Death Chants (21 page)

The white man
looked up and saw the spasm seize the old man and stayed the pen in his hand, fearful that the
old man would drop dead of a heart attack. But the old man calmed himself.

"In the winter of
the great cold, when the stormshaker roared in the world, the great wolves became ferocious. They
came down out of their lairs and roamed around our lodges and howled until even the Great Spirit
trembled. They fell upon us
and no
person was safe from them outside his lodge. We lost children to them, we lost women to them and
warriors, for their hunger was unslakable and they had lost their fear of man and our
arrow-tipped death in that terrible winter."

"Eighteen
forty-six," said the white man, noting the year, unaware that he had spoken aloud, for he had his
own way of counting time.

"But the two
brothers did not stay inside their lodges, no, for they hunted the hunters and had great joy in
even more danger­ous lifetaking. Many wolves fell to their arrows and spears. And lometimes, in
his blood lust, the younger brother would fall upon a wolf with only his knife, for he sought
always the greater madness.

"Then it came to be
known that a great wolf, which had killed our children and torn the leg from a woman, was upon
us. Our anguish rose and our spirits gazed dumbly upon this great beast. They say his hot breath,
foul and sweet as the grave, came into the very lodges and made the home fires weak. A great
warrior sought his death and left us, and returned no more, for his blood was upon the snow and
the stars spelled death.

"But the two
brothers were greatly uplifted in their hearts, for this was the great hunt they sought. Where
fear closed the hearts of our people, they longed to walk. They set themselves on the trail of
this great wolf, and nothing else in life.

"But he, the great
wolf, was a ghost dancer in the scalp house. They killed two wolves, but not the great one. And
each night, they brought their kills back to the lodges and found a tale of

some new death the
great wolf had brought. Always it happened in
a
place where they had not
been, for he eluded them like the windigo women who lure young men into the woods to steal their
bones.

"So it went, and
the stormshaker would not relent and the brothers traveled farther and farther each day from
their lodges
and
got no closer to the wolf than an arrow gets when shot at
the blood-red moon.

"So it went, and
all the dark night ways and hunting chants
were no good against the beast. The two brothers became one
great burning heart, like a many-rooted tree that swelled
with
hate toward the sky. In their anger
came great strength, and the
people of
their own blood began to fear them, as they feared the great wolf. For the people looked into
their eyes and saw the thing that burned in the eyes of that which they sought.

"When they had been
two days gone from their lodges, fol­lowing a wolf track that seemed promising, the elder brother
said, 'I shall sing my death song if my knife does not soon find the heart of this
beast.'

"The younger
brother had already painted his face for death. 'I will kill him with teeth and bare hands or
leave my bones on the burial rack.'

"So their hearts
were set for death," said the old man.

The white man
stirred uncomfortably in his chair but his hand continued to move across the paper, chasing the
words.

"But the great wolf
was not at the end of their trail," the old man continued. "And so they came back in despair to
their lodge and found that the great wolf had been there. They found their aged father, ripped
and half-eaten by the great wolf. It had come into their lodge and profaned it and severed the
great living root of their lives." A tear formed in the corner of Walking Wolf's eyes and he
seemed to shrink in his chair, suddenly old as if his twilight had come upon him.

Again the white man
stopped writing and was afraid the old man would do some injury to himself.

"Perhaps we should
rest for a while," said the white man. "Your throat must be dry and my hand could use a rest,
too."

The old man did not
seem to hear him. Walking Wolf stared at something, at a road that went backward and the white
man was not on that road.

"The two brothers
buried the body of their father," he said. "They took his torn and claw-ripped heart and burned
it and gave it to Sky Grandfather, for the great wolf had burned their hearts and their home on
earth was now ashes and dust.

"The people of the
village saw them at their task and grew frightened. The brothers were more demon than flesh now,
sucklings of the great wolf that none could kill, and the people hid their faces, for the
brothers were no longer good to look upon.

"And the brothers
fired their lodge, for they lived now only in the hoped-for corpse of the great wolf. His ribs
were now their
lodge pole. They set out
after him, hot now upon his trail, red with the blood of their father."

The white man wrote
furiously, for now the words came faster and the old man was in some kind of fever himself and
could not be stopped.

"As they chased
him, day chased night and caught it, but the great wolf was in the next day. The trail was seared
with the fever of their passing. The shaper of thunders would have hid from them, if he had seen
their faces. On they ran, and the next day fell to the thunder of their feet and the straining of
their lungs and the ache in their hearts, but the great wolf was always in the next night, or so
it seemed.

"And then, at the
edge of the night, when their hearts were about to burst, a great fear rattled in their chests
and darkness look hold of them with icy hands.

"The younger
brother said, 'Our strength is going and the beast mocks us.'

"The elder brother
said, 'We hunt a demon, smarter than men. We are dead men already and he has not yet given us our
death. As we would give it to him.'

"The moon came up
and ahead of them, on the trail, sat the great wolf, waiting for them. And the younger brother
looked at the moon and said, 'The sun is blinding me. It steals the sleep from my eyes and hides
it in a spider's web.'

"His hands uncurled
and became claws, making killing mo-lions.

"And the fear of
madness and the fear of the wolf were mixed in the heart of the elder brother, and his weapons
were ashes and dust, and his hands would have made the sign for peace but he had never learned
it. He made a fist of his hands and found the ashes of his father's burned heart in it, and so
mocked, the fear ran from him and the old hunger was new born.

