Wilderness Double Edition 26

by David Robbins

  At that, Neota frowned. “I no forget nephew,” he signed. “My fault him die.”

  “Enemy kill him,” Nate signed. The notion that Neota was somehow to blame was preposterous.

  “Me,” the Ute signed. “I no stop Niwot come. Your valley bad medicine. But I no stop.”

  Winona signed the question that was uppermost on Nate’s mind. “Question. How bad medicine? You never say.”

  The Ute bowed his head. When after a while he looked up at them, fires burned deep in his dark eyes. “You want know? I tell you.”

  Nine

  His Ute name was To-Ma.

  He was born on a windy winter’s day when the sky was bleak with the threat of snow. He was no different from any other Ute boy ever born except that everyone commented on his size. He was a third again as big and heavy as most babies.

  From cradleboard to waddling to his first tentative steps, To-Ma had a normal Ute childhood. He was deeply adored by his parents, particularly his mother, who doted over him too much, the father complained.

  To-Ma was happy. He ate, he played, he did the few chores he was given to do, and all the while he continued to grow. By seven winters, he was as big as boys who had seen ten or eleven.

  Everyone marveled. He would be a mighty warrior, was the common opinion. He would count many coup and heap glory on his people. Only seven, and some whispered that one day he might be chief of all the Utes.

  Then came the following summer. To-Ma’s mother took him to pick berries along a river near their village. She did not ask her husband or anyone else to accompany them. The berries were not far. If trouble reared, she would shout, and warriors would flock to her aid.

  They each had half a basket full, the boy and his mother, when she, in the lead, stopped so unexpectedly that To-Ma bumped into her. He nearly spilled his basket and let out a squawk. The next moment his mother’s hand was over his mouth, and she was hurrying toward their village. She tried to carry him so they could go faster, but although only eight, he weighed almost as much as she did. She had to lower him, and her hand slipped from his mouth.

  To-Ma raised a yell of protest at her treatment. Again his mother covered his mouth, and bending, she whispered in his ear, “Be quiet or we are dead.”

  To-Ma did not know what she was talking about. All he cared about were the berries he had nearly dropped, the sweet, delicious berries he loved to eat. Then he heard a grunt, and gazing past her, saw that which had filled his mother with fear.

  It was a bear. A great, gigantic bear the likes of which To-Ma had never imagined existed. Its maw looked big enough to swallow him whole.

  “Scar!” his mother gasped, a hand pressed to her throat, and gave To-Ma a shove that caused him to trip and nearly fall. He stayed on his feet, but he dropped his basket and his precious berries spilled over the grass.

  “Mother!” To-Ma yelled, about to burst into tears. She had never treated him so roughly. It scared him more than the bear.

  “Run!”

  To-Ma felt his mother’s frantic fingers dig into his back. He was propelled toward the lodges with such force, he stumbled and came down hard on his elbows and shins. “Mother!” he cried, but she did not pick him up and dust him off and say how sorry she was. No, she grabbed his wrist and nearly tore his arm from its socket.

  “Run, child! Run!”

  To-Ma shouted that he did not want to leave the berries, but if his mother heard she paid no heed. He looked back.

  The bear was after them. It had a shuffling gait that caused the hump on its shoulders to rise and fall like the prow of a canoe on a tempest-tossed lake.

  “Scar!” his mother cried again, more a wail than a scream.

  To-Ma never knew what hit him, whether it was his mother or the bear, but suddenly he was sailing through the air. This time he came down on his head. He exploded with pain, and everything around him faded to the ebony of a starless night.

  A strange sound brought To-Ma back to the realm of here and now, a crunch-crunch-crunch he could not account for. He opened his eyes and sat up, and all that he was and all that he ever would be turned inside out and upside down.

  His mother lay a pebble’s toss from where he sat. She was on her back, her arms and legs flung wide, her face turned to the blue vault of sky. Her eyes were open wide, her body oddly slack. The giant bear straddled her, a huge paw on her chest. As To-Ma looked on in uncomprehending horror, the bear bit into his mother’s throat and tore away a chunk of flesh and skin. In a single gulp it swallowed the morsel and bent its head for more.

