“I wanted to apologize to you,” he said, his voice a rumble. “I have courted you too strongly, and like a wild whistler, you have grown wary of my clumsy approach. It was for my children that I came to you this way. I wanted a mother for them.”
His voice was sincere and straight-talking. She could hear the pain that lay between his words, and she closed her eyes and held her breath, not wanting to hurt him more but neither wanting to encourage him.
“But I have taken care of that problem,” he continued. “I have given my children to their other mother, my dead wife’s sister. She has agreed to foster them.”
Mouse Road turned and looked back over her shoulder. He stood, a tall shadow against the darker night, the blanket limned by the borrowed glow of lodge fires, the cowl hiding his features from her scrutiny.
“Then why are you here?” she asked, “if you no longer need a mother for your children?”
He chuckled once and briefly. “You really do not know?” he asked, and she could hear the sad smile in his voice. “Mouse Road, lovely Mouse Road, I may not need you in my lodge, but I still want you there. Do you not see that you have taken my heart?”
She turned away again, for she could see it. She saw that this man—respected, honored in coups, and wealthy in flocks and possessions—did indeed love her. And, what was more, she knew that she was not as indifferent to him as she professed. He was a caring man not given to anger. He was a good provider for his own children and would be so for her as well. He was from a good family that had produced men of bravery and women of practicality. He might someday become a chief himself, with the right woman at his side.
But love him? She did not, but could she? And did she want to?
“Please, Mouse Road. Please, let me court you slowly, and with the respect that you deserve. Let me come and speak to you. Do not send me away.”
His pleas overwhelmed her, and she could barely keep the tears from her eyes. She hurried on her way, running toward her lodge, leaving behind her a man who was nearly as confused as was she.
Within the safety of her own lodge, she finally let her tears come. She wanted so many things that were beyond her grasp. Sitting down near the fire, she wiped tears with the back of one hand while she poked a stick into the banked fire with the other.
She wanted her brother to be the great man she knew he could be, but she wanted him to be happy with Speaks While Leaving, as well. She wanted the People to be safe from the bluecoats, but she did not want to lose anyone else to war. She wanted a future with a man she could trust and who loved her, but she wanted to love him as well. She wanted One Who Flies to return to the People so that she could tell him that she had been wrong when she said that he was not a whole man, and wrong when she had said that she was not glad to see him. She wanted to take away the bitterness of their last parting and tell him that it didn’t matter to her that her brother had refused him permission to court her. She wanted him to know that what she really feared was that she was unable to be a match for him. The spirits had touched One Who Flies, and the wife of such a man must be stronger than she hoped she could be.
But without him, she had been as miserable as she had ever been. As she went to her bed and curled up beneath her furs, she realized that she would never be able to push One Who Flies into the shape of a normal man, that it was not fair to try to do so. Her only choice, therefore, was to put herself in the role of an extraordinary woman, in order to be the partner of such a man.
She did not feel extraordinary—felt, in fact, so ordinary as to be nearly invisible. To be as strong and as self-sufficient as she would need to be; it frightened her, but it was necessary and as she lay there, staring at the aurora of flames that hovered over the coals, she reminded herself that to be independent was not to be isolated, and to be strong was not to be always alone.
The night was filled with songs and the sounds of families laughing. She heard the voices of children and the stories of adults. Flames licked the wood with tongues of orange, blue, and green. A plan began to form in her mind, a plan for taking control of her life once more, and becoming the extraordinary spirit that was required of her heart’s desire. It would take several days to prepare, and in order to accomplish her goals she would have to lie to those closest to her. But it could be done.
She snuggled deeper under her furs, listening to the consolations of the dying fire. From the woods at the edge of camp came the virile, elliptical tones of a courting flute as Hungry Bear sent a love song out into the night.
Chapter 7
Light Snow Moon, New
Fifty-seven Years after the Star Fell
Winter Camp of the Closed Windpipe Band
Alliance Territory
Speaks While Leaving surveyed the world around her and knew that this was not a vision. After years of succumbing to the power of the spirit worlds, she knew the difference between a vision and a dream, and this was not a vision.
Visions always came upon her with a force. They burned her skin and tightened her flesh. The spirits of the world filled her body, overwhelming her, stealing her control and her sight, blinding her with their message. When a vision infused her, she was left with only the ability to speak, to tell others what she was seeing as she saw it. When in its midst, she could feel the heartbeat of the world, the drum of the universe, thrumming with life, and could feel her own pulse answer, rising with the urgency of life. Visions frightened her, for when in their grasp she was as helpless as a hatchling, but mostly she feared them because they foretold of danger, death, or sorrow. After twenty years of living with them, it was a fear she had never lost.
But this was not a vision. This was a dream. It was a strong dream, to be sure, a powerful dream, but a dream nonetheless.
She sat on the cliffs above the Big Salty. The wind, laced with the smell of crushed juniper and the clean scent of growing sage, tugged at her dress. It was summer, which was nice. She liked summertime, even here in the southern reaches of the People’s lands. Summer was a happy time, when the People gathered and the allied tribes came to visit. To be sure, with summer came much work—scraping hides, drying meat, following the herd for the hunt, gathering berries and fruit against the winter months—but summers also brought togetherness, safety, and freedom. Summers brought stories around the fire, grand dances that sent dust up to the clouds, feasts of friendship and honor, and the liquefying excitement of courtship. Yes, she liked summers.
