Lemmi set out with two mounts, and a single pack horse lightly burdened, neither pushing them hard nor loitering. Stopping at deep dusk, he stripped and cross-hobbled them to graze, and rolled out his bedroll to sleep beneath the sky, the shrill tiny hum of mosquitoes in his ears. Chilled and stiff, he awoke at dawn, caught and saddled the animals, removed their hobbles, and set off without striking a fire. Mostly he ate in the saddle—jerked beef, dense and tough, popular with herdsmen and hunters. Each day, as long as there were farms, he stopped at one to purchase a dark, pungent loaf of rye bread, and before he'd left the brother house, Milo Bambino had given him a cheese and a bag of dried and shriveled apples for variety.
Between the jerky and the hard bread, Lemmi's jaws ached from chewing.
Much of the time he trotted his horses, but at times eased them to a walk, to rest them and allow them snatches of grass as they went. Every hour or so he changed mounts. Occasionally he dismounted and led them, as much for himself as for the animals.
All in all, he made excellent time.
On the first day, the road had passed mainly through forest. By the fifth, the land was mostly prairie, with groves of bur oak and occasionally of aspen. Scattered bands of cattle or sheep grazed there, tended by horsemen and dogs. Late on the fifth day he passed a rock cairn, marking the agreed-upon border with the tribal lands of the Dkota. Beyond that were neither wheel ruts nor cattle; the road had become a trail. The bluestem and Indian grass that crowded it was sometimes shoulder deep to the horses.
Two days later he entered the loosely defined region known as Many Geese: prairie, with groves of scrubby aspen. And countless lakes, mostly small and often bordered by marsh. At one point the trail climbed a slope through aspen scrub. At the top, the aspen ended. Some eighty yards ahead, four young boys on ponies trotted unnoticing toward him, in lively conversation. Lemmi stopped, and raised a hand above his head.
"Hello!" he called. The boys too stopped; this was clearly a stranger. Three of them, heavily tanned, wore only moccasins and breech clouts. The fourth and largest wore doe-skin leggings, a light doe-skin shirt with sleeves, and a broad-brimmed hat of woven grass. His face was red and peeling. A mile beyond them lay a large encampment, many tipis in a hoop, and it seemed to Lemmi this was the place he'd come to find.
He walked his mount up to the boys, speaking as he rode, in Dakotan to see how they'd react. As he'd half expected, they were uncomprehending and confused. Presumably at least part of their confusion was because of his Ilanoyan broadcloth.
It was the larger boy who answered. Respectfully. "None of us understands Dkota," the boy said in Merkan, carefully and rather loudly, as if unsure whether Lemmi understood.
"Ah, then I will speak Merkan. I have come seeking Mazeppa Tall Man." With his head, Lemmi gestured toward the encampment. "Will you take me to his tipi?"
They did, without hesitating, but no one was at home. Nearby some adolescents were wrestling, slick with sweat. Lemmi called to them, and reluctantly they paused. "I am looking for Mazeppa Tall Man," he said in Merkan. "I have come a long way to find him; all the way from Hasty."
The largest youth's eyes narrowed. "Hasty." He sneered the name. "That is in Sota, and you—are a dirt-eater." He paused, and Lemmi waited, giving him time. "You have an ugly saddle," the youth added. "Does no one like you well enough to make you a better one?"
Lemmi answered in Dakotan now, his voice mild. "I am a healer, who wanders from place to place. I do not stay anywhere long enough to have a sweetheart who will make a fine saddle for me."
The lad flushed, embarrassed. He recognized Dkotan, though he himself knew only a few words and idioms. He looked hopefully at one of his friends, who then translated Lemmi's words for the others. When he'd finished, the interpreter turned to Lemmi and spoke careful Dkotan. "I apologize if I understood that wrong. You speak the language differently than my family does."1 With his chin he gestured at his embarrassed friend. "Because you wear dirt-eater clothes, Big Peer did not realize you are Dkota. Let me take you to Pastor Morosov. He speaks better Dkotan than I do, and he may also know where Mazeppa Tall Man has gone."
The youth led Lemmi to the tipi of Pastor Morosov, then respectfully departed, leaving the two men alone except for the pastor's wife and infant daughter. Lemmi nodded to the pastor. He'd have to ad-lib Dkota ways; hopefully they weren't too different from those of his own people. "I am a healer," he said in Dakotan. "My people live in the Sancroy River country in northern Sota. We have been apart from all other Dakotah since the Shuffling."
