“One." The call echoed in Little Dancer's head. For a brief instant, his vision shimmered and shifted. Slightly dizzy, he dropped his head down between his knees. When he pressed his eyes closed, afterimages of the Spiral burned on the backs of his eyelids, turning, spinning, encompassing his very soul. White Calf's reedy voice echoed in his mind: "The whole of creation, everything within itself: unity."
Too much work today, he lied to himself. Should have carried a lighter pack. It's exhaustion. That's all. He shook his head, as if to rid himself of the images spun by White Calf's story. When he lifted his head, White Calf had shifted, keen eyes missing no detail of his discomfort. He glared back, defensive.
The old woman sighed and mouthed her toothless gums as she sat down on her robe again. "So how long do you think you're here for?"
Elk Charm's eyes glowed with the magic of the old woman's story as she continued to stare at the big rock carving. "I don't know. Until my mother says Blood Bear has turned his mind to other things."
''Blood Bear?" Little Dancer frowned.
Two Smokes puffed at his pipe where he rested against a pack that had been propped along one wall. "It seems the leader of the Red Hand has developed an interest in Elk Charm since she's become a full woman. He would force himself on her."
"But rape—"
"It's different among the Red Hand." Two Smokes rubbed the back of his neck. "A man who forces a woman is ridiculed. What man wants it known that he isn't Powerful enough to win the woman he desires? Who wants to be a laughingstock? And, believe me, a forced woman would tell everybody! Men will exclude him from their company. Women will lift their skirts and tease him. Children will throw dung on him and urinate on his belongings. Who could live like that? The last man I know of who forced a woman was so shamed that he finally stripped himself naked and walked off into a winter blizzard to die rather than live like th
"Then why would Blood Bear risk that?" Hungry Bull asked, looking up from inspecting his butchering tools.
Two Smokes lifted his hands wide. "Blood Bear is the Keeper of the Wolf Bundle. That gives him certain privileges. Elk Charm can tell any man no—any man but the Keeper of the Wolf Bundle. To deny the Keeper is to deny the Wolf Bundle. The Keeper and the Power are One. Do you see?”
"The Wolf Bundle." Little Dancer experienced a tug at his heart. He saw the tortured expression on Two Smokes' face. Until the day he died, the berdache would torment himself over the defiling and loss of the Wolf Bundle.
"It's not right," Hungry Bull insisted in his stilted Anit'ah speech. He lifted a mottled agate point up to study it. The rippled surface of the stone caught the firelight, gleaming like polished ice.
"Right or not," White Calf grumbled, resettling herself, "the ways of the Red Hand are different from the ways of the Short Buffalo People. Not better, not worse, just different. Among the Red Hand, a woman doesn't normally marry until she's pregnant. The Red Hand place a great value on a woman's ability to bring life into the world. I remember the curious remarks when Clear Water went to Blood Bear. But then, she was a Spirit Woman." White Calf's eyes narrowed as she looked at Little Dancer. "And I still haven't unraveled all the knots and twists in the weaving of her actions."
Little Dancer dropped his gaze, pursing his lips. Two Smokes had finally told him about his real mother. Maybe it helped blunt the pain of Sage Root's death. Maybe it only made things worse.
"Blood Bear." Elk Charm shivered. "He doesn't believe in Power."
"Oh?" White Calf snapped her head around.
Elk Charm bit her lip, looking suddenly ashamed.
"And how do you know this, newly made woman?"
Elk Charm swallowed hard, her glance darting about, looking for a means of escape. Seeing none, she sighed and explained, "Tanager and I were hiding one day while Cricket was looking for us. We were back of Blood Bear's lodge. He was inside talking to himself and to the Wolf Bundle. I heard him thumping it with his finger and telling it how he didn't believe. We both got so scared we froze there. We didn't leave until hours later."
Despite himself, Little Dancer gasped, staring at the girl in shock before his eyes were drawn to the Spiral; it seemed to twist and shimmer in the light, sucking him into the middle of the endless circles.
White Calfs face had hardened, a glint in her obsidian stare.
Two Smokes groaned under his breath, pained eyes focused somewhere only he could see. "But he cares for it? Keeps it safe anyway?"
"He guards it jealously." Elk Charm looked up uneasily.
"Of course he does," White Calf growled. "What would Blood Bear be without the Wolf Bundle? Remember how he was before he brought it back to the Red Hand?"