People of the Fire(95)

He understood the clubs. And through him, so did she. The rising of the fire-cured juniper, the arcing descent, the hollow smash, shivered his being. The rich odor of blood carried on the breeze, its musk mixing with the scent of humans. One by one, the rest of the bighorns were clubbed. Inevitable death approached.

Little Dancer stared up at his father, huddling down as the club rose against a gray sky. He flinched as the whistling arc of wood descended.

Blackness.

Voices.

"He's waking up. Little Dancer? Can you hear me?" The familiar feeling of hands—human hands—cradled him. Warmth rose from the body supporting him. He groaned, stirring, savoring the sensations of life, of the heart beating in his breast. A wonderful sensation of numbing chill saturated his legs and arms and led him to shiver.

Alive!

"What happened? Did you fall?" Elk Charm's concern brought him up from the layers of infinity to open his eyes to the bright light of a slanting sun. He blinked, finding himself on Elk Charm's lap. Hungry Bull crouched over him, holding his hands, half-frantic eyes searching his face anxiously. Around him, Three Toes, Black Crow, and Rattling Hooves bent over, expressions tense.

"You missed the hunt." Hungry Bull almost laughed with relief. "You fell down and—"

"I was there," he croaked, taking a deep breath. "The ewe and I . . . One. We were One. She was going to drop down, miss the trap. I pleaded."

The memories came rushing back, each step, each breath and heartbeat. The rising of the club, the inevitability of death. A violent shiver racked his body.

"We've got to warm him up," Rattling Hooves spoke from somewhere beyond.

Hands lifted him, people mumbled disjointedly as his body shifted beyond his control.

"Watch your step." The words muddled in his ears.

He floated off again, awed by the thought that he'd died with the ewe—and it hadn't been unpleasant. But what had happened afterward? A feathery feeling of drifting . . .

Warmth. A crackling of fire. Smoke tickled his nostrils. Bleary-eyed, he blinked at a fire set into a shallow pit. The odor of roasting meat filled his nostrils. A sudden hunger saturated him.

"And he keeps talking about the One?" Two Smokes could be heard to one side. "I saw the ewe stop. I thought for sure she'd bolt and we'd miss them. A feeling of Power prickled in the air. I knew it, the way a berdache knows. Then the ewe turned and walked right into the trap. She didn't even look scared, but her eyes ... the way she stood . . . possessed."

"Shared," Little Dancer croaked. “Shared." And he stared into the crackling flames, drifting with the sparks.

"What do you think about Little Dancer and his visions?" Three Toes asked cautiously as they climbed. "You know, he's not like a child who . . . Child? I mean a man. He's killed his first buffalo and he and Elk Charm are obviously man and woman under their hides at night. But he's so young . . . and so old at the same time. You're his father, what do you make of it?"

Hungry Bull puffed a frosty breath from his laboring lungs as he looked up at the mat of snow-covered branches interlacing into a woven pattern above them. The boles of the fir trees had a washed-out grayish look against the snow and the crisscrossing of powder-mantled deadfall.

He shook his head, stopping to pack down a place to stand in the knee-deep snow so he wouldn't slip and tumble back down the steep trail. The pockmarks of elk tracks wound around the uprooted base of a blown-down tree and disappeared into timber. How could elk run up stuff like this? Magical!

"I worry about him." What more could be said?

"And Elk Charm?"

Hungry Bull shrugged, resettling the pack on his back. "He's a man, old friend. He's killed his meat and taken a woman. He's proven he can feed her. He's taken the responsibilities of a man—and he acts like it. He's strong and smart and has to make his own way now."

Three Toes sniffed at the cold, looking back down the tortuous trail they'd followed up the mountain side. From up where he stood, the slope looked worse than it had been. Up was always less scary than down. Long braided-hide ropes curled on their backs. "You feel cramped in here, like you can't see. Like some monster might reach out of all these trees and eat you or something."

Hungry Bull chuckled. "My odd boy—the one you worry so much about—would Dream you back."

"You think that's what he did?" Three Toes shook his head. "I don't know, maybe he did. White Calf always said he had Power. And Two Smokes, well, I always thought he was a . . . different. But, you know, these Anit'ah, they think berdache have some sort of Power, like Traders—"

"Not like Traders—they're berdache."