The Gathering

by Sharon Sala

  He didn’t know he was shouting now, or that Willow was awake and cowering on the far side of the lodge with her skinning knife held tight within her grasp.

  Tyhen winced beneath the pain of his grip.

  “Yuma, don’t! You are hurting me!”

  He flinched as if he’d been slapped, then turned her loose and sat up. His hands were shaking as he pulled down the sides of her shift and then kissed the places where he’d gripped her too tightly.

  “I am sorry. I am so sorry,” he said.

  Tyhen got up and crawled into his lap as he wrapped his arms around her.

  “Don’t lose yourself, little whirlwind. It was written before you were born that you belong to me.”

  In the aftermath of his fright, Yuma realized how they had frightened the old woman.

  “You have nothing to fear,” he said. “Come, come close to the fire and be warm.”

  “You were shouting,” she said.

  “It was from fear for my woman. She had a vision. I did not like it and that was my reaction. I am sorry. All is well.”

  Willow shook her head as she crawled back beneath her buffalo robe, but she took the skinning knife with her.

  Yuma sighed. Life was complicated enough without living it under the nose of strangers. He lay back down, taking Tyhen with him, and pulled the cover up over them once more. Satisfied that she was safe and warm within his arms, he soon fell back to sleep.

  But Tyhen couldn’t sleep. Something was happening to her that was almost frightening. She had floated above the ground without conscious thought. No chant. No focus on moving up. How would she sleep if she could not trust her own body to stay put?

  It is the child within you creating the chaos.

  Even though she didn’t fully understand, it was the calm manner in Adam’s voice that stilled her panic.

  The child? How can this be?

  Something more was given to you by the Old Ones when Yuma died and, in turn, it was given to her, too.

  I don’t understand.

  Remember how your father died giving you his powers?

  She thought about the heartbreak of seeing his face, what it felt like to be held in his arms, and then never seeing him again.

  I remember.

  So, the Old Ones have already given the child her power. You need not die for her to be who she was born to be, and it will be so from this day forward.

  Oh no.

  What’s wrong? You should be happy you do not have to die.

  But I don’t want to live forever. I don’t want to live without my Yuma.

  I have no answer for that. But I do know that you are in no danger of disappearing. When the baby is born, you will settle back into yourself.

  Her heart hurt as she closed her eyes. Just when she thought life was becoming less complicated.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When it was too dark within Wolf Cries lodge for Red Wing to see what she was doing, she laid aside the moccasin she was making, banked the fire, slipped out of her shift, and crawled beneath the covers of the buffalo robe as naked as the day she’d been born.

  Wolf Cries watched, grunting slightly as he watched his wife undress, and when she lay down, he quickly removed his clothing and joined her without care for the fact that they had company.

  Evan could see nothing, but it was obvious what they were doing beneath the heavy robe and it made him ache to be with Suwanee in the same way.

  Embers from the fire lit the interior of the lodge just enough for him to see that Suwanee was already removing her shift. But instead of crawling into their bedding, she stood instead, giving him full view of her body.

  Now Evan understood the meaning of Wolf Cries’s grunt because it was the only sound he could make. Suwanee’s hair was hanging almost to her waist. Her breasts were full, her belly slightly rounded. Her legs were shapely and when he thought about lying with her he grew hard.

  When she held out her hand, he began taking off clothing as rapidly as he could manage, completely oblivious to the writhing bodies beneath the buffalo robe on the other side of the fire.

  He was fully erect when he came out of his pants and leggings and even the dimness inside the tipi could not disguise his size. Suwanee shivered as her knees went weak. She wanted that inside of her. She wanted to feel the weight of his body atop her. She wanted him to come apart in her arms. It was the only power a woman had and she didn’t intend to lose it.

  In two steps she was in front of him and then he was pulling her down onto their blankets. His hands were shaking as he pulled their covering up over them. When he turned to face her in the darkness he used his hands to map the contours of her body. And when he slid his hand between her legs, she rolled over on her back to make room for him to come in.

  Within seconds he was on top of her, sliding into the warm, wet depths of her and thought he would die from the pleasure.

  ***

  Dull Knife’s belly was full from the meat Adam’s brother had given them. He was curled up beneath their winter robes with Cloud Woman’s butt against his lap. Every time she shifted against him in her sleep he grew a little bit harder until finally he awoke fully erect. Without moving, he took her from behind, satisfying his urges without fuss or bother.

  On the other side of their fire, Adam lay with his eyes wide open, listening to their heavy breathing and occasional grunts beneath their covers while staring at the smoke from their dying fire swirling about his head. With the smoke hole closed, it had nowhere else to go.

  The sound of the wind was, in his mind, like the roar of a bear just before it attacked. The cured hides that made the cover for the tipi had dipped slightly inward between the lodge poles on the west side—most likely from the wind and the weight of the snow. He wondered if it would cave in on top of them and glanced across the banked embers. They didn’t seem concerned. Maybe he shouldn’t either.

