He smiled as he looked over to where Red Chert slept. If only he had his mother now. If only she could see his success.
The shortness of breath hadn't gone away. Day by day, she'd wasted. As time passed, and the inevitable loomed, he'd gone slightly crazy with worry and grief. Of course, that, too, couldn't be helped. All Spirit Dreamers got a little crazy at times. He hadn't known then that Dreams were making him so nervous. In her final days, his mother had told him.
"It's the Power, boy. That's why you've been so scared. It's Power coming to live inside you. That's why you've been mean to everyone. Power does that. Takes some getting used to. You'll be afraid in the future, but it's the Power. Trust it and use your head. That's why Power chose you. You're smarter than the rest. Think, boy. Use the Power."
Like the patterns hot coals left in leather, the morning when i he'd been awakened by Red Chert's soft intake of breath I burned forever in his memory. The woman who'd borne him, cared for him, and seen his greatness lay dead, expression slack, eyes dull in the morning light.
His mother's death had almost killed him. Only the knowledge that he had Power had kept him sane through those first hard days. But no one recognized his Power. No one except his mother and Red Chert had seen and understood his abilities. When he started to preach the pollution of the People, men and women scoffed. First came Horn Core's death, then the deepening drought, and they listened more carefully. The young men had begun to nod when he told them how women angered the spirits. One by one, they came to see how right he was. Each time he predicted trouble, it came true. Now everything he claimed had come to pass. Buffalo Above had taken his children away. The Rain Man no longer danced afternoon showers from the clouds. The Anit'ah couldn't be kept back. The People were suffocating in their own pollution.
Today the discipline his mother had instilled in him would I bear fruit. He'd seen the look in Sage Root's eyes last night. Eaten by doubt, she'd been on the verge of collapse. Such a piece of luck that Dancing Doe had run onto Long Runner s dart. Until then, Sage Root might have withstood his machinations despite the datura. Peering through the slits in his lodge, he'd watched her go ashen and tear the raven feathers down. To have stolen the menstrual pad from the women's bleeding lodge had been fortuitous. Idly he wondered whose it had been. A chance gust of wind had carried it out where he could find it. Of course, he'd had to pick it up with sticks to keep from fouling himself. The whole idea of a woman bleeding once a month disgusted him. In all his memory, he couldn't remember his mother bleeding like that—but then, she'd been special.
He stretched and crawled across to peer through the slit where he'd cut Red Chert's fine stitching of the lodge cover. The bundle no longer hung from the lodgepole. She'd found it.
Red Chert stirred where she lay on her robes and rolled over again, one arm flopping out. For a long moment, he gazed at her. How right his mother had been to choose her for him.
In his mind, he began composing the speech he'd give over Sage Root's body. He'd tell them how Antelope Above Danced across the sky with joy that the People had killed the defiler. People listened when he made up stories about his Dreams. He spent most of his time thinking them up. Then, when the days grew tedious, he'd walk up on the ridge tops and sit, and watch the sky, and think up new stories to tell them. Bit by bit, he'd learned the role. He knew now how to get that faraway look in his eyes, how to modulate his voice. They'd listen, eyes downcast, and accept.
Now only the old ones scoffed. The worse the drought got, the more skittish the animals, the better the People listened. Already the younger hunters had started to berate their wives and exclude them from the hunting councils. That had put most of the women in their places.
Some, like Hungry Bull, continued to ignore him—but Hungry Bull would learn to his dismay. A slight shiver ran down Heavy Beaver's back. How fortunate that that fiery young man had decided to go on a long hunt. One less barrier to overcome—not to mention the fear of a dart in the back. No telling how Hungry Bull might have reacted to his wife being Cursed. Now he'd return to an empty lodge. Everything would be finished.
And if Sage Root dug up some final resistance? Heavy Beaver chuckled to himself. He had the datura witching plant he'd obtained from the Trader Three Rattles. "A beautiful thing," he'd been told. "Grows in the far southern deserts west of the high mountains. The leaves are dark green, and in summer it has a large white flower that opens to the day. Dreamers down there use only small portions. Too much brings a chill to the soul—makes a person throw up and see and hear things." Heavy Beaver had used most of it in Sage Root's stew. Distracted as she was, she'd eaten the whole thing. What he had left would finish her.