15
The Cave of the Ancestors
I must have slept again, for when I woke Jaybird was no longer with me. His grandfather pointed to the mouth of the cave and then to a figure painted on the wall: a huntsman bent and crouched, his body as taut as the bow he carried. In front of him stood a deer, front legs splayed, antlered head bent, cropping the ground all unsuspecting. I nodded. I understood. Jaybird had gone hunting.
I went to sit up, then remembered that I was entirely naked. I looked about for my apparel, but it were nowhere to be seen. The old man inclined his head to me as though he sensed my predicament.
He left me then, presently returning with a pile of clothes. He shook out the different items and laid them out on the bed. The garments were creased from long folding and he smoothed each one out with a gentleness of touch, as though it still held the warmth of a wearer well beloved. The clothes were very fine, of the softest white doe skin, richly worked. His long, thin hands fluttered over the soft hide, straightening the decorated borders, touching the beading and embroidery work on yoke, sleeve and hem, moving in remembrance and recognition, like the fingers of a blind man.
He withdrew, leaving me to dress. I dropped the tunic over my head and wrapped and belted the skirt round my waist. I pulled on leggings secured at the knee with a garter, and pushed my feet into a pair of moccasins. The fronts were decorated with woven moose hair and porcupine quills, four red-petalled flowers set in a circle round what looked like a small white bird. They could have been made for me; they fitted exactly.
When White Eagle returned and saw me, he smiled. He smiled rarely, but he smiled at me then. He looked at me for what seemed a long time and his dark eyes clouded, the gladness replaced by sadness. He said something in his own language and for a moment he seemed sadder still. Then he abruptly departed, disappearing into a small antechamber and leaving me to wait alone.
I braided my hair, for I had no cap to wear to hold it back. I needed no looking glass to tell me how my own people would describe me. They would regard me with horror, turn from me with despising pity, although I was the same person as when I dressed in white linen or grey kersey. I sat at the mouth of the cave awaiting Jaybird’s return, pondering the changes that had come upon me.
I was as much a wife to him now as Rebekah was to Tobias, although there had been no one to solemnise or sanction our union. I could not return. Ever. I would not wear the letter of shame upon my sleeve. I would not risk both of us branded on the cheek and whipped from the town. I would live here with him. I would not risk punishment for something that is no sin.
I thought on the words of Ruth of the Moabites:
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Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.
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The wind moaned and screamed past the cave; and the snow fell in a wild whirling mass, obscuring the bleak winter landscape spread out below. Despite the weather raging before me, I felt great peace and comfort flowing through me.
The fire at my back warmed me; the clothes White Eagle had given me fitted my body like a second skin. Just like Ruth in Judah, I felt that I had found my people, that I belonged with them.
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Jaybird returned, mantled in snow. His eyes widened at the sight of me, but he said not one word. He left the deer carcass he carried over his shoulders and called for his grandfather. They spoke together in low tones. I could not understand their speech, so I watched their faces to glean what passed between them. Jaybird looked at me, full of puzzlement, even apprehension. What could I have done to offend him? All the joy I felt at his returning drained from me and I watched even more carefully to see what fate had stored up for me now. Without him I was truly lost. That was the least of my reasons for despairing. I was in the grip of emotions I had not known before and which I had no name for. All I knew was that he meant more to me than life itself. If he did not want me, I would have no other. If he turned from me now, I would go to the entrance of the cave and dash myself on the rocks below.
Such extreme actions were not required of me. As he listened, his expression cleared and gradually became one of understanding. I could breathe again.
Jaybird slung his fur robes on the bed and indicated for me to join him by the fire.
‘He does you great honour,’ he said as he built up the blaze. ‘More than you know. Those clothes you wear belonged to his daughter, White Bird. She was his youngest and his favourite, the child of his second marriage. She was called at first Little Bird, because she laughed and trilled in her cradle board as it swung from the bough. When she grew, she seemed to run before she could walk, she seemed to fly over the ground, just like a bird.’
