Shadow Valley

by Steven Barnes

  T’Cori pointed northwest. “I saw that ridge in my vision. Beyond it grazed antelope and warthogs.”

  Frog closed his eyes and whirled off into a private world. Three human figures congealed out of the chaos. His heart leaped and his eyes burned with tears. This day, this precise moment, was the very best of his life.

  “Brothers,” Frog said, gazing out over the cactus trees, the sand and brush and heat shimmer from which the flesh of his flesh and heart had emerged. Scorpion. Hawk Shadow. “Fire Ant. Do you see me? Am I what our people need me to be?”

  For a moment his brothers’ ghosts danced over the sand. That vision dissolved into heat mirage and then condensed into new dark forms as nine men approached in three lines of three.

  Frog squinted. Who could these be? He could not trust his eyes but thought that it might be the dead hunters from the Mk*tk wars, from the time of Great Sky’s climbing. Perhaps the gates of heaven had opened. Perhaps their loved ones were returning from the place beyond death. Would not such a miracle signal that this was their promised land, a home in which their people would not merely rest but root, grow and bear new fruit?

  What would he say to Hawk Shadow, who had been exhausted in the climb, remaining behind as others had scaled the peak? How could Frog ever explain that they had tried to return in time, only to find Hawk’s wolf-ravaged body?

  And what would he say to Fire Ant? Would words ever hold what his heart needed to say? Could Fire Ant forgive him for choosing Sky Woman over his own flesh? The tears flowed more rapidly now. Everything had seemed so clear on Great Sky. T’Cori had received her vision, a message that the Ibandi would have to leave the mountain’s shadow if they wished to survive.

  Fire Ant would not countenance it. Demanded that she change her story, that she not tell the people what she claimed the gods had told her.

  Ant thought that all the Ibandi might rally around the heroes who had climbed Great Sky. That those heroes would lead the Ibandi and become great hunt chiefs.

  But T’Cori would not yield. Crazed by his own visions, Fire Ant had threatened to kill her. Frog stood between them, playing the protector. Struck his brother in the head with a rock to slow him. What foolishness, to think Sky Woman needed protection. She had lured Ant onto a thin sheet of frozen water, through which he had plunged into a searing death below.

  Many times, Frog had dreamed of that horror. He would have given his life for a chance to relive it. Surely there had to have been another way, something other than death and betrayal and shame.

  Frog shook himself out of his fantasies, blurred vision falling away as he realized that the newcomers were not a dream, but not his brothers either.

  Not kinsmen. Not bhan. Not Ibandi at all.

  Curiosity warred with alarm as Frog crawled sluggishly to his feet.

  Their dusty calves were too thick. Their lips and ears were pierced in clustered rows. “Who are you?” the first asked Frog. His words were so thick Frog barely understood them.

  A keloid spider crouched from brow to chin and across the stranger’s cheeks. A bleached splinter of bone pierced his upper lip. While no larger than Ibandi, their bodies were nettled with old scars. Their cold eyes held no compromise. These men had seen death in endless waves, were more comfortable with war than peace.

  A gravelly taste coated Frog’s mouth, as if he had licked a rock. Leopard Paw and Snake were suddenly, quietly, behind him. From the corners of his eyes, Frog saw that they gripped their spears almost as tightly as they had a quarter ago, when facing lions.

  “We come from Great Sky,” T’Cori said.

  “We speak to your men” the stranger said, refusing to meet her eyes.

  She raised her shoulders proudly. “I am Sky Woman, and I speak for the Ibandi.”

  Spider Face stared down at her. “Since before our grandfathers, we have come here every year, to drink from the sacred waters. This is our place. These waters are the gift of our god. You must leave.” It was not said as a threat but as simple fact.

  “We mean no harm,” Frog said, dismayed by the desperation in his voice. “We want to share and rest.”

  “You must go,” Spider Face said. The eight men behind him stood impassively, no overt threat about them. They were above such things. These men had seen and done much killing and were now merely waiting to see if the time of red spears had come once again.

  “When people travel through our land, we offer them food. Shelter. Water.” Frog fought to keep his voice steady. “Whatever they need.”

