Now that I could again tell Raki whenever I had even a twinge of fear, it was much easier to be sympathetic with the other women, for I recognized that the barrier had been reared by the resentment I felt when their fears increased my own. I was at last able to reassure them, and further increased their confidence by promising that if either my child or I died they should have some of the ritual bandages before their children were born. Gorgi and Tekeeni asked to be allowed to cross the Great Thirst to get these from the Blue Smokes. Knowing the quality of the Old Women we had seen there, I was sure they possessed all the trappings of superstition.
When this was known, even the most apprehensive women became confident; instead of regarding me as a tyrant they seemed to think I deserved another scarlet feather for risking my life in their defence. I laughed, and said it was Gorgi and Tekeeni who deserved the Scarlet, but they appeared to think that crossing the Thirst was nothing in comparison with having a baby.
I had expected them to protest when I told them that their babies were not to be wrapped like cocoons until the third moon, as had been the custom with the Two Trees. Instead they were eager that the new generation should have the same freedom as Mother had given to Raki and me. They made rush baskets lined with dry moss, wove blankets for coverings, and agreed that it would be much better for a baby to lie in such a cradle than to be carried everywhere on the mother’s back.
Although our tepee was apart from the main encampment, I thought that as soon as the birth began, the women, and probably the men too, would gather round to hear without delay the news for which they were all so anxiously waiting. I remembered the screams which had been heard from the Birth Tepee…Piyanah the Scarlet Feather would never scream, but would Piyanah the woman have the same endurance?
I longed to go into the forest with Raki to have the baby in privacy, but we reluctantly agreed that if we did so the others might think we went there to work some secret rite by which I alone could be protected. It would be easy for them to start being superstitious again, for when I saw how tightly the skin was stretched over my round belly it was sometimes difficult to be sure it was not going to split open like a seed-pod.
For two days the valley had been ominous with the threat of thunder: the sky was yellow with heat and the sound of water oppressive as the drone of insects. Even my baby was drowsy, for he had not stirred since early morning. If I had been alone I should have stayed in the tepee during the heat of the day, instead of going with Raki to see how the new fish-trap was progressing. While he talked to Kekki, who had been driving stakes in the bed of a stream where it entered the main river, I walked further along the bank to a shallow pool where I could lie full length in the sun-warmed water. It refreshed me, and on the way home I lost some of the heaviness brought by the brooding heat.
Even after sunset it was too hot to sleep, so I lay with my head on Raki’s shoulder. We talked of our little valley, and of how we had never really believed we should grow beyond the years of separation into this secure happiness.
“Sometimes,” he said, “when I undo the flap of our tepee I still wonder what I am going to see. Will it be your mother coming to take us down to the river; or our Twin Pine; or the Naked Foreheads scouring the cooking-pots in which Raki the Squaw must prepare food for the Two Trees?”
“Dear Raki, our today is made of so many yesterdays. …”
“And the Piyanah I love is made of so many people; the little girl, the Young Brave, the Chief.”
“But I’m not the little girl any more; she died when we had to grow up.”
“Yes, you are; and you are also the mother of my children. When you speak, or think, or act, you are all of you, for the child and the long-in-years are both part of the total you, like the thousands of strands which together make the pattern of a blanket. Our child is not yet born, but the arrows he will flight are already singing, and the colours of the feathers he will wear are instinct in his sunrise.”
“Our son must often smile at the foolishness of his parents, for from his star he can command a much wider horizon than either of us. He can say, ‘I am Miyak, the mighty hunter, the proud with feathers,’ or, ‘I am Miyak, who died when he was born.’ He knows which it will be, but from us it is still hidden by the river-mist of time.”
“Why do you always talk of our child as a son? It is our first law that men and women are equals; why should we value a son more than a daughter?”
“I am not yet ready for a daughter. A son will see with your eyes and a daughter with mine, and you have always learned to see things clearly before I did. If I had a daughter the others would still be afraid to bear sons…you are still afraid for me, aren’t you Raki? Why should you be afraid? Why should either of us spoil the rejoicing by this prelude of fear?”
“Aren’t you even a little afraid?”
“No, my Raki, I am strong and confident and happy! And you can’t be happy and afraid at the same moment.” As I said this I knew it was true, and splendid. “I am so very happy, Raki, and it’s not just because I am hiding from fear. I have had several curious pains, they have a rhythm like a very slow drumming. I am sure that Miyak has decided to be born, yet the pains are beautiful and exciting, and proud.”
