Dreams That Burn In The Night (2 page)

"Let him go," said
the strange one. "He is fighting to be brave against what he does not know. It is not wisdom, but
it is what he knows."

Old Bear knew
Rainmaker well. "If the shaman releases him, he will attack again."

"Let him go," said
the old one again. He smiled and it was a smile as cold as the icy heart of winter.

Domea regarded the
old one thoughtfully. He drew back his foot, and with a shrill cry Rainmaker leaped to his feet,
the blood still hot in his face and warrior's heart.

The old one stood
calmly in the sun as Rainmaker thrust the spear at his heart. Old Bear and Domea looked on,
expecting to lee the old one killed at their feet.

Rainmaker keened
the war cry. He charged at the old one.

The point of the
spear thrust against the old one's chest. The old man did not seem to notice it.

As swift as a
diving hawk, the old one's hand flashed through
the air. It caught the spearhead as it hit his flesh and, with one vi­olent yank, broke
it from the wooden shaft. Nothing on earth moved as fast as the old one's hand. Rainmaker
collided with the old man, carried into him with the force of his charge. The strange one was
like an old tree so strong even the wind could not move it. Rainmaker fell to the ground, the
broken spear falling

across his
chest.

The war anger in
Rainmaker was gone. Only fear, stark and terrible, remained. He cowered at the strange one's feet
like a dog too long without a bone.

Old Bear looked
deep into the face of the old one. His dim eyes probed the lines and seams of the old one's face.
He tried to see someone he knew of old, but time had traveled many miles across the old one's
face.

The strange one
looked at Old Bear, Rainmaker forgotten at his feet. He said, "You know me of old. As children,
Old Bear, we ran through many summers together. You must look deep in my eyes and you will see it
is true." He watched Old Bear's face, as old as his own.

"Yes, it is so. I
see that child of summers long ago. You are Long Deer. The old man now who was once that child I
knew. You are Long Deer. But were you not taken by demons?"

Old Bear backed
farther away. He had seen the eagle swiftness of hand, the great-bear strength in the old one's
hand that had caught and snapped a spear like a little twig. These were strengths and powers not
of the world of men. The cold ache of fear was

tight in the
muscles of his face and the hollow of his stomach. His

legs
wanted
 to turn and run.

"You need not fear
me. I can hurt no one," said the old one. "Areyou
a
demon? Do you breathe? Do
you sleep? I am afraid of
you
, old with the name and aged face of one who
went away with
 the dark ones of
the mountains. Your words do not ease my heart,"
said Old Bear.

"Why are you here,
aged one? What do you seek?" asked Domea, huddled deep within the protective folds of his
medicine robe. The
 shaman
tur
ned his head slowly from side to side, listen-ing
for the sound
of dark things, creatures of the night, but he heard nothing, felt nothing rustling with
dirty noises in the world around
him.
There was only the
old one, who smelled
strongly of evil but Rlftdt none of the toundi that bespoke its presence.

Evil never comes
with great silence.

The old one sighed
and shook his head. A sad smile appeared, and it was full of black meaning. It was the smile of
lizards watching with hidden eyes in the rocks below the graves of the dead. Old Bear pulled his
robe tight around his shoulders, feeling the cold season in that smile, and he turned and hurried
away. In that smile was more than he wanted to know.

The shaman made
Rainmaker get up. Rainmaker had lain upon the ground as a small child crouches, expecting to be
hit by a punishment stick. Rainmaker kept his face turned from the eyes of the old one. He felt
shamed, dishonored. The old one had bested him as a buffalo scares a rabbit by his near
step.

"Why are you here?"
said the shaman. Rainmaker got up slowly, shame bowing his shoulders with a great weight. He
turned his back on them and walked back to the village, to blacken his face with ashes and his
shame. "You have shamed our best warrior. But it does not tell me the secret in your heart that
brings you to our village. You are demon-stolen. You may mean us great harm. You must tell
me."

"I have no hate in
my heart. That is all you need know. It is enough."

But Domea was not
content with that. The shaman asked again, anger rising in him. The old one said nothing, looking
into the wind, seeing nothing. The shaman shook his spirit bundle threateningly at the old one,
but the old one was unmoved. The shaman called on spirits to protect him, to watch over the
village. He called up his greatest magic, a force of air and being. The voices of his ancestors
sang in the spirit wind.

The old one smiled
then, the same terrible smile that watched everything from the cold places beneath the graves of
men.

And it was the
shaman who turned and ran back to the village, more terrified even than Rainmaker had been, for
the death of his own magic and power had been in that smile. It was his spear, and the old one
had broken it as surely and as easily as he had Rainmaker's.

And the old one
came and went.

With the patience
of a snake, the old one stood silently in the village, watching the children. Watching them all
day, day after day.

The village was
full of talk about this strange one who came
and went. But no one spoke aloud that they should kill him or drive him away. The mothers
of the village still feared for their children.

But none knew why
until the day of the death of the crippled bird.

The first few days
of summer had warmed Natina's bones. She was painfully thin, winter-starved like the rest of her
family. The season's hunting for Elk Dancer, her father, had been bad throughout the long cold
winter, and there had been little to eat.

All winter long
Natina had dreamed of the warm sun and food, enough to feed herself and her family. Now that
summer was finally here, she had the warmth she so desperately wanted, but the food was another
matter.

