Dreams That Burn In The Night (6 page)

Domea stood before
him, his hands reaching to touch Elk Dancer's face. Gently, his probing fingers brushed across
the un­seeing eyes. He stared deeply into Elk Dancer's dead eyes as if trying in his shaman's way
to see deep into Elk Dancer's spirit-soul. Whatever he saw in Elk Dancer's eyes, it was not the
gift of seeing.

"The blackness
will not go away. You are blind. Nothing can be done about this thing," proclaimed Domea, with
much sorrow in his voice.

Elk Dancer sank to
the ground. His worst fears were con­firmed. Without his eyes, his life had no meaning. He could
not provide for his family, could not hunt, could not even defend them from the enemies of his
people.

Natina ran to her
father and tried to put her arms around him, but he pushed her away. He rose slowly to his feet,
staring at nothing, his back straightening. He called out for his weapons, his bow and arrow and
his war shield. They were brought to him. He armed himself.

The people moved
away from him now, knowing what he in­tended to do.

"Point me to the
north, to the country of my enemies," said Elk Dancer. "My life is without meaning. I go to my
death now. It is a good day to die."

He raised his
weapons to the sky and gave thanks to the Great Spirit for the life he had been given. He raised
his weapons once in each of the four directions and gave thanks for his life which now must come
to an end.

No one moved to
stop him, for to do so would be wrong and improper. A man had to decide how his life must go, how
it must end; that was the way of the world.

Without a word,
Natina's mother had returned to the lodge. Once inside, she laid down on the soft earthen floor.
She wrapped a deerskin robe around her head and wept with a broken heart for she loved Elk
Dancer. Elk Dancer was already dead in her woman's heart. He would die this day in battle with
the enemy, with an enemy he could not see. He would not live beyond this day to be a burden to
his people.

Her father marched
slowly toward the north, the sun on his face his only guide. It told him the direction in which
he must go, but it could not tell him of the logs and bushes and trees and rocks in his path. He
fell again and again.

Natina stood at
the edge of the village, watching her father go out of her life, watching him go to a certain
death. The white-head hawk on her shoulder shrilled and ruffled his feathers as if feeling a
sudden cold wind.

He put his head
next to hers, and she seemed to hear a voice. A voice that had once spoken to her but only in a
dream, a strange dream that she seemed to recall. "Stare at the sun," said the voice. "Stare at
the sun if you would make Elk Dancer see again."

I would go blind,
thought Natina, blind like my father; but still the voice was there, urging her on.

"Stare at the
sun." The voice was like a fire. Each word burned her; each word seemed to dance inside her like
a fire dance.

The hawk brushed
her face with his wing, his claws gripping her shoulder tightly. He seemed to be urging her to
follow the voice. But she did not want to take her eyes from the stumbling figure of her father,
making his uncertain way into the forest be­yond the village.

But the voice
could not be long disobeyed.

In some way she
could not understand, she knew the voice was telling her the way in which she could save her
father's life.

She turned around
and looked up, up into the blinding yellow fireball of the sun. Her eyes watered, and the sun
seemed to burn them, to set them aflame. Her eyes ached and she thought she might faint when
suddenly the fire moved, began dancing, whirl­ing in scarlet flames across the sky.

A face danced in
the flames. It was the old one, the one who watched the children at play, the one who seemed to
stalk Natina in her dreams. The old one's face was burning in the center of the sun. His mouth
opened and inside, in the darkness within, she saw her father walking across the sky. On his
shoulder rode the white-head hawk; in his hands he held a bow and arrow, ready to shoot. He
lifted the bow and shot his arrow. It blazed across the sky and struck a wild goose in flight.
The goose caught fire and plummeted to earth. He put another arrow to his bow and shot
again.

The arrow found
its mark, and a golden-bodied deer burst into sunflame. Elk Dancer raised his arms, his head
became that of a white-head hawk, and he danced and spun in the air, falling gently, softly to
earth. He touched the rich dark ground, and his footsteps burst into flame.

Elk Dancer ran
across the ground, moving deer-fast through the great trees of the forest, and as he ran his hawk
head seemed to glow with a thousand burning dances. He raised his arms and rose above the trees
like a hawk leaping into flight. Higher and higher he flew, racing up toward the sun. His hands
touched the sun, and he burst into flame and came spinning back down to­ward the green earth. His
eyes were made of ice but all else was fire, sun-born.

The visions danced
forever in the fire red sky, and Natina stared into the heart of the sun as one made mad by the
heat.

The pain stopped
the visions. Natina stumbled, turning away from the intensity of the sun. Tears poured from her
injured eyes. The white-head hawk thrust his beak gently against the side of her face.

His one good wing
brushed the side of her face as if he were trying to cool her, to ease the pain and heat of the
sun's fire.

She smiled at his
gentleness and turned to look at him.

Her tear-blinded
eyes saw him only as a great golden thing, made of wind and sky and the fire of the
sun.

Suddenly she
understood what the white-head hawk was for, why this special magic had come to her.

And then, as if
night had fallen, the darkness descended on her. She was blind now too. But the blindness was her
way of see­ing. Her own eyes were dim and lifeless in her head.

But the hawk sat
on her shoulder, and his eyes flashed and saw the world as the hawk sees it, with great clarity,
with the strength that sees far beyond the mountains.

She ran after Elk
Dancer; her unseeing eyes did not slow Na­tina in the least. She ran with great confidence, never
stumbling or tripping over any obstacle in her path.

The white-head
hawk rode her shoulder like a second head.

