Soul Catcher (16 page)

It was dangerous to talk to her about
Katsuk. He knew this now. But it had to be done.
The problem
with Katsuk.
The danger had something to do with the spirit
dream which Katsuk had experienced but refused to describe in
detail. It had been a powerful dream. That was obvious. David
wondered suddenly if his Hoquat-self had been caught up in Katsuk’s
dream. Could that happen? Could you take another human being into
your dream and hold that person captive there?

With a chill shock of awareness, he realised
that he had favored Katsuk over Ish in their contest. How could
that be? The realisation filled him with guilt. He had abandoned
himself! He had weakened the David part. Somewhere, he had made a
colossal mistake.

His mouth opened in dismay. What power had
commanded that he strengthen the Hoquat-Katsuk bond?

Tskanay stirred, said: “Are you hungry?”

David wondered if he had heard her
correctly. What did hunger have to do with anything real? Hungry?
He thought about it for a moment.

“Have you eaten?” Tskanay insisted.

David shrugged. “I guess so. I had some
peanuts and a chocolate bar.”

“Come with me.” She led the way across the
clearing to a gray mound of ashes outside the end hut.

David, following her, noted there were
several such ash mounds in the clearing. Some of them were smoking.
Tskanay had chosen one that smoked. It had a charred log behind it
and a pile of bark at one side.

As Tskanay walked, David noted the edges of
her skirt were damp from dew. She had been out in the tall grass
already this morning. The skirt showed dirt and stain marks all
around the hem. She squatted by the ashes.

David asked: “What do I call you?”

“M—” She glanced at the hut where Katsuk had
gone. “Tskanay.”

“It means Moon Water,” David said. “I heard
him.”

She nodded, picked up small branches from a
stack beneath the bark, scraped coals into view, and piled the
branches over them.

David moved around the charred log. “Have
you known Katsuk very long?”

“Since we were kids.” She leaned close to
the coals, blew them into life. Flame climbed through the piled
branches. She put bark around the flame.

“Do you know him very well?” David
asked.

“I thought I was going to marry him.”

“Oh.”

She went into the end hut, returned with two
old enamel pots. Water sloshed in one of them. Huckleberry leaves
floated on the water. The other contained a gray-blue mush.

“Salal berries, tule roots, and tiger-lily
bulbs,” she told him when David asked what was in the mush.

David squatted by the fire, enjoying its
warmth.

Tskanay put both pots into the coals. She
went into the hut, returned with an enamel plate and cup, a tinned
spoon. She wiped them on her skirt, served up the mush and a
steaming cup of huckleberry-leaf tea.

David sat on an end of the charred log to
eat. Tskanay sat on the other end, watched him silently until he
had finished. He found the mush sweet and filling. The tea was
bitter but left his mouth feeling clean.

“You like that food?” Tskanay asked. She
took the utensils from him.

“Yes.”

“That’s Indian food.”

“Katsuk doesn’t like you to say Indian.”

“To hell with Katsuk! Has he hit you very
much?”

“No. Are you going to marry him?”

“Nobody’s going to marry him.” David nodded.
Katsuk had gone into a world where people didn’t marry. Tskanay
said: “He was never cruel before.”

“I know.”

“He calls you his Innocent. Are you?”

“What?”

“Innocent!” David shrugged. This trend in
the conversation embarrassed him. “I’m not,” she said. “I was his
woman.”

“Oh.” David looked away toward the lake.

“You know why he named you Hoquat?” she
asked.

“Because I’m white.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirteen.” David looked toward the big hut.
“What happened to Katsuk?”

“He hates.”

“I know, but why?”

“Probably because of his sister.”

“His sister?”

“Yeah. She committed suicide.”

David looked at Tskanay. “Why’d she do
that?”

“A bunch of white guys caught her alone out
on the Forks road and raped her.”

David read the hidden enjoyment in Tskanay’s
recital, wondered at it. He asked: “Is that why Katsuk hates
whites?”

“I guess so. You never raped anyone,
huh?”

David blushed, felt anger at himself for
this betrayal of his feelings. He turned away.

