Star Rise Page 11

  “Luckily, Haru found me quickly, just before a coyote was ready to attack, and no animals had eaten at me. However, I was very still and very blue from the cold. So she took off her own blanket to wrap me in. It was buckskin on one side and fleece on the other. That was my first blanket. She wrapped me tight in it and blew breath into my mouth. She said within seconds my lips began to turn pink. She picked me up and brought me home, home to her lodge. She lived somewhat apart from her own clan, the People of the Burnt River, and she kept my existence a secret. If someone heard me crying when they came to her for medicine, she told them she had found a baby lamb and was nursing it with ewe’s milk.

  “It was only necessary to keep the secret for one moon. If after a moon a cursed baby is still alive, it cannot be cast out. When the healer found out about me, he was very angry. But the chieftain refused to hear his complaints. After all, Haru’s medicine had saved his wife. To celebrate my one month of life, Haru made me a blanket. That was the custom of our people. If a baby survives for one month, a naming blanket is woven for it. The blanket had the river design that is a symbol of our clan, and also the symbol for my name, Tijo, which means ‘treasure found.’ It was particularly special because it contained the hair of a thunder creature. The hide of that huge beast, when spread out flat, covered the entire floor of our lodge. In winter, there was nothing warmer.”

  “How did she come upon the pelt of the thunder creature?” Estrella asked.

  “Haru’s mate had brought the creature down, but he was killed in the hunt. Still, the blanket was his, for it was his spear that pierced the hide.

  “The healer was furious. A white creature like that was thought to have powerful magic and now it belonged to Haru, of whom he was already jealous because of her medical skills. The healer tried to bring the matter before the clan council, but the chief refused to hear the case. The healer was so desperate, he even tried to take Haru for a wife. She said ‘never.’ Haru told me it took her three months to skin and tan the pelt of the thunder creature, but it was the most beautiful pelt rug you have ever seen.

  “For my five-year blanket, she wove in some more threads of the thunder creature. That animal’s pelt was so thick you would never be able to tell she had taken any. In fact, Haru would joke that the thunder creature grew the hairs back as soon as she removed them. I sometimes think the hair of the thunder creature helped me grow and become stronger in spite of my crooked leg. Haru always said perfect is boring and it can be mistakes, flaws, that make us strong and interesting. A little more than a year before Haru died, a baby was born with a caul on his head.”

  “A caul?” Sky asked.

  “That happens sometimes with foals,” Corazón said. “Yes. It’s just part of the birth sac. It slips off easily enough or one can nip it off. There is no harm.”

  “No harm at all.” Tijo nodded. “Just the opposite. The people say these infants are lucky and so this one was named Toshi ’N Tuki, or Boy Born with Luck on His Head. Haru was called to snip away the cap. Usually, they bind it with some sheep fleece or maybe a hair from a badger. But Haru especially liked this baby’s mother, so she bound it up with a white hair from the thunder creature’s pelt and then Haru, with the mother, would bury it. She felt it might bring extra good luck to Tuki. Tuki, that is what we called him. And I think it did bring him luck. He learned how to crawl very early, then toddle, and was saying lots of words before his first birthday. He’s a very smart baby. And kind. I knew he wouldn’t tease me like the other kids often did. They called me Lame Boy.”

  “Lame Boy?” Yazz shook her head. “It’s as if all they saw was your leg and not the rest of you.”

  Tijo sighed. “They didn’t see the rest of me. Not like Haru did. The healer had many wives and many children. His children would tease me mercilessly. He had one son a year or so older than me who was a big bully. Hikyu was his name. He was not that bright, but I swear the healer encouraged him to torture me.” Tijo glanced at the coyote skin that he carried on his spear when he was not hunting. The spear was planted in the snow upwind of the fire.

