Shaman

  —It’s so good with you.

  —Because you love me. She said this with a fond look at him.—You love me and I love you.

  —Yes. I didn’t know it could be like this.

  —Neither did I.

  It made him so happy that he could barely stand to be with Thorn, all his stinky dishevelment, his reproaches and remonstrations and orders, his picky and convoluted lessons. Learn how to calculate the relation of the months to the year, so many scores of days, all the ugly little slash marks on the yearsticks and the tally sticks. Recite one of the five great poems or one of the ten lesser poems, and always the one he was weakest at. Ducking away to avoid the swift middle finger snapping off the thumb onto his poor ears. Ending long fists of nonstop effort with his ears buzzing nevertheless.

  —Quit it! he would complain.

  —You quit it. Start thinking, start remembering.

  —I am already. Just leave me alone!

  But he seldom ran off, because then the night by the fire would be bad, and the next day as well, until he apologized and got back to it. Painfully he had learned that his least bad option was to sit there and try to get through his lessons.

  —Wait, I see something. Thorn was not impressed by his unhappiness.—A face looking left and down turns his head until he’s looking up and right.

  —The man in the moon, Loon said,—looking around every month.

  —Yes. And full moon is when the moon’s face is looking right at us. How many days in a month?

  —Twenty-nine and a half days, new moon to new moon.

  —Yes. So what do we do about that?

  —We alternate the months and call them either hollow or full, meaning either twenty-nine days or thirty days. Twelve of those in alternation leaves us short of the winter solstice by eleven or twelve days, so the shamans at the corroboration add a thirteenth month every two or three years.

  —Yes. And it still doesn’t work, Thorn added with a gloomy frown.—The error builds up fast. Vole thinks he has a splitter that makes it better, two score and nineteen over two, but even that loses a day every three years or so, and besides, what kind of a split is that? It has no shape, no one can see it. It’s cat vomit.

  —Maybe Heather should taste it.

  Thorn laughed.—I wish she would. I would be interested to hear what she thought of all that, but she doesn’t care about matching the sky to the seasons. Month to month is fine for her. People think just like they fuck, women inward and men outward. And women are naturally very monthly because of their bleeding.

  —Everyone is monthly, Loon pointed out, thinking of their nights under the full moon, that world of light so clear and pale, a different world, almost like the world of dreams, but one they were awake in.

  Thorn shook his head.—Everyone is yearly. Monthly is a matter of more or less.

  —But the way you can see on full moon nights! It’s so bright you can even see the colors still, a little bit.

  —There you are, thinking outward. You don’t think inward when it comes to the moon, but women do. So it’s different. I should have thought that as a married man you would have figured that out by now.

  Jays while bathing grew ever more disheveled as they managed to get their feathers wetter and wetter. Never did you see a bird’s feathers in such disarray, except in their bath. It was as if they took their jacket off by briefly disassembling the weave of it. The blue of a jay will go away. Soon all the jays would be gone for the winter. There were only a few left now.

  Sitting with Heather, splitting cedar roots for basket making. Being with Heather was far more relaxing than being with Thorn. She went out for a walk every day, to seek out her own plants in their little tucks. She joined the nut-gathering groups and helped them, then took Loon as a lookout and helper, on rambles even farther away. He often came back laden with small fragrant twigs or entire plants, and she crushed the leaves under his nose so he would learn the scents. Indeed a smell was a very distinct thing, seemingly right there inside his head, so that it almost always called up a name from him.

  —When you need to memorize something, she said to him,—sniff this rosemary. It will help you remember, you’ll see.

  Loon took from her the fragrant brittle twig with its short pale green needles. It had a very particular scent, part of the smell of the south-facing slopes.—Thanks, I’ll try it.

  —Bears have by far the best sense of smell, she told him.

  —Is it true you should never eat a bear’s small stomach?

  —Who says that?

  —Hawk and Moss. They say that if you eat it, you’ll end up slipping and sliding around in your shoes when you walk in forests. They say they tried it and Nevermind and Spearthrower didn’t, and they started slipping and falling when the others didn’t have any problem.

  Heather shook her head.—I don’t know. It’s possible something about that small stomach might make you a little sick, hurt your balance somehow.

  —So it’s true?

  —It could be, I guess.

  Loon made a fire with his firestarter, and they heated water in cedar cups held in the forks of branches and brewed spruce tea. Taste of spruce filling his throat and making his insides bigger. Watery eyes. Spruce had a big spirit, it helped them in all sorts of ways. Thorn wore a spruce top in his hair when he went into the caves, to bring a little luck in there with him.

  Different firestarter kits used different woods: red cedar, bitter rose, elderberry tree, alder root.

  —Find out which kind works best, Heather instructed him, gesturing at several kits she had assembled.

  —How?

  —Try them all and see which one goes fastest! She stared at him as if he were feeble-minded.

  He nodded.—All right then, I will. When did you think of this?

  —Last winter.

  —And how long were you alive before you thought of this?

  —Go. Do it.

