Zadayi Red (5 page)

Kanu barely heard her. “A spirit guide!” he said. “And a buzzard!”

He held out his arm to Su-Li, but the buzzard turned away.

“I don’t think he’ll attach himself to anyone but me.”

One of Kanu’s dogs jumped up at Su-Li, and the bird fluttered up to the smoke hole of the hut. He said something crabby in Sunoya’s head.

“Excuse me,” said her uncle. “Do you want to eat?”

Kanu was a little late. Courtesy demanded that those be the first words to welcome a traveler.

Sunoya called Su-Li from the top of the hut. As she stooped through the doorway, she felt his claws clutching and releasing her shoulders. The bird would never be comfortable cut off from the sky.

As she munched cornbread, she and her uncle talked about necessities. She needed a hut to live in privately with Su-Li. Kanu said, now that they were back, he would ask his sons-in-law to make her a brush hut covered with hides today, and tomorrow start building a hut of mud and sticks.

When she finished eating and accepted tea, Kanu could wait no longer. “What did you do, what did you say to the Immortals that made them . . .?”

She told him what she had hidden from him earlier, that she had seen, repeatedly, the Cape of Eagle Feathers bloodied and soiled. Kanu dropped his head into his hands. When he finally looked up, he said, “What are we to do?”

She didn’t answer his question as he meant it. “Change the future.” She was riding high on the confidence that the Immortals had shown in her. “Not even a seer’s visions always come true. They can be prevented. You know that.”

Kanu’s right hand trembled. “Just the two of us? What . . . ?”

“The two of us and a spirit guide,” Sunoya reminded him. Then she told him what Su-Li had suggested on the
walk home, and how she and the buzzard had turned it into a plan.

Kanu chewed on it. “All right,” he said. “The next meeting of the chiefs is in three days.” They met on every new moon and every full moon. “We’ll stick our necks out.”

The White Chief Yano, the Red Chief Inaj, and her uncle Kanu took their seats at the sacred fire in the council lodge. Sunoya thought for the hundredth time that she wished the White Chief of peace didn’t look so pitiful next to the Red Chief of war. Yano was a thin wisp of an old man, doddering, barely a physical presence. Inaj was as fine a specimen of physical manhood as she’d ever seen, magnificently muscled.

She waited until she was invited to sit with them. Every eye was on Su-Li.

Since the village was at war with the Lena people who lived along the coast, the Red Chief, Inaj, was the head man. As a sign of their high purpose, Inaj lit the sacred pipe and smoked it ceremonially, adding tobacco to the aroma-thick room. It was a beautiful pipe, long-stemmed and with a bowl of polished black stone. Eagle feathers dangled from the stem.

Sunoya rubbed the flesh that webbed the fourth and fifth fingers of her left hand. She smiled to herself. The real manifestation of her power perched on her shoulder, appraising the three chiefs with his brilliant eye. She knew their feelings. Though they told themselves they should be honored by the presence of the spirit guide, they were in fact intimidated.

Su-Li said,
Men of power don’t like to share it
.

Sunoya looked at her buzzard friend and thought of what a gift he was. She also knew the obligations he brought, and the challenges they faced right now.
We must change a people’s direction. We must prevent unspeakable suffering.

You must
, said Su-Li.

Kanu handed her the pipe. She puffed on it and watched
the smoke rise toward the hole in the roof. She thought,
Carry this smoke, my breath, my prayers to the ears of the Immortals, and help me do what must be done.
As she sent her hopes to the sky, she felt Su-Li echoing them.

When she handed the pipe back to Inaj, he took a moment to consider his ceremonial address. To speak first was his right. He was astonished to see Kanu lift a hand to stop him.

“My niece and I apologize to the Red and White Chiefs,” he said. “I know that you think I have brought her here today to be elected the new Medicine Chief of the Tusca village. But, because of surprising circumstances”—he nodded toward Su-Li—“I will remain as Medicine Chief for the time being.” His ancient voice sounded like sliding stones. The job would be hard on him. She looked at her uncle with pride.

