IGMS - Issue 25 Page 9

  "He speaks our language like a child and he comes here and makes demands," said Jaegar. The spearmen laughed along with him, but kept their arms firm and their points aimed.

  "Will not a man warn a child before he punishes him?" said Otter.

  Jaegar threw back his head and roared with laughter then. "Go back home fo-lalane. Go back home and tell your people that I will take what I want. Tell your spirits too, for I am unafraid of them." Otter didn't know what fo-lalane meant, and he didn't ask. He moved on to the next clan over, and the next, and then two further north. The responses ranged from immediate agreement from chiefs with fear in their eyes, to complete outrage that Otter would ask such a thing, to quiet promises in the woods where nobody was listening.

  In this way, Otter spent an entire year going from clan to clan, and only when the summer rains started coming down in earnest did he finally decide to go back home.

  He went to his chikhee first. It was odd to come back to it and find little changes: a step at the front that sagged, a newly thatched roof that was still green in places. He didn't find Lake-bloom though.

  She would be angry, but Otter couldn't make himself care. On his journey, the part of him that cared had shriveled up and died. The task of going from clan to clan had been something to fill his time, not something he did out of any real love for his tribe, and when the chiefs gathered that day in the meeting house to hear what little he had accomplished, that too was simply a task, something to do. He didn't even pretend to care about it.

  Many of the other chiefs seemed alarmed though, fearing his work had riled the Sopatke and undermined their past victory over them. Otter left when he grew bored with their discussions. One of the chiefs, Blood-in-his-eyes, stopped him just outside the entrance of the meeting house. "What has happened to you, Otter-in-the-grass?" asked Blood-in-his-eyes.

  "I saw the ocean," Otter replied, and walked back home.

  His wife was waiting for him on the steps of their chikhee. She stood up when she saw him and for a moment they just looked at each other. Then she shouted "I divorce you." She looked around and shouted yet louder "I, Lake-blooming-flower, divorce you, Otter-in-the-grass."

  Otter just stood there. He could see the emotion in her eyes, but felt none in himself.

  "Say something," she said, and she was crying. He didn't, and she yelled out her divorce proclamation again. People started to gather around the scene.

  "You could have married somebody else by now," pointed out Otter.

  She stormed towards him and came right up to his face. "No. I couldn't. Because to divorce someone, you need them to be there. Some people care about the proper ways, Otter." She spat his name. "Like your son, remember him? Your son, whom you left in excruciating pain without his father. Well he cares about the proper ways and I do too. I divorce you."

  At the mention of his son, Otter looked around the crowd to see if Whiteface was there. Lake-bloom caught the gesture. "No, Otter, he's not here. And you know why? It's not because he didn't hear that you came back this morning, it's because he thinks you hate him. He thinks that if he shows his face, you'll run away again."

  Hate him? Otter had never hated him. The accusation ate at the corners of his calm. In the past, back before he had left, the words would have enraged him. Now they just tugged a little at the place in his throat where his emotions used to be, causing him to swallow.

  "How can you look at me with that dead face?" said Lake-bloom. She slapped Otter hard and it caught him by surprise, making him stumble. "Are you alive in there?" Lake-bloom screamed. "Are you taken over by a spirit?"

  Otter supposed that was possible. He had eaten those sea turtle eggs. Maybe the ocean had gotten into his veins that way, had made him uncaring and cold like the waves. "Maybe," he said.

  Lake-bloom hugged Otter fiercely then, but by the time Otter got his arms around her, she pushed him back and slapped him again. "Then what will bring you back, Otter? What will bring back my husband? Will this old body of mine?" She grasped her breasts through her thin moss shirt. "Then take it. We can make love like we did back when things looked good and bright and happy. Will that do it?"

  But Otter knew it wouldn't. He had no desires like that anymore. He told her. Better if she knew.

  "Then what do you want?" She slammed her fists into his chest.

