had been everything he had ever dreamed of in a woman, a wife, a partner. She
had mistaken his love, though, for friendship and flattery, and he’d been too
shy to force anything lest he alienate and lose her if she rejected him—which,
of course, she had, indirectly, by marrying a sociologist from the Jimma tribe
of the nation. She had been so happy, she’d wanted him to be the first to know.
There had been nothing then but work, and he had thrown himself into it with a
passion, channeling all his energies into productive paths to stave off thoughts
of suicide or tinges of madness. Perhaps he was mad. He had often suspected it,
but he knew they wouldn’t flag someone for a madness that actually increased
work and production.
Her name was Cloud Dancer, and for two days he’d tried to make her life
miserable to no avail. She was cute, thin, a head shorter than he, and she
appeared slightly built although it was hard really to tell in that
loose-fitting, traditional dress she wore. She was thirty but looked younger by
far, and if inquisitiveness was any indication, she was bright as well. She was
also something of a dynamo: Any Outsider notions that native American women were
passive would be blown out of the water in ten minutes with her.
She had taken one look at his little hogan and exclaimed, This house smells as
if only dead things lie within it! I do not understand why men will abide filth
when it takes but a few moments to shake what is nature back to the winds and
let the spirits of life crowd out the dead space!
His protests that he didn’t mind things the way they were fell on deaf ears, and
soon she was taking out his blankets and extra clothing to be washed or aired as
the material required. When she tried to get his straw mattress out the door, he
finally had to help, and he found himself involved in the cleanup if only to
save what was important to him. She also brought some earthen cookware and some
food from the Families’ camp and proved a very fine cook indeed. Her seasonings
were expert, though the spices were as hot as hell to his palate, which was
accustomed much of the time to blander fare. But he wasn’t going to admit to
that to her.
Until Withdrawal, he really couldn’t provide for himself out here in his own
native land. There was the irony of it, and also why so much had to come from
the Four Families at the start. His salt box, large enough for a medium-sized
deer, was full, all right—of salt. He found himself being insulted and badgered
to go hunt for himself, and while he knew he wasn’t up for deer and particularly
not for buffalo, he did actually manage to catch three fairly good sized catfish
in the river.
The fact was, he was beginning to like her and to like a little of the order and
domesticity she brought. It was almost like being married, although she went
home at night and they did not, of course, share the pleasures of the bed. It
was over the hot, spiced fish stew she’d created that he finally gave in and
warmed to her. She spoke only Hyiakutt and had lived her life with the tribe,
but she had an odd mixture of old and new in her world view. She lived in a
supernatural world where spirits dwelled in everything, yet she knew there was a
wider world and a different one.
In some ways, she was also a victim of that culture. She had married at fifteen,
not an uncommon thing in the tribe. It had not been an arranged marriage, as was
the custom, because she had lost her father a year before in an accident and her
mother had died even earlier in childbirth. The child had not survived, either.
There were no orphans in the tribe; she had been adopted by close kin, but her
uncle was old and partly crippled and poor. Screams Like Thunder wasn’t the
ideal catch, either; an older man not given to ambition and with a nasty temper,
he was not a warrior and hadn’t really ever wanted to be. He was, in fact, a
Curer, which was really an assistant to the medicine man, keeping all the
paraphernalia in good shape and on hand and aiding in the preparation of herbs
and other medicinals. It was not exactly a high-ranking job, but it was as high
as he was ever likely to go.
He hadn’t been much of a lover, either. His spirit was willing, even eager, but
his flesh was, if not weak, best described as mostly limp. He couldn’t stand the
idea that he could not perform in this most basic of masculine areas, especially
since he didn’t have the warrior’s proof of manhood by deed. He therefore
encouraged—actually ordered and arranged—a set of liaisons with a gentle
half-wit who tended some of the animals and socialized very little. She had kind
of liked the poor man, whose mind was very childlike but whose physical
abilities were quite mature. Her husband had, by circuitous questioning and
feigning idle curiosity, discovered that the stand-in lover’s mental limits were
the result of an injury at birth and were not likely to be passed on to any
children he might sire, and that had settled it.
In the end, suspecting that her husband planned, once she had conceived, to kill
the surrogate to eliminate all chance of the affair being discovered, she had
found herself unable to go through with it no matter what the pressures. The
situation had gotten ugly, and her husband had beaten her and hauled her to the
man and then beaten her again. The kindness she’d shown the unfortunate animal
handler had been greater than the poor man had ever known, and he wasn’t so
childlike that he didn’t understand what was going on. He rushed to protect her,
there was a fight, and in the end her husband was dead, his skull crushed.
She had gone to the medicine man and told him everything, and he’d done his best
to cover it all up, but this was a small and closed community, and no major
scandal could be completely hidden. As usual, suspicion and rumor had gotten the
facts wrong—although in the ways of the tribe she should have done what her
husband commanded to salvage his honor—and it was generally believed that she
had been caught cheating on her husband and that the husband had paid the price.
She was made a social outcast, a tainted woman, and was relegated to being a
nonperson, a servant, one without property or standing.
Hawks understood well now why the medicine man had selected her for him,
although he didn’t appreciate being dragged into all this. She was far too full
of life to remain a servant, far too bright to waste, but her only hope of
status was remarriage, and she had little chance of competing with all the
younger, virginal women from good families with the means to provide generous
dowries.
You are far too gloomy, she admonished him over the stew. You sit and brood,
and dark storm clouds gather above your head. You will not live a second time,
you know. You have let the foul spirits eat at your heart, so you do not know
what you might have had.
He stared at her in wonder. Do you not ever feel that way? You have so much
more cause than I.
She shrugged. Yes, of course. It lurks around me all the time and creeps in and
takes a bite of my spirit every time I forget to guard against it. Still, there
is much beauty in the world, and only one life to see it. If the sorrow crowds
out all the joy, then that is worse than death. You are less excusable than I,
for you have less cause for it.
This was getting uncomfortable. It was time for a change of subject.
Tall Grass told me you were an artist, he said. A good one.
She shrugged again and tried to look modest, but clearly she was pleased. I
weave patterns, do necklaces, headbands, jewelry, that sort of thing. I have
also made some inks from the sands of the south plains and done some drawings on
treated skins and light woods. It is nothing special, though. My gifts are
modest, my work for me.
I should very much like to see some of it. Will you bring what you think are
some of your best works the next time?
Of course, if you like, but do not expect much. I should like, though, to try
some small drawings on paper. Until I saw your things in there, I had not
realized what a wonder paper is. She didn’t really say paper but rather
something that came out as thin and flexible sheets of wood, but his mind
immediately translated.
I will find you some, and some writing-sticks as well, he promised her. He’d
brought a rather large supply of pencils.
She took to them with almost childlike delight, and she was good—damned good.
The kind of natural talent that couldn’t see its own gifts, because it was so
natural, so easy to her that she could hardly comprehend anyone not being able
to do it. A stroke here, a stroke there, a bit of shading just so, and suddenly