‘What became of her?’
‘She died in her fifteenth summer. From the spotted sickness, as did his wife and his other children, including my father, and also my mother, my brother and sisters. Nearly the whole tribe perished. White Eagle blamed himself. He was powwaw, medicine man; the people looked to him to cure them. But the spirits deserted him and he had no power against the white man’s sickness. He could not save any, not even his daughter, who was so dear to him. All he could do was bury his people with proper ceremony and make them ready for their journey to the great god Kiehtan, to live in his house in the south-west.
‘Those were the clothes prepared for White Bird’s wedding. She should have been buried in them, or else they should have been hung from the trees around her grave place, to stay there until they turned to dust.’ He looked over to where his grandfather was sitting watching us. ‘He says White Bird came to him in a dream and told him that her everyday clothes would do very well for her journey to the spirit land. She said he must keep her best clothes, the ones made for her wedding. For one day they would be needed. One day another would come to him naked and he must clothe her and she would be a daughter to him.’
‘And that one is me?’
‘Your coming fulfils the prophecy. There are other signs too. The ancestors have accepted you. The Wolf Mother protected you, showed herself as your guardian spirit, which makes you of her clan. Grandfather will make the mark upon you, just as I wear this.’ He turned his cheek to show an oval back picked out in black, with a blunt head, stubby legs and pointed tail. ‘It shows I am of the Turtle clan.’ He looked away from me, and his voice became a whisper. ‘It means it is permitted for us to marry.’
‘That is good.’ I reached up, tracing the pitted lines against the smoothness of his skin. ‘Because we are married already.’ I held his hand, my grip tightening. ‘Do you not feel it so?’
He smiled shyly, still with his eyes cast down, the long curving lashes brushing his cheeks.
‘The ancestors danced at our wedding, did you not see them? Did you not hear them?’
I nodded, suddenly as shy as he was.
‘White Bird was there to give her blessing. Grandfather heard her flute.’
So it was, and so it was to be. From that day on, we lived as man and wife.
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16
Eden
The world changed with the year’s turning. Winter released her grip on the land. Water gushed down the mountain and the snow receded, the white carpet creeping back towards our mountain fastness. As it retreated so the leaves greened the forest and settled over the trees like a gauze mantle. Birds flew from the south, blackening the sky day after day in their journey northward.
As the days grew warmer, I would join Jaybird in the climb down from our cave, to hunt, to fish, to gather what the forest provided. He taught me to use a bow and to kill, but he taught me that there was spirit in all things. To him, all life was sacred. He would stand in solemn prayer before the creature whose life he had taken, saying, ‘We are sorry to kill y
ou, little brother, but our need is great. We do honour to your courage and speed and your strength.’
He taught me his language, and much else besides. We found delight in all around us, bathing in lakes and streams, standing under waterfalls, wincing in the rushing cold.We wandered hand in hand through dappled glades, collecting strawberries, plums, sweet wild grapes, feeding them to each other, stuffing our mouths with them until the juice ran down our faces, dripping off our chins, running down our throats. All the time the woods rang loud with Jaybird’s laughter. Each day was a delight and each day saw my love for him grow until it knew no bounds. He could charm honey from the bees, climbing high into the trees to lull the wild, fierce, buzzing creatures into giving up their treasures. He would steal away their combs, brimming and spilling sticky, dark sweetness, and carry them to me.
We found mountain meadows and lay in the long grass surrounded by the nodding heads of flowers and bathed in the sun until I was as brown as he. I thought we were in paradise, or had been brought to a very Eden and left to walk in the garden, another Eve and another Adam. I had never in my life known such bliss, such happiness.
Nor was to again, although I did not know it then. We lived each day without thinking of the morrow. Sunrise to sunset seemed to stretch beyond the normal span. I wished that I could stop time’s measure altogether, slow the sun in his course and make each day to last for ever. Such a thing is impossible. As much as I wished to hold it to me, each moment slipped through my hands, dropping away as sand through the hourglass.
