The young man and woman from Oregon winced. "The Protectorate.. . my country… has about four hundred thousand people," Mathilda said.
"And the rest of our area… the realms that come together at the Corvallis Meeting… about as many again," Rudi added. "All of us together could probably match their numbers in war, or nearly."
Red Leaf cocked an eyebrow. "But I hear Boise has thrown in with the Cutters, made an alliance at least. That kicks up their numbers even more. We're not afraid of the Cutters, exactly, but we sure don't want to take 'em on by ourselves again. Once bitten, twice shy."
Rudi smiled. "Now, those numbers of theirs are a shame and a pity. But it isn't necessarily so that if you fight them you must do so alone."
Red Leaf nodded slowly. "We haven't had much luck with alliances," he said. "Virginia's dad aside. We'll talk about this more later. Right now, there's some things planned for later today."
"So this ceremony is OK?" Mathilda asked, feeling a slight flutter of nervousness beneath her breastbone.
Father Ignatius nodded. "It's more a civil matter than religious in our sense, strictly speaking," he said. "I've questioned the Catholics here. In fact, there would be no problem with even a priest taking part. God is no respecter of either persons or names-Dieu or Gott or Kyrie or Adonai or Wakantanka. He is the Great Spirit whose pity we ask. If this helps you direct your thoughts to Him, or to Our Lady or your patron saint, there is no harm in it."
The women's sweat lodge was surrounded by a square of leather panels on poles. Two older women stood at the east-facing flap with their arms crossed and stern expressions on their faces. Mathilda swallowed and ducked through. Within was the dome-shaped lodge, set directly on the earth, with a door made of a hide flap, facing eastward. The fire was ready, and the rocks were already starting to glow and crackle…
Rudi blinked into the dimness of the men's sweat lodge. It was made of sixteen willow poles bunched to the four points of the compass and covered in buffalo skins; the last of the hot rocks had just been handed in held between wooden paddles and dropped into the pit in the center. The roof was no more than four feet high at the tallest point, and it was crowded with the five men of his party, plus Red Leaf and Three Bears and the wicasa wakan, the Sacred Man, the shaman sitting at the end of their circle by the entrance. Naked bodies crowded to either side of him. It was already hot; there was a smell of sweat and earth and scorched rock and leather, of the tobacco and sweetgrass already burned, of the sage padding beneath them.
"Yuhpa yo!" the Sacred Man cried, in a cracked elderly voice.
The flap was thrown closed from the outside, and the darkness became like hot wet cloth over the eyes. The stones hissed as the shaman sprinkled water on them. The eight men cried out together:
"Ho! Tunkasila! Ho, Grandfather!"
The shaman's voice rose in nasal chanting prayer, directed to the four points of the compass; the sprinkling and response was repeated, and each time it finished the men called out " Hau! " together.
The rite was strange, but Rudi could feel the power in it. A calling had been made, and Someone had answered. Sweat poured from his body, and with it he seemed to feel all impurity leaving him; the darkness was absolute, but he could see with a clarity he'd rarely had before outside dreams. He stilled mind and heart, breathing in deeply of the scented steam, drawing it down into the depths of his self. Something glowed in the darkness…
A command, and the flap was thrown open. He gasped and shuddered, his skin rippling as the cooler air flowed in, and with it a little light. The old shaman grinned at him with his wrinkled eagle face, and the dipper was passed around. The sip he took was like wine… like the spirit of cool white wine, and when he poured a little over his head the chill came like a breath off the glaciers of the Cascades.
"Mitak oyas'in," he murmured as he'd been instructed, and passed on the dipper to Odard beside him.
The Baron of Gervais was looking very pale, he thought; beyond him Father Ignatius had a secret smile on his face as he stared into the heat quaver over the rocks-almost the look a man might have when he contemplated his beloved.
I wonder how Matti is taking it, he thought. And I wonder if the women's rite is much different.
The thought flitted through his mind without leaving any tracks; it was as if something within-the part that carried on a conversation with itself and watched itself in endless contemplation-was being lulled to sleep. Then the shaman cried:
"Yuhpa yo!"
