Silent Dances (38 page)

186

smiled,
wanting Tesa to know she was looking out for her best

interests
. "
We thought you might be ready to go home. You dese
rv
e a
break
an
d you
'
ve put your surge
ry
off for so long. Once you have that
done
,
well, you could go to the Ashu Miza
ri
as you had o
ri
ginally pl
an
ned
,
or ... perhaps come back here as a diplomatic liaison."

The young woman nodded,
but seemed to draw away. "Tesa
,"
Meg
as
ked
, "
what do
you
want to do?"

Tesa looked at her with that long gaze she'd picked up from the Grus. "I don't

know what I want.
I feel overwhelmed. Right now
,
the thing I want most

is to go off by myself, have a sweat bath
, an
d pray for answers."

Meg knew little about Tesa'
s spi
ri
tual beliefs; however, as a religious

person herself
,
she had to respect Tesa
'
s needs. She wasn
'
t su
re
how she felt
,
though
,
about her going off alone. "Can't you build a
sweat bath here on the knoll? There
'
s plenty of room
, an
d Thorn and I
would respect your p
ri
vacy."

Tesa shook her head. "
I need to be away, to find my answers, to build

my lodge-maybe to even ask for a vision."

Meg felt a twinge of alarm.
Didn't Indian visions sometimes require

fasting and hallucinogenic drugs or self-mutilation? "Well, I don
'
t

know, Tesa ..."

The young
wom
an
fixed her with an intent gaze. "I haven't been able to

practice my religion since I left StarBridge." Meg felt mo
re
comfo
rt
able
knowing she
'
d practiced her religion at StarBridge
.
Rob Gable wouldn

'
t have tolerated anything harmful
. "
How much time are we talking

about?"

"Four days
,"
Tesa signed. "Four is an impo
rt
ant number to my
people."

"How far will you be going?"

"To a forest I visited the other day with Sailor."

That couldn'
t be too bad
,
Meg thought
. They
'd been able to go and

come back in the same day. "Will you take your voder with you and pay

attention to it
,
even when you're praying?"

Tesa looked surpri
sed
. "
Oh, sure
.
That
'
s a reasonable request
.
And I
'

m not foolhardy, Meg. I
'
ll keep the sled hove
ri
ng, just in case
."
She
smiled confidently.

Meg still felt a little uneasy. "
I'd feel be
tt
er about this if Thorn were
here ..."

Tesa re
acted strongly
. "
My
re
ligious practices are none of Thorn
'
s
business
!
He's
an
agnostic
,
what
re
spect could he

187

have for my spi
ri
tual needs
?
Besides, you'
re
his
superv
isor, why--"

Meg held up a hand to interrupt. "
We we
re
never much for rank around

here
,
Tesa
.
I like to get eve
ry
one
'
s opinions on things of
importance."

Tesa seemed concern
ed
. "
A
re
you going to ask eve
ry
one on the
Crane
if I can do this?" Her signs were subdued, not angry
.

"Well, no.
It's really none of their business
,
either. Or Thorn
'
s."

Frankly
,
it wor
ri
ed her to have Tesa go off alone--but she
'
d al
re
ady
done that many times with Sailor and had taken small jaunts on her

own
,
alone
.
She knew the young woman was expe
ri
enced and

levelheaded
. "
All
ri
ght, Tesa, it's all
ri
ght with me
.
But don
'
t forget
about the voder, or the sled."

The young woman seemed to deflate with relief. "
Thank you, Meg
.
When I
come back
,
I'll know what path I've got to take."

Meg watched her leave and noticed an added lightness in her step. Thorn

will probably be furious when he gets back, but that
'
s too bad. She
dese
rv
es this small request.

And when she gets back, Scott'
s ghost teased
,
she'll have
all
the
answers.

It was hard for Tesa to leave Taller and Weaver. After Sailor
'
s depa
rt
u
re,
the flock came to offer good wishes and assurances that Sailor
'
s

flyaway would teach him the things an adult had to know
.
The avians

told funny sto
ri
es of gentle mishaps, and narrow escapes that were

never really dangerous. Their conce
rn
was touching
,
especially since
they t
re
ated Tesa no differently from Sailor's biological parents. After

they left, Tesa packed and t
ri
ed to explain why she needed time alone.

Taller and Weaver accepted her news with good grace, but it was clear they

had hoped she would stay with them.

"
I'll be back in four days
,"
she promised.
"
Perhaps we'll take a trip
then
,"
Taller suggested.

"I'd like that,"
Tesa signed
.
She wanted to see a lot mo
re
of T
ri
nity befo
re
she'd have to leave
.
The Grus seemed as reluctant as Meg had to

bid her fa
re
well when she signed goodbye and headed toward the

dark forest where
,
only two days ago, she and Sailor had had their

strange interaction with the Aquila.

188

Thorn wondere
d if his own good sense hadn't been disto
rt
ed by Peter
'

s di
re
predictions. He sat at the
river'
s edge whe
re
Black Feather
'
s
flock should have been
,
and wasn
'
t, and wonde
re
d why these avi
an
s
were
so late retu
rn
ing
,
and where the hell his partner was.

