All the young men had necklaces crowded with the teeth of animals they had killed. Heather said it was always that way until the first time a necklace tooth punctured face or neck in some accident, and then the teeth went away. And it was true none of the older men wore them.
One morning Loon woke from a dream in which he had been sleeping with his deer in her lay-by. His chest and belly had been against her back, and his hard spurt was pressed against her fur; he had had his arm across her belly. Very slowly and delicately he had slipped his thumb up into her slightly damp and slippery kolby, moving very carefully, so that she still slept. He could have stayed like that forever, the two of them together, but with his spurt pronging so hard against the top of her rump, he had finally tried to thrust down and up into her; but in removing his thumb from her to make room for his spurt, he had woken her up, and she had looked over her shoulder and then leaped out of the lay-by with a single convulsion of her body. Looking back down at him with her giant wide-set brown eyes full of alarm and disbelief, she said to him,—You want too much, and then deered off through the forest, white rump flashing.
Awake, remembering the dream, the feel of her body, he felt bad. He wondered if he had managed to succeed in mating with her, if she would have gotten pregnant and given birth to a stag-headed person. Thorn had shown him a painting of one of those on a shaman cliff on the other side of the ice caps. Maybe that was what had happened out there to the west. He ached with love for the deer he had killed.
The light in the hour before sunrise. He woke to see the sky had gone gray, the eastern horizon a dull red topped by a band of yellow, and knowing day was coming he promptly fell back asleep, warmed by the thought. It was in those dawn sleeps that he dreamed most of the dreams he remembered. All through the night he dreamed, as he knew because whenever he happened to wake up it was from some busy effort in the dream world, which could range from lovely sexual encounters with girls or cats or horses or deer, to convoluted efforts to escape being eaten by cats or girls, sometimes even horses or deer.
If Thorn woke him in the morning, it was usually with the quiet question:—What are you dreaming? And as Loon pulled himself up into the waking world, he would look back into the dream world and tell Thorn what had been happening there. These were his best moments with the old man, who was more relaxed in the early morning, and would sit there nodding as he watched Loon’s face, prodding him with questions, clearly interested, no matter how trivial or strange Loon’s dreams got.
—The dream world is different, Thorn would remark when Loon finished.—It’s writhing with our wishes and our fears, but we lack good judgment in that world, and that’s why so many odd things happen. If you can, try to dream your dreams without any desires. Just watch. Except if you see a chance to fly in a dream, then fly. That’s the first thing you should want. There’s no point in wanting sex in a dream, because the people in dreams never really touch you. You might come but usually you won’t, and if you do it’s because you’re fucking the ground. You can do that anytime. In dreams you should focus on flying, because you can’t fly in this world, but you can in the dream world. And when you fly in the dream world, that gives you practice for when you fly in the spirit world. The spirit world and the dream world aren’t the same, but they come together in the sky. The dream world is inside this world, the spirit world is outside it, but you can fly in both. And they meet, too, out beyond the sky. So you can fly back and forth. The spirit world is where all the worlds meet, that’s why shamans go there. So when you’re there you can be in all of them at once.
Loon would nod as if he followed this, still caught up in the dreams he had been dreaming, or simply falling back asleep. But with Thorn’s questions he got better at remembering his dreams, and when he woke in the night, he could often look back into them without confusion, and even fall back asleep intending to resume where he had left off, and it would happen. And when he flew he knew it was good, and so tried to fly more, tried to enjoy it, even if in the dream he was flying for his life somehow, as it so often seemed to be.
Afternoons after painting they wandered back to camp gathering armfuls of firewood from the slope below the painted cliff. Heather had saved some midday nuts for Loon, and their winterover taste reminded him that summer was almost on them. He was running out of time for his leg to heal.
He limped around the riverbank to the beach under the Stone Bison, following Moss and Sage. They fanned through the shallows plucking new sedges for baskets. The tender white sedge bases in the mud broke off with a snap. Female stems were required by the basket weavers; male stems would be thrown back at you.
Sitting under the great stone span over the river, they processed the leaves so there would be less to carry home. Remove the outer leaves, peel off the inner ones, split the inner ones lengthwise in half by running a thumbnail down the midrib. Pieces not split right down the middle had to be discarded. Squeeze the half leaves between the fingers until they were flat and flexible. Be careful not to cut one’s fingers on the sharp edges. Tie the processed leaves in bundles of a few score, then take them back to the weavers in camp, who would spread them to dry, dye, and ply. Their women made very fine baskets, very highly regarded at the eight eight festival. Heather had a lot to do with that, being good with dyes.
Heather’s spirit animal was not actually the spider but the wolverine, and this was so right for her. Wolverines were very solitary, and demonstrated an intelligence and rancor second to no other animal. Same with Heather. She did have her good moods, and it was probable that wolverines did too, but in both cases it was a private feeling, because company itself dispelled it.
