Ratha's Courage

by Clare Bell

  “Yes. Then I think about the way they mourned Bent Whiskers, Tooth-broke-on-a-bone, and the others, and I feel that they aren’t that different. We both feel the pain of loss, we both grieve. We both love our cubs and do all we can to care for them.” Ratha paused. “I look at you and Quiet Hunter, and I am amazed how well both of you have done in the clan. Our tribes can’t be so different inside if one who was born into a very different way of thinking and acting can make such a huge change.”

  “He still talks a bit funny, like me. Like it, though.”

  “I like the way you talk, Thistle. Learn more words, yes, but don’t change the way you put them together. Everyone in the clan does speak slightly differently. Listen to Fessran or Cherfan or Thakur. They don’t say things exactly the way I do.”

  “Every other word not ‘dung-eater’ or ‘belly-biter,’” Thistle said with a cat-grin. “Wouldn’t have Fessran any other way, right?”

  “Well, she gave me a lot of trouble once, before you came into the clan, but she’s my friend now. I’ll tell you about that later.”

  “About the hunters and us . . .” Thistle began. “They are the same, but they grow up to be not the same. Instead of each one learning to think and speak, they learn to let True-of-voice think for them through the song. Instead of learning to be wide awake when they hunt, they learn to dream-stalk.”

  “Do you feel that is wrong?” Ratha asked as the two paced together.

  “Feelings mixed up, like you. Sometimes is better, easier not to be always thinking, to have someone or something else do it. But sometimes want to decide for me, don’t want anyone else to. Wouldn’t like True-of-voice to force me.”

  “He doesn’t?”

  “Not to me.”

  “What about the others?” Ratha asked.

  “Doesn’t force them either. Doesn’t need to. They don’t fight against him.”

  “They don’t . . . arrr . . . resist? Is that the right word?”

  “Resist,” said Thistle. “Yes. They don’t know that they can.”

  “Doesn’t that bother you? That they don’t have a choice?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes a lot, especially when they meet something new and get stuck. Don’t like to see that. Sad.”

  “I don’t like it either. But if they don’t know they have a choice, how did Quiet Hunter escape?”

  Ratha saw Thistle turn her head, fixing her with that intent uncomfortable sea-green gaze. “Didn’t escape. He lost the song. Remember? Song escaped away from him, made him have to think open-eyed like us. Hurt him. Nearly killed him.”

  Both padded along, tails swinging. Being smaller than Ratha, Thistle had a crisper pace, which made her tail swing faster.

  “I remember. But he did it.”

  “Because he was young, like me. Young ones, thinking can bend, twist, stretch. Older ones, thinking is strong, but sometimes too stiff. I could learn Named ways—Named talking and thinking—because I was still young when Thakur found me. If older, would be still limping on beach, eating sea-scraps.” Ratha detected a slight note of longing in Thistle’s voice that was reflected in her scent. She missed her seaside home, despite the hard life she had led there.

  “Will go back for a visit soon. Now things are quieter here. Will take Quiet Hunter, show him sea-mare friends, teach him to swim in the waves.”

  “That should be fun,” Ratha said cheerfully. “You know, though, that the clan’s mating season is coming soon.”

  “Will be here for it. Will catch fish and bring back. Just a short trip.”

  “Good. Even though you don’t have to be here, I’d like it if you were.”

  “Want to be here. May need a little help, maybe a little scared of new feelings.”

  They walked together in silence for a while.

  “So you think we and the hunters aren’t that different. Do you think we can live together without fighting?”

  Ratha heard Thistle take a deep breath. “Know that you may want to make them more like clan members. Also know that you know it would be wrong to try. Living together, maybe, but have to be very careful. They are they and we are us.”

  “But cubs are cubs, and that’s what makes me hopeful, cub of mine,” Ratha nuzzled her daughter.

  “Mothers are mothers, too, Makes me glad,” Thistle said.

  Now is for blackness within. Black beyond black. Darker than this coat that eats stars. Blacker than dead coals in the canyon. So many song-hearers burned. The song itself, burned.

