Water formed in my mouth again, and I swallowed several times to keep from throwing up, the feeling stronger when Wuzzie leaned closer and I smelled his onions and herbs. He appeared grim, as though he held no gentleness, and his one blue eye and one brown eye looked me over like a pelt with some damage.
I shivered despite sweating. He bent more firmly to the task. He unrolled a tule mat he must have used for gathering grasses and roots as he moved such things aside, placing them into the baskets hung on his chest. He grunted and showed me with his hands how I should move. When I hesitated, he grunted again, then rolled me to the mat, overlooking the cry of pain that escaped before I could stop it.
Shafts of light pierced my eyes. I heard a terrible sound that frightened me almost more than my pain, but I was already on the mat before I realized the scream had come from me.
With two cordage thongs he tied the tule corners, making me a bundle inside the mat, then pulled the thongs across his forehead in a tumpline like the women used with burden baskets.
“Wait,” I said, my voice breathless. “My basket.” What tied me to my past was in my basket I kept always with me.
“The basket,” I said again in jargon, pointing awkwardly from inside the mat that wrapped me.
He looked around, but his eyes did not search much.
“It belongs to me,” I said, my breath panting in effort, my voice pleading.
A great hole opened in my stomach that I believed back then could only be filled with the treasures from that basket. My eyes shamefully begged.
“Get another,” he said, wiping at the air with the back of his palm. “What is of value to a small child can be replaced. Or go look yourself,” he said and laughed.
He pushed me back onto the mat then reached inside one of his bags and sprinkled something into the water bag. He held my head again. I thought about resisting so I could search, could show him my strength, but the pain was too great. So when he placed the drink to my lips, I took his gift.
The mixture tasted gritty. Small flakes stuck to my tongue. I felt sleepy as he lifted me from the ledge, his breath coming hard, cords tight along his neck. He laid me flat, still wrapped like a baby in tules, then stepped away and turned his back. His body became a horse to pull me as I sank back into the mat, into accepting what I was: a burden entering winter without treasures. I could neither gather nor tend fires.
Why had he bothered with me? I would be a mouth to feed, take sparse food from an elder. I had nothing to offer in trade. The answer to why he helped me lay in a later time.
Wuzzie started off across the desert, pulling his burden behind him in an uneven gait. In a daze of pain and just before the gritty water put me into sleep, I thought of what waited for me, how I would live now, carry out my plans to leave and search. The face of the girls and their circle of stones came to me along with Spring Water’s threat.
Perhaps she was right, that grim-faced girl. Perhaps my search had ended and my time for burning had come.
THE THIRD KNOT
AWAKE
We reached the gathering place, a dry marsh beside lakes.
The grasses pressed soft against me when we stopped, the change in rhythm jerking me awake. The smell of dying grasses and mud filled the air, and my mouth felt full of cottonwood fluff. A tall sandhill crane lifted its head to stare at the commotion Wuzzie caused by dragging me past. Drifts of swans splashed and sliced the water spiked with sweet reeds and bulrush. Usually the large birds brought comfort to me, but now their flight seemed frantic, as though wishing to leave a dangerous place.
In the distance, I could see Dog Mountain, the rock ridge I did not climb.
Wuzzie had pulled me while I slept, and now, awake, I was dragged through a crowd whose faces moved in and out above me, seeming larger than they were.
“Wuzzie finds a bone!” someone said.
Laughter followed.
My heart beat louder. My eyes had trouble seeing who stood over me, blurred from sweat or fear or Wuzzie’s gritty water.
I watched the people’s eyes, their bodies, young and old, some familiar, some new, as they made room for him, for me, then filled the space behind us, moving like the warp and weft of a woven, rabbit-skin blanket. Thick-tailed dogs with heads larger than the Modocs’ dogs squirted between the legs of the onlookers. One sniffed at my feet. Another growled as though discovering an intruder.
