Children of the Dawn

by Patricia Rowe

  Ashan had a feeling that they were plotting against the Shahala. But what could they hope to do? Most of their people were accepting, or at least going along with, Shahala ways—except for the matter of the slaves, and Ashan hadn’t yet confronted them about that.

  Was Tsilka just a joke to be laughed at, as she and Mani had done? Or was she like a sickness left untreated by a busy shaman that grew ever more virulent until it was out of control and the victim died?

  Ashan wanted to lead without fear or force. She wanted to leave magic in the past. Still, she thought, magic might prove to be the only way to control the woman.

  The Moonkeeper turned her gaze to the Great River of Tor’s dreams. Chiawana, who could wear many colors, had today chosen deep blue flashed with silver. Ashan admired the magnificent river, then looked to the sere hills on the other side, up to the pale sky, to the low white sun.

  Half closing her eyelids, she let sunrays creep under her lashes. She tilted her head back, ran her hands through her long hair, down over her stretched throat. Crossing them over her breast, she inhaled, opened the pores of her skin to sun- shine, filled herself with it, became it. Joy slipped out as praise.

  “Spirit of the Sun! I love your light and warmth, most of all in winter!”

  Then she became herself again, a woman sitting on a rock.

  Ashan took the piece of cured hide from her medicine pouch and stretched it in her lap, leather side down, fur side up. She stroked the fur: soft; red-brown, white and gray; long and thick around the ears, short on the nose. Once it had shaped itself around the top of a coyote’s head.

  A coyote skin was a strange thing for Ashan to have—her people did not kill sacred animals.

  Tor hated the songdog’s hide. He wanted her to get rid of it. She had thought he’d get used to it, but he never had.

  Mani had found it when she and some Tlikit women were away from the village gathering nettles for cording. They came upon an argument of vultures, and drove them away to see if there was anything people could eat. The coyote they found was not long dead—the vultures had just begun their work. The meat was still good, and the Tlikit women thought they should take it home.

  They didn’t know about sacred animals, so Mani had explained, doing her best to use the proper Tlikit words.

  “The coyote, the eagle, and the beetle are the Creator’s favorites. People do not kill these sacred ones, even other animals do not. You see,” Mani had said, showing them its gray-furred chin, “this songdog died because of too many seasons. To honor it, we will burn it and bury the ashes.”

  Mani was learning the new language faster than anyone else—except Ashan, who’d awakened knowing it. The Tlikit women liked Mani, so they gathered dry brush and helped her cover the carcass.

  Before she sparked a fire, Mani had cut away the coyote’s headskin and put it in her waist pouch. She’d given it to Ashan, telling her she didn’t know why. It was one of those times when she just knew: She was supposed to bring it to the Moonkeeper.

  Neither did Ashan know why, but she had accepted it, and was making it into something that had no name because such a thing had never been made before.

  Following an inner voice, she scraped it clean; trimmed it, cutting carefully around the eyes, then sewing them shut; cut away the nose, lips, and whiskers, until what remained was a shape with three even sides. She burned the remains in a sacred fire. She left the ears on, split so they would dry straight; worked in brainflesh to cure it, fat to soften it, and wood ants to sweeten it.

  The headskin of the songdog was a fine thing now.

  This day Ashan planned to sew a piece of bison skin to the back. She had cut it in the same shape, and changed its color from golden to brown with root tea, an idea that came from watching a Tlikit woman color grass to weave into a basket.

  Twisting and pushing a bone awl, she began making sewing holes.

  The hairs on her neck stiffened; her eyes darted; her ears opened.

  Here it comes, she thought, gritting her teeth.

  Whenever she worked on the songdog’s hide, fear crept in and overshadowed respect and gratitude. Fear was not a good feeling for a Moonkeeper.

  “But it was so bad,” she said. The memory choked her, filled her with tears. “To see those lights rushing at me. To fall and fall.”

  The bone awl pierced the other side. She backed it out and started another hole, trying to keep them evenly spaced.

  “Why would Coyote Spirit throw me from a cliff? Why did I have to suffer that? How can I trust anything?”

