Shaman Part 4

Owl Carver took a step toward her, his eyes round with anger. "Remember what the law of the Sauk and Fox decrees for anyone who disturbs a man on a spirit journey, even to help him. They take you to the Great River.

In the summer they would throw you in with rocks tied to you. In this season they chop a hole in the ice and they push you in. The current flows swiftly under the ice. It carries you away from the opening, and you drown there in the cold and dark."

Redbird shrank back. Owl Carver had felt her pain when she first came to him, but now he was angry. She sensed that behind that anger there lurked fear. Fear that she might risk her life for Gray Cloud.

"Your mother has been calling for you," he said. "Go and help her with her work."

Afraid to say any more, Redbird hurried past him and lifted the heavy buffalo skin that covered the doorway of the family's wickiup. She looked over her shoulder once and saw that her father was once again looking toward the river where Gray Cloud had gone. Owl Carver held his hands behind his back, knotting them together.

He was afraid for Gray Cloud, too. As she sensed that, her heart sank further.

Entering the wickiup she saw, silhouetted against the light of the low fire in the center, a figure rising up big as a buffalo, her half brother, Iron Knife. Redbird took his hands in greeting.

"Gray Cloud will be well," Iron Knife said in a low, gruff voice.

Iron Knife was always kind to her. She was grateful for his words, but she knew they were no more than a well-meant wish. Though Iron Knife was the son of Owl Carver by his first wife, he had not a trace of the shaman's ability to foretell events. Iron Knife could see only with his eyes, hear only with his ears. His mother had died giving birth to him, and there were those who said the spirits had chosen to give him no gifts because he had killed his mother. Redbird had even heard that while in mourning Owl Carver had predicted that Iron Knife would one day be killed by a man whose mother had also died giving birth to him. No one dared speak of these things in Iron Knife's presence.

Redbird knew she had more of the shaman in her than Iron Knife. She knew, as her father did, that right now Gray Cloud was in terrible danger.

"Where have you been?" Wind Bends Gra.s.s called out from the shadows. She and Redbird's sisters were already bedded down for the night on buffalo-robe pallets along the wall of the wickiup. Wind Bends Gra.s.s and her two little girls, Wild Grape and Robin's Nest, slept together for greater warmth.

"I was down in the woods, seeing to our horses," Redbird lied. She had been near the horses, but only to watch for Gray Cloud.

"I needed you here," Wind Bends Gra.s.s said crossly. "I was stringing beads for a new sash for your father, and your sisters are too small to help me."

_Does my mother want me to string beads while Gray Cloud freezes to death?_

"The snow was heavy on the horses' backs," Redbird said. "They needed someone to brush them off."

"Nonsense," said Wind Bends Gra.s.s, sitting up. "You were waiting and worrying for that pale eyes boy. And meanwhile Wolf Paw came again to speak to your father today. How can you refuse the son of the mighty Black Hawk and think of marrying that boy who has no father? His mother lay with a pale eyes and got Gray Cloud. The pale eyes lived with her only five summers and then ran away. He would have run away sooner, but our people held him prisoner because of the war."

Redbird heard m.u.f.fled giggles from the bedding beside her mother. Her little sisters thought the story of Gray Cloud's parentage funny. Wind Bends Gra.s.s struck with her hand at the two shaking bundles.

"Wolf Paw already has a wife," Redbird said.

"He is a _man_," said Wind Bends Gra.s.s. "A brave. He can make two wives, three wives, _four_ wives happy."

Rage at her mother for belittling Gray Cloud when he might be dying boiled up inside her and almost choked her. She bit her lip and held back the angry words. She hurt too much to want to quarrel.

She took off her fur cap, wet boots and mittens and laid them near the fire. Keeping on her buffalo-hide cloak, her doeskin dress and leggings, she lay down on her own pallet, padded with blankets and prairie gra.s.s.

Curling up her legs, she wrapped the heavy cloak around herself.

The wickiup was quiet, except for the popping of burning twigs.

Redbird knew that her fear for Gray Cloud, deepening as the night deepened, would keep her awake. She decided that when they were all asleep, she would go back to the wickiup of Sun Woman and watch with her.

She lay staring at the blackened ceiling that arched over her head.

Partly obscured by drifting smoke, the curved poles cast deep shadows in the flickering light. Iron Knife had laid fresh branches on the fire.

