|
Article Excerpt
We first met the young Native American boy Raven in our Dec. 2001 issue, and subsequent stories by Mr. Reed detailing the boy's travails have run in our March 2003 and Aug. 2004 issues. In that last story ("The Condor's Green-Eyed Child"), Raven chose to take some drastic steps. Now he has to pay the price.
ONE-LESS-THAN-ONE HAD left the world. But he had promised to return before the next full moon, fresh buffalo on his back and his mouth full of stories about the hated demons. One-Less was known as a talented hunter and an adequate shaman, a fine husband and an exceptional father. And he never came home late from the demon lands. But the moon passed full days ago, and the People had been worried for three nights. On this particular evening, they should have been sharing the good fire with their friend, listening while he described how he had fooled the demons with his magic and his guile. What happened to One-Less? When should someone go out searching for him? Worry was quickly growing into despair, and it seemed to Raven, sitting quietly in his usual place, that no one could say one word about anything now but the missing man.
Raven Dream was dusty news. As a boy, he had walked out into the demon world, and then he had come back again, safe but changed. Everyone could see that he was different. The People agreed that Raven was a man, though he wasn't grown enough to sit shoulder to shoulder with the other men, speaking whenever he found words dangling in his mouth. He had to be quiet and respectful at all times. Even his older brother--Snow-on-Snow--possessed a larger, more important voice. Which was the way it should be. Wasn't manhood the beginning of a journey ending only with death? Yet when Raven anticipated this moment, he imagined a well-earned pride in his accomplishments. Leaving the world should have made him wiser and more confident. He certainly hadn't expected to feel sad or hollow, or pitifully small, or as numbingly cold as he felt now. His grandfather--the wisest, oldest citizen among the People--was watching him now, taking his measure of this new man. And his mother was sitting on her hands instead of wiping the smudges off his suddenly manly face. But other than that, nothing had changed, and it seemed as if he had never left this little place.
If only he hadn't, Raven thought to himself.
The People were gathered in the main room, sitting about the common fire, and as they discussed the missing man, One-Less-Than-One silently emerged from the dark earth, looking at everyone before claiming an empty scat directly across from Raven Dream.
One-Less was a dead man.
Raven knew this because Raven had killed him.
When the boy went out into the demons' realm, One-Less had followed. When Raven found two young demons in desperate trouble, he had done his best to help them. But One-Less had been a stubborn, narrow-minded man who didn't approve of his kindness. Following ancient traditions, he had tried to kill the helpless demons. Raven had chosen to fight, and in the end, he had had to gut the man with his own knife and bury the corpse away from the river, in some nameless place several days' walk from here. But if a living man is stubborn, then his dead form can be relentlessly obstinate, particularly if he is angry and feels wronged. This particular dead man had unearthed himself and come all this way to sit among the People, letting the fire warm his ghostly form while he listened to stories told about a life that was finished now.
"He is a good man, honorable and kind," his widow proclaimed, staring at the fire, unable to see him. She was not a young woman. Long ago, she lost her first husband to the demons and her only child to the river. But One-Less-Than-One had taken pity on the grieving widow, marrying her when he was little more than a boy and then giving her three children, two of which still lived among the People. "He is a brave man and my best friend," she continued. "But he promised to be in my bed three nights ago. And he is never late, not by more than a breath."
Raven stared at the tiny fire, trying to ignore the ghost.
Someone asked, "Are you certain that you didn't see him?"
An elbow jabbed Raven in the ribs. He jumped and then realized it was his brother's elbow telling him to pay attention.
"My husband went upriver," said the two-time widow. "You journeyed upriver too. Didn't you, Raven?"
"A long ways," he said.
"You didn't meet my One-Less?"
How many times already had he lied? Raven shook his head, trying to appear sure. But when his eyes lifted, he saw the ghost staring at him, smiling in the most hateful way.
Others noticed his gaze.
"Not even a footprint?" she persisted.
"No," Raven managed. "I saw no sign of him."
The dead man's children were sitting near their father, unaware of his presence. One of them admitted, "I'm scared."
The other said, "Don't be."
"But something's gone wrong," said the first child.
"That's stupid," his sister told him. She was older than her brother--a grown woman nearly fourteen years old--and she had no patience for fear or gloomy thoughts. "Father is out there fighting the demons. That's all. With his magic, he's making their wicked lives miserable."
Everyone was a demon, except for the People.
"Do you think that he is?" asked the little boy.
"Absolutely," said his big, brave sister. Then she looked at Raven, smiling without happiness. "Did you hurt any demons while you walked their lands?"
Raven almost said, "No."
Then he came close to weaving a new lie. "I did hurt a few, yes," he said inside his mind, the words forming against his tongue and then dissolving before they could do any lasting harm.
All the while, he stared at the dead man. An endless river of blood was leaking out of One-Less's ruptured kidney, and the bloodless face grinned with its slack empty mouth while sunken eyes glared at him, fury mixed with a cold, cold humor.
Raven rose to his feet.
Everyone was watching him.
Standing still, he announced, "I need to relieve myself."
"So do it," his brother advised.
The People lived in secret rooms buried deep inside a great hillside. Every door was hidden with camouflage and with magic. Cautiously, Raven stepped out into the light of the waning moon. The piss holes were narrow wooden pipes that took away urine and its stink. He was using a hole when someone else followed him outside. Thinking that it was his grandfather, Raven took a breath and held it. But it was only the ghost, thankfully. Even the angriest spirit was no more dangerous than a hard wind, he knew, while a wise old man could inflict endless misery on a young man.
One-Less pulled out his own shriveled penis and bled a few dark drops into the adjacent hole. But he never stopped staring at Raven, and after a while, Raven said to him, "I did what had to be."
"What had to be?"
The voice came from behind him. Two men had come out of the ground, one of them remaining invisible.
"What did you do, Raven?"
The People's new man pulled up his trousers, shivered, then he turned slowly to face his grandfather.
The old man had one good arm and a thousand types of magic, plus seventy years of hard experience ready for times such as this. Quietly, he said, "Tell me."
Raven said nothing.
"Or don't tell me. You are a man now. Make your own choice."
"I have," Raven allowed.
Grandfather nodded, using experience and magic to peer into the sad soul. "For a man who has walked among the demons, you are remarkably silent about your adventures. Are you afraid of being prideful?"
"No, sir."
"So you have no pride?"
"I did something," the new man replied.
Grandfather remained silent, waiting patiently.
"Something awful," Raven confessed. Then he shook his head and glanced at the ghost that was still pissing blood into the pipe. "I found demons in need."
Large eyes grew larger. "How many demons?"
"Two of them, Grandfather."
"In what need?"
"One of them was dying. Both were lost. They needed help, and that's what I gave them."
Raven hoped that this was his worst crime, and confessing to the People's leader would begin the healing and the forgiveness. Perhaps later, when One-Less was a little forgotten, the rest of this story could be told. People had killed People in the past, and maybe there was some way for the others to look at what had happened as being private and honorable, or at least ugly but inevitable.
"These two demons saw you, did they?"
Raven nodded. "The girl did. The boy was too close to death to notice."
"And you told the girl a good lie, did you?"
"Yes. Of course."
Grandfather nodded. Then he glanced in the direction of the ghost, wondering aloud, "Did you learn these children's names?"
"Mara," said Raven. "And Greggie."
"Bounty," said Grandfather, finishing their names.
Raven held his voice deep in his belly.
Yet the old man seemed relieved. Even as he said, "Those...
|
