well destroy them. I always strove to keep my people together.”
Rain At Evening considered him. “However, you will stay away?” she asked.
“I will try to think what can be done,” he answered, and went into the medicine lodge. They lingered a bit, troubled, before leaving. His unsureness, the defiance of him, struck at the heart of everything by which they had lived.
With its entrance toward sunrise, the lodge had at this time of day gone gloomy. Light from doorway and smoke-hole lost itself in shadows brimming the circle of floor and walls. Things magical were blurs, gleams, hunched lumps. Deathless laid buffalo chips in the firepit at the center. He worked with drill and tinder until flames licked small. After he had banked the fire, he put tobacco that traders bore from afar into his calumet, kindled it, breathed deep, let the sacred dizziness whirl him off toward meditation.
Insight escaped him. He was wanly glad when a form darkened the doorway. By then the sun was on the horizon he could not see. Light tinged with yellow the smoke that drifted thick and savory off cookfires. The din of celebration was at once loud and remote, only half real.
“Father?” came a shy whisper.
“Enter,” said Deathless. “Be welcome.”
Three Geese stooped, passed through, settled on the opposite side of the pit. His face was barely visible, webbed and gullied with encroaching age, full of the concern that a berdache need not be ashamed to show. “I hoped you would give me refuge here, father,” he said.
“From what?” asked Deathless. “Has anyone abused you?”
“No, no. Everybody is gleeful.” Three Geese winced. “That is what hurts. Even the old men seem to have cast their doubts from them.”
“Save for you.”
“And perhaps a few others. How should I know? More of the women are with us in their hearts, but the men sweep them along. And it is a mighty gain that Running Wolf and his followers have made.”
“He promises unboundedly much in the future.”
Three Geese grunted an affirmative.
“Why do you not share these hopes?” Deathless asked.
“You are my father, who was always kind to me,” said the berdache. “I fear there will be scant kindness in the morrow that Running Wolf brings.”
“From what we know about the tribes who have gone the way of the horse, that is so.”
“I have heard men say—when I happened to be in earshot of man-talk—that some are forced to it.”
“True. They are thrust from their ancient homes, the eastern woodlands, out onto the prairie, by invaders from farther east. They say those invaders bear horrible weapons that shoot lightning. They get them from pale- skinned foreigners such as we hear rumors of. But others, like the Par-iki, have freely taken to the horse, and spill out of the west, out of the mountains yonder.
“They did not have to. We do not have to. I have spoken with travelers, traders, whoever bears news from outside. North of us the Ankara, Hidatsa, and Mandan still live in olden wise. They remain strong, well-off, content. I would have us do the same.”
“I have talked with two or three of those young men who brought horses despite your counsel, father,” said Three Geese. “One of them went forth with Running Wolf, first to practice, later on this buffalo hunt. They say—he says— they intend no disrespect, no overthrow of anything. They only want for us whatever is good in the new ways.”
“I know. I also know you cannot pick and choose. Change is a medicine bundle. You must refuse it altogether, or take the whole thing.”
Sorrow thinned the voice of Three Geese: “Father, I do not question your wisdom, but I have heard some who do. They wonder if you can understand change, you who live outside of time.”
Deathless smiled sadly through the dusk. “Strange, my son, strange that only now, when you near the end of your days, do we truly confide in each other.” He drew breath. “Well, I seldom speak of my youth. It was so long ago that it seems a half-forgotten dream. But as a boy I listened to my grandfather tell about the drought of many years that at last made our people trek eastward from the uplands, to find a better home here. We were still learning how to be plainsfolk when I became a man. I had no idea then of what I was. No, I expected to grow old and lie down to rest in the earth like everyone else. When, slowly, we came to see that this was not happening— what more soulshaking change than that can you imagine? Since it was clear the gods had singled me out, I must seek the shaman, have him teach me, change from man to disciple, finally from housefather to shaman myself. And the years flew by faster and faster. I saw girls born whom I wed when they were grown and buried when they had died, along with the children, the children. I saw more tribes pour onto the plains, and war begin among them. Do you know it was only hi your mother’s girlhood that we decided we must build a stockade? True, a certain awe of me has helped keep enemies off, but—Running Wolf has had a vision of new gods.”
He laughed wearily. “Yes, my son, I have known change. I have felt time rush by tike a river hi flood, bearing the wreckage of hopes downstream out of sight. Now do you understand why I have tried to bulwark my people against it?”
“They must heed you,” Three Geese groaned. “Make a medicine that will open their eyes and unstop their ears.”
“Who can make a medicine against time?”
“If anyone can, father, that one is you.” The berdache hugged himself and shivered, though the air was still mild. “This is a good life we have, a gentle life. Save it for us!”
“I will try,” said Deathless. “Leave me alone with the spirits.” He held out his arms. “But first come and let me embrace you, my son,”
The old cold body trembled against the firm warm flesh, then Three Geese said farewell and departed.
Deathless sat unmoving as embers faded and night welled up out of the earth. Noise continued, drum-throb, chants, feet stamping around an extravagant fire. It grew louder when the doorway brightened again. A full moon had risen. That gray went black as the moon climbed higher, though the ground outside remained hoar. At last the merrymaking dwindled until silence laid its robe over the whole village.
No vision had come. Perhaps a dream would. He had heard that men of nomad tribes often tortured themselves in hope that that would call the spirits to them. He would abide with the ancient unforced harmonies. On a few heaped skins, one atop him, he slept.
Stars fared across heaven. Dew glittered in deepening chill. The very coyotes had quieted. Only the river murmured, along the banks, under the cottonwoods, around the sandbars, on and on in retreat from the sinking moon.
Slowly, eastern stars dimmed as their part of the sky turned pale.
The hoofs that ueared scarcely broke the stillness. Riders dismounted, left their animals in care of chosen companions, approached on foot.
They meant to steal the horses hobbled outside the stockade. A boy’on watch saw them and sped for the gate. He screamed his warning till a warrior overtook him, A lancethrust cast him to hands and knees. Little Hare gobbled around the blood that welled into his mouth. He threshed about till he fell in a heap that looked very small. War cries ripped the dawn.
“Out!” roared Running Wolf before his house. “It’s an attack! Save the horses!”
He was the first to dash forth into the open, but men swarmed after him, mostly naked, clutching whatever weapons they had snatched. The strangers sprang at them. Alien words yowled. Arrows whirred. Men screamed when struck, less in pain than in fury. Running Wolf bore a tomahawk. He sought the thick of the foe and hewed, snarled, a tornado.
Bewildered, the villagers nevertheless outnumbered the raiders. The Pariki leader yelled commands. His men rallied to him, where he shook his lance on high. In a body, they beat the defenders aside and poured through the opened gate.
Dawnlight strengthened. Like prairie dogs, women, children, old folk fled back into houses. The Pariki laughed and pursued them.
Running Wolf lost time getting his dismayed fighters together. Meanwhile the Pariki made their quick captures—a woman or child seized, hauled outside, or fine pelts grabbed, a buffalo robe, a shirt with colorful quillwork— and regathered in the lane that went straight to the gateway.
