Through the mellow autumn days we made ready for the winter. Enough firewood to last until spring thaw was stacked beside the shelter, and beyond it we had dug a pit, in which our hoard of nuts, and pine-kernels, and roots, were stored in dry sand protected from the weather by branches.
As the corn ripened I hung the cobs from the roof, and though the pemmican we had made was rather harder than usual, it was quite good to eat if soaked for two days and cooked very slowly.
Already there was a chill in the air before dusk, so I pulled on a tunic when we went up to the top of the ridge to watch the sunset. Suddenly Raki stopped, tense as an animal scenting the wind. To the east, in the Uninhabited Country, a column of dark smoke was thrusting up towards the evening sky.
I thought it was a prairie fire, and said unconcernedly, “It’s a long way off. Even if it spreads, we shall be safe, for it’s beyond the river.”
“It will not spread…unless the man who tends it is careless.”
Even then I saw no menace in the smoke. “I expect it’s only a hunter…and there’s nothing to bring him here.”
“Does a hunter need to cook for three hundred?” While he was speaking I saw new threads of smoke rising up near the first fire. “They must be a strong tribe, Piyanah…and they have come out of the East!”
I tried to reassure him. “Perhaps it’s only one of the tribes who used to trade with our people in the summer. They must have crossed the plain from the West without our seeing them.”
“We have watched from here every dawn and sunset since we made this our place of the corn-growing, and we have never seen smoke. You know that a tribe does not travel without lighting a fire every night, and the swiftest runner could not reach there from the western horizon in less than two days. That fire has been lit by people who are so strong that they need not conceal their numbers—and they have come out of the East.”
“But no one lives in the East.”
“The Chief told us that the Carrion Crow also had children.”
“The Black Feathers! Raki, they are only a legend made to frighten children.”
“Would the Braves be honoured by the tribe if there were no enemies?”
“You think the Black Feathers are real?”
“Do spirits need to build cooking-fires?”
“They’ll never find us here, Raki. Even if they go to the Lake of the Wildfowl and see our snares they will only think a hunter had been there and forgotten to take them up.”
“They may not find us, but if they travel southwards they must mean to cross the pass. By tomorrow night we shall know if we have to go back to warn Na-ka-chek.”
“We can’t go back! Not now, Raki, not when we’re so happy. We must hide from them. We can’t seek Father’s protection after we ran away from him.”
Suddenly I realized that Raki was angry. “We could leave the tribe when it was secure; but would you let our people be massacred because you were too proud to return?”
“But, Raki, even if we have to tell them that the Black Feathers are coming, they can’t keep us there. It would be against the laws of the tribe…we could be driven out, but not kept there against our will.”
“The Chief, your father, will not run away from his enemies. Our Braves protect what is rightfully their own, and I shall fight with them.”
“Then you must promise to let me fight beside you. You won’t tell me to hide with the squaws…promise me that, Raki, and I’ll do anything else you want.”
For the first time since we had seen the smoke, he smiled. “Of course we shall fight together. We do everything together, and your bowstring could sound no war song in a squaw’s tepee.”
“Will the Black Feathers be very terrible? The story-teller said they are twice the height of ordinary men; their teeth are filed into points because they eat flesh warm from the kill, and the fingers of their women are taloned and can rip open a man’s belly like a eagle feeding on a gopher.”
“I expect they have grown in the telling. We needn’t be frightened, at least not very frightened, for I expect we shall both be killed. Does it matter very much if we live here or in the Land of the Great Hunters, so long as we are together?”
“They might kill you, Raki, and forget to kill me. The story-teller said they killed all the men and children and carried off the women who were not too old.”
“You shall wear a breech-clout and I’ll paint your face with the tribal marks before battle. You are nearly as tall as I am, and we wear our hair the same way, and your breasts are too small to betray you. If I am killed first, you will just have to go on fighting until you join me.”
I felt comforted. Now that I accepted the fact that Raki and I were both going to be killed, I found that death wasn’t frightening, if we both met it together. It was too dark to watch the smoke any longer, so hand in hand we went down to our little valley.
Before going to sleep we had decided that as we could do nothing until the direction of the fires next evening told us whether the Black Feathers intended to cross the pass, we should try to keep what might be our last day in the valley un-shadowed by fear of the future.
“We must be careful not to think that this might be our last day,” said Raki when he woke. “We must keep it as a memory to feed on if we are ever joy-hungry…as though it were bread to take on a journey.”
“If we do have to go, Raki, we had better take bread with us; it’s easier than anything else. We can pretend we’re only baking it because we want to take it on an adventure which will be too exciting to bother with looking for food.”
“Yes, we had better make bread…it will be the first we have eaten here.”