  He wondered how Evan and Suwanee had fared with their hosts and the moment he thought of them, he was in Evan’s head, feeling Suwanee beneath him, feeling the lust of an erection and the wet warmth of being inside her body. The erotic sensations he had never before experienced were overwhelming. He couldn’t control a thought or create an emotional block. Every move of Evan’s body was his. Every gasp of pleasure Evan gave was Adam’s torture. He had the need but no way to relieve it. He hated this thing called emotion. He didn’t want to feel because feeling hurt. He didn’t want to care, but he did. He wanted to touch himself but was afraid he would die. All of a sudden there was a wash of heat throughout his body then he felt it gathering, gathering until there was nothing in his thought but the blood rushing toward his erection. Nearly out of his mind, he heard a moan and when he realized it was coming from his own mouth, he panicked. Frantic not to wake the couple and embarrass himself even more than he already had, he rolled over onto his belly, buried his face against his arm and rode Evan’s climax all the way to the end, spilling his own seed onto his covers as Evan came undone in his sweet woman’s arms.

  ***

  Lola and Aaron slept facing each other with Dakotah between them. The fire she’d built earlier was now the source of heat keeping the lodge warm.

  Earlier, Aaron had come back from hunting with six rabbits—enough for food for all four of them and a little to eat tomorrow in case the snow was too deep in which to hunt.

  She had gladly prepared the meat but yearned for vegetables and fruit. As she slept, she dreamed of a roof over their heads and food growing in her garden. In the dream she was planting the seeds she had been carrying from Naaki Chava for all these long months. She carried them through fording the rivers and the hot, dry desert—through the rain and the cold. Even when they believed they might die in the prairie fire, she had not tossed them aside to lighten her load. They were more valuable to her now than any amount of money could have ever been from the l
and before Firewalker, and in her dream she was planting them in the ground.

  They slept without concern, thankful to be in this lodge and not in the small tent in the middle of the storm. They didn’t know that Rabbit Runs was awake or that he was packing his things. In the old man’s troubled mind he didn’t know where his woman was and he needed to find her. It wasn’t the first time he’d done this. The people in his tribe knew his spirit was lost and tried to watch out for him, but it was a survival of the fittest life in which they lived and there was a limit to their charity and concern.

  Rabbit Runs was muttering to himself as he stuffed random things into his hunting pouch, then he picked up his spear and stepped over Aaron’s feet as he moved toward the exit.

  It was the blast of cold air on Dakotah’s face that woke him. He opened his eyes just as the old man slipped out of the tipi. Within moments swirling snow was inside the tipi and the temperature took a drastic drop.

  Dakotah cried out.

  “Stop him! He will die!”

  Aaron was awake and trying to figure out what was happening and Lola woke with confusion, thinking something was happening to Dakotah.

  “He went out! The old man went outside!” Dakotah cried. “I saw him.”

  Lola and Aaron began putting on their cold weather clothing as Dakotah ran to pull down the flap to keep out the cold and snow.

  Aaron was frantically wrapping leggings over his deerskin pants, desperate to get to Rabbit Runs before the old man was lost.

  Lola was shaking from the cold as she knelt at the smoldering fire and added a few small sticks.

  All of a sudden Adam’s voice was in Dakotah’s head.

  Tell Aaron the old man is but a few steps outside the lodge. He is already dead. It was his heart.

  “Aaron! Stop! Adam said he is already dead.”

  Both Lola and Aaron turned and stared at the boy.

  “What do you mean, Adam told you?”

  “I heard his voice in my head. He said, ‘tell Aaron the old man is just outside.’ He said he is dead. He said it was his heart.”

  Aaron frowned.

  “Has this ever happened to you before? Hearing voices, I mean?”

  Dakotah shrugged.

  “Sometimes the Old Ones talk to me in my sleep.”

  Lola was trying not to panic and accept yet another facet of this strange boy she’d come to love.

  Aaron wrapped the buffalo robe around him, tied it tight at the waist so it would not fly away in the wind.

  “Just outside the tent, he said?”

  Dakotah nodded.

  Lola didn’t want him to leave.

  “You might get lost, too. What if you don’t find your way back?”

  Aaron accepted the possibility and dug through his pack until he pulled out a rope made of long grass and rawhide braided together which he then tied to his wrist. He handed the other end to Lola.

  “So you will hold onto me then, okay?”

  She nodded, satisfied to know that if he got turned around he could follow the rope back to her.

  Tell Aaron to count ten steps forward from the doorway. He is there in the snow.

  “Adam says count ten steps forward from the doorway. He is there in the snow.”

  Aaron nodded, then bent down and untied the flap, crawled out into the darkness and was immediately swallowed by the storm.

  Lola knelt in the low opening, thinking she would be able to see Aaron, but it was impossible. The snow was swirling in around her as the bitter cold once again swept through the lodge. The new fire crackled once behind her as she fed out the rope while praying that the fire did not die.

  Suddenly the rope was no longer moving!

  “He must have found him,” Lola said, but her fingers were now numb and she couldn’t quit shaking.

  The moments lengthened and she was on the point of panic when she felt two tugs on the rope and swallowed on a sob.

  Aaron had him! They were coming back. Then he tugged twice again and Lola moaned. She didn’t understand.

