“Yes. Where do you want to sit?”
“Here, in the aspen grove.”
While he went about tying on his breech clout and climbing up on the low rock, Kestrel carried Cloud Girl and her paints over. It took her four trips—the sacred number. By the time she’d finished, Sunchaser sat cross-legged on the rock, eyes closed, back straight. The clear notes of his low chant caressed the air like hushed flute music. Helper had curled up before the sweat lodge, ten hands away. His knowing gaze rested on Sunchaser.
Kestrel hung Cloud Girl’s rabbit-fur sack on the closest tree and took a deep breath before she turned back to gaze at Sunchaser. Spears of sunlight penetrated the quaking leaves
and dappled his hair and face with a wavering golden patchwork.
Kestrel understood why so many people spoke his name in their prayers. His handsome face had a soothing peacefulness, as though the sweat bath had washed him clear down to his soul. Power radiated from him like water from a spring. The hair at the nape of her neck prickled. Despite her awe, fear stirred within—not fear of him, but for him. What would he do if he couldn’t Dream again today?
How many people have ever seen you cry, Sunchaser? Or heard you earnestly talk about loneliness? Please, Mammoth Above, let him find his way through the maze.
Quietly, Kestrel climbed up beside Sunchaser and arranged her paint shells near her right hand. Sunchaser smelled pleasantly of mint. He must have thrown a few sprigs into his water bowl before he poured it on the hot rocks. She folded the hem of her dress to cushion her knees from the gritty bite of the granite and waited.
The thin white trunks of the aspens clustered around them, seeming to lean inward as though eager and anxious about the happenings below. Kestrel took a deep breath to prepare herself. The pungent odor of wet hides drifted from the sweat lodge.
In the distance, the spit of sand where they had camped last night pointed out into the water like a narrow finger. A flock of black-and-white auks floated near the tip, diving for squid and small fish. Mother Ocean rocked calmly around them. The squawks pulsed in an odd rhythm with the sound of the surf.
Sunchaser stopped chanting and bowed his head. Kestrel saw his shoulder muscles contract. “Kestrel?”
“I’m here, Sunchaser.”
“Have you ever seen someone Dream before?”
“No. Except in the Ant Ordeal.”
He paused. “This will be different. Don’t be afraid. I may not awaken for days, because I’m trying so hard to find my way. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
He extended a hand around behind him, and Kestrel took it between her hands and squeezed hard. She said, “Dream well, Sunchaser. I’ll do my best for you.”
“I know you will.”
His deep, steady voice eased her fears. Kestrel released his hand and he closed his fingers slowly, as though to hold the feel of her with him for a time longer. Finally he pulled his hand back to his lap and began his low chant again.
The shadows of the quaking aspen leaves flitted around the grove like dark butterflies.
Kestrel dipped the first two fingers of her right hand into the black paint, warm and oily.
All right, Kestrel. Picture the design in your mind. It’s a tree, but the branches circle around like segments of the maze that Sunchaser carved into the floor of the rock shelter. Yes… yes, that’s it.
She put her left hand on Sunchaser’s shoulder and began painting with her right hand. At her gentle touch, a brief shudder went through him. Across his lower back, Kestrel carefully painted the trunk and the three branches sprouting from it. The two outside branches curved up like stubby buffalo horns, but the center branch slithered like a snake, swaying sinuously, first up, then down, veering off at a tangent, then to the left, then to the right.
Kestrel sat back to examine her work, and her hide skirt spread around her in a fringed halo. She cleaned the black paint from her fingers by rubbing them on the rock. Sunchaser’s Singing had grown quieter. She could no longer make out the words, they’d blended into a harmonic whole.
The rest of the painting would be far more difficult to do. The segments of branches had to connect and disconnect at just the right places. And she would have to create an ending, praying that her artistry didn’t somehow confuse Sunchaser’s soul.
As she dipped her fingers into the red paint, a bird fluttered down to sit on a branch over Helper’s head. A red-breasted
nuthatch. Such a beautiful bird. Blue-gray above, it had a rust-colored breast and a bold black eye stripe. In a flurry of nasal nyak-nyaks, two more swooped low and landed in the same aspen. Kestrel smiled. The first nuthatch hopped down the side of the tree, unconcerned, and began pecking, looking for insects that had secreted themselves beneath the bark.