The Promised One

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by Meredith


  “Go slowly,” said Tsola. “Let’s be very sure. This could mean the end of the Galayi people.”

  “We three Cheowas will also stay,” said their White Chief. His voice was thin with age.

  “Thirty-nine men, some of you years beyond your time to fight, against two hundred. You will all die,” Tsola said.

  Everyone looked at her expectantly. Surely she had some guidance to offer at such a critical time.

  But it was Zeya who spoke up. “Leave me alone beside the sacred fire, please. I have an idea.” He touched Su-Li’s talon to ask the buzzard to stay.

  All but Tsola stared at this inexperienced youth. How could he…?

  The blindfolded Seer handed the pipe to Ninyu beside her, picked up the Cape, and stood. “Lead me outside,” she said to Klandagi. All the chiefs followed her.

  Zeya looked into the fire, raised his voice to the skies, and sang. Thunderbird had promised that when he needed an eagle song, it would come to him, and it did. Four times he sang it through. When he finished, he had an answer, though it didn’t come in words.

  Zeya stepped outside to face the doomed. He felt calm and clear. Su-Li lit on his shoulder.

  “Lay down your weapons,” he told the escorts.

  “Rot in hell,” said the biggest one.

  “Lay down your weapons,” Zeya said again in a simple way. “If any of you chiefs have hidden weapons, put them down, too.”

  A gnarly man with a scarred face spoke up. “We got no chance, and you take away what little we got.”

  “If you need a miracle,” Zeya said, “you may as well ask for a big one.”

  He looked up at the trees. Dark shadows marked the leafless branches, where none had been before. Beyond the valley, V-shaped pairs of wings slashed the sky. I see even more, said Su-Li.

  “We don’t have long,” said Ninyu.

  Zeya looked carefully at the Tusca enemies.

  In fact, Zeya thought, they did have a while. Some of the Tuscas were still painting their faces as their medicine guided them. Some were putting on talismans from their spirit helpers. One fixed the body of a raven on top of his head. Another tied weasel tails into his hair. Far to one side a warrior pulled the entire head of a buffalo over his own head and face. Those who were ready fell into a mob, picketed with spears and war clubs.

  Zeya stepped up to the nearest escort, took his weapons out of his hands, and laid them on the ground. Then he turned to another escort. Klandagi caught on and accomplished the same with growls. Su-Li rasped at several of them. Quickly everyone was disarmed.

  “Now,” said Zeya, “no matter what happens, don’t strike a single Tusca man, don’t shed a drop of Galayi blood.”

  “No worries about that, is there?” said the big fighter.

  Zeya’s men tittered with weird laughter.

  “No matter what happens,” Zeya repeated.

  By that time the Tuscas were ready. Inaj marched forth, his son Wilu beside him, and the mob tramped behind the two. Some whirled buzzing noisemakers over their heads. Then Inaj loosed the Galayi war cry, and all two hundred warriors joined in—“Woh-WHO-O-O-ey! Woh-WHO-O-O-ey! AI-AI-AI-AI!”

  The escorts and chiefs eyed each other. Only one man of them expected to live.

  “Woh-WHO-O-O-ey! Woh-WHO-O-O-ey! AI-AI-AI-AI!”

  “Zeya,” said Tsola, “before you go, I ask you a favor. Take off my blindfold. I want to see this.”

  “Last thing you’ll ever see,” said the gnarly man.

  Zeya slipped the blindfold off and laid it in her lap. The Seer wove her fingers over her eyes, shutting out most of the light.

  “Woh-WHO-O-O-ey! Woh-WHO-O-O-ey! AI-AI-AI-AI!”

  “Are you ready?” said Zeya.

  “It’s all right to go to the Darkening Land,” said the gnarly man, “but I wanted to walk behind a man, not a boy.”

  Zeya smiled freely. “You won’t walk behind either one,” he said.

  The chiefs and warriors looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders.

  Zeya walked casually toward the enemy, as though on an evening stroll.

  “Woh-WHO-O-O-ey! Woh-WHO-O-O-ey! AI-AI-AI-AI!”

  From behind, the chiefs and warriors saw Zeya begin to change. His black hair turned russet. His face became a beak and two golden eyes. He turned one of the eyes to his comrades and one to the enemy. His arms grew feathers and were wings. His legs turned to talons. He spread his wings wide—he was the biggest eagle they’d ever seen.

