Speaks The Nightbird Part 64

With only a little difficulty-and regret, really, for his rest had been so deeply satisfying-he did. There was Rachel, her face close to his. He could see her clearly by the flickering firelight. The dense smoke had gone away.

"They want you to try to stand up, " she said.

"They?" He had a burned, ashy taste in his mouth. "Who?"

The demon, who no longer wore the third eye, came up and stood beside her. With an uplifting motion of the hands and a guttural grunting, the meaning was made plain.

Two of the females who'd attended Matthew appeared, and began to work around his head. He heard something being cut- a leather strap, he thought it might be-and suddenly his head was free to move, which immediately put a cramping pain in his neck muscles.

"I want you to know, " Rachel said as the two females continued to cut Matthew free from his pinewood pallet, "that you've been terribly injured. The bear-"

"Yes, the bear, " Matthew interrupted. "Killed me, and you as well."

She frowned. "What?"

"The bear. It killed-" He felt the straps give way around his left wrist, then around the right. He'd stopped speaking because he realized Rachel wore her wedding dress. On it were gra.s.s stains. He swallowed thickly. "Are we... not dead?"

"No, we're very much alive. You nearly died, though. If they hadn't come when they did, you would have bled to death. One of them bound your arm to stop the flow."

"My arm." Matthew remembered now the terrible pain in his shoulder and the blood dripping from his fingers. He couldn't move-or even feel-the fingers of his left hand. He had a sickened sensation in the pit of his stomach. Dreading to even glance at the limb, he asked, "Do I still have it?"

"You do, " Rachel answered grimly, "but... the wound was very bad. As deep as the bone, and the bone broken."

"And what else?"

"Your left side. You took an awful blow. Two, three ribs... how many were broken I don't know."

Matthew lifted his right arm, unscathed save for a scabbed wound on his elbow, and gingerly touched his side. He found a large patch of clay covering the area, adhered by some sort of sticky brown substance, with a bulge underneath that to indicate something else pressed directly to the wound.

"The doctor made a poultice, " Rachel said. "Herbs, and tobacco leaves, and... I don't know what all."

"What doctor?"

"Um." Rachel glanced toward the watchful demon. "This is their physician."

"My G.o.d!" Matthew said, dumbstruck. "I must be in h.e.l.l! If not, then where?"

"We have been brought, " Rachel answered calmly, "to an Indian village. How far it is from Fount Royal, I can't say. We travelled over an hour from where the bear attacked you."

"An Indian village? You mean... I've been doctored by an Indian?" This was absolutely unthinkable! He would have preferred a demonic doctor to a savage one!

"Yes. And well doctored, too. They have been very kind to me, Matthew. I've had no reason to fear them."

"Pok!" the doctor said, motioning for Matthew to stand. The two women had cut the leather thongs that had secured his ankles, then had withdrawn. "Hapape pok pokati!" He reached out, picked up the woven mat that covered Matthew's torso, and threw it aside, leaving Matthew naked to the world. "Puh! Puh!" the doctor insisted, slapping his patient's legs.

Reflexively, Matthew started to cover his private area with both hands. His right hand went quickly enough, but a searing pain shot through his shoulder at the mere nerve impulse of moving the left. He gritted his teeth, fresh sweat on his face, and made himself look at the injury.

His shoulder all the way past his elbow was wrapped in clay, and presumably other so-called medicines were pressed to the wound beneath the earthen bandage. The clay also was smoothed over a wooden splint, and his elbow was immobilized in a slightly bent position. From the edge of the clay to the fingertips, the flesh was mottled with ugly black and purple bruises. It was a ghastly sight, but at least he still had the arm. He lifted his free hand to touch his forehead. He found another clay dressing, secured with the sticky paste-like material.

"Your head was gashed, " Rachel said. "Do you think you can stand?"

"I might, if I don't fall to pieces." He looked at the doctor. "Clothes! Do you understand me? I need clothes!"

"Puh! Puh!" the doctor said, again slapping Matthew's legs.

Matthew directed his appeal at Rachel. "Might you please get me some clothes?"

"You have none, " she told him. "Everything you wore was covered with blood. They performed some kind of ritual over them, the first night, and burned them."

What she'd said sent a spear through him. "The first night? How long have we been here?"

"This is the fifth morning."

Four whole days in the grasp of the Indians! Matthew couldn't believe it. Four whole days, and they still had their scalps! Were they waiting for him to get well enough to slaughter both him and Rachel together?

"I think we've been summoned by their mayor, or chief, or whatever he is. I've not seen him yet, but there's some special activity going on."

"Puh! Puh!" the doctor insisted. "Se hapape ta mook!"

"All right, " Matthew said, choosing to face the inevitable. "I'll try to stand."

With Rachel's help, he eased down off the pallet onto a dirt floor. Modesty called him but he couldn't answer. His legs held him though they were fairly stiff. The clay dressing on his broken arm was heavy, but the way the splint crooked his elbow made it bearable. At his left side his ribs thundered with dull pain under the clay and poultice, but that too could be borne if he didn't try to breathe too deeply.