They spoke at some length, Lemmi in Dakotan, Morosov in Dkotan, the exchange halting, lapsing into Merkan when necessary. Lemmi discerned a pattern of vowel changes, mainly in unstressed syllables, which accounted for some of their difficulties, and Morosov was a patient if quick-minded man.
The pastor didn't tell Lemmi much more than Lemmi told him, but he spoke more truthfully than Lemmi dared to.
"And you are a healer," Morosov said. "So am I, though I am not so good as some." He looked intently at his guest now, not avoiding eye contact. "How good are you?"
"Try me."
The pastor nodded. "Very well. There is a boy in our camp whom I have been unable to help. He sees a great yellow bear where there is no yellow bear, and is frozen by fear of it. He first saw it a year ago. Now he sees it more and more often, and believes it will soon kill him. Do you think you can heal someone like that?"
"Let me wear leg coverings of yours," Lemmi said, "so the boy will not be alarmed by my appearance. Then we will go to him."
The boy—his name was Alexei—was reluctant. Previously Morosov had tried two different approaches—the first a simple exorcism, the second a purging that included fasting, sweating, and a powerful purgative that had made the boy violently ill. Neither had helped, and Alexei had lost faith, wanted no more of it.
Lemmi's approach was entirely different. He asked Alexei questions, personal but easily answered, till the boy's aura was notably cleaner. This led to questions about yellow-bear stories he'd heard, and the earliest dream he could recall about yellow bears. Finally he hypnotized the boy, and kneeling beside him, laid a hand on his shoulder, saying nothing, simply intending that the boy revisit the earliest yellow-bear dream he could remember.
After a long minute, Alexei began to tremble. Soon he stilled, then after a minute began to shake again. That too quieted, and repeated. Now a tension built in the tipi, as if a great bear was about to charge inside. Alexei began to thrash around on his robes, arms striving, and he cried aloud in a language none of them had heard before. After a minute of that, he lay back limp and pale.
Lemmi's calm eyes took in the boy's aura, shrunken but clean. No one spoke, not even the mother. After another minute, Lemmi returned his hand to the boy's shoulder. "Alexei," he said, "what did you just learn?"
The boy spoke in what seemed to be the same language he'd cried out in, but now his voice was his own, calm and relaxed. Morosov opened his mouth as if to speak, perhaps ask a question, but he thought better of it.
"Very good, Alexei," Lemmi said. "Tonight you will dream about a bear one more time, a different kind of bear dream, and wake up laughing. And that will be the end of it. Now I will count backward from ten to zero. When we reach zero, you will wake up." He paused. "Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . ."
At zero, Alexei sat up. "Mama," he said, "I'm hungry."
Lemmi grinned at the woman. "Feed him," he told her. "Bear meat, if you have it and he wants some."
Alexei thought bear meat sounded good, but his mother didn't know of any in the camp. There was fresh antelope in the tipi though, and wild strawberries picked that morning for the baby, so he had some of those.
Before they left, Lemmi was gifted with a recently sewn wolf-skin parka.
Walking back to his tipi, Morosov looked thoughtful. Lemmi kept silent, waiting till the pastor spoke. "What did the boy tell you when you asked what he'd learned?" Morosov said at last.
"I don't know; I couldn't understand it. But it's not important that I know what he learned. What's important is that he knew. That he looked at it and realized what it was." He turned to the pastor. "Meanwhile the yellow-bear nightmares will not come back, and he will no longer imagine a bear waiting in ambush for him."
At Morosov's tipi, Lemmi changed back into his own clothes. Then they went together to the tipi of Mazeppa Tall Man. This time the chief was at home. The pastor introduced the stranger as a healer from Sota. "He seems to have healed the child Alexei Ivanov," he added. "Certainly he did more for him than I had. Much more, I believe."
Lemmi and Mazeppa were already examining each other, even while courteously avoiding eye contact. Through his Higuchian training, Lemmi had become comfortable with eye contact, though mostly avoiding it with anyone he felt it might offend. Mazeppa, an undiluted Dkota, tended to treat it as discourteous, though when it served his need to dominate, he used it without thinking.
Just now he felt a gut need to establish dominance over this stranger, but avoided eye contact anyway. He could not have said why. At six-foot-three, he was taller than Lemmi by three fingers. Lemmi was tall himself, by the standards of the time, slender and sinewy. Mazeppa was also lean, but larger framed and more muscular, outweighing his visitor by thirty pounds.
For all his alertness and athletic bearing, Mazeppa gave an impression of rigidity, of spirit, not of body. Lemmi was supple in all respects, and showed it now: he grinned. Nor did he stop with grinning. "I heard about you in Sota," he told Mazeppa, "from a man who feared and distrusted you. To him you are a dangerous giant."
