Storykeeper

by Daniel A Smith

  Manaha overslept. She sat up quickly but slowly got to her feet. Mother Earth had been hard on her. “I did not have the sounds of others to wake me.” She excused herself.

  A group of young children stopped their play as she approached the village. Each one stood silent, staring at her and an older boy who stood apart from the group. Manaha felt certain he had been one of her listeners. She studied his face, but he remained mute, never looking up.

  A smaller boy tugged at his folded arms, pulling them apart long enough for her to see a punishment scratch. The shallow scratch hurts only a short while. Real pain came when others began to tease. The boy stood for a moment, surrounded by ridicule, before bolting.

  What had he done to deserve a punishment scratch? Manaha wondered, as she left the children and walked into the village. There were no smiles from the women around the plaza—not one greeting.

  She saw another child from last night. The girl clung to her mother, Asnewn, a good friend of Manaha’s. Asnewn continued her work without looking up. As the girl squirmed, Manaha caught a glimpse of a scratch down her arm.

  She glanced from face to face around the village plaza. Every eye turned away. The children were punished because of her. Manaha felt the sting of her own punishment scratch, not on her arm, but across her heart.

  Ta-kawa must be responsible. She marched up to his sister. “Where is he?”

  “He is with the men on the square-ground planning for an early hunt.”

  Manaha turned to leave.

  “Ta-kawa knows,” his sister taunted.

  Manaha spun around. “He knows what?”

  “Your stories will only bring the sickness again.”

  “Stories are for healing and learning.” Manaha moved around to the sister’s down-turned face. “You know that.”

  She avoided Manaha’s glare. “When Ta-kawa returns from this hunt, his voice will lead our village.”

  Manaha walked away from the troubling boast then turned toward the square-ground. Ta-kawa’s charge should not be taken lightly. She paused near the Blue Lodge long enough to hear that Ta-kawa and most of the men of the village would be leaving soon.

  After collecting the remainder of her belongings, Manaha walked proudly through the center of the plaza and back to the island. The smell of wet, charred wood welcomed her return. She sat where she had the night before and let her bundles fall. Her arms hung limp as if both were now dead.

  How can I ever regain the life in my cursed arm if I cannot tell stories?

  The wind, the sky, and the world of Mother Earth moved around her, but Manaha sat in opposition. After long, empty moments, her thoughts traveled back to the days spent with her grandfather. His spirit influenced every step of her life’s path, good and bad. Just telling one of his stories filled her with a pride she had never known.

  Manaha did not know if anyone would sit in her circle of listeners tonight, but she determined to carry on. The remains of last night’s fire had to be removed before building a new one. As she pitched the wet wood to the side, something caught her eye. A speck gleamed in the blackened dirt. She rubbed the soot and dirt off the small stone to reveal a tiny arrowhead, the finest she had ever seen, crafted from pure white flint.

  She rolled the sharp edges over and over in her fingers, before putting it deep into her pouch. From the same secret depth, she pulled the quartz crystal she had carried for many seasons. Holding it up, Manaha turned it in the light until its reflection twinkled. She placed it where she had found the arrowhead and filled in the pit.

  The glow of Father Sun’s departure surrounded Manaha as she admired her day’s work: a new pit dug and a larger story-fire built. She waited, ready to light the kindling. Slowly, night settled over her, stealing her sight and hopes.

  Then behind her, with a crunch of leaves, a twig snapped. She looked around the darkness but saw no one. More sounds came from all sides. Whoever they might be, they were unwilling to be seen by her or by Ta-kawa should he appear. She hurried to remove most of the bigger logs, and soon tended a smaller fire to draw her listeners in closer.

  With a short prayer, she dropped three shavings from the lightning tree onto the flames. She took her place in the empty circle and spoke out in a loud voice.

  “Manaha, the rejected will finish the first story and many to come.”

