But the bear was not in the passage nor sitting in the water as Lefthand had fleetingly imagined. Fresh claw marks in the clay of the opposing wall showed where he had crawled through the hole to the upper way, moments before.
As though he had all his life been sound and healthy, Lefthand plunged through the water, caught hold of the threshold and dragged himself up in the space of a breath. He waited in darkness while Sorcerer splashed to him through the stream. The light in the old man’s hand came through the hole. “You take it,” he heard Sorcerer say. “You’ll get there faster.”
Lefthand did not pause to answer. He seized the faint light and rushed along the stone corridor, dodging around boulders, squeezing between pinched walls. At one point he saw claw marks on the clay where he set his own hand; at a narrowing of the passage long hairs brushed from the rock onto his arm.
He started up the sharp, uphill pitch to the track. Then Lefthand saw the bear.
He was standing under the ragged hole that led out of the mountain. Like a fat man he stood upright, both hands on the edge just above his head. Lefthand saw his rounded head with the little round ears and the outline of the tilted jaw silhouetted against daylight.
Lefthand stopped dead. The bear was not doing any harm. He need not be attacked. At the prospect of not having to attack, Lefthand felt all his fear return, flooding his system like a sudden sickness. That would not do; the bear would surely smell it, and turn. Lefthand relaxed, breathing softly, and tried to watch the bear.
The bear whined to himself and moaned and snarled at the effort required to lift himself up to the light. Snowbird must have heard his noise and been well away by now. Lefthand pictured her cowering behind a boulder hugging Jay, probably with a hand clapped to his mouth.
Grabbing firm hold of the rock ledge the bear scrabbled with his hind feet. His claws dug into the clay, his bottom wiggled hugely as with a gigantic heave he hoisted himself up through the hole.
Light vanished, blocked by the huge shape who sat on the edge looking around, blinking and snuffing the early spring wind.
It was too soon for honey. There was still thin snow coating the mountain, but grass was growing down in the valley. There would be ants moving about among the young roots.
The bear grunted and got up on four shaky legs. Weakly he started downhill toward the hope of ants and grubs. His empty stomach swung beneath him as he walked and his brown coat, shining in the evening light, wrinkled over his shoulders. It was too big for him by a whole season.
As in his dream, he swung his head and tested the cold spring air and hints of food came strongly now from the valley. He lumbered faster down the slope, among tiny bright flowers pushing up through the snow. Shuffling and shambling, his shape dwindled to a reddish spot moving slowly across the green valley floor.
Snowbird raised her hand from Jay’s mouth and he burst into words. “He didn’t get them! Did you see his stomach? Empty!”
Snowbird dodged from behind the boulder and ran to the hole in the cliff. She wondered as she ran if she dared go in, just a little way into the blackness, or if she dared call. She leaned over the hole and Lefthand’s welcome face grinned up at her.
His face changed as she looked; the triumphant grin faded, softened, shifted, and became a smile. Snowbird had never seen Lefthand smile before. As a little boy he had been serious, grave, and shy, and since the bear tore him he had been grim. She marveled at the warmth of his smile, the light of it.
“Lefthand,” she said uncertainly, “is that you?”
“No,” said Sorcerer, his voice rising out of the dark behind Lefthand. “Not exactly. He is not exactly the same Lefthand. He has gone far beyond himself.”
3
The cliff wall sparkled in strong, spring sunshine. Directly beneath a jutting overhang of rock gleamed a circle of warm mud. A plump young doe pawed and circled there. She had scraped up seedling grass and spring-soft earth, and her restless hoofs had churned the warm spot to mud. Still she circled, keeping her nose to the center of the new mud bed. She panted, staring around with pain-startled eyes. Buckling her knees, at last she knelt and lay down. She stretched, opened her mouth, and groaned.
She had chosen a quiet place, sheltered from the slow-moving herd. In front she was screened by low bushes, at her back rose the sheer cliff wall. In her dim mind, overwhelmed by urgent surprise, the place was safe.
Jay leaned round-eyed over the edge of the cliff path. Snowbird’s firm hand on his shoulder shushed him. Painter slid down cross-legged beside her, and the three of them leaned across the overhang together, looking down in utter silence.
Close beneath them the young doe stretched and panted behind her screen of bushes. They saw the bright brown of her summer coat, the flash of her flickering tail. They saw the wild eyes staring, her sides bulging like a tightly packed skin bag.
Beyond the greening bushes moved a hundred brown backs. Slowly the herd of north-returning reindeer browsed up the valley. Every one of the females showed a tight, swollen belly. They would all give birth soon. Then when the newborn fawns could run, they would again move northward.
Close by, several heavy does folded their legs and lay down to chew their cud. Munching peacefully, they looked out over the soft spring valley to the river, flowing blue under a blue sky. Like a strip of sky fallen to earth, it wandered down the valley, pausing here, curving there among the willows.
Far across the valley two brown specks stood against the cliffs. One, expanding and heaving, was a migrating herd, perhaps of bison. The other speck was the camp.
