People of the Weeping Eye(171)

“Take a moment,” the Kala Hi’ki said. “Remember how strong you are. Solid. A great mass that not even the crowd can move. You are alone within yourself. None of this is real. Only you are. Let it pass by.”

She filled her lungs, then let the breath drain away. “I am alone inside myself,” she repeated.

“Now look out with your eyes of stone. Tell me what you see. You are not part of it. Only an observer from within a heart of solid rock. What your eyes see is outside and meaningless.”

From the distance she had created within herself, she looked out. “People surround the plaza. Inside the square, young men are running, shoving. They are playing a great game of stickball.”

As she stared upon the scene from her high vantage, she had a good view of the frantic game. The players were all young men in breechcloths. Some wore white bustles that stuck out from their belts like flowing tail feathers. Their heads were done up in more feathers that bobbed and weaved as they ran. The effect was as if peculiar wingless birds were running, jumping, and shoving. One team wore white, the other yellow. She had seen stickball played in her own country, but there they used only one racquet. Here the players held two, each about the length of a man’s arm, the end bent in a loop and webbed with rawhide.

In the north teams consisted of perhaps twenty; here, they numbered in the hundreds as they ebbed and flowed, shouting, running, shoving together in great masses. She caught sight of the ball as it emerged from a mass, flying in a long arc. For a time the human mass contined to shove and mill, most of the players having lost sight of the ball. Then the press dissolved as a hundred men charged off in pursuit.

The goals were at opposite sides of the plaza, the closest just east of the Temple Mound. There two tall posts had been set in the ground; a crosspiece was laid between them twice the height of a man above the ground. From the closest, yellow fabric flagging was draped. At the far end of the field, the goal sported white.

“Who is playing?” the Kala Hi’ki asked.

“A white team plays yellow.”

“Ah,” he said. “Cattail Town is white and plays Canebrake Town in yellow. They have a score to settle. A dispute over an arranged marriage. A woman from Canebrake Town was promised to a man in Cattail Town. Then her family married her to another. If Cattail Town wins, they will receive compensation. Adding to the fury of the contest, Canebrake Town has won for the last five matches. It is said they have managed to ‘doctor’ the grounds each time. Cattail has a new conjurer. He is supposed to have influenced the Power so that they will win this time.”

The ball was neatly caught by a young man in yellow. With his racquet, he slung the ball toward the goal. There three men in white mobbed the yellow player, knocking him to the ground. The ball was neatly intercepted and pitched south toward the white goal.

Two Petals stared in amazement as the milling players ran together, people grunting under the impact. She watched two players wiggle between the legs of a third, then try to rise between the man’s legs, the three of them falling in a pile. The clatter of banging sticks rose over the roar of the crowd and whooping cries of the players.

Another press formed around the ball, people grunting and bellowing, squirming like a mass of earthworms. A single man wiggled from the mess, tossing the ball northward toward the yellow goal. A racquet neatly snatched it from the air, and the man turned, winging the ball north again, where another player leapt, caught the ball, and turned like a bobcat. As he hit the ground, his wiry body curved around and he whipped the ball between the goals.

A fierce shout exploded from the crowd. The force of it staggered Two Petals, and she tightened her grip on the Kala Hi’ki’s hand.

“You are a rock,” he told her. “You are only my eyes. Eyes can’t think. They only observe. To see is passive. Let what your eyes see pass through you.”

She steadied herself, forcing calm around her souls.

“What just happened?” the Kala Hi’ki asked.

“Yellow scored a goal.”

“Then the score keepers will place a stick in the ground for Canebrake Town. They will play to twenty, placing ten sticks and then taking them down again with each score.”

“What does the winner get?” she asked.

“On top of compensation for the woman, the towns have bet most everything they own: pottery, clothing, jewelry, food. Sometimes they even bet the clothes on their backs. Cattail Town has been nearly destitute for over a year now. Perhaps this new conjurer isn’t as good as they have hoped.”

Two Petals watched the teams re-form. The ball—having been retrieved—was run by a boy to an old man who walked out from the sidelines. He looked frail and small flanked by massed parallel ranks of the opposing teams. In the alley left down the middle of the field, he stopped, glanced back and forth, and then pitched the ball straight up in the air. He wheeled on his feet, sprinting for the sideline. The teams crashed together, and the melee began again, buoyed by a roaring of the crowd.