  Chapter 5: Nanza, My Child

  Grandfather’s Story

  Forty years after “their” arrival

  Killer of friends and friend of enemies, I cowered underneath a deerskin in a pit of death as a warrior danced around the grave. Aquan shouted and sang of his bravery. He proclaimed his part in the torture and killing of the child’s family. The girl did not stir throughout his rant, but my resolve swayed as I listened.

  I killed Chachiz to save a dying child and myself. I squirmed in his blood, searching for the courage to face the punishment I deserved. My hand brushed his side. I stroked his thick coat. Even in death, Chachiz gave me calm.

  A different warrior yelled, “That will be an arrow you cannot retrieve.”

  I heard the arrow leave Aquan’s bow. I heard nothing more until the crack. Pain cut through me. Chomping down on the deerskin, I fought to keep my eyes open. I prayed, Oh, Great Spirit, guide these souls as we cross into the next world. Return peace and prosperity to all who remain upon this land. Then I slipped into the darkness.

  When my eyes opened again, I saw nothing. I felt nothing but burning guilt. Rolling my eyes in every direction, I feared that my spirit had been carried to a place of never-ending suffering. Above and behind, a golden light rimmed an edge to the blackness. I reached for it. My arm would not move. It was numb, but I could feel a pain stabbing at my side, a dying child pressing on my chest, and a dead friend tearing at my heart.

  The child moved as I pushed my hand toward the pain. I touched the sticky shaft of Aquan’s arrow and flinched. My own breath cut through me like a knife. I exhaled slowly, and slid my fingers down the shaft to the arrowhead. It had not gone into my chest, but had cut a gash down my side and cracked a rib.

  I eased the deerskin off my face. The late-day sun slammed my eyes shut. A blink at a time, I glimpsed the tops of the trees then the edge of the dirt piled around. I pulled myself into the light from the bottom of the grave.

  Eyes forced wide, I still could not see the child, the grave, or the world that surrounded it. I saw only Chachiz and the blood-red arrow in his side. It had pierced his stomach before it had reached me. I had killed my only friend who in death saved my life.

  “What have I done?” I cried. All my life, I had run from the deaths that I caused. What could I ever do that would not be stained by this deed? My movements were slow and my thoughts cloudy. I took the sleeping child and her toy bird from the grave. Before anything else, I had to honor and provide for the departed spirit of Chachiz.

  I broke the arrow above his chest and pulled the shaft through the other side. I hurled both pieces toward the east, the land of the Pa-caha. Around Chachiz’s body, I arranged the red-striped water bottle and three strips of deer jerky from my pouch. I laid a blanket of cut grasses over my friend then shoved in the surrounding dirt. My side stung and my heart ached with each push. I was responsible and would always be responsible for what had happened.

  I stood to sing the mourners’ song but stammered to silence. The words—I forgot the words. It had been so long since I had heard them, longer still since I wanted to. I could not remember. Who will teach me?

  “Spirits of my people send the sacred words. Sing the mourners’ song in the rustle of the wind.” The words did not come. I fell to my knees in the fresh earth and spoke to Chachiz’s spirit in my own song of mourning. Those words I hold close, never to be spoken again.

  I picked up the child and held her out over the grave, waiting for the wind to settle. I wanted my words not to scatter but to fall where I stood.

  “Spirits of my ancestors, hear this. Chachiz’s last breath gave life—my life and the
life of this child. I promise to respect and protect that gift to save this child from Pa-caha warriors and the Black Sleep. By my word, it will be so.”

  My pains were many of the body and of the soul, but my choices were few. I strapped the child onto my back with my bundles and limped toward the road. The ache in my side eased, or I was growing accustomed to it, but I could not escape the emptiness in my heart.

  Who will sing the mourners’ song for me? I wondered as we crossed the field. Not a sign of anyone on the road. I glanced back a last time. No one there either. I trotted across the road and up the hillside into a forest filled with the natural sounds of the night.

  Chachiz always warned me of any danger. I had not only lost a friend; I lost a large part of my courage. Without Chachiz, I became a frightened old man. Loneliness had been a reality most of my life, but I never felt it heavier than that night.

