Cannonshots sounded through the length of the interior; braces buckled all down the ship’s spine. They were doomed now, he knew; a dead ship going down. Bags of helium burst with the hiss of mammoth snakes. As George lay sprawled across the pilot’s wheel, he looked down. The ship had been blown away from the river and now it was the ground that was accelerating towards them.
He said a prayer. He made it brief.
As the shadow of the ship came down to earth, Elisha and George shared a glance.
“Take care, Captain.”
“You, too.”
The nose of the airship hit the ground and crumpled. Crushed gas bags exploded and the skin of the ship blew outward with the escaping helium. Cables snapped and the engine car keened as it fell away from the ship, ripping out metal arms and chains like viscera. It crashed against the bottom of the pilot car, knocking George loose from his unstable perch. He hit the forward wall and grabbed onto the cabinet handles, the only thing within reach. Elisha had kept his hold on to the base of the winch. The body of the ship imploded as it drove into the ground. Bursting gas bags sent shards of metal flying. Glass shattered and the storm’s thunder was transcended by the detonations.
George hid his head and curled into a ball around his feeble anchor. The pilot car was pulled away from the ship by the falling engine car. George’s world turned upside down once more as both cars flipped over. The fore cables held a moment longer, slowing the descent, and then George saw the prairie grass come rushing upward.
It seemed an age, an aeon, between the time he tried to open his eyes and the time that he actually did. When he finally succeeded, he saw a grey sky. He felt the light touch of drizzle on his cheeks. He felt the earth beneath him, and felt a hand beneath his head. He heard a voice, humming softly.
A face came into his view, and he saw a woman. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, she looked at him with concern knotted between her brows. It was she who was singing, ever so quietly. Her cheeks were broad and her skin the color of oak.
An Indian, he thought, and was afraid. The Cheyenne did not take prisoners. His briefing had been quite definite on that point. He struggled to rise, but she pushed him back down and shushed at him.
“Écoute, ami,” she said. Listen, my friend. “You are wounded. Keep still.”
George’s French was rusty, and his skull was ringing. He tried to focus on the woman’s face, but could not. She became a dark blur against the pale sky. His fear reached back into his mind and tried to form the words that he hoped would save him by making him more valuable as a prisoner than as a corpse.
“Je suis…le fils de….”He could barely think of the words. I am the son of— He tried to think of the name the savages had given his father during his campaigns. Pieces of the word rattled around in his head, then came together.
“Tsêhe’êsta’ehe.” Long Hair.
“I am the son of Long Hair.”
Chapter 2
Ball Game Moon, Waning
Fifty-three Years After the Star Fell
Where The White Water Meets The Big Greasy
They had seen the column of smoke rise beneath the thunderhead. By the time Storm Arriving and the two other warriors of his patrol rode up to the site, the rain had passed. To one side, the thin line of smoke trailed upward. Everywhere else, white cloth flapped and fluttered in the steady wind. An acrid scent covered everything. Amidst the torn cloth, Storm Arriving could see twisted branches of pale metal.
The smoke and flapping cloth made the whistlers jumpy. Storm Arriving slid off the back of his riding mount and staked its halter rope to the ground along with the rope from his war mount. Big Nose did likewise, but when Laughs like a Woman began to dismount, Storm Arriving spoke to him.
“I want you to come with us to inspect this thing. The whistlers are frightened, but I do not want any of us to stay with them.”
True to his vow of contrariness, Laughs like a Woman retook his seat. “No. I will not stay with the whistlers.”
Satisfied that Laughs like a Woman would keep an eye on the mounts, Storm Arriving turned and walked toward the wreckage. He was glad to have Laughs like a Woman on this patrol, but his friend was a hohnóhka—a Contrary—and it was sometimes difficult to speak to a Contrary and get things done right.
He walked to where Big Nose was waiting.
Big Nose glanced towards Laughs like a Woman. “It will be a good day when the thunder beings relent,” he said.
Storm Arriving looked back at the stern warrior kneeling astride his hump-backed beast.
