[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Holasheeta understand that she must come with him. In order to do that, he would teach her more words
of his language, perhaps, or use drawings and sign talk. Then she might see what he wanted her to see
and know what he intended to teach her. He must start today.
Rising, he left the cave and knelt beside the fire pit beyond the door hole. The sky was tinged with gray
already, and soon the old woman would wake. He would have the blaze crackling when she came out to
warm her old bones. He would set stones to heat, put water in her clay basket pot so there would be
broth enough for her, as well as for the child.
If she was to survive the long trip to his village, she must be strong and well nourished; he would see to
that. The mountains teemed with game, and the canyons held many kinds of small animals as well. He
would take home this totem in safety, as well as bringing with him another grandmother who might add
her wisdom to that of the tribe.
Having her with him meant that he would not be solely responsible for the child's health, as well. It was an
elegant but simple solution, and he knew the Old Spirit Ones had sent him that dream.
When Holasheeta crept out, limping, from the cave, he gestured for her to sit. They had established a
certain number of very useful words between them, and he proceeded to explain his plan, as much as
those would allow him to do.
She took the gourd from his hand and sipped the broth, when he urged her to. Then, eyes wide, she
listened as he explained with words and gestures and drawings in the dust the thing he intended to do.
As if unable to believe what she saw and heard, she drew her own design in the dusty edge of the ashes.
A stick figure, bent at the back, crooked of leg. Yes, that must be herself.
A straight figure with two lumps on his back, moving toward a rayed disk that had to be the rising sun,
just now peering over the next range. That was himself, surely.
She dotted a long trail of dimples into the ashy surface, curving the trail around the base of the fire pit.
Then, at its end, she drew a fair representation of a winter lodge, conical and sturdy. Her people must
have built much as his own did.
She drew other shapes the one with the bundles on his back, the one with the crooked leg going into
the door of the lodge. She looked up into his face, a question in her eyes. He nodded, smiling, and she
stared down again at the crude drawings.
She shivered, huddling herself together. He saw tears dropping from her cheek to make more dimples in
the trail she had marked into the dust and ash.
When she looked up again, she tried to smile, though it had been so long that her wrinkles seemed about
to crack with the effort. She glanced at the edge of the sun, now visible over the adjacent height. "Baby,"
she said in one of his words that she had learned. "We go."
As she scuttled into the cave to begin putting together the things she must carry on her back as they
traveled, Do-na-ti sank onto his haunches. What had he done? She was ancient, crippled, slow in her
movements, to the eye, though in actuality faster than one might think.
Would she prove to be so great a burden that he would be forced to leave her to die someplace along
the way? The thought made him sad, though he knew that if the child's life, or his own, depended upon
that determination, he would make it. Yet he hoped it would not be necessary, for he had a feeling that
this woman would be of value to the People.
And what if the Long-Heads should spot them as they moved along? Could she fight beside him? Was
she physically able?
He thought of the woman he had come to know. She would fight. He had no doubt of that. Something
told him that she had known battle and had killed her own kind. She was not one to shrink from death,
either for herself or for others; it was apparent in her stance, the set of her jaw, the chill at the back of her
eyes.
It was the child, he understood, who had crept into her heart and opened it, who allowed her to accept
the idea of leaving her home. Had she had children, then, back in her distant youth?
There was no way, as yet, to ask her. And if there had been, he wondered if she would have answered
his question.
The year was passing, summer moving into its dry time when locusts zinged their raucous songs among
the sunflowers and zipped about his trudging feet. His back bent now, under his double burden, almost as
sharply as Holasheeta's, Do-na-ti found himself glad that she had slowed his pace.
If he had tried to hurry, carrying the heavy child and his pack, he might now be lying beside a mountain
track, his bones and the child's picked bare and scrambled together by feeding predators. She had not
only slowed but steadied him, keeping him from taking risks that his young heart longed to dare.
After a double handful of suns, he knew that she understood her own limitations and those of the child.
She paced them all to their best speed for endurance. They had moved much farther then he had
expected or even hoped. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]