There was a sound of distant thunder. Raki went to look out across the valley, where fire was flickering in the sky above the hills. “The moon is rising,” he said. “When the storm breaks, the air will be much cooler.”
I knew he was only pretending he wasn’t worried about my pains, so I lay still and waited for him to come back to me. Pain touched me again and then receded with the sound of thunder. I was restless, and longed for the clouds to let down their rain so that I could walk naked in the rush of clean water.
Without looking at me, Raki said, “Tell me when you have another pain…and you must tell me exactly how much it hurts, please don’t hide it from me, Piyanah.”
“It is much easier to have a pain in the belly than a pain in the heart…this is much easier than being parted from you even for a day. Come and lie down beside me so that we are very close and then the pain won’t matter at all.”
Later I found it so difficult to lie still that we went out into the friendly woods.
Thunder was still sounding but the rain clung to the sky. My body was sticky with sweat and I thought of going down to the river to try to get cool. Then I had a pain so strong and sudden that I had to hold on to a tree to stop myself crying out.
Raki led me back to the tepee. He wanted to fetch Rokeena, but I would not let him, and made him promise not to tell any of the others what was happening. He piled wood on the fire until light shone through the open flap. Usually in the hot weather there was only a thread of smoke rising from the watch-fire, but tonight, in spite of the intense heat, we both needed the security of flames against the darkness.
The thunder was louder than an avalanche, but I was grateful to the storm spirit because it drowned the whimper I could not hold back when the pain made me understand how it would feel to be crushed by a grizzly.
Raki crouched beside me, trying to shield me from the pain. I gasped and doubled up…it made me think of the women we had left in the Great Thirst, curled in their narrow graves. Thunder and Pain wore the same dark feathers and bore down on me with awful majesty.
I felt as though my body was being torn apart. “Raki, my belly must be splitting. I don’t want to leave you, Raki. I’m not really frightened…but I don’t want to leave you.”
A last great crash of thunder; then a silence more profound than deep water.
The side of the tepee grew thin, like mist under the morning sun; I saw a man wearing the feathers of a Chief, and behind him a splendid company who shone with light, pale and clear as the moon. I ran towards them. …
Then I heard Raki’s voice above the rain that seemed to drum with a message from the Great Hunters.
“We were right, Piyanah! It was like the kid…”
His voice was more beloved even than the splendour of my vision… “Oh, Raki, I am so happy!”
I realized that I was back in my body, and it had again become important. “Raki, are you quite sure my belly didn’t split?”
He took my hand. “Quite sure…but feel it for yourself.”
“It feels very empty, and the skin is horribly loose. I told you Miyak was going to be a son. …”
“He may be a daughter; I haven’t had time to look yet. …Yes, he is a son! A very healthy, angry son by the sound of him!”
I felt too drowsy to look at him yet…I had seen Miyak of the feathers and he might be difficult to recognize in his little body. “Raki, you had better wrap him in something or he may feel cold.”
“It is very warm tonight.”
“Not as warm as it was inside me,” I said, and then added urgently, “Put him down, Raki! Something else is happening to me. …Have I had another baby? It didn’t hurt nearly as much as the first one. …”
“No,” he said reassuringly, “it was only what I told you would happen…just the same as the goat.”
I laughed and found it easy to laugh. “The next time I see a goat I’m going to apologize to it for not being properly sympathetic!”
Raki went out of the tepee and I heard the fire hiss as he threw something into it. Rain was falling steadily, but under the shelter of the overhanging rock the fire still burned. He came back, sluiced his hands in a bowl of water and then washed the blood off me. I was naked and comfortable; he put a breech-clout stuffed with moss between my legs, and covered me with a blanket for I had begun to shiver.
I suddenly wanted to see the baby: Raki put it in the crook of my arm and lay down beside me. The eyes of my son were dark as sloes with the blue bloom of the new born. I said to Raki, “Now I know why a bear with cubs is more dangerous than the most savage of grizzlies!”
He laughed, the soft warm laugh of deep contentment, “If the father bear felt as proud of his cub as I do no one would dare to come near his cave!”
Then, as we had promised, all the women came to see that the Chief’s son was without blemish, and Miyak watched them with a wise stare as he received his first homage from the tribe.