by neetha Napew
“He is coming,” said Karana, brooding and restless and unable to sleep except in spurts.
Torka nodded. “Yes, I feel it too. We will not stay long.”
For two days they camped within the Land of Little Sticks, fishing, setting snares, hunting small game, replenishing their stores of meat and kindling moss, and gathering rare, precious wood and bark for the thousand tool-making purposes in which bone, less malleable than wood, was inappropriate.
Late on the morning of the third day, beneath clear skies at last, Summer Moon pointed toward what looked like a herd of large animals moving on the horizon far to the west.
From where he had been dozing at his lookout post, Torka awakened instantly and came to her. He stood watching in stoic silence, taking measure across the distance. Then he sighed with a grim resolve as he picked up his daughter, kissed her chubby cheek, and alerted the others. “Will we hunt?” Mahnie asked, thinking that it would be wonderful to taste the good, rich flavor of bison or caribou.
“Look closer, daughter of Grek. It is we who are being hunted. Game animals do not walk upright on two legs.”
It was the promise of meat that drove them. Meat and the bold assurances of Jub that ahead of them, within the Corridor of Storms, all that Torka had claimed was true: There was game—so much that a hunter stood back from it in amazement. Wherever he threw his spear, Jub had reported, there was food—meat on the hoof in such numbers that women might never fear starvation for their children, and even in the dreams of men, such herds could not be conjured.
Jub had strode into Navahk’s encampment on the western bank of the Big Milk River, his pack frame loaded with meat and prime skins. His eyes shifted from one headman to another, then settled finally on Zinkh because the little man was glaring at him with such open and obvious hostility.
“You in the funny hat—I remember you. You are still glowering like an old woman at a killing site with no teeth left to chew her meat. Look at someone else with doubt and dislike in your eyes!”
Zinkh did not appreciate the rebuke. “Where is your boy using brother, slaver? And the little one who walked with you? Have you traded him to—“
Jub’s dirt-crusted face wrinkled with indignation. “The little one was weak. Sickly. He cried too much. He was trouble to me. His spirit walks the wind. And I am one man since my brother Tomo died—spitted in a pit trap at the neck of a great and wonderful valley. Torka’s valley, no doubt, the one he boasted of. And Torka’s trap—the one he neglected to mention. Torka is to blame for poor Tomo’s end, a bad end too. I would kill Torka for that. But one man alone was too dangerous.”
Navahk stepped forward through the press of curious men, plus the women and children they had insisted upon dragging along. He eyed the dirty traveler with interest. “The Great Gathering has disbanded. Bad spirits walk the encampment of the mammoth eaters, so we seek a new place to encamp for the winter. It was the power of Navahk that called you here, for in the rain we have lost the trail of Man Who Walks With Dogs and know not the way to follow him.”
Jub raised an eyebrow. “I heard no one calling me.”
“No man hears the voice of Navahk. It is the power of my will that has drawn your spirit to this place, for we are of one purpose—to end the curse of the Man Who Walks With Dogs. You have seen him?”
“Yes. He was well on his way to the Corridor of Storms. I can lead you to his valley. For a price.”
“Name it!” “The pleasure of killing him .. . and possession of his woman! The one with the antelope eyes.”
“Torka will die slowly by my hand after he sees his people die. But you can assist. Lonit is mine.”
Jub accepted, then reconsidered. “He has a little girl—not the infant, the child. I would have the little girl to use if I cannot have the mother.”
“Agreed,” said Navahk enthusiastically.
Behind him the people of the various bands were silent, but their eyes showed disapproval. They were hungry and tired and afraid. Half the bands that had set out with them had turned back. The magic man had sworn that he would lead them to a better camp, but all he had done was lead them across the icy land to a great river, where they had encamped in a downpour while he retired into his tent to chant and make stinking smokes. They had seen no game, but some said they had seen the wanawut following in the rain mists. Everyone heard it crying in the night, and young Tlap claimed to have seen Navahk disappear with it into the clouds. But now it seemed that the magic man’s smokes had conjured something, or someone, after all. Although they liked the talk of good hunting grounds, they did not like the talk of the infamous Corridor of Storms or of giving away children to such men as Jub.