He knew he would have been instantly killed if Jack One Eye himself hadn't been so old and infirm. To meet that beast in its younger years would have meant a quick decapitation, or a long suffering death by disembowelment such as Maude's husband had endured.

The Indian doctor-who would have been naked himself but for a small buckskin garment and strap covering his groin- walked ahead, to the far side of the rectangular wooden structure that housed a number of pallets. Matthew realized it was their version of an infirmary. A small fire crackled in a pit ringed with stones, but from the huge pile of ashes nearby it was evident a smoky inferno had raged in here.

He leaned on Rachel for support, if just until his legs grew used to holding him up again. His mind was still hazed. It wasn't clear to him now if his amorous encounter with Rachel had been real or a fevered dream brought on by his injuries. Surely she wouldn't have crawled up on that pallet to make love to a dying man! From her there was no indication that anything had occurred between them.

Yet still... might it have happened?

But here was something real that he'd imagined to be a figment of his dreams: on the floor, along with other clay cups and wooden bowls and carved bone pipes around the fire, was the broken half of Lucretia Vaughan's heart-decorated pie dish.

The healing savage-who would have made his compatriot Dr. Shields blanch with terror-drew aside a heavy black-furred bearskin from the infirmary's entryway.

Blinding white sunlight flooded across the floor, making Matthew squeeze his eyes shut and stagger. "I have you, " Rachel said, leaning into him so he might not fall.

There was a great excited clamor from outside, complete with squeals, whoops, and giggling. Matthew was aware of a brown ma.s.s of grinning faces pressing forward. The Indian doctor began to shout in a voice whose irritated tone was universal: Stand back, and give us s.p.a.ce to breathe!

Rachel led Matthew, naked and dazed, into the light.

Forty.

The foremost group of them backed away, heeding the doctor's continued shouts. As Matthew and Rachel followed the loinclothed healer, the Indians trailed in their wake and the shouting, giggling, and excited vocals began to surge loudly again.

Matthew would have never dreamed in a barrel of rum that he might have found himself naked before the world, clinging to Rachel and walking through a horde of grinning, hollering Indians. His vision was returning, though he was still overwhelmed by all this light. He saw a score of round wooden huts, some covered with dried mud and others moss-grown, with roofs upon which gra.s.s grew as thickly as from the earth. He caught sight of a lush plot of cornstalks that would have dropped the farmers of Fount Royal to their knees. Two dogs- one gray and the other dark brown-came to sniff around Matthew's legs, but a shout from the doctor sent them running. The same happened when a giggling pack of four naked brown children neared the pallid patient, and they ran away squealing and jumping.

Matthew saw that most of the men-who shared the doctor's narrow facial structure, lean body, and topknot of hair growing from an otherwise shaved head-were nearly nude, but the women were clothed in either deerskin garments or brightly dyed shifts that appeared to be woven from cotton. Some of the females, however, had chosen to let their b.r.e.a.s.t.s be bared, a sight that would have made the citizens of Fount Royal swoon. Their feet were either bare or clad in deerskin slippers. Many of the men were adorned with intricate blue-dye tattoos, and also a few of the older women. These tattoos appeared not only on the face but also on the chest, arms, thighs, and presumably just about everywhere else.

The mood was festive. Men and women were childlike in their glee, and the children-of which there were many-like little scampering squirrels. Of real creatures, there were aplenty as well: pigs, chickens, and a barking battery of dogs. Then the doctor led Matthew and Rachel to a hut that seemed to be centrally located within the village, drew back a buckskin decorated with blade carvings to gain admittance, and escorted the visitors into the cool, dimly lit interior.

The light came from small flames burning in clay bowls that held pools of oil, set in a circle. Facing this circle, a man sat cross-legged on a dais supported by wooden poles about three feet off the ground, and cushioned by various animal skins.

It was the sight of this man that made Matthew stop in his tracks. His mouth opened and his teeth might have fallen out, so great was his shock.

The man-who obviously was the village's chief, governor, lord, or however the savages termed him-wore a buckskin loincloth that barely covered his genitalia. That, however, was by now a commonplace. What so shocked Matthew was that the chief had a long, white, tightly curled judicial wig on his head, and his chest was covered by...

I'm dreaming! Matthew thought. I have to be insensible to imagine this!

... Magistrate Woodward's gold-striped waistcoat.

"Pata ne." The doctor motioned Matthew and Rachel into the circle, and then made gestures for them to sit. "Oha! Oha!"

Rachel obeyed. When Matthew started to lower himself, pain stabbed his ribs and he clutched at the clay bandage, his face tightening.

"Uh!" the chief spoke. He had the long-jawed, narrow face and wore circular blue tattoos on both cheeks, more tattoos trailing down his arms, like blue vines, and covering his hands. The tips of his fingers were dyed red. "Se na oha! Pah ke ne su na oha saupapa!" His commanding voice instantly stirred the doctor to action, namely that of grasping Matthew's right arm and pulling him up straight. When Rachel saw, she thought the chief wanted her to rise as well, but as she began to stand she was pushed down again-rather firmly-by the doctor.

