Shaman

  Sage filled her basket slowly, distracted by thoughts of her own. She had long legs, and the hair on them was a fine black down, nearly invisible against her dark skin. Her shirt was loose, and when she bent over to pick a sprig of mint or thyme her breasts were revealed, swinging together like udders. Loon hummed happily and begged a kiss, but she wasn’t in the mood. She picked green moss for the two babies’ diapers, but it was also for the next full moon, when the women’s house was crowded, and so Loon pretended not to notice. Full moon was an odd time, because so many women would retire to their shelter and do things on their own, while at the same time the young men gulped down berry mash and went out to see things in the full moon’s pale but revealing light. In other packs it wasn’t like that; in some, most women bled at new moon, and huddled together in the starry nights around the fire, waiting it out. Either way they would need a lot of dried moss.

  They watched a mother porcupine lead four little balls of needles across a patch of open ground. Bears and porcupines were cousins. They lived alike, and helped each other. Otters had no relatives, they would kill anything. Otters were very intense. Farther down river a family of them slid around on the mudbank that dropped into the river, and even in their play they were intense. Women couldn’t eat any part of otters, or else their children might become nervous and uncontrollable. Once Loon had passed a beaver pond with its beaver house just behind the dam of logs they had felled. It all looked fine, but strangely quiet. Then an otter emerged from the water next to the beaver house, sleek and round-eyed as it looked around, its muzzle still bloody. Loon had shuddered, imagining the carnage in that round house, a whole pack comfortably at home and then a swift black thing swimming in and killing everyone with bites.

  But everyone had to eat.

  Up on the ridge above the big cave Loon saw a flicker between trees. Not red, so not a fox. Could have been a woodsman. Every once in a while they appeared in the distance, usually in forests, which was why they had their name. Most of them had lost their luck, Thorn said, lost it so bad they had lost their pack too. Because luck was real.

  Thorn always said that he didn’t have any luck anymore, nor any spirit powers of his own, but had learned to ask the spirit powers out there to visit him and take him over. It didn’t look like a comfortable thing. Sometimes he sighed heavily on the days when he woke to realize it was a day for one of his spirit travels. He drank berry mash all day and trembled as the time came for the visitation. He would flick Loon on the ear for no reason. The spirits who visited him were Bison Man, Birch Woman, the Night Colors, and another he would never name. Telling others about one’s abilities could sometimes make them go away, so Thorn was usually reticent and even secretive about that part of his life. But Loon was his apprentice, and although Thorn did not think much of Loon in that regard, he had to train him or find someone else. It would have pleased Loon to be rejected and allowed to go his way. He kept trying to make that happen, just on the off chance it might work. As the ducks kept not coming and everyone got more stretched and thin, Loon was ruder and ruder to Thorn, or he just left camp all day, every day, just as he had so often as a child. But Thorn seemed determined to keep him, and the truth was that Loon liked etching stones, and carving wood and antler and tusk, and making the paints and painting. He wanted to paint the big animals inside their cave when the time came for him. In that way he wanted to be a shaman. And Thorn knew that and used it against him. And he reminded Loon that being a shaman was a good way to know lots of women too, even if they were sick when you knew them. Loon found that idea horrible. A lot of what shamans had to do frightened and disgusted him.

  Not only did the ducks not come, but one day the air went so cold that the sun showed its ears, and everyone returned to camp and began to prepare for a cold snap. It was the worst time of year for one, because the last snow was melting and all the little creatures’ tunnels between the snow and ground were flooded. It was already the most dangerous time of the year for every animal, much worse than winter itself; to add a freeze at the end was a hard thing. But the sky was frosted, and the sun’s ears gleamed in a circle around it. Cold was surely coming. At this point firewood was more important than food.

  Cold enough to frost your face, cold enough to freeze your pizzle; everyone got into the big house, even Heather.

  Two days later, with frozen little creatures all over the land, it warmed back up again. The day after that it got very warm. They heard the first mosquito, and when you can hear one mosquito there are sure to be ten more around. The day was coming when the river was going to break up.

  They gathered on the Stone Bison, where they could see up and down the gorge of the Urdecha a long way, and the flat discolored ice with all its leads against the banks ran right under their feet. Thorn put on his bison head and led them in the prayers to the river, asking it to break up cleanly so that it wouldn’t get dammed and flood Loop Meadow and drown their camp. That had happened. Just in case it did again, everyone had their most valuable small possessions in their belts, and were dressed in all their finest clothes. It was a hot day to be wearing so much, but they would soon be able to swim in the open river and wash off all their sweat and body paint. It was one of the biggest days of the year. And surely after break-up the ducks would have to come.

  Upstream and downstream, the river was groaning. In the fall when it froze and made these noises, it was crying out for its blanket of snow. Now it was crying out for release, for the chance to run free and see the sun again. Loon recognized in these low booms and sizzling cracks the very words his own spirit had been crying out inside him since his wander. He sat on the back of the Stone Bison and moaned with the river, as many of the pack did.

