Herbert, Frank

by Soul Catcher (lit)

  "Does it mean something?" David asked. He started to turn, but a hand on his shoulder restrained him.

  "It is the name my people gave to something that floats far out on the water, something strange that cannot be identified. It is the name we gave to your people because you came that way to us from the water."

  David did not like the hand on his shoulder, but feared saying anything about it. He felt that his being, his private flesh, had been offended. Opposing forces struggled in him. He had been prepared for an event which he could almost see, and this ritual failed to satisfy him.

  He asked: "Is that all there is to it?"

  "No. It is time for you to learn my name."

  "You said we could go."

  "We will go soon."

  "Well . . . what's your name?"

  "Katsuk."

  David fought down a shudder. "What's that mean?"

  "Many, many things. It is the center of the universe."

  "Is it an Indian word?"

  "Indian! I am sick with being Indian, with living out a five-hundred-year-old mistake!"

  The hand on David's shoulder gripped him hard, shook him with each word. David went very still. Suddenly, he knew for the first time he was in danger. Katsuk. It had an ugly sound. He could not understand why, but the name suggested deadly peril. He whispered: "Can we go now?"

  Katsuk said: "Mamook memaloost! Kechgi tsuk achat kamooks. . . ."

  In the old tongue, he promised it all: I will sacrifice this Innocent. I will give him to the spirits who protect me. I will send him into the underplaces and his eyes will be the two eyes of the worm. His heart will not beat. His mouth. . . ."

  "What're you saying?" David demanded.

  But Katsuk ignored him, went on to the end of it.

  Katsuk makes this promise in the name of Soul Catcher."

  David said: "I don't understand you. What was all that?"

  "You are the Innocent," Katsuk said. "But I am Katsuk. I am the middle of everything. I live everywhere. I see you hoquat all around. You live like dogs. You are great liars. You see the moon and call it a moon. You think that makes it a moon. But I have seen it all with my good eye and recognize without words when a thing exists."

  "I want to go back now."

  Katsuk shook his head. "We all want to go back, Innocent Hoquat. We want the place where we can deal with our revelation and weep and punish our senses uselessly. You talk and your world sours me. You have only words that tell me of the world you would have if I permitted you to have it. But I have brought you here. I will give you back your own knowledge of what the universe knows. I will make you know and feel. You really will understand. You will be surprised. What you learn will be what you thought you already knew."

  "Please, can't we go now?"

  "You wish to run away. You think there is no place within you to receive what I will give you. But it will be driven into your heart by the thing itself. What folly you have learned! You think you can ignore such things as I will teach. You think your senses cannot accept the universe without compromise. Hoquat, I promise you this: you will see directly through to the thing at its beginning. You will hear the wilderness without names. You will feel colors and shapes and the temper of this world. You will see the tyranny. It will fill you with awe and fear."

  Gently, David tried to pull away from the restraining hand, to put distance between himself and these terrifying words of almost-meaning. Indians should not speak this way!

  But the hand shifted down to his left arm, held it painfully.

  No longer trying to conceal his fear, David said: "You're hurting me!"

  The pressure eased, but not enough to release him.

  Katsuk said: "We have shared names. You will stay."

  David held himself motionless. Confusion filled his mind. He felt that he had been kicked, injured in a way that locked all his muscles. Katsuk released his arm. Still David remained fixed in that position.

  Fighting dryness in his mouth, David said: "You're trying to scare me. That's it, isn't it? That's the initiation. The other guys are out there waiting to laugh."

  Katsuk ignored the words. He felt the spirit power grow and grow. "l am Tamanawis speaking to you --" With slow, deliberate movements, he took an elkhide thong from his pouch, whipped it over the boy's shoulders, bound his arms tightly to his body.

  David began twisting, struggling to escape. "Hey! Stop that! You're hurting me!"

  Katsuk grabbed the twisting hands, pinioned the wrists in a loop of the thong.

  David struggled with the strength of terror, but the hands tying him could not be resisted. The thong bit painfully into his flesh.