  Again the bear’s razor teeth sliced deep. This time To-Ma understood. “Mother!” he cried. “Mother! Get up and run!”

  The bear’s ponderous body shifted toward him. In the distance rose angry shouts and screams, but the bear ignored them. Sliding its paw off To-Ma’s mother, it came toward To-Ma.

  “I was one of the warriors there that day,” Neota said. “I saw what the bear we called Scar did next, and like many, I took it as a good omen.”

  The bear sniffed at little To-Ma, who shouted at it to leave his mother alone. Then To-Ma did that which astounded the onrushing Utes; he punched the grizzly on the nose.

  “I expected Scar to claw the child to pieces,” Neota related, Nate mentally filling in the gaps in the sign language. “But the bear did nothing. It just stared at the boy, then turned, sank its teeth into the woman’s shoulder, and dragged her into a thicket.”

  It was Neota who scooped To-Ma into his arms and ran with him to the village. By then every warrior was armed. To-Ma’s father, who had just returned from deer hunting, hugged the boy to his chest and thanked the Great Mystery aloud for sparing him.

  Spreading out in a skirmish line, the Utes advanced on the thicket, only to find Scar was gone. The bear tormented them for many winters afterward.

  That incident was Scar’s only link to To-Ma’s story.

  The seasons passed, one after the other. The Utes moved their village many times.

  To-Ma grew until he surpassed not only all the boys his age but all the boys of any age, plus all the men. He was big and he was strong, but he was not all that adept with the bow or the lance or the knife. In battle he relied on his brawn rather than his brain, but there was no denying that he was one of the bravest of them, and great things were expected of him.

  Sixteen winters went by.

  To-Ma and his father were picked to go on a raid, his father one of a dozen warriors selected who had sons who had yet to count coup.

  Off they rode, to wage war on their bitter enemies, the Shoshones.

  Neota was one of the warriors. In fact, he had organized the war party so that his own son might distinguish himself.

  North they headed, into the heart of Shoshone country. All went well until the fateful day when the scout they had sent ahead raced back to inform them a Shoshone village was over the next ridge.

  Dismounting, they crept to the top and beheld more lodges than any of them had ever seen in one place at one time. Unknown to them, they had stumbled on a gathering of all the Snakes. There were hundreds of warriors with their women and children, and thousands of horses.

  Some of the Utes were for turning back. They argued that there were too many Shoshones, that to raid the village would reap their own extermination. Others were for waiting until the quiet hour before dawn when few Shoshones would be awake. They would help themselves to as many Shoshone horses as they could run off and kill any Shoshones who tried to stop them.

  Neota was torn. He was concerned for his son, just as To-Ma’s father was concerned for To-Ma. But here was a chance for the boys to perform deeds that would be told and retold around the evening fires for many winters to come. They voted to go through with the raid.

  So it was that the next morning, Neota and To-Ma’s fathers were among the first to sneak in among the Shoshone horse herd. At a yell from Neota, the Ute warriors leaped on Shoshone horses and began to drive off others.

  But the Shoshones were
no fools. They did not leave their horses unguarded. It was the job of Shoshone boys to watch the herds and shout an alarm. Since it was almost dawn, most of the boys were fighting off sleep. They were slow to react, but when the most alert of them yelled that the horses were being stolen, all the boys raised cries, bringing warriors from every lodge.

  The Utes did not break and run. It was not yet light, and they felt that if they could get the horses they had stolen over the ridge, they could elude pursuit.

  Then a Shoshone boy who had been dozing under a tree ran up and pointed at them, bawling, “Here they are! Here they are!”

  To-Ma and his father were closest. At a word from his father, To-Ma let fly with an arrow that pierced the young Shoshone’s chest. The boy toppled, and the Utes were on the verge of escaping when a score of Shoshone warriors, fleeter than their fellows, burst out of the dark.

  The combat was swift and furious. The Utes killed a few Shoshones. The Shoshones killed a few Utes. Neota saw that the war party was hard pressed and shouted for them to leave the stolen horses, and flee.