  “This is not your land,” Spider Face said. His voice was flat and dead.

  T’Cori’s hands shook, but then she calmed them again. “I know you are a great people,” she said. “We mean you no harm. Tell us what we must do to be guests in your land.”

  Spider Face’s hooded gaze was pitiless. “You did not ask. Must … ask.” His gaze was like fire.

  “I ask now. We did not know. We did not see your sign—your hunters are too clever. Our children are tired. We beg your pardon.”

  A hawk skawed above them, its gliding wings silhouetted against a blue-white cloud. Frog tried to find Hawk Shadow’s face in that cloud: a chin? A cheek?

  Nothing. He shivered, alone.

  Hawk Shadow would have known how to talk to these men. Or Fire Ant.

  The spider tattoo seemed to swell. “You stay tonight. Leave before sun high tomorrow, or we wash our spears.”

  Frog tried again. “Please. This is a place of plenty. We are few.”

  “You must go,” Spider Face said.

  “I think I remember you,” T’Cori said. “Didn’t you trade at Spring Gathering, in the shadow of Great Sky?”

  “Not so great, now,” Spider Face sneered. “The sky crawled with smoke. Ash in our mouths for a moon.” He peered south. “I cannot see your god. Can you?”

  She ignored the question. “Trade with us now. What can we give you in exchange for a moon of rest?”

  “You have nothing we want,” the tribesman said.

  “We will share our hunts with you.” Desperation had crept into her voice. “We have medicines. Songs.”

  Spider Face’s pierced fleshy lips did not change. “You have nothing we want. Go. Or die.” His voice was as cold as the wind atop Great Sky.

  These were not Ibandi. Nor were they Mk*tk. They were something else. Their words were not cruel, merely blunt. These men were fearsome, but not because they were strong or fast or vicious. What was it, then?

  And then Frog looked at their scars, remembered their limps, and knew. These men had fought for their water hole, for their land, many, many times. Those struggles had changed them in some way he hoped never to be changed. It was not that they were eager to kill. It was that they were ready to die.

  He snuck a quick glance at his own men. Although still woozy from the miracle water, their shoulders were tense, nostrils flared, jaws jutted forward. Ready to fight at a word.

  He lowered his left hand, showed them the pale flesh of his palm. Do nothing.

  Did T’Cori see what he saw? He was not sure, but from the way she plunged onward, without changing her plea, he doubted it.

  “Great Mother and Father Mountain ask that you let us stay,” she tried.

  “Your mouth moved, but I heard nothing. We are not of the mountain. We do not live in the shadow. They are not our gods.” He regarded Frog with distaste. “She is your woman?”

  “Yes,” Frog said.

  Spider Face hawked and spit into the ground between Frog’s legs. “If the mouth between her legs is the size of the one in her face, you must be a great man.”

  The spider tribesmen turned and left. Frog started after them. Surely there was something he could say or do.

  Fingers as hard as bare bone gripped his arm: Uncle Snake, pulling him back. “Begging will only anger them,” Snake said. “They are not evil men. But they will not be pushed. We will find another place.”

  Something inside Frog gave thanks that Snake had spoken. Hi
s father still had wisdom to share: the truth of his words rang in Frog’s bones.

  Stillshadow sighed. “Unless we are going to fight, I suppose it’s best these old feet walk another horizon or two. Help me up.”

  Frog felt lost. “What do we do?”

  “We rest,” Stillshadow said. “We watch. And tomorrow morning … we move on.”

  “The mountain is gone,” Snake said. “His shadow no longer shelters us from the fire.”

  Stillshadow shook her gray head. “The night is His shadow.”

  “He is everywhere,” T’Cori whispered.

  “I do not feel Him.”

  T’Cori gripped Frog’s hands, suddenly a woman of stone. When he looked into her face, frozen wind shrieked in his ears, memories of the mountain. “You can say this?” she asked. “You stood in His presence. How could one who has done such a thing ever doubt Him again?”

  All around them were open ears, shining eyes. The young ones watched Frog, hoping that one day they might be the smallest finger of his mighty fist.