The magic man sensed their reaction and turned to face them, his face radiant. “What is one girl child to the people of Navahk? The women who walk with me shall bear many sons! They shall walk proud and unafraid beside Spirit Killer into the Corridor of Storms. And when the people of Man Who Walks With Dogs are no more, we shall feast at a fire of celebration, for the forces of Creation shall smile upon us once more!”
And so they moved on. Although the meat in Jub’s pack was not enough to feed them all, they were inspired by it.
That night Simu drew Zinkh aside. “I do not like it,” he said emphatically, his face set and hard. “All my life I have been proud to walk with Zinkh. Always has Zinkh chosen wisely for his people. But now my woman weeps in the night and asks me how can I follow you. So I must ask my headman: How can you follow Navahk? Do you truly wish to see Torka dead? Or our people under such a man as Spirit Killer? When he commanded Pomm to stay behind, did you see how the poor old woman wept? My woman weeps at the thought of the forbidden Corridor of Storms. All your women are afraid.”
“Pomm has wanted to be magic woman of the Great Gathering. Now she has her wish and must live with it. I say now to Simu that he is a man of little vision!”
“Simu will leave vision to such as Navahk. Simu will take Eneela and go back to the camp of the Great Gathering and—“
“Think!”
The younger man frowned. “I am thinking. That is why I have come to you this night. To try to convince you to lead our people back to—“
“To what? The encampment has no meat now. It was a place of death. This man will not live with such people!”
“Then how can Zinkh follow Navahk?” “Because he will lead us to Torka, to whom this man Zinkh owes a great apology! If that man will look into the face of Zinkh again and call him friend, this man will walk with him off the edge of the world and be unafraid. Will you stand with me, Simu, as I will stand at his side against those who would destroy him and his good people? Do you understand now? Will you stop talking of weeping women and let this man get some sleep?”
At last the eastern wall of the Mountains That Walk loomed directly ahead of them beyond low, deeply cleft hill country. Grek paused. Wallah, at his side, slipped an arm through his.
“This man has not been so close to the white mountains in many years,” he said, trying not to sound intimidated as his eyes took in the vast range of ice that stretched beyond the eastern horizon in glistening, tumultuous, glacial massifs two miles high.
“This woman had forgotten that they are such big mountains,” added Wallah in a small voice.
“They are beautiful!” exclaimed Mahnie. “Are they so tall all along the Corridor of Storms?”
Torka noted that, like most of her queries, this one had been addressed to Karana. He smiled to himself. He liked the bright, sometimes brash young girl, perhaps because she was much like the bright, often brash Karana. They would make a pair, the two of them, when Karana’s mourning for Sondahr was spent and he at last realized that though Mahnie was small for her years and possessed the curiosity and enthusiasm of childhood, she was a woman—and a very pretty and delightful one at that.
“Go ahead, Karana. Tell her what our world is like. We will all listen, and your words will pass the time and make our steps more eager.”
> And it was so. They went on into the hill country that had once been the land of the murderous Ghost Band. They bent into their heavy packs, dragging their sledges under clear skies, with Aar bounding ahead of them, marking the slowly ascending route that they must follow.
Karana was not certain when his words eased into a chanting cadence, but as the miles slipped away, his song seemed to bear him up. Time ceased to exist as he bore himself and his listeners onward—into the future where he longed to be, leading them forward through the past, through the years that had eventually brought them to this day, to this place, to this song.
He spoke of yesterdays long gone but well remembered, of adventures shared with Torka, Lonit, and old Umak; he spoke of the distant Mountain of Power, where he had lived as an animal until Torka had found him and taught him how to live as a boy again; he spoke of Manaak, lana’s brave husband, and her face glowed with pride, which, at last, overrode her sadness at her loss of that good and daring man.
