People of the Fire(111)

"But you’ve told me for years that he's a liar, that his Power is all made up."

"It is. You see, he does make it up. But think about it for a bit. I know you hate the idea that the world is illusion, but consider this because it's the secret of his strength. Heavy Beaver's Power is in the heads of others."

Little Dancer stopped, turning on his heel. "Huh?"

She gave him a knowing squint, a trace of satisfaction in the set of her lips. "That's right. His Power is in the heads of other people. They believe for him. If you will, they Dream the reality of his Power—and it's all illusion."

"Illusion?"

"As compared to the One."

"But what if Oneness is illusion, too?"

"Then it's the ultimate illusion. But it works. Since you've been here, you've told me about the bighorn trap. You've told me how you Dreamed the antelope to come to your mother's trap and feed the People. You've told me about the Dreams, but what I've never told you is that your Dreaming with the One was so powerful that time that I shared it."

He stared at her. "You ..."

She waved it away. "Oh, yes, I felt you and your hunger. So did the antelope . . . and the mountain sheep. That's why if the One is illusion, it's the most powerful. Think about it and remember when we had our argument that first day about me proving you really existed. I knew you were real by having shared that Dream. And that's how you know antelope and mountain sheep exist. You've been One with them/'

A chill realization, colder than the icy wind tearing over the rocky crags, ate into his very soul. For long moments, he stood, locked in his thoughts as the pieces began to tumble into place. He nodded absently, raising his gaze from the crusted, ice-flaked snow to ask her more, but she'd left. He stopped to kick at a sagebrush, exulting, before racing after her disappearing back.

Lost in thought, Elk Charm handed Two Smokes a horn bowl of steaming mountain-sheep stew. She walked over to sit cross-legged on the fill before the shelter, eyes unconsciously straying to the trail that led down from the high ridge.

''Still waiting for him?"

"Yes." And her heart tore.

"He'll be back," Two Smokes told her, sipping the hot stew.

"He'll be back," Rattling Hooves echoed from where she sat weaving grasses together for a collecting basket.

Elk Charm didn't need to turn to know the worry in her mother's face. Although she'd been a child at the time, that assurance had filled many a night in her father's lodge during the long spring of his absence. Not until Ramshorn found his body melting out of the snow slide the next spring had the phrase been dropped.

She bit her lip as she did so often these days, anxious gaze tracing every crook and turn of the trail as it made its way up the slope, over the outcrops, and around the patches of rabbitbrush and sage.

"He had to go," she reminded herself, trying not to think of the things that could have happened. A broken leg in the black timber would have meant a terrible death. A careless step on an unstable slope could trigger an avalanche. A misstep on an icy trail and a fall could . . . No, don y t think it.

"Yes," Two Smokes' voice soothed. "He had to go. Someone had to check on White Calf. I think, too, the Dreams were . . . Well, he needed to talk to White Calf. Maybe, after all the fights they had over the years, this was good. Maybe they needed this time to finally talk."

She couldn't deny it. How many nights had he tossed and turned, waking to stare at the wolf face that had been so laboriously pecked into the rock in the back of the shelter? Even sitting in the sun as she was, she could feel the wolf effigy staring at the back of her head. Sometimes, when she'd been awakened by Little Dancer's troubled sleep, she'd look up, and could swear the eyes glowed yellow in the night.

And the tension had ebbed in the shelter. People no longer snapped at each other, looking furtively at Little Dancer.

Laughter had returned, the Short Buffalo People learning Anit'ah, while the Red Hand learned their language in return. Stories had been told in both languages—a healing. And Little Dancer's leaving had triggered it all.

The memory of that last day stung with the burning of cactus in a finger. "You've got to go. You've got to see White Calf."

"I don't like her. She'll just push me."

"Please," she pleaded. "Otherwise, the Dreams will tear us apart. Two Smokes knows. Go, ask him. I love you, Little Dancer. If not for yourself or the others, do this for me. Please."

And he'd gone, knowing all the while that he'd wanted to, and refusing to admit it to himself.

"But so long?" The question she dared not allow herself slipped out.

Her mother's feet grated on the pebbles and a warm hand settled on her shoulder. "It hasn't been so long, daughter."