The Great Turtle and the White Bird, Page 2

  Chapter 1

  With every dream, she knew it was coming, but that made little difference this time. She ran as fast as she had ever run. The ground shook as the lumbering rage closed in. A low growl swelled to a thundering roar, echoing on all sides.

  Hot breath burned the back of her legs. She pushed herself harder. Jagged teeth tore across her heel. She pulled away, but only for a moment. Claws like knives sliced her shoulder and spun her around. One great swipe, and the giant beast ripped away her arm.

  Manaha shuddered awake. The sounds around her were all familiar: the hiss of a pitch pine fire, the soft song of others sleeping, and the call of night’s creatures outside the village-lodge. Wet with sweat, she threw back the bedcover and tried to sit up. Her left arm hung numb and offered no help. “Just the dream,” she said. Something stirred in the darkness. She held her breath, but heard nothing else.

  She had long ago grown accustomed to waking with stiffness. This was more; her arm would not move. Cradling it like a baby, she hobbled to the small fire in the center of the floor.

  Four others slept on the benches lining the circular walls. In better times they would have been important guests of the tribe. Now, like her, they were old and had no clan left. Watching the single flame flickering above the pine pitch, she suddenly realized how old—older than her grandfather when he first told her about the homeland and the arrival of the “strangers”. Manaha carefully surrounded the flame with a little kindling. It was summer, but she felt chilled.

  Most of her life she had dreamed of a brown bear chasing her. Sometimes she ran fast. Other times she could hardly move. Even so, the bear had never caught her—until that night. She massaged her shoulder and mumbled, “Could a dream take my arm?”

  Trying to remember, she repeated the dream over and over as if someone were listening, but whispered so no one would hear. As the first morning light slid through the only door, Manaha stood, crossed her arms, bad over good, and crept out.

  She hurried around the plaza, following a wide dusty path along the steep bank of the creek to the growing fields. On the far side, away from where others would be working later that morning, she sat down among the corn and tested her arm again. Nothing.

  Over the short stalks of corn, whiffs of smoke from the nine lodges of her small village rose to the brightening sky. She looked down at the useless limb lying in her lap. What will happen when they find out about my arm?

  All that day, she stayed to herself, hiding her arm, and struggling with the dream. She would prefer going unnoticed, but knew she had to tell the dream to her tribe.

  That evening, as usual, she gathered with others around the square-ground west of the plaza. In the warm months, the sunken clay-packed clearing enclosed by four open-front sheds served as the village council site, once a place of stories and words of wisdom. As it always had, a sacred fire burned in the center, but no one told stories anymore.

  Now, they gathered in silence to watch the flames consume wood like so many flickering memories. Manaha sat alone on the back bench of the south shed, the Blue Lodge. Because of last night’s dream, she looked upon the people of her tribe differently.

  She grieved for what had been lost and the common face of despair that remained. They were all as one creature with downcast eyes, weathered skin, and sharp features sharing the same thoughts in silence. A silence invaded only by the fire’s crackle and the innocence of children playing in the darkness.

  Not blood of these people, Manaha had lived with them as a captive, servant, wife, and now a widow. One of the last tribes of survivors from the scattered, ancient nations of the Nine-Rivers; they called themselves simply “Hachia”. Their great-great-grandfathers were people of the rivers, powerful and strong until the strangers came out of the east.

  Now the ragged tribe hid among the foothills in the Mountains of the Ozarks on upper Long Creek. They tried to escape the curse of plagues and senseless wars the Son of the Sun and his army had brought into their homeland. Ten summers had passed in peace on the isolated creek bank. Still, the dying continued. Sickness took the young; hunger and heartache claimed the old.

  Manaha glanced around the square-ground, pausing at each empty place in the broken circle. The names of those missing she could remember. But lost forever were their faces except for that of her husband’s.

  She gathered her courage and stepped from under the thick thatched roof. No one seemed to notice. Seasons of wearing a scarf to cover her scars had forced the hair rimming her high forehead up into a plume of black with streaks of white. She pulled the woven scarf even tighter and marched to the center of the grounds with her arms hanging at her side as if both were the same.

  Once inside the fire-circle, she spoke, “I, Manaha, mother of none, who faithfully walked beside my husband, the wise and respected Wakaw, wish to speak to the village.”

  Curiosity spread over the previously blank faces as each stare turned to her. She did not wait for a reply, “I must speak of a dream which has come to me.”

  To the north, voices of protest from the Red Lodge clambered above the murmurs of general disapproval. Ta-kawa of the Cougar clan, the best hunter of the village, shouted the loudest. “Go back to your place, woman. You have no right to speak before the village fire.”

  “I must tell my dream,” she said.

  “No. You cannot speak here.” Ta-kawa stood tall and proud of his scars; all won in battle. The tribe’s hunters cut their hair on one side, the side to which they pulled their bowstring. But Ta-kawa shaved both sides and dyed the center red.

  “It is not our way to speak of such things,” he said, his long breechcloth swaying side to side. “Tell your dream, as you should, to an elder who can give you proper counsel.”

  She shook her head. “There is no longer a Wise-One among us. I must tell—”

  “Say no more lest you defile the sacred flame.” Ta-kawa stepped into the fire-circle. His shaved head gleamed in the firelight. “Do as I command,” he said, then leaned over Manaha and yelled, “Leave the circle!”

  Manaha stood rigid.

  “Warrior, hold your tongue!” commanded Hazaar. The honored elder slowly rose from his position at the center of the White Lodge. His sad eyes, set deep in the taut, weathered face, drifted from lodge to lodge.

  “What Manaha has said is true. I am the oldest of the Elders and carry the wisdom and weight of many seasons, but my sight into other worlds has grown dark, blinded by the madness I have seen.”

  “Your vision grows dim?” Ta-kawa questioned. “I say it is your courage that is weak.”

  Hazaar returned Ta-kawa’s glare with the same might. “She will tell her dream,” he said. “If it has meaning, it will be for each listener to regard or cast away on their own.”

  The three stood in a lingering silence until Ta-kawa turned toward the warriors of the Red Lodge and pointed west. “The words of the White Council are honored in times of peace as it has been and should be. But in time, war will come,” he marched around the fire, “then the words of warriors will rule. I, with the men of the Red Lodge, will lead our people with courage.”

  Circling back to Hazaar, Ta-kawa nodded, then grumbled. “As you say, Elder, she must tell her dream.”

  He strutted back to the Red Lodge. Cheers and whoops greeted him as if he had won another battle. After both men sat down, Manaha breathed deep and spoke out in a strong voice.

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