Shadow Valley Page 23

  “No, Brother,” Ant said. “Hawk Shadow might have stood here.” Ant’s good left eye looked at him carefully. The scarred right socket gaped. “Which of us did you love better?”

  “Hawk,” Frog said. “By a hair. When I thought you both dead, I cried.”

  “It is good that you speak the truth. A man should not go to Father Mountain with a lie on his lips.”

  “No.” Frog could act. Could try to strike first. Could gather allies and banish Ant from the valley. But although his brother taunted him, Frog could feel that there was something more … almost as if Ant was looking for an excuse not to kill him. And if Frog could be very, very clever, he might give Ant just that thing.

  “Perhaps,” Ant said, “you do not have to die. You have found a good place. I will rest and eat and think. Then we will talk again.”

  “You would say this even if you meant to kill me.”

  “Yes,” Ant said. “Of course I would.”

  And for the first time in many moons, the two brothers laughed together, just a bit.

  “Sit with me before you go?” Frog said.

  “Yes,” Ant replied, and suited his action to his words.

  “I understand your anger. And how you must hate me.”

  Fire Ant blinked in surprise. “Go on,” he said.

  “Things are good here,” Frog said. “Our people are safe. The children are fed. There is water and food enough for our grandchildren and new friendships to explore.”

  Fire Ant shook his head in wonderment. “The Vokka are strange and ugly. What manner of men walk with wolves?”

  “I do not understand them or their ways,” Frog said. “But they are friends. And that is a precious thing in this world.”

  Another pause, as the wind whistled. “As are brothers,” Fire Ant said.

  The wind cooling Frog’s cheeks was the one that had carried the spring butterflies when they were children. “Is there no way you can ever forgive me?”

  Ant’s laugh was ugly. “If you had been the one who fell into fire, you would not ask.”

  “Whatever I may have done, or not done, I never thought to hurt you. You want me to fear you, Fire Ant? All right. I fear you. What now?”

  Fire Ant looked at him carefully, finding no answer.

  “What, Brother?” Frog said. He slapped his own chest with both palms. “Here I am. We are alone. Why not end it now? Kill me, and say anything you want about how I died.”

  Ant was genuinely curious. “Why do you want to die?”

  “I do not,” Frog said. “But I would rather die than fear my own blood.”

  Ant searched his brother’s face for lies. “So.”

  “So. What do we do now? When will you decide?”

  “Soon, Frog. Soon.”

  “I ask one favor.”

  “Ask.”

  Frog forced his breathing to deepen and calm. “If you will not kill me now, let this one day, just one day, be as once it was. I would remember your smiles, your hugs, your laughter and love, and give you mine. Just one day. Then tomorrow, if you must, do as you will. But I would return to the mountain with that memory. Do me this favor.”

  Ant pursed his lips. “Why? Why should I do this?”

  “There is only one reason: because Fire Ant wishes it. You did not want it to be this way. You did not wish this pain between us. It is not close to your heart. But if it is what you need to do, no one can sway you from your path. But we are still brothers.”

  “Still brothers,” Ant said. The corners of his generous mouth curled up in a smile. “You do not die this day. Come, Brother.”

  He slid his knife from its sheath.

  “Ant?” Frog’s stomach clenched. Was he as ready to die as he had tried to sound?

  Frog’s older brother opened his arms. “Come to the brother you say you love and trust. I have made you a promise.”

  Frog watched his face, then walked to his arms. Surprised at first, Fire Ant returned the embrace. The blade did not bite.

  “No matter what you think,” Frog whispered against his brother’s neck, “I love you, Ant. Watch over my children when I am dead.”

  Ant said nothing in reply.

  That day, Fire Ant watched Frog and the others practicing the lion dance, sets of two men pitted against the chalked Mk*tk outlines. He marveled at the strangeness of women teaching men to dance, and dancing with them with sticks. Men and women dancing together? With weapons in hand? Had the world gone mad?

  Finally overwhelmed by curiosity, he queried Sister Quiet Water. “What is this?”

