The Dove

by Sharon Sala

  The quills were not of equal length or size. Adam picked up a couple of the smaller ones thinking they would tear the flesh less when he pushed them into Evan’s skin. He tested the points and the length, trying to guess how many he should take to close the gash and then how many extra in case some of them broke.

  “Would you let us help you?” Lucy offered.

  “You mean you would come and help me close the cut?’

  They looked at each other then back at him.

  “We sew beads on clothing. We can sew two pieces of skin together as well.”

  The notion of using porcupine quills to hold the flesh together was no longer an issue.

  “And you have tools to make this happen?” he asked.

  They held up small, thin needles made from the bones of tiny birds, and then spools of fine thread they had woven from the cotton grown in the Naaki Chava fields.

  “This is wonderful!” he said. “Yes, yes, you can help me.”

  They gathered their things and followed him to where Evan was sleeping.

  The women knelt beside Evan, one at his head, the other at his right side, as Adam moved to the left to wake him up.

  “Evan! Wake up, my brother.”

  Evan opened his eyes. “Am I dead?”

  “No. But your head is cut open and these good women are going to help me sew it shut.”

  Evan blinked. “Will it hurt?”

  Adam nodded.

  Evan sighed. “I already hurt all over. It cannot be that much worse.”

  The women pointed.

  “There is sand in the cut. It needs to be washed clean.”

  Adam quickly ran to the water’s edge filled a cup with water.

  Singing Bird saw him and came out of the water.

  “What are you doing? Evan can’t drink that.”

  “No, no, not to drink. I found two women who will close the cut on Evan’s head. They want to wash the sand away first.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea,” Singing Bird said. “I’ll be right there.”

  Adam hurried back and began to work.

  Evan winced as Adam diligently cleaned the wound, then looked up at Alice and Lucy.

  “It is clean again. When you finish, I will put on more of Singing Bird’s medicine. She’ll be here shortly. I told her what we were doing.”

  Evan looked at the women.

  One was older with much gray in her hair and the other was younger, but had a crippled foot. He could not imagine how they had survived that race through the fire, yet they had. They must be brave. He could be no less.

  The older one patted his arm.

  “My name is Lucy,” she said. “This is Alice. We will be as gentle and as quick as we can.”

  “My name is Evan. I will not move. I will not cry.”

  Adam did a double-take. Bravery was not part of Evan’s personality, or at least it hadn’t been before. So it would seem they were both changing. First had come the emotions, something of which they had never previously succumbed, and now bravery? Would miracles never cease?

  Adam grabbed his brother’s hand.

  “Just look at me, brother. This time tomorrow it will only be a memory.”

  “One of my first,” Evan muttered. “I seem to have forgotten most of everything else.”

  Adam blinked. Dry wit and bravery? That blow on the head had turned his brother into a stranger.

  Singing Bird came back as they were about to begin, still feeling guilty for losing her composure. She was soaking wet and dripping sea water, but she was her old self again. She dropped to her knees at Evan’s feet.

  “My sweet, brave son. This will be over before you know it.”

  Believing she would have to help hold him down, she clasped Evan’s ankles, then nodded at the women as they began.

  Their fingers were quick, their stitches sure. They didn’t linger with the pressure, or make an apology every time their needles went into Evan’s flesh.

  His face lost all color, but he never flinched. By the time they were halfway done, he was shaking. His jaw was clenched and there were tiny streams of blood coming from the places where the needles had pierced his flesh, but he had not uttered a sound.

  Adam felt every shaft of pain that Evan suffered and it was all he could do to stay quiet. His admiration for his brother’s strength of spirit had undergone a huge change.

  Singing Bird was still gripping Evan’s ankles, but no longer because she thought he would move. She was keeping track of his pulse. It was rapid but steady, and stronger than she expected.

  “They are almost through,” she said as the women took their last two stitches, then pulled the thread through the flesh, tied the last knot, and then cut it with their teeth.

  “It is done,” Lucy said.

  “You were very brave,” Alice added.

  Evan took a deep, shaky breath. “Thank you. When I am well, I will help you build your new homes.”

  They smiled and giggled, imagining one of Cayetano’s shamans building a house, then gathered up their things and left.

  “You were so strong, my brother. I am proud of you,” Adam said.

  Singing Bird rocked back on her heels and then stared at Adam. There was blood coming from his head in the same places as where the needles had pierced his brother’s flesh.

  “Adam! You are bleeding, too!”

  He touched his forehead, frowning as his fingers came away covered in blood.

  “I will wash it off,” he said and headed back to the ocean with the piece of cloth.

  Cayetano passed Adam on the way back. When he sat down beside Singing Bird, he pointed toward the water.

  “What happened to his head?”

  She pointed at Evan, who had finally passed out from exhaustion and pain.

  “Every time they pushed a needle into Evan’s head, his brother bled with him.”

  Cayetano’s eyes widened. “This can happen?”

  Singing Bird shrugged. “They are twins. Like us, they are whole only when they’re together. And they have much power.”