Darkness fell once more. He was falling with it, like a particle drawn in by the breath of a beast larger than the Earth. He tumbled through the dark, and panic started to build up, and with it consciousness of the sage beneath him and the others around. Rudi took a long breath and released it, letting his heartbeat slow, letting awareness of everything but the steam hissing up and the wailing chant vanish.
"Ho! Tunkasila! Ho, Grandfather!"
He sank again, but this time it was a spiral glide-a dance, where his feet moved through a mist of stars. He could hear thoughts roaring by him, buffeting at him like storm winds against a man on a mountaintop. It was exhilaration, like a perfect stroke with the sword, like the kiss of danger, like the exultation of rising above fear.
Light glowed again. It took shape The flap opened. He felt as if he could laugh aloud, but there was no impulse to actually do it. Instead he took the water, sipped, poured a little over his head.
"Mitak oyas'in."
Darkness fell again, and he danced with stars. Flaming curtains walled creation; beacons shone across endless skies. But he was not alone; the others were with him; Edain's earth solidness, Ingolf's elk strength, the priest's joyful stillness that vibrated like a single harpstring, Odard's sharp-flavored complexity, Fred's young eagerness. Distantly he knew he was slapping his hands on his shoulders and thighs; when he cried Hau! at the end of a prayer it was as if the breath left him in a plume of silver light.
The cycle repeated. The sword is a mind, he thought. The sword is my self. The sword is a song that They sing through me.
Light returned; the light of common day, but it was shining through him now. He became aware of the shaman's high call:
"… but the one eye which is the heart, Chante Ishta. We give thanks to the helper, may his generations be blessed. It is good! It is finished! Hetchetu welo!"
The men turned and paced sunwise, the shaman leading them out of the lodge, each stopping to purify their hands and feet over the fire of sweetgrass. Rudi blinked; hands led him gently to the edge of a leather tank on poles, and he scooped cold water over himself. With each shock of coolness he could feel himself sinking down into his body once more, but that was good as well. That was where he belonged, and there were things that must be done before he walked amid the sea of stars again.
And I could use dinner, he thought suddenly, grinning.
The helpers handed them their clothes. The shaman looked at him.
"You're one strange white man," he said. "I wasn't sure if my nephew was being smart about this, but he was right. You've got some important wakan people looking after you, Strong Raven. Your friend Swift Arrow"-he nodded at Edain-"has a Wolf; and White Buffalo Woman is with the Father. But you, you've got Mica-Coyote Old Man-nosing around, and not just him. That can be really good or really bad…"
Rudi bowed gravely, and made his own people's gesture of reverence, as he might have to an antler-crowned High Priest in the sacred wood.
A crowd stood outside, a blaze of feathers and beadwork and finery in the light of the setting sun; a shout of "Hunka! Hunkalowanpi!" went up. Red Leaf and his son led them proudly to the great tipi which had been pitched nearby-this was no ger, but in the ancient twenty-eight-pole conical form, the hides snow white and drawn with pictograms. His wife and the women of Rudi's party were there as well. Suddenly Red Leaf and Three Bears seized Rudi by the shoulders and thrust him within; he staggered past the doorway, nearly colliding with Mathilda and then the others as their hosts push
ed them through. An earthen altar stood in the center of the tipi, with a buffalo skull and a rack that held the sacred pipe. Two wands decorated with horsetails and feathers stood in the rack; another was speared into the earth, with an ear of corn on it.
Beside him Virginia Kane drew a sharp breath. "Hunkalowanpi!" she said.
"And what would that be when it's up and about?" Edain murmured.
"It's the making-relatives-ceremony. Red Leaf must have been really impressed with you guys. You're about to be adopted."
The platters went around again. Ritva contemplated a cracked marrow bone, decided not to, and belched gently.
"So, the big one with the brown beard is your guy?" one of the Lakota girls asked her.
She was Red Leaf's sister's daughter, and her name was Winona-which actually turned out to be a Sioux name, and meant something like First Female Kid -but she looked a little different from her uncle, her eyes much narrower and more sharply slanted, and her nose nearly snubbed.