  The young woman was breathing hard, but went into a kind of rapid low-belly pant and swiftly regained composure. “Vokka lion fighting saved Sky Woman,” she said. “The dream dancers have a drumbeat that makes it even better. We are working to join these things.”

  Ant shook his head and wagged his finger at Frog. “You and your ‘new things.’” He laughed. “The world is good enough as it is!”

  “You fought the Mk*tk,” Frog said. “If we fight them again, would you not want a new thing?”

  Fire Ant thought again on what had been said and done in the last year. He would indeed want something new if ever again he faced the Mk*tk. “Let me see,” Ant said, and took one of the sticks.

  Ant learned that it was true, that Frog and one of his men were able to jab him, no matter which way he turned.

  He would run after one of them, only to be thumped in the ribs by the other. He would turn to defend himself to the left, only to be stabbed from behind by the one on the right. It was frustrating and not a little frightening. In the end, he considered it a very good trick indeed.

  “That—” Ant said, wiping the sweat from his face “—is a new thing.” And for the second time since his return from the dead, he smiled.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Fatigue had turned her feet to stone. T’Cori bedded down that night before her mate returned to their hut. She awakened near midnight, feeling him tossing restlessly beside her.

  “My heart?” she asked.

  “I cannot sleep,” Frog said. “I know that he waits. I know that he will kill you. He may kill me as well. If I become certain it will come to that, I will have to try to kill him. Until I am certain, there is nothing I can do.”

  “Nothing?” T’Cori asked.

  “Nothing but wait.”

  And realizing the truth of that made it hard for her to sleep. She had assumed that somehow Frog, or Stillshadow, would find a way to weave their hearts together. That in the face of their new home’s wealth and beauty, Fire Ant’s anger would wither.

  Doubt had begun to replace hope, and doubt made sleep impossible.

  Exhausted, the dancer sat up before the stars closed their eyes. She crawled out of their hutch without awakening children or mate. The air was crisp and clean and cold enough to raise bumps on her skin. She treasured this time. When she closed her eyes, she could almost hear and see her sisters back at Great Earth gathering, singing, weaving the new day. The ancient prayers came swiftly to her tongue, and she sang the new sun to life.

  Her task complete, T’Cori busied herself with breakfast, served it to Frog and nursed her children. She cuddled and cooed to them, and then turned both over to her sisters and went to find Stillshadow. The old woman was at the rock chosen as her new sitting stone. She sat with her spine as straight as a spear, staring blindly out at the western horizon.

  Every day her mentor’s skin seemed a bit more ashen, although every night Sing Sun rubbed her body with a salve made from cactus juice and gazelle fat. Every day a little more flesh melted from Stillshadow’s bones, until at times, when the sun was just so, it seemed to shine through rather than around her.

  “Mother?”

  Stillshadow’s head did not move. “My child?”

  “I fear what Fire Ant might do.”

  Stillshadow’s dead eyes blinked. “What happened atop the mountain? What is it that moves him?”

  “I heard the voice of Grea
t Mother. Of Father Mountain, saying that the Ibandi had to leave the shadow.”

  “The others could not hear?” Stillshadow said.

  “No, they could not,” T’Cori said. “You trained me well.”

  “There is more. Men and women see different things. And because of that men will always fear us, just a bit.”

  “What should Frog do?” T’Cori asked.

  “You ask the wrong question. For you, he cut the cord binding brother to brother. For you. Because he believes in you. Be worthy of that trust, girl.” She leaned close, and when she spoke, her voice was like a knife scraped across stone. “You have no right to be weak. Your false face will kill us all.”

  T’Cori’s hands fluttered helplessly. “What do I do?”

  Stillshadow sighed and hung her head. “No Ibandi man can stand against Fire Ant. I see it in his num.”

  “Then there is no hope.”

  “I said, no Ibandi man.” She paused. “No Ibandi man.”

  At first, T’Cori could but stare, void of comprehension. Then she found words. “The … Vokka? Their men will not interfere.”