Together we stripped the cobs into the round hollow of a rock which served as a grinding-bowl. Then, while I kneaded water into the meal, Raki scraped an opossum pelt with a sharp flint to remove the fat, and began to scour it with gravel before pegging it out to dry. I wondered why he bothered to do this, until I realized that it was part of his plan for keeping today away from tomorrow.
Everything must go on as though nothing unusual had happened. I must make myself believe that day by day we should see the stack of firewood getting lower, and count the corn-cobs to judge how many must be saved for the spring sowing. I wondered if he would remember to cut withies for snow-shoes; yesterday he had said that it was time we made them.
I tried very hard to copy Raki, but I kept on finding myself thinking, “This is the last time we shall be able to watch the shadow of the twin pine cross the meadow. Perhaps a patch of wild corn will grow here, year after year, when a storm has blown down our shelter and scattered the grain over the blurred furrows. When the snows melt, the fish-traps will be washed away, and our fur robe that I made from so many little skins will rot, and every autumn be buried deeper under the dead leaves.”
“Are you burning the fish you will catch tomorrow on today’s fire?” said Raki.
“I am sorry. I started thinking about the rest of the corn, wondering what was going to happen to it. We were so sure that we should winter on bread of our own planting.”
“I think we always eat of our own planting, Piyanah: though the food may be life, or death, or victory, according to our seed.”
“Will it be cold on the other side of the water?”
“I think it will be like Earth, only more beautiful. You have only to look at the reflection in still water to see the spirit of a bird, or a rock, or a tree. We shall be able to fly like birds and swim like fishes. Do you remember how you always wanted to see into the cave at the bottom of the pool where Mother would never let us swim? We can go to that cave now…when ‘now’ is after we have been killed. Do you remember what it felt like before we ran away? There were so many things which might happen that it was like trying to steer a canoe down a rapid when the river is so high that the rocks are hidden; yet we came into calm water. Try to go back to that moment when we stood looking down the cliff and heard the ice-packs growling below us. Do you remember how the climb was much easier than we thought it was going to be? We laughed while we were crossing the river…do you remember how we could see each other laughing, though we could not hear our voices? As soon as we crossed the river we heard spring coming back…everywhere the sound of the earth being born again. Then we found this valley. Don’t you realize, Piyanah, that what is going to happen to us is only the journey here over again? You are frightened now, just as we were frightened when we crept out of the tepee and started off alone through the forest. And when we see the Black Feathers coming towards us we shall only be standing looking down the cliff, and the battle will be the climb. I think we shall be afraid of seeing men die while it’s actually happening, but our own death will be crossing the river…and we laughed when we crossed the river, Piyanah.
“Whoever stands first on the far bank will wait there for the other. Even if the country on the other side of the water is strange at first, we shall feel our spirits getting used to their new freedom, like streams when the ice melts. Then we shall find ourselves in another meadow, the Place of the Garnering of the Corn; and we shall see each other in the light of our single star. We shall be so close that it will be like being one person, and we shall never have to grow old, or be afraid any more.”
“Can the place we go to after we are dead be just like this, Raki? I don’t want it any better, I want it exactly the same.”
He smiled. “Wouldn’t you prefer the pool a little deeper so that we could dive into it, or the shelter set so that it faces the morning sun?”
“No, Raki, not at first. I want everything to be just as it is now. You can change it afterwards if you like, when I’m used to being dead.”
I threw down two corn-cobs. “I even want those to be there, just as we left them. I’ll pick them up after I am dead. You won’t forget about the cobs, will you, Raki?”
“We will ask the Totem to arrange it for us.”
Hand in hand we stood before the twin tree. “O great spirit who knows us on both sides of the water! If we meet death without shutting our eyes against him, and cross the water without fear, may the Great Hunters let us return to this place, and may we find it exactly as we see it now. May we stand here together and say, ‘Tomorrow and yesterday are one day: Raki and Piyanah are one star’.”
It was sunset when we reached the head of the pass. We stood in a pool of warm light, looking back at the plain which was already nearly engulfed by shadows flowing down from the mountains. A day’s journey behind us we saw the smoke that to us was more terrible than the cloud which is the forerunner of a tornado.
“There is no chance of their turning back now, is there, Raki?”
“None. The river crossing will delay them, for they must go half a day up-stream before they find a place to ford. They are travelling faster than I expected, so we must make full use of the moon, resting only between sunset and moonrise, and in the darkness before dawn.”
When running had become a weariness which grew into pain, the journey took on the unreality of a grey dream, in which the only sound was the soft padding of our feet as I followed Raki, further and further away from happiness.
On the third day we hoped to see one of our own people who could take on the warning more swiftly, but there was no sign of man in the blazing autumn of the woods. Last night we had seen smoke between us and the foothills below the pass, and knew the Black Feathers would give no further sign of their swift approach.
