(Luis)
I spent that night in the loft above the Nez kitchen. At daybreak a robin gave hesitant voice, and within a minute or two the whole choir was in business: robins, orioles, wrens . . . I got up, pulled on my jacket, and with boots in one hand, went down the ladder into the kitchen. The back door was open, and I peered out. Emily Nez stood barefoot in the east yard, singing softly in the Dinneh language; a prayer no doubt. The sun hadn't come up yet, but she was facing where it would be when it did. Maybe singing it up. I turned around and soft-footed out the front door, where I sat on the stoop—sat on my feet in the Higuchian manner—and slipped into a trance.
I awoke again to the sounds of activity inside, and pulling on my boots, started for the stable to saddle my horses. Someone—Frank or Stephen, probably—had already forked hay into their mangers, and grained them. It was warm for the hour, the horseflies had wakened, sluggish in the coolness, but they didn't like the dim interior, so I left the horses where they were.
The house smelled of salt pork frying—crisp, with raised rye bread and butter, and a duck egg for each of us, fried in pork grease. And yesterday's buttermilk. I began by asking God's blessing on the food—it was expected from a churchman—and when we'd finished, offered thanks first to God, then to Emily and Frank Nez.
Afterward . . . I was already a little slow off the mark, so I shook Stephen's hand, grinned, wished him well, and said I'd see him when I saw him. Then I got my horses and left at a trot. Two miles south down the Big Pines Road, I came to the junction with the Soggo Road. There I stopped, took out my com, and with a twinge of discomfort, murmured the connection to Lemmi's. If he was still in the chief's tipi, the signal should be in buzz mode. He'd feel it but not hear it.
Consuela, Mazeppa's senior wife, was a rare beauty. She'd been born a Sotan, and as a fourteen-year-old novice in a religious order, had been coerced and deflowered by a visiting bishop. She'd dared complain of it, which earned her dismissal for shameless behavior. However, the mother superior who dismissed her also believed her, and arranged a job and home for the girl with a (by Sotan standards) well-to-do merchant. She would be his clerk, for not only could she read and write, she was skilled with the abacus.
The merchant was little better than the bishop, however, and soon made her his mistress. In revenge, she seduced his fifteen-year-old son and ran away with him. This was on the marches, in the duchy of Oak Groves, and they encountered Dkota raiders. The boy was killed, and Consuela carried away captive.
Her beauty captivated the raider chief, and when they arrived at Many Geese, captivated the young, up-and-coming Mazeppa as well. He traded seven horses for her, and made her his wife. It then became her turn to be captivated, for Mazeppa was a talented and considerate lover who treated her well. She in turn applied herself to learning Dkota ways and skills, became an able and daring rider—and on buffalo hunts rode with the men!
A young soul and innate warrior, she was loyal in her friendships and adamant in her enmities.
Later, for political reasons and in hopes of a son, Mazeppa married Trains Horses. Consuela, a pragmatist, had adjusted well. She'd taken the new member of the household aside and they'd worked out a set of operating agreements.
It was Consuela who first suspected Lemmi of "treachery," and told Mazeppa of her suspicions. When the new hunka son left the tipi at night to visit the straddle trench, sometimes he didn't return for quite a while, and she didn't believe he was meditating or praying. So what was he doing?
Mazeppa considered. Lemmi's new wife hadn't arrived yet; perhaps he was dallying with someone's wife or daughter. If found out, it could embarrass his dynastic plans; even create enemies. So he called to him a famed scout and horse thief, noted for his silent, seemingly invisible approaches. Telling him what he knew but not what he suspected, Mazeppa asked the man to learn what was going on.
The next morning, Mazeppa ducked out of his tipi, pipe in hand, prepared to greet the rising sun with tobacco smoke and prayer. The first thing he saw was his spy waiting nearby, so he started toward him. The spy in turn moved to where another tipi stood between himself and the chief's. It was there they talked.
"What have you learned?" Mazeppa asked.
"He did just as he said; he went to the latrine and relieved himself. Then he walked up the knoll behind it and squatted on the top. Soon afterward he got up and returned to your tipi."
"There was no woman?" Mazeppa found himself hoping there had been.
"No woman. No person at all."
"Could he have seen you?"
The scout drew himself up even straighter. "I prayed to the owl. Fanned myself with an owl wing. Dusted myself with funeral ashes. Your son did not see me."
"How long did he squat up there?"
"Little more time than it took to climb it."
Mazeppa's eyes turned to the knoll. Somehow instead of reassuring him, the report had heightened his suspicion. "Very well," he said. "Tonight be on the top before him, near enough that you can hear him pray. If that's what he does. I want to know what he says."
"As you say, Mazeppa Tall Man," the scout answered, and left, disapproving of such deviousness.
Only now was Mazeppa really conscious of the sky. It was heavily overcast, but the breeze was cool. It will rain, he told himself, but it would not be a fast-moving summer storm that blows through flashing and crashing, passing quickly on. It would rain all morning and perhaps all day; unusual for the time of young ravens flying.
His prayer to the unseen sun was brief. Then he ducked back into the tipi, his mind on Lemmi's evening absences.