  Cayetano felt of Evan’s cheek. “He will have a fever.”

  She nodded. “I have something for that. Usually I would build a fire to make the drink warm before I gave it to him, but I have had enough of fires for one day. He can drink it without water.”

  Cayetano hesitated. He had news for Singing Bird that she was not going to like, but it had to be said.

  “My warriors came back with news of Little Mouse. They found Acat on the other side of the beach. She said Little Mouse told her the night before that she was going up the mountain the next morning to get fever root so she would have extra to take with her when we left. She doesn’t think she was back when the fires began. And, she never saw her when the people gathered at the temple. Either she died in the fire, or she wasn’t back from her gathering. She doesn’t think she ever left Naaki Chava.”

  Singing Bird moaned and then began to rock back and forth on her knees.

  “No, no, no, no. That did not happen. We did not leave Little Mouse behind. Tell me we did not leave Little Mouse behind.”

  “I can only tell you that many people have lost their lives this day, as they did in Naaki Chava, and none of it was of our doing. What happened has already happened. Everything is gone.”

  She shook her head. “This will haunt me to the day I die.”

  They stayed on the beach for several hours, resting, and gathering strength for another march. There was no way to gather extra food for the days ahead or any animals to hunt because what was around them had burned or run away. And staying on the beach was impossible because the tide would come in and then there would not be enough space.

  Cayetano eyed the sun, gauging the time between daylight and darkness and finally made the decision to get
moving. He sent his warriors up and down the beach alerting the people to pack up what belongings they had left. As soon as they did, they were on their feet and waiting.

  Singing Bird had given Evan a strong dose of medicine that lessened the pain of his wounds, and when Cayetano gave the signal, with his brother’s help, he was able to walk out on his own.

  ***

  Little Mouse wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore. In fact, she wasn’t afraid of anything because she’d been trying so hard to die without success that a part of her hoped for an animal attack to hasten the process. But as fate would have it, that was not to be the case. And, now that the man called Yoji had given her water and a piece of dried fish when they kicked her out of camp, the sustenance had given her strength to keep moving.

  Yoji had pointed her to the North, so she looked up to the sky, searching for what the shamans called the Guiding Star and used it as her touchstone.

  Moonlight shed an eerie blue-white glow on the landscape as she trudged northward. She had never been in a place where she could see so far ahead or so high. There were trees and bushes here, but not like in the jungle. These trees did not grow standing thick against each other, and she could see sky through them from afar.

  The ground was rough and sometimes rocky beneath her bare feet, and more than once she stumbled into a strange plant that had thorns. She had never seen cactus, but soon learned that once they stuck into her skin, they wouldn’t come out. The first time it happened she tried to pull it out with her fingers. Instead, it broke, leaving the hooked barb still in her leg. The next time it happened she didn’t touch it. She needed daylight to see what she was doing.

  Once, she heard an animal howl, and then another, and then another joined in. She’d never heard animals hunting together before. She thought about being nervous and then reminded herself that if she were attacked by more than one, it would take far less time to die.

  Once she stumbled and fell facedown on the rocky ground. When she came to, her nose was bleeding, her lips were split and bleeding as well, and she thought she’d loosened a tooth. This made her frown. If she wasn’t going to die, she needed her teeth. As she got up, she realized the water had leaked out of the bag Yoji gave her. She left the bag behind as she walked on.

  Before long, she began to see a change in the sky toward the East. Another day was about to be born and she was still breathing. She didn’t know what to make of that, but it had to mean something. She should have died many times in the past few days and had not. There must be something left for her to do.

  Now the sky was turning a most beautiful color, pale like the pink orchids growing in the jungle back in Naaki Chava with streaks of blue like the long-tailed parrots that set on the roofs. There were tears in her eyes as she thought it because the orchids were gone and the long-tailed parrots had surely flown away. She thought about crying, but it was a waste of effort. It changed nothing.

  When she finally topped the rise and looked down into the valley below, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  There were dwellings scattered out along the banks of a river like Naaki Chava had looked in the beginning. Only the places where these people lived were dug part-way down into the ground, and their roofs were mounds of dirt with grass on top, and there was no palace.

  People were moving about between the dirt mounds, building cook fires, getting water from the river and carrying it to water the growing crops.

  So, maybe she had found the place Yoji called Rio Yaqui. She sincerely hoped they were kinder than the ones who’d captured her. Either she went down there to her fate or sat here until the sun baked her brain and she breathed no more. And, since she was too thirsty to sit and wait for the sun to get hot, she took a deep breath and then started down the hill.

  ***

  A woman called Meecha was rekindling her cooking fire for the day. She dug through banked coals until she found some glowing embers and covered them with a few leaves of dry sage, partly because they caught fire easily, and also because she liked the smell it made when it burned. Then she added smaller twigs, then larger and larger until it was alive once more. Once the fire was hot, she hung her cooking pot over it. It was full of new beans from the field and enough water to make them cook. She was thinking to add some turtle meat when she heard a dog begin to bark. She looked and saw someone coming into their village, someone who seemed sick, or maybe crazy, because they were staggering as they walked.