The comment astonished Morosov; he'd had limited experience with men who were not Dkota or Ulster. Even after preliminary small talk, to say something like that on first acquaintance would have been presumptuous, and as the very first thing said, outrageous.
But Mazeppa didn't raise an eyebrow, for now, suddenly, he felt kinship with this foreigner. "He said that, did he?" And now he did make eye contact, not in challenge, but in curiosity. "Where are you from?"
"I grew up in the township of Big Pines, in the Duchy of Soggo. In the very northeastern part of Sota, the upper Sancroy country. But I left Big Pines to wander. Among my people, sons are raised as warriors, so I have served as an armsman, as well as a healer."
"You speak of your people. What are they called?"
Lemmi answered creatively. "My father's clan is Dinneh, my mother's is Dakotah." Said it without thinking; his warrior muse was strong, and he was always open to it.
"Dkota?" Mazeppa said. "We are Dkota. And far west of here are a people calling themselves Dinneh. The Swift Current people of the Ulster, dark like yourself. They are not friends to the Dkota."
Morosov spoke again. "Lemmi speaks Dkotan," he said. "We have spoken it together."
Now the chief's reddish eyebrows did raise slightly. "Our beautiful ancient tongue," he said. "I wish I'd learned it. Do you then think of yourself more as Dkota than as Dinneh?"
"I speak Dakotan, but I also speak Dinneh. In the Great Shuffling, God put the two peoples next to each other in Big Pines." Lemmi chuckled. "On the Sancroy, we have often intermarried. With our mother's family, we speak their tongue. With our father's we speak theirs."
He changed the subject then, with a smoothness that did not escape Mazeppa. "So I grew up as both, but some of us like to wander, see new places, so I left Big Pines. I have been told the Dkota also wander; that in the great grassland, the buffalo wander and the Dkota hunt them."
"Both are true," Mazeppa said, then returned to the subject. "You are young for a healer."
"That is so."
"Who taught you?"
"My first teacher is named Dorje, in the Kingdom of Ilanoy. The second is called Kellam, and claims to be from a very distant place."
Taking in the rangy, sinewy body, Mazeppa turned the subject again. "Are you a good wrestler?"
"For sport I wrestle. For more serious fighting, I strike with hands and feet."
"No knife? No spear?"
"Only for killing, which is not good in the eyes of God. But if necessary, I can also kill with hands and feet." He paused. "If you have in camp a man who is a bully, I am willing to show how such fighting is done."
Mazeppa turned to Pastor Morosov. "Do you know if 'Always Angry' is around?"
"He may be, but I haven't seen him lately."
"Let's go to his lodge." The chief turned to Lemmi. "Always Angry's wife put his moccasins out of her tipi, for striking her. Now he lives in a bachelor lodge."
The three men left the chief's tipi, walking. "Always Angry is not always angry," Mazeppa said, "but often. And when he is, he looks to attack someone. He is like you: he strikes with hands and feet. But he is larger than you. If you would rather not fight him, this is a good time to change your mind."
Lemmi grinned again, nonchalantly. "I will fight him. If he beats me, he beats me."
Recognizing a true warrior, Mazeppa nodded approval.
The bachelor tipi where Always Angry lived was two furlongs distant, and at the moment held four young men. Always Angry was the largest, not so tall as Mazeppa, but more thickly muscled. The young men got to their feet when Mazeppa arrived. "I have come to see Joshua," the chief said, courteously using Always Angry's baptismal name.
"I have just returned from hunting," the young warrior answered respectfully. "I brought four fat geese with me. I would like you to have two of them."
"Thank you," Mazeppa said. "That is good of you. I will give one of them to the widow, Martha Lost-Her-Knife."
Always Angry nodded. To share such a gift was according to custom, and part of the tribal fabric. Just now, though, he felt distracted by the stranger.
"I have brought a visitor with me," Mazeppa said. "He is Lemmi the Healer, a Dkota of the Sancroy band. They dwell in the forests north of Sota."
Always Angry looked Lemmi up and down, disapproving the strange clothing but saying nothing. Mazeppa continued. "He says he is more than a healer; that he is also a fighting man. One who has learned to fight without weapons, using hands and feet. I asked him what that was like. He said if there was a man in camp who also fought with hands and feet, he would be willing to show me how he does it. I thought at once of you."
Always Angry nodded, scowling. "I will fight this man," he said. "We will see if he is any good."