"No, he's my sister Mary's," the Dunedain said. "She won the toss when we flipped for him. I still say she cheated."
Everyone laughed. There were a couple of dozen of young Ogallala women within earshot, watching the men dancing in a way that involved hoops, drums, flutes, chanting and some extremely acrobatic maneuvers, and the feasting was at the stage Dunedain called filling-up-the-corners. The drink was mainly herbal teas and the vile, and vilely weak, airag, but there was beer and some just-barely-passable wine in jugs as well. She took a mouthful of frybread; one of the stews had enough chilies to pass for hot even in Bend.
And all of these girls are just as curious as I would be in their shoes… or out of them.
"I did not cheat!" Mary chided. "You just have no skill in coin-flipping, Ritva. Anyway, I won paper-scissors-rock for him, too! Plus, I had to catch him all on my own."
"Hell, I always said you should make 'em chase you until you catch them," Virginia Kane said.
"Or until they catch you and you scalp them," Mathilda said dryly.
I don't think she likes Virginia much, Ritva thought. Don't worry, Matti, Rudi will always love you best. Though yo u 're driving him up the wall, poor boy…
There was another laugh at that, but there was a trace of uneasiness in it, and the glances Virginia got were halfway between admiring and apprehensive.
"That's nice dancing," Ritva said.
"Oh, that's nothing. You should be here for the Sun Dance-the costumes are gorgeous."
"So, your fellah is the tall, good-looking one with the hair like a sunset?" the teenager said to Mathilda, returning to the subject with terrier persistence.
"Ah… well, we're very good friends."
That produced more giggles. "I'd like to be his good friend too," one young woman said.
"Oh, looks aren't everything," another said. "He might be one of those I-am-a-buffalo-bull types, bone clear through the head."
Mathilda bristled, and Ritva smiled as she went on: "Well, he's smart, too, and a fine swordsman"-her blush went up to glowing-coal levels at the laugh that got-"and a good hunter and he has a wonderful singing voice!"
"But can he cook?" one asked teasingly.
"He'll get a chance to hunt," another said. "The itancan says the buffalo need trimming."
That brought a bit of a groan. Ritva raised her brows. "You don't like hunting?" she said.
"The men get all the fun, and we get to do all the work."
We'll see about that! Ritva thought.
TheScourgeofGod
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Blood yields life, the land's deepest gift
Is taken and given From: The Song of Bear and Raven
Attributed to Fiorbhinn Mackenzie, 1st century CY
PRAIRIE, WESTERN SOUTH DAKOTA
JUNE 10, CY24/2022 AD
"It's different, seeing so many together," Rudi said quietly. "They're impressive enough one by one, but it's something else here."
The rise they were on was a hill only by prairie standards, but it gave them a good view. The bison were in clumps and straggling groups and lone individuals, grazing their way across the rippling plain and working gradually northward; the grass was fetlock-high before them, and cropped to an inch or less behind. The morning sun cast their outlines eastward, until the shape was like cloud shadow moving over the plains.
And as you raised your eyes there were more, and more, and more. .. almost to the edge of sight. The wind was from the south, and it brought the scent of them, like cattle but harsher, a wild musky smell. Birds flew about the great animals' feet, snapping up the insects they stirred; a twenty-strong pack of wolves hoping to cut out a calf had sheered off to the westward when the mounted humans arrived. Several pair of golden eagles swept the sky above, seven-foot wing-spans tiny with height, waiting for the herd to flush something bigger. As he watched, one of them folded its pinions and struck like a bronze-colored thunderbolt.
Rudi mentally drew a box, rough-counted the buffalo within and multiplied.
Eighty or ninety thousand head, he thought. I don't think I've ever seen that many of anything breathing but birds in one place before.
He could feel his hair starting to bristle; the low rumble of their hooves was like a vibration that echoed in the tissues of his lungs and gut. And he could hear the sound of their feeding, nearly a hundred thousand pairs of strong jaws tearing at the Western wheatgrass, needle-and-thread and sagewort.