Wuzzie stopped in the center of the gathering and lowered his tumpline. The sides of the tule mat opened to expose his burden—and the worthlessness of what he carried.
“Who owns this child?” Wuzzie asked in his fluttering voice.
All eyes stared at the damage to my leg.
Running Dog of the Modocs eased his way forward. He towered over Wuzzie like a giant pine over a piñon, but Wuzzie stood the stronger. Running Dog picked at a tooth with a sliver of greasewood. His eyes ran over me like a night spider, paused at my dark nabawici, stopped at my leg thonged to the stick.
“Who would claim her now?” he said.
My eyes floated around the circle of faces. Some of the looks came from people I’d gathered food for, been struck by when I worked slow. Now their eyes promised other things, as when people hovered over rabbits during the winter drives, just before they lifted clubs to stop the rabbits’ squeals. Running Dog had wisdom. No one would claim me now. I felt a spider crawling up my neck but when I reached to brush it off, only wetness lived there. My thoughts raced. I must show them I could move and walk, was not as worthless as I looked.
I scanned the ground for a stick I could lean on. My leg throbbed, the pain made me dizzy, my stomach turned to sick, but I struggled, grabbed the skirt of someone standing close before she screamed and brushed at me. A dog darted toward me. He stopped, his tail pointed and still.
“No one puts their claim on this one?” Wuzzie said. His voice held hesitation as though he wondered himself why he had brought me back. Dogs who were injured were left behind or killed. Marked ones might be traded, but if they were injured, lost their value …
My heart pounded. How stupid to crawl in rocks simply to see high places. How poorly I had planned. I should have made new moccasins or gone without them on my climb. Why did I choose that time to search the heights? I could have found a better way to look north for the trail. Now I might never find it, might never see a road my parents could have traveled. I was a burden basket, needing to be tended to and carried.
“I care for myself!” I said, attempting to sit again, to show my strength and defy the helplessness I felt. My elbow held me part way but my voice wavered with my words.
People laughed.
“I can work, even while I sit,” I told them, swallowing back tears. “See, my hands are fine.” I held them up, flapping them in a clumsy effort to show they worked. Several chuckled at my effort.
“She looks like a wounded duck,” someone said to more laughter.
“Let the dogs bring her in,” said another. “Good practice for them.”
“I prefer dogs,” I challenged.
“You caught a spirited one this time,” one woman said.
I hated their teasing. Desperate, I made one last effort to stand, to resist the searing pain that moving caused. I could not even sit well by myself, and the attempt to go higher left me breathing hard, fish swimming in my stomach. The look on Wuzzie’s face said he wished he had not found me.
I ambled like a wounded dog, tossed myself around hoping I could stand while they teased at me, reached a hand then withdrew it, offered help but laughed when I tried to touch their palms.
“Let her be,” said a woman who wore her hair pulled back, freely flowing behind her neck.
She stood tall, could look a horse in the eye, almost. She looked down on me, stared a long time, and I wondered if she saw my grateful look.
She said something to Wuzzie in words I did not understand. A few people in the circle began drifting away with no more excitement promised. Then Wuzzie and the woman argue
d, and people turned back, seeking the distraction of other people’s distress, of a woman strong enough to challenge one said to carry special powers.
The woman nodded her head toward another lodge, and I saw an older woman standing some distance away, scowling openly with arms crossed before her narrow chest. It looked as though Wuzzie made an effort to convince the hair-flowing woman of something. He spoke rapidly with his arms moving and fingers pointing. But she shook her head. Buckskin fringes shimmered on her wide chest as she talked. She nodded again toward the old woman.
I tried to think of what they argued over, tried to think of what action I could take to stay alive through the winter. My head throbbed and I closed my eyes, blocking out the jeering faces of those still standing and watching.
Finally, Wuzzie grunted some agreement, and he called out to the gathering.
“Lukwsh will give a black wehe to the one who claims this child and takes her to his lodge until she is healed. She would take the child herself, but if her lodge expands, it must be to make room for her husband’s mother.” He nodded toward the older woman who I saw had one shoulder lower and smaller than the other.