Although Heather was not completely predictable in that regard. Sometimes she would breathe in some of Thorn’s pipe smoke and slump down by the fire baking herself like a cat, chatting with whoever was next to her. Sometimes when it was raining, in that heavy gray way that said nothing different was going to happen the rest of that day, it was she who would begin to sing some happy song, in a bright tone completely inappropriate to the moment; thus obviously sarcastic, sung to make fun of them; but as they all sat under the abri watching the rain piss down, eventually it could make you laugh.
Loon’s spirit animal was the loon, of course. Apparently he had gotten so excited when he was a little baby, hearing a loon singing one night out on the river and waving his little arms, going red-faced as he tried to sing their weird songs with them, that they had given him his name that very night. And all his life since, at night when the loons talked to each other in their unearthly language, which outdid even the wolves’ for liquid strangeness, Loon still felt a sizzle down his spine, and tears would start hotly in his eyes, and he would get up out of bed and stand at the edge of camp and cry back, ooping and looping in the hopes that the big gorgeous black-and-white birds with the red eyes would hear him, and understand that even though he didn’t know their language, he loved them. And in fact sometimes they did hear him and reply to him, which Thorn said was one of the greatest honors a man could be given, as a loon’s cry was the greatest voice a human could hear. How lucky to have your spirit animal sing back to you in the night, and fling your spirit up into the stars!
Crouch kept complaining, so it was best to stick around camp and pray to the sun for faster healing. Flex it in the sun bath over and over, ask Heather for one more rubbing. Rest it, she would say. Massage it, and feel exactly where it hurts, and how. Press starting from where it feels good, and very slowly press into the hurt. And keep it in the sun as much as you can.
So he went down to the riverside, where the sun blazed down and bounced off the water too. The sand was warm under him, and it felt like the sun was kissing him.
So when Sage showed up on the bank by herself, and sat by him, he tried kissing her too. He leaned toward her, and saw she saw what he was up to, and then saw the eager look come into her eye, and seeing that he fell in love with her. Again. So many times it had happened, ever since they were little childr
en, and this time his spurt was hard, and she rubbed it as they kissed until he spurted, and in the moments of kissing, when he could remember to do it, he rubbed her little vixen until she too spasmed, scrunched over her pulsing belly and squeaking into his neck.
—Do you spurt inside? he asked.
—I clutch.
She grabbed his arm in her hand and squeezed rhythmically to show him, and at that his spurt started to harden again. Women bison and deer clutched like that when they wanted a bull or a stag, their kolbies pulsing pinkly. The way Loon and Sage would fit together was extremely clear: finger in glove, antler in cleft, heron and vixen. But Sage was very strict, having recently been red-dotted in the women’s house. She would never allow his spurt into her. So they only kissed some more and then sat talking in the sun, feeling pleased and generous. The glitter of the current off the river sparkled in his eyes and he could feel himself glowing in his afterglow. He knew he was healing fast. Even Crouch was healing.
—Did you hear Schist is going to give some of our food to the Lions?
—No!
—He is. Bluejay is really mad at him. He says there’s enough, but he didn’t ask anyone else about it, he just did it.
—But we’re down to eating ten nuts a day!
—I know. Bluejay and Thunder are really mad at him. His sister Moony married into the Lions, they say it’s all because of her, that he doesn’t care about us.
—The ducks better come on time.
—No lie. If they don’t they’ll be cooking him over their fire.
And they laughed. The ducks would come.
So that was good, but meanwhile his friends were going out hunting, and he couldn’t go with them, not yet. He would make up for it later.
But he could see that Hawk was growing fast. At the end of almost every hunt Hawk came back with something, even now in the hunger month. He was getting good at it. When they were kids, Loon had been better than him at all the things it took to be a good hunter. They had raced and chased together, played and wrestled, threw rocks and little javelins they made, and he knew he had been better at these things because they tried them so many times. Hawk knew it too. But now, maybe not. Now Hawk was broad-shouldered and lean around the waist now that all his fat was gone; he stood tall and had a fine head with tightly curled hair and a squarish set of teeth, very handsome. Very strong and graceful.
Then one night across the fire he saw Hawk and Sage slip away in the night, and his throat went tight and his feet cold. Well, she wouldn’t let Hawk do very much either. Still, it meant what it meant. He would have to fool around with Ducky and make Sage jealous too. Little looks, bad jokes, sharing food or braiding hair.
Stuck in camp, he helped Heather and Bluejay make shoes. This was meticulous work, and Loon plied the bone needle slowly, following Heather’s awl punches, which were all at the same angle and distance from each other, in a curving line that would sew together the bearskin bottoms and the deerskin uppers.
One day when Bluejay wasn’t around, Loon muttered something about Sage going off with Hawk.
—So what’s your problem? Heather asked.
—I guess I’m jealous.
—Jealousy is when you don’t want someone else to have what you have. Envy is when you want something that someone else does have. So it sounds like you’re feeling envious rather than jealous. Because Sage is not yours.
—It doesn’t matter what you call it, Loon muttered unhappily.
—Yes it does. You’d best know all the words and what they mean, or else your thinking will just be mush.
