XII The Last Medicine
OVER THE plain from the north the young men came a-gal-lop. The haste and rhythm of it were like the ripples that went through the grass beneath the wind. Sunflowers here and there swayed the same, lofty, petals as hot yellow as the light pouring across the world. Land and sky reached both unbounded, green seemed to meet blue but that was only at the edge of sight, distance went on and on farther than dreams could fly, A hawk rode the airflows, dipping and soaring, his wings twin flames. A flight of marshfowl lifted, so many that they darkened their quarter of heaven.
Children set to keep crows out of the fields were first to see the young men. The oldest boy among them ran back to the village, filled with importance; for Deathless had ordered that he be told of the return. Yet when the boy had passed inside the stockade and was among the houses, his courage faltered. Who was he to speak to the mightiest of all shamans? Dared he risk interrupting a spell or a vision? Women at their work saw him stand forlorn. One hailed him, “Oh6, Little Hare, what is in your heart?” But they were only women, the old men he glimpsed were only old men, and surely this was a thing of terrible power if Deathless cared so much about it.
The boy gulped and made for a certain house. Its dun sod loomed over him. When he came around its length to the front, the doorway gaped on a nightful cave where a single banked fire glimmered red. The families that shared it were elsewhere, doing their tasks or, if they had none, taking their ease down by the river. One did remain, the person for whom Little Hare had hoped, a man dressed in woman’s clothes, grinding corn. He looked up and asked in his mild way, “What do you wish, lad?”
Little Hare gulped. “The hunters come back,” he said. “Will you go tell the shaman, Three Geese?”
The noise of stone against stone ceased. The berdache rose. “I will,” he replied. Such as he had some power against the unseen, perhaps because the spirits made up to them for their lack of manliness. Besides, he was a son of Deathless. He dusted meal off his buckskin, uncoiled his braids, and departed at a dignified pace. Little Hare gusted relief before he started back to his duty. Eagerness tingled in him. What a brave sight the riders would be when they went by!
The shaman’s house stood next to the medicine lodge at the middle of the village. It was smaller than the rest because it was only for him and his family. He was there just then with his wives. Copperbright, mother of Three Geese, sat on the ground outside, watching over the two small daughters of Quail Wing while they played in the sun. Bent, half-blind, she was glad she could still help this much at her great age. In the doorway, Rain At Evening, who had been born the same winter as the berdache, helped a daughter of her own, Dawn Mist, ornament a dress with dyed quills for the maiden’s forthcoming marriage. She greeted the newcomer and, at his word, went inside to call her husband. Deathless came forth after a short while, still fastening his breechclout. Young Quail Wing peeped out from within, looking rumpled and happy.
“Ohe, father,” said Three Geese with due respect but not the awe that was in the likes of Little Hare. After all, this man had dandled him when he was a baby, taught him to know the stars and how to set snares and everything else needful or delightful—and, when it grew clear that the youth was not going to become fully a man, never lessened his love but accepted the fact with the calm of one who had watched hundreds of lives blow past on the wind. “They have seen Running Wolf’s party on the way back to us.”
Deathless stood quiet for a bit. When he frowned, a single wrinkle spread on his face. Sweat made his skin gleam over the springy muscles tike dew upon rock; his hair was like the rock itself, polished obsidian. “Are they sure that is who it is?” he asked.