  "Please stop it," David pleaded. "What're you doing?"

  "Shut up, Hoquat!"

  This was a new and savage voice, as powerful as the hands which held him.

  Chest heaving, David fell silent. He was wet with perspiration and the moment he stopped struggling, the wind chilled him. He felt his captor remove the knife and sheath, working the belt out with harsh, jerking motions, then reclasping the belt without putting it into its loops.

  Katsuk bent close to the boy, face demoniac in the moonlight. His voice was a blare of passion: "Hoquat! Do what I tell you to do, or I will kill you immediately." He brandished David's knife.

  David nodded without control of the motion, unable to speak. A tide of bitter acid came into his throat. He continued to nod until Katsuk shook him.

  "Hoquat, do you understand me?"

  He could barely manage the word: "Yes."

  And David thought: "I'm being kidnapped! It was all a trick."

  All the horror stories he'd heard about murdered kidnap victims flooded into his mind, set his body jerking with terror. He felt betrayed, shamed at his own stupidity for falling into such a trap.

  Katsuk produced another thong, passed it beneath David's arms, around his chest, knotted it, and took the free end in one hand. He said: "We have a long way to go before daylight. Follow me swiftly or I will bury your body beside the trail and go on alone."

  Turning, Katsuk jerked the rope, headed at a trot toward the dark wall of trees across the bracken clearing.

  David, the stench of his own fear in his nostrils, stumbled into motion to keep from being pulled off his feet.

  * * *

  * * *

  Statement of Bruce Clark, chief counselor at Six Rivers Camp:

  Well, the first night we make the boys write a letter home. We don't give them any dinner until they've written. We hand them paper and pencil there in the rec room and we tell them they have to write the letter before they can eat. They get their meal cards when they hand in the letter. The Marshall boy, I remember him well. He was on the six-o'clock news and there was a kind of hooraw about it when his father's picture came on and it was announced that the father was the new Undersecretary of State. The Marshall boy wrote a nice long letter, both sides of the paper. We only give them one sheet. I remember thinking: There's probably a good letter. His folks'll enjoy getting that.

  * * *

  * * *

  About an hour after sunrise, Katsuk led Hoquat at a shambling trot to the foot of the shale slope he had set as his first night's goal. The instant they stopped, the boy collapsed on the ground. Katsuk ignored this and concentrated on studying the slope, noting the marks of a recent slide.

  At the top of the slope a stand of spruce and willow concealed a notch in the cliff. The trees masked a cave and the spring which fed the trees. The cliff loomed as a gray eminence behind the trees. The slide made it appear no one could climb to the notch.

  Katsuk felt his heart beating strongly. Vapor formed at his mouth when he breathed. The morning was cold, although there would be sunlight here below the cliff later. The sharp smell of mint scratched at his awareness. Mint fed by the runoff of the spring protruded from rocks at the bottom of the slide. The odor reminded Katsuk that he was hungry and thirsty.

  That would pass, he knew.

  Even if
the searchers used dogs, Katsuk did not believe they would get this far. He had used a scent-killer of his own making many times during the night, had broken trail four times by wading into streams, starting one way, killing the scent, then doubling back.

  The low light of morning set the world into sharp relief. Off to his right at the edge of the rockslide red fireweed plumes swayed on the slope. A flying squirrel glided down the slope into the trees. Katsuk felt the flow of life all around him, glanced down at Hoquat sprawled in a bracken clump, a picture of complete fatigue.

  What a hue and cry would be raised for this one. What a prize! What headlines! A message that could not be denied.

  Katsuk glanced up at the pale sky. The pursuers would use helicopters and other aircraft, of course. They would be starting out soon. Just about now, they would be discovering at the camp what had been done to them. The serious, futile hoquat with their ready-made lives, their plastic justifications for existence, would come upon something new and terrifying: a note from Katsuk. They would know that the place of safety in which their spirits cowered had been breached.

