Be sure, Kestrel… you must be sure. Colors held Power. They came from the very soul of Sister Earth. “Some of my paintings come to life,” she whispered.
With Cloud Girl’s sack bouncing against her back, Kestrel stepped over a rotting log and knelt in a lush bed of ferns before a granite boulder wedged between two towering fir trees. The grayish-green leaves of lichen covered the rock. “When my paintings come to life, the Spirits in them grow minds of their own. No one can predict what such Spirits will do.”
Kestrel unlaced the pack around her waist and drew out a chert scraper the size of her palm. The lichen adhered to the stone like boiled pine sap, forcing Kestrel to gouge, cut and scrape for a full finger of time before she had enough of the leathery plant to fill half of her pack. Lacing up the pack, she stepped out of the ferns and trotted toward the game trail that led downhill.
When she emerged from the trees, the salty sea breeze hit her, rich with the scents of smoke and boiling paints. They’d moved their camp from the spit of sand to the edge of the trees so that Sunchaser could set up his sweat lodge in a sheltered location. They’d constructed it at dawn, making a round frame from pine saplings, then covering the small frame with the hides they used for bedding.
The lodge nestled in the middle of a small grove of aspens whose new green leaves quaked and rustled in the wind. In front of the lodge, a bed of hot coals lay covered with rocks.
Kestrel could see that Sunchaser had removed several of the rocks. Using sticks as tongs, he would have picked them
off and carried them inside, placing them in the pit dug into the floor of the sweat lodge. Water sprinkled over the hot stones would produce the steam.
Legend claimed that Wolfdreamer had built the first sweat lodge, and that it cleansed the soul as well as the body.
To the right of the sweat lodge, a large flat rock lay tilted slightly toward the sea. At its base, Helper lay on his side in the thick grass, watching Kestrel with his pointed ears cocked.
She went directly to the fire, where her paints were boiling. She’d collected large clamshells, heated them and mixed her ingredients with the fat from the rabbit she’d snared and eaten for breakfast.
Sunchaser hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since yesterday. He’d been worried about it all morning. “Dreaming well requires the denial of the body,” he’d told her. “I should have been fasting for the past three days. Even attempting to Dream today is dangerous, but I’m desperate. So many strange things are happening … I must try to reach the Land of the Dead. Perhaps the Spirits will forgive me this once.”
Kestrel unslung Cloud Girl’s sack and gently propped her daughter up against Sunchaser’s pack beside their rolled-up hides, the only two left after making the sweat lodge. Cloud Girl smiled happily.
“I have to tend my paints, baby. Be good for me.”
Cloud Girl chewed her fist as Kestrel knelt before the fire. The flames had burned down to a few weak flickers. Kestrel used a dead branch ripped from the bottom of a fir tree to snake out and turn over the shell she’d shoved into the ashes before going to find the lichen.
From her pack she pulled the folded bark container that held the remaining rabbit fat and a handful of the lichen. With her fingers, she scraped the fat from the bark onto the hot shell. The fat melted instantly, sliding down to pool in the hollow of the shell.
Kestrel rubbed the lichen between her palms, crushing it over the hot grease. When the bits of plant landed, they began
oozing a beautiful orange-yellow color. Kestrel stirred the mixture with a stick and went to pull her other paints away from the flames to cool.
She positioned the shells in a neat row. Then she unwrapped an obsidian flake from its protective leaves and slit the tip of her index finger. Blood welled. She Sang softly and squeezed drops of her blood into each color.
Willow bark produced the rich red paint; a mixture of walnut leaves and bark, the deep black; sagebrush, the pale ivory. When the lichen had finished steeping, she would have the four sacred colors she needed in order to create her designs.
Sounds came from the sweat lodge in the aspen grove. Helper rose and stretched, wagging his tail. Sunchaser ducked through the door flap and stood naked against the background of spring leaves. A sheen of sweat coated his sun-bronzed skin. Beads of water glistened-like a net of pearls over his white hair and braid.
For a brief instant, Kestrel allowed her gaze to linger on the curving muscles covering his tall body. The blue-and-green serpent tattoo on his chest gleamed. When he turned to look at her, his deep-set eyes appeared blacker than she had ever seen them before, like caves in moonglow.
“Are you ready, Kestrel?” he asked softly.