People of the Fire(128)
Then, when everyone had eaten, they would talk of Blood Bear's request for warriors.
Little Dancer had found himself a place to sit in the rear, where he could see and hear and avoid involvement in the talks as much as possible. For the moment, he simply enjoyed the night, watching the firelight play on Elk Charm's beautiful face. Already, he missed her long luxurious hair. How would it be to make love to her in the evening and not have that soft wealth spilling around him? How would it be, not to be able to reach over in the night, as he so often did, and run the silky strands through his fingers?
His infant daughter had dropped off to sleep in Elk Charm's arms. Her mouth—toothless and pink—hung partly open in her fat face while tiny fists clutched nothingness. She'd pinched her eyes shut, giving herself a strained look. Only infants worked that hard at sleeping.
He looked over to see his oldest daughter—finger in mouth, dirt and soot smudged around her face—watching wide-eyed as Grasshopper attempted to flake a stone tool. Dancing Leaf, Black Crow's number-two daughter, rested on her knees, offering sarcastic advice—to Grasshopper's infinite disgust. The clacking of his futile stonework lent background to the rising and falling talk of the adults.
Meadowlark and Makes Fun hovered about the fire and poked anxiously with their digging sticks where the deer fawn roasted under layers of dirt covered by a bed of glowing coals. The meat had been wrapped in balsam leaves and packed with biscuit root and yarrow leaves for flavoring. So sealed, it simmered in its own juices. Unborn fawn cooked over an open fire fit anyone's description of delicacy—but roasted like this? Little Dancer's mouth watered at the thought.
Meadowlark shot wary glances toward Three Toes, who listened with interest to whatever Ramshorn said. The hunter still had to concentrate to keep track of the Anit'ah tongue, but he'd learned over the years. Black Crow simply nodded, smoking willow bark in his straight clay pipe. Rattling Hooves monitored the roasting pit full of pine-nut patties Makes Fun had produced that afternoon. Already the sweet odor had begun to seep from the insulating layer of earth to tantalize the air.
Two Smokes, looking like the elder he'd become, sat propped comfortably, maimed leg stuck out. He used a small rock to press a bone awl through an elk hide he'd tanned and cut to size. As he punched the hole, he'd double-stitch the seam of the jacket he worked. His attention did not wander; no single word uttered by Ramshorn missed his keen ears. Only a careful observer would notice the flash of his eyes as Ramshorn told of this or that occurrence. The weathered expression of Two Smokes' face seemed to tighten at each mention of Blood Bear.
Beyond the ring of the fire, Little Dancer could occasionally make out wolf's shadow as he slipped through the sagebrush, perpetually alert. That link—now so familiar—never seemed to weaken. They both waited, always knowing it must happen some day. Wolf tolerated the People, and they watched him skeptically, understanding instinctively that this wasn't simply a displaced animal, but something more. In the passing years, that knowledge had set Little Dancer apart. Even Hungry Bull treated him with respect and no little awkwardness.
The people didn't know quite what to make of his yearly winter visits to White Calf's. They simply accepted. Spirit Power was good to have around—and unnerving at the same time.
Little Dancer had built his own Power wheel out of stones on the windblown flat above the canyon. There they'd find him every so often as the sun came up, checking the alignment of his lines of rocks where they transected the circle. They looked at him with awe when he calmly told them that a certain day was the longest of the year, or that winter would only last a moon more before the final melt started.
When someone got hurt, they came to him, expecting him to mend broken legs, heal cuts and burns and toothaches. Last fall, an old man known as Flat-Nosed Badger had come all the way from the Red Hand camps for advice on a lump that had formed under his armpit. Remembering something White Calf had told him, he gave the man a hideful of ephedra and sent him back with instructions to boil it into a strong tea. When visiting White Calf, he'd been told the man had died, but that the ephedra had helped ease the pain.
Now he waited, watching Hungry Bull, the leader of the small band, pacing back and forth, helping with the cooking, adding wood to the fire, sharing a joke with Ramshorn. Then Hungry Bull teased Grasshopper over his crude turtle-backed scraper, chiding him over the cuts he'd made in his fingers.
“You look happy, husband." Elk Charm reached up to lace her slim fingers in his.
"It's a good night." He filled his lungs, enjoying the smells of plants and food and the familiar pungency of sage smoke. "This is the sort of occasion a person should savor and memorize so that he can have each detail to enjoy for the rest of his life."