She spoke with some anger. It seemed to her that the young men were scrambling for hegemony over the very body of a great chief. Would that anyone in the tribe could become as splendid as Four Bears had been, or as brave, or as wise!
Somewhat chastened, the braves went off, leaving the women to tend the body of the dead chief. Because it was a task reserved for the older women, a privilege earned by long years, Gyva made a silent prayer over her dead grandfather. It seemed incredible that this still, cold, shrunken form on the bearskins had ever been a man at all, and she felt a mixture of deep love and deep sadness as she prayed that, for him, the eternal hunt be always fine. The blood in her veins was his, and she was proud.
“Go now, child, and sleep,” muttered old Teva. “Much may be demanded of you. We will dress our chieftain in ceremonial robes, place him this night under the stars, on a pallet in the center of the village, and in the morning we shall bury him along the river.”
Mention of the river upset Gyva.
“Why, child, what is the matter?”
It seemed unholy to speak of it here, with the old women already beginning to bathe Four Bears’ body, but Gyva’s hurt was too great to keep still.
“My chosen one,” she said, as quietly as she could. “He has another.”
Teva’s baleful old eyes grew yellow, like a cat’s. “This you have heard, or this you have seen?”
“I have seen it.”
“Eyes may lie. Ask of your lover if it is indeed true.”
Gyva lowered her eyes, remembering Torch and Little Swallow locked in embrace, Little Swallow’s proud breasts against his chest. “I could not…face him with such words.”
Teva grunted. “Youth,” she shrugged. “Did you verily see a rival open herself to him, and he upon her?”
Gyva had to admit she had seen no such thing. She shook her head.
The soothsayer cackled. “Once I told you that you have become a prisoner of the pleasure your lover gives. You must be careful not to become so lost in the pleasure that you cannot think aright. What hold have you over any man, that another ought not challenge you? Do you not see? It is not only the brave who must be resourceful and unyielding in conflict, but also the maiden…”
She let her voice trail off. Gyva felt a bit ashamed now, to have troubled Teva with this matter of the heart, especially at such a time. She began to apologize, but the old woman waved away the words. “Go,” she said. “Sleep. For it is as I also told you, ‘There are many things as important as love.’“
Gyva thought about those words as she walked toward her wigwam, and they were good words; but they did little to assuage her heartbreak and grief. How could they? Her love for Torch was—had been—the center of her life for two whole circlings of the sun. In spring and summer they had loved down on the grass beneath the willows; in autumn upon rustling, golden leaves that seemed to sigh, to whisper, as the lovers moved. Even in winter, the two of them wrapped tightly in blankets of fur, Torch turned her to fire in his embrace even as she embraced him with herself and, with her body, stroked him to delight.
Was that now over? How could he have wounded her so?
“I do offer you sad feelings on your grandfather’s death.”
Gyva looked up. She had been intercepted, just outside her lodge, by Little Swallow.
“It is without doubt a great pang to lose so much in one day,” goaded Little Swallow.
The blood of warriors did indeed course in Gyva’s veins. Her first impulse was to fling herself upon this evil-swallow-who-nests-in-perfidy and scratch out her lovely black eyes. But she did not.
“I thank you for your sympathy,” Gyva replied, evading the provocation, and attempting to walk around the other girl.
But Swallow, her victory so utterly glorious today, so complete, wished to detail her triumph.
“Do you know what it feels like?” she hissed.
Gyva spun toward her, fighting for control.
“Do you know the feeling of those kill-cut scars when his arms are around you?”
Blood rose in Gyva’s face.
“And do you know how it is with his kiss, and his body hard and wanting next to you?”
Heat flooded Gyva’s body.
“Deep inside yourself, do you remember how it feels—way deep?” Swallow was taunting. “Do you remember? When both of you know that the moment has come?”
“Stop!” Gyva wanted to scream. But she would not let herself. She would let herself show defeat as little as she would permit herself to accept it. If only to save Torch from a maiden as mendacious and savage as Swallow, Gyva would move heaven and earth.