  To-Ma was being pressed the hardest. His size was to blame. It made him easier to spot. More Shoshones had converged on him than any of the other Utes. But he was holding his own, laying about him with a knife, when Neota’s shout caused him to take his eyes off the Shoshones and glance toward Neota. An older, wiser warrior would not have made that mistake.

  It was the opening a charging Shoshone needed. Armed with a heavy war club, he sprang high into the air and brought his club crashing down on To-Ma’s head. He misjudged his leap and fell against To-Ma’s horse, which saved To-Ma’s life. For the horse, spooked by the bedlam, and stung by the scrape of the war club, bolted.

  The Utes retreated. Once over the ridge, they switched to their own mounts and looped ropes around the necks of the horses they had stolen. Only then did someone notice that To-Ma was still on the Shoshone horse, his large frame bent nearly double. To-Ma’s father and Neota discovered that To-Ma was unconscious from a hideous head wound. The back of his skull had splintered, and there was a hole in the bone large enough for a man to stick a fist through. But To-Ma still breathed.

  It took seven of them to lift To-Ma and tie him on his own horse. Quickly they mounted and were off. The yells of the Shoshones were uncomfortably near. Any moment, the Utes expected to be overtaken and to have to fight for their lives anew.

  They pushed their mounts to the point of collapse. When the animals could not go any farther, they made their stand in a narrow canyon where only a few Shoshones at a time could get at them. They waited, nerves taut, weapons ready, but the Shoshones did not appear.

  In the dark the Shoshones had lost them.

  It was a grim band that returned to the Ute village. The lament of the women who had lost husbands and sons was terrible to hear. Even so, the raid was accounted a success. They had counted coup on the Shoshones and stolen valuable horses.

  None of which was consolation to To-Ma’s father. He sat by young To-Ma day and night, tending him. In that, he was aided by several of the more experienced healers.

  To-Ma was unconscious for many sleeps. His dressings had to constantly be changed, and he had to be force-fed broth. His great frame became gaunt with hunger. But gradually the shattered bone knit.

  To their ministrations To-Ma owed his life. There came a day when his father happened to look over and saw that his son’s eyes were open. Elated, he rushed over. His eyes brimming with tears, he asked how To-Ma was feeling.

  To-Ma did not reply.

  To the father’s consternation, To-Ma did not respond to anyone or anything. He just lay there, unblinking, staring at nothing. He would not eat unless helped. For many sleeps the strange state persisted.

  Then one morning To-Ma rose of his own accord. He moved about the lodge touching things and making sounds that were not speech but more akin to the guttural grunts of animals. His father tried to talk to him but received no answer. Indeed, at one point To-Ma came up to him and touched him as To-Ma had been touching everything else, as if it were all new to him and he did not know what anything was.

  The healers applied all their skill, but in the end it was to no avail.

  The father’s sorrow was heartbreaking to behold. To-Ma could fend for himself; he would eat when hungry and drink when thirsty, and he attended to his bodily functions. But he behaved atrociously. He loped about the village on all fours. He was always sniffing things and people. Worse, he snarled at the village dogs and growled at anyone who came too close.

  A council was held. It was the general opinion that To-Ma’s mind had gone, and his spirit taken over by the spirit of an animal. The kind of animal seemed obvious. With his grunts and snarls and shuffling movements, he resembled nothing so much as a bear. Despite the strain to the general harmony, he was permitted to remain in the village.

  For a while all went well. The Utes felt sorry for To-Ma’s father, and for his sake tolerated the antics of the bear-boy. Until the fateful day when several younger boys teased To-Ma by throwing rocks at him, and To-Ma attacked them. Roaring savagely, he cuffed them with sweeping blows of his huge hands. He scared them more than harmed them, and scared many of the villagers, too.

  Another council was held. To-Ma’s father was urged to keep a tighter rein on To-Ma.

  The father tried. He was devoted to the boy, and to the end he sustained the hope that To-Ma would come to his senses and all would be as it had been.