Smoke stung her eyes.

Sometimes she thought she saw spirit messages above her in the patterns of the twigs interwoven with the larger poles, and in the cracks in the sheets of bark that lined the inside of the wickiup. But tonight her mind was too absorbed in Gray Cloud's fate to try to read the patterns.

Over the breathing of the others she could hear the voice of the wind humming across the roof. From time to time it would rise to a howl, and the framework of the wickiup would creak and crackle under the strain.

Even though there was a fire and the wickiup was tightly sealed, Redbird felt the cold seeping up from the earth. Its icy fingers touched her body through the buffalo robe. Her dread for Gray Cloud turned to heart-pounding panic.

_If I feel the cold, here in my warm wickiup, what must it be like for him?_

After the snow stopped falling, the cold of this night would be the cold that killed without mercy. Such a deepening cold often seemed to follow a great snow. After a night like this, women would find rabbit and deer lying in the drifts near the camp. The animals trying to get close to warmth had overcome their fear of people, but the cold had leeched the life from their bodies. Even the strongest animals might die. Only people, to whom Earthmaker had given the knowledge of how to shelter themselves and make fire, could withstand this death-dealing cold.

Her fists clenched on the blanket. Her heart filled up with anger. Anger against the cold, against her mother, who despised Gray Cloud, against Owl Carver, who had sent him to almost certain death. Against the spirits, who had permitted this. Out of her anger blazed up a fierce resolve.

_I will not let you take him from me._

If everyone else accepted Gray Cloud's death, she did not. She would go to him. She would go to Sun Woman and gather what medicines she might have, anything that would keep the cold from draining the last bit of warmth and strength out of Gray Cloud.

_Have you not been told what the tribe decrees for anyone who disturbs a man on a spirit journey, even to help him?_

Her anger turned to fear, and she lay there, not wanting to move, knowing that if she threw off the blankets and stood up, she would be taking the first step on a path that might be her death.

But then she thought of that terrible wind, sharp as a pale eyes' steel knife, shrieking around Gray Cloud's body. If she did something now, he might live; and if she did nothing, he was sure to die.

She had loved Gray Cloud for as long as she could remember. To be without him--she could not bear to think of it.

She had heard tales of women who died fighting beside their men. Yes, better to die with Gray Cloud, to walk the Trail of Souls into the West with him, than live a long life grieving for him.

She listened to the sounds of the sleepers, Iron Knife's rumbling snore, Wind Bends Gra.s.s's heavy breathing that sounded like her name, the rustlings and murmurings of Wild Grape and Robin's Nest.

Owl Carver still had not come in, and he might stay out there most of the night. She dared not wait any longer. She would have to face him.

Silently she pushed off her coverings and stood up. She quickly put back on her fur cap, boots and mittens.

The deepened cold bit into her cheeks like a weasel's teeth. While she had lain in the wickiup the snow, which had been falling continually for a night and a day, had stopped at last. The clouds overhead were breaking up, and she could see the full moon, round and bright as a pale eyes' silver coin. The Moon of Ice. It seemed frozen in place in the black sky. Stars glittered, little chips of ice. With her first indrawn breath the insides of her nostrils seemed to freeze, the air burned in her nose and throat. Her heart quailed for Gray Cloud.

The black figure of Owl Carver stood just where she had left him. How could he stand the cold this long?

Owl Carver turned to her. "Where are you going?"

"To Sun Woman's wickiup, to watch with her."

She hated Owl Carver. He was the one who had sent Gray Cloud on this spirit journey, and now would do nothing to save him from death.

As if sensing her agony, he said, "The spirits will watch over Gray Cloud."

She wanted to believe him, but she could not. She had begged him to help Gray Cloud, and he had commanded her to be silent. Now she had no more to say to him. She turned from Owl Carver.

He could have forbidden her to go to Sun Woman. But he would not do that. There was an understanding between Redbird and her father that she could not put into words. She knew that when he looked at her, he was torn between pride that she, the oldest of his children by Wind Bends Gra.s.s, possessed the same gifts he did, and sorrow that she was a woman, and could never be a shaman. And she knew that of all his children, he loved her best.

The snow, blown off the roofs of the wickiups, piled up in long drifts on their western sides. The east wind battered Redbird as she plodded through the winter camp toward one low, rounded black structure that rose out of the snow a bit apart from the others, on the north side of the camp.