  "Nothing," said Otter. He had wanted to die before, but even that desire had eventually dissolved. There was one thing though, one last thing he wanted: to see Whiteface. Maybe it was simply to look at him and pretend he was like he used to be, Otter didn't know, but he did want to see his son before he left. Just once.

  And he knew then that this would be his last night there, realized that had been his unconscious plan from the start. He would go back to the ocean and live there until he died, with the waves and the turtles and the trees with the long roots that stuck out of the ground.

  Lake-bloom shook her head, tears streaming down her face, and she stumbled back to the steps of their house and collapsed there. Six or seven women from the crowd came to huddle around her, giving Otter deep glares.

  Otter walked over to the houses of the unclean then. They were separate from the rest of the village, a circle of chikhees between the corn mounds and the tanning pits. The corn he passed through was lush and ready to be harvested, which made Otter think of his son working excrement into the ground the day of their great argument. The memory of that day felt like it was from another life.

  When he reached the ring of houses that belonged to the whites, Otter asked after his son and was directed to a particular chikhee. "He'll be busy though," said the woman. She had plaited hair woven around her head in a crown -- a Sopatke hairstyle. A war widow then.

  Otter approached the chikhee she indicated slowly, asking himself if he really wanted to do this. Then he saw his son.

  Whiteface's features had rounded and softened, and he had shaved off all his hair, but he was still recognizable. Otter saw him from a few houses over and stopped to watch. Whiteface was kneeling on the raised chikhee floor, trying to feed a very old man.

  Otter knew the man. Jay's-nest had been old even when Otter was a child. He was a forager, and Otter used to go to his chikhee to shell nuts for him.

  Now Jay's-nest was frail and dying. As Whiteface brought the spoon to his lips, Jay's-nest didn't even follow the motion with his eyes, just gazed blankly to the side. Except in the case of unclean infections, the Curers only sent somebody to the whites to care for if the person could no longer carry out the most basic functions of life.

  Otter stepped forward. He would go to his son, talk to him, maybe embrace him.

  "Scum," muttered Jay's-nest. Otter stopped in his place.

  "No, no. Just a bit of corn," said Whiteface. His voice was different, more rounded somehow, like his body. "Just a little spoon of corn."

  Jay's-nest knocked the spoon out of Whiteface's hand. The corn mush splattered all over Whiteface's bare, tattoo-less, chest.

  "You are scum," said Jay's-nest. "Rotten. Mold." Jay's-nest had always been such a kind man. No longer.

  Whiteface didn't even blink at the insult. "Just a spoon," he said. He offered some more corn mush to the man, and Jay's-nest took the bite and then spat it back into his face. Whiteface calmly wiped the mush away and continued. Otter couldn't stand it anymore though. He turned around and left.

  Otter had no place in a society that made his son into little more than a log by the chikhee steps that you used to scrape mud off your feet. The Sopatke might be cruel, but at least they didn't degrade their own children like this. So the Sopatke didn't have an enlightened idea of equality like the Ka-akin had? So they had a Chieftain who ruled god-like over all the clans? At least among them you could choose to be a warrior, or a sage, or a forager, or a crafter. You weren't imprisoned your whole life by a ring of different-colored dyes.

  Otter didn't bother saying goodbye. Who would he wish farewell to? His wife had divorced him. His son . . . well Otter ha
dn't even had the strength to speak to him.

  Otter walked east again, found his beach, ate his turtle eggs, and emptied his emotions into the endlessly rolling water.

  Otter-in-the-grass hadn't been on the beach for even two moons when a messenger came from the village.

  His son was dying.

  Otter-in-the-grass had been working on building a house for himself when the messenger arrived. "What is this?" Otter asked.

  The man, named simply Indigo, was bent over with his hands on his knees, sucking in air. Much of his hair had escaped its bun and hung around his face in sweaty tangles. "It's your son," said Indigo. "Whiteface. He's been . . . hurt."

  "How bad?" The words spilled out of Otter's mouth.

  Indigo straightened. "We must. Go now."