“Yes,” he said. “It has been many years. It would be good to laugh with him again as we did when we were boys.” He turned back. “Nóheto,” he said. Let’s go. “I want to see what this thing is that has left its bones on our land.”
They walked toward the wreckage, bows at the ready, watching for dangers. The thunderstorm had doused most of the fires; only the one section still burned. Storm Arriving leaned over and touched one of the scraps of metal. He picked it up. It was as long as his arm and about as thick.
“Big Nose. Feel this.” He tossed the scrap to the tall warrior.
Big Nose raised his eyebrows in surprise as he caught the scrap. “It weighs nothing,” he said. He slashed the grass with it. Wet stalks flew about him and he laughed. He put his knee to it and bent it. “Hunh,” he said. “It would make a poor lance.”
“Still, we should bring some of it back to the Council. It may have other uses and there is a lot of it here. We will bring some of the cloth, too.”
They moved on and saw a body: a bluecoat vé’ho’e, a soldier. The man was obviously dead, his neck twisted at a ferocious angle. Storm Arriving tapped the man’s head with the end of his bow but it was no coup.
“The coat on this one is still good,” Big Nose said. “Do you want it?”
“You take it,” Storm Arriving said. “I do not like vé’ho’e clothing.”
“When have you tried white men’s clothes?”
“Once,” Storm Arriving said. “Up in Santee country before Long Hair took it. We stopped at a Santee trading house. The man there had some vé’ho’e clothes. I tried them on. The leggings pinched in a very uncomfortable place and the coat fought with me when I raised my arms. And that was only part of what a vé’ho’e wears every day. Even in the hottest weather.”
Big Nose shrugged. “I do not know about that. All I know about this coat is that I can trade it well to the Little Star People.”
Storm Arriving considered it. “You are right. Maybe there is another. I will take the next one,” he said.
Big Nose set to removing the dead man’s coat while Storm Arriving continued onward.
He stepped around a pile of wreckage, looking for another body. He inspected the polished grain of a wooden door and the shiny curve of a yellow metal handle.
The things he makes, he thought. He thought of the rifles and carts the vé’hó’e used. He thought, too, of the tales of huge iron hardbacks that the vé’hó’e made to run on long iron roads.
And now he makes things such as this, he thought. He scanned the long stretch of ruined metal.
Though not very well.
He saw the feet of a second body sticking out from behind a large plank of wood. As he stepped around it, the first thing he noticed was the bandage around the man’s head. Then he saw the blue eyes—hooded, but aware. Then he saw the pistol in the man’s hand.
The gun went off before he could back away, but the shot was wide and the recoil sent the pistol tumbling.
Whistlers cried and he heard Big Nose shout. Storm Arriving knocked the soldier in the head with his bow. Then he dove for the pistol. He stood up and pointed the pistol at the vé’ho’e. The man held his hands before his face and was saying something over and over. Storm Arriving tried to make out the words.
Big Nose ran up, arrow nocked and ready. He aimed at the soldier, but Storm Arriving shoved his hand away.
“I was not going to ruin the coat,” the
big warrior said, perturbed.
“I do not care about the coat.” He waved his arm to Laughs like a Woman to show that all was well and turned back to the wounded soldier. “Listen to what he is saying.”
Big Nose leaned forward to listen.
“S’il vous plaît…Je suis le—”
“He speaks the Trader’s tongue.”
“Shh!” Storm Arriving said. “Listen. Listen to it all.”
“Je suis…le fils de…Tsêhe’êsta’ehe.”
“Long Hair?” Big Nose snorted. “He is a crazy vé’ho’e.”
Storm Arriving put his weapons on the ground and squatted down next to the muttering soldier. “I am not so sure,” he said. He saw the seep of blood in the cloth bandage that covered the soldier’s brow and part of his left eye. Protruding from beneath the cloth was the kind of moss and herbs used by the People.