The river was low and water curled lazily between the rocks, but we were both so tired that it was difficult to swim across. I hoped that the enemy would arrive before I stopped being tired, for then it would be easy to die unafraid. Already I felt separate from the girl who still ran on and on although her moccasins seemed to be made of stone: my spirit would be free with Raki, and her body would be glad to lie in the quiet earth, knowing that it would not have to carry me any further.
At sunset we dared not rest, for we knew that if we fell asleep we should never wake at moonrise. It was too dark to find the track through the forest, so we had to take the longer way beside the river. The water held an echo of daylight, shining through the dusk like the track of a snail.
We saw the watch-fire through a cleft in the rocks which guarded the east side of the encampment. The flaps of the Squaws’ Tepees were closed, but two of the Elders were still sitting by the fire. They looked up as we passed, but made no sign of recognition.
My father was standing beside the Totem; he remained impassive as the carved wood while he watched us running towards him. I was panting so hard that I couldn’t speak. “Are you tired of each other’s company that you have returned to me?” he said.
I heard Raki say, “The Black Feathers! The Black Feathers are coming out of the East…they will be here before noon tomorrow!”
“Do you hope to win the office of tribal story-teller?”
“Father, you must believe him! We have seen them. We must all fight. …Raki and I are both going to fight with you and it doesn’t matter if we are killed.”
“You both look as though you had run a long way. Did you meet a grizzly, or frighten yourselves with your own imagination?”
I felt as though I were trying to wake from a nightmare in which I was screaming a warning into a silence too heavy to break. I had been ready for the turmoil of preparation, had seen it while we ran on and on to bring our warning: the Chief giving orders to the Braves, telling them where to hold their ground, where to fall back so as to lure the enemy into ambush. The young squaws taking the children to hide with them in the woods, while the Old Women heated cauldrons of water and pitch for the staunching of wounds. I had seen men trying to pluck arrows from their throats, or staggering forward with eyes that had begun to glaze like a dying deer’s. …I had heard the bowstrings sounding the song of death. But because I could not make my father share my vision, our people were going to be massacred.
I saw Raki run towards the Great Tepee, and realized that he was going to blow the horn used only by a Chief to summon the tribe in time of danger. For any but a Wearer of Feathers to touch the horn meant death, in expiation of sacrilege. But the tribe would have been warned, even though the deep note rolling across the valley would tell the Black Feathers that we were prepared.
I saw my father follow him, silent as a shadow. His hands were on Raki’s shoulders, holding him back, and I heard him say, “Had you forgotten that it is death to touch the Horn of the Gathering Together?”
“No, I had not forgotten.”
“You are not afraid to die?”
“How could I be…when there is no other way to warn the tribe?”
My father called me, and I went and stood close to Raki so that I could feel his shoulder against mine. Almost it seemed as though my father was smiling.
“You are both ready to die for your people now that you think a black cloud has come out of the East to shut away our sun. Why did you not stay in your little valley where the danger would have passed you by? You need not answer: your presence here has done that for you. You thought you owed no allegiance to your tribe and were free to live your own lives without accepting responsibility. It seems that the ties of the Totem are stronger than you knew.”
“We should never have come back except to warn you,” I said.
“But you came back. I did not expect you until tomorrow. To travel so swiftly from the high pass shows that already you have learned something of the endurance of Braves.”
“How did you know we were coming?” I said, bewildered.
“How did you know how long it took us to get here?” said Raki.
“How do I know that it was at sunset five days ago that you first saw the smoke in the East? You took it for a great tribe because there were many cooking-fires springing up near the first and largest of them. How do I know that the next night the fires were nearer to us, and that when you crossed the pass they were only a day’s journey behind you?”
I said, “You saw it in the pool, just as I saw the woman you want me to become, the Wearer of Feathers. You made me see that vision, you thought it would make me come back, but I wouldn’t look into still water again. You can’t take me away from Raki!”
Raki was saying slowly, “Who lit those fires? You had them lit, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said my father. “It was my smoke which called you home.”
“You knew that we should remember the legend of the Black Feathers. You snared us by lies…another Nona who frightens children into obedience! Piyanah and I won’t stay with you. You can’t keep us prisoners. There is no law which can keep anyone in the tribe who prefers the freedom of exile!”
“Have I kept you prisoners? Have I imposed my wishes on you? You thought you had escaped me, and that we searched for your bodies below the rapids. But you were wrong, my children. Senchek, the finest of my trackers, followed you. He told me of your climb down the cliff, and how that night you slept in a hole by the stream. I knew when your corn ripened, and where you set your snares by the Lake of the Wildfowl. He has often brought me news of you; and there was pride in my heart at what he told me.”
