All about Sandwalker, the Shadow children began singing The Daysleep Song, which tells of the sun’s rising; and of the first light; the long, long shadows and the dances the dust-devils do on the hilltops. “Sing with us,” the Old Wise One urged.
Sandwalker sang. At first he tried to add something of his own to the song, as men do at the sleeping place; but the Shadow children pinched him and frowned. After that lie only sang The Daysleep Song as he heard them singing, and soon all of them were dancing around the bones of the tick-deer, showing how the dust-devils would.
He now saw that the Shadow children were not all old men as he had imagined. Two indeed were wrinkled and stiff. One seemed a woman though like the rest she had only wisps of hair; two neither old nor young; and two, little more than boys. Sandwalker watched their faces as he danced, marveling that they seemed at once both young and old—and the faces of the others that seemed old yet young. He could see much better than he had been able to while they were squatting about the tick-deer, and it came to him—both understandings at once, so that surprise pushed surprise—that in the east the black of the sky was giving way to purple, and that there were but seven Shadow children. The Old Wise One was gone. He turned to face the rising sun—half from instinct, half because he thought the Old Wise One might have gone that way. When he turned again the Shadow children had scattered behind him, darting among the rocks. Only two were visible, then none. His first thought was to pursue them, but he felt certain they would not wish it. He called loudly, “Go with God!” and waved his arms.
The first beams of the new sun sent shapes of black and gold leaping toward him. He looked at the tick-deer; some shreds of flesh remained, and bones that would yield marrow if he could break them. Half-humorously he said to these leavings, “Morning met where much food is,” then ate again before the ants came.
An hour later, as he picked his teeth with a fingernail, he thought about his dream of the night before. The Old Wise One, he felt, might have interpreted it for him. He wished that he had asked. If he slept now, by daylight, there was little chance that any good dream would come, but he was tired and cold. He stretched himself in the warm sunshine—and noticed that the back of the woman walking before him looked familiar. He was walking faster than she and soon could see that it was his mother, but when he tried to greet her he found he was unable to do so. Then he, who had always been so sure of foot, tripped on a stone. He threw out his hands to save himself, a shock went through his whole body, and he found himself sitting up, alone, and sweating from the sun’s heat.
He stood, still trembling, brushing at the grit that clung to his damp limbs and his back. It was only foolishness. There was no use in sleeping by day—his spirit only left the body at once and went wandering, and then if the priest did come to him in sleep there would be no one to receive him. The priest might even become angry with him and not come back. No, he must either return to the cave and try again there, or acknowledge failure and go away—which would be intolerable. He would return, then, to the gorge.
But not with empty hands. The feign-pheasant he had brought before had proved an inadequate gift. This might be because the priest was in some way displeased with him; but, as he reflected with some satisfaction, it might also be because the priest intended some revelation of great moment, for which the feign-pheasant was insufficient. Another tick-deer, if he could find one, might be satisfactory. He had come from the north and had seen few signs of game; to go east would mean crossing the river gorge before he traveled far, and westward, toward the burning moun-tains, stretched a waterless wilderness of stone. He went south.
The land rose slowly as he went. There had been little vegetation, but it became less. The gray rock gave way to red. About noon, as his tireless stride brought him to the summit of a ridge, he saw something he had seen only twice before in his life: a tiny, watered valley, an oasis of the high desert which had managed to hold soil enough for real grass, a few wild flowers, and a tree.
Such a place was of great significance, but it was possible to drink there, and even to stay for a few hours if one dared. And it was less offensive to the tree, as Sandwalker knew, if one came alone—an advantage for him. Approaching, as custom dictated, neither swiftly nor slowly, but with an expression of studied courtesy, he was about to greet it when he saw a girl sitting, holding an infant, among the roots.
For a moment, impolitely, his eyes left the tree. The girl’s face was heart-shaped, timorous, scarcely a woman’s yet. Her long hair (and this was something to which Sandwalker was unaccustomed) was clean—she had washed it in the pool at the foot of the tree, and untied the tangles with her fingers so that it now spread a dark caul upon her brown shoulders. She sat cross-legged and unmoving, with the baby, a flower thrust in its hair, asleep on her thighs.
Sandwalker greeted the tree ceremoniously, asking permission to drink and promising not to stay long. A murmuring of leaves answered him, and though he could not understand the words they did not sound angry. He smiled to show his appreciation, then went to the pool and drank.
He drank long and deep, as desert animals do; and when he had had his fill and lifted his head from the wind-rippled water he saw the girl’s reflection dancing beside his own. She was watching him with large, fearful eyes; but she was quite close. “Morning met,” he said.
“Morning met.”
“I am Sandwalker.” He thought of his journey to the cave, of the tick-deer and the feign-pheasant and the Old Wise One. “Sandwalker the far-traveled, the great hunter, the shadow-friend.”
“I am Seven Girls Waiting,” the girl said. “And this,” she smiled tenderly down at the baby she carried, “is Mary Pink Butterflies. I called her that because of her little hands, you know. She waves them at me when she’s awake.”
Sandwalker, who in his own short life had seen how many children come and how few live, smiled and nodded.
The girl looked down into the pool at the foot of the tree, at the tree, at the flowers and grass, everywhere but at Sandwalker’s face. He saw her small, white teeth creep out like snowmice to touch her lips, then flee again. The wind made patterns on the grass, and the tree said something he could not understand—though Seven Girls Waiting, perhaps, did. “Will you,” she asked hesitantly, “make this your sleeping place tonight?”
He knew what she meant and answered as gently as he could, “I have no food to share. I’m sorry. I hunt, but what I find I must keep for a gift for the priest in Thunder Always. Doesn’t anyone sleep where you sleep?”
“There was nothing anywhere. Pink Butterflies was new, and I could not walk far… We slept up there, beyond the bent rock.” She made a wretched little gesture with her shoulders.
“I have never known that,” Sandwalker said, laying a hand on her arm, “but I know how it must feel, sitting alone, waiting for them to come when no one comes. It must be a terrible thing.”
“You are a man. It will not come to you until you are old.”
“I didn’t mean to make you angry.”
“I’m not angry. I’m’not alone either—Pink Butterflies is with me all the time, and I have milk for her. Now we sleep here.”
“Every night?”
The girl nodded, half-defiantly.
“It isn’t good to sleep where a tree is for more than one night.”