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17
The Chamber of Visions
I did not spend all my time with Jaybird. I might be wife to him, but I was also daughter to White Eagle, and his pupil. Reluctant as he was to be out of my company, sometimes Jaybird had to leave me to my tuition. This was conducted in the cave’s inner chamber, a place forbidden to him.
It was a place full of mystery. The walls were reddened with ochre like the womb of the world. It was painted and carved all about with figures, as the cave was without, but these were manitou, of the spirit. Shrines cut into the walls marked the four directions and White Eagle gave offerings to the gods who dwelt there. Great discs looked down, one rayed, one smooth, one for the sun, one for the moon. Fork-tailed thunderbirds soared and flew between the two. Animal spirits stalked and prowled behind ancient hangings rendered by time as fine as cobwebs. Patterned in stripes and zigzags, they were brought by the first people and were said to come from the south-west, from the house of Kiehtan himself.
It was a holy place. I felt the hairs on my arms and neck stir with fear and wonder the first time I crossed the threshold. Far more so than in any church I had ever entered.
I felt more. I felt near to my grandmother; I felt as if I had come home to her. For she had believed in the holiness of all things. The sun, the moon, the rain and wind; the earth, the mother from which everything springs. She saw the divine in all things growing; in all creatures who walked, crawled, flew or swam; in every living thing upon the earth or in the sky, in river, lake and sea. She would honour all in prayers each night and morning. It was for believing this that she was hanged.
If she had lived, she would have instructed me in the mysteries. Now White Eagle took this upon himself.
‘The spirit is strong in you. I know this to be true. You were born to walk the sacred road and I am here to guide you. First I must tell you a story.’
He did not speak straight away. He sat perfectly still; such stillness was a lesson for me to learn. His body was slim and muscular, as lithe as Jaybird’s, but his face was scored and mapped with lines and his braided hair shone like ropes of tarnished silver. His dark, hooded eyes were hard to read in the shadows of the cave, but I saw a great sadness as he looked into the well of the story he was about to tell. I guessed it to be about his daughter, White Bird. He looked at me and his unhappiness seemed to double itself. I could not think why one such sadness should be shadowed by still another.
‘Jaybird has told you that my daughter died.’
I nodded.
‘What he has not told you, because he was too young to know, is that I brought her back again from the land of the dead to dwell with me again.’
‘How?’
‘I followed her. She was one of the first of the people to fall sick. I was powwaw, medicine man. My wife pleaded with me to save her and I did all I could, but I had no power against the white man’s sickness. The sickness spread from one to another with such speed, like fire through a dry corn field, and I could do nothing. I watched by my daughter’s bed from the day to the night to the day again. I could feel her slipping away from me. Evening came and I must have dropped into sleep, for when I woke it was black night. I saw her get up and go out; she moved with ease and there was strength in her step as if the sickness was no longer upon her. I rose, but she bid me go back; three times she told me and then she left, making me promise not to follow.
‘I could not keep my promise to her. I stepped out and saw her white shape enter the forest. I went after her, following the trail she had taken through the trees. The leaves were thick with their full summer growth and it was so dark, I could hardly see where to place my foot.
‘The trail led to a broad track I did not recognise. I looked up, thinking to see my way by the stars, but there were no stars. The sky was empty. I looked down to the ground. It was stamped bare by the tread of many feet and when I looked around I saw men and women of different nations all travelling together; some were old, but many were young with babies in their arms and children following.
‘They went in silence and did not look at me. I went along with them, always going west. In front of us the sky constantly thickened to night and no light showed in the east. Many passed as I journeyed on, and I recognised some of them, my eldest son, his wife, people of the tribe who had lately died. Each day the throng grew greater. They flowed down the road as a great river. I did not know, I could not guess that the sickness had taken so many. I searched all through that vast throng, but could find no sign of her, until at last we came to a vast plain and here I could see many fires winking alight. I had come to a place where the people rested before they entered Kiehtan’s great house. I passed from fire to fire, searching each face lit by the cold white light of the stars, and at last I found her.
