He ran a hand through his long black hair. “Matron, I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you are here.”
Evening Star gave him a weak smile. Very softly, she said, “You may not be, once you realize that I pose the same dilemma for you.”
“You? Why?”
She climbed down off the rock. “Please, come with me. I have an idea about how to find Tsauz. We must speak with the orphans. Surely one of them noticed a strange child during the battle. Let’s ask if they saw where he was hiding.”
“I will never use you as a hostage.”
“Won’t you?” She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “I am Cimmis’s niece. Though he may not care about me, there are other North Wind elders who do. So tell me, where do your loyalties lie, Rain Bear?”
Midday
“Are you afraid?”
I listen to the seagulls crying on the river bank. There must be ten tens of them perched on the wind-smoothed rocks around us. Occasionally, they get into fights. One squeals and another flaps. Tomorrow, the children will run along the bank, searching for feathers and wisps of down to sew onto their clothing.
“No,” I say. “I’m not afraid.”
The old Soul Keeper shifts, as though that is the wrong answer, as though standing on the edge of Death, I should be afraid. “Fear is good, Chief. Don’t shy away from it.”
“Courage is better,” I whisper.
I was a war chief for many summers. I have seen men lying prostrate on the battlefield, wounded and dying, screaming in fear. They terrified everyone around them. I have also seen men and women who did not cry out. Warriors in the truest sense, boldly standing up to Death, pulling it into them like a lover. They gave their friends strength.
I long for that kind of bravery.
It will not be easy to attain. My injuries are severe. The pain is already beyond imagining. Every time I breathe, broken fragments of rib restrict my lungs. I’m suffocating, slowly but surely.
“Do not crave courage so desperately,” he says. “It is only when we are frightened that the gods know we love them.”
I wheeze as I cautiously take a breath. “You tie fear and love together … like the severed ends of a grass cord.”
“The cord was never severed.”
I wonder about that. “Opposite ends, then.”
“If you like.”
“Any god,” I say defiantly, “who requires that I feel … fear … to know that I love him … is cruel … A vindictive child masquerading as a god.”
“Is he?” he whispers, and I catch him looking up at the cottonwoods where eagles float as though weightless. “If a dying man cries out for mercy—should he hate the gods for making him cry out? Or thank them?”
“That depends upon whether or not … they grant him mercy.”
He expels an annoyed breath. “Seeking mercy is always good.”
“Like fear?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because men who do not seek mercy have no need of gods.”
“My point exactly.”
He leans over me, pulls the blanket up to cover my throat, and says, “They do not need gods, because they believe they are gods.”
Twenty-four
That morning Hunter was on guard duty. He reached for another crab claw and sat back to watch the sun rise above the mountains. It shot rays of light like beams across the chilly winter sky. From his position on the hill above Wasp Village, he could look out across the round bark lodges to Mother Ocean. The water had just started to turn a pale pink. The waves glistened like the insides of abalone shells. He watched a procession of canoes crest the lazy breakers as fishermen paddled out in the endless quest for fish and sea mammals.
Several small Raven People villages had located in the fertile valley, and shrines, studded with their Spirit Boards, perched on every hilltop. Dark lines of worshippers encircled them, waiting to offer their morning prayers to Raven.
In contrast he could hear Wasp Village’s Starwatcher, her voice wavering as she stood beside Ecan and Sang the story of Old Woman Above. The morning ceremonies were a reminder of the differences between the people.
How could the Raven People have gotten it so wrong? Everyone knew that Old Woman Above carried the sun across the sky on her back. But somehow, the story had begun to circulate that instead, Raven had stolen the sun from a box in Old Woman Above’s house and that he flew it across the sky each day. Nonsense!
He cracked the crab claw with his teeth and sucked the sweet meat out. While he chewed it, he smiled at the impossibility. Below him, in Wasp Village, the children had picked up the Song:
Old Woman Above lives in the sky with her granddaughter. Her granddaughter. Her granddaughter.