  Exclamations burst from his followers. “I can’t believe it!” “What the hell?”

  Zeya and Su-Li lifted into the sky.

  His comrades stopped. Some took heart. Some thought they were abandoned and their feet wanted to flee. Then Ninyu said, “Look!”

  Eagles were circling above the meadow, hundreds of war eagles.

  Zeya started his own circle, close to the ground. The flock of eagles swooped down and fell in behind him and Su-Li. They wing-flapped once around the Tusca mob.

  The unarmed men gaped.

  The Tuscas took no particular notice. Inaj and Wilu looked at nothing but the pitiful, helpless enemies they were about to exterminate. “Woh-WHO-O-O-ey! Woh-WHO-O-O-ey! AI-AI-AI-AI!”

  Zeya said to Su-Li, May an eagle who is sometimes a Galayi kill a Galayi?

  Su-Li said, Let me do it for your mother.

  On the first pass he slashed at the Red Chief’s neck with a talon. Bright red spurted.

  There was no second pass. Su-Li swooped down from behind and dug into both of Inaj’s shoulders with his talons. The chief leaned his head back and screamed.

  Su-Li pecked the left eye viciously. Twice. Three times.

  Inaj’s screams filled the skies, and then were drowned out by the screams of his mob. Every warrior’s eyes were assaulted by an eagle, sometimes two. Every warrior flailed at the war birds with their weapons, and no man hurt a bird.

  Blood streamed down faces. Men collapsed onto the ground, holding their eyes and wailing. Some eyeballs squirted onto the bloodied earth.

  Zeya watched a few warriors manage to run away. He noticed that his uncle Wilu escaped. It didn’t matter. In the time a man needed to walk around his own village, the Tusca army was in tatters. Zeya looked around at his triumph. No, the eagles’ triumph.

  He coasted down and landed beside Inaj. Su-Li stood on the Red Chief’s chest, talons deep in the flesh.

  Zeya looked at the Red Chief writhing on the ground, blind, in agony, defeated. “Chief,” said Zeya, “as a grandfather, you were despicable.”

  Su-Li reached down deliberately with his beak, plucked up the large vein in his neck, and bit it in half.

  Tsola shut her eyes, thrust her arms into the air, and yelled, “Woh-WHO-O-O-ey! Woh-WHO-O-O-ey! AI-AI-AI-AI!”

  51

  Sunoya stopped and looked down the trail. Where it opened into a meadow, the remnants of the Tusca people wept openly, milled in agitation among their brush huts, or sat with their heads in their hands.

  “They feel doomed,” Zeya said.

  He had sent a runner ahead with the news. A family without men to hunt and fight would starve, or be overrun by enemies. These people faced extinction this very winter. The nip in the morning air felt like a sharp warning.

  “It’s terrible,” said Sunoya.

  They deserve it, said Su-Li.

  “No one deserves that,” said Ninyu.

  “We’ll help them,” said Zeya.

  “I lived in this village for seven years,” said Sunoya. Even though Inaj had driven her out.

  Klandagi growled. They all knew his assignment. A few Tusca warriors were wounded but alive, probably hiding in the forest. Klandagi’s mother was safe in the Cavern. “Guard Zeya,” she instructed Klandagi. “He is the future. Protect him.”

  At the camp Zeya said, “Let’s bring them all together.”

  When the people shambled into the common, heads down, feet dragging, Zeya spoke to them kindly. “I’m sorry about your men. You’ve he
ard the story—hundreds of war eagles attacked them.” He hesitated. “I called those eagles to war.”

  He let that sink in and went on. “You know why. They were about to wipe out the Soco band. Your Red Chief said so in the council—bragged about it. But Galayi must not shed the blood of other Galayi, ever. That’s how we will live from now on.

  “Know that Galayi people did not harm your men. The eagles did.

  “The other three bands have promised to take care of you. All the bands will come together tomorrow at the council lodge, the way we do for the Planting Moon ceremony every spring. Then all of us will bury your men with honor, on an east-facing slope, and with the ceremonies every Galayi deserves.

  “After that comes the hard part. You will choose new families to be part of, or they will choose you. We will stay at the Cheowa village until every Tusca is taken in. Then the Tusca band will exist no more. That saddens me. The one who gave me birth was a Tusca. I grieve that the legacy of your Red Chief, my grandfather, Inaj, is hatred and mass death.

