People of the Weeping Eye(30)
“My father had Pochteca. Two of them in his pack.”
“Traders.”
She was suddenly confused, seeing little people in her father’s pack. “How did they fit inside there?”
“They don’t come here.” He smiled. “We have nothing they want.”
She made a scoffing noise. “Everyone wants something that someone else has. Like the way you bested Fast Palm.”
“It’s a powder called chili. In the southwest it is used as a food. It’s hot. Like beeweed, only hotter. I blew a pinch of it into Fast Palm’s face.”
“Not Power?”
“Of a sort, I suppose.”
She caught him studying her from under his brows. “What?”
“You’re speaking more plainly. Can you control it? Or does it just come upon you?”
“It comes and goes. Goes and comes. Dancing like butterflies wiggling through the mud. Charms glitter in the sunlight,” she answered softly, using a stick to stir the contents of the pot. “Sometimes I’m riding a log over a waterfall. I just hang on and hope that when I finally hit the bottom, the foam will be soft.”
She waited for that look of irritation and disbelief. He only nodded, intent once again on his carving. He fascinated her. Since the night when Power first came to her, she’d trusted no one. This man, however, hadn’t looked at her with revulsion, fear, or disgust. Not once. Even when she turned, talking back to one of the voices, or staring at the sudden apparitions that formed out of midair. When the Power was flowing through her like a spring current, he listened, and even seemed to understand.
“These Azteca, did you see them?”
“I did.”
She hesitated. “Were they real? Did they leave prints in the dirt?”
“Yes.”
“They didn’t vanish?”
“No. They are real people. I went to see them.”
“Why?”
“To see if the stories were true.”
“Were they?”
He looked up. “Until you have seen, you would never believe.”
“I believe everything. It helps.”
“I’m sure it does.”
“Where else have you been?”
“Everywhere.” The word carried the weight of the world.
“Why?”
In the firelight, she could see sadness cross his face. “I was looking for the end of the world.”
“Did you find it?”
“Yes.” A pause. “No.”
After a longer silence, he said, “It depends on the direction you go. In the east, the ocean washes the land. Those who have tried to sail out on it say it goes on forever. Few who have sailed out beyond the horizon have ever returned. But there are rumors. Among the Chumash, on the western ocean, they tell of Traders who venture in from across the sea. The Chumash say they learned to build their plank canoes from these people. And up among the Pequot, I have personally seen a man, his skin white, like the best tanned leather, and hair all over his face. He was the only survivor of a huge wooden canoe. I have seen some of the pieces of wood the Pequot kept. Supposedly there is a land far across the eastern ocean. I have never gone that far.”
“And to think people tell me I am full of wild tales.” At his disapproving glance she asked, “Well, these Azteca, are they at the end of the earth?”
“They told me of still more peoples, and more peoples beyond them. In the north, I learned of distant peoples clear up to the eternal ice.”
“You really went all those places?”
He nodded.
She desperately wanted to ask why, but countered with, “I thought the earth had ends.”
“So did I. Once.” He shifted, turning his piece of shell toward the firelight. She could barely see the etching he was making.
“Do you know what that’s going to be?”
“A gorget.”
“And the drawing?”
“A rendition of our world. The outer circle is the Sky World; the pole in the center is the Tree of Life. The lower circle is the Below World.”
Her curiosity was piqued. “And you’ve been to these places?”
He shook his head slowly. “Only in my Dreams.”
That she understood. The things that popped up in her Dreams—sleeping and awake—were startling enough. She wrapped her long black hair in a nervous twist. “Then why are you drawing it?”
“Because it’s the world my people have always believed in. Sometimes illusions are comforting. They are familiar in the way an old blanket is. You find comfort from it because your parents did before you. You think it will always keep you warm, even though the threads are frayed and it’s full of holes. Still, you pull it around you in the blackness of the coming storm, assuring yourself it will keep you safe—and all the while the first sprinkles of freezing rain are stinging your skin with the certainty that it is no longer the protection you once thought it was.”