  The task of walking and running in the dark filled my head. The shadowy moon, which I kept to the right, offered little light. I rested many times that night empty in heart and mind. However the child would not let me forget her. If I stayed too long, she would begin to squirm and remind me of what I had done. She fell back to sleep as soon as I started walking. Would that my troubles were as easily put to rest.

  As the faint glow of morning spread across the sky, the child began to twist and turn, even when we were moving. Her fitfulness grew to a moan. I knelt down and slipped the child off my back. I held her, still bundled, in my lap. Her eyes were closed and her cheeks hot to the touch. She gasped for every breath.

  I untied her burial cloak. Once released, she kicked and fought. Her eyes opened wide in a frozen gaze that looked but did not see. She screamed. I tried to cover her mouth, but she twisted out of my grip and screamed louder. Her legs raced and her arms thrashed the air.

  “Go away, go away!” she yelled.

  I could see that she fought something unseen—not me. She scratched at my face as I pulled her in close. I forced her head to my chest to muffle the screams and spoke for the first time since leaving the grave.

  “Child, you are safe. I am your friend, but your enemies are listening. You must be quiet.” I repeated, “You are safe ... you are safe,” until she stopped crying.

  I eased my hold on her. “Do not be afraid.”

  She looked up and studied my face.

  “I am Taninto. Do you remember? I am your friend, and ... I will protect you.” I hoped she could not hear the doubt in my voice.

  Doubt or not, the words seemed to comfort her. After a moment, she fell limp against my chest, sleeping as only a child can without worry.

  Every nearby warrior would have heard the child’s screams. I grabbed the burial cloak and slipped on my back-bundle while I glanced around for what I might be leaving behind. My head slumped over the child. “If only you were here, Chachiz, old friend.”

  I ran until I could no longer hold her. I laid her on the grassy bank of the stream we had just crossed and drank my fill of the sweet water. Scooping another handful, I returned to the child, who was lying on the ground, unbundled. I truly saw her for the first time. A large sore covered her left cheek. Smaller ones dotted her chest, legs, and arms. She looked so fragile.

  “My child ... that is what you are now ... my child. I will call you Nanza.”

  I wiped drops of cool water across her lips. Her eyes opened. She saw me and not a vision. Still, fear crept across her face. I reached out, but she did not resist.

  “Do not cry,” I said. “I will take care of you, my brave child, my Nanza.”

  “I am afraid,” she said.

  “Nanza, a fever-dream frightened you, nothing more.”

  Her eyes fluttered.

  “Now, sleep, my child,” I whispered as I lashed up her burial cloak. With her on my back once again, I waded into the stream. It would take us to the river, and if I were careful, it would hide our trail. I stumbled over the rocky bottom too many times for Nanza to sleep soundly. She began to ask questions. Questions, I did not want to face. Answers, she did not need to hear.

  “Hush!” I snapped.

  She whimpered, “Mother ... Mother ... I want my mother.”

  I hoisted my burden, child and all higher on my back, so that her head rested on my shoulder. I looked around at the small face struggling to see mine. “Nanza, your mother and father love you very much. That, above all, you must never forget. You are ill, and it is their wish that I cure you. Now, you must do as I say. Be quiet and rest.”

  Her eyes closed. I continued down the stream until I noticed a rock sticking above the water with two dark spots across the top. I studied the banks on both sides while I drank from the stream. The last drops I let fall onto the rock.

  Something or someone had crossed the stream. It was not an animal, no tracks on either side. A man, I was certain. More than one, I could not be sure, but only one had been clumsy enough to leave a sign of his passing.

  I continued down the stream, hoping to see the river around the next turn. My side ached and my legs were tired, but I pushed on through the water, stumbling along until I finally fell. The deepening stream broke the fall. After the second time, it seemed easier to stay down. Crawling and paddling, we moved with the current. The stream grew wider and cooler. I knew the river must be close.

  Nanza yelled, “Looo—,” but stopped. She twisted around to me and whispered, “I saw someone.”

  I stood and began running.

  “Ahaya ... yaaaa.”