“Écoute,” he said to him in the Trader’s tongue. “Listen. Long Hair is a bitter enemy of the People and our allies. It would give me great pleasure to cause Long Hair anguish by killing his son. But before I do that, I want to know what you bluecoats are doing here. How did you get here, vé’ho’e?”
The soldier looked at him. “I fell from the clouds.”
Storm Arriving stood, shocked.
“Did he just say—”
“Yes,” Storm Arriving said. “He said he fell from the clouds.”
“Do you think he is the one that—”
“No. I do not.” He grabbed the pistol from Big Nose and aimed it at the soldier’s head. “I will kill him now.”
“No.” Big Nose pulled at Storm Arriving’s arm. “You do not know that you are right.”
“Yes, I do. Look at his head and at that wound binding. He did not do that for himself. That is a Tsétsêhéstâhese wound binding, but there is no hanging moss here. Someone came here before us. Someone helped him and they must have told him what to say.”
The soldier lay there, arms raised in impotent protection. “I am the son of Long Hair. I fell from the clouds. I am the son of….” The litany in broken Trader’s tongue and Tsétsêhéstâhese was repeated.
Storm Arriving aimed the pistol again. The bluecoat’s words came faster, higher.
“You risk too much,” Big Nose said. “Her visions are not to be ignored. Look at the binding again. Who do you think wrapped it?”
“What, now, you think it was she who tended this man?”
“Who else?”
“Then why did she leave him? Why is she not here?”
“Because she is not a fool,” Big Nose told him. “She knew we were out here on patrol. She knew we would find him. The smoke led us right to him”
“But why did she not stay with him?”
Big Nose looked Storm Arriving squarely in the eyes, challenging him. “Because she knew it was you who would find him. You. She has not forgotten you.”
Storm Arriving stood silent for a moment, caught in his own sudden doubt.
“Are you all dead?” came a call from beyond the ruins.
Storm Arriving scowled, uneasy. “Yes,” he called back to the Contrary. “We are all dead. Come and help us.” He turned back to Big Nose. “You really think it was Speaks While Leaving, then?”
“Yes,” the big man said. “I do.”
The vé’ho’e had stopped his prattling and now lay shivering on the wet ground. Storm Arriving scowled some more.
“You are a thin, weak, and cowardly little bluecoat,” he said in the Trader’s tongue. “And I would kill you rather than listen to more of your womanly begging. But my friend has persuaded me to let you live. Get up.”
The vé’ho’e nodded, his sign for understanding. He tried to sit up but winced and fell back hard. He tried again and succeeded, but stopped, a hand to his forehead.
“And you think that this is the man from her vision? The man who rides clouds?” He reached down and grabbed the bluecoat’s arm. Then he hauled the soldier up onto his own back like a sack of maize.
“Gather some of the soft metal and the cloth. We head to the Council at once.”
George’s vision swam and grew dark. Blue and red suns burst inside his head as the taller of the two Indians hefted him like so much cargo. The Indian wore leggings and tunic of some kind of supple animal hide. The right side of his head was shaved close along the temple and above the ear, and several long earrings dangled and chimed as he moved. His hair was long and braided, as was the other man’s, and at the nape of his neck a white feather was tied with a red lace of leather. George was carried across the grassland in a jarring walk, and bit back a moan as his world spun again and the ground came up hard beneath him. He held his head in his hands as the Indians spoke in their native language of hisses and whispers. Behind him, he heard the movement of another. He remained still, not wanting to increase his troubles.
The sound of movement came closer. He heard a snuffle and then felt a warm breath on his neck. He turned his head slowly.
He scrambled backward with a shout. The large beast recoiled in alarm. The skin along its nose and brow changed from green to grey as George felt his own face pale.
The two Indians laughed at his fright. One reached out to soothe the frightened whistler. Ashy bars and splotches of pale green spread from its head back along its shoulders as the tall man spoke to it. Then he pointed to George, and the beast leaned forward again. George froze.
“Such a coward you are,” said the man who had nearly killed him. “She is only curious. She has never seen a vé’ho’e.” He clucked his tongue and said something to the beast. “Give her your scent. She must know you if she is to carry you.”
