Authors: Caleb Fox
“Having anything to do will feel better.”
“And talk to Jemel. Go to her in human form and apologize for the terrible way the eagle spoke to her.”
“I can’t.”
“Do it. Now.”
He started toward the mouth of the Cavern and the daylight.
“Don’t get absorbed in Jemel and forget the chiefs. They’re expecting you. The fate of the people depends on what happens tomorrow.”
He felt ashamed of himself. “Yes.”
“Keep a sharp eye out for trouble. When the lodge convenes, sit at the smoke hole and listen to every word.”
“Yes, but I . . .”
She held up a hand. “Go now. I have to prepare.”
So he came here and wasted his time spiraling upward. He called to Su-Li again. No answer. What was going on?
To hell with it, he decided. He winged across the mountain into another valley and spent the day hunting. All the while, even as he ate, he cursed himself as an idiot.
I can’t face Jemel. I have to face Jemel.
Early the next morning he watched the three Soco chiefs wrap food in skins. He was out of time. He landed on a sandy beach along the creek, where he could watch for enemies. He changed himself into his human shape—he was getting quick at this transformation. He strode into the camp and up to the two brush huts that housed her family.
“Jemel,” he called, “I want to talk to you.” It was rude to bark out like that, but he couldn’t help himself.
Her head stuck out a door. Then she was on her feet and run-waddling toward him. She threw himself into his arms. She kissed him with a passion that deluged the past and carried it off on a flood of emotion and sensation.
He forced himself to remember what had happened. With her enormous belly pressed against him, how could he forget? He pushed her back to arms’ length.
“I have to apologize to you.”
“Let’s never do that. I love you.”
“You don’t know what I did.”
“I don’t care. Don’t you see?” She cupped her bulging belly with her hands.
That was what he hated seeing. “I treated you terribly.”
What was in her eyes now—hesitation?
“This is hard to explain. I . . . I came to you as an . . .”
That would never work. In a flash he knew what would.
“Unfaithful,” he said in a harsh tone. “False-hearted. Deceiver.”
He saw that she remembered. The war eagle face, the voice, the awful words.
“Traitor. Betrayer. Villain.”
She backed away from him, as from a bear or snake. Her eyes were wild.
“You can’t understand, I know.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand!”
He was stumped. Then he got an idea. Skin turned to feather. Feet turned to talons. Nose and mouth turned to beak. The war eagle spread his wings and flapped to the nearest branch.
“Who are you?” she cried, frozen to the spot.
“I am Zeya, transformed. Who are you?”
Her knees trembled, but she found her voice. “I am the mother of your child!” She stumbled backward and then shouted, “How could you do this?” She ran.
Zeya’s mind whirled like the wildest winds.
I . . . what?
He forced the words to add up. And then he realized.
He changed into human shape so fast feathers stuck out around his ears. He dropped down from the branch and ran after her. “Jemel! Jemel!”
She could only waddle slowly. Beyond her he could see the three chiefs lashing the food bundles onto a pack dog. He caught up fast and grabbed her arm. “Say that again. What you said I am.’ ”
She jerked the arm away. She glared him. She delivered the words like blows. “You are the father of my child.”
“Are you sure?”
“Why aren’t you? Has your imagination run away with you?”
“Yes.” He saw it now. Just as he had dreamed up the enemies on his journey to the land beyond. “I was jealous. Crazy jealous.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Idiot! Fool! Buffoon! Chump!” The smile on her face grew huge. “Jealousy scooped your brains out.”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I love you. Supremely.”
“You know how I love you? I wish you were inside me right now. So just say it straight out. Do you want to be my husband and this child’s father?”
He wrapped his arms around her. They spent half an eternity kissing.
Then she pulled back and said, “Feel our child.” She put his hand on her belly. “It’s not kicking right now.” She slid his hand indecently low.
“By the way, I have a new name. Luckily it’s not idiot, fool, buffoon, or chump, though I deserve those, too. It’s Ulo-Zeya, Dweller-in-Clouds. I want to be called Zeya.”
Just then Ninyu walked up. “Grandson, you have a job to do.”
Zeya drew back and looked from his lover to his grandfather and back. “Yes!” He told Jemel, “Yes to the future.” To Ninyu he said, “Yes to the job.”
He stepped further back, grinned at them, and began the process. Skin to feathers.
T
sola sat blindfolded by the sacred fire. In front of her lay an elk robe wrapped around something.
Three by three the chiefs found their way into the building by the light that came from all sides and sat cross-legged around the fire. Klandagi studied every one of them. He was his mother’s eyes. Yes, they were required to come unarmed, and what the hell did that mean? The autumn day was chill, and every man wrapped himself in a blanket, where a knife or war club might be concealed. The panther saw no suggestive bumps yet.
Klandagi looked up. Tips of feathers showed that Su-Li and Zeya were perched at the big smoke hole, where they could hear.
Inaj strutted in last, trailed by the White Chief and Medicine Chief of the Tuscas. He had been Red Chief for three decades, except for a brief interval when he maneuvered his son Zanda into the position. And in that tribe the Red Chief was always the head man—had they not been at war with the Socos for twenty winters?
Klandagi wished he could jump Inaj right now and tear his throat out. With so formidable an enemy, a warrior would normally cut the heart out and eat it, to add its strength to his own. But Klandagi wouldn’t touch a heart so foul.
Inaj seated himself at the far end of the circle, which put him only an arm’s length from Klandagi’s mother. The panther slid into the space and gazed into the chief’s eyes.
Inaj smiled at Klandagi.
Curious
, thought the panther.
“Everyone is here,” Klandagi told Tsola.
She lit the sacred pipe and passed it. While the chiefs smoked, Klandagi inspected Inaj meticulously. Klandagi hoped his gaze would intimidate the chief.