He spoke of joining forces with Supnah’s people to emerge victorious over the Ghost Men who had kidnapped him and Lonit after murdering Umak, Manaak, and Umak’s old, brave woman, Naknaktup; he spoke of pursuing the last of the Ghost Men into a canyon toward which they now walked and of facing the great mammoth Thunder Speaker where the canyon opened into the river of grass, which ran ever eastward into the face of the rising sun between the Mountains That Walk. When at last his song was done, he was surprised to see that the day was also done.
That night, although frigid winds swept down from the icy mountains, and the group made no fire in the bare, mounding hills lest those who pursued them see it and know their route, Karana was warmed by the closeness of his people and by the words of Lonit. She came to kneel beside him and embraced him as though she were a proud and loving mother.
“Sondahr was right about you, Karana. The spirits have given you a great gift. Through your speaking of their names, Umak, Manaak, and Naknaktup are with us now, walking with their people to a good land where they will live forever in the children who will be born to us and given their names in a new world .. . beneath a new sky .. . beneath a new sun!” She kissed him hard on the brow, then turned quickly away lest he see the tears of love that had welled within her eyes.
He saw them anyway and felt their warmth upon his cheek as he lay back, bundled in his sleeping skins. He wrapped an arm about Aar and gave himself to his dreams—troubled dreams, of a golden land that trembled beneath the shadow of a mountain that rained fire ... of a white, one-eyed stallion racing upon a burning wind, screaming its deadly rage across the world while the wanawut howled and the white mountains fell and the sky bled and drowned the golden land in blood.
Navahk sat beneath his lean-to. He had not slept for days. He stared out through the mist as Naiapi came toward him, walking in the shaggy weatherproof robe of mammoth skin that he knew she had taken from the hut of Sondahr.
Sondahr. She would have known what lay ahead. She could have told him where Torka was now.
“Navahk, this woman would speak to you.”
He grimaced. “Go away, Naiapi.”
She knelt close, frowning. “You must heed my warning, Navahk. Those who walk with you grow weak with hunger. They are weary of the chase. The man Jub will lead us to the valley of Man Who Walks With Dogs, and Torka and his people will be slain. What difference can a day make?”
The mists seemed to be roiling and settling within him. He looked up at Naiapi and smiled as he saw her recoil. What did she see that had caused her to draw back? What did they all see these past many days since he and the wanawut were one?
The power of the beast. That was it! It was in him now. He knew it. He felt it. For many nights he had gone out to the beast with food from his own meager rations and fed it as it fed him, then stroked it and joined with it and poured himself into it until it was his high, bestial howling of release that his people heard in the night—not that of the wanawut. The howling of the beast Navahk!
He laughed low and deep to think of it. Like thunder in distant hills, Naiapi heard the threat in it and started to withdraw, but he caught her hand. “It is good that you fear me; it is good that they all fear me. But tomorrow I will allow them to rest and hunt. But for my purpose, not their pleasure.”
She saw the madness in his eye.
“You should not have killed Sondahr, Naiapi.”
“I thought it would please Navahk.”
“It did not please me. It pleased you to see her die .. . one who was to me what you could never be.”
Her heart was cold, beating fast. “I would be your woman, Navahk. I would serve you, please you in all things.”
“We will see. We will see.” He laughed at her as he shoved her back into the mist and the night.
The next day they hunted. There was little meat in the rain-saturated barren lands into which Jub had led them, but the men took several steppe antelope and ptarmigan, and that night the people ate until the bones were stripped and cracked, and only the hair and horns, feathers and beaks were left of their kill. Navahk watched them, not sharing their feast. Instead, when all had returned to their sleeping skins, he stood alone, arms raised to the star-strewn sky, imploring the bad spirits of Torka to remain gone from the people of this camp forever.
With Eneela asleep and the baby drowsing at her breast, Simu rose to observe the magic man in silence. Zinkh came with him, and they stood together while the song of Navahk rose to fill the night.