  He took the kits out into the low sun and put them each to the test, using the same starter in every case, made from a dried duff and moss mix commonly used by the pack. Thorn could drill up a fire almost as fast as you could sit down and get comfortable. Loon was not that fast, but he was good at it, as indeed most people were. It was that which made his failure on the first night of his wander still rankle. What a night that first night had been.

  All Heather’s kits worked about the same speed, it seemed to him. The alder root was almost black, its firestick much lighter. The elderberry stick was made of a dried tip of new growth. The hearths had to be hard and with a tight stubborn grain to their wood, so the cup for the firestick tip would hold. The firesticks had to be hard enough to hold their tips as they were spun, but soft enough to make them hot. Putting a little sand in the cup would make them hotter too, but for the sake of the test Heather didn’t want him to do that.

  —They’re close to the same, he told her when he was done trying them.

  She frowned.—Do it again, I’ll sing the time. So as he lit fires, his arms beginning to burn with the effort, she turned away from him and sang the reed-splitting song, which was very short and repetitive, sticking out her fingers every time she did it five times, and marking the results on a tally stick with a blade. When they were done, she looked at her tally stick and nodded.—The cedar is fastest. We can tell people at the next festival.

  —They won’t believe it.

  —They will have to believe it. She gestured at the kits.—They can try it and they’ll see we’re right.

  She grinned fiercely at this thought. She liked to be right about things, he saw, and in ways no one could argue with. Like hitting a rabbit with a thrown rock and killing it dead. No arguing it had been a good throw.

  Thorn only snorted when Loon mentioned this later.—Hers aren’t the interesting things to be right or wrong about. Those are just the way things are.

  —But that’s what she wants to know.

  —Sure. So does everyone. But things we can know in that way are
a very small part of what matters. So it’s a form of looking away. You get to the hard questions, Heather just looks away.

  —I wonder what she would say to that.

  —Ask her! But I’ll tell you what she’ll say, because she’s always saying the same things; she’ll say, first things first. First know what you can know, then take a look at the harder things.

  —Isn’t that right, though?

  —Not at all. The hard questions press on us the whole time, youth, no matter what we know or don’t know. You have to face up to Narsook. The hard questions can’t be avoided, not if you want to really be alive.

  The flexible young cedar withes could be woven into strong ropes, and that was one of the things people did around the fire during the long nights, weaving and tugging them and making sure they were strong. They could be even stronger than rawhide cord. Any withes that were brought in would be put to quick use. When Loon went with Hawk and Moss out to check their snares, he brought a hand blade and cut as many of the new young branches as he could fit in his backsack. Everyone tried to come back from their day’s walk with something useful for the handwork at night around the fire.

  That end of the year Loon became a five-strand rope maker under Ibex’s guidance.—What did you do to that finger? Ibex said, pointing to Fatty.

  —Caught it knapping.

  —Ow. I bet you won’t do that again.

  —It wasn’t so bad, Loon lied.

  They went out on the hunt one morning, headed downstream and then across Lower Valley and up its east ridge trail. On the ridge they had to stop and retreat, as a bear was devastating a beehive, and looked like she would be a while. Between the bear woman and the angry bees it was not worth waiting for it to be over. Spearthrower wanted to try to kill the bear, but a ridge was not a good place to try, and the others already had all the bear claws they wanted and did not want to risk harm to get more. Spearthrower gave them a hard time about it, but the others ignored him and descended to the Lower Valley floor by way of a deer trail Loon had not noticed before. Spearthrower still had a neck cord hung with a great number of bear and lion claws.

  On the valley floor the creek’s flow had dropped enough to make walking up the creekbed easy. And near the head of the creek they saw a herd of horses. They stopped and bowed to the creatures, then stood and watched for a while.

  The horses were beautiful, as always. About half of them were spotted, either black on white, or white on black; the rest were brown. Their colors were as vivid as birds’ colors, and they had a little of that same fastidious quality, so much finer than caribou or saiga or elg. Their footwork was light and neat, like a cross between women dancing and the swift trotting of the unspeakables in the forest. Big glossy haunches, short stiff manes. Lower Valley was pinched to a gorge at its top, so it wasn’t clear whether they would pass through the gorge or return downstream to continue their grazing in the Urdecha.

  Again Spearthrower wanted to kill one, and again the others declined. Horses were only to be killed when people were really hungry. Not to mention they were hard to get near.

  —Spearthrower wants to kill. Let’s find him a wolverine and let him do it.

  They laughed at Spearthrower, and he said,—All right then, let’s find a deer, if that’s what you want.

  —That is what we want.

  They traversed above the horses in order not to disturb them, and crossed Quick Pass into the top of Upper Valley. As they came over the rib of rock that marked the Lower side of the pass, they were hailed from the ridge trail across the valley.

  —Look, he’s short-handed, Spearthrower said.

  Loon saw it. All of the men in the Raven pack, who lived south of the biggest ice cap, were missing their left little fingers. This was a little worrisome, but other than that they seemed like any other people. Loon recognized the man they were approaching, a traveler named Pippiloette, which was the Ravens’ name for red squirrels.