“Then why did you bring her?” Inaj’s tone was peremptory.

“First, to present her to you as one of the two Medicine Chiefs of all the Galayi people. You can see she has ascended to that station.” He indicated Su-Li with a hand. “Second, to present to you formally a great gift the Immortals have made to us,” Kanu said. He spoke as though he didn’t know that these chiefs, practical, earth-bound men, didn’t have much patience for magic. “This is Su-Li, one of the Immortals, the Buzzard of the ancient legends, the one who shaped the land of the Galayi into high mountains and deep valleys. He has come to help Sunoya and all of us. As you know, this is a very great honor.”

Neither of the chiefs spoke.

Su-Li said,
It seems your rules of etiquette don’t cover accepting an introduction to a spirit creature
.

She looked into the bird’s face for an ironic smile, but it was unreadable, as always.

“Additionally,” Kanu said—council speech was always formal—“we have a proposal to present to you.”

“Our Medicine Chief offers us a plan?” Inaj’s eyes flashed from Sunoya to Su-Li, showing what he meant: “Our Medicine Chief, who is a mere advisor, not a real chief, plus a young woman who is not even married, and her bird—and you dare to instruct us?”

Sunoya leapt straight in. “Chiefs, I know I have no standing here. I come only to bear the physical body of an Immortal, and to give us all a chance to hear his wisdom.”

“Wisdom he will impart to you alone,” said the Red Chief.

Now Yano, the White Chief, spoke. “Let’s hear them, Inaj.”

Sunoya thought maybe Yano was frustrated.
He’s been second in command for nearly ten winters, and maybe he suspects we could change that.
Which was exactly what she wanted to do.

She plunged in. “I have seen things.” This was the crucial part. This was what they had to believe. “I saw—foresaw—great troubles for the people. It would grieve me even to speak the words that tell those troubles. That’s why I went again to the Land beyond the Sky Arch.”

She took a deep breath and let a long breath out. “Since Su-Li and I came back to Turtle Island, he and I have talked about the troubles.” She paused. “You remember that Buzzard has the gift of prophecy.”

She studied the faces of the two men who held the power. Fortunately, they weren’t the only voters. “Kanu and I talked things over, and we have made a decision.”

She heard Inaj sniff. He preferred women and Medicine Chiefs who stayed in their subordinate places.

“At the dance for Grandmother Sun”—which meant the ceremony for the Galayi people that took place on the shortest days of the year—“we will meet with the other Medicine Chiefs and ask them to come to all the White Chiefs and all the Red Chiefs with a suggestion.”

‘Suggestion,’
said Su-Li.
Your Red Chief doesn’t look eased by that word.

“Our people have been at war with the Lena tribe and the Thano tribe for nearly ten winters.” The enemies on the coast to the east and the ones on the prairies west of the mountains. “Blood smears the grass of our land, and theirs. Every year the creeks run darker with crimson.”

She made herself ready. “Three of our four villages are now governed by war chiefs.” The fourth village was a sanctuary, a peace village that never entered fighting. “Su-Li and I believe that bloodletting is leading us toward something terrible.”

She could see that Inaj was now having difficulty observing Galayi custom, waiting until the other person was truly finished speaking. This was her one opportunity.

“We are going to suggest that we go to the Lena and Thano people—the Medicine Chiefs only—and make a treaty of peace with them.”

Inaj could wait no longer. “You are too young to understand. Tribes are not weakened by war—they are strengthened. Men are forged in the fires of battle.” He rushed on, caring nothing about his rudeness. “For several years now the band has grown stronger through tests of blood, the only way boys can become warriors. It is the hope of the White Chief and me that our strength will soon be so great that our enemies will be afraid and let us alone.”

Everyone around the fire breathed, waited, breathed.

Sunoya now went beyond the words she and Su-Li had planned out. “I have a question. How long do you think we’ll stay at war?”

Something feral flickered in Inaj’s eyes.

