Shaman, Robert Shea [new ebook reader .txt] 📗

broke, and he threw that down, too.

"Do you need those things to help you find herbs?" he shouted.

Trembling from head to foot, she felt herself starting to cry. She hated herself for showing such weakness in front of Wolf Paw. If she was to die, she wanted to be strong.

To her surprise, the sense that she was being watched from a distance came back again. There was someone else out here in the frozen darkness besides herself and Wolf Paw.

"It is death to interfere with a spirit quest," Wolf Paw growled. "The shaman's daughter of all people should know better than to break a holy law."

Her fear made her feel as cold, as breathless, as if she were already plunged into black, freezing water, swept along, an enormous weight of ice between her and the air.

"I have done nothing."

"You meant to. That is as bad."

She saw the hunting knife at Wolf Paw's belt. She could make a grab for it, try to stab him.

No, he was one of the tribe's mightiest braves. He would be too quick and strong for her. And, at least, up to now she had done no[30] harm to anyone but herself. To try to murder the son of the war leader would be a great crime.

His grip on her arm still cruelly tight, he gestured back behind him toward the snow-covered camp. "Think of your mother's weeping over what I caught you doing. Your father, his heart torn in his chest. But he, the shaman, would have to say that you must be killed."

Hopelessness crushed her. Now she would never be able to help Gray Cloud. He was going to die. And she was caught by Wolf Paw and would be dishonored before the whole tribe and then killed.

She hung her head.

"But it is true, Redbird, you have done nothing," Wolf Paw said more softly. "I am the only one who knows that you were about to break the law."

Sun Woman knows. But Wolf Paw will never learn that from me.

"I do not want you to die, Redbird," said the low voice from the figure towering over her.

She looked up at him. Was he going to be merciful?

He said, "It makes me angry that you throw your life away for that fatherless pale eyes boy. To wed the son of Black Hawk would bring you honor."

She understood now. He was going to offer to spare her life, if she would marry him and give up Gray Cloud. He did not understand that she would rather be dead twice over than spend her life mourning Gray Cloud and married to Wolf Paw.

She was about to tell him so when she heard a rumble, almost like thunder, from the trees nearer the camp. With much whinnying and cracking of shrubbery, all the band's horses burst out of the woods and ran, floundering and kicking up clouds of snow, out on the prairie.

"Be still," Wolf Paw cautioned in a low voice, "until we see what frightened them." He stood with his head high, listening.

Whatever it was, she was grateful that it had taken Wolf Paw's mind off her.

She heard a crashing in the forest, branches breaking, snow crunching. Something large was coming toward them.

She turned. Through the trees she saw a bulky, hunched figure. It seemed to be a large animal, but it was walking on its hind legs.[31] It came forward slowly, a step at a time. Its forelimbs swung at its sides. It was a little taller than a man.

It looked very much like a bear. A new fear, greater than the fear of what Wolf Paw might do, assailed her.

A bear in coldest winter, when all of that people withdrew to their dens and slept? Once in a while, she had heard, a very hungry bear would awaken and forage for food and then go back to sleep again. Such a bear would kill anything it met. She tensed herself to run, though she knew she could never outrun a hungry bear.

The shambling tread of the bear, or whatever it was, had brought it closer, and she saw that it was all white, glittering in the moonlight like a snowdrift.

She glanced at Wolf Paw and saw his eyes glisten as they widened. The look on his shadowed face was one she never thought to see on him—fear.

He sucked in a shuddering breath. The hand that had held her arm suddenly released her.

No wonder Wolf Paw was afraid. This was a white bear, a spirit bear. Its eyes, reflecting the moonlight, seemed to glow.

Wolf Paw uttered a terrified, inarticulate cry. She turned to see him racing over the snow. Were she not so frightened herself, she might have laughed to see how his knees flew up, first one, then the other, as white clouds sprayed from his snowshoes. Strong as he was, he could never outrun a bear. Especially not this bear.

As for herself, she was surely doomed. She thought, May this be a better death than drowning under the ice.

And she turned to face the spirit bear.

[32]

3
Claw Marks

The white bear was out of the forest now. Redbird had seen bears run, and she knew it could cover the distance that separated them in a few bounds.

It did not seem to be looking at her, and she wondered if it saw her. It sparkled in the moonlight. Its breath came in huge frosty clouds, obscuring its head. Did spirit bears breathe?

She looked around again to see where Wolf Paw was. He had become a small, dark spot against the white at the edge of the village. His snowshoes had carried him far quickly. She, too, would have run, if she could run like Wolf Paw.

She did not think Wolf Paw a coward. His courage was well known. Facing a being like this, the bravest man in the world would run.

It doesn't seem to see me. Maybe it is best to stand still.

She trembled from head to foot, unable to decide what to do. She felt dizzy, as if she might collapse into the snow. The bright light that seemed to come from the bear dazzled her.

But would a spirit bear attack people in the night and kill them? Devils and cannibal giants would, but she had never heard of a spirit doing any such thing.