In the silence, several people looked toward the old woman. Then two or three others spoke all at once, for I learned later that the woman, Lukwsh, made a special wehe. I wondered why this woman bothered to trade a special knife for me.
“The pale one warmed herself in rabbit skins I caught.”
I heard the voice and shivered. Lives in Pain, awake now. He hobbled toward Wuzzie, his hip the source of agony given from a tibo’s weapon, though he could ride a horse and strike a child walking beside him with ease.
“I take her. For the wehe,” he said.
Going with him would be like a rabbit living with a hawk. The thought brought new fears, and this time with great effort, I almost stood, the leg thonged to sagebrush stuck stiffly out before me, the pain making all of me almost numb. People blurred and turned upside down just before I fell.
The tall woman told me later it was my effort that convinced her she should try to save me. “You resisted pain and fear,” she said. “Like a warrior.”
She looked from me to Lives in Pain’s narrow eyes. He set his jaw, glanced away first, then opened his palm toward his leg. “See, I have pain, too,” he whined. “And my stomach hurts. I have to eat wild celery often to make my stomach work. A good wehe would ease my suffering, make it easier to strip rabbit hides for blankets. And I know this child’s ways. Eventually she will walk again and help me.”
The tall woman spoke to Wuzzie in words unfamiliar to me. Wuzzie grinned, motioned for her to speak to Lives in Pain.
“You can care for her though you cannot gather food for yourself?” questioned the hair-flowing woman.
Lives in Pain shrugged. “If you distrust me, take her yourself,” he said and rubbed at his leg as though it hurt.
Lukwsh clucked her tongue, and her eyes darted toward the older woman who had begun to make her way closer to the gathering, her face set in a serious scowl. People moved back as though the older woman took up more space than what her thin body showed.
I smelled wet earth, salt, and dog droppings and wondered if these would be my last smell of the lakes, the last sounds from the land of the desert and sage. The flap of a great blue heron lifting into the still sky broke the silence the old woman’s presence brought.
“I made an offer for the wehe,” repeated Lives in Pain, unaware that the power of the moment had shifted. “It will not be bettered.”
“She must be kept until she is well,” Wuzzie said. “That is what Lukwsh wants for such a valued knife. When she is able she can be traded. Or run errands for Grey Doe or other old ones. This would please you, yes, old woman?”
The older woman stood beside him now and snorted. “What I want is a live son or his wife to care for me. I have neither.”
Lives in Pain bit out his next words. “She is not worth the food she will eat until she can gather her own. I keep her until she is well. It will be your best offer.”
Tears pressed against my nose. My chest tightened with the powerlessness this lying here had left me. I had nothing to give for someone to want me, no way to remain out of sight on my own. I was just a child who lived with dogs, forced like them to follow others’ plans. Even with the offer of a wehe, only someone without trust offered to take me.
“Let me go with him,” I said.
I deserved him for my foolish fall. His was an offer I could accept, anything to put away the ache of what would happen when the snow came and my leg could not carry my weight.
But the woman who offered the wehe cast her eyes to me, ordering silence.
“I have decided,” Wuzzie said before she could speak. “She will fill my own lodge. A pale child who believes she can climb the tallest rocks may have pooha.” He hesitated, then lifted the head strap that pulled me on the mat and turned. “She is strong to survive the fall,” Wuzzie added. “Perhaps there is a reason she has lived this long.”
“She said she would live with me!” Lives in Pain challenged. But Wuzzie ignored him and began dragging the tule mat with me in it, the decision apparently settled. What remained of the circle parted before him, and my stomach lurched again with the fear of this new plan, that he saw me with some power that I neither had nor knew nor wanted. He stopped suddenly, and I twisted and caught the dun color of the leather moccasins belonging to Lukwsh and the old woman who stood before Wuzzie, towering over him.
