People of the Fire(89)

Two Smokes looked over, seeing this young man who had once trusted him so thoroughly. "Would it have done you any good? Would it have made things easier for Hungry Bull?"

Little Dancer sniffed, vision drifting to where Hungry Bull laughed and prodded Three Toes in the ribs over some gibe. "No. But . . ."

"But you hate to find out from someone else."

"It's like . . . well . . ."

"Like you've been cheated somehow. Like the Trader took a dozen finely tanned robes and left you with a pack of rotten jerky."

Little Dancer grabbed his knees in the circle of his arms and leaned back, sitting down. "That's how it is."

Two Smokes exhaled softly, resettling his game leg. "That's how it is, all right. But I didn't know what else to do. Now that you've met Blood Bear, you know another reason I, for one, never told you." Two Smokes shook his head. "I heard tell that when he left, all he could talk about was his 'stolen' child. How he'd get his child back. Curious, isn't it, that all he took was the Wolf Bundle? He never asked about you. He assumed the stories were true that you were dead.

"Then, that day he raided Heavy Beaver's camp, he had a chance to kill me—but the Wolf Bundle was more important than killing the man who'd run off with his wife."

"You were berdache."

"I was berdache ... but I slept with Clear Water. Oh, yes. Don't look at me like that. I loved her. I don't know, maybe I loved her as a man would love a woman. Maybe I loved her as one woman to another. That doesn't matter. All that counts is that I loved her. After Five Falls died, I thought I'd never love again."

"Love's a funny thing."

Two Smokes grunted. "You want to tell me? I suppose you're literally on fire inside, hardly waiting for the opportunity to sneak away into the bushes to pump Elk Charm full of your semen?"

He got a hot look in return.

"Oh, come on, Little Dancer, you're not exactly fooling anyone. Three Toes and Black Crow laugh behind their hands. Meadowlark and Makes Fun wonder quietly among themselves if you aren't too young to understand what you're meddling with—but that's the Short Buffalo People's beliefs at work again. And Hungry Bull is so lost in Rattling Hooves' embrace he could care less."

"And what do you think?"

Two Smokes waved at a buzzing fly, seeking to grab it out of the air. "I think you're old beyond your years. I think I know what White Calf saw . . . why she stopped worrying about Elk Charm and let you go."

"And what was that?"

"That you can't help yourself." He met the young man's hot gaze, and shrugged. "You asked what I thought. I told you."

"I guess I did," Little Dancer relented. "But she's so . . . I don't know. Thoughts of her fill my life. She's easy to be with." He plucked a rock from the ground and sent it sailing off into the rabbitbrush. "I don't have to worry around her."

Below them, the rest of the band began moving the pile of hides to another tree, spreading them around to catch what they could knock loose.

"And you think if you bury yourself so thoroughly in Elk Charm, the problem of the Dreams, of the voices and Power, will go away like a water puddle on a hot day?"

"That would be nice," he admitted.

Two Smokes snorted a laugh. "If only it could be so easy."

They sat for a moment in silence, watching the men beat the branches on the new tree, nuts, cones, and needles raining down on the hides below.

"Why didn't you ever go back to the Red Hand? You told me once that maybe someday you'd tell me."

Two Smokes considered. "I swore on the Wolf Bundle that I'd take care of you."

He smiled, remembering that day in the hot sun. He'd been holding the infant while White Calf did something, went looking for food or some such. And he'd sworn to care for the infant—unaware he'd done so on the Wolf Bundle until too late.

"Was it worth it?" Little Dancer wanted to know.

Two Smokes remembered all the suffering, the insults, the pain of being raped by callous men, his arms and legs held while they brutally took him from behind. Their laughter at his debasement echoed hollowly. He remembered the pain from the beatings goaded by Heavy Beaver and the final days when the Wolf Bundle was defiled. He relived the time of Sage Root's Curse up to the moment that White Calf had come. And since then? Had anything been easier?

"Yes," he reflected. "Because for a while, I got to feel the Power." It had always been there, warm, extending its glow to him day after day—until Heavy Beaver had offended the Bundle almost beyond repair. For those memories, an entire life of horror could be endured.

"Me, I'm glad I'm shut of it."