“Your woman has eaten well?” asked the little headman quietly.
“For the first time in days, yes, and the baby sleeps contented. It is a good thing; I was ready to go off and hunt, even if he forbade it. But he has seen our need. There was no need to challenge him.”
“Do not count on it. Walk carefully in the days to follow. And keep your spear at ready.”
The next day they rested. By the following dawn they were traveling again, into deeply cleft hill country, the Mountains That Walk standing like clouds upon the eastern horizon.
Jub pointed. “Torka will be where the shadows lie. There’s a deep canyon there. Beyond it the Corridor of Storms lies between the mountains, and five risings of the sun beyond that, the valley where Tomo was killed. Mark me, it is the finest hunting ground I have ever seen. Torka will be there.”
Navahk urged them on, his pace ferocious, and for the rest of that day, although they walked with only brief breaks for rest, the mountains seemed no closer. It was nearly dusk when a small herd of camels was sighted. Many cheered Navahk, believing that his chanting of the previous night had put this game in the world for them.
He chafed against their words and told them that their destination was in sight, but the hunters reminded him that it was late in the day, time to make camp. In the meantime their appetite for the kill had been whetted. Seeing their eagerness, he told them that they might hunt.
The camels scattered when the first, a big male, was struck. It went down onto its front knees while howling hunters surrounded it for the kill. Several men took off after the other beasts, while two youths, Tlap and Yanehva, went after a young cow that disappeared into the deep, scrub-choked shadows that laked within the depressions of the convoluted hills. Several women expressed concern—the youths were not boys, but they were inexperienced hunters—and Navahk took up his spear and followed. The boys’ mothers thanked him.
It was not particularly cold, but night was coming on fast, and the temperature was dropping. Navahk trotted into the clear, sharp air, smiling.
The camel had gone fast and far, and the youths were hot on her trail. Navahk had no difficulty following them. They were running close together for at least three miles over rolling, broken terrain, until the camel began to tire. Using sound strategy, the youths had separated, intending to come together from both sides of the animal and take it by surprise.
His smile deepened. This was perfect. Lengthening his stride, he trailed Tlap—the smaller, from the size of his footprints. Navahk
would have to catch up with him soon if his plan was to work; he ran on, smiling, closing on his prey, moving as a shadow across the dusky, shadowed world.
Hearing movement behind him, Tlap turned and, a spear at ready, braced himself to take on whatever predator was following. But he saw no danger in the familiar, smiling form trotting behind him. He smiled back, flattered that the magic man would have wished to join him but irritated, too, because he needed no help to make his kill. Tlap shrugged and gestured Navahk forward, then ran on, into a deep shrubby depression, hoping to find the camel first so that his throw would kill their prey.
He made a small, gurgling cry of dismay and shock as Navahk’s spear went through his back, pierced his lung, and propelled him forward onto his face. He could not breathe as he slapped his hands up and down against the ground; nor could he scream, for Navahk’s foot slammed down onto the back of his neck, snapping it as he withdrew his spear, then plunging it deep again, straight through the youth’s frantically beating heart.
He knelt then, listening. Far ahead he could hear the camel pounding on and the youth Yanehva crashing through the shrubbery after it. He put back his head and howled.
“Wah nah wah .. . wah nah wut!”
There was no sound from Yanehva now; he had probably stopped, no doubt in terror. Navahk howled again, and from within the dark and twisted hills the wanawut answered him. It would come now.
“Tlap?”
The call of Yanehva was the cracked pipe not of a young man but of a frightened boy.
“Tlap .. . where are you? We’d better get back. Did you hear it?”
Navahk was amused as he rose, walked a few paces, and called, “Run, boy! The wanawut walks these hills behind you. Go! Quickly! Do not wait for me. I will find Tlap!”
Silence answered him until he howled again, a high ululation that terrified Yanehva. Navahk heard the boy galloping away back toward the encampment as he stood hidden within the shadows, waiting for what he knew would come to him now.