  “One time, Hikyu actually made a snare for me. I had gone up to the top of a hill where there was some grass that my old ewe loved. We were coming down the path and suddenly the ewe stopped. Her tail, which had been wagging a second before, froze and her ears flared out. ‘Go on, go on,’ I said, and prodded her with the staff. I had never had to use the staff before. But she would not budge. Then I heard it, a low chittering like hundreds of tiny beads being shaken in a small drum. The drum of course was the hole that had been artfully concealed with a mat of sage twigs and a few rocks. I made a wide circle around the spot so I could poke at the snare and dislodge the trip line. I knew about snares, as Haru had already begun teaching me how to make them. I poked. The ceiling of the snare fell through and there was the loud thrum of a dozen rattlesnakes squirming and rattling their tail rattles. But at the same moment, the ewe picked up another sound from behind a big clump of rabbitbrush. She charged. There was a scream as Hikyu tumbled out of the clump of rabbitbrush. He had set this snare for me.

  “Haru was furious when she found out about this. And that was when the people began choosing sides. They knew the chieftain was old and might die. If he did, his son, who was weak and not very smart, would become the next chief of the Burnt River Clan. The healer would have more power, more influence. Or as Haru said, ‘The real rattlesnakes shall be let loose.’

  “And things did get worse. The bullying increased, but people still came to Haru when they were really sick and could not be cured by the healer. People from other clans even came to her.

  “Then, maybe it was in this moon of a year ago, she began to feel sick. She said there was a numbness in her fingers and it began to spread. I knew she was dying and I knew one day she would go Otang.”

  “Go Otang?” Grullo asked.

  “It is the way of the people. When they feel death is coming for them, they often decide to go out and meet it. But … but …” Tijo began to stammer. “I could not bear the thought of Haru dying alone. She had found me as an infant alone on the meat trail.”

  “She let you come?” Estrella asked.

  Tijo waited a long time to reply. “There were conditions.”

  “Conditions?” Sky asked.

  “Rules,” Tijo replied. He began to speak and fell into the old tongue. None of the horses really understood him as he recalled the exact words Haru had used, but for Tijo it felt as if she were inhabiting his own body. Above them they heard the hoot of an owl, the omo owl, he thought, as he spoke the words that sounded so strange to the ears of the horses. “These are the rules: You do not speak. You do not bring me food. No water.”

  Then Tijo’s voice shifted and the horses seemed to understand more as he continued.

  “You do not make me warm by lying next to me or bringing me your star blanket. That blanket is for you. I wove that blanket for you. Not me. If the mountain lion comes, you go and let him eat me.”

  There was a long silence. Then Verdad asked, “Star blanket? Which one was that?”

  “The last one she made me. My eleventh birthday would be coming and she must have known she would not live that long. So she made it and gave it to me early. The stars are made from many threads of the white thunder creature.”

  “But what happened to that thunder creature blanket, the one on the floor of your shelter from which she kept taking the threads for your blankets?” Sky asked.

  “It was too heavy for me to bring when she set out on the way to Otang and she would not have permitted it. I imagine that when I did not come back, the healer took it along with all the other things in our lodge. He wanted so badly the magic he thought that blanket possessed.”

  “Did it have magic?” Sky asked.

  Tijo shrugged. “If magic is love, to love something that has been cursed and said to bring bad luck, then yes, it had magic. If magic is to teach a boy with a crooked leg to throw a spear true and straight, then yes
, it had magic. If magic is to teach a boy how to make the best snare ever, to say a prayer for a mother he never knew and know that in the first minutes of his life that person truly loved him as she had no other, then yes, it had magic. But I don’t think any of that was magic. I think it was Haru. Just Haru.”

  The winter snows had melted, but the spring rains had not come. The juniper leaves were curling tight and turning a sickly yellow. This was a sure sign of coming drought. Spring droughts were common, but following on the heels of a dry autumn, it would make it difficult for the people of the Burnt River Clan, and so they decided they would move even farther north than they had the year before. They would head toward the mountains, where there were signs of rain. Since Haru had died, the healer’s power had increased as the chieftain had grown more frail. His appetite for power seemed boundless. Haru had seen this from the spirit camps and knew the time had come for her to return and seek a spirit lodge.