Although her own
eyes were sightless, Natina saw better now than she had ever seen in her life. It was a great
vision. She saw the world with the eyes of the white-head hawk. The trees in the forest many
miles away were as clear as if they lay at her feet. She saw the world as if she flew above it
too, as if the hawk on her shoulder sailed across the sky and looked down at the world
below.

She saw the world
in a green and clear and swift way, better, a hundred times better, than she had been able to see
it with her own eyes. And so she ran after her father, with this great gift of seeing perched on
her shoulder and a great song of joy in her heart.

Elk Dancer heard
her calling his name, and he stopped and turned to face her. He was angry. That she should follow
him was not right or proper.

She must go back
to the village, to let him face the thing that he and he alone must deal with. Death with honor.
Elk Dancer's heart was heavy as stone. It walked upon the ground.

Natina stood
beside him now and Elk Dancer spoke, "Go home, little one. The world has grown cold for me. It
has grown cold for all of us."

Natina reached up
and took the white-head hawk from her shoulder.

"No, father. The
sun has not died in the sky. It is here within
us." And she held the hawk out toward her father, who could not see it.

She gently set the
hawk on her father's shoulder.

She almost
stumbled in the sudden blindness that fell upon her as the hawk left her hands. For a second
there, filled with a sud­den panic, she wanted to put the hawk back on her shoulder, but she knew
Elk Dancer's need was greater than her own.

Carefully, she
stepped back. The hawk had been reluctant as she pushed him off her outstretched hand, forcing
the hawk to step from her hand to her father's shoulder.

The hawk shrilled
once, as a mother cries when her young is threatened, but settled there finally, using his
powerful claws to hold himself upright on Elk Dancer's shoulder.

As it had happened
to Natina, so it happened to Elk Dancer. He saw with the white-head hawk's eyes, saw again deep
into the depths of the forest and deep into his own life again.

Soaring on
sun-filled wings, his eyes saw the deer and buffalo dancing in the secret places of the forest,
saw the trees moving in the wind as he passed high above them, saw the love in Natina's face, and
his heart soared like a flying bird.

It was no longer a
good day to die. It was a better day to live. This time when Natina put her arms around him, he
did not push her away or want her to go back. He held her tightly to him, and the hawk's wings
brushed their tear-stained faces as the world began again for them.

And indeed it did
seem to be a new world.

Now, as each day
traveled into night, Elk Dancer hunted the world with the white-head hawk's eyes. Many deer fell
to his bow.

It was a thing of
great wonder, of powerful magic. He sees as no one has ever seen before, said the people; and
indeed it seemed so.

Elk Dancer became
the greatest hunter in the telling and mem­ory of the people. It was all because of the
white-head hawk that Natina had cared for with healing skill and love.

And for the first
time, Natina's family enjoyed a time of plenty. Now they had meat where others had
none.

And they shared
their good fortune with others. Elk Dancer brought home more than they could possibly eat. Those
who had
not been so lucky in the hunt
could always count on a rabbit or a haunch of deer; so it was that no one went hungry.

The white-head
hawk became a symbol of hope for all the peo­ple.

And of all the
children, blind Natina was the most honored. For blind she was, totally now, for the white-head
hawk saw only for her father; still she had a heart full of kindness and a seeing into the heart
of the world that made her wise beyond her years.

When she turned
her unseeing face to the sun, it danced for her and her alone, and she was happy in her heart.
The people praised her for she had brought good medicine into their lives. And they said she
would someday heal with a touch. Perhaps it was so, because she had been touched with magic and
magic moved through her days.

And thus things
went until the day the magic died, the day the white-head hawk was killed.

The white-head hawk
was a thing of wonder, of sun magic and summer dreams and the shining blue skies of youth that
chase the sullen moon across the sky.

It was an unselfish
and shared wonder. It had no evil in it, no harm.

And as with all
things of this kind, there was one who wanted to see it end, who sought to destroy the white-head
hawk.

There was one who
had only envy and hatred for Natina and Elk Dancer and the white-head hawk. He was Blue Snow, two
years older than Natina and blind to the world even though his eyes saw. His heart was cold. The
love in it had soured like a black cherry. A moon shadow had passed across his face and stayed to
live in his heart.

Every time Elk
Dancer returned from the hunt with a deer, a small dark hatred grew like a black snake in Blue
Snow's stom­ach. The more the people of the village praised this wonder and gave thanks for its
coming, the larger the black snake grew in
his stomach, until one day Blue Snow and the evil snake were as one.

One day while the
other young ones were at play in the hills below the village, Blue Snow snuck into Elk Dancer's
lodge and stole the white-head hawk.

The hawk would have
cried out, but Blue Snow had foreseen this and had quickly thrown a blanket over the bird,
muffling his cries.

Blue Snow put the
bird in a basket and crept carefully out of Elk Dancer's lodge. He looked all around, but no one
was look­ing at him. Tucking the basket under his arm, he turned and ran away into the hills, far
from the others.

As he ran into the
forest, something moved in the dark trees, and two eyes opened and followed Blue Snow as he
ran.

Blue Snow came to a
clearing in the forest. It was his secret place where he often went alone to plot out his hatreds
and re­venges against those he imagined had done him harm.

As he pushed
through the trees into the clearing, Blue Snow cried out in astonishment. Ahead of him, instead
of the fire-ruined ground and blasted trees, the dead brown grass, where no animals or birds or
insects lived, was a green world. Flowers and thick tall grass grew in riotous abundance. New
trees, slender and sturdy and eager for life, pushed up into new life, into the gentle
sun.

Of the lightning
that had once burned and charred and leveled this clearing in the forest long ago, there was
almost no sign.