2. THE CURSES OF HISTORY
WALKS STOOPED OVER, CHIEF MEDICINE MAN and healer of the Hyiakutt nation, who
always walked ramrod straight even now that he was in his seventies, trudged
slowly up the hill to the hogan of Runs With the Night Hawks to make his routine
courtesy call and his perennial complaint.
The flying saucers were stampeding the buffalos.
It was always pretty much the same, or had been in the more than two decades now
that Hawks had taken Leave at this time and place. Despite his privileged
position and rank, he was required to spend at least one-quarter of the year
living with and as one of his people. Generally he didn’t mind, except for minor
ordeals like this and the fact that it really put a crimp on ongoing projects.
While not impossible to deal with, the wrench of going from electric lighting,
air conditioning, and computer filing and research to a log and mud hogan out on
the plains with none of those conveniences was quite traumatic.
That, of course, was the point of requiring him to return. One of them, anyway.
He knew that most of the work of his profession had been accomplished by
firelight and without any modern amenities, because these hadn’t been invented
yet. But the scholars of those ancient days had one major advantage that he did
not: They did not know that such amenities and technology existed, or even could
exist, so they were incapable of missing them.
The old medicine man showed the wear of his years in his wrinkled face and
nearly white long hair, but his eyes showed a certain youthfulness and his gait
a pride that said he wouldn’t choose to be anywhere else nor doing anything but
what he was doing.
I greet you, Runs With the Night Hawks, and welcome you back to your lands and
people, the old man said in the melodic tongue of their ancestors. You have
not changed much, although you look a bit saggy in the stomach.
The younger man smiled. And I return the greeting, wise and ancient one.
Welcome to my poor lodging and my fire. Please sit and talk with me.
It was a clear, starry night, with only a sliver of moon. The old man settled by
his small fire, and Hawks sat opposite, as etiquette dictated.
You did not happen to smuggle in any of the good hooch, did you, my son? the
old man asked in a mixture of tongues.
The younger man smiled playfully. You know that it is forbidden to do such a
thing, ancient one. There could be many problems for me if I did so.
The old man looked a bit uneasy, although they played this little game every
year.
However, Hawks added, I would be honored if you would share some of my meager
ration of medicinal herb. He took out a large gourd container and handed it
over.
The old man took it, pried out the crude cork, and took a big swallow. A look of
complete rapture filled his face. Smooth! he rasped. You are a sly one, boy!
He made to hand it back but was stopped by a gesture.
No, it is yours. A gift, to ward off the chill.
The old man smiled and nodded thankfully. We have some hidden stills that make
some passable corn, but I am getting too old for it, I fear. One must have the
layers of youth inside, for each drink of that removes one layer. I fear 1 have
become layers of gut in debt to the Creator.
That out of the way, it was time to get into the next level of sociability.
How does the tribe fare, elder? I have been away a while.
Not too badly, the old man replied. The nation numbers in the thousands, and
the tribe now is almost three hundred. There were many births this past season,
and few deaths. Of course, up north the Blackfoot and the damned Lakotas are
overhunting their quotas, and in the south the Apaches are overrunning their
borders—I fear we may have a war with one or the other before too many more
seasons are out. The southern migration is peaceful, but those damned flying
saucers keep scaring the buffalo, and there are many difficult and hungry days
because of it. We must handle those greedy tribes, and we will, but surely you
can do something about those cursed flying things.
Runs With the Night Hawks sighed. Each year we have had this problem, and each
year 1, as tribal representative, lodge protests and am assured that routes will
be changed and new studies made, but nothing is ever done. You say I am getting
a bit fat, and it is true, but those who might change things are fatter, and the
fat is not merely in their bellies. He sighed. More than once I have wished I
could convene a War Council to do to the administrators what we do with the
Sioux.
But they are of the People, too! They return at times each year for a season,
as you do. Why does this not give them some feel for the problems?
You know why. The Upper Council is dominated by Aztecs, Mayans, Navaho, Nez
Perce, and others like that.
Farmers and city dwellers! None of them could survive out here for a week let
alone a season! It is a sad day when policy is made by old women. Particularly
old women who were born old women!
You are old and wise. You know it is simply numbers. Those who are free to
follow the buffalo and ride the winds of the plains can never equal the numbers
of those who are farmers and craft-weavers.
The old man took another drink and sighed. You know, boy, I often think that
they should have gone all the way when they restored us to our lands and ways.
My soul is never so filled as when I am out there, under the stars, watching the
wind blow the tall grasses like some great sea and hearing the kind whispers of
the Creator.
If they did, we would have no horses, Hawks pointed out, not for the first
time. The old days were not all that wonderful. Women were married at first
blood and had twenty children, only to lose most at birth or before the age of
one. An ancient one was perhaps thirty-five. Diseases and infections ravaged all
the People. It was a terrible price that they paid. Perhaps some flying ships
scaring the buffalo from time to time is not too great a price to pay for losing
the bad parts.
I know, I know. You need not lecture me.
I am sorry if I offended you. I am a historian, after all. It is my nature to
lecture. He sighed. I am away too long. I forget myself. You are my guest, and
here I am quarreling with you.