  And so it was one evening when a deep purple thunderhead languished in the dusk of a darkening sky that a white-faced owl, an omo owl, felt a soft jolt in its gizzard. A spirit has lodged, it thought, and began to fly toward the Yellow Cliffs. She could see that the pole sledges were being loaded for a departure at dawn the next morning. The Burnt River People had retired early so they would be ready. She perched on one of the ledges of the cliff dwellings. Nothing stirred in the camp. Their chieftain’s sledge had been prepared. He would be unable to walk, so the thickest furs lined it, including the white pelt of the thunder creature. The spirit lodged in the omo owl took note. So the healer has not claimed that yet! But for some reason she was worried. Something made her anxious — if not the pelt itself, then something connected with it.

  The openings in the cliff face, the doorways, reminded her of the dark vacant eyes of a skull. The owl felt a shiver pass through her flight feathers. She felt as if she were growing and stretching longer. Wilfing, a voice said. That is what we call it. You have wilfed. You are as thin as the shadow of a reed. It was Haru’s host speaking to her. It was the omo owl. The healer won’t see you. Don’t worry. And in that moment the healer walked right by her.

  Him!

  Yes, him!

  Haru suddenly felt a deep rustling. Her wings were spreading. A light breeze quivered at the edges of the flight feathers. She flapped both wings. A puffy billow of air formed beneath them and Haru felt herself lifting into the air, into flight!

  It was a dark, moonless night, but she was startled by the clarity of her vision. Not only her vision but her hearing. She could hear the heartbeat of the healer. Every breath he pulled into his lungs and then exhaled was like a wind blowing through a canyon. He was muttering, too. She heard her own name. “Haru … Haru … buried it …”

  She suddenly knew where he was going. He wanted the thread of the pelt from the thunder creature. Tuki’s mother must have brought the caul with her and hidden it along the way in various places as they made their journey. She dared not keep it. The healer must have followed her. But why did he need that thread? The chieftain would die soon and the healer could claim the whole blanket of the thunder creature. Why? Why?

  The healer went directly to a tree that had been struck by lightning. It made sense that Tuki’s mother had hidden it there because burnt wood usually was considered unlucky, but a totem of ill fortune when linked to something good was made impotent. The bad was canceled and even more good could come. In the case of charred wood, some said even a seedling could sprout from it. This could be a sign that the clan was entering fertile country. Then Haru, with the sharp eyes of the omo owl, spotted a quiver of bright green. A seedling poked from the charred wood. The drought must have ended here, and within the short time the clan had been camped here, there was evidence of renewal. Goodness had prevailed. But not for long! Haru felt something tremble within her. She knew it was the gizzard of her host, the omo owl.

  The owl settled into the high branches of a nearby tree and observed. The healer stared for a moment at the seedling, then chuckled. A hunger for power, power in its most naked form, flooded through him. He took out his long, thin knife and cut off the seedling. The omo owl felt a sharp twinge now in its gizzard. Haru felt as if something in herself had been cut. But I am a spirit. I cannot bleed, Haru thought. Then she realized finally! How did I not know this before? He is not just a healer but a witch. But what kind of curse was he putting on the caul? She saw him begin to dig with his knife. He would not have to dig far to find it. There would be little left of the caul, but the thread from the thunder creature was all he wanted. She blinked and was again amazed by the sharpness of her sight.

  She was right. There were just a few ragged remnants of the caul, but the pelt thread was still tied. Then the healer snipped the thread in two. He tucked the pieces into a small pouch that hung around his neck with the other amulets of a healer. She was sickened as she watched this.

  When the healer returned to the camp of his people, he could not believe how quickly his luck turned. Within two days the chief would die! The whole blanket would be his. The luck from the boy born with the caul would begin to resettle and shift to him.