Painter sat up straight and thrust back his shoulders. Images of the future crowded into his mind. He saw the valley as it would be when again the sun faded and the year died. He saw the cluster of tents growing, reaching tattered tentacles toward the river. Down from the far forests came the people, downriver from the north came the reindeer.
The big drum boomed. Painter saw himself dancing in a horned mask. He saw himself with other young men striding away into the forest. They were vague shadows except for one who might be Onedeer. He saw Snowbird pulling the baggage sled.
Another figure insisted on prancing into the picture. It would not be left out. It was a small figure that ranged, puppylike, around Snowbird. Sometimes it helped to pull the sled, more often it stole a ride.
Another figure came limping after the departing group. It stumbled and waved long thin arms. White hair drifted about its head, like the ruff of an ancient, hardy reindeer.
“Sorcerer is old … and he was never strong.”
Painter scowled to himself as the shadowy young men of his daydream strode on and away, out of the scene. He saw himself hesitate, pause, then turn back. He could walk all day now; he could hurl a spear and sometimes hit the mark. Sorcerer’s wisdom had given him back the strength he once had, and more. Sorcerer had also taught him to reach beyond himself.
In the daydream, the Painter came back to the floundering, white-haired figure. There were words, gestures, a decision. The party turned back toward the valley, toward the river, the traps, and the dark magic caverns.
Painter glanced at Snowbird beside him. She was looking intently down. His gaze followed hers.
The doe was straining. She had given up feeling or wondering and now she was doing what she had come there to do. She raised her nose to the sky, arched her back, and groaned with effort. Then she panted quietly until another wave of pain seized her. Again she raised her nose and her back, and she groaned.
Stretched out on his stomach on the cliff, Jay dislodged a small stone that rattled down beside the doe. She paid no attention; she had no ears or eyes now for anything outside herself. The other does resting beside the cliff looked up and waved hairy ears. Snowbird’s hand on Jay’s shoulder squeezed a warning.
Now, under the doe’s raised tail, appeared a slight, gray bulge. Her groans loudened to roars of spent energy that echoed from the cliff. Again she strained, and the gray bulge pushed slowly out, weaving as i
t came.
A moment of rest followed. The emerging ooze lay motionless along the ground and Painter could see through the slime the outline of a small head. Its nose rested on little, soft hoofs. Its eyes bugged blindly.
The doe scrambled to her feet, dangling the fawn. One last effort, and it was born. It flopped to the ground and lay inert, still encased in slime. It was long and thin, built for speed. Not yet breathing, the flat body seemed dead.
The doe turned around and nosed the small thing. With her tongue she licked the slime away from its head. As Bright would lift the skin from a carcass, so the doe’s tongue lifted the birth-skin from the blunt little nose. As she was licking its eyes the fawn sneezed. Its head waved, its mouth opened, and it uttered a shrill, high bleat.
The doe grunted to it reassuringly. As she licked, she kept muttering. “Keep away,” she said to the world, and to the fawn, she said, “I am here.”
The reindeer near the bushes looked toward the sounds, the high bleatings and gentle mutterings. They were all pregnant does, and these sounds waked strong instincts in them. This fawn was the first born of the herd. Before nightfall, there would be several more.
The cliff path was now hot under the noon sun. Jay and Snowbird rested motionless, the two profiles leaning together, one soft with childish curves, the other sharp and brooding. Painter was fingering a small slate. He had scratched on the rock at his knee a hasty outline of the straining doe. Now he chose a smaller stone, and scratched the human profiles.
It came hard. The curve of cheek, the jut of nose, were clear to his eye. But somewhere between eye and hand they came undone. He tried again. “One spear at a time,” he thought. “Snowbird first.”
The forehead, nose and chin came out right. Hard on the gray stone appeared a thin, pale line, a chalky image of Snowbird’s brown warmth. Weak magic.
Below, the fawn was struggling to stand. Its foreparts were dry now, almost fluffy. Its eyes saw, its ears pricked. Even while the doe licked its back legs it was flopping around on the front ones. As if it knew that danger threatened it now, and always would, the infant deer was determined to find its feet.
“Wait,” the doe’s mutterings meant, “wait till I get this last bit.”
The fawn stood up. It wavered, and when the doe licked its shoulder, it collapsed.
Magic had brought dream to reality. Sleeping through the winter, the earth had dreamed of reindeer.
In its depths silent herds thundered. Wakened by spring, earth produced reindeer: round, hairy does that munched, browsed, and gave birth.
Now the little one was searching along its mother’s side, sucking at hairs. The doe stood still and content in the sunshine. Gently she licked her fawn till its hair stood up in springy curls. Its tail jerked joyfully. It had found milk.
Painter looked again at the smooth stone at his knee. He looked at the cold, chalky line that suggested Snowbird. He would need no magic with Snowbird. But suppose someone else found this drawing? With fingers and slate Painter pried the magic stone loose from the cliff path. Snowbird watched curiously as he stood up and swung, throwing it far away to where it would never be found.
The stone fell in a heap of loose stones under the cliff. There in the flow of endless time, it would become a deep, infinitesimal part of the mountain.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1971 by Anne Eliot Crompton
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1248-5
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The Sorcerer Page 11