  Big jagged plates were rising out of the shattered patches of river ice, as if something underneath was pushing up to be free. Some leads were resolving into eddies, with small ice plates jumbling in their downstream ends. Many shards of ice were half black with bottom mud. The booms and cracks became very frequent and loud.

  Thorn approached Loon. He looked oddly small under his bison head. He said loudly to Loon,—Let’s say the break-up story together, right here watching it.

  —No, Loon said without thinking. He didn’t know that poem.

  Thorn’s right hand leaped out and flicked Loon on the ear, the first time he had managed it since Loon’s wander. Loon howled and stood up to walk away.

  —No, Thorn shouted, standing in front of Loon and pointing at the ground. His eyes were fixed on Loon like little suns.—Say it now, when it’s happening right before your eyes, and remember! Remember!

  After a while Loon bowed his head. He rubbed his throbbing ear and looked at the stony ground of the Stone Bison’s back. Well, when memorizing this one his ear had always been throbbing, it seemed. With a big sigh he began:

  Frost has to freeze and ice build bridges,

  Water support you and hide the seeds.

  One alone shall unbind the frost

  And drive away the long winter.

  Good weather will come again,

  Summer hot with sun.

  Great salt sea deep trail of the dead,

  We burn holly for you to break the ice.

  Take it back we do not need it,

  Tip the sun up toast the air,

  Hurry the water under the ice,

  Fill the meadows with snowmelt.

  Flow water flow,

  Fill the ravines fill the ravines,

  Fall down the cliffs black in the sun,

  Fall water fall.

  —No no, Thorn said.—That’s Fill water fill.

  Fill water fill,

  Push from below

  The old ice and snow,

  Fill from above

  Like finger in glove,

  Like baby born

  With a push from inside.

  The moment comes to push and push,

  Mother Earth knows Mother Earth squeezes,

  A spasm a cramp a knot a push.

/>   Break ice break now,

  Break ice break now.

  Loon tried to remember what came next. Below them the deepest canyon of the gorge was groaning hugely, as if a big woman in a spasm of birthing pain.

  Suddenly Thorn spoke, and Loon listened gratefully, because he had never remembered what came next.

  As it happened, Thorn shifted to a different story, one Loon knew much better.

  One spring a great storm came out of the west,

  Destroying the homes of the people by the river.

  They lashed their skin boats together for safety

  And sat in them as water rose up all the valleys

  And covered the land completely.

  They drifted unable to save themselves,

  In the bitter night many of them froze

  And their bodies fell into the sea.

  Then wind and sea calmed and the sun beat down,

  The sun was so intense some died of its heat.

  Finally a shaman struck the water with his spear,

  Crying, Enough! Enough! We’ve had enough!

  Then the man tossed his earrings into the sea

  And again cried out, Enough!

  And soon the water began receding,

  And after a time formed the rivers and streams

  And retreated to the west where it still remains.

  —That must have happened right around this time of year, Loon joked when Thorn was done.

  —What do you mean?

  —I mean, it didn’t matter what the shaman said or did. The water was going to recede anyway, its time had come.

  Thorn stared at him.—Repeat the part I said.

  Loon stood and spoke as loudly as he could:

  One spring a storm came out of the west,

  Destroying the homes of the folk by the river.

  They lashed their boats together for safety

  And the sea rose up and covered all the land.

  They drifted terrified unable to do anything,

  In the bitter nights many of them froze

  And their bodies were thrown overboard.

  Then wind and sea calmed and the sun came out,

  It was so intense that some died of its heat.

  And so a shaman stuck his spear in the sea

  And woefully cried, Enough! Enough!

  And threw his earrings into the sea,

  Whether as gift or killstone even he didn’t know.

  And as the water was already receding

  It didn’t matter the land returned

  With the rivers and streams we know today

  And the great salt sea off where it belongs.

  Thorn had raised a fist during Loon’s changes to indicate his displeasure, but the gorge was now cracking and roaring under them very loudly, sounding very much like the cracks and rumblings of thunder overhead. Loon hoped that one day that would happen, that the break-up would come in the midst of a giant thunderstorm, and he had an idea for a poem that hopefully would be ready to tell, if it ever did happen.

  Now, in the cloudless sky, with the sound originating below them, it was too awesome a thing to persist in stories, or anything else human, except just to watch and bear witness. The white surface of the river ice was fracturing downstream in a jumble, starting on the outsides of the river’s curves, then flowing downstream from where they began, until big sections of the river were all cracked open, and black open water visible riffling below. Ice plates were detaching from their banks or each other and moving downstream, white rafts crashing into each other and reforming immense masses that flowed downstream until they ran into a bank, or another raft of ice, when plates of ice slid over each other, or broke up and tilted at the sky. Sometimes big ice dams crossed the whole flow from bank to bank, and water built up behind them, floating more ice rafts into them so that they quickly grew, and more water bulged up and pressed higher on them, until with roars louder than thunder the whole white mass roiled down the black chaotic stream, ice plates tumbling and rolling wetly until another dam snagged and held them all again.