But here on the limestone heights, with the dunes of the Sand Hills at her back and the waves of the Big Salty laid out before her, there were none of those pleasures. Here, there were only the remnants of the past: the pale bones of departed ancestry protruding from the rough ground, and the silvered wood of dilapidated funeral biers lying amid the scrub and sedge. Dragonflies zipped and hovered, flashing their glassy green bodies and the iridescent latticework of their wings, while skippers fluttered by on painted triangles, bouncing from flower to flower. Little-teeth soared over the waters on fans of outstretched leather, rising high on sun-warmed winds. Above them, clouds tumbled like boys at play, and atop it all stood the sun, high in the forenoon sky. She heard the whisper of the wind through the grasses, the kee-kee of a killdeer calling its mate, and the distant shush of the waves. Despite all this life, though, she felt an emptiness here, a sense of being disconnected and apart. No, this was not a vision.
And so she nearly jumped when she saw the man who sat at her left. He was a handsome man with deep-set eyes and a strong nose, but his skin was the color of charred wood. He wore his hair loose and free in the wind, like a cloud of darkness around his dark features, and he was bare to the waist. On his chest were white spots—the symbol of hail—and on his arm was a jagged yellow line of a lightning bolt. He smiled at her as at an old friend, and she laughed. He was a Thunder Being, a spirit in the guise of a man, and she was well-acquainted with his kind.
She turned to her right, and was not surprised to see another of his kind, for these two never
seemed to travel apart from the other. She looked at this man’s arm and saw that, instead of a yellow lightning bolt on his arm, there was a jagged scar. Ages ago, it seemed, these two Beings had come to her in a vision and showed her of the coming of One Who Flies on the cloud-that-fell. And ages ago, too, she had ripped from this Being’s arm the lightning bolt that had been there, and thrown it down upon the forces attacking the People.
That these two men were here told her that this was, indeed, an unusual dream. They sat there, the three of them, and watched as the sun slowly crept to its height. The Thunder Beings played with the clouds. The one on her right folded a cloud into the shape of a fish, and the one on her left puffed up another cloud to make a bear that ate the fish. Then came a cloud that leapt like a long-legged dog, scaring the bear away, and finally a toothsome walker made of cloud appeared and snapped up the dog for a meal. They laughed, the three of them, playing this way as the sun traveled from left to right, and the clouds rolled from right to left. She wondered if the shapes they made meant anything, but when she turned to ask the one on her left, he was gone. In his place was Mouse Road. Turning to the right, she now saw One Who Flies.
Ah, yes, she reminded herself. This is only a dream. A strong dream, though.
The feeling of emptiness returned, and she realized that her daughter was not with her. She looked around and did not see her. The feeling of a void increased, and a panic built within her. She wanted her daughter, needed to find her. The dream was too strong, and she wanted to wake up.
Wake up.
She was lying on her bed beneath her blankets and furs, her heart pounding in her temples and the sound of her moan still in her ears. Her daughter, nestled up against her breast, mewled in her sleep and Speaks While Leaving relaxed at her babe’s warmth, the incredible softness of her skin, and the sweet perfume of her hair. She willed her heart to slow and her breath to quiet down.
Only a dream, she told herself. It was only a dream.
Her eyes soaked up the tiny light from the bedded coals, and she saw the lodge in hues of orange and blue. From the darkness of the smokehole above, the lodgepoles radiated outward, downward, forming the cone of the lodge. The skins wavered in the uneven light as a draft blew across the central hearthpit. She sought the source of the draft, checking the inner skins that had been tied at shoulder-height to the inside of the poles, an extra insulation against the cold nights. All were tied snugly in place, but the doorflap was open.
Looking at the other bed, she saw that it was unoccupied. Mouse Road was not there. She looked back at the open doorflap and wondered if she should leave the warmth of her covers to close it.
No, she told herself. Mouse Road probably just went to make water. She will be back soon enough.
Mouse Road had been quiet in the ten days since her brother had left on the war party, but it had not been her usual sort of quiet. Thwarted in love, ordered by her brother to live with his in-laws instead of with her own clan, and instructed further to succumb to the courtship of a man in whom she had no interest, the young woman was understandably prone to a certain sullen moodiness. Speaks While Leaving certainly felt no need to chasten her sister-in-law for brooding—had their situations been switched, she would have been just as unhappy—but thinking back, Speaks While Leaving saw that Mouse Road’s reserve had taken on a different aspect. Yes, she had always been where she was expected to be, and she wordlessly agreed to every request and duty. She never had to be sought, but was never really present. Speaks While Leaving could not remember the young woman saying but the merest word in the past week. Mouse Road had been quiet...but artfully so, quiet almost to the point of transparency.
She looked again toward the open doorflap. Was there something to worry about? She reached for a folded blanket and pulled it across her shoulders as she quietly slipped out from under the furs, leaving her infant daughter behind in their warmth. The wicker of her bedmat creaked as she left it, and outside the lodgeskins, a whistler snuffled.