  Pippiloette waved as he approached.—Well met! he called.

  —Well met, they all said.

  He was much friendlier than a squirrel, but quick and inquisitive in their way.—Have you seen a pack of spotted horses? He said his words farther back in his mouth than they did, so that they came out of his nose a little.

  —Yes, they’re just over the pass in the first meadow. Why, do you want one?

  Pippiloette grinned.—I do. Our big mama wants one of their spotted hides. I’m trying to find out their grazing circuit, so we can set up an ambush.

  This was the only way to kill horses; they were very fast and had good endurance, and stuck together in packs very hard to split. And they saw traps that caribou would run right into. No, horses were hard, and being sacred, were only hunted for sacred reasons.

  —We’re hunting deer, Hawk said.—Do you want to join us?

  This took Loon by surprise; Schist would not have asked, nor Heather. But Pippiloette was pleased.

  —Yes, thanks, he said.—Those horses will be there tomorrow too, I’m pretty sure.

  So they were five, and they discussed where deer had last been seen. Pippiloette had seen some that morning down by the top ford on Lower’s Upper Creek, so they made a plan as they went over there, and Hawk and Spearthrower slipped ahead to get downstream and get settled into an ambush. Loon was left with the traveler, to beat downvalley after a fist of sun had passed.

  —You’re Thorn’s apprentice? Pippiloette asked.

  —Yes, that’s right.

  —Hard work! the traveler said, and laughed at Loon’s expression.—Our shaman likes him a lot. But he’s a handful even for other shamans.

  —Your shaman is Quartz?

  —That’s right, Quartz the magnificent. A very good shaman. Well, odd. A little scary. But I had a sickness last winter, and he made a steam that almost choked me, but he pulled the bad thing right out of me, I could feel it leave me, right here.

  He pointed to his diaphragm.

  —You’re lucky, Loon said.—It’s good when that happens.

  —Can Thorn do that? Are you going to be able to do that one day?

  —I hope so, Loon lied.—I’ve been on my wander, and gone with him to the end of the cave.

  The man nodded. He was happy for Loon, interested. He had a lot of stories about the Raven pack and Quartz, and Loon offered that he had recently married a girl he had met at the eight eight festival.

  —Oh very nice, congratulations on that. Where did she come from?

  —From north of the caribou.

  —North of the caribou! Those people, well, you tell me, I shouldn’t presume, but I hear they are wild?

  —She’s actually pretty quiet, Loon said.—But maybe wild is still the right word.

  The man grinned at Loon’s expression, such that Loon couldn’t help grinning himself.

  When a fist had passed they clomped down the creekbed whacking things with their javelins, and Pippiloette emitted some very realistic lion roars. Any deer in the brakes below would surely have bolted downvalley to avoid either lions or, worse, humans acting like lions. Although if the deer heard the falsity they would know it was a trap, and take off sideways on a traverse over the ridges bounding the valley.

  Lower’s Upper was steep and narrow, with not much in the way of meadows, curving out to the west so that it caught a good afternoon light. The wind was picking up, the pine trees roaring in their big airy needle chorus. Pippiloette sang and yet Loon could barely hear him.

  Then they heard a frightened bleat cut short, and after that the triumphant cries of their brothers of the hunt, who clearly were celebrating a kill. Loon and Pippiloette ran down to join them, saw it was true; the men were standing around a stag splayed on its side, two spears stuck through his ribs and the men busy trying to catch some of his leaking blood in gooseskin bags. When he had stopped bleeding they started a fire and began to break down his body for carrying back to camp. Pippiloette knew the proper disposal rituals for the parts of the body they weren’t going to be
taking back, and he chatted amiably before they burned the guts, then chanted the deer death chant, and took the unusable bones and set them at the bottom of a little eddy in the creek, stuck in a little circle so they would have fish for company. This was Pippiloette’s version of the water burial, and one he assured them would result in much better luck with deer afterward. So the others did it willingly, and the bone circle looked good there in the water, like something beavers might do.

  After that they had the quarters and body and head, and they were five, so all was well, and Pippiloette joined them cheerfully.—I’m almost going that way anyway. It will be good to see your people.

  He came by once or twice a year, as he spent much of his time walking a circuit, like a wolverine’s but much larger. He liked to drop in on packs in a particular order, trading for things people elsewhere would like, moving them along region to region and holding on to a few things for his return home.—It can be lonely, it’s often dangerous, but it’s interesting, he said.—I get to talk to so many people, in so many packs. There are salmon people everywhere you go, so I’ve always got my clan’s people to look out for me, and they help me make my trades. And then in between visits I’m out and about, just like the rest of the animals.

  —Always alone? Loon asked.

  —Almost always.

  —But isn’t that dangerous, to go alone?

  —No, not so much. Best be quick at making fire, of course. I try to always carry a live ember, kind of go from fire to fire to make that happen. But if you’re good with fire, and keep an eye out, you’ll be left alone.