  “Today let’s rest, and I’ll talk with you privately, anyone who wants to talk. Tomorrow morning we’ll walk to Cheowa.”

  Zeya spent the afternoon and evening listening to Tuscas who wanted to tell the stories of their lives, to mourn the loss of husbands, fathers, and sons, to speak their dread of the future, to confide anything at all. He listened well and spoke little.

  Sunoya watched amazed, stupefied. Her son. “I feel peculiar,” she told Su-Li.

  You raised him to be the one of prophecy, and he has exceeded all expectations.

  “I could never have done it without you.”

  Thunderbird sent me here to help you.

  “But I keep feeling like I’m losing something.”

  His greatness sets him apart, from you and all of us.

  She laid out these important words. “I came through for my mother.”

  You did.

  “All my life I thought maybe she was wrong.” She looked at the last two fingers of her right hand, the ones webbed at her birth. “I thought maybe I was cursed.”

  She did right. You chose the good. I’m honored to be your companion.

  She looked at him in shock. Her lips edged into a smile, and for a moment she felt weepy. Then the feeling came back. “I am bereft.”

  Su-Li said nothing.

  “What will I do now? I’m only forty winters old. Our people, if they reach forty, live to seventy a lot of times. What will I do?

  You are in the prime of life. You’ll have grandchildren to enjoy.

  Sunoya thought she heard something odd in his voice, but she didn’t know what it was. She’d learned long since that he didn’t tell her some things.

  “I should be with Jemel,” she said. She looked down the creek. She always found water soothing. “Would you like to go flying?”

  Yes.

  Again the odd tone.

  “Why don’t you go?” She looked across at Zeya, who was listening to people’s sorrows. “I’d like to be alone for a while.”

  Su-Li looked into her eyes, turned his head away, and launched.

  Sunoya meandered along the creek. She didn’t know what she wanted. Idly, she ate some rose hips, which she didn’t particularly care for. She found some berries the bears hadn’t yet gotten and sucked out their sweetness. She sat on a rock and dangled her feet in the cool water. Soon the creek would be cold—snow would cover the balds and on warm days melt into this running stream. She played in the bottom sand with her toes. She gazed at the leafless laurels across the stream and ruminated. Forty winters old, still vigorous and strong. Forty winters, and I’ve done what I came to Earth for.

  As the afternoon got warm, Sunoya got sleepy. She wrapped herself in her shawl and lay down in the grass. The shhh-shhh of the creek sang her to sleep. She dreamed that she was a bird—she couldn’t tell what kind—flying through a cloud. As a girl, when she dreamed of flying, it was exciting. Now the cloud changed everything. She couldn’t see the Earth, she couldn’t see the sky, she couldn’t see where she was going. She flapped and flapped and flapped but never figured out where she was, or where she should be, or what direction she was headed. She whimpered.

  Wilu stepped from behind a tree and stood over her.

  She whimpered again. That was all right with Wilu. No one could hear her, probably not even if she screamed. No one would hear them, not this far from the trail.

  He put a foot on either side of her, knelt, opened her mouth, and gagged her. She waggled her head and tried to yell, but too late. Her eyes gaped when she saw his face. He smiled down at her.

  He forced her hands above her head and bound them with deer hide thongs. She stared at the badger tied into his hair, a black head with a white stripe and a small jaw of amazing ferocity.

  He thought, You’ll find out just how ferocious.

  When she was secure, he stood up and put a foot between her legs, on her skirt. Now she wouldn’t be going anywhere. “A virgin,” he said.

  Slowly, he slipped his deerskin shirt over his head. One at a time, he slipped off his moccasins. He drew his knife out of his belt and set it beside her neck, untied the belt, held the breechcloth for a moment, and let it drop. He leered at her with hatred.

  He pulled a pouch off the belt, dug his fingers in, and rubbed his do-wa with bear grease. It was already hard, but he wanted her to see. He stroked himself several times, deliciously.

  Then he knelt between her legs, picked up the knife, and pulled out the neckline of her dress. With the sharp blade he cut the dress delicately from her neck to her breasts, then to her waist, then to the bottom of her skirt. He let his eyes linger on her. “Your breasts are beautiful, not that I give a damn.”