  Otter dropped the branch he had been trying to drive into the ground, and they ran. As they raced over the clumps of grass in the open spaces, they watched for snake and armadillo holes lest they catch their foot in one. Meanwhile, there was no time for talking. Indigo was struggling for breath as it was, and Otter was not a young man anymore, able to run and hold conversations at the same time. He couldn't stop the questions from entering his head though.

  How had Whiteface been hurt? In an attack? An accident? Whatever it was, it was bad, but how bad was it? Would they arrive back at the village to find Otter's son dead?

  They ran until they could run no longer. Indigo stopped first. The young man collapsed onto one knee and retched into the tall grass. "I think. We. Need to walk. For awhile," he said.

  Otter helped him up and they walked. It was torture waiting for Indigo to get his breath back before Otter could ask him questions. "What happened to my son?" Otter asked, when Indigo had recovered enough to drink water from a bladder strapped to his chest.

  Indigo passed the water bladder to Otter, but didn't say anything for a time. Otter knew then that it was very dire.

  "We found him to the north of the village," said Indigo. "He had been hit in the head and lost much blood."

  "But he was awake?"

  "No," Indigo said. "But alive. Breathing."

  "Did he wake up?" asked Otter.

  Indigo shook his head, flinging his wet hair about. "I left as soon as he was found. But it was clearly the Sopatke. Who else would do such a thing?"

  "Have any others been attacked by the Sopatke in this way?" asked Otter.

  "If there have been," said Indigo, "it was since I left. Whiteface was the first."

  "And what did the Curers say of his wound?"

  Indigo hesitated again, wiped sweat off his forehead. "They said to find you as quickly as possible." Indigo looked away then. Like he was hiding something.

  "What else did they say?" asked Otter.

  Indigo didn't turn to him. "They . . ." he took a breath, let it out, ". . . they said they would probably have to give him over to the whites to care for."

  Otter remembered Jay's-nest, how Whiteface had to feed him every bite. "Was there an infection?" asked Otter, but Indigo didn't know.

  They ran some more then. For three days and two nights they ran, taking more and more breaks as their bodies wore out. The only food they had to eat was foraged from bushes as they passed, and there was precious little of it. Four times they actually stopped altogether, collapsing onto the ground and sleeping for a time. Always, when they got up, Otter felt ashamed that he had fallen asleep.

  They arrived at the village during the night. People looked up from fires and then stood and followed them to the Curer's huts. Some wailed, some touched him on the back or shoulders, some put it upon themselves to inform him of what had happened. Otter heard none of it over the pounding in his ears. When they arrived at the Curer's huts though, several of the people with them pointed west, towards the houses of the unclean.

  Otter wanted to sprint then, but his legs burned and had no strength left in them. He stumbled as he tried to run faster. The crowd pressed him on. When they got to the edge of the corn mounds, Indigo patted Otter's back and then sat down heavily beside a corn stalk. Otter kept going.

  When he got to the ring of houses that belonged to the whites, the people following him halted. Some were saying things to him, but he was not listening. Inside the ring, an old woman was throwing wood into a heaping fire. She saw Otter and held a hand out to him. "Come," she said. The fire was huge, like one used in the winter. Or in mourning. Had Otter come too late? He wished he'd been paying attention to what the crowd had said outside.

  Otter allowed himself to be pulled along. The chikhee she led him to had its braided mats hanging down as walls. Otter could not see inside. "In there," the old woman said. In a daze, he mounted the two steps to the house and paused.

  Inside, there were three men. One was holding a small torch for light, and another was wiping feces from the bottom of a third. That third man was turned on his side, facing away from the entrance, but Otter knew it was his son even so. His beloved son. His boy. Whiteface.

  The man cleaning him looked up. His hands were filthy, and he had a stinking basket of leaves that he was using in his work.

  Otter stood there, not knowing what to do or say.

