Shaman

— I’m not talking to the you that is here right now, you are too insolent.

— Just tell me how to etch a curve like that bison’s neck you did. How do you get the line to curve so smoothly when it’s stone cutting stone?

— It’s not stone cutting stone, it’s flint cutting whitestone, and that’s how. You chisel it out grain by grain. Just keep your eye on the line you want, and make it happen.

— So you have to see it before it’s there, is that it? No wonder you need birthdays from the future.

— Well exactly. See, you did understand me.

— No. Not at all. Show me how to make the line. Show me how to start it.

— Let your future self show you.

— Is that why you keep your yearsticks? To tell your future time what you were actually doing when you did it?

— Yes, exactly.

— But that’s silly. Stupid. Backwards.

— That’s why I’m the shaman and you’re not.

Thorn was very insistent about the importance of his yearsticks. Every morning he took one of the obsidian blades that had been glued into sticks to make fine cutters, and cut a line in his yearstick, which was always a nice piece of river-worn oak driftwood. On every new moon day, he cut a loop on the top of the line marking that day. At the eight eight festival he would get together with the other shamans, a very crazy and obnoxious gathering, and during the days they would do their corroborations. Thorn already had Loon marking a yearstick of his own, supposedly separate from Thorn’s, but as Thorn never forgot and Loon sometimes did, it was not a very happy arrangement. Thorn thought that Heather should join them in doing it, to provide a third so they could corroborate within the pack, but she declined to do it. To Loon the yearsticks resembled many of Heather’s other pursuits, but she didn’t like doing anything that would please Thorn, so it didn’t happen. And so Loon was always wrong, and if by chance he wasn’t the one who was wrong, then they would really have problems when it came time for the corroboree.

— I don’t think Firestarter is starting a fire, Loon said.-I think that’s his antler pronging down at us. He’s on his back trying to mate with Mother Earth, and he can’t get close enough, and the Spurtmilk came from him.

— But the Spurtmilk is in the summer sky, Thorn pointed out.

— That’s right, he came so hard that his spurtmilk flew right around into summer.

Thorn laughed in a way he had never laughed at Loon before, truly amused.

— I don’t think so, he said at last, shaking his head.-The firestick is just at the right angle. And then there’s the base too. Those stars can’t be his nuts, they’re too far apart.

— Those are his hip bones, Loon explained.

Again Thorn laughed.-All right, good, he said.-A new story to tell.

The eyes speak what the tongue can’t say. Force begets resistance. Even a mouse has anger. After dark every cat is a lion. In spring Mother Earth is pregnant, in summer she gives birth. Children are the true human beings. The good-looking boy may just be good in the face. Danger comes without warning. Every fire is the same size when it starts.

Such an itch for something different to happen. How he wanted his wander back. The ducks kept not showing up, and Thunder and Bluejay began to roast Schist daily for giving away some of their food to the Lion pack. Schist ignored them, his face hard. He turned his back on them and walked away. No one got to complain to him about their food, even though they were the ones feeling the pinch in their guts.

Eventually Loon just had to go back out on the hunt again, Crouch or no Crouch.

— You’ll be all right, I think, Heather said doubtfully.-If not just come back. You can’t push the river. Hurry the break-up and bring on a flood. So be careful. Let your good leg carry you. If you can do it at all, it will be good for you. You need to get out there for it to go completely away.

So he went off with Hawk and Moss and they went upstream, over the low ridge between Loop Meadow and the confluence where the Ordech ran into the Urdecha.

Hawk and Moss were happy to have him back with them on the hunt, and after asking once or twice about his leg they stopped mentioning it, as being an unwelcome reminder. This was the usual courtesy among men on the hunt. They went neither slower nor faster than normal, and when they came to Mother Muskrat Meadow on the Ordech, they went silent and took the west ridgeline around it, single file and heads down. Loon focused on the ground, and on dancing over it in a way where good leg carried bad. His javelin served as Prong had in his wander, and its cupped back end took a little beating; hopefully it would still fit onto his spear thrower cleanly when the time came. Best not to jam it down onto rocks, and to hit the ground cleanly with the whole rim of the cup. Ah yes, it was going to work. His friends were happy and he was happy.

Above the meadow they came on some of Mother Muskrat’s children, splashing in the inlet turn. Their black heads swam around in the water, their whiskers cutting little curls in the sides of the nose wave. If they thought the three young men were interested in them, they would dive and take refuge in a muskrat house emerging from the water near the far bank. Possibly the humans could have descended behind trees close enough to throw a javelin, but it would be a long throw. Better to remember and come back and set a trap underwater. They wanted something bigger anyway.

Bigger, they said to each other, and hiked onto the upland at the top of the Ordech saying bigger, bigger, bigger. And today luck was with them; the hunger month was almost over, and some of Mother Earth’s creatures were in trouble. On the rim of the upland stood an elg, thin under its enormous splayed antlers, looking out of place on the broad moor, where you could see so far that the Ice Tits were visible over the horizon to the west.

The three hunters had frozen on seeing this elg, and after that they moved without moving, flowing like snakes into a alder brake that filled a wet seam in the moor. Inside the brake they had to move over the alder branches without moving any of them enough to squeak, or even quiver. The elg themselves were unexpectedly good at this complicated procedure, despite their immense size, so it would be a coup to use the method to creep up on one. And it would also be a coup to bring back to camp that much meat and hide. Indeed they might have to make two trips home with it all, and hope for the best concerning what got left behind.

But this was getting ahead of the game. For now they had to flow through the brake toward the elg without revealing themselves to it. Elgs didn’t have much of a nose, and the hunters were downwind of it. So for a long time they slithered through the net of alder branches, making sure their javelins never got hung up. Sometimes finding a spear’s way was harder than getting through oneself. Some of the thorny vines that grew under alder were so intensely thorny that they could pass over one’s skin without pricking it at any point, the many tips making a surface of sorts. If one could pass these without snagging… but so often they snagged. One had to accept the poisoned little scraping and slip on, indomitable as an otter.

Loon came to the edge of the brake, and through the last net of branches saw the elg still where it had been. Its hide was unbroken, free of sores on the back, and yet it was gaunt. Probably sick, or old. It would still be well worth bringing back. Hawk and Moss appeared to his left and right, and they had a little eye conference. The problem was clear: how to get the javelins deployed on their spear throwers, and then throw them, without revealing themselves to the elg. It wouldn’t be possible unless it had its back to them, in which case it would be hard to kill with javelins. If they hit it and then it ran off, they would lose their spears to it. So, two of them should throw, hope to wound it, and the third chase it and rush in for a more direct throw or thrust. Hawk wanted that part, so Loon and Moss twisted and contorted until they had their javelins cupped on their throwers, and aimed. Loon eyed his throw space, got ready to throw; the convulsive jerk would have to be just right. Looking into each other’s eyes one last time with a mad glee of anticipation, they counted it out with their moving lips-one, two, three, throw!