Shaman Part 47

Redbird threw an exasperated look after Sun Woman.

Redbird's anger made White Bear feel as if one of the long knives'

cannonb.a.l.l.s had crushed his chest. Perhaps if he could put his arms around her she would remember how she had loved him. He took a step toward her, reaching for her.

She stepped back quickly, bent down and picked up a rock. "Go away.

Now!"

_How graceful all her movements are._

The rock was gray and somewhat larger than her fist. It had sharp, irregular edges and looked as if it had been used to chip arrowheads.

He said, "You would not be this angry at me if you did not want me back.

Why did you refuse every man who asked for you?"

Her face twisted with rage, she threw the rock.

For an instant he was blinded as it hit his cheek, stunning him, and his head snapped back.

He felt a pounding pain in the back of his skull as his vision cleared.

The ache from being hit with a rifle b.u.t.t had come back.

He heard gasps of dismay from some of the watching women, laughter from others.

Wind Bends Gra.s.s called out scornfully, "I am ashamed to call this fool my daughter. I cast her out of my lodge because she would accept no suitors. At last comes the one who ruined her for all the others, and she drives him away with a rock. I think we should throw rocks at her."

The crowd's laughter was louder, although White Bear saw that Wind Bends Gra.s.s did not mean to be funny.

His left cheekbone throbbed, the cheek Raoul's knife had scarred, and he felt a trickle of blood. But he would not let himself lift his hand to wipe it away.

Redbird's hand went up to her own face, as if the rock had hit her. Her slanting eyes widened with a look of horror.

She whirled and ducked through her dark doorway.

"Go in there after her, White Bear!" one of the women called.

He would not do that. He would not go into her wickiup until she invited him. And in spite of the heaviness in his heart, in spite of the ache in his cheekbone and the pounding in his head, he believed that sooner or later invite him she would.

He turned his back on the empty doorway and sat down again.

The blue-eyed, brown-skinned boy was standing before him. A golden glow filled White Bear's chest.

"You are hurt," said the boy.

"It is nothing, Eagle Feather. A man must endure pain without complaint."

"Did my mother do that to you?"

"She wanted to punish me for staying away from you and her for so long.

My name is White Bear."

"I know what your name is."

When he heard that, he was sure that he would win her back.

The boy darted around him.

Resting his hands on his knees, White Bear closed his eyes and let his mind dwell on a vast white-furred shape. Owl Carver had said that when a man wished to send his spirit on a journey in the other world, he need only think of his other self.

He saw the huge golden eyes, the ma.s.sive, long-muzzled head, the towering body.

Soon he and the Bear spirit were walking together toward the sun.

Redbird did not understand herself. She hated White Bear, but when she saw blood running down his face, she had hated herself. She sat in darkness, biting her lips to keep from screaming.

She crept to the doorway and pushed the curtain open a crack. She could see him sitting again with his back to her, his shoulders broad in his green pale eyes' coat.

She drew back into the wickiup and saw the small steel knife she used to cut up food gleaming near the embers of her fire. She picked it up and held its edge against her feverish cheek.

The last light of day fell on her as the doorway curtain rose. Startled, she almost cut herself. She whirled to see Eagle Feather staring at her.

She threw the knife down on the straw-covered floor.

Eagle Feather gave her a questioning look but said nothing.

She drew him down beside her and started telling him the story of why the leaves change colors and fall to the ground in autumn.

It was dark outside when Sun Woman came back from the river, where she had been washing the plants she had gathered. Redbird was afraid Sun Woman would ask her to forgive White Bear, but the older woman said nothing.

They pa.s.sed what seemed like an ordinary evening, talking and telling stories and singing. But Redbird could not forget that figure sitting like a tree stump just beyond the buffalo-hide curtain.

Much later she went out, and by the light from tonight's full Moon of Falling Leaves, looked into White Bear's face. It was motionless, as if carved from wood.

He did not seem to see her. He must be on a spirit journey. Hot with rage, she kicked at his knee. What right had he to go on a spirit journey leaving his body to haunt her wickiup?

The impact of her moccasined foot shook him slightly, but it was like kicking a bundle of pelts.

Redbird's breath came out in a cloud, lit by the full moon. She gathered up some twigs, brought them into the wickiup and added them to the fire.

Sun Woman went out carrying a blanket. Redbird saw her draping it over her son's shoulders.

_He does not need that_, Redbird thought, remembering how White Bear had come back, seemingly frozen, from his vision quest in the Moon of Ice.

Tightly wrapped in her own blankets with Eagle Feather curled up in the shelter of her body, Redbird lay awake, thinking that she had never in her life slept with a man. That was White Bear's fault, and she ground her teeth in the dark as she thought of the wrongs he had done her.

_He left me in the Moon of First Buds, and he returns in the Moon of Falling Leaves--six summers later._

One afternoon they had been lovers. And then he had gone to live with the pale eyes. For nine moons she had carried his son and then given birth to him. He had not been here to give the baby a birth name. Owl Carver, the baby's grandfather, had to do that, embarra.s.sed at the necessity, complaining that the people were laughing at their family.

She knew Star Arrow had required that no messages pa.s.s between White Bear and the tribe. But if White Bear really loved her, could he not have broken that rule--even if he had smoked the calumet with Star Arrow--at least once? For six summers White Bear had been as silent, as absent, as if he were dead.