  She heard only the whine of her own voice.

  Because of his twin natures, Spilyea was the hardest of the Animal Spirits to understand. What could not be understood could not be predicted, and predicting was a Moonkeeper’s work. She had to keep trying, in spite of fear. The headskin in her lap forgotten, she concentrated on what she knew:

  From the Misty Time, Coyote Spirit was a friend to people. He had a quick, stubborn mind. Coyote was the one who suffered many failures making the First Man and First Woman, but did not give up. Coyote begged Amotkan to give his mud dolls breath—and speech, which he himself did not have. Through time, he stayed interested in people, teaching them survival skills, as if he wanted to keep improving what he had made.

  “I understand that,” Ashan said. “Coyote made us. So he loves us. Like we love our children.”

  She looked at a nearby rock where a spirit would sit if one were here.

  “Or do you?” she asked.

  No answer.

  Ashan would not give up—not this time.

  “Spilyea: We know you as Friend, and also as Trickster. You are the Playful Spirit. But what is play to you can be death to others. How can you play deadly tricks on your friends? People would not indulge in such mean fun.”

  Today, because she had been strong and patient, Spilyea spoke in her mind.

  You know me as two, Trickster and Friend, but I am many. I am Destiny’s hand. Destiny needs your sacrifices, but you are weak. Would you have jumped from the cliff?

  “Of course not.”

  So I pushed you. As a Friend.

  “Why would Destiny need me to bear such terror? To be so badly hurt? Is Destiny an unkind spirit?”

  No. But only shared crisis kept the meeting of the tribes peaceful.

  “I see.”

  People had come together over Ashan’s almost-death.

  After that day, she no longer feared Spilyea. She had a better understanding of him than anyone ever had. No one, not even a Moonkeeper, could ever know, or trust, Coyote Spirit. But if he harmed her again, Ashan believed that it would be for a reason more important than one woman’s terror and pain.

  CHAPTER 14

  TSILKA SAID TO THE WOMEN, “BOTH OF YOU WILL pretend to get sick.”

  Elia’s mother, Euda, had a sister named Yak. One was as fat in body and sour in spirit as the other. Neither had a mate. Before the Shahala intruders came to the Great River, they’d spent much of their time arguing with each other. More than once, Tsilka had had to get between them, and send one up the river and the other down to cool their anger.

  Now, with Tsilka’s help, Euda and Yak had turned their sourness against the intruders instead of each other. Today they were making a plan to ruin belief in Ashan’s power to heal.

  Tsilka said, “You’ll pretend to be very sick… maybe something in the belly… something with lots of howling, so everyone will know. One will go to the Shalala Moonkeeper to be cured. The other will refuse.”

  The fat sisters looked baffled. They were not the smartest women in the tribe.

  Tsilka continued. “The one who goes to the Moonkeeper will pretend to get sicker. The other will pretend to get better, without any help from the Shahala medicine woman.”

  The sisters looked at each other, smiling as they understood.

  Euda sneered, “I want to be the one to go to her. I want to be there when she sees that her medicine isn’t working.”

 
“Fine,” Yak said. “I will be the one who is smart enough to refuse.”

  Tsilka smiled. She couldn’t help thinking how smart she was to have these two agreeing with each other.

  “You will come to me for help, Yak. I will be the one who makes you well. Our people will see that Tlikit ways are good enough for Tlikit people.”

  “But Tsilka, you don’t know anything about medicine.”

  “What does that matter? You won’t really be sick.”

  Awakening, Ashan touched the empty place next to her, and remembered that Tor had gone hunting. Kai El and Tenka still slept in the gray light of early morning. Ashan knelt by the fire ring and struck her sparkstones. As she blew into a glowing wad of dry grass, she heard scratching on the doorskin.

  “Moonkeeper?” Elia said.

  “Shh… I’ll come out.”

  She blew again and the smoldering grass flamed. She used a stick to poke it under the waiting kindling, then stepped out into a drizzle.

  Elia looked worried. “Mother very sick. And mother sister. They cry. Moonkeeper fix?”