The chief stood up on his dais. His legs were tattooed from the knees to the bare feet. He put his hands on his hips, his deep-set black eyes fixed on Matthew, and his expression serious as demanded his position of authority. "Te te weya, " he said. The doctor retreated, walking backward, and left the hut. The next words were directed at Matthew: "Urn ta ka pa pe ne?"

Matthew simply shook his head. He saw that the chief wore Woodward's prized waistcoat unb.u.t.toned, and more tattoos adorned his chest. Though age was difficult to estimate among these foreign people, Matthew thought the chief was a young man, possibly only five or six years older than himself.

"Oum?" the chief asked, frowning. "Ka taynay calmet?"

Again, Matthew could only shake his head.

The chief looked down at the ground for a moment, and crossed his arms over his chest. He sighed and seemed lost in thought; deliberating, Matthew feared, how best to murder his captives.

Then the chief lifted his gaze again and said, "Quel chapeau portezvous?"

Matthew now almost fell down. The Indian had spoken French. A bizarre question, yes, but French all the same. The question had been: "What hat do you wear?"

Matthew had to steady himself. That this tattooed savage could speak a cla.s.sic European language boggled the mind. It was such a jolt that Matthew even forgot for a few seconds that he was standing there totally naked. He replied, "Je ne porte pas de chapeau." Meaning "I don't wear a hat."

"Ah ah!" The chief offered a genuine smile that served to further light and warm the chamber. He clapped his hands together, as if equally amazed and delighted at Matthew's understanding of the language. "Tous les hommes portent des chapeaux. Mon chapeau est Nawpawpay. Quel chapeau portezvous?"

Matthew now understood. The chief had said, "All men wear hats. My hat is Nawpawpay. What hat do you wear?"

"Oh, " Matthew said, nodding. "Mon chapeau est Mathieu."

"Mathieu, " Nawpawpay repeated, as if testing its weight on his tongue. "Mathieu... Matthew, " he said, still speaking French. "That is a strange hat."

"Possibly it is, but it's the hat I was given at birth."

"Ah! But you've been reborn now, and so you must be given a new hat. I myself will give it to you: Demon Slayer."

"Demon Slayer? I don't understand." He glanced down at Rachel, who-not having a grasp of French-was totally confounded at what they were saying.

"Did you not slay the demon that almost took your life? The demon that has roamed this land for... oh... only the dead souls know, my father among them. I can't say how many brothers and sisters have pa.s.sed away by those claws and fangs. But we tried to slay that beast. Yes, we tried." He nodded, his expression grave again. "And when we tried, the demon worked its evil on us. For every arrow that was shot into its body, it delivered ten curses. Our male infants died, our crops withered, the fishing was poor, and our seers had dreams of the end of time. So we stopped trying, for our own lives. Then everything got better, but the beast was always hungry. You see? None of us could slay it. The forest demons look after their own kind."

"But the beast still lives, " Matthew said.

"No! I was told how the hunters saw you travelling, and followed you. Then the beast struck! I was told how it attacked you, and how you stood before it and gave a mighty war cry. That must have been a sight to see! They said it was hurt. I sent some men. They found it, dead in its den."

"Oh, I see. But... it was old and tired. I think it was already dying."

Nawpawpay shrugged. "That may be so, Matthew, but who struck the last blow? They found your knife, still under here." He pressed beneath his own chin with a forefinger. "Ah, if it's the forest demons that concern you, you may rest knowing they only haunt our kind. Your kind frightens them."

"Of that I have no doubt, " Matthew said.

Rachel could stand it no longer. "Matthew! What's he saying?"

"They found the bear dead and they believe I killed it. He's given me a new name: Demon Slayer."

"Is it French you're speaking?"

"Yes, it is. I have no idea how-"

"An interruption, my pardon, " Nawpawpay said. "How is it you come to know King LaPierre's tongue?"

Matthew shifted his thinking from English back to French once more. "King LaPierre?"

"Yes, from the kingdom of Franz Europay. Are you a member of his tribe?"

"No, I'm not."

"But you've had some word from him?" It was said with eagerness. "When will he return to this land?"

"Um... well... I'm not certain, " Matthew said. "When was he last here?"

"Oh, during my grandfather's father's time. He left his tongue with my family, as he said it was the tongue of kings. Do I speak it well?"

"Yes, very well."

"Ah!" Nawpawpay beamed like a little boy. "I do recite it, so as not to lose its taste. King LaPierre showed us sticks that shot fire, and he caught our faces in a pouch pond. And... he had a little moon that sang. All these are carved down on the tablet."

He frowned, perplexed. "I do wish he would return, so I might see those wonders as my grandfather's father did. I feel I'm missing something. You're not of his family? Then how do you speak the king's tongue?"

"I learned it from a member of King LaPierre's tribe, " Matthew decided to say.

"I see now! Someday... someday..." He lifted a finger for emphasis. "I shall go over the water in a cloudboat to Franz Europay. I shall walk in that village and see for myself the hut of King LaPierre. It must be a grand place, with a hundred pigs!"

"Matthew!" Rachel said, about to go mad from this conversation of which she could not partake. "What is he saying?"