A man had to know how to see in the forest. An odd angle, a shade of color, or a break in the uneven latticework of saplings and tree trunks, might be the only clue available to the hunter.
Now he scrutinized the patterns of trunk and limb, of leaf and vine. In the crazy warp and weft of forest, he could find nothing out of place.
Mica Bird swallowed hard. The thick bitterness of thirst coated his tongue.
He eased around a beech tree. Sweat trickled down his chest, refusing to dry in the damp heat.
He proceeded carefully, inspecting the steep slope above him.
The old man had to have come here. The stories echoed in Mica Bird’s memory. He could hear his grandfather’s age-scratchy voice over the crackle of that long-dead fire: “So I stepped closer, farther under the overhanging rock … and I could hear Singing. I swear it. I could hear the voice of an old woman Singing. Like this:
“And among the People?
Come the Brothers!
Born of Sun. One is slaved.
Here, by the long trail, his corpse is laid.
Blood is spread, from the head.
Black one goes … aye, he’s dead.
He who loves is lost and gone.
Render of the fair heart’s Song.
Woman, weep, for naught you know.
Lose forever—or live in snow!”
Mica Bird shook himself free of a sudden shiver. Yes, those were the words—as clear to him now as they had been that night.
“I was afraid,” the old man had said. “I began to shake, and I couldn’t stop. It was as if Power possessed me. I couldn’t help myself from reaching for the bag, taking it from the dead man’s grasp.
“I stepped back then, and tried to breathe, but a coldness had entered my lungs and spread through my soul. I backed away, legs trembling like a newborn fawn’s.
“When I was outside, beyond the covering of rock, I opened the bag and looked inside. There, as perfect as if it had just been made, lay the Mask.”
Mica Bird smiled greedily at the very thought of the Mask— and of what it would mean to him. The Mask of Many Colored Crow had been a thing of awesome beauty. He had seen it only four times in all his life. The last time had been that night.
Grandfather had pulled the worn sack over to his side and opened it with reverent ringers to expose the Raven Mask before lifting it free.
In the firelight, it had gleamed. The wooden beak had been carved by a master and stained black. Glistening feathers covered the sides of the oval head, each feather lying flat, as if preened despite the confines of the sack. Funny, could this huge Mask really have appeared so small a bundle when bound by the sack?
Grandfather’s arms had begun to tremble, and the old man groaned as if in a struggle. The Mask turned, and the hollow eyes, like two openings into another world, stared at Mica Bird.
The sensation created by those empty orbs had jolted him. A thrill, tingling with the intensity and pleasure of orgasm, had bolted along his nerves, while a sense of empty loss had leached into his soul, hollowing it out.
Since then, that Spirit face had lurked behind his every thought. In his Dreams, the Mask stared at him—and the eyes glowed with Power.
“He who looks through the Mask,” Grandfather had stated solemnly, “sees through the eyes of Many Colored Crow. That long-ago day, I raised the Mask and looked through it. I never saw the world the same way again. It made me—made this clan—all that it is today.”
Mica Bird scaled the steep slope, his legs aching. He paused in the consuming shadow of a shagbark hickory.
Something had happened to Grandfather, had driven him to take the Mask away. For he had worn it for the last time at the Feast of the Dead—the ceremony that marked the summer solstice, when the clan gathered to attend to the ghosts of the ancestors, to bury their dead, and to care for the mighty earthworks of the clan grounds.
Afterward, the old man hadn’t been the same. He’d stared with vacant eyes, more bent and crippled than ever. His last words, too, lingered in Mica Bird’s ears: “it has eaten my soul.
I should never have taken it. Back … it must go back. This is not a thing for men.”
And the next day, the old man had disappeared.
Mica Bird steeled himself and attacked the slope again, fighting upward in the still air. How high was this mountain?
As he climbed through the wavering green shadows, sweat beaded and slipped down his muscular legs.
Why hadn’t the High Heads ever mentioned the Mask? Only now did the question fasten itself in his thoughts. Surely they must have heard that Grandfather had it; but no one had come looking for it, demanding it back.
Why not?
The Rattlesnake Clan had gone to war with the Many Paints when their sacred Deer Headdress was stolen. For three years, the two clans had warred upon each other, until a peace was brokered by the Goosefoot Clan and the Headdress had been returned.