“It was my belief that you favored Hawk,” she said, approximating but not quite duplicating Swallow’s highly practiced gift for honeyed venom.
“I favor whomsoever will become the new chieftain,” sniffed the other.
“Then you are giving yourself to both of them upon a time, are you not?” asked Gyva.
Little Swallow was a bit startled at the precision of Gyva’s attack. “Whomsoever I love,” she said, with just a hint of uncertainty, “then him I love.”
“And you just told me that you favor whoever becomes the new chief. So do you also embrace Arrow-in-the-Oak, and Long Talon, and Two Paws?”
Her spirit somewhat restored by this attack, Gyva began to wonder. It was well-known in the village that Hawk and Little Swallow had eyes for one another. Perhaps Hawk was himself too hot-headed, too impulsive, to judge Little Swallow for what she was. Unless there was something else at the base of all this.
Swallow attacked. “A maiden who has lost her man is a bitter maiden,” she said. “What truth can one expect her to speak? No one will take seriously anything you say.”
“You are the one whose tongue craves my ears,” Gyva shot back. “I wish but to know why.”
Again, more perceptibly this time, Swallow hesitated, and Gyva began to wonder what was happening. Just how intricate and involved does the matter of love and jealousy become? If it was merely love and jealousy. Gyva knew, of course, that a victor claims every right under the clear sky to humiliate the vanquished, to make him grovel and suffer and plead. That was how things were. But, in the past, she had believed that this law of heaven applied only to relationships or encounters between the tribe and its enemies. Perhaps she had missed a lesson. Well, if it also applied to affairs of the heart within the tribe, so be it.
“You have not told me,” she demanded. “Why will no one take my words seriously?”
“Hawk has said it!” declared Swallow, with a kind of nervous triumph. “You are not true Chickasaw!”
Again, the same thing. Always Swallow returned to it, when the two maidens spoke to one another. Does it truly matter so much? Gyva wondered. I have lived here all my years. My grandfather is chief—
Not any more.
She no longer had a protector, and the wolves were circling. How much they must have envied and hated her, all those years! Hated her for the power and protection conveyed by a great chief. Envied her for exotic, compelling looks: flawless ivory skin, perfect female body, and face framed by gleaming black hair, eyes like black bits of heaven beyond the stars.
“Good night,” she said to Little Swallow, and began to walk away from her.
“Where do you go?”
“To sleep,” Gyva called back.
“And alone,” replied Swallow, with a tone in her voice that was contemptuous, yet not altogether so.
Gyva returned to her lodging, her mind somewhat cleared by anger. She removed her garments and sank down upon her sleeping place. The wigwam was dark. She could see a few sleeping forms: the women who had not been sufficiently old to prepare Four Bears’ body for tomorrow’s burial. She lay down; and her bare skin, as always, thrilled to the panther pelts, a sensuous experience she could compare only to Torch’s sleek body upon her own. But she could only compare it, never equate it. There are at least two worlds in every heart.
When she leaned back, she
felt something under her head, something hard under her rolled blanket. She took it up in her hand. A necklace. Had one of the other women dropped it? She explored it with her fingers. No, the necklace was one of claws, which women did not wear. Large claws they were, too. Very large…bear claws. It was the necklace of Torch!
Another message or signal? Another summons? Sol It was too dark now to send her the usual diagram of moon and mountains, just as earlier his need for her to see him with Swallow had led him to hissing outside the wigwam! No longer did he show a shred of grace!
Bear claws indeed! she thought I have been ravaged for the last time!
And yet, as she tried to fall into sleep, and tried, and then began to drift away, her resolve, her very honor, began to dissipate. Was not he the one? What of Teva’s words—and two years of unremitting delight?