  “Then you must speak with their women,” Stillshadow said.

  Frog had spent the morning watching the children wrestle and sing and dance and read sign. At the point when the sun was at its highest, Uncle Snake came to him.

  Snake thrust the tip of his spear into the dirt and waited until Frog called rest. “Look, children!” Frog said to the young ones. “Great Snake is watching! You must work hard, harder, hardest! If you would make your elders proud, you must work until your aching muscles fall off the bone.”

  “Yes, Frog!” the young ones said, and raised their spears to Snake. “We will try!”

  When they went off to find shade and water, Frog came to him and embraced his uncle. “They need practice,” Frog said, “but I think that we make progress.” He stepped back and looked at his uncle’s scarred face more carefully. “Something troubles you,” he said. “What is it?”

  In a low steady voice Snake said, “I love you, nephew, but when Fire Ant returns to the Circle, I wish to go with him.”

  Frog blinked. “I don’t understand. There is so much here, Uncle.” Snake’s face did not change, and Frog felt as if the bottom of his stomach was dropping free. “Uncle,” Frog said, “I need you.”

  “Why?” Snake asked. “What do you need from me? I have no advice to give. Son, you are wiser than I ever was. I have no courage to offer. If ever I dreamed I was brave, the climb on Great Sky awakened me.” A bitter smile curled the right side of his mouth. “You don’t need me. You need a great man who climbed mountains and slew wolves.”

  “Uncle …”

  “I know the lies you told. I believe when you say that they were told only for the good … but I was on the mountain. I climbed until my mind and heart failed. And now, my hero’s deeds make our children strong. They look up to me, and want to be like me, and I know in my heart that that is the last thing that any of them should want. I know what really happened to your brother.”

  “What are you saying?” Frog asked.

  “I’m saying that I see how the stories begin. They come from someplace inside you, someplace that has never seen the real world.” Snake said “I am not that! I am flesh and blood. A hunter but no hero. You should have let me be shunned, Frog. Now I have nothing, am nothing save a story.”

  Frog swept his arm across the valley. “There is meat and water and fruit and game. Everything that we need for ten lifetimes.”

  Snake spit and turned his face away. “There is more to life than meat and water. We must have our god as well. I do not believe He is here. We must believe in something, if we cannot believe in ourselves. I am too old to have neither,” Snake said. “I want to die in the shadow. I want to go home.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  Every day, Frog brought his brother extra meat. He invited Ant on hunts and drew him into the dance circle. They had smoked and laughed and sung together, but always, Ant had kept a little distance. Never had he spoken the words that Frog craved: I forgive you. And as he had always known it would, the day Frog dreaded finally came.

  Ten dawns after his arrival Ant came to Frog just as he and a hand of men were beginning their morning spear thrusts. The sun had not yet been born.

  “Frog,” Ant said, “I wish a boon of you.”

  “Of me?” Frog said.

  “I would run against you,” Ant said.

  “You wish to run me where the others cannot see and then slay me.” He paused to consider. “It is a good plan: you can leave me where the lions and hyenas can find the meat.”

  “No,” Fire Ant said. “We run as hunters.”

  Frog peered into his brother’s face and suddenly understood. The empty right eye, the scars marring his beauty, twisting the lips that had kissed him so often … he seemed a ghost of the man he knew. “I see. You hope to win the tribe.”

  “It is our way,” Ant said.

  “What of you and me?”

  Ant’s face was neutral. “We decide that later.”

  “Where? Across the valley floor?” Down the slope, the tea bush chaparral and flowering cactus gave way to grasses, and that to acacia and date palms, and glistening streams and ponds surrounded by lazy herds of buffalo and flocks of pink-backed pelicans. The morning clouds shaded the grasses, so beautiful. His eyes thirsted for the sight. So strange, how easy it was to take such wonder for granted.

  “No,” Ant said. “This valley is a good place, a home for our people. It might be best not to poison it with our … sweat.”