  The end came one summer’s eve when the village lay quiet under the blossoming stars.

  The father cooked supper and gave To-Ma a slab of roast deer meat. As was To-Ma’s wont now that he was a bear, he turned his back and went at the meat as a bear would, ripping and tearing and growling.

  The father knew not to go near To-Ma when he was eating. To-Ma would bristle and snarl. But this evening the father forgot, and brought over a handful of blueberries. The father remembered how fond his son had always been of berries of all kinds, and he held them out for To-Ma to see. In reaching down, he brushed the deer meat To-Ma was devouring.

  A roar was heard by everyone in the village. Men and women came on the run. Since the flap was down, they did not enter the lodge but called out to To-Ma’s father asking if everything was all right. When there was no answer save for the most hideous snapping and rending sounds, the boldest of them peered inside.

  To-Ma was crouched over his father. The father’s throat had been torn open, and To-Ma was biting off chunks of flesh and lustily chewing.

  The Utes waited until To-Ma had gorged himself and was sleeping. Twenty of the huskiest men crept into the lodge, and nearly all were bitten or bruised before they succeeded in binding him.

  Yet another council. The unthinkable had occurred. Ute must never kill Ute. The punishment was unavoidable and severe: banishment. Some argued that since To-Ma was now a bear, the taboo did not apply to him. To which others responded that was all the more reason to banish him. As one warrior put it, “We can not have a bear running about our village.”

  So banishment it was. But some felt to send To-Ma out into the wilderness, unarmed and alone, was the same as killing him. An elder settled the discussion with an idea that appealed to all sides.

  The Utes dressed To-Ma in a bear skin complete with claws. He lay strangely docile, never once growling or resisting.

  The next decision was where to take him.

  It was Neota who had the answer.

  Ten

  “You brought him here,” Nate King signed.

  “Yes,” Neota confirmed.

  He explained. The valley was far enough away that the Utes doubted To-Ma could find his way back. It had game and water, and so far as they knew, no other tribe claimed it as part of their territory. One other factor recommended it; the valley was bad medicine.

  Nate held up a hand, stopping the recital. “Question,” he signed. “Valley bad medicine before bring boy?”

  That was indeed the case. For as long as any
Ute could remember, the valley had been shunned. No Ute would set foot in it.

  “Question,” Winona signed. “Why bad medicine?”

  The story was this: Long ago, when the Utes first came to the mountains, they found a paradise abundant with all they needed. They explored it thoroughly, and one day a party of hunters discovered the hidden valley with its beautiful sparkling lake. When the hunters returned, they told of their find.

  Several families immediately set out to construct their lodges along the lakeshore. The rest followed at a leisurely pace. There was talk of the valley becoming their new home.

  But when the rest of the Utes arrived, a shocking sight greeted them. The lodges of the three families had been destroyed. The thick buffalo hides had been ripped to ribbons and all their belongings broken to bits or scattered about. Of the families there was no sign.

  Quite naturally, the Utes assumed enemies were to blame. The missing people were undoubtedly captives. But when they cast about for sign of the enemy, perplexity set in. For instead of hoof prints and the tracks of moccasin-clad warriors, they found animal tracks, tracks unlike any they had ever seen. Round, the tracks were, and as big as the largest tracks of the largest of their stallions. But these had not been made by hooves. They were paw prints. To some they resembled cat tracks. Others were not so sure.

  A small child found the first body. She was frolicking with other children near the forest and came on a trail of dark red drops that fascinated her. She followed the drops, and when she saw the source, she screamed for the first time in her life.

  One of the missing warriors had been disemboweled. His intestines had oozed out and lay in thick coils. But what horrified the Utes more was the dead man’s expression.

  The next body, a woman’s, was farther in. She had been clawed apart and one of her arms torn off.

  Unease spread. The women and children were hustled back to the lake. Half the warriors stayed to protect them while the other half ventured into the foreboding woods in search of more bodies. They found them, too, every missing person, every man, woman, and child, all as badly mangled, if not worse. The bodies were brought to the lake. It was then that an old warrior noticed something everyone else had overlooked.