Dance for the Dead

There were a few longhouses that looked as though Hurons or Eries had built them with no intention of living there long, interspersed with Algonquin wigwams made of bark and thatch, a few hide tents like the wandering plains people had, and in the center a clump of shanties made of boards. It was as though enemies of all of the wars of the Nundawaono had somehow survived in debased remnants and gathered here for the winter hunt.

As she stumbled down the steep path to the huge collection of ramshackle dwellings, she could see small shapes of people below, their shadows long in the bright dawn sunlight. One of them pointed upward and yelled something, and then men began to stream out of the shelters and gather in the center of the village. She could see them talking and pointing, and she could feel their excitement growing until, when she was dragged to the edge of the village, their voices rose in a shout that was harsh and deafening, full of hatred and glee. It grew louder as she moved closer to it, until she could feel her stomach vibrating with it, and the men started to fire their guns into the air, a ragged powpow pow powpow, like popcorn popping.

They prodded Jane and Mary across the dirty, mud-caked snow between the huts and pushed them into a big pen made of upright pine logs sharpened at the tops. Jane looked around her and saw to her surprise that there were dozens of other people already inside - men clinging to their wives and children, trying in vain to reach around all of them with their arms, other men who looked as though they had run the gauntlet on the way into the little pen, with limbs broken and faces streaked with blood from blows above the hairline, women with eyes swelled shut and missing teeth.

'What's going to happen?' asked Mary.

Jane said, 'The fighting has gone on forever. So many people get killed that the main reason for it now is to get prisoners to adopt.'

'Adopt? We're grown women.'

'When people are killed they capture someone to take their place - their name, their work, their family.'

The gate across the pen opened and about fifty warriors streamed in, painted and armed as though they had just returned from battle. They were agitated and angry, some of them in a frenzy, dancing from one foot to the other like boxers and shouting in the incomprehensible languages of enemies. One by one and with reluctance, they took notice of something behind them and stepped aside to let the one Jane had been watching for pass among them to the front.

Jane hung her head like the captives around her to give her a chance to study him without attracting his attention. She looked from his feet upward. He was big and muscular, wearing a clinging, whitish leather shirt that seemed to have been stitched together from many small pieces. Around his neck and shoulders hung a gateasha of six rows of small white wampum beads. When she forced her gaze to move upward, she nearly fainted.

He was wearing a Face. It was a scalp mask, painted bright red, with round staring copper eyes and the clenched teeth that made it resemble both the rage of battle and the ghastly grin of a rotting corpse. It was terrifying to see a Face here. She could tell that this was an old Face, the features that a supernatural being had shown to some virtuous Seneca ages ago in a dream. The Seneca had carved to free the Face from the trunk of a living basswood tree, given it presents of tobacco, rubbed it with sunflower oil, and fed it the same mixture of corn-meal and maple sugar that the warriors ate on the trail to battle. It didn't merely represent the supernatural being; it was the supernatural being. It gleamed with power strong enough to cure disease and change the weather, but on this man that power became the force of evil and witchcraft and death.

The Face approached and stared at her with its round, empty eyes. Jane could see now that the necklace was made not of little white shells but of human teeth. As he moved on, she realized with revulsion what the leather must be: strips of skin flayed from human beings. The Face walked around the pen, stopping in front of each captive to turn its round-eyed, unreadable gaze on him for a second or two, then moving on.

Finally the Face came back to where Jane was standing. The Face stopped and pointed at Mary. At once a warrior appeared out of the mob and poured a bucket of black, greasy paint over Mary Perkins's head. The paint streamed down to her shoulders and ran along her arms to her fingertips.

Mary gasped and sputtered. 'Why did he do that? What is it, some kind of joke?'

'No,' said Jane. She could feel waves of nausea that started in her chest and moved down to grip her belly.

Mary shivered with cold. 'It must be an initiation, right?' Her voice was tense and scared now, and a little sob was audible in it. 'Why me?' she wailed. 'What do they want me to do?'

Jane tried to speak, but what she would have to say was impossible to put into words. The black paint was the sign that a captive had been selected to be burned.

19

Jane awoke in the darkness with her heart pounding. She walked to the window. The snow had stopped sometime during the night, and now the sidewalks and streets were white and still, but in the east the sky had changed enough to tell her there was no point in going back to the couch. She raised her hand to touch her forehead and rubbed away the beads of sweat that had formed there. She had been denying what she knew about Barraclough, and the knowledge was fighting its way to the surface in dreams.

She moved quietly into the kitchen and put the coffee on. Then she sat and listened to Mary waking up and remembering and making her way toward the smell of the brewing coffee. The door opened and Mary walked out into the kitchen, poured a cup of coffee, and stood at the sink to drink it. 'I've been thinking,' she said. 'I've been on my own most of my life and I think I can stay out of Barraclough's way if I don't do anything stupid.' It was a question.

'It can be done.' Jane sat still. It was time already. She would have to work up to it gradually, tell Mary what she knew and let her draw her own conclusion. 'You just have to avoid doing anything stupid.'

'Like getting my picture in the papers,' Mary offered.

'Right,' said Jane. 'You might want to keep it off things like credit cards and driver's licenses too. Barraclough is the regional head of a very big detective agency, so he can probably find a way to have your picture circulated. You know, a reward for a missing person.'

'I guess I can,' Mary said. 'And keep from getting arrested.'

'Or fingerprinted.'

'That's what I said.'

'You've got to keep from being a victim too. If your house is burglarized or your car is stolen, they fingerprint the owner so they can identify prints that aren't supposed to be there. Some states take your prints for a driver's license. And a lot of employers require it; if you need to be bonded or licensed or need a security clearance, it's hard to avoid. Most companies hire a security service to handle the details and report the results - a service like Intercontinental.'

Mary Perkins glared at her. 'You're trying to scare me.'

'Yes,' said Jane. 'It's better. I don't want to hear you sometime saying, 'Why me?''

'All right,' said Mary. 'What else?'

Jane stared at the wall. 'Well, they're not just passively waiting for you to turn up. They're searching. I know that because I talked to somebody who was hired to help. But the easiest way is to get you to come to them. You know - an announcement in the paper says some rich aunt of yours died and the following eighty people are named in the will. Or the help-wanted section says there's a job for a blue-eyed woman age thirty-four and a half and five feet four and seven eighths who's good at arithmetic. Or a personal ad says a wealthy widow with a large secluded mansion wants a roommate: a quiet female nonsmoker from the South who plays cribbage, or whatever else you do but not everyone does. Barraclough is perfectly capable of renting houses in the ten most likely places and having ten women sit there for a month waiting for you to show up.'

'He'd do that?'

'Sure,' said Jane. 'It's quick, it's easy, and it's cheaper than the alternatives.'

'What are those?'

'Well, you have a history. There are people you were close to. They'll go see them. Maybe watch to see if you come for a visit, or maybe bully them into telling what they know. If you ever left clothes anywhere when you started running, they'll have translated the labels into places where you might buy the next batch. The more expensive they were, the fewer places to buy them, and they know you'll need spring clothes or risk standing out. They'll also use them to construct a projection of how you're likely to look now. so they don't miss you in a public place: exact height, weight, style, and color preference. Then there's chemical analysis.'