Firebrand's Woman

by Vanessa Royall

  “It is Gyva, and I have need of you,” she said, outside the hanging flaps of hide that covered the entrance.

  “Then enter,” croaked the old woman after a moment.

  Inside, the wigwam was filled with a heavy smoke, heavier and more acrid than the smoke from the council pipes. It burned Gyva’s nose and throat as she sat down near Teva; and as her lungs took in the smoke, the maiden felt an unfamiliar light-headedness.

  The pipe was in the old woman’s mouth, and great clouds of smoke rose from it, and continued to rise. Much of the smoke she pulled into herself, then expelled between the spaces of her yellow teeth. Her eyes appeared to be floating behind swirling veils of smoke; glittering, disembodied sparks of knowledge.

  “What is your need then?”

  “I…I cannot…breathe well here.”

  “Then go out. No, take a deep breath, and you will find breathing as easy as anything else.”

  Gyva did, and choked. The witch-woman cackled. Gyva inhaled again, and this time the smoke was sweet. How was it that the tent now seemed to be revolving slowly around her? And where were…ah, there were Teva’s eyes, glinting far away, like a panther looking out from the forest and the night.

  “So?” asked Teva once again. “What is it?”

  The strange smoke from the pipe was sweet as elixir now, and Gyva fought to clear her mind. “Hawk has come down from the mountain with his dream-vision?”

  “So he has told me.”

  “Did he tell what it was?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Can you…can you see in your mind, now, at this moment, where Torch might be?”

  “Why do you wish to know?”

  “I fear…Hawk. He will banish me from the tribe, and put me away from my people.”

  Teva cackled. “That cannot be done.”

  To Gyva, though, it seemed all too simple to do; but somehow, with the smoke filling her body, her mind, the prospect did not seem as grave. She felt that she must leave, go out into air; yet a pleasant lethargy had hold of her, and she did not wish to move at all.

  “No one can put another away from his people,” Teva was saying. “That is a thing of the heart. You do have your own heart, do you not?”

  “Yes, but that is not what I meant.”

  “And you wish to know if Torch has had a vision that will save you?”

  Gyva nodded.

  “Listen to him when he tells his tale.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Now,” said the soothsayer, and seemed to drift upward like the smoke until she was on her feet. “He will soon enter the village. Let us go.”

  The old woman and the young one left the lodge; and through the mist of her drugged senses Gyva was uncertain whether she saw or only imagined the figure of Torch coming out of the forest at the other end of the village. But as she walked, her head began to clear. It was Torch, true—yet how had Teva known he was coming? Sometimes she claimed powers, and seemed to possess them; other times she denied having power at all, just a touch more of intuition than most people had. Which was true?

  But Torch was indisputably returned; and he took up a position facing Hawk across the length of the village, while the tribespeople ran from their wigwams or their work to hear and to judge the glimpses of heaven brought back by these challengers. Always it was the tribespeople who must pass final decision. If the dream of a challenger was especially obscure, Teva was called upon to interpret.

  “Are you prepared to tell of what the Great Spirit sent to you?” Teva called.

  “I am,” declared Hawk.

  Torch looked about. “Many of the warriors are missing,” he observed. And upon learning what had happened he said, “These are serious things. Would it not be best to wait for the return of the war party?”

  “No! No!” cried the people, who could not bear to wait any longer.

  “Why postpone this?” cried Hawk. “They will learn it when they return. Do you wish to delay while you fabricate some dream you have never possessed?”

  The question itself was an insult, the very tone a challenge. Truly Hawk must have been gifted with a splendid dream.

  “Let it be as you wish,” Teva told the tribe. “That is your custom, as it is mine.”

  “Now!” they cried. “Tell it now.”

  “One must be a servant of the tribe,” Torch said in acceptance, “before one can be its leader.”

  “Step forward to the center of our village,” Teva ordered. The two braves marched forward, neither of them faltering in spite of the long ordeal. But Gyva could not help noting that Torch seemed troubled, deep in thought, while Hawk appeared stronger, more vibrant than ever.

