People of the Fire Read Free Page B

swirled
around him as people crowded in, seeking to help, asking questions he could
barely hear.
                   'The Wolf Bundle?" A cry pierced the haze
in his mind. "We can't live without the Wolf Bundle!"
                   But Clear Water had taken it. Spirit Dream . .
. Clear Water knew what she was doing. His thoughts slipped away like smoke
into a night sky. Fading. Fading. Grayness.
                   "Looks like you were wrong again, Blood
Bear. You killed me despite yourself." And he chuckled.
                   The haze dimmed and floated around him, like
tufted clouds on a mountaintop. His soul drifted, sinking into a calming
warmth. Then he began to rise, upward, above his crumpled body.
                   Are you coming? a soft voice asked.
                   "Who? Who called?"
                   They call me Wolf Dreamer . . . the Sun Man .
. . a new way lies before you now, A new way . . .
                   What must come, will Human souls flow like the
currents of a river—often angry, thrashing white, boiling and mad— against the
resistant rock that blocks the way. At other times human souls move peacefully,
slow and lazy, barely rippling the surface of the tepid water they wind
through. Then, depending on the time of year, they flow encased in blue-white
ice, locked in a secret darkness.
                   Around the Wolf Bundle, souls gather, unaware
of the rapids around this last bend.
                   "You must be patient," the voice of
the Wolf Dreamer whispers through the mists.
                   ' I know, " the Wolf Bundle answers.
     

Chapter 1
     
                 The lodge trapped the
heat of the night, warm and muggy despite the rustling dry wind shivering the
smoke-browned hide cover. The cover had been drawn down tight, firmly pegged to
the hard clay in order to form a seal so that none of the malicious Spirit
Powers might wiggle beneath to steal in and find a home. The People did that
during a birthing.
                Newborn children had
no soul, and into that warm haven any manner of evil could creep. To further
ward off harmful powers, sagebrush—the lifegiver —had
been piled around, the purposely bruised leaves adding a rich pungency to the
desiccating air.
                 From where the boy
crouched outside in the darkness, a frayed seam had come unraveled enough to
allow a peephole view of the interior.
                 A single fire of punky cottonwood smoldered and smoked, adding to the
stifling heat in the lodge and giving light in the midst of so dark and windy a
night. The warm, steamy air issuing from inside puffed on the boy's eye. It
brought the odors of tanned hide, smoke, and sage to his nose. Mixed with it
were other smells of sweat, wood, and fear. The delicately bitter taint of
herbs wafted out as he watched.
                 Dancing Doe cried out
where she lay naked on sweatsoaked robes. The smooth
planes of her young face twisted and contorted as her belly contracted, seeking
to force the child within from the safe confines of her womb. Between her
breasts lay a natal bundle, a figure in the shape of Turtle—the magical animal
that never sickened. Turtle brought health and luck. He disappeared with the
coming of the winter gales, crawling down into the Earth Mother, returning when
Father Sun brought spring and life to the world. The fetish on Dancing Doe's breast
had been constructed of finely sewn antelope hide and stuffed with sage, bits
of twigs, feathers, and other sorts of Power.
                   On her belly, a series of designs had been
drawn to center the Spirit Power of biith . The most
important, a bright yellow stripe, had been painted down from the natal bundle
between her full breasts to end in a point in the mat of her black pubic hair.
The Path of Light, it would lead the child on its way to