  She watched, remembering that Nelli and her husband had died from a witch’s curse and as of yet no witch had been found. Then she remembered there was also a woman who had been marked by the Old Ones to save their people from strangers who had yet to come, but this was not a woman. Meecha couldn’t see breasts and there was no hair on his head.

  Then the closer the stranger came, the more certain she was that she’d been wrong. There were breasts, very small, but they were there, and she was definitely either sick or crazy, because she was talking to herself.

  Meecha turned and ran toward the medicine man’s dwelling, calling his name loudly as she went, which sent more dogs to barking.

  “Cualli! Cualli!”

  Other people heard her cry and came out to look, and they, too, saw the tiny woman staggering into camp, and like Meecha, were afraid to approach her.

  Cualli heard his name being called and hurried outside.

  Meecha was pointing and talking so fast he could barely understand what she was saying, and then he heard the word, witch, and then crazy, and started running.

  ***

  Little Mouse saw people coming to meet her. They were moving very fast and shouting and she didn’t understand all of what was being said. She had no idea what a sight she presented, hair both burned away and pulled from her scalp, seeping burns and untended wounds on her hands and feet, covered in gray ash from running through so many fires, and so tiny and thin she could have easily blown away.

  Then a man came pushing his way through the gathering crowd and she heard the word medicine man, and thinking he was something like her shamans, she fell to her knees. Either they would offer her up as some sacrifice or they would save her. It was out of her hands.

  “Who comes into our village?”

  “I am Little Mouse,” she said.

  Cualli recognized the similarity in their languages. She was from the South, from the land of the jaguar and the jungles.

  “Are you a witch?” he asked.

  She frowned as if the question had been an insult and thumped a fist against her chest.

  “No! I am a healer. I am sad and I am trying to die.”

  The people heard and they were sad with her. That was a terrible way to feel.

  “Why are you sad?” Cualli asked.

  “Naaki Chava is no more. The mountain threw burning rocks and a river of fire into my city and I did not die. Then a band of bad men caught me and still I did not die. They took me back to their leader, a man called Yaluk. I thought he would kill me, but after talking to me, he didn’t want me and again I did not die. Then another called Yoji gave me water and told me to walk this way to find people, and now I am here.”

  The moment she mentioned Yaluk’s name, the people began to talk. She didn’t know what that meant, but they obviously knew him.

  “You know Yaluk?” Cualli asked.

  Little Mouse shrugged. “It was his men who caught me. They are bad. They hurt me and did not give me food or drink. Yaluk is bad, too. He said aloud the bad things he had done.”

  Cualli frowned. He didn’t want to be thought of as no better than Yaluk and sent one of the women to bring water to her while he heard more of her story.

  “This Yaluk is bad. He used to live here but we sent him away for hurting and stealing,” Cualli said.

  Little Mouse was dizzy. She wanted to lie down and sleep and never wake up, but these people still talke
d and so she stayed awake because it was polite.

  “Yaluk sent me away, but since they were not going to kill me, I was glad to go. He said he killed his sister.”

  Again, the talking started, only louder.

  Cualli held up his hand and the talking stopped. “Yaluk said he killed his sister?”

  The woman who’d gone for water returned and gave Little Mouse a bowl so full it was sloshing over.

  She emptied it in one breath then handed it back to her with a very polite nod of thanks.

  Cualli repeated the question. “Yaluk told you he killed his sister?”

  “Yes. She got a talisman for him against witches and then he killed her. I think this is a bad man who hurts the person who has helped him.”

  Cualli threw his hands up in the air. Now he believed her, because the talisman he had given to Nelli was nowhere in her house when the bodies had been found.

  “We will help you,” Cualli said. “You can live here. We have no healer. You can live in Nelli’s home. She has no use for it anymore.”

  Little Mouse blinked. Just like that, her quest to die had ended with a blessing and an offer of a home? She was too tired and hungry to turn it down.

  “I will live here, then. But I have nothing and I would like to be clean.”

  “All that will be given to you,” Cualli announced, then added. “Meecha, the Old Ones chose you to see this one coming, so you will help her.”

  Meecha nodded, while trying not to be daunted by the horrendous task ahead. The little woman was dirty and sick, and her wounds were infected, and she had no clothes. This day was not the day she had expected when she woke. Still, she was better off than this Little Mouse, and it might be good to be friends with a healer.

  “Come with me,” Meecha said.

  Little Mouse sighed. “I have walked too far. I cannot walk more.”

  A man named Chiiwi stepped out of the crowd. He’d been listening to this little woman who had no hair and felt admiration for what she had endured.

  “I will carry her to the river,” he said and picked her up and took off walking without waiting for Meecha.

  Little Mouse looked at his face as they walked. He was short like the people of Naaki Chava, like her. And he smelled clean, unlike her.