Am I right in not meeting him tonight? was her final thought, but then it was too late to think anymore. Her spirit was borne upon the blue haze over the mountains, and breathlessly she saw the beauty that was her homeland, far below. Far away, in the outer reaches of heaven, receding from her with speed akin to the flashing light of the sun, Gyva saw Four Bears astride a horse of lightning. Skillfully did he wheel his great mount, somewhere moonward of the mighty dipper of stars, and with great love did he lift his farewell hand to her. The world belongs to the living, but if they are lucky there is much love and courage left them by the dead, to love and cherish, upon which to build. Gliding like a hawk into the land of sleep, Dey-Lor-Gyva saw the face of her grandfather imaged in the stars. Softly did he gaze at her and send a kiss.
Then she was in sleep, in deep sleep, the canopy of heaven still within the circle of her skull. Very slowly, so that she did not know it, time moved and stars rearranged themselves into curious, monstrous formations, until a new face was emblazoned in the sky. Gyva, in her sleep, tried to turn from it; but the visage pursued her, even in nightmare, even in dream. A long, lean face, hard as stone—harder. The eyes were like sun dogs in a most violent winter, and some great galaxy a million journeys from earth formed upon the forehead of this face a scar as remorseless as memory itself.
The blasting of guns and war cries awakened her. Jacksa Chula, she thought, and closed her arms upon her breasts.
Any brave who speaks truly will tell you: There is no intelligence in battle.
There is only frenzy. And for some there is fear.
For Gyva, at first, there was only confusion.
Nothing in the world seemed to exist, save the explosions of fire sticks, and howling, and the pounding of horses’ hooves. Outside the wigwam a rider flashed by. Gyva heard an ominous, crackling sound, and immediately the roof of the wigwam leaped into flames. Why had there been no warning? What had become of the sentinels?
Gyva grabbed her clothing, and slipped the leather pouch from its place on the pole, the small receptacle in which she kept her few treasures, and in which, with some misgivings, she had deposited Torch’s bear-claw necklace. Then, with the other women, she dashed outside, as the fire edged down into the walls of the wigwam, and the roof collapsed.
Many other wigwams were afire, eerily illuminating the village. The attackers had ridden in from the north and were crashing through the village, firing their horrible sticklike weapons of flash and thunder, throwing torches onto wigwams, swinging hatchets and axes. Blue Crocus, a gnarled, fearless old woman of seventy years, rushed out into their path, flailing at an attacker with a long stick. The rider’s knife flashed, and Blue Crocus’s stick lay in the dirt, her hand and bloody forearm still holding it. Gyva fell backward, narrowly escaping the trampling hooves of another attacker. She could feel the heat of the horse as it pounded by; she smelled the strong, raw sweat of the excited man. Clouds of dust rose in the air; the thunder of hooves filled the village; pools of red blood spread in the dust. The attackers galloped through the village once, wheeled at the south end, and prepared to make another charge.
In the event of an attack, every member of the tribe had an assigned duty. Braves were to take up their weapons and fight. Older women would rush the children to shelter in the surrounding forest. And young women like Gyva were to fight fires or, should the fires burn out of control, assist in battling the attackers.
Gyva threw on her buckskins, slipped the leather pouch into a pocket, and raced to the wigwam where weapons were stored. The attackers were forming for another charge as she grabbed a bow and a quiver of arrows from the squaw who was passing them out. Gyva thought she saw Torch racing toward the enemy position, but she could not be sure.
The village was burning—at least ten wigwams were afire, including the council hall—and people raced about, screaming and crying. The assault had come so suddenly, so surprisingly. Who were the attackers, in fact?
One of the marauders howled something to his compatriots, horses were spurred, and the second wave of the assault began. The torches had done their evil work in the first attack, and now the nameless enemy galloped down upon the Chickasaw, firesticks blasting. As she had been instructed so many times, Gyva went down upon her right knee, her left knee bent at a ninety-degree angle, and pointed in the direction of the charge. Her left arm, which held the bow, was straight, parallel to her left leg. She slipped an arrow from the quiver and fit it with sure fingers onto the bowstring. With neither fear nor excitement—there was no time for either emotion—she drew back the bowstring and concentrated on the attackers, who were hurtling forward now, the hooves of their horses raising clods of earth. Gyva saw, without having time even to be astonished, that the enemy wore not the military uniforms she had expected, but rather the broad-brimmed hats and cloaks of farmers.
