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

Nine times Owl Carver danced around Gray Cloud and Iron Knife in the circle that represented the sun, the horizon and the cycles of life and the seasons.

Then in his normal voice, not breaking step, he said, "Bring him to my medicine wickiup."

He turned abruptly and danced through the crowd that had gathered. The people parted to let him through and they stared at Gray Cloud's body in Iron Knife's arms.

The people who had followed Owl Carver had stamped down a path through the village. No longer needing Sun Woman's snowshoes, Redbird bent and unstrapped them from her feet. She was suddenly so exhausted by her efforts and by the fear and sleeplessness of two days that she could hardly stumble along behind Iron Knife. She felt that at any moment she might faint.

The light of the full moon, shining down from directly overhead and reflecting on the snow, seemed to make the whole village almost as bright as day. Sighing, Redbird looked up and saw Wolf Paw staring at her from beside the path.

His black eyes pierced her like arrowheads. Under his sharp nose his mouth was tight.

She nodded her head at him, hoping he would understand that she was saying that they should keep each other's secrets.[38]

"Redbird!" A hand seized her arm roughly, and pain shot through up to her shoulder.

Her mother, Wind Bends Grass, glared at her furiously.

"Why did you leave our wickiup?"

Redbird felt that if she stopped walking to talk she would never be able to move again. She pulled her arm free. Her sisters, clinging to either side of her mother, stared up wide-eyed at her as if she herself had returned from a spirit journey.

Her mother walked beside her, scolding her in a shrill voice, but her words meant nothing to Redbird. She only wanted to see Gray Cloud brought safely to the shaman's wickiup.

Someone else took her arm, squeezing it gently, and she looked up into Sun Woman's face. Tears streaked the strong cheekbones.

"You saved his life," Sun Woman said, so softly only Redbird could hear the words.

"I did nothing," Redbird protested. Silently, Sun Woman took the snowshoes, the water bag and the blanket roll from her.

Owl Carver stopped at the doorway of the medicine wickiup. He danced from one foot to the other, shaking his staff.

He nodded at Iron Knife, and motioned him to carry Gray Cloud into the dark interior.

Redbird followed. The owl-headed stick barred her way.

"Go with your mother," Owl Carver said softly. "You have done enough this night."

She could not tell whether he was praising or reproaching her.

Will he live? she wanted to ask. But his solemn face forbade her to speak.

She turned away from his remoteness and faced her mother's anger. Her heart was still full of terror for Gray Cloud, but she knew that the instant she lay down she would fall into an exhausted sleep.

It seemed that no time had passed when Wind Bends Grass shook her awake.

"Your father calls the people together," she said in a voice still hard with anger.

Redbird's eyelids felt as if they were made of stone. She forced herself to sit up, and then with immense effort got to her feet.[39]

She was still fully dressed, even in her fur cloak and mittens. She had collapsed in the wickiup without removing anything. The wickiup was now empty. Her mother and her sisters had gone ahead without her.

Her heart hammered in her chest. Owl Carver might be calling the people to tell them that Gray Cloud was dead.

Outside, the air was still deathly cold, but the sun was a bright yellow disk rising above the distant gray line of trees that marked the bluffs overlooking the Great River. The light made her blink, and she turned away from it. She stumbled in the direction all the other people were going—to the medicine wickiup in the center of the camp circle.

She found that the open area before the wickiup was crowded, and she could not get close. The spaces between nearby wickiups were also filled with people, all waiting for Owl Carver to speak.

She seated herself between two women, both of whom had small children on their laps. Redbird knew one of the mothers, Water Flows Fast, a stout woman with a round, cheerful face and shrewd eyes.

Water Flows Fast said, "You are the daughter of Owl Carver. You should go up and sit close to him." Redbird sliced her hand flat across her body to say no. She knew Water Flows Fast to be a keen observer and a gossip, always looking for signs of trouble in other people's families. The less Redbird said to her, the better.

Redbird looked over her shoulder and saw that now there were many more people packed in behind her. Everyone was talking at once, and the hundreds of voices beating upon her ears made her head hurt. About five hundred people were here, everyone in this camp, which was one of four that made up the British Band of the Sauk and Fox tribes that would come together in Saukenuk after the winter snow and ice melted.

The medicine wickiup was built on a low hill in the center of the camp, and when Owl Carver appeared, everyone who was standing sat down. Redbird's eyes devoured Owl Carver's face, trying to read in it whether Gray Cloud was alive or dead.

Another man emerged from the medicine wickiup to stand beside Owl Carver. His head was bare even on this terribly cold day, and he wore his hair in the manner of a brave, his dark brown scalp shaved except for a long black scalplock that coiled down the side[40] of his face. His eyes were shadowed and sad-looking, and there were heavy blue-black pouches under them. His cheekbones jutted out and his mouth was wide, curving down at the corners where it met deep furrows that ran from nose to chin.

Redbird's heart beat faster as she saw that to honor this moment he had attached a string of eagle feathers to his scalplock and wore strings of small white beads around the rim of each ear. He stood with his arms folded under a buffalo robe, skin side out, painted with a red hand proclaiming that he had killed and scalped his first enemy while still a boy.

His sombre gaze fell upon Redbird like a stone striking her from a great height. She felt as if the war chief of the British Band knew every one of her secrets. She ducked her head and looked down at her mittened hands in her lap.

Owl Carver raised his arms, and the people fell silent.

"I have called on Black Hawk, our war chief, to see Gray Cloud, and he has heard great prophecies from Gray Cloud's lips," the shaman cried in a high, chanting voice.

Then Gray Cloud had lived through the night!

Owl Carver blurred in Redbird's sight, and if she had not already been seated, she might have collapsed. Relief made her heart swell up in her chest, feeling as if it might burst.

The people around her murmured in surprise, pleasure and curiosity.

The shaman stretched out his hand. "Sun Woman, stand before the people."

Nothing happened for a long moment. Then Owl Carver beckoned insistently. There was another silence. Then Black Hawk's hand emerged from under his buffalo mantle, and he crooked his finger.

A tall woman wrapped in a buffalo robe rose from among the seated people. People sighed happily and called out a welcome to her.

Sun Woman turned to face the crowd. To Redbird she seemed calm and unruffled, even though she had hesitated about standing up.

"This woman brought her son to me and asked me to train him as a shaman," Owl Carver declared. "I did not want to, because he is not a pure Sauk. She said to me, only try him for a little time and[41] see what he can be. I tried him for a little time and I saw something in him. I saw sleeping powers!"

The people murmured in wonder. Water Flows Fast and the woman with her whispered to each other, darting curious glances at Redbird, who carefully kept her face as impassive as Sun Woman's.

"I tested him and saw that his dreams could foretell the future, that he could send his spirit walking while his body lay still, that he could talk to the spirits in trees and birds. I saw that he had the power to be a shaman and more ..."

Owl Carver paused and stared at them fiercely.

"And so I sent him up to the sacred cave, knowing that he might meet spirits so powerful that to encounter them destroys the souls of men.

"And Gray Cloud went into the sacred cave, and he met the great spirits, and he journeyed with them," Owl Carver cried. People gasped.

"He has met the White Bear. He has spoken with the Turtle, father of the Great River. He has brought back a message for Black Hawk," said Owl Carver. "The Turtle told Gray Cloud that Black Hawk might tell others as he saw fit." The rumble of voices rose at this, and then quieted as Owl Carver raised his medicine stick.

"After the Turtle created our Mother the Earth, he mated with her, and all tribes were born in her womb," Owl Carver said. "They lived there