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a precise imitation.
Good.
Katsuk concentrated on his own climbing then.
At the top, he grasped a willow bough, pulled them both into the shelter of
the trees.
In the shaded yellow silence there, Katsuk allowed the oil-smooth flow of
elation to fill him. He had done this thing! He had taken the Innocent and
was safe for the moment. He had all the survival seasons before him: the
season of the midge, of the cattail flowering, of salal ripening, of
salmonberries, the season of grubs and ants -- a season for each food.
Finally, there would be a season for the vision he must dream before he could
leave the
Innocent's flesh to be swallowed by the spirits underground.
Hoquat had collapsed to the ground once more, unaware of what waited him.
Abruptly, a thunderous flapping of wings brought Katsuk whirling to the left.
The boy sat up, trembling. Katsuk peered upward between the willow branches
at a flight of ravens.
They circled the lower slopes, then climbed into the sunlight. Katsuk's gaze
followed the birds as they swam in the sky sea. A smile of satisfaction
curved his lips.
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An omen! Surely an omen!
Deerflies sang in the shadows behind him. He heard water dripping at the
spring.
Katsuk turned.
At the sound of the ravens, the boy had retreated into the tree shadows as far
as the thong would allow. He sat there now, staring at Katsuk, and his
forehead and hair caught the first sunlight in the gloom like a trout flashing
in a pool.
The Innocent must be hidden before the searchers took to the sky, Katsuk
thought. He pushed past the boy, found the game trail which his people had
known here for centuries.
"Come," he said, tugging at the thong.
Katsuk felt the boy get up and follow.
At the rock pool where the spring bubbled from the cliff, Katsuk dropped the
thong, stretched out, and buried his face in the cold water. He drank deeply.
The boy sprawled beside him, would have pitched head foremost into the pool if
Katsuk had not caught him.
"Thirsty," Hoquat whispered.
"Then drink."
Katsuk held the boy's shoulder while he drank. Hoquat gasped and sputtered,
coming up at last with his face and blond hair dripping.
"We will go into the cave now," Katsuk said.
The cave was a pyramidal black hole above the pool, its entrance hidden from
the sky by a mossy overhang which dripped condensation. Katsuk studied the
cave mouth a moment for sign that an animal might be occupying it, saw no
sign. He tugged at the thong, led
Hoquat up the rock ledge beside the pool and into the cave.
"I smell something," the boy said.
Katsuk sniffed: There were many old odors -- animal dung, fur, fungus. All
of them were old. Bear denned here because it was dry, but none had been here
for at least a year.
"Bear den last year," he said.
He waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, found a rock spur too high up
on the cave's wall for the boy to reach with his tied hands, secured the end
of the thong on the spur.
The boy stood with his back against the rock wall. His gaze followed every
move Katsuk made. Katsuk wondered what he was thinking. The eyes appeared
feverish in their intensity.
Katsuk said: "We will rest here today. There is no one to hear you if you
shout. But if you shout, I will kill you. I will kill you at the first
outcry. You must learn to obey me completely. You must learn to depend on me
for your life. Is that understood?"
The boy stared at him, unmoving, unspeaking.
Katsuk gripped the boy's chin, peered into his eyes, met rage and defiance.
"Your name is Hoquat," Katsuk said.
The boy jerked his chin free.
Katsuk put a finger gently on the red mark on Hoquat's cheek from the two
blows at the rockslide. Speaking softly, he said: "Do not make me strike you
again. We should not have that between us."
The boy blinked. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes, but he shook them
out with an angry gesture.
Still in that soft voice, Katsuk said: "Answer to your name when I ask you.
What is your name now?"
"Hoquat." Sullen, but clear.
"Good."
Katsuk went to the cave mouth, paused there to let his senses test the area.
Shadows were shortening at the end of the notch as the sun climbed higher.
Bright yellow skunk cabbages poked from the shadowed water at the lower end of
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the spring pool.
It bothered him that he had struck Hoquat, although strong body-talk had been
required then.
Do I pity Hoquat? he wondered. Why pity anyone?
But the boy had showed surprising strength. He had spirit in him. Hoquat was
not a whiner. He was not a coward. His innocence lay within a real person
whose center of being remained yet unformed but was gaining power. It would
be easy to admire this
Innocent.
Must I admire the victim?
Katsuk wondered.
That would make this thing all the more difficult. Perhaps it would occur,
though, as a special test of Katsuk's purpose. One did not slay an innocent
out of casual whim. One who wore the mantle of Soul Catcher dared not do a
wrong thing. If it were done, it must fit the demands of the spirit world.
Still, it would be a heavy burden to kill someone you admired. Too heavy a
burden?
Without the need for immediate decision, he could not say. This was not an
issue he wanted to confront.
Again, he wondered:
Why was I chosen for this?
Had it occurred in a way similar to the way he had chosen Hoquat? Out of what
mysterious necessities did the spirit world act? Had the behavior of the
white world become at last too much to bear? Certainly that must be the
answer.
He felt that he should call out from the cave mouth where he stood, shouting
in a voice that could be heard all the way to the ocean:
"
You down there! See what you have done to us!"
He stood lost in reverie and wondered presently if he might have shouted. But
the hoard of life all around gave no sign of disturbance.
If I admire Hoquat, he thought, I must do it only to strengthen my decision.
* * *
From the speech Katsuk made to his people: [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]