Her father was sick
with a white man's fever. It had left him crippled, half a man as he himself said, and so the
winter had been particularly bad. The sickness had affected his eyes. They seemed to get weaker
and weaker. With each passing day, he could see less and less of the world around him. Soon he
would not be able to see at all.

It was Natina's
thirteenth summer, and she hoped it would be a good one. But in her heart she could see nothing
good for her and her family.

Her mother had been
sick too with the fever. She was very weak and spent most of her time sleeping. Most of the work
had therefore fallen on Natina's shoulders. It did not seem to her that she had ever been young
or that she had ever played. Mostly it was work from sunup to sundown. If her father went blind,
she did not know who would hunt for them. Her brother, Arrow, was only six snows old. It would be
years before he would be old enough to hunt for them. Without fresh meat, the family would slowly
starve to death.

Natina shouldered
her berry basket unhappily. It was early in the year for berries, but there was a place she knew
where a few early berries might grow. It was very important that she find food.

She had already
picked half a basket of edible roots, none of them very good-tasting, but they filled the belly
and helped stop the aching. She had set some snares for rabbits, but they had all been
empty.

Natina had gone far
gathering the roots. In her eagerness to fill her basket, she left the women and other small ones
her age far behind.

As she scrambled
over the ridge, pulling roots as fast as her good strong hands would allow, she heard a little
cry.

Crawling over a
steep rock, she found the crippled bird. It was a young hawk with a broken wing. Natina cried
out, seeing him suffer. It was a white-head hawk, lying on his side, crying at the
sky.

She sat her root
basket down and gathered the crippled bird up in her hands carefully. The bird did not fight
against her. She walked back down the ridge, the bird held gently in both of her
hands.

As she came upon
the women of her village, they made noises and gathered to look at the crippled bird. The hawk,
angry with the noisy women, hissed and spat at them, trying to peck the ones that tried to touch
him.

Natina pushed the
women away, shielding the bird with her body. The hawk was well settled within her
touch.

"Bring the crippled
bird to me!"

Natina turned in
surprise, hearing the harsh words.

Domea, the shaman,
beckoned to her. "Come. I want to see this hawk." His tone of speaking was harsh, but he was kind
behind his eyes.

Natina walked
through the women and set the bird gently down at Domea's feet. "I found him in the rocks," she
said.

The shaman bent
over and examined the crippled bird. He spoke softly, trying to touch the bird as Natina had
touched him. But the hawk shrilled fiercely and scuttled back to Natina, drag­ging his broken
wing on the ground.

The shaman smiled
at Natina.

"You have not found
him, he has found you. It is an omen of pood. See how he comes to you for protection. He has
called you to him. It is a spirit omen," said Domea. "The white-head hawk will watch over you and
protect you as long as he lives. It is a very good sign."

At the shaman's
words, Natina felt brightness and warm sun flow through her. There were not many good omens for
Natina and her family.

"Perhaps the hawk
will cure the darkness in my father's eyes," said Natina hopefully.

The shaman held
little hope for that in his own heart, but his hand rested gently on Natina's shoulder,
reassuring her. "May it be so, little one. Your father has too much darkness in his
life."

With the coming of
the crippled bird, in a way that none could foretell—not even the shaman with his magic and
strange powers —Natina's world began to change. It was a change that would touch the heart of all
she knew.

This change was a
thing of great strangeness, a thing of much magic, and Natina was to discover it all quite by
accident, one shining summer gold day, unlike any other that had gone before.

It was the day Elk Dancer lost the sun
forever.

It was the morning that first brought the
sadness. The sun rose in the sky, painting the world with warmth and light, and Natina woke
first, sticking her head out of her blankets. The white-head hawk woke as she did. He had slept
in the crook of her arm, calm as a nestling with its mother. Natina had tied up his wing as best
she knew how, skillfully binding the broken wing into place. The bird seemed no longer to be in
pain. She kept the bird near her all the time. It seemed to make him happy to be near her, and
she was just as glad to have his company. Having the hawk close-by made her heart sing like
spring. The bird was a friend to help her pass the long hours of work that every day
meant.

Natina was thirsty. She had forgotten to fill
the gourds with water so she got up and dressed quickly. She thought maybe she could get down to
the creek, fill the gourds, and bring them back before her mother and father woke up. She rubbed
the sleep out of her eyes. She thought she remembered a strange dream, some­thing about a strange
old man who talked to demons, but she could not recall much of it and it soon faded
away.

Natina eased out of the blankets, careful not to
wake Arrow, her little brother, sleeping next to her, all curled up in a ball like a small
puppy.

Natina looked at him and smiled. That was the
way she liked Arrow best. When he was asleep and couldn't cause any trouble. Arrow could really
be a nuisance sometimes, always underfoot when she had work to do.

She put the white-head hawk on her shoulder. The
hawk held on tight with his claws to the thick deer hide of her shirt. The weight of the hawk on
her shoulder was a comforting presence. He seemed to be content to perch there.

All around Natina, as she crept out the door of
the lodge, the camp was slowly coming alive. Some of the women were bringing in bundles of wood
for the cooking fires. Dogs and sleepy-eyed children raced between the lodges, chasing each
other, playing games.

Kawina, one snow younger than Natina's thirteen,
came out of her family's lodge just as Natina crossed in front of it. Kawina was short and dark
like her mother, who was from another tribe in the north. Kawina had too much weight on her frame
for her height. Her family had not gone hungry that winter.