The lodge quickly emptied. The pastor and bachelors formed a loose line to one side. The bachelors might have made bets, but they weren't eager to antagonize Mazeppa Tall Man, of whose preference they weren't yet sure.
Lemmi was already pulling off his boots, which he put beside Pastor Morosov. Then he stripped off his shirt and folded it over his boots. His breeches he left on. Always Angry simply watched, waiting. When Lemmi was ready, Mazeppa stepped between the two.
"I do not know the ritual or rules for such a contest," the chief told them, "but I will tell you some things you must not do." Then he looked at the bystanders. "Those who are watching must stay out of the way and not interfere." Now he gave his full attention to Lemmi and Always Angry. "There must be no taunting, and I want neither of you to die in this fight. When I have seen enough, I will tell you to stop. You must then stop at once." He backed out of the way. "Now—begin!"
For a moment, neither contestant moved. Then Always Angry rushed Lemmi, who at the last instant stepped aside, leaning away from a roundhouse right and executing a spin kick that sent Always Angry stumbling forward without quite falling. The Dinneh did not take advantage. The Dkota regained his balance and turned, aware now that he was in trouble. He shuffled forward warily, cocked fists moving up and down, his left shoulder and left fist intuitively forward, his right prepared to follow with power. Lemmi stood almost casually, right foot forward, hands open and about waist high, knees flexed. Unsure what to do next, Always Angry threw a lunging left, prepared to follow with a right hook, but somehow the left was slipped aside, and a rock-like hand struck him in the sternum hard enough to shock him. He dropped to hands and knees, then rolled onto his back. Though the fight was only seconds old, Mazeppa had seen enough.
"Stop!" he ordered.
The bystanders—bachelors and pastor—stared without a sure sense of what had happened. It hadn't seemed like much, but there was Always Angry on his back, ashy pale, struggling to draw breath. For a long moment it seemed to him his heart had stopped; now it hammered rapidly. He didn't know what had happened either.
Lemmi knew: his warrior muse had taken over with precision. He might now have helped Always Angry to his feet, but that could be taken as an insult, so instead he turned to Mazeppa.
"Let no one speak ill of Joshua," Lemmi said. "He was never taught, nor does he need to be. He is strong and quick and brave, and if we had wrestled instead, things might have gone differently. I was taught because I would travel alone, sometimes among those who prey upon strangers, and I might not always have weapons at hand."
He went to his clothes then and put on his shirt, while Always Angry got unsteadily to his feet. Next Lemmi pulled on his boots, left foot, then right, seeming not to fear a surprise attack. The other bachelors went into their tipi. Always Angry didn't follow them. He simply walked off in the direction of the horse herd.
As they neared Morosov's tipi, Mazeppa said he wished to speak privately with their visitor, so the pastor left them. Mazeppa and Lemmi continued to the chief's tipi and went inside. It was beginning to rain, large uncertain drops. The two sat against backrests on the men's side. The chief's two wives had begun to prepare the evening meal. The senior wife, Consuela, was still young and quite beautiful. The younger wife, Trains Horses, was perhaps eighteen or nineteen, and not so lovely, but tall and athletic. Mazeppa hoped to have strong sons by Trains Horses, but so far she, like Consuela, had not conceived. Still, he was fond of her. Also, and this was especially important, she was a bond between the Dkota and the Ulster, for she was Chief Gallagher's eldest daughter.
For a few minutes the two men sat without speaking. The sky had a ceiling of dark clouds now, and the light was poor. Rain pattered dully on the tipi's buffalo skin shell. Mazeppa gazed thoughtfully toward the fire, then spoke to his guest.
"After you defeated Always Angry, you spoke well of him. Why?"
"I owed it to him. He is a person, a proud man who has demons to fight. Yet I used him, demonstrating my skills at his expense. It was not something to boast of. Perhaps one day I can heal his spirit as I healed the spirit of Alexei Ivanov."
The chief turned his eyes to Lemmi, who could see the firelight reflected in them. "I did much the same thing to the Ulster chiefs after we defeated them in battle. I praised honestly their bravery and their fighting qualities, and they became our friends. I do not think Always Angry will become your friend, but I do not think he will be your enemy, either."
Again they sat briefly silent, and again it was Mazeppa who broke the silence. "You said you speak Dinneh. You also said you like to wander, see new places. I would like you to go somewhere you have not been before—to the Black Mountains, six or eight days' ride to the west. Go and speak with the Swift Current Dinneh. Few of them know much Merkan. Do you think you can understand them?"
"It seems probable. I am willing to try."
"Good. They are a difficult people. Let me tell you what my problem is with them . . ."