“You know what it means, though,” Tskanay
said.

“Sure.” His voice sounded too gruff.

“You really are innocent!”

“Yes.” Defiant.

“You never even feel under a girl’s
skirt?”

Again, David felt his cheeks flame hot.

Tskanay laughed.

David turned, glared at her. “He’s going to
kill me! You know that? Unless you people stop him!”

She nodded, face suddenly sober. “Why don’t
you run away?”

“Where would I go?”

She pointed toward the lake. “There’s a
creek goes out the other end of the lake. Follow it. Lots of game
trails. You come to a river. Turn left, downstream. You come to a
regular park trail and a bridge. Go over the bridge. Got a sign
there. Trail goes to a campground. That’s where we left our
cars.”

Cars! David thought. The image of a car
represented safety to him, release from this terrifying
bondage.

“How far?”

She considered, then: “Maybe twenty miles.
Took us two days coming in.”

“Where would I rest? What would I eat?”

“If you hold to the north side of the river,
you’ll find an abandoned park shelter. Ish and some of his friends
buried a steel drum in it. Got some blankets, beans, stuff to make
fire.

It’s in the northeast corner of the shelter,
I heard him say.”

David stared out at the lake.
Shelter ...
blankets ... bridge ... cars ...
He glanced at the hut where
Katsuk had gone.

“He’ll kill you if I escape.”

“No, he won’t.”

“He might.”

“He’ll scream for his damned Raven!”

David thought:
He’ll send his birds after
me!

“He won’t hurt me,” Tskanay said. “Don’t you
want to escape?”

“Sure.”

“What’re you waiting for?”

David got to his feet. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

David looked once more at the lake. He felt
elation grow.
Follow the creek to the river. Go downstream to
the park trail. Cross a bridge.

Without a backward glance or thought for
Tskanay, he strolled down to the lake, making it casual in case
Katsuk was watching. At the lake, he found a flat stone. He skipped
it into the reeds to make it appear he had just come down to the
water to play. Another stone went into the reeds. It startled a
drake from hiding. The duck went squawking out of the reeds,
beating the water with its wings, settled at the far end of the
lake. It shook its feathers, stretched.

David swallowed, forced himself not to look
back at the camp. The drake had made a lot of noise and it had made
him bird-conscious. Watching for ravens, he skirted the meadow,
found a game trail with water running across a low spot. The wet
grass around him was waist high. His knees and feet already were
sopping. He hesitated at the edge of the trees. Once he entered the
trees he was committed.

A raven called.

David whirled left, looked down the lake. A
whole flock of ravens sat in a tall silver snag beside the lake.
The trail would go directly under them!

He thought:
If I go close to them,
they’ll fly up. They’ll make a big fuss and call Katsuk.

Through the trees in front of him, he could
see the hillside above the lake: no trail, a tangle of closely
packed spruce and hemlock, roots, mossy logs.

Anything was preferable to the ravens.

David moved straight into the trees, up the
hill. It was hard climbing—over logs, slipping on moss, falling
between logs, getting himself caught on brush and broken limbs. He
lost sight of the lake within two hundred steps. Once, he
confronted a moss-topped stump with a grouse sitting atop it,
blinking at him.

The bird twisted its head around to watch
him pass.

Except for the constant sound of dripping,
the forest felt silent to him. He thought:
When I get to the top
of this hill, I’ll turn left. That way, I’ll come back to the lake
or the creek.

His feet hurt where the wet socks chafed
them.

The hill was steeper now, trees smaller and
thinner. There were blackberry vines to catch at his clothing. He
came out into a small clearing with twisted black roots ahead of
him. They snaked down over the foundations of a granite
steeple—straight up! No way to climb it.

David sat down, panting. Roots and rock
formed a cup, blocking his way to the left, but a narrow deer trail
angled up to the right. He thought:
When I get to the top, then
I can turn left.

Taking a deep breath, he got up, climbed
into the deer trail. Before he had climbed one hundred steps, he
was confronted by a thick wall of brush. The wall ran up to his
left toward the rock steeple, curved away from him on the downhill
side. He tried to press into the brush, saw it was useless. Fur on
a limb above the brush told him the deer had leaped this
barrier.

