactly, Shadow could not say. He knew of Father Sun and Mother Earth. He knew of their daughter, Sister Moon. He knew of the Thunderbird who brought rain and played the deadly lightning game with the True Humans. But there were other spirits out there as well, each waiting to share medicine with the walkers of earth. This Shadow knew. He prayed to them all at once, wondering which would accept his invitation to serve as his personal guardian spirit and shape his life with magic.
With the pipe smoked, he rose and continued the long walk to the bluff at the head of Sometimes Water. He stopped to smoke again at the spring. The water roared from the base of the bluff as Shadow had never seen. The Burnt Meat People had camped along Sometimes Water several times in his memory, but never when the water was so strong. This gave him confidence. The magic here was good. Grass stood high. Leaves were green and fruit grew everywhere. He was forbidden to eat or drink for the next four days, but the abundance made him hopeful that his father, Shaggy Hump, and his teacher, Spirit Talker, had chosen well his time and place to seek his medicine.
Halfway up the bluff, Shadow stopped to take his third smoke. He could see the haze of many campfires above his camp from here, for he was climbing high, and the day was still. The lodges were hidden in distant timber, but the thin cloud of smoke made him feel near his people. The sun was over him now, the rolling plains below him pale gray and brown in the bright light.
The climb to the top of the bluff became more difficult as the slope steepened. Shadow embraced the challenge, seeking the handholds and footholds that would lift him ever nearer his place of sacred solitude. Near the top, he found a ledge upon which to take his fourth smoke. He felt eager as he spun the drill shaft within its spirals of cured hide, for the number four was sacred. The spirits had created many four-leggeds to serve the True Humans. Four directions joined across the face of Mother Earth. Four seasons made the great circle of time. Shadow faced four most sacred days to invoke something mystic from the spirit world.
The fourth smoke seemed to give him wind to finish the climb
. He scrambled over the last brink as if running a foot race, then sprinted up a gentle slope to the highest point on the bluff. Dropping his rolled robe, he turned slowly, letting his eyes sweep across the vast range.
To the east, where the bluff faced, the land rolled away in gentle folds, covered with sage and bunches of grass, dotted with dark green cedar. Between the east and the south, as he turned, his eye followed Sometimes Water, snaking away in a crooked thread of green, vanishing beyond the smoke haze of the village. Due south, the young medicine seeker noticed a thin haze of another hue hugging the horizon, wavering with distant magic. He hoped it might mean a dust cloud from a herd of buffalo. He turned farther still, now shading his brow against the late-day sun. The land rose in rugged steps to the west, broken by many dry ravines and jagged escarpments. Beyond this harsh country were the enemy highlands, the crests of which were visible though they lay several sleeps from here, even by horse. Turning north, Shadow saw the mystic regions of many strange peoples, the Mountains of Bighorn Sheep, and the Cold Dry Hills.
A tiny point of white, flashing momentarily, caught his eye on a hillock he could not have reached by sundown at a dead run. Shadow knew that signal meant antelope, for the tail of that animal could be seen flashing in the sun even when the animal itself blended into a far-distant slope. He wished he might run back to his camp to tell the hunters about the antelope he had spotted and about the dust haze he thought he detected so far away to the south. But even these matters of sustenance and survival for many became lowly cares for one who had come to seek medicine. He cast aside his thoughts of food, stood facing the south, and made his heart speak to all the unknowns.
* * *
At dusk, he was thirsty and hungry, but this only made him proud. He started a fire and lit his pipe, patting the smoke onto his shoulders, chest, and head as he prayed. Stars began to appear as he finished the smoke, and he stood again, facing east now. As the sky grew darker, he remembered the many stories he had been told about the evil little people called Nenupee—how they would shoot wanderers of the night with arrows that never missed and always killed. This high promontory also made him think about the great cannibal owls who hunted humans at night on wings that made no noise. The old men of his band had shown him the huge bones of these giant owls, turned to stone and found in ravines. Shadow had never met anyone who had actually seen one of these owls against some waning moon, but the bones proved they haunted the dark night sky.
These things made him long for the noise of his camp, but he knew to return would cause him great humiliation. The girls would laugh at him and call him elder sister. They would mock his fear. No, he would remain here and let the little people and giant owls kill him if they must. He stood straight, defying fear as the stars came out, glimmering faintly at first, like the flashing tails of spirit-antelope. Sister Moon was yet sleeping.
The sky grew blacker behind a growing nation of stars. Some of them flew long across the curve of night the instant they appeared. Shadow stood in wonder of them until his neck hurt from looking up at their numbers. Many were the nights he had lain on the ground in his camp to look up at the stars. But, here, alone and hungry, his thirst for magic even greater than his thirst for drink, he felt a far greater awe of the distant and mysterious beings of light. He prayed to them in his solitude, taking his mind away from thoughts of evil night things.
At last, he found himself shivering in the cold, weaving from exhaustion, unable to maintain his sense of balance. He lay down and wrapped himself in his robe, feeling the warmth envelope him head to foot. Though his dry mouth tasted of bitter smoke, and hunger prowled his stomach on grasshopper legs, he drifted instantly into prayerful sleep.
* * *
Father Sun looked over a far slope and shamed Shadow for waking so late in his robe. The seeker threw the hide from his shoulders and stood to see the great sun spirit rise. His mouth was dry and his stomach pinched, but he had known these feelings before over dry trails and hard winters. It was nothing to stand straight after his sleep, so he locked his knees and threw his chest forward. Yesterday’s invitation to the spirits was now almost a taunt, for Shaggy Hump and Spirit Talker had advised him not to grovel in sight of the gods, but to greet them with confidence they would admire. Shadow’s pluck bordered on arrogance.