It is nothing. I am an old man, ignorant of much and riding the plains until my
dust becomes one with that carried on the winds. We have had three returned to
us from the Lesser Councils this past season. I am of a different world than
they, but by choice. Do not mistake my frustrations for contempt. Each person
must follow his own course. I am as proud of the accomplishments of those like
you as I am when a young one becomes of age and passes the test and chooses the
life of a warrior and hunter, and I mourn when those like you are returned to us
against their will.
Hawks frowned. Anybody I know?
I think not. A younger couple, Sly Like Coyote and Song of the Half Moon. I am
not sure where they worked, but it was somewhere out beyond the setting sun.
Their jobs were meaningless to me, although he was always good with numbers. Not
like you. History I can more than comprehend. I could see no use in science
which is not practical.
Hawks nodded gravely. It was one of the fears they all lived with, those who had
been chosen, because of some talent or ability, to leave the tribes and go up to
the Councils. Then one traded the simplicity of tribal life and the absoluteness
of its culture for a far different existence, subject to a tremendous level of
authority right up to the Masters themselves. There all the wonders and comforts
were available, but the price was always to walk a careful line and never
challenge, even accidentally, any part of the hierarchy. No one was so essential
that he was not subject to others above, and no one was above being replaced.
He tried to remember the two but could not. Certainly if he discovered their
parents and their lineage, he could at least place them, but it wasn’t really
worth the bother. What he would want to know—what they had done that had caused
them to be returned—neither they nor anyone else he could question could tell
him. The only thing certain was that it had been something serious. Even the
most petty did not send down subordinates for arbitrary or personal reasons; the
procedure was too involved, and the justifications had to be shown and proved up
and down the line. Too much had been invested in everyone of Council level to
allow anything less.
What had the young man been? Hawks wondered. A computer expert, perhaps? An
astronomer, or physicist, or pure mathematician? Years of training, sweat, hard
work—all gone. Replaced with other memories, other views, that made them good
members of the tribe. Now a man who once, perhaps, dealt with complex equations
and a woman who, at the very least, was expert in running his models on
sophisticated computer equipment got up each morning and prayed to the spirits
and the Creator and had no knowledge of or curiosity about anything beyond the
tribe.
You have not done anything to merit their fate, have you? the old man asked
quietly.
Hawks was startled. Huh? I hope not. Why do you ask?
There has been a demon stalking about in the tall grass. We wonder who or what
he is after. Certainly not any of us.
A Val? Here? The thought made him uneasy. He was an obvious target. For how
long now?
Four days, perhaps more. I think then that you cannot be the quarry, after all.
You are here but two days, after all. They could have picked you up far easier
before you arrived here, could they not?
He nodded. Yes, that is true. Still, I wonder what the thing can be after? I do
not like the idea of one of them around, no matter who the object is.
He was less confident than he tried to sound. Why would anyone send a Val here?
Could it be here on sheer suspicion? He’d been required to get a readout taken
before he left to rejoin the tribe, but there were many such readouts being
taken at any given time. They weren’t all evaluated. There were only a few Vals
on the whole planet; they couldn’t possibly discover anything so minor except by
sheer chance.
But chance had brought him what he now felt some guilt about, a chance perhaps
more remote than picking his readout at random. No, it was still too much to
believe. The old man was right. If suspicions were enough, they’d have picked
him up before he left, or at least when he arrived.
The medicine man, sensing the younger one’s disturbance, gently changed the
subject. You have not married. A man your age should have children by now.
The comment only partially broke his mood. There are few women of the nation in
the Councils and none who are the type who could stand being married to one such
as myself.
There are many attractive young women with the tribe.
That may be true. We have always been blessed that way. But how could I take
one of them? Wrench her from this life to the Councils? It would be taking a
beautiful sturgeon and placing her in the midst of the high prairie. The same as
I would be, after a while, returning here to live. My heart is always with my
people, but my mind is a world away.
Perhaps it is too far, the old medicine man responded. We will be leaving
soon, and only a small number of us will remain when the first snows come. Even
when you are with your people, you stay apart. You come as we leave, and you
spend little time with the Four Families chosen to remain. You build mountains
between yourself and your manhood, between yourself and your people. I will send
someone over to help you prepare here and to take some of the routine burdens.
No, I—
Yes, the medicine man responded with the finality of power. He had the power
and the training. The tribal chief was more of a military officer; the medicine
man was the politician. He had made the decision to send Hawks out to be
educated and trained and had nominated him for Council. He was very low in the
hierarchy of human civilization, but he was still above Hawks.
They spent a little more time in pleasantries and gossip, sharing information
and talking about old friends, and at last the old man yawned and bade his
farewell. Hawks watched him vanish quickly into the darkness and the winds, and
thought.
He did love it here, even when the tribe migrated slowly southward, leaving only
the Four Families to represent symbolically the tribe and its territorial
rights. They did not own the land; none of the People had any real belief that
land could be owned at all. But they were a small tribe in a small nation,
surrounded by larger and more powerful nations, and their way of life depended
on maintaining territorial rights.
Perhaps the old man had made a mistake, he thought, feeling both the communion
with the land and his isolation within it. It would not be the first one,
certainly. My heart and my blood are here, in the land and the winds.
There had been a woman once—an unobtainable woman. She had been beautiful and
brilliant, a crack anthropologist specializing in the plains tribal systems that
had bred them both. When he was young, he had been obsessed with her, for she