But farmers or soldiers, there was only one thing to do. She picked a rider toward the left of the charging line and drew aim. He was riding fast, but riding almost straight in her direction, so there was little problem in drawing a bead on her target. The bow bent, the bowstring was taut as could be, the attacker came pounding down on her.
But she could not release the arrow!
For a terrible moment all time seemed to cease. The village was suspended somewhere between heaven and earth, motionless, and all within it motionless; even the licking curls of flame around the wigwams were still, like fire that has been painted in a picture, forever burning yet not consuming. Gyva saw clearly now the man at whom she aimed, astride a mighty roan, the reins in one fist, fire stick crooked in his free arm. The dark brim of a hat shadowed his face, a cloak flew out behind him as he rode. Then slowly, slowly, she saw the round hollow end of the fire stick swinging toward her, moving dreamlessly to circle her in its depths. Beneath the hat brim, eyes had found her, and she was as much a target as he was.
Time began again, and Gyva released the arrow.
The fire stick exploded.
The horse passed close enough for Gyva to smell the sweat of it, the odor of hot saddle leather.
The man plunged to earth, scant yards away from her, rolled a time or two in the dust, and then lay still. His fire stick came to rest nearby, like a dead serpent, stretched out to be counted after a hunt.
Then the attackers passed through the village, hooting and shouting, and were gone. It was a long time before any semblance of order could be restored. The wigwams that had been set ablaze burned to the ground; it had been too late to save them. Mercifully, no children had been hurt; but three women were dead—one by fire, two by fire sticks—and eleven braves lay wounded, four dead. The attackers, of whom there had been perhaps a score, lost but two of their number; and many had seen Dey-Lor-Gyva bring one down with her arrow.
It would have been inappropriate to make display over her act, but members of the tribe gathered around, proud of her, as she approached the body of the first man she had ever killed. The death had been necessary. It had been her responsibility. And she had done it. She saw Torch approaching, his silhouette outlined against the embers of a ruined lodge.
“Take the scalp,” people were urging her. “It is yo
urs, and you must take it.”
But how could she bring herself to do that? It was a thing for braves—the quick, brutal hack of a knife to remove a circle of skull from an enemy, his hair along with it. Her victim lay on his face in the dark dust, the wide hat still on his head. One of the peaceful farmers! she thought contemptuously. Always they came “to farm, to live in peace,” and always they brought death in their wake.
The people were asking her to take the scalp. Torch joined the group. In the shadows Gyva saw Hawk and Little Swallow, huddled together in a pose that reminded her of something, some guise she did not like.
“Take it!” the people were saying, with more urgency now. “Add it to the trophies of our people!”
Among those, like Teva, who were wise and ancient, there was an expression: The heart knows its nature. These ambiguous words meant simply that certain people were born with inclinations or aversions about which nothing could be done, and so it was with Gyva. Often had she stood before the council wigwam to cheer and applaud some young brave come back from battle with scalps at his belt. She had been proud of him, too, and of what he had done for the safety of the tribe. But imagining the actual taking of the scalp, she shrank away. Yet it would be unseemly, and reveal a lack of courage, not to take the scalp of an enemy she had felled.
Slowly she approached her victim and knelt down beside him.
“Roll him over!” cried someone. “Let us see the gape of a white jackal quit of life!”
The man was limp and heavy in death. Gyva put her arms beneath him and tried to force him onto his back. Then Torch was there beside her.
“Take the scalp!” The cry rose louder still. Her delay in doing so had already aroused a suspicion that perhaps she would not—or could not—do it.
In spite of what had happened between them, she sensed that Torch was there to help her, to give her comfort beyond mere aid. After the hurt she had been dealt by him, Gyva wanted to scream him away. Yet, oddly, she sensed kindness and not hostility in him. It was his trick, of course! Such are the ruses of men.
Firebrand's Woman Page 8