Wuzzie’s blue eye and brown eye did their darting dance. Grey Doe spoke. “Do not keep her in your lodge. You risk your powers with her.”
“I decide what threatens,” Wuzzie said. “Not you, old woman. Or this stupid girl. But since I found her,” he said with delight in his voice, “I will get the obsidian wehe.”
“You cannot keep her,” Grey Doe said again.
“No?” Wuzzie said, turning slowly to face her. He smiled then as though he expected this turn of events. “You are right, old woman. I do not share space well.” He wiped a thin layer of sweat from his strangely bald head, and I wondered if Lives in Pain’s plan might be accepted. Wuzzie spoke to the remaining crowd.
“Lukwsh will keep this child. Until she is well.” To Lives in Pain’s and Grey Doe’s astonished faces, he added, “But I will get the wehe.”
Grey Doe began to speak. Wuzzie interrupted. “It is a good plan. You were wise to think of it, old woman.” He nodded his head once, which seemed to mean there would be no more discussion.
“You have no room for me in your lodge but can take this milky-skin thing!” Grey Doe said, turning on Lukwsh, swinging her whole shoulder when she turned to speak.
“She claims the child for me,” Wuzzie reminded her, his hand in the air as if to stop her. “She does me the favor. And maybe later, you, when this milky-thing is well enough to look after you in your old age.” His voice fluttered high and he tossed his head back. “Does anyone wish it different?”
Grey Doe glared at him, then complained beneath her breath. She turned away and walked alone back to her lodge. She scowled at Lukwsh as she passed her and let a hot stare linger on me.
Wuzzie dropped the strap across his head and acted as if he had just become awake. His face broke out in smiles, and I wondered if he planned this as it happened. He called to some men standing about. Several hands then lifted me and carried me to a tule lodge newly built. They stepped down one or two paces, and we entered the cool darkness of Lukwsh’s place, for there were several black wehe lying on mats, shiny wehe, smooth, like water on a moonlit night. They laid me on a rabbit blanket and left, the furs soft against my shivering skin.
The room grew quiet with only a flutter of a breeze through the smoke hole. The woman knelt beside me. And while she did not smile, she pushed another blanket up behind my back so I could sit, and laid another under my leg which lessened the throbbing. The gesture in its tenderness told me I was safe, at least for the moment.
My mind fel
t tired, my leg ached with swollen pain, but my need to notice, listen, plan caused me to scan the lodge. Three or four baskets, some winnowing trays, water jars—enough to meet a family’s needs, not enough to be a burden in travel—lined the edges of her lodge, circled it like a large campfire. Fresh teasel to comb out hair snarls stuck up from a willow basket that blended the colors of earth and rocks. A short stack of smoked hides filled a small space with a pungent scent. Everything appeared new, so this must have been the lodge of someone who had lost a loved one or newly joined these people as someone who once did not belong.
A cooking fire glowed low in the center, gave away pale smoke rising through the hole above. A blackened basket near the fire let forth steam and invitation. My eyes must have showed my hunger, for the woman, Lukwsh, lifted a small basket from a corner place and ladled steaming soup into it. She blew on the contents.
We were interrupted.
Lives in Pain entered the lodge like a man intending to stay. He said something in a language I didn’t understand. Lukwsh did not turn to him, pushed the food toward me. Following her lead, I blew too, looking over the basket at Lives in Pain standing behind her. I ate nervously, hands and body shivering in spasms both from the pain and Lives in Pain’s intrusion, his rush of words cascading over her bent back.
The woman stood finally and spoke to him, still not turning. He wanted her to listen and he stepped closer, shouting to her ear. Her face did not change, but she shook her head at his words.
Finally, she turned, snapped a phrase at him, and scooted her hands at him as if he were a troublesome dog made to leave. His finger pointed at me, jabbed at her, then caught her chest and pushed her backward. I felt my heart pound, my mouth get dry, but she did not fall.