I thought that the funerary rites would have taken place before our return, but, though the enemy had been buried by Naked Foreheads, in a disused clay-pit which would henceforward be taboo, the last of our dead had only just been brought back to the encampment, so his companions had waited for him until they could all go together to the land of the Great Hunters.
Seventy-three of our Braves had been killed; they lay in a semicircle between the Totem and the watch-fire, wrapped in their blankets as though resting before dawn. If the friend of a Brave killed in battle puts a hand on his cold forehead and speaks loudly, for it is difficult for the dead to hear, the words of the message will be carried by him beyond the sunset; and if a falling star is seen in the West it is known that the message has been faithfully delivered.
I wished I had thought to consult Raki as to whether we ought to ask one of them to tell Mother we had not forgotten the Before People. Was it easier for the dead to hear the dead than the living? Surely she could hear our voices when we spoke to her without the sound going through the ear of a corpse? But we could not be quite sure. She would be sorrowful if all the others who had gathered to welcome our Braves received news of the living, and she alone had no word from her daughter and her foster-son.
The encampment was hushed except for the sound of logs being split to make the funeral pyres down by the river. I went to lay my bow at the foot of the Totem, to thank him for sparing my life and to tell him that I had fulfilled the dedication of my arrows in the blood of an enemy. I decided to try to find a messenger before taking the scalp to the Tepee of the Elders: if the dead saw it knotted to my belt they would recognize that I was now a Young Brave and so had the right to claim the privileges of a younger brother.
Only five of the dead had been scalped: they must have followed the fleeing Black Feathers into the woods, for I knew that the enemy would not have had the chance to snatch a trophy in the turmoil of a losing battle. These five bodies now wore new scalps, of bear pelt, to show that they were mighty hunters and had died in victory. The fur had been stitched to the flesh of the forehead. Little fires of aromatic twigs had been lit on each side of the row of Braves, but the smoke did not keep away all the flies: sometimes I had to brush them off before I could recognize the face they covered.
The Scarlet Feather whom I had watched smoking by the fire while we waited for him to give the signal for battle had taken his calm with him into death: the eyes were closed, and his strong hands still held the bow and the tomahawk which he would carry on his long journey. I did not like to disturb him, so I went in search of another messenger.
I saw a boy who had often speared fish with Gorgi and me: he must have died by a single blow from a tomahawk. His neck had been severed and was now carefully stitched to the shoulders with narrow strips of raw-hide, so that he should not stand before the Great Hunters as a cripple. I was afraid to put my hand on his forehead in case the head lolled to the side: I was ashamed of this dread and hoped he could not hear my thoughts.
The arrow had been taken from the eye-socket of Dorrok’s friend whom I had seen die early in the battle, and a white stone, painted to look like an eye, put in its place. The lips were drawn back from the teeth and he looked as though he were snarling. I was sorry, for he had always been a kindly man, and his friends beyond the sunset might think he had grown ferocious, before he had time to make a spirit body to wear instead of this fading dream of flesh.
I did not realize that Barakeechi had been killed until I saw him lying between two Brown Feathers. His face was unmarked, but decay had made blue stains round his mouth, as though he had been eating elderberries. I drew back his blanket and saw an arrow wound above his left breast. I saw something move…there were maggots in the wound, maggots in Barakeechi who had always been more ready with laughter than any of us! He was kind and brave, and he had been going to join our tribe of the Feathers…his death was far more real to me than any of the others.
I put my hand on his forehead. “Barakeechi, I know you can hear me because you have always been a friend to Raki and Piyanah. You are the first of the Feathers to go beyond the sunset. Will you tell my mother about the tribe, Barakeechi? Tell her that Raki and I have always remembered the Before People, and that if they are lonely for Earth they can come back as the children of the Feathers, because our people are going to be happy together even as they used to be. Farewell, Barakeechi, until we laugh on the other side of the water, when Raki and I have joined you.
“There shall be two enemy scalps in the Tepee of the Elders in your name. They killed you, Barakeechi, so I am glad that I helped them to die. …You are smiling, because you have discovered that death is only the crossing of another mountain into a valley where there is no winter. I will remember your smile when I am afraid. …Tell my mother that we will remember.”
At noon the bodies were carried down to the funeral pyres, which had been lit since dawn so that when dry wood was heaped on the core of glowing logs it would flare up into a great intensity of heat. Each Brave was carried by two men, on a litter which had long poles so that the bearers could stand one on each side of the fire and lower it gently into the flames.
Na-ka-chek had given permission for Raki and me to perform this last service for Barakeechi. For the first time in five years we were dressed alike, in the doe-skin tunics of Young Braves, and at the back of our forehead thongs were knots of hair from an enemy scalp, a symbol of authority nearly as important as a Feather.
Narrok had been sounding the death rhythms since dawn. Squaws lined the path to watch the progress of the dead: some of them should have been in grief for a son or the father of their child; yet though the hair was covered with the white ashes of mourning there was curiosity instead of sorrow in their eyes. Even our women, who stood a little apart from the others, showed no sign of emotion…why should they, when Barakeechi was the only one of the dead to whom they had spoken, the only one with whom they might have shared their future? They had often seen hunters bring home a kill; and to most of them a man was a more unfamiliar animal than a deer…and strangers are neither loved nor pitied.
The heat of the fire was so strong that it was difficult to lower Barakeechi gently. The stench of burning flesh made me want to retch. I found myself wondering how long it would be before I could eat roast meat without the same smell creeping into my nostrils.
Barakeechi was only the shape of a man, black and red with fire. Soon he would fall into ash, and only a few charred bones would show that a man and a tree had joined to light this torch of stars. In silence we stood to watch while the embers cooled.
Then came the Chief, in company with the Elders, to take from the place where each body had been consumed a handful of ashes. These were to be placed in the Death Canoe, which was carried on the shoulders of eight Scarlet Feathers. Na-kachek held the ashes up to the sky, speaking aloud the name of the man who had died that the tribe might live: telling of his courage and his woodcraft; telling of rapids he had conquered in a time of river’s anger; telling of the animals he had killed and the bear’s claws on his neck-thong. Then did he call on the Great Hunters to accept this man, his emissary, the Brave of Na-ka-chek, Chief of the Tribe of the Two Trees.
As he let the ashes fall into the Death Canoe the name of the hero echoed and re-echoed, as we who had been his companions sent his herald to the hills.
At sunset the bearers waded into the river until the Death Canoe was borne from their shoulders by the current. Gently, and then faster it swept away towards the Great Rapid. In the West I saw a falling star; and knew that Barakeechi and my mother smiled together because we had remembered.