When Mazeppa ducked back into the tipi, Lemmi could see that something was troubling him. Usually, after Mazeppa returned his pipe to its rack, they went out together to run a few miles in the cool of morning, before eating, and swim briefly in a still-cold lake. Usually they'd see others running and swimming. But this morning Mazeppa spoke curtly to Consuela: he would eat now. A shoulder steak of buffalo had been roasting on a sharp stick beside the fire, for herself and Trains Horses. Now she lay it on a cutting block, and cut it into two strips, one for each man of the household. The two men prayed to the buffalo and to God, Mazeppa's prayer perfunctory, and it seemed to Lemmi that whatever troubled the chief had to do with him.
When they had eaten, Lemmi got the chief's leave and started for the pastor's tipi. Perhaps Morosov would agree to start his lesson early. Hesitant raindrops began, and within a minute or so became a light steady pattering. Lemmi would get his lessons inside the pastor's tipi, at least to begin with.
Mazeppa's uncertainty about Lemmi didn't hold his attention for long. His mind turned to the warriors of the Wolf and Yellow Bear tribes. Two days earlier, at Painted Rock, he'd been exuberant to learn that a thousand Yellow Bear warriors would soon be there. Now he was asking himself how long was soon? And where were the Wolf warriors? How long would hundreds of Yellow Bear warriors be camped among the Ulsters waiting with little to do? He'd already sent well-mounted scouts west, to meet the Wolf warriors part way. To bring him word of them, and guide them to Many Geese.
But the waiting was hard, worse than it had been a few days earlier, when he'd known nothing for sure. When he'd wondered if he'd have to invade without the western tribes.
His thoughts were interrupted by scratching on the door flap. Then someone cleared their throat. "Who is it?" Mazeppa asked, for in his darker moods he could be rude.
It was Jorval. He hadn't visited for weeks, which had been fine with Mazeppa. But now the Dkota chief quickened, glad to hear the Sky Chief's voice, for he had something to ask. "Come in!" he called. The door, east-facing, had been left unbuttoned, for the rain blew from the west. Jorval ducked inside.
Mazeppa had gotten to his feet in welcome. Briefly they shared smoke, and talked about the weather. Sky Chief said something about a polar front moving through, which meant nothing to Mazeppa. That it would probably rain all morning, but maybe not hard, which the Dkota chief had already surmised.
"When do you think the clouds will pass?" Mazeppa asked. "I want to fly with you, and see from the sky whether the Wolf warriors are coming."
Jorval was unprepared for this. He hadn't known of Andre's mission, and the agreements he'd brought back with him, so Mazeppa described them briefly. Jorval could hardly believe his luck. "We can see them through the clouds," he said. "Would you like to go up now?"
They did, the scout flying through sunshine above the bright white top of the vast nimbostratus cloudscape. Mazeppa was awed, as much by the beauty as by the situation—in the sky, looking down on clouds. Incredible that clouds which looked slate-gray from below should be dazzling white on top!
But his awe was brief. "How do you see through it?"
"Not through that," Jorval said, rapping on a window to indicate what that meant. "Look at this." He'd been guiding on paired computer panels in front of him, each showing the scout as a pointed cursor. His right hand gestured, while surreptitiously his left touched a switch. The featureless screen in front of Mazeppa was transformed, seemingly by the gesture, brightening abruptly into a duplicate of the two views that Jorval watched. It captured Mazeppa's attention totally. One view showed a perspective representation of the ground below and in front of him—white and pale green, overlaid with vari-colored lines and symbols: the appropriate section of the planetary coordinate grid, topographic contours, surface temperatures, magnetic and gravitic data, a rough representation of vegetation type, and selected other items of interest, along with code. All technical, meaning nothing to Mazeppa. The other panel showed exactly the same ground, but looked like a full-color view through the scout's forward window, except without clouds. For a moment Mazeppa didn't realize what he was looking at. The more bizarre-seeming of the pair, with its inexplicable lines, symbols, tiny flashing icons had trapped his attention.
Again Jorval's right hand gestured, and abruptly the naturalistic view took over the entire screen. "There," he said. "That's what you'd see below and ahead, if there were no clouds. And that"—the cursor brightened, began flashing—"that is the sky canoe, with us in it."
Mazeppa stared, comprehension dawning. Saw lakes, streams, hills and draws in three dimensions, the program providing nearly natural color. He was seeing through the clouds! During the next few minutes he saw what he realized were bands of buffalo, seeming no larger than ants. And a train of ants moving eastward in single file. Jorval slowed, then stopped the scout, and gradually zoomed in on the marching ants. Which became a file of horsemen, growing till several of them took up the entire view—men painted and equipped for war. In the lead was a medicine chief, tall and lean, holding a staff with the gray-skinned head of a wolf on its upper end.
"Is that what you were looking for?" Jorval asked.
Mazeppa answered with a question of his own. "How far is this from my village?"
"A hundred and fifteen miles."
"How far is that?"
"A rider in a hurry could travel that far in two days." Sky chief had no experience of horses, but his guess was good.