  The weather had turned so warm that the women of the Burnt River Clan had taken their clothes down to the stream to wash. The children were all playing in the shallow pools as their mothers worked. No one seemed to notice when Tuki, the Boy Born with Luck on His Head, wandered off. He was curious and began to follow a vole, and when he lost the trail of the vole, he found a partridge dragging its wing through the brush and felt sorry for the “poor birdie.” He followed it out of the stand of trees, and then found himself on a high, wide-open plain. He turned to look for the stream where his mother was washing clothes, but there was no stream and there were no women and no children. What had happened? He didn’t really know what a good little walker he was and how fast he had trotted off. For Toshi ’N Tuki, it was as if the world had walked away from him. They had forgotten him and left him alone in this vastness. He began to cry. “Ma Ma Mama!”

  The setting sun glowered red and soon the sky swarmed with dark clouds. He felt as if the sky were scolding him. He heard a hiss like steam from his mother’s boiling pot. Inches from him, a rattlesnake coiled up, ready to dart at his chubby leg. But before it could strike, a huge shadow engulfed him and there was a terrible shriek. A bird with wings as broad as Tuki was tall spiraled out of the air, its talons extended. The bird grasped the snake just behind its head and rose with it into the purpling sky. The snake writhed, slashing the air. The boy could still hear the awful racket of the rattles on its tail. Then suddenly the sound vanished. Something dropped from the sky. The boy stopped crying. He stared. A few feet in front of him lay the torn body of the dead snake. The huge bird lighted down.

  “What to do with you?” the owl said. But the boy did not understand the owl’s language. He merely stared at the white face of the bird.

  “I want my mama.” The omo owl did not have to understand the boy’s language to know what he said. She walked up to him and spread her wings broadly around his shoulders and thought to herself, He is too big to fly up to a hollow, but there must be a burrowing owl near here someplace, to keep him safe for the night.

  Tuki’s father was furious. He stood across from the healer, scowling at his ridiculous talk of ghosts.

  “You know boys born with cauls on the head attract ghosts,” the healer said dismissively. “The ghost of the chieftain is still close. It frightened the boy away. We must go now. Escape from this haunted place.”

  “It’s not true!” argued the father. “The boy has luck on his head.”

  “Give us one more day to look for him!” pleaded Tuki’s mother.

  “Are you challenging me?” The healer demanded, his voice low and dangerous. The clan looked on tensely. The very air between them seemed to crackle. Dry lightning forked in the sky, framing the healer, who stood tall and full of a hideous wrath, full of lies and lust for raw power.

  “Yes, I am challenging
you,” the boy’s father replied, and took out his knife. But the healer was quicker. A spurt of blood splashed in the night. The young father fell to the ground. The thin knife, the very one with which the healer had cut the seedling, quivered in his chest, its tip buried deep in the man’s heart.

  At last the baby had stopped crying. Now he just whimpered. The burrowing owls had kept him safe during the night in their burrow, and the omo owl had brought him a fish that she had torn into small pieces for him to eat.

  “I think the chick needs some berries,” the female burrowing owl said. “I wish he’d eaten that snake. You tore it up into such nice little pieces for him.”

  “Maybe he’s afraid that if he eats the snake meat, the rattles and the snake will come together again.” The male burrowing owl fussed and brushed the baby’s hair with his wing.

  The Boy Born with Luck on His Head looked at the three owls gathered around him. The burrowing owls, a male and a female, had bright yellow eyes and a curve of bright white feathers over each eye. Their brown feathers were speckled with dots like snowflakes. The other owl, with the white face, was much larger. Her feathers were a lovely tawny color, but her eyes were as black as river stones. So black and so shiny that Tuki could see his own reflection. And his reflection made him sad. It made him miss his mama. The owls were nice. They were very soft. But when he saw his reflection and that of the female burrowing owl standing beside him, stroking his shoulders with her pretty wing, it reminded him of his mama’s hands. He missed his mama’s hands, which also stroked his shoulders and his cheeks and cupped his face in her palms and sang the good-night song. Nobody sang the good-night song here. They didn’t sleep. They went flying about all night long, except whoever stayed behind to mind him. They did make a nice place for him to sleep. They plucked out the downiest fluff from the underside of their wings to make a bed for him. But it wasn’t the same. It just wasn’t the same.