His hunger rose like the sun, but it was his want of drink that made Shadow long for the time to pass and his guardian spirit to arrive. Occasionally, when the wind died and the world of mortals invaded his link with the Shadow Land, the seeker could hear the spring gushing from the foot of the butte. When this happened, he would force a hot chant up his dry throat and lift his arms to the Great Mystery, that he might forget his longing for so common a thing as water.
Wind spoke from the grasses and sage, birds from the limitless sky; still Shadow failed to interpret their voices. Father Sun watched the smokes, and heard the prayers, but passed over the hopeful warrior like a father of eaglets with nothing yet to feed them.
The second night had scarcely fallen before Shadow was asleep. He dreamed of rattlesnakes.
He was standing on the third day before Father Sun stalked quietly to peek over the curves of Mother Earth. His hunger was only a cold weight within him now, no longer gnawing, but his want for water made his tobacco-scorched mouth feel like rawhide. Each dry breath he drew seemed to blister his throat and prick his tongue, which felt large in his mouth.
Late in the third day, as Shadow stood bobbing on legs that refused to lock at the knees, he heard what he took to be a spirit-voice. Opening his eyes, he soon found that the sound was that of the Thunderbird, far away to the west, blasting the world of humans with bolts of fire shot from his eyes. The storm that hid and protected the great bird rose out of the distance, billowing toward Shadow’s butte, coming between the seeker and the sun.
He turned from the south, to the west, thinking perhaps the Thunderbird would be the spirit to guide him through life, though he had never known or heard of a warrior with such medicine. The shadow of the great bird’s cloud felt good. It refreshed the seeker and gratified his nostrils with the musky scent of summer rain.
Now the cool winds gusted down from the very wings of the Thunderbird, and the playful shafts of deadly fire cracked all around Shadow’s butte, near enough that he could see things instantly blasted to dust where the shafts struck. This was a test he could not have dared hope for, and he set his teeth hard together to brace himself against fear of that unseen spirit-bird.
A large raindrop thumped hard against his brow as the seeker’s hair twisted on a windflaw and his empty stomach fluttered with doubt. Would the wily Thunderbird tempt him with water? He was forbidden to drink these four days of his quest, but the smell of rain and the cool dot on his brow made him long to wet his tongue. He put his finger on the damp spot, felt a second drop hit the back of his hand, which he might have pressed against his lips.
Lighting struck a tall tecamaca tree on the banks of Sometimes Water below, splintering a limb—a warning from the powerful Thunderbird. Shadow began to know now what Spirit Talker meant when he spoke of the dangers and burdens of strong medicine.
The drops began to beat his head like a drum, and Shadow’s eyes bulged with fear of his own failure, dread of the Thunderbird’s vengeance. Was this his due for taunting the spirits? Rain was collecting on his face, trickling down. He shook his head to shed it, emptied his lungs in a single blast to turn the water from his lips. A drop cooled a crack in his lip, and the seeker closed his mouth tight, defying his tongue to lick the rain away. A magical gale spattered him with a swarm of tiny droplets, making his whole face wet. The water hit hard now, soaking him. His long hair grew heavy. And he knew he might twist its ends over his mouth and wring out enough to swallow, but the eyes of his ancestors were upon him, and they would know his shame and punish it.
Rendered mute with his sealed mouth and his swollen tongue, the seeker could only grunt as he shook the rain from his face and snorted like a ho
rse at the wonderful scent of his temptation. He pressed his lips together tighter, forging a grim visage of marvelous determination that would return to him in days to come—hard days of pain and sacrifice.
His whole body was wet. The wind made his own locks whip him. The wing feathers of the Thunderbird rumbled slowly through the black air of the vast mystic cloud, taunting him: Drink! Drink! Drink, human! Shadow shook his whole body in blatant defiance.
Now, he heard a sound that could only be the eyes of the great bird turning in their sockets. The screech from the hard beak came, instantly lost in the roar of shadow-fires. He felt the talons prick his back as heat slammed him to the ground. He slid briefly through thin mud, grit and rocks catching the flesh of his palms, chest, and face. He cowered, his ears ringing, until he realized he had kept his lips sealed against the rain. This triumph gave him courage to look behind him, where he beheld a small cedar in flames.
He heard Spirit Talker’s voice: “Stand before the spirits! Do not grovel!”
Summoning courage of ancestors unknown, the seeker blew wind from his nostrils and stood again, returning to his high perch atop the bluff. He would not cower—in this world, or the next. Facing south again, the flames to his back, Shadow turned his wild eyes and drawn mouth to the sky. He made claws of his fingers and recklessly raked a challenge to the land of spirits.
The gods answered with hail, the first large stone thumping the top of the seeker’s foot, smarting even through his hide moccasin, and making him hop. The next stone split flesh on the bone above his eye, causing him to look respectfully downward. Even still, Shadow refused to crouch. He stood upright under the icy spears that ranged down upon him without mercy. He felt ashamed for even thinking of crawling under his buffalo robe. Throwing one forearm across his eyes to protect his face, and using the free hand to cover his testicles under the flap of his loin skins, he grunted his defiance through his nostrils at the flocks of hailstones that made his limbs flinch and his skull ring.