"Dream. Just a dream." Little Dancer tried to catch his breath, blinking as he dug his fingers into the bedding. The touch of warm hide and the security of cool dirt below reassured him.
"What Dream?" White Calf demanded from behind.
Little Dancer bit his lip, lowering his eyes. "Nothing. Just a dream. Nothing."
"That so, boy?" He could hear the skepticism in her voice. She'd started again, picking at him, never letting him have a moment's peace.
"Just a dream." He stood up, the beautifully worked mountain-sheep hide falling to one side. He swallowed dryly, frightened by the sweat that soaked his clothing.
"A Dream about fire?"
How did she know?
"No. Just a dream about my mother." There, use the old defense. He didn't have anything else to stand against the old woman's constant questioning.
The roomy rock shelter consisted of a large cavity in the cliff side that measured fifteen paces across where the limestone had been water-hollowed in the distant past. The back wall curved around, lined with nooks and caches that held White Calf's medicines and Power bundles. A spiral had been pecked and subsequently painted on the wall above where White Calf slept. Packs containing dried meat and berries hung from pegs driven into the stone. Overhead, soot had formed a thick velvet covering that rounded the angles of the rock.
A half-body length from the rear wall where rodents weren't as likely to find them, rounded storage pits had been dug into the floor. The cysts had then been lined with closely fitted stones to at least hinder the insects and audacious pack-rats and ground squirrels from burrowing into the stored reserves. Topped with a thick sandstone slab, these were filled with limber pine nuts, rose hips, yampa, balsam and biscuit root, and dried sego-lily bulbs. Tanned robes, a couple of carved digging sticks, and a set of horn bowls had been placed neatly at the rear. The outside wall consisted of a series of poles braced vertically against the overhanging ceiling. Hide had been laced to these to block the evening chill and retard the strength of the breezes. Enough gaps along the rough rock allowed smoke to filter out at the top. Two fire pits had been excavated in the floor. One consisted of a deep, bell-shaped roasting pit, the other a shallow basin mounded full of rock to radiate the heat. A sandstone slab acted as a reflector for each of the fires.
All in all, the rock shelter made a snug home. Unlike the hide lodges he'd lived in as a youth, the shelter stayed warmer, radiating heat absorbed during the day until late at night. In summer, it remained cool. The shelter would have been perfect had it not been for White Calf's constant and irritating presence. This place belonged to her—and she dominated it in every respect. He couldn't help but wonder if her soul hadn't leached into the very rock along with the soot of her fires.
He turned to meet her burning eyes. If anything, she'd shrunk in the last couple of years. Now her hair glistened in the firelight as white as the deep-winter snow. Her face had evolved into a shriveled caricature, the flesh of her neck sagging like the wattle of a misbegotten turkey. She looked so frail a sneeze might have broken her like a stem of winter grass bent too far. At least, he could think so until he faced the shining challenge in her passionate eyes. Now they caught the ember-tinged light of the fires, gleaming of Power, seeing through him as if he were nothing more than morning smoke. The familiar tingle of premonition teased his uneasy gut.
“You can't hide from yourself forever, boy." Her words came at him softly, almost like drifting fog. “Deny your Power all you want—but you can't escape it like some hawk from a torn net. It's you, boy. You're the one."
He said nothing, resentment and frustration building.
“Why do you always deny me, boy?"
His mother's words echoed inside: "I forbid it!" The horror of her death lingered—as tangible in his mind as the hard earth under his physical self. Every time this argument reared. he could feel his mother's dark eyes staring down, watching him, a constant reminder of that hideous moment he'd felt her death, found her bloodless body.
"Why, boy?" White Calf persisted. "No matter u hat your mother said, you can't change your nature. You're a Dreamer . . . it's in your eyes." A pause. "Look at me. Tell me you're not. And mean it when you say it."
He refused, biting back the seething anger her words always brought. He wanted to shout at her, revile her for the meddling old sage hen she was. How sweet it would be to spit in her face and tell her to leave him alone for once. What a precious reward it would be to strike back at her for the last years. For the moment, he dreamed of kicking her packs apart, reveled in the fantasy of throwing her prize possessions into the fire. What a joy it would be to stomp them into the coals as they caught fire and incinerated themselves to wispy ash. That would show her. That would teach her to leave him alone. He could pay her back for all the endless harassment and all the little games to bend him to her will.