seizing them, battering their brains out, and together devouring them, more like
animals than humans themselves. They had, in fact, been like animals, hunting,
killing, eating, mating, then sleeping in a primal cycle. In stages, the effect
had finally simply worn off.
Now they sat on a riverbank, filthy and stark naked, not sure what to do. Oddly,
Cloud-Dancer was less affected than he was, mostly because of the fact that she
could not even conceive of the technology that had caused this. As she saw it,
they had been struck by a spell from an evil spirit, and the fact that they were
alive at all and restored was a victory. Still, the situation was not lost on
her.
At least it has stopped raining, she noted.
He sighed. The canoe is gone, our clothes and supplies are gone, even our
weapons are gone, along with the jewels and the proof.
I told you those jewels carried evil spirits within them. They should not have
been with us.
He suddenly felt very stupid and mentally kicked himself, for she was, in her
own way, exactly right. That was what the damned hypnotics were homing in on!
They couldn’t really be tuned to a specific individual, but they knew about the
case, the papers, and the jewels, certainly. Since those were the primary
objects of the search, anyway, and because the courier would have been unlikely
to surrender any of them if she wished to ensure her mission and her survival,
the hypnotics were sensitized to look for them. That was why no others on the
river had been affected and why Hawks and Cloud Dancer had.
The next time you warn me about evil spirits, I will listen and heed your
warnings, he assured her. The question is, what do we do now?
First we bathe ourselves in the river, she told him. Then I think we should
walk with the waters and see if anything washed up that we can use.
He sighed. It has been many days now, at least. I do not think we will find
anything of ours.
Yet we must try. There is nothing else to do but to go on.
She was more correct than she knew, even though a hopeless cause had turned
impossible, for they were now sensitized to the barrier, and if they walked back
up through it, they would be captured again. He was actually tempted by the
prospect, a sort of mental suicide. If they lived and remained in that field for
a period of time, it would cause permanent, irreversible damage to the cortex of
the brain. There was no guarantee that some damage hadn’t already been done, but
to return would be to become animals forever.
Instead, she washed him off, and he washed her, and they began walking along the
bank looking for what couldn’t possibly be there. Late in the day, though, the
impossible happened.
The canoe did not look to be in bad shape. It had continued on for some distance
after overturning and dumping them out, but it had finally been run by the
current into the brush and thick mud along the bank and had stuck there. They
were able to get it out with some work, and it looked whole, but of the supply
bundle and the paddles there was no sign. Those could be anywhere, including at
the bottom of the river, and to hope to find any more was pushing fortune beyond
its limits. They did look, of course, for a fair distance down the river, but
they found nothing and eventually walked back to the canoe.
I am not sure how much better off we are, he remarked. We can go nowhere
without paddles, and we have not the means or skills to make them even if we had
the makings.
First we use what light is left to forage for some food, she told him. Then,
tomorrow, we do what must be done.
What?
We push the canoe and ourselves out to a current that is safe for us, and we
let it carry us, in the water, until we come upon some canoe going up or down
the river. We have had an accident while on our marriage trip. We have lost
everything except the canoe. Honor will demand that we be helped, do you not
think?
He held her close and kissed her. I do not know what I would do without you.
Out here, you would die, my husband, and without you I would have no life.
They took a position near a small island, where they could keep themselves at
least partly concealed to upstream traffic. They definitely did not want to be
rescued by someone who would take them back north, a point he had to make
forcefully in her terms. That evil spirit, he told her, now knew them. They
could not come close to it again.
Their plan worked. When they saw a large canoe heading downstream, they pushed
themselves out and began calling for help.
The two men in the other canoe were dressed very strangely for the plains, and
the styles of their hair and jewelry were also unfamiliar. One was an older,
gray-haired man whose face looked as if it had been carved out of stone, while
the other was quite young, possibly still in his teens. Both spoke a language
Hawks had never heard before, but they took the canoe and two refugees in tow
and brought them to the bank.
The young one’s eyes lit up when he discovered that Cloud Dancer was unclothed,
but this drew a sharp rebuke from the old man, who found them both blankets.
Hawks tried the seven Indian languages that he knew, but they all drew blanks.
The old man began reciting a litany that included Choctaw, Chickasaw, and the
tongues of half a dozen lesser nations, but none that matched. Finally, Cloud
Dancer took over.
They are traders from the southeast, she told him. They must be talked to as
traders.
He understood what she meant. With better than two hundred nations speaking six
hundred dialects of a hundred and forty-odd languages, the people of North
America had long ago developed a system of universal communication that involved
hand signs and ideograms. Knowledge of it assured communications even between
the far eastern Iroquois and the west coast Nez Perce. It was a good system but
one he didn’t know. Historians, after all, dealt with written records and
physical remains—the permanence civilizations leave behind. I do not know the
hand tongue, he told her.
I think I can do enough for our needs, she replied, and started with the old
man, providing a running translation as best she could.
He is Niowak, she told Hawks. That is his grandson, who is learning the ways
of the trade.
He didn’t place the tribe, except that the name seemed to be in a far north
dialect that was unlikely to be heard in the south this time of year.
