People of the River(17)

Nightshade imagined him there, laughing, talking to all of the precious relatives who had gone before him.

Six. A healing number.

Grief tightened like Eagle's talons around her chest, crushing the life from her. Why didn't she feel healed? The pain had only grown worse. Like shocked flesh awakening from the keen slash of an obsidian knife, her soul screamed. The pathetic sound wound down and around through the recesses of her memories of Bulrush, seeking comfort there. And sometimes she found it, in his loving voice, his wry laugh, the joy in his smile. The scream would fade to a dull whimper for a time, until her body overrode her soul and tried to wake. Then it would rise again, swelling to a wail as it fled through the recesses, searching, searching for him.

Every morning when she drifted at the edge of sleep, she felt the warmth radiating from his body, heard his heart beating slightly out of rhythm with hers, as she had thousands of mornings in the past ten cycles. She would lie drowsily, enjoying his presence beside her, the softness of their bed, the songs of the birds perched on the peaked roof of the temple, the sweet pungency of the old red cedar poles supporting the walls. Then she would reach out to touch him and awaken, startled, to fmd him missing. For the briefest moment, she would think that he must have gone out to catch fish for breakfast.

Then the terrible knowledge would return, and she would realize anew that his body lay beneath ten feet of earth in one of the ridge-top mounds at the edge of the village.

Nightshade squeezed her eyes closed. "Don't . . . don't think about it."

Sounds from River Mounds rode the shoulders of the breeze. Occasionally, when the drafts swirled around and swept up the bluff, she thought she heard screams. But it must have been the music of flutes, or the cries of children at play.

She tried to force her soul to swim into the sounds to locate their source, but with Bulrush's death, her Powers had withdrawn into the darkness of despair. She sensed nothing beyond her own anguish. She rolled to her side and fiddled aimlessly with the dry grass of her bedding. Memories fluttered, unbidden, agonizing.

She had seen fourteen summers when she'd met Bulrush; it was just after Tharon had banished her from Cahokia. Bulrush had cared nothing of her reputation, or of her abilities to dive into the Well of the Ancestors and pierce the layers of illusion spun by First Woman to guard the Cave of the Tree. He'd just cared about her.

For a few cycles, happiness had breathed from every rock and tree, as if each persimmon blossom and misty morning had received Father Sun's special blessing.

Nightshade tugged the worn softness of her blanket up around her throat. The tan fabric caught the morning glow and sparkled like Raven's wings as he dove between flashes of lightning. Her heartbeat had slowed to a dull jolting against her ribs.

"Why didn't you foresee his death. Nightshade? Why didn't Brother Mudhead warn you?" She had gone over and over the question, trying to understand wiiy Mudhead had abandoned her. She'd even tried diving into the Well to ask him face-to-face, but she hadn't been able to get through the gate. First Woman had barred the entry to her, and she didn't know why. For the past five cycles it had become ever harder to gain entry. What had she done to deserve such punishment? Mudhead had told her in a Dream: "Humans have thrown the world out of balance. Nothing will be as it was." But she hadn't understood at the time.

Bulrush . . .

Perhaps now. It had been six days.

She braced her arms to sit up. Her muscles burned as though set afire by grief. She pulled the warm blanket around her shoulders to fend off dawn's chill breath. She'd been sleeping in her red dress and deerhide boots for so long that they seemed a part of her, like thick folds of aged skin. Though she had slept almost constantly during the past six days, her body cried out for more sleep. But the possibility of seeing Bulrush drove her on. Wearily she crawled across the soft, grass-covered floor to grasp the Mudhead Power Bundle.

Sinking back, she held it protectively to her breast while she traced the blue spiral of Moon Maiden with her fingertip and followed it through the four concentric circles of Father Sun to the fat bodies of the Hero Twins, one white, the other black. One of Light, the other of Darkness. In the Beginning of the World, they had led humans up through a hole in the ground to this lush home and taught them how to live in harmony with the land.

Her hand edged down to the contorted face of Brother Mudhead, and she lifted her voice in an ancient, lilting Power chant:

I am calling, First Woman, calling. I wear the mighty colors of Bird-Man, the Serpent of the Sky. Crimson, Emerald, Sand.

Open the gate to me. I am calling, calling.

I would descend from the high land, into the Underworld to speak with you. First Woman, help me. Bird-Man, help me. I am calling, calling. Open the Gate of the Well.