Mazeppa nodded thoughtfully. "Let us go on," he said. "I want to see if there are more."
So they went on, finding numerous similar parties, turning back only when it seemed they'd find no more. By then Mazeppa recognized Thunder Butte in the distance, and had counted some eight hundred horsemen. About a third had already crossed the Great Muddy River, the Mizzoo.
What he'd just experienced had both sobered and excited him. Lemmi's evening absences were forgotten.
That evening, soon after dark, Lemmi went again to the straddle trench, relieved himself, and climbed the knoll. To sit on its brow and report. Having been closeted all day with Pastor Morosov, he hadn't heard about Sky Chief's visit, nor had Mazeppa mentioned it; he'd hardly said anything at all. So Lemmi's exchange with the others was brief and insubstantial.
The spy reported to Mazeppa after they'd greeted the sunrise. "Last night I lay less than a dozen feet from him," the man said. "There was no woman."
"And he prayed?"
The spy hesitated. "I'm not sure. He seemed to speak to an amulet he held in his hand, as if to a person he called 'Luis.' I could hear it answer in a voice too small for me to know the words. One of the invisibles; perhaps an evil spirit."
A wave of chills passed over Mazeppa. His son-of-choice wore a strange-looking object at his waist, and he recalled asking what it was. A religious amulet, Lemmi had said.
"Tell no one of this," Mazeppa commanded. He gripped the spy's shoulders with both hands. "You have done well."
When Mazeppa reentered his tipi, he said nothing about what he'd learned. Lemmi knew something was up, but let it be. The morning began much as usual. They ran, swam in Shell Lake, ate breakfast. Then Lemmi went to Pastor Morosov's tipi, where he heard of Sky Chief's visit, and Mazeppa's trip into the sky.
Lemmi's skin rucked with chills. It took a bit before he could get into his lessons. He wondered why Mazeppa had said nothing. Maybe it was time to leave Many Geese; too many things were going strange. But he couldn't just ride off. He was an excellent horseman, but no match for most Dkota, and their trackers were superb. Perhaps that night he'd call Tahmm for a pickup. He could slip off to Coot Lake and wait. It was close and easily recognized.
After his lessons, he returned to Mazeppa's tipi. As he approached, he felt a strong sense of danger, but knew no good alternative to entering. Mazeppa was sitting against his backrest, trimming his nails with his knife. He looked up as Lemmi entered, and got to his feet. "Hello, son-of-my-choice," he said.
They'd been waiting for him, Lemmi realized. Mazeppa held his knife, and Consuela her short, strong buffalo bow partly bent, an arrow nocked and ready. Trains Horses stood to one side, a length of rawhide in her strong hands.
"I have seen how well you fight," Mazeppa said. "Now you will kneel, and Trains Horses will tie your hands. Afterward we will talk, you and I."
Lemmi knelt, holding his hands in front of him. With his free hand, Mazeppa waved Trains Horses back. "Hands behind you, son-of-my-choice. I will take no chance with you. I prefer not to spill your blood." Hands behind him, Lemmi knelt, felt Trains Horses wrap the rawhide around his wrists and draw it snug.
"Now help him stand," Mazeppa told her.
When he was on his feet again, Mazeppa took the com from Lemmi's belt and examined it closely, turning it over. "A religious amulet," he said skeptically, and thumbed its knurled dial. Felt a perceptible click, and turned it till it would turn no more. A tiny red eye had opened; a tiny buzz sounded. After a moment a voice came from it, loud enough for Consuela to hear eight feet away. "This is Luis. What have you got for me, Lemmi? . . . Lemmi? Are you there?"
Mazeppa stared, then turned the sleeve in the opposite direction till the tiny red eye winked out. He looked at Lemmi. "I will keep this," he said quietly. "You and I will talk about it, but not here. Not now." He turned to his younger wife. "Trains Horses, bring a cane man."
A cane man; a policeman. "Mazeppa Tall Man," Lemmi said, "in this game there are players of whom you know nothing. It is Helverti Chief I've reported on, not you. Think before you throw away everything you have built."
Mazeppa's fist struck Lemmi hard between the eyes, driving him backward into darkness. Bitterly the chief rubbed his knuckles. This person had been sent by someone connected either with Helverti Chief or a rival. Someone who, despite his magicks, lacked the power to subjugate the Dkota. Otherwise why would they resort to such treacheries?
Perhaps the amulet would speak to him again, and he would learn more about it.
Meanwhile sleeping did not come easily that night.
(Luis)
I sat in my saddle at the fork of the Big Pines and Soggo Roads, the early sun behind my right shoulder, my com in my right hand. Its indicator light told me I'd made a connection. "Lemmi," I said, "this is Luis. Can you answer?"
A voice spoke. "I am not Lemmi. Lemmi is the snake at my bosom. I have not decided what to do with him yet. Perhaps I will tell you when I do, or perhaps I will tell you afterward. Or perhaps . . . perhaps I will ask a favor of you. We will see."
Then the connection was broken. My short hairs prickled. Tahmm needed to know about this. There might be something he could do. As for me—all I could do was continue on my mission.