She was learning to be a medicine woman, and a medicine woman must deal unafraid with the beings of the other world. Talk the bad spirits out of a sick person's body and call upon the good spirits to aid in healing.

She took a deep breath. Whether this be a good spirit or a devil,[33] she would stand here holding herself proudly. Wolf Paw, if he looked back, would see the maiden he had threatened standing in the place he had run from.

The white bear took a step toward her.

In spite of her fear, she made herself look at the spirit as it came on. It walked so slowly. Perhaps, after all, she could run away from it.

Under the pointed snout she saw eyes that seemed to glow out of a shadowed face.

It was a man she was facing.

She saw that its path was taking it past her. It—he—did not seem to see her at all. But he was close enough now for her to see the face under the bear's skull. The large, round eyes, the long, thin features ending in a pointed chin, the bony beak of a nose, the down-curving, tender mouth. His face was covered with a mask of frost.

Gray Cloud.

How could she have forgotten that when he walked out of the camp yesterday he had worn a black bear's skin draped over his arms and shoulders? Snow and frost had turned the fur white. The night and her terror had tricked her into thinking she saw a white bear spirit. Wolf Paw, the seasoned warrior, had been tricked and terrified, too.

Gray Cloud was alive!

A scream tried to force its way out of her chest, but her windpipe was so tight that all she managed was a gasp.

Joy blazed up in her like a summer campfire.

But no—he could not be alive and look like that. What she was seeing must be the ghost of Gray Cloud, or his dead body walking. The cold and snow had killed him there in the sacred cave, and this shuffling, frozen husk was all that was left of him.

"Gray Cloud," she whispered, unable to speak aloud, "talk to me."

If he walked right past her without seeing her, he must be still on his spirit journey. She had always heard that the bodies of men on a spirit journey remained motionless, sitting or lying down. But she was certain that Gray Cloud was not fully awake.

She stood staring at him, her mouth open, as he shambled on past her.[34]

She slowly turned to follow him, and now she was facing into the moonlight and seeing the shadows of the snow-covered wickiups. He was walking in that frighteningly slow, measured way toward the village. Wolf Paw was nowhere to be seen.

The feeling came to her again of other eyes upon her. Besides Wolf Paw, besides the strange creature Gray Cloud had become, someone else seemed to be out here in the snow-covered field with her. She shuddered.

She looked around to see if she could guess where the secret watcher might be hiding. Someone might be crouching behind one of the long snowdrifts that rippled across the prairie like waves on a lake. Or in the trees by the river.

She must not let herself be caught out here. She picked up the blanket roll and water skin that Wolf Paw had thrown into the snow and padded on her snowshoes after the lumbering white figure. She must hurry and try to get to a place where her presence would be unnoticed, or if noticed, not questioned.

Her legs ached. She did not have the strength to run. Gray Cloud had left a trail of two shallow furrows in the snow where he had pushed his legs through and the snow had fallen in behind him. On her snowshoes she pressed on behind him.

Even though the snowshoes helped her, her legs ached. She wanted to throw down her burdens of blanket roll and water skin, but they were too valuable for her to let them be lost out here. Merciless pain shot up from her shins through her knees to her hips. Still, the miseries felt by her body could not touch the joy of her spirit. Gray Cloud lived.

A wall of fur coated with white snow loomed up before her. As Gray Cloud lumbered along, she quickly stepped to the side and hurried around him.

She turned for a closer look at him. His steaming breath obscured his face. He stopped. He swayed, and the bear's skull fell back from his lolling head. She screamed, a sound that rang distantly in her ears.

Gray Cloud dropped to his knees, then fell forward on his face, sending up a great puff of powdery snow that glittered in the moonlit air.

The silence after his fall was as stunning as thunder. Redbird felt tears stream from her eyes—and freeze at once on her cheeks.[35] That he should have lived through two nights of blizzard and cold, that he should come down alive from the sacred cave, only to die within sight of the village under her very eyes, was more than she could stand.

"Oh, no!" she whispered. "He must not die."

She fell to her knees beside him.

He lay face down, half buried. She put her hands under his shoulder and pushed to raise his head. He was heavy, but her fear and her love for him made her strong enough to move him. She lifted his upper body and turned him on his side, and she saw the beloved features, frost-white. Hope made her heart beat faster as little clouds of warm air puffed from his nostrils. But his breathing was ragged and shallow. She had to get him in out of the cold. Gasping with the effort, she rolled him over on his back.

She would have to try to drag him to the village.

Sobbing with near-exhaustion, she sat by his head, shoved her hands under his shoulders and tried to stand, pulling him up with her.

All at once there was no weight on her arms. Someone else was there, lifting Gray Cloud.

She looked up, thankful, yet afraid she might see Wolf Paw returned to do them harm.

No, it was Iron Knife.

Seeing the broad face of her half brother, a cry of relief burst from her throat.

"Oh, Iron Knife! It is so good you are here."

He smiled grimly, grunting as he hauled Gray Cloud to his feet. Gray Cloud's eyes were shut,