  Thoughts tumbling like smoke. The thick-skinned prey running in fear. The hunters wanting the thick-skinned prey. These jaws, carrying the log where the burning thing lives. These paws, scraping it out into dry pine needles. Knowing that the thick-skinned prey fear it and that they will run into the claws of the hunters.

  Not knowing that death would run with it and fill the canyon. Not knowing that the song would char, become terrible for the part within.

  Now is for painful questions. For asking what the jaws took, what the paws loosed and why the song of all senses has turned to black, to soot, and has blown away so that these paws cannot gather it back.

  This night coat that eats stars is no longer known by the true voice and that is a black deeper than pain.

  Now is for bewilderment, for suffering.

  Now, alone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A few days later, Thistle was walking on her beloved beach at low tide, her treeling, Biaree, on her shoulder. Behind her paced her chosen partner, Quiet Hunter. She had longed to show him this place, since it had been, and still was, a treasured part of her life. Ratha had told her that things were quiet and that she should take this opportunity to go before the chaos of the mating season entered clan life. She planned to be back just before it started.

  Ahead of her, in the scrub brush that lay high above the dunes, she heard the neigh of a dappleback. The little horses didn’t live near the seacoast; she had brought this dappleback with her from clan land.

  Biaree, on her back, scratched his side with the flurry of a rear foot, and then lifted whiskers, sampling the strong, salty sea breeze. He blinked, not sure if he liked it.

  His clever paws and his growing ability to tie things together under her guidance would make this trip to the beach even more fruitful than before. Biaree, with the help of some other treelings, managed to make some baggy nets that would hold fish and other seafood. The things were a bit of a mess, but they were a first effort, and they worked when Thistle tried them out on the stored fish in her creek-side pool. With some help from Thakur, she managed to tie these basket nets onto an older, placid dappleback in a similar manner to the beast-riding pads they had made for the cubs. Then she had to have something to lead the horse. She had tried her new herding skills, and they worked, but it was hard making the animal go any real distance without herder and herd-eel becoming exhausted. A treeling-knotted vine rope around the animal’s neck was far easier, both for her and the horse.

  Once she was sure that the animal wouldn’t bolt or stray, she put a few fish in the net bags and walked around clan ground with her fish-carrying horse. She did get a few puzzled looks from both herders and Firekeepers, but she was used to that.

  The dappleback didn’t seem to mind. She was the same animal that Quiet Hunter had used to exhibit his beginning skills. The mare probably found this duty less onerous than being chased and mauled by Thakur’s introductory herding class, Thistle decided. The horse hadn’t objected strenuously to anything yet, though she neighed a bit when Thistle rolled a heavy rock onto the end of the lead rope and left the dappleback to browse.

  Now she was returning to get her packhorse and load the net bags with fish, clams, and other dainty morsels. She had recently discovered that the big sea snails were succulent and tasty when you clawed them out of the shell and bit any bad-tasting parts out. Now her catch was waiting on the beach, buried in wet sand to keep it fresh and safe from other fish-eaters.

  When she and Quiet Hunter
reached the sea grass and brush where she had left the dappleback mare, she pushed the anchoring rock aside with Quiet Hunter’s help. Taking the lead rope in her jaws, she made a clicking sound with her teeth and pulled gently.

  At first, leading the dappleback hadn’t been that pleasant. The beast had a rocking walk and its head bobbed up and down with each steps, sometimes jerking the line. Once the rope had stuck on Thistle’s fangs. That hurt, but the dappleback didn’t mean it. The horse’s small hoofed toes clicked and scraped on rock, unlike the silent fall of feline pads. That had annoyed Thistle too, but she was getting used to the sound and had even started to like it.

  The dappleback went willingly, letting Thistle lead her through a tumble of rocks, then across the sand of the back beach. She floundered a bit in the loose sand but fared better on the wet foreshore.

  Quiet Hunter was living up to his name, but the silence around him was full, not empty. She knew he had enjoyed and appreciated being shown her world, paddling with her in the nearby lagoon where she had taught herself to swim, dipping paws into the tide pools with her and grimacing with surprise at the teeming life there: tentacle-bearing sea-flowers that sucked themselves into rubbery lumps when a paw came near: tiny pugnacious crabs that did battle with anything, including Quiet Hunter’s toes; and breathtakingly colored miniature creatures with filmy or feathered gills who drifted elegantly through the water and didn’t deserve to be called just sea-slugs. The pair looked as often as caught, for Quiet Hunter was developing a lively curiosity about the kind of life that lived in various places, and he wasn’t always interested in eating it.

