When the female at last toppled onto her back with her wings spread, she stared up with frightened eyes that blinked in the wrinkled redness of her round head. Her large, hooked beak was streaked with gore and bits of tissue. Sunchaser reverently stroked her legs as her neck ceased to writhe. Rasping breaths tore from her lungs.
From tail to head, she stood as tall as many human women, and her wings stretched one third longer than Sunchaser’s height. “Thank you, Grandmother. I promise to use your feathers well and to bury your body with many rare seashells and finely crafted dart points.” His people had always revered the great birds, and they buried condors with solemn ritual dignity. Born from the blue blood of Above-Old-Man, condors carried the essence of all Life in their bodies.
Death always gives birth to Life. Even Above-Old-Man was willing to die so that the world might exist.
The female gasped suddenly, and a breath condensed into a white cloud around her open beak. She blinked at Sunchaser, her eyes drowsy with death. Blood spattered her entire body, but the thick coating of red on her white under wings had come also from Sunchaser’s torn flesh. A mixing of his blood and hers. He gently traced the forward edge of her right wing with his fingertips. “Forgive me, Grandmother.”
He straightened and stood shivering in the glacial air. A dark cloud had blotted the face of Father Sun and left the mountaintop in freezing shadow. The pale dove color of the rock outcrops had turned a deep, dark gray. The male condor still circled above, his head cocked. Alone. Watching his mate’s final moments in silence.
Sunchaser’s soul ached. His eyes met and held the male’s, and they shared their grief. Both understood that death was a
fundamental part of their relationship. Condors survived on carrion, much of it either left by human hunters or the humans themselves. Humans had to kill condors to obtain the sacred feathers they used for renewing and sanctifying the world. Human and Condor constantly faced each other asking for life—and knowing that it came only through death.
Sunchaser whispered, “I’ll take good care of her, Grandfather. I promise you. She will fly to the Land of the Dead with my people Singing her praises.”
Sunchaser gazed down at the female. Her beak rested on the Curved edge of her wing. She had stopped breathing.
“Come, First Condor,” Sunchaser Sang softly. “Come and guard your child’s soul until we Sing her to the Land of the Dead.”
He knelt and carefully folded Grandmother Condor’s wings. The feathers felt soft and warm. He lashed her wings to her body with a thin yucca cord so she would be easier to carry, then braced himself and lifted the heavy bird into his arms. Her head hung limply, the eyes half open as he started down the mountain.
That night he camped in the lee of a thick stand of fir, sheltered from the worst of the storm. In the flickering firelight, she watched him, her bloody head slightly canted where he had carefully propped it.
Exhausted to the point of collapse, Sunchaser said, “Your body will help the mammoths to live, Grandmother.”
As he watched with half-lidded eyes, the condor stirred. A fiery burning traced its way through the wounds she had inflicted on his head and arms. He blinked, sure that he’d seen a shifting of firelight, a trick of the popping embers playing in the breeze. Power moved, loose in the darkness. Desperately, he fought sleep, drifting amidst the sounds of wind, fire and night, hovering in that half-reality of… A breath expanded the condor’s lungs, and she lifted her head to stare at Sunchaser. A pale, silver light burned in her eyes. “Wow I understand your need for my body, Human. You hunted me with honor. I will take you on a journey. A Spirit
Journey far away. You shall see why you must pray day and night to keep the mammoths alive.”
Grandmother Condor shook off the frail bonds he had wrapped her in and leaped from her resting place. She flapped low over the ground, her wing tips brushing the snow, then gained enough altitude to lift into the sky. She circled and swung back around over the jagged rocks and the swaying trees, her talons outstretched. Sunchaser screamed, unable to flee. She sank those curved, bloody talons into the shoulders of his hide shirt and bore him upward through gleaming layers of clouds. With every beat of her wings, thunder cracked and rumbled over the mountains.
Bright fear pumped in time with Sunchaser’s heart. She needed but to relax her grip and he would fall… and fall…
“Look down, Sunchaser. What do you see?”
Terror strangled the scream in his throat. Mountains gave way to green, rolling plains where huge piles of carcasses lay rotting in the sun. White bones gleamed, picked clean by predators. Not just mammoths lay there, but four-horned pronghorns, several kinds of horses, ground sloths, dire wolves, giant beavers, shrub oxen saber-toothed cats, short-faced bears, lions … so many beautiful lions. They lay touching paws in a field of tall, windblown grass, their golden manes shimmering in the sun. Horror tightened Sunchaser’s chest. “I don’t understand, Grandmother. What is this? What am I seeing?”