  "I'm almost finished," said the man caring for his son, not meeting his eyes. He took some more leaves and wiped again. Baskets of fresh leaves lined the walls of the hut, and the man took from them over and over again until Whiteface was clean. Then the man tied Whiteface's breechcloth around him and rolled him onto his back. It was then that Otter saw his boy's face, and all the detachment left him in a rush. The frantic running had been dreamlike, but this, this was real. Despair sucked him down like quicksand.

  When Indigo had described Whiteface's injury, Otter had imagined a bloody gash, a scalp wound. That was not it all. Half of Whiteface's forehead had been caved in. A fist-sized dent pressed his right brow down into his eye so that it only opened a sliver. Whiteface looked at Otter though, with his good eye at least. He tried to say something, but only a drooled "aaaaaaaf" came out.

  Otter went to him, went to him like he should have two moons ago. He knelt beside his son, and he took his ruined head into his lap and wept. His grief was hot like the fire outside, scorching everything. He remembered Whiteface as a baby in his arms, precious, unblemished. He remembered teaching him languages and training him in the use of the bow. He had been such a clever boy, and beautiful. And now this.

  Seeing the wound, Otter knew why Whiteface had been sent to the whites. Half of his head was gone, just gone. He would not recover. For the rest of his life, other people would have to clean him, feed him, clothe him.

  After a while, Otter looked down to find Whiteface had fallen asleep and the other two men had left. Carefully, tenderly, he lowered his son's head to a ragged deerskin pillow and lay down beside him. Otter quickly succumbed to an exhausted sleep.

  When Otter awoke, things were fuzzy, indistinct. He didn't know where he was or why his muscles were so sore. When memory came, it crashed into him all at once: the message, the three-day's run, the dent in his son's head. He turned to the left and there was Whiteface, sleeping. From this angle, the dent didn't look as bad. He could almost imagine his son was whole and they were sleeping in the family chikhee as they always had.

  As Otter studied his son and felt the clenching pain all over again of knowing Whiteface was permanently damaged, he heard somebody stomping on the chikhee steps outside and realized that was what had woken him up. He turned to see a pair of whites at the entrance, an older man and a younger. Otter was too drowsy to drudge up their names.

  "We must tend to your son now," said the older of the two.

  Otter blinked. Why were they staying outside? "Come," said Otter.

  The older white cleared his throat. "The work we must do, it is unclean work." And then Otter understood. They were waiting for him to get out of the chikhee so he wouldn't be tainted when they came in and started working.

  Otter stood up. "Come," he said again, and when they hesitated he added "
Am I not a chief? I tell you to come."

  They came up the steps then. The younger man carried a large bowl of water, and the older a clean breechcloth and a woven basket. Otter stood out of the way as they quietly woke Whiteface and turned him over. When they stripped off his breechcloth and Otter saw that he was smeared with excrement, his heart crumbled for his son's humiliation and he stepped forward. "Let me do this," said Otter.

  The two whites looked at him in complete shock. "It is unclean," said the younger man.

  "And it is our task to do," said the older, "not yours." The older man reached for one of the baskets of clean leaves around the room as if it were settled.

  Otter grabbed his wrist. "He is my son," said Otter. The older man's arm squirmed to get out of Otter's grip, but Otter held it tight.

  "Let go of my arm. You do not know how to care for him," said the older man.

  "Then show me," said Otter-in-the-grass.

  "And what?" said the older man, while the younger watched the exchange with wide eyes. "Will you care for him for a few days until you are tired of having to purify yourself every time you go into the village?" The older man ripped his hand out of Otter's grasp. "We have enough of that kind of help. Families say they'll care for a person and then we find that they haven't been out in a week and that person is dead. So, if you please, let me do the task that the ancestors have assigned me, and get out of my way."

  Otter pulled the basket of clean leaves over to him, pulled out a few, wiped his son. "I am his father, his ancestor. So, if you please, I will care for him and watch over him as ancestors are meant to." He held out his hand and dropped the dirty leaves into the basket the older man had brought. "See now? I am unclean like you."

  The older man rose to his feet. "This is not your place, Otter-in-the-grass," he said. "You are a chief."