Zadayi Red (40 page)

He could see how the ridges came down from the balds. They divided as they descended, and a creek formed between each two ridges. A mountain, he realized, had a logic all its own.

What do you want to do
? said Su-Li.

I don’t know.
Dweller-in-the-Clouds looked wide-eyed at his companion.
How are you talking to me?

The same way you’re talking to me.

We can communicate directly now, mind to mind?

When you’re an eagle.

Believing—accepting this fact—was swallowing a big lump for Zeya.
Can you do this with Klandagi?

When he’s a panther.

I didn’t know that.

No one else does. Best to keep some things to yourself. So what do you want to do?

They were gliding south along the river, not even flapping their wings.
Go see Jemel.

She’s back home in the Soco village, with her parents.

Let’s fly.

Easily, comfortably, they flapped and floated down the valley.

How far can you go in a day?

About a week’s walk.

I can’t believe this.

Do you realize we’re flying down the route you took to get to the Socos twenty winters ago? Let’s circle down, and I’ll show you something.

Zeya hadn’t realized Su-Li could be so chatty.

Here’s what’s funny
, said Su-Li.
When you’re a human being, you’ll go back to thinking I can’t talk. Okay, there it is. That’s the waterfall where the caves of the Little People were, and were not. Also the frozen waterfall that shattered and saved your life when you were a tiny baby.

Zeya had heard the story a hundred times, how he, Sunoya,
and the dog swam the flooding river and Inaj’s men got bashed by the icefall when it crashed down.

The first time your grandfather tried to kill you
, said Su-Li.
One of many.

He’ll never quit, will he?

No.

Zeya felt blood lust in his heart. He had to be honest.
I want to kill him.

Yes.

But I can’t commit a crime against the new Cape.

No.

They flapped along in silence.

Let’s do something about your blood lust.

Zeya looked at him nervously.

Hunt
.

They glided along the grassy hillsides. Su-Li saw the rabbit before Zeya did.
Dive
, the buzzard said, fast and hard.
Use your talons, not your beak.

Zeya shook his head to clear it, and found out that didn’t work with an eagle’s neck.

Dive!
said Su-Li.

Zeya did. He was thrilled at his own speed. He eyed the rabbit fiercely and felt in his blood the old fever of the hunter for prey.

He made a clean miss.

His wings carried him up while his heart sank. He didn’t know whether the rabbit darted away at the last second, or whether his aim was bad.

Wheeling back toward Su-Li, he spotted a gopher. Without thinking, he hurtled toward it. He hit it with one talon but didn’t get a grip on it. The gopher scurried off.

Another rabbit. Zeya used himself like an arrow plummeting to the ground. And this time he hit. The rabbit squirmed, but Zeya used his other talon to break its neck.

He arrived at the height of the mountaintop to fall in with Su-Li, rabbit dangling.

Dweller-in-Clouds?
said Su-Li.

I am now.

Let’s light on a bald.

They did. Zeya started to invite Su-Li to join him in eating, then interrupted himself.
Is this carrion?

It is now.

Have you gotten to like carrion?

Mortality stinks,
said Su-Li.

They fed.

As they lifted off, Zeya said,
Small but good.

When you’re a human being, you’ll need more to eat.

They flapped downriver.

There it is,
said Su-Li.

The Soco village, his home. Zeya glided sideways a little to get the best view of where he grew up. He felt his heart touched. He pictured childhood friends playing in the creek, racing across the fields to see who was fastest, giving and getting bloody noses. He remembered seeing Jemel for the first time . . .

After he got oriented, Zeya started wheeling in tight circles over Jemel’s house.
That will be my house soon
, he thought.
I hope.

Nothing. No sign of anyone.

Across the village he saw Ninyu walk away from his house, maybe to talk to someone or do one of a hundred chores. He felt a longing to see everyone again, his grandfather and grandmothers, aunts and uncles, cousins.

He let himself glide down toward Jemel’s house—he was good at flying now. Still he saw no one from her family.

I think that’s enough
, said Su-Li.

