The first thing, the very first thing, that came into his mind, was why didn't they tell me! It was inevitable; if they knew, it followed by logic that this whole spirit-quest could have been bypassed.
But he knew why. What was the point in telling him? This was not some kind of Monte Hall giveaway; this was a quest, his quest, of self-discovery. What would the point have been of telling him? If they had, it would have meant nothing.
But the second question that occurred to him was to wonder when Kestrel-Jennie-had seen his spirit- animal.
'She saw Deer trying to warn you the other night,' the old man went on, blandly, as David started again. Was Mooncrow some kind of mind reader? 'It was when you almost tripped that bomb, and he was trying to get you to leave it alone.'
'Oh,' was all he could say. Mooncrow favored him with another enigmatic smile.
'Deer is a very proud creature,' the old man continued. 'Sometimes-too proud. He lifts his antlers high and displays for the ladies at times when he should be watching for hunters. The scent of a female can make him forget all caution. And when he scents another male-that makes him forget everything else but locking horns!'
David flushed and hoped Mooncrow wouldn't notice, because much as he hated to admit it, Mooncrow's description of Deer certainly fit David. . . .
'But those are his vices,' Mooncrow said with a shrug. 'I am certain that you can think of his virtues for yourself. But among the Children of the Middle Waters, his chief virtues are cleverness, speed, strength, and agility. Perhaps among your people he has virtues beyond those.'
David shrugged slightly; he really didn't know. But once again, he had to admit that Deer certainly fit him. He liked to think of himself as being clever and a quick thinker; and in school, he'd been in track and field.
'This does not mean that you are to stop learning, Spotted Horse,' Mooncrow went on, serenely. 'Your spirit- animal only shows you what you are, and will be your guide to the other spirit-creatures from which you must learn. Every creature has virtues and vices, and you must learn to acquire the virtues and conquer the weaknesses. Reject no spirit as being unable to teach. Even Spider can teach a powerful lesson, All things come lo my web and break their necks therein. That is why one of our gentes is the gente of the Spider, and why our women in the old days had the Spider tattooed upon their hands. Or Crayfish! Crayfish gave us the four sacred colors of clay! There is nothing so weak and small that it cannot have power-and nothing so powerful that something weak and small cannot overcome it.'
David nodded, earnestly, and suddenly felt as if he were being watched by hundreds of eyes. . . .
He looked around, covertly. He was being watched by hundreds of eyes! The clearing was full of animals, all listening to Mooncrow and nodding their heads in agreement- and watching David to see if he was paying attention. 'Is this a hallucination, or-'
'A hallucination is only an uncontrolled glimpse elsewhere, Spotted Horse,' Mooncrow interrupted the thought. 'Sometimes the 'elsewhere' is the spirit world, sometimes it is only the inside of your own head. You should be able to tell the difference, soon. Both can teach you something.'
David's temper flared a little. 'Are you a showman, or a shaman?' he snapped, without thinking.
But Mooncrow only laughed, throwing his head back and crinkling up his eyes. Then he turned a face full of innocence toward David, and said, 'Yes.' Just that.
Now, so far, every person David had met who had ever claimed to be a Medicine Person would react to that question with varying degrees of anger. Either shamed anger that he had caught them out, or anger that he would even consider that they were not what they claimed to be. No one had ever answered him 'yes' to both!
He couldn't help it; he sat and stared incredulously, as the animals rustled and stirred, and seemed to be laughing too.
'David, that is a silly question,' Jennie chided, from behind him. He turned his head, and there she was, although he had not seen or heard her approaching. Like her grandfather, she was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, although both of them wore eagle feathers in their hair, just as he had seen in the triple vision. The hard tail-feather on the right side, the soft under-tail covert, dyed red, on the left. Now he knew what that meant; that they knew the medicines of both the Hunkahand the Tzi-Sho, and of all of the gentes of both divisions. They were Medicine People the like of which could not have existed in the old days. Small wonder the Osage on Calligan's crews respected them so much.
'Why's it silly?' he asked, a little belligerently.
She chuckled. 'Because it's either or, very simplistic. But the real situation isn't at all simple, for every good shaman has to be a showman as well; sometimes people simply won't believe a thing until you've wrapped it up in fancy paper and ribbon, and bestowed it with a fireworks display. And because in order to counterfeit something that is genuine, you have to at least understand the appearance of the genuine, every showman has at least a little shaman in him. For that matter, there is no reason why a showman can't teach you something valuable. It's perfectly possible to learn all the right lessons from the wrong source, if your heart is right.'
'Or as I tell the kids who come to play Nintendo with me,' Mooncrow said, his voice still full of warmth and amusement, 'Luke Skywalker learned as much from Darth Vader as he did from Ben Kenobi and Yoda. He even learned a thing or two from that ne'er-do-well, Han Solo!'
David looked from Jennie to her grandfather and back again. Finally he shook his head. 'You two have been reading too much Joseph Campbell.'
'Or you have been reading too little,' Mooncrow countered, standing and beckoning to him. 'Come. Jennie has your clothing, and the car is ready. It is time to go.'
And that, so it seemed, was that.
Except for the thoughts that ran through his head while they drove him home, fed him, and put him to bed. Thoughts that kept him silent, danced behind his closed eyes, and percolated through his dreams, a welter of Deer and Bear, space fighters and ancient warriors-
His dreams took a turn they never had before. He found himself wandering in a virgin wilderness, watching, listening, and then-
Then hiding, from a strange black beast that was neither human, bird nor animal, that walked upon two legs and left the land waste behind it. ...
This time Smith had called Rod Calligan, rather than the other way around, calling him at home. Rod took the call in his home office, after making certain that Toni couldn't pick up one of the other phones without him knowing. And the question the man asked him rather surprised Rod.
Brusque, blunt. 'Are you getting anywhere with the Talldeer chick? How close are you to getting rid of her?'
'I haven't actually seen her once,' Rod said, carefully, not mentioning the trap the girl had sprung and then taken. 'She hasn't been out to the site that I know of, and she hasn't personally questioned anyone who's still on the project. I think I've thrown her a couple of fastballs, and at least she hasn't been actively interfering. No one's called me from your company. Why?'
'Because I have an idea,' Smith replied, 'cautiously. 'I want to be certain she's out of the picture before we do anything about it. It's a way to capitalize a little further on that land of yours.'
As Smith outlined his 'idea,' Calligan began to smile.
Once the mall project was dead, Smith would come in with a phony holding company, and some cash; Rod would supply the rest. Smith's company would buy the land for next to nothing-land already cleared and waiting, ready for any purpose they cared to put it to. Rod would use his leverage with the county commissioners to get the area opened for a landfill. He would look like a good guy, making sure that the land was used for something that would produce some county tax revenue. And there would be plenty of clean dirt and rock going in there--with all the flood-control work going on, the dirt dredged up had to go somewhere, after all. Even the tree-huggers would be happy, if Smith's company promised to build a park on it once the landfill was full.
'That's what'll go on during the day,' Smith said. 'And I know, there's not much profit there. But after hours, we'll be doing something else-'
Because John Smith had a contact at a drilling company, and his contact had a lot of friends just like them. Wildcatters and independent oil drilling firms were having a hard time keeping their heads above water as it was- and all the piddly-shit regulations about disposing of the chemicals that came out of wells were driving a lot of them under. 'You know anything about drilling?' Smith asked. 'Not much,' Calligan admitted. The fetish-bundle in his pocket seemed to draw his fingers to it. The soft leather felt comforting.