  He tugged at the thong that linked him to Hoquat, got only a lifted head and questioning stare from eyes bright with fear and fatigue. Tear streaks lined the boy's face.

  Katsuk steeled himself against sympathy. His thoughts went to all the innocents of his own people who had died beneath guns and sabers, died of starvation, of germ-laden blankets deliberately sold to the tribes to kill them off.

  "Get up," Katsuk said.

  Hoquat struggled to his feet, stood swaying, shivering. His clothes were wet with trail dew.

  Katsuk said: "We are going to climb this rock slope. It is a dangerous climb. Watch where I put my feet. Put your feet exactly where I have. If you make a mistake, you will start a slide. I will save myself. You will be buried in the slide. Is this understood?"

  Hoquat nodded.

  Katsuk hesitated. Did the boy have sufficient reserves of strength to do this? The nod of agreement could have been fearful obedience without understanding.

  But what did it matter? The spirits would preserve this innocent for the consecrated arrow, or they would take him. Either way, the message would be heard. There was no reprieve.

  The boy stood waiting for the nightmare journey to continue. A dangerous climb? All right. What difference did it make? Except that he must survive this, must live to escape. The madman had called him Hoquat, had forced him to answer to that name. More than anything else, this concentrated a core of fury in the boy.

  He thought: My name is David. David, not Hoquat. David-not-Hoquat.

  His legs ached. His feet were wet and sore. He felt that if he could just close his eyes right here he could sleep standing up. When he blinked, his eyelids felt rough against his eyes. His left arm was sore where a long red abrasion had been dragged across his skin by the rough bark of a tree. It had torn both his jacket and shirt. The madman had cursed him then: a savage voice out of darkness.

  The night had been a cold nightmare in a black pit of trees. Now he saw morning's rose vapors on the peaks, but the nightmare continued.

  Katsuk gave a commanding tug on the thong, studied the boy's response. Too slow. The fool would kill them both on that slide.

  "What is your name?" Katsuk asked.

  The voice was low, defiant: "David Marshall."

  Without change of expression, Katsuk delivered a sharp backhand blow to the boy's cheek, measuring it to sting but not injure. "What is your name?"

  "You know my name!"

  "Say your name."

  "It's Dav --"

  Again, Katsuk struck him.

  The boy stared at him, defiant, fighting back tears.

  Katsuk thought: No reprieve . . . no reprieve --

  "I know what you want me to say," the boy muttered. His jaws pulsed with the effort of holding back tears.

  No reprieve.

  "Your name," Katsuk insisted, touching the knife at his waist. The boy's eyes followed the movement.

  "Hoquat." It was muttered, almost unintelligible.

  "Louder."

  The boy opened his mouth, screamed: "Hoquat!"

  Katsuk said: "Now, we will climb."

  He turned, went up the shale slope. He placed each foot with care: now on a flat slab jutting from the slide, now on a sloping buttress which seemed anchored in the mountain. Once, a rock shifted under his testing foot. Pebbles bounded down into the trees while he waited, poised to jump if the slope went. The rocks remained in place, but he sensed the trembling uncertainty of the whole structure. Cautiously, he went on up.

  At the beginning of the climb, he watched to see that Hoquat made each step correctly, found the boy occupied with bent-head concentration, step for step, a precise imitation.

  Good.

  Katsuk concentrated on his own climbing then.

  At the top, he grasped a willow bough, pulled them both into the shelter of the trees.

  In the shaded yellow silence there, Katsuk allowed the oil-smooth flow of elation to fill him. He had done this thing! He had taken the Innocent and was safe for the moment. He had all the survival seasons before him: the season of the midge, of the cattail flowering, of salal ripening, of salmonberries, the season of grubs and ants -- a season for each food.

  Finally, there would be a season for the vision he must dream before he could leave the Innocent's flesh to be swallowed by the spirits underground.

  Hoquat had collapsed to the ground once more, unaware of what waited him.