He comes down from the Niobrara, she said, confirming his suspicion. He is on
his way to a village of the Tahachapee to set up a trade of some sort. He won’t
say what.
I could not imagine, Hawks responded. I cannot see what a tribe so far south
would have that they would need or what they would have that this southern tribe
could want. Still, it is none of our affair.
I told him that we were on our marriage trip when we were caught in the storm,
then overturned with the loss of everything when strong waters caught us.
He nodded but said nothing to indicate that there was more to their story. Some
of these traders spoke forty or fifty languages, feigning ignorance to gain an
advantage. Ask him where we are.
He says we are two days north of the Ohio, she told him. He offers to take us
there, where there is a village of the Illinois.
Thank him for his courtesy and generosity and accept his offer, he instructed.
He suddenly had a thought. He is a trader. He certainly has at least one spare
set of paddles. Ask if we can borrow a set and follow him down.
She did so. He has. He is mad at himself for not thinking of it before. He says
he is getting too old for this sort of thing.
The old trader proved a true gentleman and a resourceful one. He had a net, for
one thing, which he suggested stringing between the two canoes in the shallows.
It brought up several large catfish as well as a few other denizens of the
river, and they ate well without depleting the old man’s supplies.
. The village of the Illinois was modest, but it had a number of buildings built
of logs and insulated with mud and looked as if it had been built for a larger
trade than was now there. The Illinois were taking advantage of the confluence
of the two great rivers; they could resupply and also pass on news and other
information—for a price, of course. From the looks of some of the men, Hawks
suspected that they weren’t above charging something of a toll as well—and
enforcing it. They seemed pleasant enough, but this mercenary lot, far from the
main part of their nation, was not apt to give anything out of the kindness of
their hearts. The jewels would have been handy here.
The headman, a tough old character named Roaring Bull, spoke many languages,
including the Ogalalla Sioux dialect, which Hawks knew.
So you had an accident on your wedding trip, the Illinois chief said
sympathetically. Lost everything but the canoe. What do you intend to do now?
I can do nothing until I can get some clothing, paddles of my own, and at least
a knife, spear, and flint, he responded honestly.
Then you go home?
No. We must keep pushing south. I have an old friend down in the Caje that my
wife has not met and with whom I have some business.
Oh? What’s his name? I know a lot of the Caje. We do business time to time, now
and again.
Mud Runner would be his name in Sioux. He pronounces it in his own tongue so.
With that he spoke the twisted syllables of the man’s name.
Ah! I do not know him, but I know of him. He is one of them. Why would you have
business with one like him?
I, too, was one of them, as you say. That was where we knew each other.
Roaring Bull frowned suspiciously. You from Council and you poking around here
or what?
I am no longer in Council, and neither is he. Both of us are out for the same
sort of thing, only I am voluntary. I fell in love with the woman who is now my
wife, and I find we are better in her world together than she would be in
Council. I tired of Council, anyway. Mud Runner also had affairs of the heart.
Often two or three a night. Some were with the wives of the high chiefs of
Council, and one time he was caught.
The Illinois chief lived up to his name, roaring with laughter. Finally, though,
he calmed down and got to business. It would seem, then, that you have a
problem, he noted calmly. We have all the things you need, and more, but we
are traders. How would it look if word got out that we gave things away? We get
the worst and the toughest through here. Soon everyone would be trying to take
advantage of us. You see how it is.
Hawks sighed. Then I do in fact have a problem. He thought for a moment,
although he’d worked out a plan in his mind on the way down. It was best to play
the game in situations like this. We do have the canoe. It is tough and sturdy
and of the best workmanship. Surely it is worth the small amount that I ask.
Hah! And how would you continue your journey?
We would find a way with some other traders. We will walk if we have to.
Agh! I have a hundred canoes and only twenty men who can use them. I need no
others. Think again.
His hopes were dashed. He wished Cloud Dancer were doing this negotiating, but
in this situation it was simply not proper.
I can see nothing else.
No one travels from the land of the Hyiakutt to the land of the Caje to show
off a pretty new wife. You must need to get to this man very badly, Roaring
Bull said shrewdly. I think perhaps you might not wish to be so cut off from
Council as you say. Tell you what. I will get you good clothing, weapons,
supplies, and even transport all the way to this Caje man. Good boots, strong
spear, metal knife, even protection all the way.
Hawks felt uneasy. And the price?
Roaring Bull leaned in a bit and lowered his voice. My friend, let us be honest
with one another. I have been here, in this crossroads, for a very long time,
and I have seen almost everything. I have seen men come through here many times
who thought they could beat the system. Men just like you, although their tribes
and goals were different. Nobody just walks out on Council, not for anybody.
Some get thrown out and are lucky, like your friend, and keep some job with
Council, and some come back fixed in the head, but they don’t walk out unless
they have to, unless they are extra clever fellows like you who think they can
beat the system before the system beats them. You may be out of Council, but you
have left the Hyiakutt forever as well. I can smell it. To do that, you have
something on your mind so important no risk is too great, no price too much to