The animal was huge. It was close to fifteen feet long, though a sinuous neck and a long, whip-like tail accounted for most of it. The tail was held suspended behind it, a counter-balance to the head and neck on George’s end.
The fulcrum on which the whole beast teetered was a pair of long and powerfully muscled legs. The blunt, spade-like claws of its three-toed feet dug into the turf. Its forelegs were small and did not reach the ground. The digits were heavy, designed for digging and less like paws or feet than like animate tools. Just above its forepaw was a patterned wristband of woven leather and beads of many colors. The rest of the animal was incredibly birdlike, and it minded George of some monstrous, plucked goose except for the smooth skin and oddly-shaped head.
The head came close again as the whistler extended its neck. The muzzle was shaped like that of a deer or elk: large nostrils over a smaller lower jaw, but the mouth was not soft; it was beaked, with upper and lower jaws coming together in a hard-edged mouth designed for cropping grass and stripping the leaves from fronds and twigs. It looked at him sideways, like a robin eyeing a worm, and George saw the huge crest that arched backward from the beast’s brow. The crest was a long extension—not an antler, but a hollow length of skin-covered bone—as thick as a man’s forearm and twice as long. A wattle of skin stretched between it and the whistler’s neck. It smelled of grass and the soil, but also of something dry and spicy like cinnamon.
As it came close, the beast made a small grunt, a wordless question that resounded from mouth and crest alike.
George did not move as it swung its nose near. The Indian stroked its long neck as its moist breath washed back and forth over George’s hair, face, and chest like waves on a shoreline. It nudged him and grunted again.
“Your hands,” the Indian said. “Show her your hands.”
Gingerly, George offered his filthy hands, palms up. The whistler snuffled over them and then nosed them. Beyond the beak, its muzzle was warm to the touch and as soft as dressed calfskin.
“She will take you,” his captor said. He patted the beast’s neck and it bugled quietly, a sound that yodeled up through its bony crest. It withdrew from close inspection but did not move away. George decided the prudent course was to remain where he was.
His captor turned and spoke with a third man who sat astride another whistler. The rider was
decorated in a fearsome fashion. A mask of black paint covered his eyes. Spots of white dotted his shoulders and upper torso. Yellow lightning bolts adorned his arms and calves. His hair was tied back, but loose. Like the others, he wore several earrings of shell and silver. In his left hand he carried a long, hooked lance with feathers tied along its length. From his arm hung a shield with arcane symbols upon it. He was agitated, and spoke to the first man with harsh words and gestures sent in George’s direction. The tall man spoke calmly and with obvious patience. Suddenly, the painted man laughed, a high-pitched giggle, and all seemed well between the two of them. The glances he leveled at George, however, were still deadly. This, George thought, is a very dangerous man.
The second man—not as tall as the first but broad-shouldered and with a flat nose—returned from the dirigible. He carried several spars of aluminum wrapped in some of the airship’s fabric skin. He also carried the coat from a lieutenant’s uniform and dangling from his belt was a gold pocket watch.
George’s fear was overcome by rage. “You filthy scavenger. Those are Elisha’s. You leave them with him!”
Whistlers trilled and the lead man interposed himself between George and the object of his wrath.
“Silence,” he ordered in French. George realized that he had spoken in English and they did not understand his outburst. He tried to translate his words but his anger got in the way. He spoke in French and pointed. “That watch. That coat. They should be…buried…with my friend.”
The Indian regarded George steadily for a full minute. Then he said something to the man with Elisha’s belongings. They argued briefly. The other man weighed the two items in his hands and handed over the watch. The leader held it out to George.
“You may bury this with your friend.”
“What about the coat?” George asked.
“Le prix de la guerre,” the Indian said.
The vé’ho’e took the trinket of yellow metal. Storm Arriving unstaked the halter of his whistler.
“Follow,” he told the soldier, and they began to walk back to the wreck.
The Year the Cloud Fell Page 4