  “He wants you to pull it,” Dakotah cried. “He cannot see where to go. He needs you to pull so he can follow.”

  She gave the boy a frantic glance and then nodded.

  “Yes, yes, I will pull him in.”

  “Not too hard. It must not break,” Dakotah said.

  Lola was so cold she wasn’t thinking clearly and when Dakotah appeared behind her and began pulling in the rope hand over hand, she crawled back toward the fire and put on a larger piece of wood. Within moments Aaron was crawling in the doorway, dragging the old man’s body with him.

  As soon as he was inside Dakotah pulled the flap shut and tied it off, then followed Aaron to the fire and untied the rope from his wrist. He rolled it back up again and stowed it in his pack while Aaron was trying to get warm. He hadn’t moved since he reached the heat and he couldn’t talk because his lips were frozen together.

  Lola was crying as she rubbed his face and hands, trying to warm them while Dakotah sat with his legs crossed, his gaze fixed on Rabbit Runs’s eyes. One had frozen open and the other was frozen shut. It looked like he was winking.

  Dakotah wondered if his father and mother had seen their death coming in this way, then pulled his knees up to his chin and hid his face. He didn’t want to see this anymore.

  Is everyone okay?

  Dakotah nodded, then realized Adam couldn’t see him. He wondered if he thought his answer would Adam hear it.

  Yes. Aaron is very cold. Rabbit Runs is dead.

  It was his fate. You did good, Dakotah. You heard my words. You did good.

  Lola was still crying and Aaron was beginning to shake.

  Dakotah wanted to cry, too, but it would serve no purpose so he covered the old man with a sleeping robe so he wouldn’t have to see him again.

  ***

  The snow stopped sometime the next morning. By midday the sun was out and forming a thin icy crust on more than three feet of accumulated snow.

  Adam’s night from hell had ended with a death. In his mind it could have not been any worse. Even though Dull Knife and Cloud Woman were sleeping soundly just a few feet away, he had never felt so alone. When the inside of the tipi began to get cold, he moved to the fire, stirred a few embers and added a small piece of wood. Once it caught, he added one more and then sat and watched them burn while thinking of Naaki Chava.

  As soon as he knew Tyhen was awake he sent her the message.

  Yuma was outside the tipi removing snow from the west side of the teepee to keep it from falling inward from the weight.

  Tyhen was trying to apologize to Willow for upsetting her last night, but Willow was still bothered by their loud shouts in the middle of the night and was having none of it. When she heard Adam’s voice in her head she was actually relieved.

  Tyhen. You have a duty.

  To do what, my brother?

  A man died last night. His name is Rabbit Runs. Lola and her family were put in his lodge but his mind was not right. He left the lodge during the storm and Dakotah saw him leave. Aaron found him a few feet from the lodge. You need to tell Chief Small Foot that the old man did not die from the cold. His heart quit before he froze. It will matter to him to know this. I think the old man was somehow related to him.

  I will tell him now.

  Dress warmly. The snow is deep. Don’t walk. Fly.

  Tyhen was so bothered by the news that she missed the despondent note in Adam’s voice.

  When she began putting on all of her furs and leggings Willow stopped what she was doing.

  “What is happening? Where are you going?” she asked.

  “To tell Chief Small Foot of a death last night. Willow frowned.

  “How do you know this?

  “My brothers are shamans. They talk to the spirits.
They see the future. They see the past. I hear their voices in my head.”

  Willow’s eyes widened. It was a stark reminder that the guests in her lodge were most unusual and her attitude shifted.

  “Did he say who it was that died?”

  “An old man named Rabbit Runs.”

  Willow frowned as she pointed to her head.

  “He was a man with no spirit. It left him when his woman died. He did not know what he was doing and now his suffering has ended.”

  Tyhen absorbed the matter-of-fact manner in which Willow received the news and hoped the chief took it the same way.

  When she stepped out of the lodge, the bitter cold began to bite her face, making it tingle and burn.

  Yuma saw her immediately and stomped his way through the snow to her.

  “What are you doing? It’s too cold to be outside.”

  “You are here,” she said, and then began to explain. “Adam told me an old man died last night. It was the lodge where Lola and her family slept. I have to go tell the chief.”

  Yuma quickly unwrapped the rabbit skins from the lower half of his face and wrapped them around her instead until all he could see was her eyes and forehead.

  “Hurry back,” he said.

  She was already chanting and when she lifted her arms, went straight up.

  The wind was sharper above the ground and so she wasted no time.

  Adam. Evan. Can one of you tell me which lodge belongs to Chief Small Foot?

  Evan’s voice was suddenly in her ear.

  Dull Knife said it is the largest lodge facing the rising sun. It has the image of an eagle near the top of the smoke hole.

  Yes, I see it.

  Moments later she landed a few yards from the front entrance and called out.

  “Chief Small Foot! I am Tyhen. I bring a message.”

  Moments later a woman stepped out into the cold, holding the flap aside so that Tyhen could enter.

  The chief was sitting cross-legged in a nest of many robes and blankets made of many kinds of skins. Their cooking fire was alive and the smoke hole opened enough to let out most of the smoke.