  Thistle agreed with her mother that it was amazing that Quiet Hunter had learned to live without the song, considering how dependent the other hunters were on it. She knew he still needed to go back to True-of-voice every so often, to refresh himself in the fountain of its flow. So, for that matter, did she, although the urge was more want than need. She suspected that, as long as the Named lived near the hunters, he would periodically return to his old tribe and she along with him.

  She also used her voice, her scent along with movement in attempts to re-create the feeling of the song for him. Every so often she managed to do it, but capturing its essence and flavor remained difficult.

  “What you can do is good enough for this one,” said Quiet Hunter, coming alongside her. He shared one trick of her speech in that neither tended to use the words “I” or “me,” except when they were with the Named.

  “Can do better,” Thistle mumbled through the lead rope in her mouth. “Want to, for both of us. Want to find song for outer ears as well as inner ones.”

  “This one remembers that part of it is this,” her mate said, and swung away from her to walk slowly on the wet sand, slapping his paws down so that they made sounds in a repeating cadence. Step, pause, step, pause, step, pause, step, pause.

  Thistle matched his pace, listening to the sound they made together. When the dappleback’s footfalls interrupted their pace, they changed it, walking in step with the horse. Doing so was a bit difficult, but once all three sets of feet fell together, the effect was pleasing, almost hypnotic. After a while, though, it became a bit boring, and Thistle said so.

  “Then there is this,” Quiet Hunter said, and varied his stride so that the slap of his paws on sand went step, step, pause, step, step, pause.

  Thistle’s ears pricked forward. She found a rock for the dappleback’s lead rope, then went to Quiet Hunter and imitated what he was doing. Together they tried various gaits, listening to the sounds their feet made while walking on wet sand and while trotting, cantering, bounding, and galloping. Biaree objected to being bounced around on her back, so she stopped and let the treeling off to play in the sand.

  “Funny, never listened to feet before,” Thistle panted, jogging to a stop. “Does True-of-voice use feet-sounds?”

  “No, but he makes it feel as though he does.”

  “Can do the same with voice, maybe? Arr, arr-arr. Arr, arr-arr,” Thistle tried, then grimaced. “Sounds silly.”

  “Only a little,” her mate answered.

  She went back to the horse, rolled the rock aside, and picked up the lead. Again she and Quiet Hunter walked together, matching pace.

  “Listen again,” he said softly.

  Thistle turned her head, looked at him.

  “Not to us, or the dappleback, but to the sea.”

  Thistle stopped, swiveled her ears.

  “Keep walking with this one and listen.”

  Puzzled, she did as he asked, and then she heard it: the inward rush and crash of the waves as a long, slow counterpoint to their footfalls. She remembered hearing this as she padded along the beach long ago, but it had meant nothing to her then. She knew that her mind had been sleeping, waking partially and only for the necessities such as sleep, food, and shelter. The Named had woken it fully, sharpened it, taught her to delight not only in her sensations but also in the growing agility of her thought.

  She, in turn, had helped wake Quiet Hunter, and he was learning the excitement of experiment and discovery. In some things, he was better and he led, as he was doing now.

  He changed gaits and encouraged her to follow. Again the whoosh and roar of the ocean made a background to their paw-slaps on the wet sand. A seabird sailed overhead, its wing beats blending into the river of interweaving sounds.

  Thistle’s eyes widened in wonder. She reveled in the experience, and felt a sudden thrill when she glanced over at her partner and saw the rapture on his face. It was that which made her add her voice to the rest, sending it soaring upward, like the seabird, then wavering, plunging and winging up again.

  She shut her mouth when she saw that Quiet Hunter had stopped and was looking intently at her. Had her impetuous squalling interrupted the hypnotic flow of sound from their footsteps and the ocean? She felt embarrassed.

  “Didn’t mean to ruin it,” she said, her head starting to hang, her eyes starting to close.