It was an unfair question. Since the Red Chief governed during times of war, she was really asking, “How long do you plan to be governor? When do you plan to turn leadership back over to the White Chief?”

She told Su-Li,
Give him your I-can-see-right-through-you look.

Inaj stood up, abruptly signaling that the meeting was over.

“You have the wisdom of experience,” she said anyway, “and of a War Chief.” She let that sink in. “Kanu and I have the knowledge of Medicine Chiefs, and the guidance of an Immortal. At Grandmother Sun’s Dance we will approach the other Medicine Chiefs with our proposal.”

Stare him down,
Sunoya told Su-Li.

Inaj didn’t flinch. His face was full of rage, not just at her but at Kanu for his part in the scheme. He was breathing like an enraged buffalo bull. Except for the decorum required by the council, she thought he would have erupted.

“My advice to such a young woman, such a beautiful woman,” Inaj said, “is to leave the responsibilities of governing to those who are trained for them, and elected to them.”

Then he changed to a gentler tone. “Tomorrow is the first day of the Hunting Moon, so my men and I leave on our hunt.” Every autumn they took enough meat—deer, elk, buffalo—to get the band through the winter. “We’ll leave behind enough warriors to defend the village. Then we will take all the villagers to Grandmother Sun’s ceremony. This is the work of men.”

Sunoya inclined her head to him. In her opinion Inaj used the hunt mainly as a training ground for war. He reveled in war. He was like a boy killing bugs with gleeful cries. He undid the spiritual work of the Medicine Chief.

Inaj turned his back on everyone and walked out.

In her mind Sunoya asked her spirit guide,
What’s in his heart right now?

Lust
, said Su-Li.

She squelched her fear. If any young woman stood up to Inaj, he wanted to mount and tame her. Sunoya couldn’t run that risk.

The White Chief took his leave politely. She hoped he would wish her well in her mission, but he didn’t.

Outside, Sunoya said aloud, “Su-Li, am I beautiful?” Hearing that from Inaj had felt strange.

No,
said her spirit guide.
To their way of thinking your face is diamond-shaped when it should be round, and your eyes are too dark.

Sunoya walked along, picturing her face as it looked in a still pool.

But you’re sexy—men are attracted to you.

“How do you know?”

The way they look at you when they think you don’t notice. The way they breathe when they stand next to you.

Sunoya considered this. She liked it.

Don’t be a fool
, said Su-Li.
Better if you were an ugly hag.

Her neck stiffened.

Let me assure you. They remember the old stories about spirit guides. I’ve listened to them. They recall what will happen if any man knows you carnally. Never forget. Inaj would gladly rape you.

She thought of her death, and then looked into Su-Li’s eyes. She hid her thoughts from him.
Would you be glad to leave?

D
uring this Hunting Moon, with no Inaj to battle, Sunoya used her time to get to know her spirit guide better and learn remedies for ailments from Iwa, Inaj’s wife. Since Sunoya was not to be Medicine Chief, she could do something else to help the people. She told Su-Li, “I have no family of my own. I want to feel useful.”

You are a good person.

Her time with Iwa brought her a special and unexpected gift. Noney, Iwa’s elder daughter and Sunoya’s cousin, started coming over to talk. The two of them sat in the sun on a log on the south side of Kanu’s house, doing small tasks like punching awl holes in deer hide or grinding seeds. What
Noney wanted was a confidante. She had a child in her belly and no husband. At last year’s Planting Moon Ceremony, she had gotten together with a young man, Tensa, the son of the Red Chief of the Soco band.

Her stories about Tensa were what any young girl’s would be.

“Does Tensa know you’re carrying his baby?”

Noney shook her head no. Sunoya put her arms around the girl. Though she was only five years older than Noney, Sunoya felt like her mother. And pregnancy without a husband was common enough. You got pregnant, everyone knew, by embracing a man for hours and exchanging your breath with his. Young people were going to do that, and usually they got married. The custom was to marry someone of another band, and you ended up with family in every village.