People of the River(175)

"Vole . . . help me."

He knew the instant that Vole began infusing her strength. It felt like a warm tide.





Forty-four


Bird-Man's feet thumped the ground behind Lichen as he Danced his pursuit, spinning and leaping, his wings outspread so that the feathers brushed the ground. Starlight coated his body until each feather shimmered like liquid silver.

"No! Bird-Man, why are you doing this!” Lichen screamed as she ran headlong through the dense underbrush.

Breath tore in and out of her lungs, while the night grew thicker, the cold heavier. Like sharp quills, the chill penetrated her green dress, pricking at her skin.

A thick root grabbed at Lichen's foot, and she almost fell. She stumbled into a red cedar tree and caught her balance, panting against the worm-chewed bark while her knees trembled. The girth of the tree was enormous; its branches stretched so high into the sky that they vanished amidst the stars. In awe. Lichen stared upward, wondering. First Woman's tree?

Shadows flicked through the forest around her. Every so often she would catch sight of a mask, just a glimpse of jasper or shell beads.

Bird-Man's steps echoed: thump-thump-thumpety-thump. "Do you know why owls die with their wings outspread, little one?"

Lichen spun and cried out in horror when she saw him perched on the branches of the towering cedar over her head. He had tucked in his wings and bent forward to peer down at her, like a vulture waiting for a wounded deer to die. His snakeskin belly glittered with the majesty of crushed mica.

Lichen choked out, "B-Because they never give up and close their wings!"

Bird-Man's black eyes gleamed as though from an inner fire. He shifted on the branch, stepping back and forth as he began to Dance again. Old needles cascaded out of the tree with each stamp of his feet. Lichen watched the needles twirl through the air in black flashes before they settled on the ground.

"Why, Lichen? Why won't they give up?"

"They know that flight is their only hope of survival."

Movement stirred the forest all around her, and six ghostly forms shuffled out from among the shadowed trunks of oak, hickory, and cedar. Some wore bushy-headed masks of beautifully woven comhusks; others had animal masks, with upcurving horns of buffalo, deer, and elk. The seashells on their leggings glittered extravagantly in the starlight streaming down between the overarching branches. Through the enormous sockets of their eyes, only blackness showed: empty, ominous, with no glint of life.

Lichen shrank back against the cedar trunk as they closed in around her. The Dancers extended their hands and began throwing commeal at her. It netted her hair and stuck to her bare arms and legs.

"What are you doing?" she cried, knowing that commeal purified and sanctified the way for Power. But she did not understand why they were throwing it on her.

Then, just as suddenly, the Dancers shuffled backward and opened their hands to Bird-Man. They started to chant while they Danced around Lichen. They moved slowly, lifting each moccasined foot and holding it suspended before bringing it down with a powerful thump. Starlight gilded their red-and-black robes. They leaped into the air, looking at Lichen through those hollow eye sockets, and her soul shriveled.

"Will you give up. Lichen? Or will you fly for your people?"

"I want to fly, Bird-Man! I've always wanted to!"

Bird-Man let out a cry of triumph and dove out of the tree, his sharp talons reaching for her. Lichen shrieked when he knocked her to the ground and clamped his talons around her chest, in the manner of Eagle catching Chipmunk.

"Bird-Man, no! You're supposed to be my Spirit . . .

Helper." She coughed as the air went out of her lungs in a gush. Her arms and legs flailed weakly while his talons tightened, and she could hear her ribs cracking. Sharp darts of pain shot through her.

The unseen old woman started chanting again, and pounding her drum.

Bird-Man lowered his head, staring into Lichen's terrified eyes. "Didn't I tell you that sometimes Owl longs with all his heart to be Snake so he can crawl into a hole and hide in the darkness? This is what he's hiding from."

A gray haze fluttered at the edge of Lichen's vision. She struggled, trying to escape Bird-Man's grip. But with a wrench, he sank his claws deeper into her flesh, and his huge beak dropped out of the gray to tear at her chest and arms. She felt her flesh being torn from her bones as he devoured her.

Lichen's mouth filled with blood from her ruptured lungs. She gave a final gasp as Bird-Man's beak opened and plunged for her eyes. The last of her body began sliding down his throat, into his stomach . . .

"Oh, First Woman, I tried so hard. Wanderer? Wanderer, I'm sorry."

Eternal night enveloped her.

Lichen's soul separated from her body and sank into the pool of her own blood.