Heather returned their attention to the shoes. She thought marmot fur uppers were worth trying for winter boots. She liked to try out new things that occurred to her. She made things backwards sometimes, especially for Thorn. She seldom spoke directly to Thorn, and looked at him as she would look at a hyena or one of the other worthless animals.
He would glare back at her as if looking at a wolverine.
Now when he walked past she grinned horribly at him and said,—Here, unspeakable one, have this gift from me!
It was a pair of shoes made of porcupine skin. Porcupine mothers had the easiest births of all, so little toy porcupines were slipped carefully down the front of a pregnant girl’s dress for good luck. Now Heather had made shoes of a porcupine’s skin, with the smooth side outward and all the needles pointing into the foot. They were finished, so had to have taken a fist or two of work, and yet completely useless except for this moment of her sharp laughter.
—All yours! she cried to Thorn.—May they lend wings to your travels!
Thorn glared at her, then took the shoes from her and looked inside them.—Wait, I see something, he said.—You made your vixen into shoes for me!
He fingered one of the bear claws on his necklace and thrust it in and out of the shoe in a copulatory manner.—That was us, he said, and threw the shoes back at her.
—At least you got the size of your prick right, she said as she dodged the shoes.
—I was just keeping it proportionate, since you shrank your mammoth kolby as much as you did.
And they glared at each other before Thorn stalked away.
Another morning in the sun, grinding earthblood. Thorn sitting nearby, sewing something or other. When not biting off ends of the sinews, his face a mere thumb away from the hides as he needled them, he talked as always. From time to time he told Loon to recite one of the stories he was supposed to know.
—Start with the seasons to get your mind going. You’ve known that one since before you had a name.
Or not known it. Loon sighed and tried:
In autumn we eat till the birds go away,
And dance in the light of the moon.
In winter we sleep and wait for spring,
And watch for the turn of the stars.
In spring we starve till the birds come back,
And pray for the heat of the sun.
In summer we dance at the festivals,
And lie in twos on the ground.
—No no, Thorn said.—It’s,
In summer we dance at festival,
And lay our bones in the ground.
—Why would you get that part wrong, of all things? Also, it’s
In winter we sleep and watch for spring
In the turn of the nighttime stars.
—Try it again.
Loon repeated it, keeping it the way he had said it the first time.—Summer is when people lie in twos, he pointed out.—I like it better that way.
—But that’s not the way it goes!
—I’ve heard it that way lots of times.
Thorn gave up and went back to talking to himself.—Ah, see how this shirt I’m wearing is something I made the year before last, it was in the ninth month and we were back home, and I was sitting right in this very spot. So I can know an action from the past. And here it is now. And when I come back here next summer, the shirt will be here again. So now is now, but in this now there is some mix of the past and future, right there inside things, and blowing around in our thoughts. Everything keeps rolling around. Because there will be a now next year at this same day of the year. Nineteenth day of the fifth month. We know that. So every day is the birthday of all the days in the years to come that are this day.
—I don’t understand you, Loon said.—Have I got enough powder here yet?
—No, Thorn said without looking.—Of course you understand me. Because I’m talking to the you in you that is the birthday of the yous that will follow. So if you understand me then, you understand me now. By then I’ll be dead and just a white point in the night sky. I’ll wolf your heels, boy, like Fools the Wolves wolfs the Firestarter.
—So I’m going to be the Firestarter? I thought Firestarter was Firestarter.
—I’m not talking to the you that is here right now, you are too insolent.
—Just tell me how to etch a curve like that bison’s neck you did. How do you get the line to curve so smoothly whe
n it’s stone cutting stone?
—It’s not stone cutting stone, it’s flint cutting whitestone, and that’s how. You chisel it out grain by grain. Just keep your eye on the line you want, and make it happen.
—So you have to see it before it’s there, is that it? No wonder you need birthdays from the future.
—Well exactly. See, you did understand me.
—No. Not at all. Show me how to make the line. Show me how to start it.
—Let your future self show you.
—Is that why you keep your yearsticks? To tell your future time what you were actually doing when you did it?
—Yes, exactly.
—But that’s silly. Stupid. Backwards.
—That’s why I’m the shaman and you’re not.
Thorn was very insistent about the importance of his yearsticks. Every morning he took one of the obsidian blades that had been glued into sticks to make fine cutters, and cut a line in his yearstick, which was always a nice piece of river-worn oak driftwood. On every new moon day, he cut a loop on the top of the line marking that day. At the eight eight festival he would get together with the other shamans, a very crazy and obnoxious gathering, and during the days they would do their corroborations. Thorn already had Loon marking a yearstick of his own, supposedly separate from Thorn’s, but as Thorn never forgot and Loon sometimes did, it was not a very happy arrangement. Thorn thought that Heather should join them in doing it, to provide a third so they could corroborate within the pack, but she declined to do it. To Loon the yearsticks resembled many of Heather’s other pursuits, but she didn’t like doing anything that would please Thorn, so it didn’t happen. And so Loon was always wrong, and if by chance he wasn’t the one who was wrong, then they would really have problems when it came time for the corroboree.