When the pipe returned to Tsola, she acted without a word—she opened the elk robe and held up the treasure. “Thunderbird has granted us a new Cape of Eagle Feathers,” she said. “The young man of prophecy, formerly known as Dahzi, now called Dweller-in-Clouds, crossed to the Land beyond the Sky Arch and brought back the Cape. It was an adventure that will be told among our people for generations.”
Above the smoke hole, Su-Li said to Zeya without words,
Don’t puff your chest up—she’s doing enough of that for you.
“That story can be told later. Right now, we have the Cape, and I have spent days listening to its wisdom, its guidance toward peace and prosperity. The eagles are ready to act as messengers to—”
“Don’t waste my time,” Inaj burst in. He stood up and sneered at all of them.
“Mother,” Klandagi whispered. She gave him a tiny shake of her head—
no
—and put a hand on his haunches.
“I have something fascinating to show you,” declared Inaj.
All the chiefs looked at each other aghast. No one but Inaj had ever interrupted a council so rudely. He was standing, his head far above theirs. His whole body language was scorn.
From underneath his blanket Inaj drew a shapeless mass of cloth. Suddenly, he threw it over Klandagi. Tsola jerked her hand out. The panther was trapped in a net.
Klandagi roared and clawed at the fabric. He writhed and twisted. All he accomplished was to get his claws caught, and the netting wrapped tighter around him.
Tsola reached for the net, but Inaj grabbed her arms.
She took two deep breaths and said, “Son, be still. No one will kill anyone here today.”
Inaj chuckled. He declared, “Tsola the Seer brought us here to talk of peace. We’ve heard it all before. It meant nothing then, it means nothing now.
“So let me tell you something exciting. This council will in fact be a great triumph. Though our Wounded Healer disagrees”—he twisted the title into irony—“this will bring peace. And a great victory for me.”
Now he turned and spoke directly to Tsola. “Thank you for asking us to come here unarmed. Thank you for asking us to leave our warriors a day’s walk away.” His eyes lit with exultation. “For my two hundred men are right here, they are coming out of the trees on the hillsides around this village. They await my command. If you tell your escorts to resist, they will be slaughtered. So let us have a truce for the moment.”
Klandagi fought the net and roared.
“Here is my plan for peace. After tomorrow the Soco Band, enemies of the Tuscas, will not exist. First we will slay you three Soco chiefs and your ten escorts.” He eyed Ninyu. “I promise you, you will never leave this village alive. Then we will take advantage of the truce to attack your camp tomorrow and seize your women and children. Your best men will be dead, most of the rest out hunting, the remaining few leaderless—the fight will be quick and easy business. Over the next quarter moon or so we will track down the rest of your warriors one by one and kill them—every Soco man we can find. Particularly, and with special pleasure, I myself will kill the young man who puffs himself up to the name Dweller-in-Clouds, he of the webbed fingers, the one who should never have been born.”
Above, Su-Li said to Zeya,
Your loving grandfather.
“But we are kind. We will take your children into our families. We will make your wives our wives. And we will feed these new mouths with the game from your hunting grounds.” He waited. “That, and only that, will bring an end to twenty
years of war. So in this manner, dear Wounded Healer, I, Inaj, Red Chief of the Tuscas, present you with the peace you yearn for.”
“You’re insane,” said Tsola. Her voice was a dagger.
“Crazy with joy, perhaps,” said Inaj. “Mad with the scent of conquest.
“Right now, I offer a choice to you chiefs of the other two bands, and your escorts. You may camp here peaceably today, tonight, and tomorrow. Or you may fight with the doomed Soco chiefs and warriors.” He shrugged. “I don’t care which. If you choose to die, we Tusca chiefs will simply take leadership of the entire tribe.” He nodded, as though accepting an honor.
He looked outside. “The shadows show that it’s nearly noon. My escorts are blocking your exit, and my army is gathering in the meadow north of the village. By the time they’ve assembled you must give us your decision.”
He laughed and stalked out, leading his White Chief and Medicine Chief.
T
sola slipped her arms under the net, embraced her son, and lifted his prison away. She held him tighter and said “No, there are too many of them.”
She felt his muscles ease off, but she could hear the fury in his breathing, and feel it radiating off his skin.
First Zeya then Su-Li fluttered down from the smoke hole.
We are here, Seer
, said Zeya.
“Join us in the circle,” she said in words, “and transform yourself into human form.”
Zeya did. The chiefs gaped—none had seen this new power of Zeya’s. He held up his hand, reminding them of the webbed fingers. Su-Li perched on his shoulder.
Tsola smiled at Zeya’s gesture, and nodded. “Who wants to speak?”
“I’ll kill them all,” said Klandagi.
“Act real,” said his mother.
The White Chief of the Cusa band said, “We three will stay and fight with the Socos.”
“Go slowly,” said Tsola. “Let’s be very sure. This could mean the end of the Galayi people.”
“We three Cheowas will also stay,” said their White Chief. His voice was thin with age.
“Thirty-nine men, some of you years beyond your time to fight, against two hundred. You will all die,” Tsola said.
Everyone looked at her expectantly. Surely she had some guidance to offer at such a critical time.
But it was Zeya who spoke up. “Leave me alone beside the sacred fire, please. I have an idea.” He touched Su-Li’s talon to ask the buzzard to stay.
All but Tsola stared at this inexperienced youth. How could he . . .?
The blindfolded Seer handed the pipe to Ninyu beside her, picked up the Cape, and stood. “Lead me outside,” she said to Klandagi. All the chiefs followed her.
Zeya looked into the fire, raised his voice to the skies, and sang. Thunderbird had promised that when he needed an eagle song, it would come to him, and it did. Four times he sang it through. When he finished, he had an answer, though it didn’t come in words.