  Everyone was standing arms outstretched on the downstream side of the Stone Bison, looking down at the spectacle; everyone was shouting and yet no one could be heard. Even Heather was open-mouthed and red-cheeked, grinning hugely. The whole pack of them howled like wolves, and not a voice was heard in the stupendous break-up. When it came upstream, and was happening right under the Stone Bison itself, they danced and hugged each other and spun in circles until they were facing the upstream side, well away from the edge, for it would not do to fall in now; and when the break-up showed under them, and proceeded upstream away from them, they howled louder than ever, and still could not hear themselves in the giant roar of the world.

  And then someone spotted a line of ducks in the sky.

  Summer was here.

  So they had not starved. They had felt the pinch, and as the very first ducks to arrive were never taken, they had a bit more pinching to go. They devoured the last of the winterover nuts and went out to set the snares that would catch the ducks that came in the following days. But it felt different when you knew it was only going to go on for a while longer: sharper, but less frightening.

  With the success of the last four winters, their pack was getting rather large. Two score two was a still good number: not so small that they had to worry about defending themselves, not so big that the food required to feed them was impossible to gather.

  Still, the way everyone knew everyone else. Relations, habits, likes, dislikes, abilities, weaknesses, tendencies. Everything. Smells, digestive habits, turns of phrase. They knew each other so well that they were no longer interesting to each other. Part of the excitement of the coming of summer had to do with the prospect of seeing other people again.

  After the duck snares were set on the still parts of the river, Loon went out with Heather to help her hunt for her special herbs. Some of them grew only down in wet-bottomed hollows, and Loon could help by getting down into places Heather was too stiff to reach.

  Heather’s cat followed at a discreet distance. Heather had found it as an orphaned kitten and kept it alive, but at a certain age it had gone off on its own, and now only came back in the winters to skulk around for food. They had several camp robbers like that, mostly jays and squirrels, but also a minx, some marmots and foxes, even a nearby beaver family who made quick raids on them from the river.

  Heather used her cat as an herb tester. She would leave some meats the cat liked most with a sprig of a strange new plant in it, and when the cat ate it Heather would watch to see what happened. She didn’t think any plant would kill the cat, because if it did not agree with the little beast it would quickly cough it back up.

  When Heather saw this happen, she would shoo the cat away and go to the vomit and inspect it closely, even take dabs of it between finger and thumb and taste it with her tongue.

  Now as she did this Loon said,—Heather, you’re eating cat vomit.

  —So what? I can taste tastes that are like other tastes I know. It gives me ideas how this flower might be put to use.

  —What if it kills you?

  —Cats have very delicate stomachs. It won’t kill me.

  Loon said,—I dreamed about some lions last night, a gang of them going after some bison.

  Heather wasn’t interested.—I don’t know about dreams. Maybe it’s one of those worlds we don’t see very well. We only see snatches of them. I don’t know what they are. It’s this world I know. Well, know. It’s this world I look at.

  —So you eat cat vomit.

  —Better than eating shit.

  —Well sure, but who would do that?

  Heather shook her head darkly.—We all have to eat shit sometime.

  Loon didn’t know what to say to this.

  Heather gave him a look, laughed her brief hag’s laugh.—When you get hungry enough, you’ll eat anything. And the first time it goes through you, not all of the food in food gets eaten. You shit some
of it out uneaten. So there’s some food to be had in shit. Second time through is pretty bad, I admit. You get gas, the runs, it tastes like shit, you bet. But you get something out of it. You can tell that’s true because you do it again.

  —Again?

  —Not with the same stuff. I mean later. A third time through you wouldn’t work. Your body knows that and wouldn’t let it in you anyway.

  —So you didn’t have any other food?

  —That’s right. Some winters are hard. Heather frowned as she stared at the western sky.—Harder than any you’ve ever seen.

  She picked more of the herb sprigs the cat had thrown up, inspecting them for undamaged flowers.—Hopefully harder than you’ll ever see, she added.—But they do seem to come along every once in a while.

  As the seventh day of the seventh month approached, they began to sort through their gear and decide what to take on their summer trip and what to bury. They would collapse their big house and the women’s house flat, and cover them with big rocks; leaving them intact always got them ransacked. Even when flattened and covered, sometimes it looked like other people or some bigheads had dug into them, and other times it was clear that bears had clawed some rocks away and rooted around, no doubt interested in the scents. But by their leaving the camp as clean as possible, marauders would find nothing but old hides to eat, and although hungry bears would eat old hide, as they would anything that lived or had ever lived, still their downed camp was often left alone, and could be reconstructed that much easier on their return.