  “Let us sit,” Teva said, and held out two straws as the tribe gathered to watch and listen.

  Hawk drew the long straw, looked all about, and began:

  “I did walk east from this homeland of ours,” he said, “until at midday I could go no farther. Beneath a ridge of pine and oak I paused to rest, and sleep, and find my dream. But it did not come. When I awoke, it was almost sundown. But my thirst had gone, and my hunger, too, which I took as an omen that the Great Spirit was with me. At length, with the falling of night, I did sleep again and the dream came to me.”

  “Tell us! Tell us!”

  Hawk smiled, savoring the moment. Gyva saw his eyes touch those of Little Swallow; she saw the certainty in his glance. Hawk knew he had brought home a gift for her as well as for the tribe, an offering of certainty and power. You shall be a chieftain’s wife, he was telling her with his eyes.

  “While deep in sleep,” he began, “the image of a mighty bird came to me, and it was as if I at once saw the bird and was the bird, which was wide of wing and strong of talon, and in appearance did resemble the mountain hawk. The bird, too, was red of hue, red as the russet flowers in the fields in fall, red like the gloss on the flanks of a roan, brilliant as the oak leaves in the days of early frost. And this bird, which I both saw and was, sped fast and fleet above a gorgeous land, and protected the land and all who loved it and lived on it. Yet one day, in flight, the bird spied a white rabbit entering the land, eating and nibbling and defiling that which grew upon the land, and the bird knew this rabbit would reproduce and reproduce and reproduce until nothing would be left of the land or on the land. And so he did drop from the sky, fast and silent as an arrow, down and down upon the rabbit, and there below the bursting sky did the bird rend and tear the soft flesh of the rabbit, and he fed upon it, and what remained he took back to the mountains as food for his young!”

  Hawk nodded somberly and crossed his arms. The people, much impressed, made quiet exclamations one to another. They were greatly pleased. Hawk’s vision was so bold, so clear, touched so directly the emotion hidden within their own hearts, that no interpretation was necessary.

  Gyva, unsettled by Hawk’s cleverness, turned to regard Torch. What had he seen? Would it be as striking as the vision of Hawk. At the same time she was angry. She knew that Hawk and Swallow had conspired to gain unfair advantage thus far, and she certainly would not put it past Hawk to contrive now a vision that he knew would evoke a response in the people. A red bird like unto a hawk! Indeed! And a white rabbit! Was that not a fine story to believe in, and to repeat and repeat around the winter fires, all down the days! She remembered her promise to prove that Hawk and Swallow had cheated. Bold words. How would she ever be able to do that?

  Now attention focused on Torch. He was still quiet and self-contained, and he seemed vaguely puzzled. When he began to speak, it was with uncharacteristic gentleness, ruminative in tone.

  “According to the straws,” he began, “I left our village and went west into the forested parts of the mountains. As I walked, I received a distinct feeling that something was waiting for me in the west, or calling me in that direction. At first, I believed it to be the Great Spirit, with the dream I must possess. This did prove to be true, but what I felt was born of something else, as if a glimpse of another time were be
ing visited upon me, but whether past or future I could not tell. It was almost as if I had lived before, or perhaps would die and live again. I do not know, for it was a very strange thing.”

  Gyva suppressed a shudder, and saw that the people were exchanging glances. Had Torch become too fatigued during the ordeal? Certainly his manner of speaking was not as it had been. She watched his face closely, thinking he might be ill, as he continued.

  “But disturbing-perception or no, I did continue into the west until the sun went down and the air grew cool. I found a sleeping place within-a stand of hazelnut and hickory, fell into sleep; and while in the land of dreams, my vision did come. I was walking through a forest, along the banks of a mighty river. I had never seen the river before, and yet, as with my earlier feeling, the river, too, was familiar to me. The thought came to me that, far ahead, around a bend in this great ribbon of water, I would discover something of incomparable meaning, both to me and to all of us as a nation. It seemed I marched and marched for many moons, took no rest, no food, drank no water from the river, although in my vision it sparkled like a liquid jewel. I was simultaneously driven on toward something of great significance, and attracted to it, as one is curious to learn the nature of a lover, or a secret.”

