Oxbalm sat cross-legged at the west end of the fire, his gray head down. Sumac held an elk hide over his shoulders, hugging him and whispering to him.
Catchstraw could not hear Sumac’s words, but he knew from Oxbalm’s face that they had nothing to do with Sunchaser. Probably Sumac was trying to comfort Oxbalm about Mountain Lake. Good. Keep him busy. Sumac. This way, the people can think for themselves for once.
But the villagers kept eyeing Oxbalm as though expecting him to comment. Preoccupied, Oxbalm drew designs in the sand around his moccasined foot. What a pathetic figure he made.
“I’ll tell you when it started!” Catchstraw answered his own question since no one else seemed to want to. “It began when Sunchaser missed the first Mammoth Spirit Dance! Remember? It was right after that that illness ran through Tealwing Village.”
The inner circle of elders, they who sat closest to the flames, muttered to one another. Old woman Yucca Thorn waved her sticklike arms, making some point. Dizzy Seal listened to her through half-lidded eyes, his mouth pursed in clear disagreement.
Catchstraw respectfully folded his hands and waited while they discussed the issue. Few of them liked him. He knew that. So he had to be extra careful in the way he treated them. If he weren’t, the old fools would never grant him the authority he deserved. They would cast Sunchaser aside and pick some unknown as spiritual leader of the clan—anything to avoid having to rely on Catchstraw.
He patiently studied the beach. Moonlight drenched the sand. Out on the calm water, gulls floated. Every time a wave moved beneath them, their white wings flashed in the silvery glow.
“Are you saying that Sunchaser is the cause of this?” a young man finally asked from the dark edge of the crowd. Catchstraw couldn’t see his face, but the voice sounded like young Horseweed’s.
“Think about it,” Catchstraw urged. “Sunchaser has missed four Dances straight. Four is a sacred number! And he left right after the mammoths destroyed our village. That’s when
we needed him most! He should have been here to help us pray our loved ones to the Land of the Dead.”
“He’s never here anymore when we need him,” old woman Yucca Thorn yelled. With obvious effort, she rose on crackling knees and let her eyes drift through the gathering. Firelight shone against the carved whalebone beads encircling her collar and reflected from her abalone-shell pendant. “Catchstraw is right. You all heard Sunchaser this morning. He said that he couldn’t get through the maze, that he’d lost his way to the Land of the Dead.” She made a throwing-away motion with her hand. “That could happen only if Wolfdreamer has given up on him!”
Catchstraw wanted to chortle. He’d heard it himself. Everyone had. Sunchaser had admitted that he could no longer find his way through the maze! This new Dreaming technique had elevated Catchstraw to heights he’d never known, and blinded Sunchaser! He’d been practicing it nearly every night. Of course he couldn’t tell that to any of these fools. They’d accuse him of… of witching.
It had been cycles since he’d heard about anyone being witched, but he knew the old stories. Witches used Power for wicked things. Generally, witches traveled in human form, but sometimes they transformed themselves, taking the legs of wolves so they could run faster, or the teeth of saber-tooth cats, or the strength of short-faced bears so they could tear their victims to pieces.
One notorious witch from Tides Village, far to the north, was reputed to have undertaken his nightly activities only after removing his eyes and depositing them in a basket in his lodge. He then borrowed the eyes of a lion so he could see better in the darkness. What had his name been? Yes… Cactus Lizard. The fool. His own dog had found the basket that held his human eyes and gobbled them down, so that he’d been forced to walk the village the next day with his golden lion eyes. People had run screaming. The village elders had ordered that Cactus Lizard be weighted
with granite stones, taken far out into the ocean and heaved overboard in punishment.
But what an interesting idea. Catchstraw smiled to himself. What would it -be like to prowl the night in the body of a wolf? Dizzy Seal’s grating voice jerked him back from his musings.
“Is that it, old woman?” Dizzy Seal demanded from where he sat on the ground. His flat face gleamed like burnished copper. “Or is it that Sunchaser is tired? Eh? All of you! Sunchaser has been traveling from one sick village to the next, Healing people. That’s why he hasn’t been here to lead the Dances! Would you have him let people die so he could come to Dance with us?”