  The Tlikit tribe had no medicine woman. Over time, they had stumbled over a few helpful plants, but they possessed nothing close to Shahala knowledge, taught to First Woman by plants themselves, handed down from Moonkeeper to Moonkeeper since the Misty Time. Tor had told Ashan that the Tlikit seldom got sick; if they did, they either got better by good luck, or died. As she followed the boy, Ashan thought this would be a good chance to show the Tlikit people the value of a chief who was also a medicine woman. That is, unless the sickness was something over which she had no control. No shaman could heal every person who came to her. The Shahala understood this. Would the Tlikit?

  Let it be something easy, she prayed, but loud groans as she approached told her to expect the worst.

  Entering the cave, Elia said in Tlikit, “I brought the Moonkeeper. She knows everything. She will fix what is wrong.”

  Stepping into darkness, Ashan wrinkled her nose, then told herself to ignore the stale, unpleasant smell. An oil lamp glowed in the depths of the cave. A knot of Tlikit people parted to let her through. She saw two moaning women, side by side, doubled up, writhing under sleeping skins. Tsilka was kneeling at one side. Ashan knelt at the other.

  Euda grabbed her hand.

  “We’re sick!” she cried.

  “We’re dying!” cried the other, whose name Ashan didn’t know.

  “Easy,” she said in their language. “Let me look at you.”

  The Moonkeeper felt their tear-streaked faces: sweaty and warm with excitement, but not hot with fever. She pushed the sleeping skins down.

  They should eat less, she thought. All this fat isn’t good. It’s like carrying a heavy pack around all the time.

  The weeping women clutched their bellies. Prying Euda’s fingers loose, Ashan pressed on her belly, feeling for hardness, but couldn’t feel anything through all that flesh. She thumped with her fingertips. The sound was solid, not hollow as it would be if the woman were filled with stinking air.

  Euda howled and pushed her hand away.

  Ashan thought it odd that the same thing happened at the same time to sisters. They must have eaten something harmful. If so, she would have them eat ashes to soak up the poison.

  “Did you eat something different?” she asked.

  “No,” Euda moaned.

  “Think,” Ashan said. “You were out gathering yesterday. Maybe you found something new and tasted it?”

  “No,” the other one said. “We did not.”

  “Did you eat food that was spoiled?”

  “Do you think we are stupid?”

  “Of course not… what is your name?”

  “Yak,” the woman said, then scrunched her face, let out a long, painful “ooowww,” doubled up tight, and rolled onto her side.

  Maybe they were bound up inside from eating too much meat and not enough plants. For that she would give cascara bark she had brought from the homeland.

  “Do you make waste every day?”

  “Yes,” they groaned.

  “Are the wastes runny or strange-colored?”

  “No,” Euda said.

  “Who looks at their own waste?” Yak said.

  “Do you feel like vomiting?”

  “No. It’s pain I feel.” Euda howled. “Owwww… the pain!”

  “Aiyeee!” Yak cried.

  Ashan thought of little worms that could get in the belly, but they usually took their time to make a person sick, and these two had been fine yesterday. Kia leaf, the poison to kill worms, was strong. She didn’t want to chance making them sicker than they already were.

  Ashan didn’t need to look at the people around her to feel their fear—not so much for the sick women, but for themselves, that it might happen to them.

  She wished she knew what was causing the pain, so she’d know exactly how to treat it. Sweet spear was the only thing she could think of to use. At least it was safe. Tenka had found a patch in a tree-sheltered place up the river, dug some roots and brought them home. If only Ashan could be sure that it really was sweet spear.

  Sweet spear and blue spear—named for the shape of then-leaves—both had healing power in finger-thick roots that ran just beneath the ground. They liked damp, shady places, and sometimes grew together. Sweet spear made stems with fleshy thumbs on the end instead of flowers. Its roots were good for stomach pains. Blue spear had beautiful, large three-part flowers. The ground-up root was used as a poultice for wounds, but must never be eaten, for it was poisonous.

  Because the plants could easily be mistaken, they were only gathered in the spring when the blue was in flower. It was autumn now, but…

  “Rest,” the Moonkeeper said to the groaning women. “Try to be calm. I’ll bring medicine to ease your pain.”