‘I took her in my arms. She seemed to weigh nothing, it was as if I carried empty clothes. I turned and ran from the place, back down the road we had travelled. The crowd grew thinner as we went until there was nobody left. I stopped a while to rest and when I looked up I saw a gleam in the sky. The sun was coming up as I carried her back into camp.’
‘You saved her? Saved her from death itself?’
He shook his head. ‘My joy was brief. I laid her down on her bed and covered her with the finest furs, black wolf and lynx. She lay between life and death with only the faintest fluttering of breath. In the days that followed she got no worse, but she got no better. All around my people were dying, calling for my help, but I did nothing. I would not leave her side. Even though I knew by then that I had done the gravest thing, what you would call a sin. I felt shame and fear. What little power I had left me and I became as nothing, for I had deserted my people in their needful hour and had sought to take the place of the gods, to cheat death itself.’
He stopped speaking then and stared into the small fire burning itself to ashes in the middle of the room.
‘In the end I had no choice. I snuffed the life from her myself, putting my hand over her nose and mouth, and this time I let her take the journey alone. That night she came to me in a dream and told me not to grieve for her, that I must learn the lesson of acceptance. She told me to keep her wedding garments against the day when one would come who would take her place in my heart.
‘I did as she asked. I kept her clothes and brought them here. But acceptance?’ He raised his hands together in a gesture of despair. ‘My heart was twisted, wrung with pity for myself, and blackene
d with anger against the gods. I could not go back to my people.’
I wanted to ask him what he did and where he went in his time of great sorrow, but he turned from me, setting his face to the west. I knew better than to disturb his silence. At last he spoke.
‘I followed my feet and they took me north to the land of constant snow, where all is either light or darkness. I dwelt among the people who make their houses from ice. They taught me the proper way to move between worlds, and the secret language of the animals. Still I wanted to know more, so they took me across the great ice roof of the world to a distant land of forests. The land of the Tungus, who call their holy people shaman. I learned much from them. They taught me that true wisdom comes only through suffering. I became as one dead so I could return to life again. I wanted to bring my new knowledge back to my people.’ He smiled then and his smile was bitter. ‘But when I returned there was no one left. The village belonged to the white man. It had become Beulah under the chief man John Son. Go now. Jaybird is waiting for you.’
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The time I spent in the chamber was like dreaming. In the centre stood a large dish, perfectly round and carved from some soft stone. I knew its purpose, but I was wary to try it. I did not want to know what was going to happen. Visions of the future might ripple the surface of my perfect present like wind across a lake.
One day White Eagle sent me to fetch water from a special spring. He used this to fill the vessel in the exact same way as my grandmother fills her scrying bowl. Then he bid me look in. Only by facing what I saw there would I stop being afraid.
I saw strange things. Sometimes what had happened, as in a dream of remembering, sometimes a glimpse of what was to come. Sometimes the things I saw had no explanation. At first I had no skill to direct the vision; scenes came unbidden and made no sense to me. I saw a city of stone built between a rocky crag and a river black and wide. I saw a city of light with buildings made of crystal studded with diamonds bright. I saw a woman’s face gazing back at me. I did not know her, but she knew me. Her look was one of fear and love mixed with deep concern. She reminded me of Martha, although her hair was grey and braided the Indian way. She was dark-eyed and dark-complexioned, and seemed to be dressed in man’s apparel: a shirt checked in bright colours. I puzzled mightily over who she could be, or what she could want with me. Sometimes I met my mother dressed in velvet as I first saw her. She whispered urgently, and I listened avidly. Her story affected me deeply, but when I returned, I could not recall a single word.