  He did not look at Gyva.

  “And I saw no one during all this time. Finally, in a place where an arrow-shaped bluff jutted into the river, a bluff laden with pine trees so thick against one another a man could move but slowly upon it, the river itself swung into a great bend, and ran straight west into the eternal sun. And there, beneath the bluff, where the sand was red and soft and fine, Ababinili instructed me to lie down and sleep. Thus it was that I embraced a sleep within a sleep, and grew twice as close to the feral heartbeat of the wide universe.”

  What is this? the people were wondering. Never had they heard such a dream-vision, or one recounted in so strange a way. Some were recalling Torch’s intricate words on the day of his first blooding. Old Teva had her eyes on him, watching, examining; and there were even a few among the crowd of listeners who seemed to step away from Torch, as if he, too, like the old crone, possessed dark gifts of knowledge.

  “In my second sleep, Ababinili bade me rise, and so it was that within the scope of one trek I was ordered to embark upon another. Again, for many moons did I march, within the circle of the second sleep, and again did I move along a mighty river. In this dream, too, the river swung west around a pine-laden bluff, and on the banks where the sand was red and fine the Great Spirit ordered me to thrust my hand into the red sand. This I did, as he commanded, and my fingers closed upon a length of wood that had been buried in the sand, and which I now withdrew. It proved to be a stick, much like the Red Sticks warriors carry into battle, but it was not a war stick. It was a golden stick, and on it, in the letters of our nation, delicately inscribed, was the secret of life.”

  Because Torch had been speaking so quietly, the people, too, had listened with intense concentration. Now they gasped aloud, an exhalation of wonder. The secret of life! It was a wondrous thing. On Hawk’s dark features fear flickered, and savage resentment His look was one of a man who has suddenly learned that he is not as intelligent as he had believed. Little Swallow, Gyva observed, shared his stricken look. They had planned so well and worked so hard, and now…

  Too bad for them, thought Gyva spitefully. How could she herself have doubted that evil would be defeated!

  “Tell us what it is! Tell us the secret of life!” implored the tribe.

  “This is indeed the deepest vision ever to have been granted one who sought the leadership of the Chickasaw,” agreed Teva, “and well does it behoove you to tell us this secret which has eluded men since time began.” Already the hand-shaped birthmark upon her face was pulsing with buried blood, scarlet like wisdom or doom, however one was disposed to read its gleaming portent’

  Torch was silent for some time, and it seemed he was permitting the suspense to grow, as Hawk had done earlier in the telling of his own tale. But it proved not to be so.

  “In my second sleep,” Torch went on after a while, “I held the stick and read the words inscribed thereupon. Then Ababinili commanded me to bury the stick once again in the sand, after committing the words to my heart. This I did, with the thought that the secret of life was as sweet and as simple and as powerful as the love of an innocent child. And it was with great joy that I received the order to retrace my steps back along the river. This, too, I did, and I reached the place beneath the bluff where I lay in my first sleep, dreaming my first vision. I entered back within myself, lying there upon red sand, and I awoke into my first sleep as well.

  “There Ababinili waited, and he bade me awaken from my first sleep, too, and with joy I obeyed, sitting up on the sand in the warm sun of the day. ‘Now you may return to your people,’ he said to me, and left me to join He-Who-Dwells-in-the-Clear-Sky. I started back along the river to the place where I lay sleeping in the hazelnut and hickory, soaring with a feeling of blessedness that I had never known before, or even imagined.

  “But as I strode along, it seemed to me that something was missing. But what? I had only my bow and quiver to begin with, moccasins and breechcloth. All of these I still possessed. And then, in horror, did I know what was missing. The secret of life, which I had committed to memory, had fled the mystic caverns of my mind!