"The elder brother
would have moved then but he saw some-thing the younger brother could not see. The death of all
deaths In the moon glow and a moon shadow crept over him and froze him like a dead tree. And he
could not move.

"But younger
brother saw only a mad dawn and burned in the Mazing sun, soul destroyed.

"Younger brother
ran toward the wolf and the wolf sat like a golden fire, all tangled and scorched with the worms
of death.

"And they met and
locked in great combat, the wolf ripping and clawing and the younger brother, a ravening wind mad
with hunting lust, stabbing for the heart of the terrible one.

"Long did they
struggle and the blood was a river.

"Out of that river
flowed the life of the younger brother. The great wolf seized him by the face, the black jaws
came together and the skull was crushed. Younger brother dropped to the ground under the weight
of his death and the wolf moved back, ran away howling with fierce wild joy. It stopped upon the
path and waited for the sun to rise in the heart of the elder brother."

The white man was
covered with sweat, writing furiously, his shoulders hunched forward over the notebook. His arm
ached and his fingers were a searing, fierce pain.

Walking Wolf was
bent like a man facing a great wind. His eyes burned like two knife wounds and his face was
contorted like a man in the grip of something dark.

"And so I," said
Walking Wolf, "the elder brother, on legs that felt like betraying me, moved forward then. I took
tiny steps like a child, like a deer child first walking toward newborn milk. The trees seemed to
touch me with icy clawed hands and something was in me, a stain on my heart. Was it fear that
ripped me? Was that knife in me now, that had never feared, that had painted my face for
death?

"I stood in the
blood of my dead brother, and the trail of the great wolf seemed cold and lifeless before me. The
wolf awaited my coming but I did not come. I knelt beside the slain one and took his lifeless
body and held it against me. Death of the hunted, that had always been my strength, but it
vanished as I held my dead brother."

Tears streamed down
the face of the old man and his voice cracked with an old longing, a sorrow that scaled a
long-ago sky. "I moved his hands so that the weapons fell from them, for in death he still had
his feet set to climb the hunter's path. I held his torn face against me, made and broken, slain
and forgiven by the great wolf's stronger way. And it was a face without peace or kindness, and
it was not good to look upon, for it was my face, too."

The old man touched
the wrinkled corners of his eyes, found the tears and dropped his hands, as if
bloodied.

He stood there
motionless on the old road and it seemed as if he would speak no more.

"What happened?"
asked the white man, and there was some­thing strange in his voice, a new emotion. His face was
white and his hands had stopped moving across the page. The last of the old man's words had gone
unrecorded.

"The noise of a
hunter's heart!" cried the old man. "As its feathers are once spread, so it must always take
flight!

"I held my death
against me in my brother's body! But do young men understand death? Only for a second and never
deeply enough, for revenge was in my veins and my hunter's heart still made utterance to
me.

"I threw his body
from me, and the trail of the great wolf burned in the sun. I stabbed my arm so the blood would
know how to flow and I went toward the great wolf, singing my death song!

"He saw my great
anger and knew fear, for he fled from me (hen. But no creature can run faster than vengeance. I
ran through places men did not go and did not see them. I ran into nights unseen and days
unnumbered and saw only the great wolf, living for his death or mine.

"The forest tried
to hold me back, tearing at me, and my blood flowed again and again, tree and branch wounded, but
I felt only the hunting wound and there is no greater pain.

"We met, that great
wolf and I. In a forest of azure and ice, in a valley where the sun never shines but burns. I
threw myself upon

the wanderer and
had the strength that comes to a man only once in his lifetime, and then comes never again. I was
thunder.

"I was
lightning.

"I was death in all
of its faces.

"The great wolf
tried to sink his claws in me, tried to rip my heart out but I threw him off. With my knife, I
ripped his eyes out and we came at each other again.

"My knife was out
and drove home and I meant to make a shadow of him but his jaws closed on my arm and the knife
fell

from my fingers. I
tried to throw him off but his jaws locked and
could not be forced off. My arm went around his gray neck and tightened and squeezed and
then death rattled in his throat.

"The wind fell out
of his empty eyes. My arm strained and I held him against me, ever tighter until it seemed I
would squeeze his head off and I felt no pain from the wolf jaws fas­tened upon my
arm.

"No pain! 'See, my
younger brother!' I cried in my joy and I crushed the dead wolf against me till I thought I would
pull him through my own chest.

"I had conquered
him. The seed of his dark soul was dead, strangled by my hand into darkness and I looked down in
tri­umph at his wolf face and saw my brother.

"My arm encircled
his sad dead face and the wolf-bitten arm had my brother's blood on it. And the wolf was my
brother dead and he was me alive. Young brother equal and one with me, man that is made of me,
man that is I, Walking Wolf.

"I had been blind
in the blood.

"I saw the
emptiness of the hunter's life.

"In one hand one
holds a passion for death. But is not wisdom another hand with a passion for life? The arrow of
youth is strung on a mighty bow, but it falls in the dust.

"I felt the ache in
my arm, the great wolf jaw bite, and my life-hating heart twisted in that painful flame, in that
great ripping wolf bite.

"The jaws of the
wolf are long and terrible and speak of love. It fastened upon my arm and tore out my
heart."

Walking Wolf bowed
his head, the fever had passed, leaving him old, ruined, an empty husk of a man.

"And I would hunt
no more, for I had no longer a hunter's killing heart. And so, I buried my dead, but they have
followed me all my days. They follow me now and I have no heart big enough to give them rest, so
deeply did the wolf bite me."