"Pretty, aren't they?" Red Leaf said, looking down at the mass of moving muscle and bone and horn and smiling with delight. "Never thought I'd see anything like it when I was your age, except in a movie. This is a cow-calf herd-cows, calves, yearling and two-year bulls. The big herd bulls mostly stay away until the rutting season, in another couple of months."
" Awesome was more the word I was thinking, not pretty," Rudi said. "And so many! Weren't they rare before the Change?"
"There were a couple of hundred thousand around, on ranches mainly," Red Leaf said. "And they can double every three years, if there's room, even if you harvest a third every year-you just take the bulls. They only need one for every twenty or so cows. There's another herd twice as big as this a few miles north; millions altogether."
Mathilda blinked. "Do they go away in the winter?"
"No, they just scatter a bit. Storms that'll kill half the cattle on a range don't even bother 'em-they don't freeze and they can get at grass through any ordinary snow."
"Why hunt a lot of them now, then? Why not a bit at a time when you need them?" she asked.
Red Leaf nodded. "We do take a few every so often, for fresh meat; and we have a winter hunt, for robes-that's when the hair's best. But this is the best time of year to make pemmican; you dry the meat, grind it up to powder and flakes, mix it with melted fat and pour it into rawhide parfleche bags. It'll keep for three, four years if you're careful. It makes great soup base, with a little dried onion."
Mathilda nodded gravely in her turn; she'd tasted the results. Rudi had the same thought: pemmican was convenient and nourishing, and that was about all you could say for it.
Red Leaf raised a brow and waved at the prairie. "I know what you're thinking. But this has been a good year; good rain, good grass-third good year in a row. Sure as fate, though, we get bad droughts every so often. Sometimes for years at a time. Then most of the herds will die, cattle and tatonka both, or we have to slaughter everything except some of the breeding stock to let the grazing recover faster. So we keep a couple of years' food on hand. That way after a dry-year dieback we can harvest less. Then they'll breed back faster."
Mathilda nodded thoughtfully. "Very sensible," she said.
"Pemmican isn't hump steak by a long shot, but it beats starving to death," the itancan said. "Which is what the wolves do when the rains fail."
He waved, and Rudi's group gathered close, their horses' noses in a circle; the young men and a few of the young women of the hocoka who'd be going on their first hunt closed in around them. His first w
ords were to the outsiders.
"OK, now you're hunk-ate, you're entitled to take part in the hunt. That doesn't mean you have to do it. These aren't cattle; they're wild animals, and big ones. You come off your horse once they start moving, or your horse goes down, you'll have to be scraped up with a shovel. Even guys who've been doing this for years get killed sometimes. Understand?"
They all nodded; Rudi kept his face sober, but he felt a grin bubbling up beneath it, like the ones that were splitting Edain's face, and Fred's. Odard was looking politely interested; he might not have gone if the other men hadn't, but he was going to enjoy himself anyway. The only male of their party not here was Father Ignatius, who'd politely excused himself to continue hearing confessions and celebrating masses; and to consult with the hocoka 's physicians about replenishing their medicine chests; and to the brain-cracking labor of putting their reports in cipher.
And none of the girls was going to back down if the others didn't, either. They wouldn't have been here if they were the types who could back down from a dare, even an unspoken one.
Mathilda and Virginia don't seem to have hit it off. That's a pity; they're rather alike, in some ways.
Red Leaf nodded, then spoke a little louder to include the Sioux youngsters: "OK, here's how we do it, and don't you roll your eyes while I'm talking, Mato Kokipapi. The bears may be afraid of you, but tatonka ain't. You've helped your folks with their cattle since you could ride, right?
"Sure, itancan," the young man in question said.
"Well, there's a good goddamned reason you haven't been allowed on the buffalo hunt yet and how heavy a bow you could pull is only part of it. Tatonka aren't cattle. You can get 'em moving but you can't head them off. We love tatonka, but remember that the Buffalo People don't love us; we're just like the wolves or the damn lions to them. They don't care if you yell and wave a lariat in their faces. If you get between them and where they want to go they'll smash right into you and dance on you, and they'll hook you or your horse if they can. You keep behind them or alongside… but not too close."
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