People of the Mesa: A Novel of Native America. Ardath Mayhar
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searched the sky for sign of a vulture, but only a high-circling hawk was visible, and distant eagles disturbed the air, too far away to be of interest. Uhtatse moved along the edge of the cliff, cutting across promontories by perilous paths until he came at last to the edge where the old man had fallen. A broken stone outcrop, some yards down the cliff edge, showed fresh gray-gold edges. Below that, there lay a mass of oak scrub.
It would be safer, he knew very well, to go back and take an easier way down into the Middle Way. It would be very difficult to find the exact spot below, if he did that—he must go down the sheer face, directly to the area just beneath the broken rock. It would be dangerous, he knew, but if the Old One’s spirit was to go free, it must be done. Fresh from his ordeal, he had no fear, now, of anything the cliffs could offer.
Uhtatse felt that he could almost lean forward off the cliff to soar with a swallow’s agility, down to the Middle Way. He was still filled with exuberance, though he did not allow that to make him reckless. He worked his way down the face, fingerhold and toehold, cranny and ledge, yard by yard. At last he found himself at a smooth face that offered no hold at all.
By then, he was only some five of his own lengths above the ground. There was a grassy patch onto which he could drop, so he pushed away from the stone and fell. He rolled easily and came upright again in the middle of the grassplot.
There was something that had troubled him since Ki-shi-o-te had told him of the older man’s death. Why had he not sensed it as he waited in the cliff side? Surely, so momentous a death as this should have shouted itself into his perceptions. As he looked about the brushy space between himself and the cliff, Uhtatse grew more and more uneasy. Every leaf that was crushed in that fall should have cried out to him. Each swallow startled as the body plunged past its nest should have shrieked the news so loudly that he could hear.
Using every skill he had learned, the boy cast about for sign of a fallen weight. This near, even in the cool heights, there should be at least the beginning of the death-smell. There was none. Branches should be broken, then, and leaves torn away. He would find that, if nothing more.
The morning wore away, and still he searched. The grass told him of sun and rain and snow, of worms burrowing beneath, but it spoke nothing about his mission. The breeze did not move at all, as if it held a secret not for his ears.
He stared upward, at last, toward the bright fleck of broken stone high above him. It was barely discernible on the long courses of sandstone. Below it, and invisible from above, lay a shallow ledge, sloping toward his left.
That would have deflected the route of the falling man from a direct downward course. He moved in that direction, seeing and hearing and feeling with all his might. And at last he heard something. Not the hiss of grasses beneath an unaccustomed weight. Not the words of wind sighing over a shape that had not been there before. It was a human sound, soft and completely unexpected.
“Uhtatse....”
He jerked upright, staring ahead. Then he rushed forward, leaping a clump of serviceberry and plowing through a tangle of oak. Curled into a huddle beneath the thick branches was the one he had sought. Alive.
Quieting his heart and his breathing, the boy knelt beside the old man. “I have come for you,” he said.
The dark eyes closed slowly, deliberately, and then opened again. “I knew...that you...would,” came a breathy whisper in reply.
The question Uhtatse had been asking himself burst from his lips. “Why did I not feel you fall? Why did not the mesa tell me?”
He took the old man’s hand between his own. “I was trying so hard to become what I need to be. And it seems that I have failed, if I missed such a terrible event.”
The hand moved in his. “I knew...where...you were. I did not want...for you to know. To come. I hushed it away from you. I knew how near...you were...to your goal. And now you have come. You have achieved...what you sought. I may die...at ease.”
The eyes stared up as if trying to say something further that the lips could not utter. Then they went blank, and the hand was suddenly lax in his grip. The old one was gone, and Uhtatse was the One Who Smelled the Wind for the Ahye-tum-datsehe.
He blinked hard and straightened the frail body. He looked about for dead wood to fashion into a carrier, his gaze lingering longingly on the straight trunks of some of the young oaks. Yet that easy way was no longer for him. He had tried too hard, suffered too much to risk what he had gained, simply to make his task easier.
He found enough at last to shape a rough travois, such as the Anensi used to carry heavy burdens behind their bodies and those of their dogs. He tied it together with a part of the juniper bark cord he carried wrapped around his waist. When it was done, he rolled the old man’s body onto the triangular vehicle and tugged at the pulling cords.
It was hard to move. He was still light from his long fast, and his predecessor was a big man, heavy in the bone, though his own flesh was worn away to nothing by his injuries and his long fast.
Uhtatse put his back into the task, leaning into the work of pulling his burden over the rough ground. Once he had it in motion, it moved more easily, bumping into holes and over tussocks.
It was a long way to the path that led to the top of the mesa. When he reached the place where he had to pause at the rock-face, below the position of the watcher at that point, he stopped and set down the end of the travois.
A long call brought the watcher down to his level. Together, they pulled the long shape into the secret way that led around the obstacle to the cliff top. When they reached their goal, there was a man waiting for them. Ki-shi-o-te.
“I knew you would come,” he said, just as the Old One had done. “Welcome home, Smeller of the Wind. We shall attend to our brother’s body, now. You may go to your rest, for you have proven yourself equal to the task with which we must burden you.”
Uhtatse looked down at the limp form on the travois. He stared up into Ki-shi-o-te’s eyes. Then he turned his steps toward his mother’s house.
Tomorrow he would become, in every way, a man.
Chapter Nine
He did not seek out Ihyannah. He turned his steps away from the house where Ki-shi-o-te lived and veered away from the path to his mother’s doorway. This was a time when not even those who were nearest to him could be of help. He knew he must accept his new responsibilities, now, making them a part of himself.
That could only be done alone, and the time was short. Morning would find him standing on the point of rock where all his predecessors had stood to assume their terrible duties.
Still weak from his long fast, he sought out a spot among the junipers that was sheltered from the sharp breeze that had risen just after he found his mentor. Lying amid the prickly vegetation, he stared up into the cloud-streaked sky.
A magpie alighted on a brittle branch and cocked its head to look down at him. Its immaculate white and black feathers gleamed in the fitful sunlight, and it seemed to be studying him.
Rough juniper bark was grasped in the tough claws—he could feel it plainly. Wind riffled feathers along the back and the edges of the wings. The bird was curious, alert yet intrigued.
Uhtatse felt deeply into the creature, to find that it was trusting him, knowing him to be unlike those of his kind who flung stones or cast short spears from the atlatl to kill any creature that could be boiled for broth. It knew!
Filled with emotion, he opened his eyes and looked up into those berry-bright orbs so near his own. It, too, trusted him to keep the mesa safe. The birds, the deer, the chipmunks and hares, the turkeys and dogs and all the varied creatures knew him. Not only the People depended upon his skills, it seemed.
It was a sobering thought, and he took it with him through that dream-filled day and the overcast night that followed. When he rose with first light and went to his mother’s house, he knew things that he had not learned in any way he knew. He understood matters that no other of his kind, excepting only Ki-shi-o-te