  “No deer has ever raced as swiftly, nor eagle flown as fast, as I now ran back along the river bank to the bluff where the red sand was. Weeping, calling upon the Great Spirit, I crawled, upon the sand, thrusting my hands into it, until I remembered that I had reburied the sacred stick in the sand on the bank of the river of my second dream-sleep. Now I lay down on the shore and tried again to sleep, that I might go back and once again read the secret on the stick. But it was no use. At last, knowing futility, I arose and returned to myself in the hazel thicket of my true sleep, and came back into myself, awakening. And so did I return here to you, to tell you of the vision with which I was gifted, and which haunts me still, and which will live in my heart forever.”

  Torch fell silent. The very sky seemed dark. No one moved or spoke, and every eye was upon him.

  Hawk was grinning. “A beautiful story,” he mocked. “Where is the headdress and ornamentation of the chieftaincy? They belong to me now.”

  To his surprise, although there were some murmurs of assent, no outcry of support came from the people. Their gaze had passed from Torch to the soothsayer.

  “It is indeed a mighty vision that you have had,” she said slowly, “and I must decide what it means.”

  “Wait!” cried Hawk. “Before this thing is decided, why do we not wait until the war party returns? They also have a right to hear these things, and pass judgment upon them!”

  Gyva did not fail to perceive the waver of fear in his voice as he saw the prospect of power slipping away. “It was you, Hawk,” she cried, “who was in such haste to proceed, mere minutes ago. So now do you wish the support of your renegade roughnecks when Teva mulls the decision? Who knows when the braves will return?”

  There were some who deplored her outspoken words, holding in their minds a memory of her behavior over the past days. But there were many, too, who remained silent.

  “Teva must interpret the vision of Torch,” many said. “It is something beyond our knowledge.”

  “Torch’s dream is naught but a vision of failure,” Hawk snorted, edging back into his usual manner of arrogant abrasiveness.

  It was at that moment, when everyone was occupied with the conflict here and with Torch’s strange tale, that Gyva spied Little Swallow ease away from the group and move off quickly toward her dwelling place. What did she have in mind now, this sneaky little bird who would bed many and deceive more to work her way toward power?

  “I gave the vision to you as it was given to me,”

  Torch said, calm and untroubled now after his recitation.

  “Hah!” Hawk scoffed.

  The people, howeve
r, were not half so brash. “It is not a thing for fast decision,” they declared, repeating the judgment among themselves. “See how the blood has gone to Teva’s mark of magic”

  It was true. Torn between the desire to remain and listen to what the seeress would say, and to follow Swallow and see what she was about, Gyva could not decide what to do. Then she felt eyes upon her, and sought them out. Torch was looking at her. She touched eyes with him, giving her love. Then he glanced in the direction of Swallow’s departure. Was he trying to tell her something? Yes. Quietly Gyva left the throng and slipped between wigwams, out of sight. She would keep a hard eye on a dangerous bird.

  Gyva knew the wigwam in which Swallow slept and dreamed and spun her webs, and no brave would have stolen more stealthily than did Gyva now, advancing upon it. For a moment she hesitated outside the entrance, then quickly, boldly, she threw the skins aside.

  No one was there.

  Gyva looked around, surprised. She had expected to come upon the other maiden. But inside the wigwam there were but eight or nine sleeping places laid out on the floor, the skins and blankets neatly arranged. On the tent-poles hung various pouches for personal possessions, some large, some small, but basically just like Gyva’s own little leather purse. She saw Swallow’s hanging there, marked by a small bird outlined in beadwork on the leather. A dark temptation arrived within Gyva’s soul.

  Then she was pulling loose the drawstring and peering inside, trembling with excitement and rage. In the pouch, in addition to the bracelets and necklaces and earrings, were at least a half-dozen nails of the type that had been buried in the ground by the hurdle.

  If Gyva had failed to show evidence of the drinking flask at Hawk’s tent, here in the pouch was incontrovertible evidence of Swallow’s perfidy in the earlier matter of the hurdle races! Gyva snatched the pouch from its peg and went to find the evil maiden.

  She accosted Swallow at the edge of the village, and lifted the pouch. A look of fear passed over Swallow’s lovely face. Then she steeled herself.

  “What do you mean by taking my belongings?” she demanded.