"Wolf Dreamer?"
He got his foot propped on an angular projection and forced himself up. With a final burst of effort, he flopped over the top of the rock, gasping, sweat tickling as it dribbled down his fevered cheeks and traced irregular paths under his scalp.
Flat on his back, he stared up at the sky. The endless blue seemed to beckon, to call him into an eternity he couldn't reach no matter how high he climbed. There, up beyond the vastness of sky, lay the land of spirits.
"Wolf Dreamer?"
He closed his eyes, the faces of his wife and children spinning out of his memory. "I can't go, Wolf Dreamer. I can't leave them. I love them too much. I like being who I am. Not who you'd make me. I'm not a hero , . . not like you. I'm only a man, a husband and father. Take someone else, someone stronger to fight your war for you."
Tears trickled down, mingling with the sweat on his cheeks. "Please, Wolf Dreamer. Find a hero to do your work. I can't save the Wolf Bundle. I can't destroy Heavy Beaver. I love too much. I can't fight."
Only the hot whisper of the wind sounded around him. Somewhere below, a raven cawed—bringing a chill memory of Heavy Beaver's curse. A vague flash of Sage Root, wrists gaping, flies buzzing, passed like a snow flurry through his mind.
"Aforme!"
He rolled over and pushed himself to his feet. He stood on a rocky flat no more than four paces east, west, north, or south. Small tufts of bitterbrush and saltbush clung desperately to cracks in the rock. Washed by rains, scoured by the wind, nothing but a scatter of head-sized rocks remained.
He froze, heart thudding dully in his breast. The work looked ancient, weathered away in places, clear in others. Dirt had drifted to fill part of the grooves, scrubby grass having taken root. He choked a hard swallow down his throat. The entire top of the rock had been laboriously pecked into a large Spiral. He shook his head, trying to back off the huge carving, realizing he had nowhere to go. Numb, he looked up at the sky, at the glaring sun.
He faced the east, raising his hands.
"Wolf Dreamer? Come speak to me!"
The sun burned down on him, baking his body. A pleading in his soul, he stepped forward, grasping fingers trying to pull the sky down. Scaly brush crackled underfoot, scratching his ankles.
''Wolf Dreamer ?''
The sting seemed to come from the trampled brush at first, then the burning reached past his desperation. He looked down, seeing the triangular head where it stuck to his leg, injecting the venom of its wrath. Black slits of pupils stared malevolently up at him, the scaled diamond patterns catching the sun in a gray-buff sheen.
He cried, kicking out, snapping the reptile loose to coil in the corner of the rocks, the tail that he'd crushed buzzing furiously.
"No," he croaked, bending down, staring in horror at the punctures in his dark skin. "No!"
He fell, hard stone beating against his flesh as he grabbed his ankle. A searing dizziness gripped him, his stomach convulsing as he fought the urge to vomit.
“No!"
Through fear, he felt the world lurch. He blinked with glassy eyes, feeling the poison working within him, burning along his veins. Frantically, he looked around, seeing nothing with which to puncture the wounds—perhaps to bleed some of the poison out, for he couldn't bend to suck it.
The clicking sound came from his chattering teeth. He rubbed tears from his eyes. He could feel the grooves that had been pecked into the rock. He blinked, seeing he'd fallen in the center of the Spiral. Beginning and end—birth and death.
He waited as the sun angled across the sky. Sick, nauseated, he felt death eating its way up his throbbing, swelling leg. The sun slanted to the west.
The words spun out of the clear air. Little Dancer stared up into the weaving glazing of sky, hearing the old woman as clearly as if she stood above him.
Monster Creatures on bellies crawl. Bite a man's foot. Watch him fall. Legless, armless, hair of scale. Shakes a rattle on his tail. Teeth of poison, hollow flail, Makes blood black and frail.
“Who . . . Who are you?"
The Sky? Aye, always the sky.
Blazing hot, and white the land,
Scorched as by burning brand.
Dream the big beasts to the stars, away.
Their corpses bleach on dusty clay.
Change the land the People tread.
Find a new way . . . or we’ll all be dead.
Learn the grass, learn the root, the berry.
Time is short, life not merry.
Pound and grind, grind and pound,
While the hot wind blows around.
"What do you want?"
The dry wind gusted in answer. Blinking frantically, Little Dancer reached up, ever up, toward the blue inevitability of the sky.
Not for years had Heavy Beaver seen a summer coming this hot and dry. Not since the deep cold had any snow fallen, and then but a wisp that had dried the next day. Only the Buffalo Mountains, from all reports, had received anything like adequate moisture. As if they understood, the buffalo had taken the trails up to the high meadows, filling the land of the Anit'ah with their wealth. Other herds had dispersed here and there, scattering until only lone animals could be found in the uplands. Along the rivers, where the flow fed the riparian grasses, his hunters had ambushed and killed many of the animals, knowing that they must return to the only water available.