Bruce had told him that Peter wasn'
t expected back on the
Crane
until

tomorro
w
,
that he was mapping ground coordinates for satellite su
rv

eys
.
That was one of the easier things about working with scientists
.

Research required large amounts of uninterrupted time, so

investigations weren't as difficult as they had been on other jobs
.
But

this job had its own problems.

It wasn'
t anything like tracking down illegal impo
rt
s of protected

wildlife on Ea
rt
h
,
or setting up elaborate stings to stop the poaching
of ra
re
c
re
atu
re
s
,
though it had seemed similar enough when they
'
d
been recruited.

Well
, if Peter wouldn
'
t answer a signal
,
and he hadn
'
t since the day
befo
re
yesterday
, Thorn
could go
looking
for him, but that was a very
time

-
consuming prospect
.
It would probably be mo
re
efficient to go

looking for Black Feather
. Thorn
could check out the two nea
re
st

roosting sites, and that would only take a day or so
.
Peter had

probably gone looking for the tardy flock himself.

If Thorn found the flock,
he could talk to the avi
an
leader, ask if he
'
d
found
an
ything unusual in his travels
. Thorn
had spoken to Black

Feather before
,
with Taller present
.
Taller's son was tolerant of hum
an
s
an
d t
ru
sted his father's judgment. Then
,
if Peter had gone looking
for the avians himself, Thorn would find him
an
d give him hell for igno

ri
ng his signal.

Thorn re
called Peter
'
s wa
rn
ing with an uneasy d
re
ad. He'd felt a ter
ri
ble fo
re
boding since then
.
It's Trinity,
he thought, looking at the clear
-

ru
nning
ri
ver
.
It wakes
up that ancient part
of you that
can instinctively
save your
life if you'
d only listen to it
.
He shive
re
d suddenly in the
still
,
warm air.

Actually,
that hadn
'
t been
his
thought at all. That had been something Scott had said to him a long time ago.

He piloted his sled along Black Feather'
s migrato
ry
trail. Tesa inhaled air
that felt like fire
,
as the steam from the hot rocks filled her up
an
d pou
re
d out of her as
ri
vulets of sweat st
re
aked her nude body
.
It had
taken her hours to const
ru
ct her

189

small beehive
-
shaped hut
,
to find twelve flexible saplings to take the
place of Earth
'
s white willow t
re
es
, an
d pl
an
t them secu
re
ly in the
forest soil. The saplings were joined to make a squa
re
at the top that

represented the universe
-
no
rt
h
,
south,
east
,
and west. She couldn
'
t
cover the exte
ri
or with bl
an
kets, so she
'
d used autumn
-
colo
re
d
conifer boughs.

In the center of the tiny lodge she'd brushed away the forest floori
ng
an
d

scooped out a hollow for the rocks
,
just the way gr
an
dfather Bigbee
had taught her. The shallow depression
re
presented
wakicagapi-all
the dead loved ones.
The scooped-out soil was patted into a path leading to

the sweat lodge, a path for spi
ri
ts, and as she shaped the li
tt
le
ri
dge,
Tesa had hoped that Sco
tt
and Water Dancer would join her in the
inipi,
the sweat bath.

She'd found the stones all over Tri
nity du
ri
ng her t
ri
ps with the Grus.

They we
re
different from the stones on Earth, but they had one thing in

common-they had designs on them only avi
an
s could see
.
She'd built

her fire in the old way
,
the patte
rn
of the sticks and logs representing
the universe and her pa
rt
in it. When the rocks were hot, she'd carried

them into the lodge with a forked stick
an
d placed them into the hollow,

first the gr
an
dmother rock for the ea
rt
h
,
then four rocks for the
universe, then the gr
an
dfather stone on top for the sky.

She'd burn
ed her sweet grass and lit her pipe filled with
re
d willow bark

fr
om Ea
rt
h as she watched the smoke
ri
se. Taking a dipper she'd

made, Tesa had filled it with cold water from the soft
-
sided, woven pail

Weaver had made her
an
d thrown the water on the rocks
.
Now the

steam filled her
every cell.

Eve
ry
thing she was doing had been done for thous
an
ds of years
-

but not here
.
On T
ri
nity
,
this oldest of ceremonies was new
.

Splashing more water on the rocks
,
Tesa endured the pu
ri
fying

steam
,
waiting befo
re
she would lift the flap the first of four times
, an
d
sign
mitakuye
oyasin-all my re
latives.

Even as she signed the prayers, following the an
cient
ri
tes, eve
ry
thing
she was doing was tying her to T
ri
nity. The rocks, the soil
,
the

saplings
,
eve
ry
thing in the lodge was
fr
om the World
.
As she inhaled
the breath of the rocks that cu
re
d ills
an
d eased pain
,
she prayed for
an
swers
.
The heat surrounded her, and as she bent over the dipper
,