  Frog saw them. Where they saw strength, he felt only weakness, but he heard the meaning behind T’Cori words. Now was not the time for pale words. His people could not afford doubt.

  “Yes,” he lied. “You are right. I feel Him now.”

  By the time the morning sun had climbed above the horizon, the Ibandi were again on the move. Their hunters had easily caught enough of the drowsy animals to fill their cook fires. Tired they might be, but T’Cori gave thanks that her people would not walk in hunger. “Mother,” T’Cori asked, “who leads now?”

  “I don’t understand the question,” Stillshadow said. She had awakened that morning feeling strong enough to walk a bit. To T’Cori it seemed that her teacher needed all her magic merely to place one foot before the other.

  “In the mountain’s shadow,” T’Cori said, “we knew our roles. They were rules that our mothers and fathers had followed since the beginning. The men hunted. The women healed and sang the sun to life each dawn.”

  “And you think this changes?”

  T’Cori searched inside herself before replying. “Yes. The men cannot lead now, because they rely upon us to tell them where to go. They meet new people and cannot speak to them. What happens if this goes on—if women lead and men follow?”

  Stillshadow shrugged. “Then women lead and men follow. You think this has not happened before? And will not again? Girl, I thought you knew better than this.”

  T’Cori flinched, fighting to tamp down her shame. “I was so full of pride. I … erred with Spider Face. Everything I said was wrong.”

  Stillshadow clucked. “Better to blame me for drinking the magic water. I had never seen or heard of such wonder.”

  T’Cori chuckled. “Never,” T’Cori said. “As Frog says: It was a new thing.”

  Stillshadow cackled, still enjoying the memory. Then her face grew serious. “What you speak of now is a deeper thing. We need you, and you are afraid.”

  “You see much, Mother.” Too much. Did she really want anyone peering that deeply inside her? “There is one thing I fear.”

  “And what is that?”

  As they walked, T’Cori kicked at a rock. It bounced a few paces, then rattled into a bush. “Our people do not know what happened to me. Don’t know that the Mk*tk took what was mine to protect.”

  At last, the old woman understood. “You fear they poisoned your num. Cracked your egg.”

  T’Cori trembled. The violation was more bleeding wound than mere memory. No ceremony or song or dance could staunch it. “I cannot see my own num-fire. You can see me. Look at me. Tell me.” She straightened her spine, lifted her chin with challenge. “Have I changed?”

  “I see more deeply into you than into any of my other daughters,” Still-shadow said. “I see more pain and fear than damage.”

  “But there is damage.”

  “Our scars can make us strong.”

  “I am not worthy,” T’Cori said.

  “So you say. But do you think I feel no pain? No fear?”

  “What do you fear?” T’Cori asked.

  The old woman’s eyes narrowed. “Dying before my work with you is complete. Before I teach what you must know.”

  “As you taught your daughter?”

  “As I taught Small Raven, the daughter of my womb. You, girl, are my heart’s child. Always, I knew you would be stronger than Raven. Despite that, I could not place the Circle in your hands.”

  She was stronger than Raven? Madness. True, Raven had perished climbing Great Sky, but T’Cori had had Frog and Raven had not. “Why not?”

  “Child, Raven was my daughter and was greatly loved by her sisters. A war between you would have torn our people apart. But now …”

  Stillshadow did not need to continue.

  T’Cori nodded. “And now, I must hold everything together.”

  “Yes. Now you must. For whatever days I still may dance, I must give you songs and medicines and ways of seeing.”

  T’Cori squeezed her mentor’s shoulder. It felt like squeezing dry sticks. “I am a slow learner. You must live many, many summers, that I may learn all you have to give.”

  The old woman clucked her tongue. “Don’t be too clever, girl. Our people need you to be strong and wise, not clever. However many seasons remain for Sky Woman and Stillshadow, one day only Sky Woman’s bones will remain above the earth. I have to know that you are learning as fast as you can. I make you a trade: you give me your whole heart, and I will try to live a few moons more.”

