A slight pang stung his heart. Such a shame to waste so desirable a woman this way.
She stood in the way, however, and he would remake the People the way his mother would have wanted. In her image of purity and virtue, he'd chip away at them as a craftsman did a fine point. Then, when he'd purified them of pollution, they'd take what the Anit'ah kept them from. In his shadow, they'd claim the rich hunting grounds in the high meadows of the Buffalo Mountains.
Like a fire, his new way would sweep them up and burn a new path across the plains.
Other women, just as desirable—only obedient—would be his. Among all the People, he would choose.
He crawled over to his shirt, shrugging it on. Then he pulled on the fine calfskin breeches made by Sleeping Fir.
"Mother?" The cry lingered in the air outside.
Who? Ah yes, that little undisciplined pup of Sage Root's. He called out again. Someone yelled at him. Heavy Beaver's heart leapt as the boy's cries became more frantic.
By the time he ducked out of the lodge, the little brat had been silenced. Heavy Beaver caught a sight of the wretched Anit'ah leading the lad down one of the trails. A welling of wrath tightened around his heart. Today, once Sage Root had been removed as an obstacle, he could deal with the berdache. For years he'd accepted the irritating presence of a man in woman's clothing. He'd egged the young men into waylaying the Anit'ah, explaining that degrading rape could be permitted against a thing like Two Smokes.
Before the sun dipped below the western horizon, Smokes would be driven off—or dragged away with his brains bashed out. By tonight, the People would be clean of pollutions and defilements like that. What a blessing that the Anit'ah had stolen the Wolf Bundle and given him the perfect lever to use against the berdache. Heavy Beavers only regret was being denied the glory of burning the witch-thing in the fire while he Sang and Danced to awe the People with his Power over the Anit'ah magic.
No wonder the buffalo had left them. His People had rotted at the core like an old cottonwood. New strength must be breathed into them like a spring sapling.
On his way to relieve himself, Heavy Beaver stopped near Sage Root's lodge to see the bit of menstrual pad where the breeze had blown it into the brush. Drying maggots writhed in death where they lay scattered in the dust.
He chuckled softly to himself.
White Calf led the way down the long ridge. The pain in her hip nagged at her while her lungs labored. Too much hurry. Her old body couldn't take such a pace anymore.
Behind her, the three hunters trotted easily, chests hardly rising and falling. Ah, to be young again. Once she'd been able to race the wind, despite her woman's hips and muscles.
"There," Black Crow called, pointing in the growing light of morning. "That's where camp is. Where the river runs straight."
She grunted and turned her steps, but not before she'd caught the strained look in Hungry Bull's face. Did he feel it, too?
"Time's short," she growled. "Let's go."
"Short?" Hungry Bull asked, worry eating at his handsome features.
She paused for a moment. "Something in the wind. Spirit's loose. Has been for the last four days." She hesitated. "Listen. I don't know what's stewing in the boiling pouch, but the vision is calling. Whatever it is, / want to handle it. "
The men glanced back and forth, eyes expressing their growing unease.
Panic spread in Hungry Bull's gut. He'd felt it before—the sensation he experienced when he knew the buffalo would wheel and charge. Now a wrongness pulsed with his soul. Each moment passed with the urgency of blood falling drop by drop to spatter in the dust. Anxious, he started to rush ahead, only to have White Calf reach for him. Her taloned fingers sank into his flesh.
"Don't go balky on me now like some moonstruck buffalo calf in a lightning storm. This is Spirit Power. Understand? Let me worry about it."
Pulse racing, Hungry Bull licked his lips. 'Tve got to go. I can feel it. I've got to go!"
She pinned his eyes. "I want your promise. On your soul. Let me handle it!"
"On my soul." He swallowed nervously. "I don't like messing with Spirit Power. I don't want anything to do with it. But we've got to go!"
She jerked a nod. "Good. Then trust me. I take your promise. On your soul."
White Calf wheeled, putting her old legs to work again. Under her feet, dried grasses crackled as if she broke tiny bones.
As they continued she muttered under her breath, "I hope we're not too late."
At that moment, an anguished cry pierced her mind like a thrown dart. She forced her tired legs to move faster, wincing at the spike of pain in her hip.
Little Dancer's limbs felt detached the way they did in a strange dream. The morning might have been imagined, unreal, something he couldn't really touch, or hear, or smell. He wasn't part of the sunlight or the earth underfoot. He existed separately from the air and the soul of the land. Two Smokes' arms around him might have been illusion but for the crushing pressure in his lungs. The tears had drained away to leave a hollow ache inside his ribs. He'd become no more than a husk with nothing within—like the thin hulls the berdache peeled from his grass seeds to blow away on the wind.