  She felt a nudge and then a push beneath her chin, lifting her head up again.

  “You didn’t ruin it,” he breathed, the deep honey-brown of his eyes capturing her. “Not at all.”

  Real happiness came over her in a rush as he rubbed alongside her and pushed her into a walk, then a matched, dancing trot against the ocean’s swell and lapse. Again she opened her mouth and let joy fountain up from her lungs through her throat, off her tongue into the sky, not caring where it went or how high. Then she heard his voice mingled with hers, deeper, perhaps a little harsh with awkwardness, but strong and willing.

  It made her bound and leap alongside him, until they fell together in cat-play, making sand fly. Thistle got up and shook herself. “Not what True-of-voice does. Not his song.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Quiet Hunter said. “It makes this one feel a deep good. It is a song, but it is not True-of-voice’s. It is ours.”

  “This one’s mate feels a deep good too,” Thistle purred, winding and unwinding her tail about his. She looked up suddenly, remembering the horse, hoping it hadn’t been alarmed by all the noise.

  She was relieved to see the dappleback mare still stood placidly, one ear forward, the other back, as if curious about the odd goings-on. The lead rope snaked down into the sand.

  “She’s not straying,” Quiet Hunter said. “Run and sing with this one . . . with me . . . again.”

  Gladly, Thistle did.

  After that, they both played in the sea, pawing up strands of washed-in kelp and batting them at one another until both were draped with it. Shedding their decorations back into the waves, the dripping pair went back to where Thistle-chaser had buried her catch. She found Biaree grooming himself on a rock, but the treeling refused to mount until Thistle’s fur had dried off.

  She got the dappleback, and Quiet Hunter helped her fill the net bags on its sides, loading the little horse with the sea’s harvest. He dropped a sea perch when it flapped its tail in his face, but managed to scoop the fish up and s
ecure it, along with all the others.

  “Smart Quiet Hunter,” said Thistle, lolling her tongue in a cat-laugh. “Learns things quickly, even strange things like putting fish in string-tangles.”

  “Smart Thistle, who learned how to make the string-tangles and put them on a dappleback,” Quiet Hunter replied, his purr deep.

  “Thistle and Biaree,” she corrected. “Couldn’t do without treeling.”

  Quiet Hunter sniffed Biaree, who tried to grab a handful of whiskers.

  “You could have a treeling, too,” Thistle said.

  The male looked dubious. “This one is not sure about treelings. Their eyes are bright with cleverness, they move with quickness, but they don’t speak and they don’t hear songs. This one is not sure he wants to be close to such a creature.”

  “Quiet Hunter, you are funny but sweet. Why does it matter if a treeling can speak or if they can hear kinds of songs we can?”

  “Maybe this one is wrong and needs more knowledge about treelings. Do they sing?”

  She batted his face softly, cat-laughing again. “Biaree can’t sing. Just screeches.”

  Quiet Hunter eyed the treeling. “Strange animal.”

  “You,” Thistle retorted gently, “are the strange animal. Love you anyway.” She coaxed Biaree onto a drying but still-salty shoulder. “Will get used to treelings. Maybe even will want one.”

  “This one will think about it. Not yet, though.”

  Picking up the dappleback’s lead rope, Thistle started across the beach, heading toward the higher dunes and the brush beyond. Instead of walking ahead of her, as she had seen the clan’s males do with their females, Quiet Hunter preferred to pace beside her.

  Once out of the sand, they headed toward the place where the sun would rise, a direction Thistle knew would guide her back to clan ground. The sun was already starting to decline down the sky, and Thistle hoped to arrive before late evening.

  They broke into an easy jog trot. The dappleback seemed willing to keep pace. Thistle guessed the horse was enjoying the exercise after lazing on the beach for the last few days. The bumpier pace might cause a few fish to fall out of the net bags, but they were quickly replaced. One large clam broke its shell, but Thistle and Quiet Hunter nibbled up the bits and went on, refreshed. They talked and joked to make the journeying time go faster. Quiet Hunter was curious why the clan gave treelings names but didn’t name the herdbeasts. Thistle didn’t know, but guessed that the clan only named creatures they didn’t intend to eat.