  In the Moonkeeper’s hut, Ashan questioned Tenka about the roots.

  “The leaves were withered,” Tenka said. “It’s lucky I even saw them. Maybe it was their voice I heard.”

  “Did the leaves smell tart, like sorrel?”

  “Umm, I think so.”

  Ashan scraped a root with her thumbnail and smelled. She tasted. She couldn’t be certain.

  Tenka said, “It was very wet there, more than blue spear likes. I’m sure it’s sweet spear.”

  Euda ate the ground-up roots.

  But Yak refused.

  “Shahala medicine is for Shahala people,” she said loudly. “Tsilka will cure me with Tlikit medicine.”

  As the cave full of people watched, Tsilka gave something to Yak. She swallowed it before Ashan saw what it was.

  Soon Euda was howling, then screaming.

  But Yak was better.

  “Look, people,” she said, getting up. “Tsilka’s medicine has cured me. My foolish sister should have listened.”

  “Aiyee! Aiyeee!” Euda cried, rolling from side to side, clutching her gut. “Somebody help me!”

  Ashan tried to comfort her, to no avail.

  “She’s dying!” people said. “The Moonkeeper has killed her!”

  Ashan turned to them. “Trust me. Euda is not dying. She needs another medicine, that’s all.”

  “Show me where you dug the roots, Tenka,” she said, and they hurried off.

  The autumn-yellow spears lay withered on the ground. Ashan crushed one in her fingers, and her heart sank. It smelled bland, like grass—even dead, a sweet spear leaf should have a faint tart smell.

  “We’ve made a mistake, Tenka. It’s blue spear. I gave her blue spear.”

  “Oh, no. Will she die?”

  “Maybe not. If we hurry.”

  The Moonkeepers ran all the way.

  After the Moonkeeper left the cave, Yak went around telling people how good she felt from Tsilka’s medicine.

  Tsilka whispered to Euda, who was still crying loudly.

  “How convincing. You sound like you’re dying.”

  “Ohhh,” Euda moaned. “I am dying. Ohhh… ”

  “You
don’t have to pretend for me.”

  “I’m not pretending. I’m dying, I tell you. She gave me poison. She knew our plan, and she poisoned me. Ohhh… I should never have listened to you.”

  Tsilka actually saw Euda’s gut tighten in a cramp. The woman wrapped her arms around herself, weeping from the pain.

  What was happening?

  Tsilka’s plan had fallen apart, but she liked where the pieces were landing. If Euda died—and Tsilka thought she just might—no one would ever trust Ashan’s medicine again. If they didn’t trust her medicine, they would not trust her.

  One step closer, Tsilka thought, to pushing my enemy out of power, to taking her place as chief of this village.

  Ashan brought a bowl of wood ashes to the sick woman, but she screamed in pain and fear.

  “You poisoned me! You poisoned me!” she cried, refusing to eat any.

  Ignoring the people around her, Ashan—who was truly afraid for Euda’s life—chanted a song about courage in the face of evil, shaking an old turtle-shell rattle. She called on pain-soothing spirits. Euda began to calm, then slipped into Ashan’s control. She ate some ashes, and in a while she felt a little better.

  Ashan stayed until Euda was well. It took three days.

  Only she and Tenka knew about the mistake. Tenka would not forgive herself. Ashan told her over and over that everyone—even a Moonkeeper—makes mistakes.

  “In this whole world, Rising Star, only Amotkan is perfect.”

  Tsilka’s plot had mixed results. Euda called her an evil witch, blaming her for all her pain, for almost dying, even though she herself had thought it a fine idea at the beginning. Euda believed in the Moonkeeper now, partly from fear of what she could do to someone who plotted against her. But there was more to it than just fear. She also believed the Moonkeeper had saved her life. Ashan had somehow won her over in the three days she sat by her side. Tsilka had lost a weapon.

  But others announced they wouldn’t let the Shahala Moonkeeper touch them, no matter how sick they might get. Tlikit medicine was good enough for Tlikit people, as Yak’s experience proved.