Has our marriage been arranged?

That’s a question to ask Tsola.

They winged back up the river. Zeya thought of the woman he wanted. She was a Moon Woman, full of wild feelings. He had no doubt that if she saw a man she wanted, another man, she would take him.

Zeya was worn out by his flight and, from the look of the light outside the cave, slept from dusk one day to dawn the next. Or was it dusk the next? He went to the cave entrance, looked at the world, and saw that it was dawn.

“I’m starved,” he told his mother.

She gave him plenty to eat.

“I think you need to understand better what happened on your journey,” said Tsola, sitting in the shadows.

“I need to talk to Jemel.”

Tsola started to protest but said instead, “Whatever you want.”

“Inaj is looking for you,” said Sunoya.

“I’ll fly,” Zeya said.

“He’s got spies in the village,” his mother said. “Count on it.”

“Do you want me to go along?” said Klandagi.

“Tsola needs you,” Zeya said.

Tsola was picking up the wrap that held the Cape. “No,” she said, “I’ll be in the Emerald Dome. It’s safe there.”

But Zeya had had a guard for too many years. “I’ll be all right.”

“You want Su-Li with you?” said Sunoya.

He kissed his mother. “You need him,” he said, “and I don’t.”

“Fly,” said Klandagi. “Fly away home.”

Where is Jemel?

Zeya watched the village from the top of the snag. People coming and going, children playing, dogs running around,
young women walking to and from the fields to gather the last of the harvest, young men making spear heads and old men sitting with them, probably telling hunting stories. He knew many of the old women were sitting inside, near the light from the doors, sewing. They liked to be near the fire.

All day long he’d sat here—no sign of Jemel. Her family was here. Her mother, aunts, and sisters traipsed back and forth from the cornfields constantly.
Where is Jemel?

Zeya was full of odd feelings. Jemel, himself, his journey, the future—everything tumbled around inside him like pebbles in a rattle.

Maybe that was why, for the first time, he felt funny about these routines of daily life. They were the patterns of days he had lived during his twenty years on the Earth. And they were good. He felt nostalgic about them. But he also felt separated. He was different. He murmured to himself, “Sitting here in the shape of an eagle—that’s as different as things get.”

More than his body had changed. His spirit had shifted, though he couldn’t say how. His awareness was altered. Everything within the sweep of his vision seemed to him a blossom of mortality, bright and brassy and ignorant. The children who now played were on the way to turning into the old men and old women. The crops grew in the summer and died before winter. People gathered them because they lived by feeding on other living beings that they killed. The men slew the deer and sang a prayer asking forgiveness. The breath that carried their words bore the intimation of their own deaths, and their fear of it.

Even a seed bore the inevitability of death. Everything that lived died and became food, so that other creatures might live. It struck Zeya as a bizarre mixture of beauty and horror.

Where is Jemel?

He remembered to check the skies around him. Eagles had few enemies in this world, none he knew of, but he was still
mortal. Klandagi reminded Zeya that Su-Li could not be killed, but the two of them could. Born to die.

The day itself was dying. The sunset oozed colors on the edges of the mountain ridges. The night would be cold.

Just then something caught Zeya’s eye. His heart quickened. It was Jemel, walking away from the house toward the creek. It looked as if she was going where the women went to pee. But why had she been inside all day? Why hadn’t she been working in the fields with the other young women?

She was with child.

He could tell by the way she walked. Though she wasn’t near birth time yet, it was unmistakable.

Humiliation flash-flooded through his veins.

He intended to speak to her. He intended to challenge her.

Jemel stilted toward the stream. She hated the way she walked. Her back hurt all the time, carrying this baby, and she felt like she had to hump each hip upward to get her foot off the ground to clomp forward.

She hated her life. When her father threw a fit about Zeya, she’d been whisked off to live with relatives in the Cusa village—no choice. The relatives clearly didn’t want her around. Once they saw she was with child, they treated her like a pariah, and everyone in the village snubbed her. Everyone except Awahi. He was kind.