  The gray, clustered boulders crouched on the open plain like stone lions. That night, beneath their passive paws, the tribe pitched their lean-tos and spread their skins. At the northernmost edge, Frog and T’Cori assembled their simple shelter’s sticks and brush, put a well-nursed Medicine Mouse to sleep, and rolled into each other’s arms.

  That night both T’Cori and Frog dreamed of four-legged beasts with men’s eyes. Beasts who raped and killed. Who felt no remorse or fear or compassion, because they had never dreamed their own deaths. Death was something that happened to other beings.

  Beneath their lean-to’s folded branches the two young Ibandi tossed awake. They went from sleeping to staring into each other’s eyes in a single moment, uncertain either then and later exactly whose dream, or startled breath, was whose.

  Chapter Seven

  Within a snarl of dry brown baobab branches, the speckled gray warthog lay on its side. White specks of dried foam lathered its snout. Its scarred flanks were torn and bloody. Terrified and exhausted now, its leathery lids blinked as its killers approached.

  These were the two-legged creatures with hurting sticks. The warthog had seen two-legged before, but those had been smaller, easier to evade.

  These were larger, stronger, faster.

  The warthog was too weak to move. With each breath it felt colder.

  Its fading eyes watched the gnarled two-legged striding through the brush and saw it raise its stick.

  Pain flooded the hog’s body as the stick pierced its side. Then … numbness. It was dead before the stick was wrenched out.

  “Praise God Blood,” its killer said. “We eat.”

  The Mk*tk were poor gatherers. They knew little of netting trout or stickleback or trapping rabbits as did the weaklings to the north. A Mk*tk preferred to fill his belly by hunting and raiding. In truth, raiding was hunting. Humans of other tribes were merely prey—not to be eaten, of course. Human flesh was for God Blood’s teeth alone. But their bodies might be used in any other way. The Mk*tk used human skin for leather, their bones for spears and decorations.

  “What happened to Fire Gut?” Flat-Nose asked, pointing at the wounded man on the ground.

  Hard Tongue shrugged. “We chased a wildebeest and stirred a one-horn with her calf. She chased us.”

  Now they had caught his curiosity. “And Fire Gut was caught?”

  “He took the horn because he was shitting behind a bush. He was running and shittin
g at the same time. Even the one horn laughed!”

  The Mk*tk roared with mirth. Even Fire Gut tried to laugh with them. Then blood gushed from between his lips, ending his ghastly spate of mirth.

  “I am sorry,” Fire Gut said. “It hurts.”

  “Soon,” Flat-Nose said.

  Hard Tongue ignored his cousin’s agony. To acknowledge it would shame Fire Gut, encourage him to beg for mercy, which would deny him entrance to the next world. “How went the hunt?”

  His brother Rain Hand shrugged. “Our spears are strong but cannot kill what does not live.”

  Flat-Nose shifted his balance. He felt something hard beneath his bare heel and ground down until it cracked. “I know where better hunting can be found.”

  “North?” Hard Tongue asked.

  “Yes. North. We need but take the land.”

  Flat-Nose hunkered down, staring off to the north. “Hate their smell,” he growled, “their weakness. So many of them. But they are weak. We will break them.”

  “We had many wounded,” Hard Tongue said. “Many killed. Must be careful.”

  Flat-Nose’s arm blurred, knocking the other man to the ground, then stood over him with his short stabbing spear. “Careful?” he roared, spittle flying from his thick, scarred lips. “Are we women, to be careful? No! We are men! And God Blood gave men courage! Gave men spears and claws. We will feed our god until His belly bursts.”

  At night, when Flat-Nose lay his head down, God Blood sent him visions of his children and grandchildren hunting in the northlands, eating their fill, slaughtering their enemies, plundering the women on the bloody ground.

  He shook the pleasant images from his mind. “It is time.”

  Fire Gut spit blood and raised his chin. “I am ready.”

  Flat-Nose gazed toward Great Sky. The gigantic god mountain was invisible beyond the horizon, but sometimes, on some days, it seemed to waver mistily in the heat, floating above the horizon. “Tell God Blood to make us strong. Soon, we give him new land.” Starting with the boma the Ibandi monkeys called Rock.