  Abruptly, a thunderous flapping of wings brought Katsuk whirling to the left. The boy sat up, trembling. Katsuk peered upward between the willow branches at a flight of ravens. They circled the lower slopes, then climbed into the sunlight. Katsuk's gaze followed the birds as they swam in the sky sea. A smile of satisfaction curved his lips.

  An omen! Surely an omen!

  Deerflies sang in the shadows behind him. He heard water dripping at the spring.

  Katsuk turned.

  At the sound of the ravens, the boy had retreated into the tree shadows as far as the thong would allow. He sat there now, staring at Katsuk, and his forehead and hair caught the first sunlight in the gloom like a trout flashing in a pool.

  The Innocent must be hidden before the searchers took to the sky, Katsuk thought. He pushed past the boy, found the game trail which his people had known here for centuries.

  "Come," he said, tugging at the thong.

  Katsuk felt the boy get up and follow.

  At the rock pool where the spring bubbled from the cliff, Katsuk dropped the thong, stretched out, and buried his face in the cold water. He drank deeply.

  The boy sprawled beside him, would have pitched head foremost into the pool if Katsuk had not caught him.

  "Thirsty," Hoquat whispered.

  "Then drink."

  Katsuk held the boy's shoulder while he drank. Hoquat gasped and sputtered, coming up at last with his face and blond hair dripping.

  "We will go into the cave now," Katsuk said.

  The cave was a pyramidal black hole above the pool, its entrance hidden from the sky by a mossy overhang which dripped condensation. Katsuk studied the cave mouth a moment for sign that an animal might be occupying it, saw no sign. He tugged at the thong, led Hoquat up the rock ledge beside the pool and into the cave.

  "I smell something," the boy said.

  Katsuk sniffed: There were many old odors -- animal dung, fur, fungus. All of them were old. Bear denned here because it was dry, but none had been here for at least a year.

  "Bear den last year," he said.

  He waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, found a rock spur too high up on the cave's wall for the boy to reach with his tied hands, secured the end of the thong on the spur.

  The boy stood with his back against the rock wall. His gaze followed every move Katsuk made. Katsuk wondered what he was thinking. The eyes appeared feverish in their intensity.

  Katsuk said: "We will rest here today.
There is no one to hear you if you shout. But if you shout, I will kill you. I will kill you at the first outcry. You must learn to obey me completely. You must learn to depend on me for your life. Is that understood?"

  The boy stared at him, unmoving, unspeaking.

  Katsuk gripped the boy's chin, peered into his eyes, met rage and defiance.

  "Your name is Hoquat," Katsuk said.

  The boy jerked his chin free.

  Katsuk put a finger gently on the red mark on Hoquat's cheek from the two blows at the rockslide. Speaking softly, he said: "Do not make me strike you again. We should not have that between us."

  The boy blinked. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes, but he shook them out with an angry gesture.

  Still in that soft voice, Katsuk said: "Answer to your name when I ask you. What is your name now?"

  "Hoquat." Sullen, but clear.

  "Good."

  Katsuk went to the cave mouth, paused there to let his senses test the area. Shadows were shortening at the end of the notch as the sun climbed higher. Bright yellow skunk cabbages poked from the shadowed water at the lower end of the spring pool.

  It bothered him that he had struck Hoquat, although strong body-talk had been required then.

  Do I pity Hoquat? he wondered. Why pity anyone?

  But the boy had showed surprising strength. He had spirit in him. Hoquat was not a whiner. He was not a coward. His innocence lay within a real person whose center of being remained yet unformed but was gaining power. It would be easy to admire this Innocent.

  Must I admire the victim? Katsuk wondered.

  That would make this thing all the more difficult. Perhaps it would occur, though, as a special test of Katsuk's purpose. One did not slay an innocent out of casual whim. One who wore the mantle of Soul Catcher dared not do a wrong thing. If it were done, it must fit the demands of the spirit world.

  Still, it would be a heavy burden to kill someone you admired. Too heavy a burden? Without the need for immediate decision, he could not say. This was not an issue he wanted to confront.

  Again, he wondered: Why was I chosen for this?