  The lone war cry overtook us. Without slowing or turning around, I pulled the back-bundles and Nanza over my head. To lighten my burden, I pitched the bundles to the bank, unwrapped the child, and dropped her wet burial cloak. She held onto me as tightly as I did her.

  Around the next bend, I saw the White River. Racing across the shallows, I plunged in. We were one-person, swimming with two heads above the water, looking in every direction. The mouth of the stream disappeared without a sign of any warriors. Could it be the child had seen another vision, and I had heard only the scream of an eagle?

  The river widened. The cold current raced. I waded into the shallows. Nanza shook all over. I held her in one arm, and she held me with both. The rapids and the round river rocks made running difficult. I did not look up until I heard something in front of me.

  A warrior stood defiant at the edge of the river. He must have known the country, left the stream, and traveled downriver by land. I froze in the middle of a long stride. Nanza, still watching behind, had not seen him. She squirmed as I struggled to stand on the river rocks shifting beneath my feet.

  “Old man,” the warrior shouted.

  Nanza jerked around.

  “Old man!” he yelled again.

  Nanza screamed and kicked, throwing me off balance.

  “Behold a great warrior,” he shouted. “What gifts have you brought for me?”

  I turned back upriver, trying to keep my footing.

  “Ahaya ... Ya, ya, ya, yaaaa.” He ran at us with his war axe raised. His yelps echoed up and down the river until he sounded like a great war party.

  No time to plan, no time to pray, I ran back up the rapids with Nanza hanging on. The warrior ran along the edge of the river, over the larger rocks, and through the shallow pools.

  I reached deeper water and waded in. The warrior ran faster. I shifted the child to my back and dove into the river. She clutched my neck as I gasped for breath and swam for the far bank.

  The war cry wavered and ceased. He had slipped in a moss-covered flood pool, falling with a crack that brought a hush.

  I froze chest-deep in the running water. The whole world held its breath. The river spoke first, then the insects and birds began to sing. I turned to see the warrior on his back at the edge of a pool. His war axe lay off to one side and out of his reach.

  He did not move as I crept out of the water and around to where the axe lay. I picked up the poorly crafted weapon. For the second time in my miserable life, I held a tool for kill
ing another man. With the child still on my back, I turned toward the warrior.

  A sense of power filled me as I gripped the weapon. With each step, I raised the axe higher. My fear turned to anger, and that anger grew to a consuming rage for the evil that had killed so many of my people.

  When I reached him, I no longer stooped but stood tall with both arms raised and the war axe clutched in my only hand. I swung with the strength of a wild beast and the anger from forty-two winters of guilt.

  “No. Noooo!” the child screamed.

  My sight cleared. I no longer saw the faces of dead and dying friends and family, only the face of a boy. Whether that or Nanza’s scream diverted the axe, I do not know. The killing tool died with a shattering sound next to his head.

  My whole strength and resolve had been committed to the swing. Unbalanced by the change of heart, I fell on top of the warrior. He did not move as I scrambled to my feet, and stared into the open eyes of my enemy. His young, rounded face had not begun the change to a man’s. I knew then I would always remember those unseeing eyes.

  A piece of the shattered axe had cut my arm. Blood ran down onto the broken handle that I gripped so tightly; I had to force my hand open to let it drop. The wooden handle floated in our mingling blood, then out into the main current and down the river. I raced against the red flow while Nanza hung on, frightened beyond speech.

  The White River deepened once again, and I waded in. Over my shoulder, I could see that the boy warrior remained where he fell. In the cold river, the warmth of Nanza’s fevered body felt good as she sat on my shoulders, hugging the top of my head. We swam down the river, watching for other warriors and searching for my canoe.

  Fear, anger, and a promise had carried me to this point; now the river chose the path. Its power absorbed the last of my strength as it had the warrior’s blood. I could no longer touch the bottom, and the banks were too muddy and steep to climb. My legs refused to move. They hung like weights while I struggled to keep the child above water. Even though I could see the fallen tree where I hid the canoe, I could find no more strength.