“And yet you betrayed us!”
“I knew you would be too proud to return, for to you it would seem defeat instead of victory.”
There was despair deep as my own in Raki’s voice. “We have been defeated—by fear, that was born of black smoke and fathered by a legend.”
“The Black Feathers are not a legend. Three moons ago one of our hunters returned from the Unknown Country and brought this back with him.” He held out his hand, and across the long, narrow palm was a crow’s feather, knotted to a forehead-thong.
I looked at it with scorn. “Is that a brand from the fire whose smoke is lies?”
“No, my daughter. This is another sign that the days when men dared to forget the legends are passing. Now we must be strong in wisdom which is behind our symbols: the scarlet feather must be more than a symbol of physical strength, and the feathers of the headdress must be winged in truth. The Great Hunters have given you into my care: the voice of the past has spoken, saying, ‘The two who are one must of their own choice become two, then shall their united strength be mighty.’ Already the bond between you is wiser than the commands of your father, older than the laws of your Chief, stronger than the security of your tribe. Now must you gain the twofold wisdom; the right hand and the left hand; sunset and sunrise; man and woman. You were ready to die for your people: now you must live for them. No longer will it be remembered that Piyanah’s body tires more easily than a man’s, that for her the bow is heavier to bend. Her companions may not find their tolerance increased when they discover that she is only a woman by name, for it will make them less confident that man is superior to his squaw. They will find this thought disturbing, but through it they will learn that tradition must be weighed against the Feather of Wisdom before it can be accepted.
“Raki will live among the squaws, until he has learned to think as a woman, to feel as a woman. He must learn how to fringe a tunic, to make cooking-pots, to look after a sick child…all the humble things which fill their days. The girls who have not yet been Chosen will try to find ways of reminding him that he is a man, and at times he may find it difficult to forget that he is an arrow and not a quiver. He, too, will undergo the ordeals of a warrior, and the others may scorn him because he is dressed as a squaw.
“Neither of you may explain that you are learning to bring back the wisdom of the Before People: you may say only that you obey the commands of the Chief. It may be thought that I have done this to humble you for running away, but that will further strengthen you, for no one who is strong of heart need fear mockery. When the not-man and the not-woman have passed the ordeals, then shall they lead forth their own tribe under a totem of your own choosing, and the contentment of the unborn generations shall be your heritage.”
There were no words strong enough to fight against Na-ka-chek. He had said, “You were ready to die for your people, now you must live for them”; and Raki had heard him. Raki would never be happy if we went away: for even when we laughed together he would still hear an echo of the people we had betrayed to the Sorrow Bird.
I had thought that with Raki I was stronger than visions of the future, stronger than the call of the tribe. But we were children who had tried to escape into a world of our own, children watched by grown-ups, who could afford to be tolerant because time was their friend, not ours.
I was no longer the Piyanah who was brave and confident because she was secure with Raki in our little valley. I was a child who obediently drank the bowl of broth that Na-ka-chek put into my hands: a child who struggled against an aching weariness, until her father realized she was going to fall into tears and carried her back to the tepee that for this last night before the Separation she would share with Raki.
Someone must have come into our tepee without waking us, for new clothes were lying ready and our own had been taken away. For me there was a breech-clout and a strip of brown cloth, which I couldn’t think how to wear until I remembered that I was to bind my breasts.
My fingers were clumsy as I helped Raki to plait his hair smoothly under the forehead-band of white beads, to put on the tunic of a squaw and the two wide bracelets he must wear above the right elbow. There was a look in his eyes which reminded me of Braves making the yearly dedication of arrows before the Totem, and I whispered to the Great Hunters, “Please don’t let me cry. Raki is living in the far future where the present cannot hurt him…please don’t let me drag him back.”
I thought he was going out of the tepee without speaking to me, but he paused before he unlaced the flap. “We must always remember that the not-man and the not-woman are still Raki and Piyanah. If one of us dies, he will wait for the other in our valley. Even the corn-cobs will be there, just as we left them. I daren’t say any more…they mustn’t know we are afraid. You aren’t crying, are you, Piyanah?”
“No, Raki, I’m not crying.”
Then I watched him go away, across the clearing, to join the squaws.
Everything looked just as usual: the box where we had kept our clothes, the beaver robe in which we slept, both wrapped in it together; even the little canoes that Raki had carved for me still followed each other round the circular shelf of the centre-post. Everything looked just the same, yet nothing would ever be the same any more. Raki would never come back to put on those moccasins. I should never see him smiling as he woke; smiling because we were together on a new day.
I put on Raki’s belt, the one he always wore because I had made it for him. I took his knife and filled his quiver with arrows. Then, carrying his bow, I took the path which led away from childhood.