  Don’t you mean blood, Brother?

  Frog studied Ant for a long time and then nodded. “I cannot say no. My people!”

  The other men began to gather around. If he asked, they would defend him. But that would cripple what little authority he had. That would destroy the myth of Ant, the man who had returned from the dead. Which would mean that Frog was a liar.

  And that might begin the end of everything. The decision was simple. “We run together,” Frog said, and raised his voice. “Fire Ant challenges me.”

  T’Cori abandoned her morning meal and went to find Frog. Her beloved was at the edge of camp. He lay facedown on the ground, tensed his gut and raised his hips, scooting his knees forward then allowing his body to ripple forward. One segment of his spine curled forward at a time, like cracking a whip. He twisted and turned to his limit, then relaxed a bit and went in the other direction. Frog rolled back over one shoulder and then another, then braced himself against a tree, raised his hips high and pushed his heels back against the ground.

  So many times she had held Frog. So many times the strength and agility in his body had saved her life. So many times she had bathed it, soothed his wounds, kneaded his muscles, wrapped her legs around his hips to pull him more deeply into her.

  No matter how she fought for control, tears welled in her eyes.

  When Frog stopped, his fine young body gleamed with sweat. He smiled at her, but there was no real warmth or hope in it, only resignation.

  “Frog,” she whispered, trying to remain strong for him, “can you win?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied. Honest to the end, her Frog. “He hurt his leg, and that may be enough. But I think it won’t be. Could he have come all this way if the leg was weak? He does not limp.” Had Father Mountain actually given him new bones? Could Frog be so certain Ant had not died on the mountain?

  “Why does that matter?”

  “Because,” Frog said, “if he limped, if he thought his legs weak, he would have found another way. I think his leg is strong. I think I lose today, and die tomorrow.”

  Oh, Frog. How could I have ever dreamed that there could have been another man for me? You, only you, see life as it is. Or see me, at all. Without you, I walk my life alone. “No matter what happens,” T’Cori said, “I am your woman. Your children and I love you. Will always love you.”

  He rested his forehead against hers
, brushing their lips together. “As I love you. It is time.”

  Fire Ant and Frog walked up the ridge, standing on the flattened top just as the sun was sung to life on their right, out to the east. The dream dancers and their ancient song rang in Frog’s ears. He glanced at his brother. Would Fire Ant hear the magic in their song? Certainly, no matter what had happened between them, Fire Ant remembered what they had been to each other. Certainly their shared and precious childhood still lived in his brother’s dreams.

  Surely he would hear the voices and be swayed. He glanced over at his brother, hoping to see a smile or any flicker of softness on the beloved face.

  Nothing. Only hard purpose lived in the eye that had once loved him. Frog’s heart cooled. He knew in that moment that his single hope was no hope at all.

  “It is time,” Ant said, and Frog nodded.

  Side by side, they trotted down the slope to the plain north of Shadow Valley, allowing their pace to accelerate naturally as the footing improved, until they were running comfortably side by side.

  On other days, the thought of running with his beloved brother would have seemed a wonderful dream. But this …

  “Do you see the tree?” Ant pointed at a horn-pod tree standing alone on the northern horizon.

  “We run around and back?” Frog asked.

  Ant nodded.

  And with those words, talk ended. The brothers ran. At the beginning, each merely grooved their pace, not trying to best each other. This was the time for each to take the other’s measure. Ant’s stride seemed natural and strong, his shoulders relaxed, the rhythm of hip and heel a hunter’s song. Soon, they began to speed until the breath burned in their throats. Hyena running, hun-huh-huh, forcing each stride to push a little air out of their lungs.

  Ant increased his pace, and Frog increased his in turn, drawing slightly ahead of his brother. Was this where he wanted to be? In front, where his back might tempt Ant’s knife? Even now, could Ant’s hand be rising for the death stroke?

  Frog turned his head to the right, intending to look back over his shoulder for a glimpse … when he saw something odd against the horizon, and skidded to a halt.