Winded, frightened, he studied his
surroundings. Downhill to the right was back to Katsuk ... unless
he crossed the valley above the Indian encampment. That way, he
could go down the left side of the lake, away from the ravens.
There was a trail there, too: He and Katsuk had come up that
way.

Decision restored some of his hope. He
angled downhill, trying to move with the caution he’d learned from
watching Katsuk. It was no use: He continued to step on dead
branches which broke with loud stumblings; he continued to stumble
through limbs and brush.

The trees were bigger now, more of them,
more windfalls. He was thirsty and felt the beginning pangs of
hunger.

Presently, he stumbled onto another deer
trail. Within a few steps, it divided sharply. One arm went almost
straight up the hill to his left, the other plunged steeply into
green gloom.

David stared around him. He knew he was
lost. If he went uphill, he felt sure he would come face to face
with another part of that rock cliff. Downhill was the only way. He
would find water to quench his thirst at least. He plunged into the
green gloom. The trail switched back and forth, went almost
straight down in places, avoided a tall curve of roots at the base
of a fallen tree.

He went around the roots, found himself face
to face with a black bear. The bear backed up, snorting. David
leaped off the deer trail, downhill to his right, straight through
brush and limbs, panic driving him in great, gulping strides. A low
limb cut his forehead. He stumbled on a mossy log, fell hard into a
narrow rivulet tinkling across black rocks. He got up, mud and
water dripping from him, stared round. No sign of the bear. His
chest and side ached where he had fallen.

He stood, listening, heard only wind in the
trees, the sound of the tiny stream, his own gasping breaths. The
sound of water recalled him to his thirst. He found a hollow in the
rocks, stretched out and sank his face into the water to drink. His
face dripped when he sat up, but he could find no dry part of his
clothes to wipe away the water. He shook his head, scattering
droplets.

There was a breeze blowing across the
hillside. It chilled him. David felt his muscles trembling. He got
up, followed the tiny stream downhill. It ran under logs, over
shallows, dropped in miniature cataracts, growing larger and
larger. Finally, it came out on flat, marshy ground, ran directly
into a tangle of devil’s club.

David stopped, looked at the sharp white
spines of the thicket. No way to get through there. He looked to
the right: That way must lead to the camp. He turned to the left,
moved out across ground so spongy it sloshed and squirted with each
step. The devil’s club gave way to a stand of salal higher than his
head. The ground became more solid.

A deer trail entered the salal. David
stopped, examined his surroundings. He guessed he had been gone at
least three hours. He was not even sure he still was in the valley
of the lake. There was a trail. He peered into the dark hole
through the salal. The ground was gray mud, pocked with deer
tracks.

Fear crept through him. He teeth chattered
with the cold.

Where did that trail go? Back to Katsuk?

The constant sound of water dripping from
leaves wore on his nerves. His feet ached. He sensed the silent,
fearful warfare of plants and animals all around him. His whole
body shook with chill.

A distant cawing of ravens came to his ears.
David turned his head, searching for the direction of the sound. It
grew louder, a great clatter of wings and calling directly over
him, hidden by the thick tree cover.

They could see him even through the
trees!

In a panic even greater than when he had
seen the bear, David sprinted into the salal, slipped, almost fell.
He regained his balance, ran gasping and crying to himself through
the heavy shadows. The trail twisted and turned. David skidded,
burst from the thicket, desperate, incoherent, his mind filled with
confusion, his body teetering.

Ish stood directly in front of him. The old
man put out a hand to steady the boy.

“You lost, boy?”

David, his mouth open, panting, could only
stare up at the wrinkled old face, the glittering birdlike eyes.
There was a clearing behind Ish, a wide circle of trees all around.
Sunlight poured into it. David blinked in the brightness.

Ish said: “Kind of figured you were lost
when I heard you crashing down the hill a while back.” He dropped
his hand from David’s shoulder, stepped back to get a full view.
“You
are
a mess. Had you a time out there?”