She stepped through the doorway and saw the crouching bulk of a waiting drake—a large, dark mound in the starlight. A shadow detached itself from his side and clambered atop his back.
Speaks While Leaving ran forward and grabbed the drake’s halter rope. The whistler shied at her sudden move. The shadowy figure slipped from atop his back and whoofed as she hit the ground on the far side. Speaks While Leaving saw the bedroll across the whistler’s back, the parfleches filled with supplies, the coil of extra rope, and the dark gleam of a rifle barrel. The drake pulled at the halter rope, but Speaks While Leaving soothed him with a quiet crooning and a friendly scratch at the apex of his shoulders.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Mouse Road stood up, peering over the whistler’s curved back. “Is it not obvious?” she asked in return, all her poutful sullenness returning in an instant.
“Yes, actually, it is obvious. Go back inside the lodge.”
Mouse Road took a breath to answer, but Speaks While Leaving tilted her head back and glared at the younger woman.
Mouse Road met the challenge and put her hand on the first rope of the whistler’s riding gear. “I am a grown woman,” she said. “You cannot tell me what to do.”
But Speaks While Leaving knew that she would not have to be any firmer with her sister. The People dealt with insolence in other ways. They did not reprimand their children, but instead let them know the penalties of bad behavior. Mouse Road might be a woman, but right now, she was acting like a wayward child and should be treated as such.
“As you wish,” she said. “But if you mount atop that whistler, I will hold on to it and shout to wake our family and neighbors. I will tell them that you are eloping with Hungry Bear, without your brother’s permission.”
“But you know that’s not true!”
“You could always stay here and explain the truth to them,” she said. “Or you could go inside the lodge, and you would only have to explain it to me.”
Even in the dark of the moonless night, Speaks While Leaving could see the glare that her young sister leveled. She let go of a quavering breath and the stars glimmered from her tear-stained cheeks, but she turned and headed inside the lodge.
Speaks While Leaving retied the whistler’s halter rope to the stake and followed Mouse Road. Inside, she stirred the coals and placed a few sticks on them for light. Mouse Road lay under her bedcovers, hiding, her back to the fire.
“Where were you going?” Speaks While Leaving asked her.
“Does it matter now?” the young woman asked in response.
Speaks While Leaving considered it. “Yes,” she eventually said. “It does.”
“I was going to find One Who Flies.”
That was what she had thought—the supplies and the rifle spoke of more than a simple trip or whim—but how far ahead had she thought things through? “Where were you going to look for him?”
Mouse Road sighed. “South,” she said.
“Why south?”
“I...I don’t know. It just makes sense that he would still be in the south.”
“And once you found him?”
Hesitation, and then again, “I don’t know. Bring him home, I suppose.”
So, she had thought it through far enough to get her moving, but not far enough that she knew what she ultimately wanted. “Why were you going to look for him?” she asked in a calm, even voice.
Mouse Road rolled over, her head peeking up from under the coverings. She looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
Speaks While Leaving shrugged. “I mean just what I said. Why were you going to look for him? I thought you had decided that you didn’t want to be with him.”
“I did,” Mouse Road said. “But I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
Mouse Road sat up, sensing her sister-in-law’s honest desire to understand. She ran her fingers through the thick fur of her elkhide bedcover. “I was angry at One Who Flies, because he never tried to be an ordinary m
an. But then I realized that he can’t be an ordinary man. He is a special person, just as you are. You both have been touched by the spirits.” She looked up for the briefest of moments, and Speaks While Leaving encouraged her with a gesture.
“He will never be an ordinary man,” Mouse Road said, “because he is destined to live an extraordinary life. And it is just that which attracts me to him, and makes all other men seem...ordinary.” She sighed. “And if I do not want an ordinary man, then it is up to me to be an extraordinary wife.”
Speaks While Leaving smiled, surprised at the wisdom of her husband’s young sister, but the smile was bittersweet, for in Mouse Road’s words she heard Storm Arriving’s own challenge: why can’t you be like a normal wife? And she knew that being a normal wife was beyond her, just as One Who Flies could never be a normal man. The visions, the dreams, the drive to work with the spirits toward a future of hope; she could not turn her back on it all. The visions were their future, and One Who Flies was a part of that future. Finding him was important. But where to look?
The dream from that night flooded back to her, filled with the scent of sage and surf, the sounds of waves and little-teeth in the air. The Sand Hills. The funeral grounds above the Big Salty. South, like Mouse Road had said.
“You cannot go to look for him,” she said, thinking aloud.
“I can handle myself,” Mouse Road said. “I have killed bluecoats before, just as you have.”
“This is true,” Speaks While Leaving said, staring into the fire, watching the sticks crack and hiss in the heat. “What I meant, is that you cannot go to look for him by yourself.”
Mouse Road gaped. “What do you mean?” she asked. “You? And me?”
Speaks While Leaving frowned. “Yes,” she said.
“Together?”
“Yes.”
“But will it be safe for us?”
The Cry of the Wind Page 7