  He rubbed her crotch with greasy fingers. He glared into her eyes, hoping to see desire, but saw only hatred. He raised her knees and thrust himself into her.

  52

  Sunoya pulled Zeya away from a widow and said, “I’m going to die tomorrow.”

  Disbelief slapped his face. He saw her dress cut top to bottom and tied with her shawl. He looked into her eyes for the truth and saw it.

  He forgot everything else in the world. He couldn’t hear the woman he’d just been listening to. He forgot about Klandagi, who was never more than one leap away from him.

  “Take me seriously. I’m going to die now.” Now her speech stumbled. “And I have a lot to do…”

  She turned away from him and took one staggering step. He grabbed her. “Mother,” he said with an edge, “what happened?”

  She whirled on him like he was a culprit. “Wilu raped me. Just now.”

  “Where?” said Klandagi.

  “Down by the creek.” She waved a hand in that direction.

  Klandagi bounded off.

  Zeya wrapped his mother in his arms.

  Sunoya said, “I don’t know if I have enough concentration to call Su-Li.”

  At that moment the buzzard hovered over her, then perched on her shoulder.

  “Goodbye, friend,” she said to him.

  Zeya couldn’t hear what Su-Li said back, but he could guess.

  He knew the story. If any man ever had his mother, even by force, she would die. In a single day she would wither, grow ancient, and at the next sunset pass on to the Darkening Land. At the same moment she passed over, Su-Li would be whisked away beyond the Sky Arch. Sunoya knew, Zeya knew.

  They sat and he held her. Through the evening they stayed there. In the last of the light Su-Li perched on her shoulder. I understand, he said. All night long they stayed like that.

  In the morning Sunoya said, “I want to go to the bathroom.” Zeya walked with her.

  When they got back, she said, “I’m hungry.” Somehow he found two honeyed seed cakes for her. He ate nothing. For her to eat and die, he to starve and live—it was unspeakable.

  Word spread through the camp. The Tuscas packed up and left for the Cheowa village. People nodded to Zeya as they left, and no one spoke. He held Su
noya all day. Late in the afternoon she drifted out of consciousness. Zeya eased her down, lay beside her, and held her. Klandagi curled up nearby, and Su-Li perched on her arm.

  When the sun spread itself along the ridge of the mountain, lunacy rattled Zeya. He stammered out, “How long?” Then he smiled ruefully at himself for asking a question the buzzard couldn’t answer with signals.

  The buzzard perched on Sunoya’s hip now.

  “I’m going to stick out my hand and grab the sun and hold it in the sky,” he said. His mind hurled crazy thoughts at him, and one was: Stupid.

  When the sun was gone and only a little light lingered, Zeya said to Su-Li, “Will you be sad to go back?” Half of him despised the bitterness in his voice, and half of him didn’t give a damn.

  Su-Li turned one eye directly into Zeya’s face, and it glowed. He said, I love your mother.

  Zeya burst into tears. He snuggled into Sunoya’s back and let himself rock with great, pitching sobs.

  When the light was only a hint, and not even a hint, Zeya sat up and looked at the buzzard.

  Su-Li said, Maybe I love your world. The spirit animal’s head swiveled all the way around slowly. The two of them could barely see. It’s a terrible world. Time. Joy and horror, brutality and beauty. The death of every creature’s life for another. It’s love and murder, illness and art. It’s unspeakable. Zeya had never heard so many words in a row from Su-Li. He hesitated. This what Thunderbird sent me to Earth to learn. I’ve fallen in love with the world of Time.

  Sunoya said, “My friend, you do go on.” She chuckled soft and low. Zeya embraced her, kissed her cheek, clasped her hand, and looked back at Su-Li.

  The spirit animal was gone.

  For a moment Zeya couldn’t breathe. He squeezed his mother’s hand. He looked into her eyes—unmoving. He breathed. He closed the eyelids with tender fingers. He kissed the dead lips. He slid the zadayi from her dress and laid it on the outside, red side facing the world.

  53

  Klandagi didn’t want to sit and watch his friend die. He raged to take care of the rapist.

  He followed Wilu’s footsteps easily enough, muzzle to the ground. When the scent led onto the main trail to west, the big cat felt sure the Tusca warrior was headed for his own village. Maybe he had belongings he wanted to collect. And go where? thought Klandagi. The Tusca people existed no longer. After what had happened, no other Galayi village would take in a son of Inaj.

 

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