Shaman by Robert Shea (nice books to read TXT) 📖

into her eyes.

"The real danger of a shaman's vision is not to the body."

"What is the real danger?"

"I did not want to come back."

She felt a cold wind blowing across her neck, as if spirits had quietly entered this grove with them and were standing about them, listening to them, judging them.

"It is so wondrous," he said in a voice so low she had to strain to hear it over the wind whispering in the tree branches. "You are there with them. The White Bear, the Turtle. You see them, talk to them. You see the Tree of Life, the crystal lodge of the Turtle and the spirits of all living things. Why would anyone want to return?"

Redbird shivered. But she still envied him.

"Your hands are cold," White Bear said, and he put his arm around her and drew her close to nestle on his chest. She slid her hands under the leather vest he wore and felt the smooth warmth of his skin and the firmness of his muscles. How powerful his arms were around her. She thanked Earthmaker that White Bear had found the inner strength to return from that other land.

A new thought occurred to her. "What if you find that the land of the pale eyes holds you fast? Then you will never come back to me, and to the Sauk you will be dead."

He smiled gently and patted her shoulder. She pulled herself closer to him.

"Can the land of the pale eyes, altogether without spirits, hold me, when the spirits themselves could not?"

"I do not think so."

"Can the land of the pale eyes hold me, when Redbird is not in it? I do not think so."

Her body seemed to be melting. She wanted to flow together with White Bear as the Rock River flowed into the Great River.

His arms tightened around her. Then he raised his hand to brush the fringe of hair that fell over her forehead.

She moved against him until her cheek touched his. Slowly she slid one side of her face against his, then the other side. A hunger filled her. It was almost as if she wanted to devour White Bear, but all she could do was touch his smooth cheek with her fingertips.[93]

His nostrils flared and his lips parted and she could hear his breathing. His hands were roaming over her body, awakening powerful feelings wherever he touched her, making her want more.

How did they come to be lying down? They must have moved without realizing it. She could see, feel and think only of White Bear. Her head was pillowed on his arm and her face was pressed against his. With his free hand he caressed her, seeking her flesh under her jacket and skirt. His hand became bolder, plucking at the laces that held her clothing together, baring places that only a husband should look at as he was looking now. And touching those places, sending ripples of delight all through her.

And she wanted him to do that. She felt no shame or fear, only happiness. She let him do whatever he wanted. She helped him. She moved her hands also, to touch more of him. Her hand found the oak branch that he had been holding just before she sat down with him. She put the branch aside and let her fingers feel the hardness pushing against his loincloth; he was ready to come into her in the way that Sun Woman had explained.

She could still stop him if she wanted to. She knew him and trusted that he would not do anything she did not want.

But she wanted this. She wanted his hand to go on skillfully preparing the way for him. She wanted this golden glow inside her to fill her more and more. This was happiness, and she was climbing toward a greater and greater happiness. She felt him move, and all at once her hand was not on his loincloth, but on his hot flesh. She wanted to open herself up to the part of him she held so tightly.

Then he was upon her, and she felt a sudden stabbing pain. She cried out. Almost at once his cry of pleasure followed on hers and his hips thrust forward violently and she felt him filling her. He let out a long sigh and relaxed, lying on top of her, resting all of his weight on her.

I am like the Turtle holding up the earth, she thought.

There had been mounting pleasure until her moment of pain. Now there was an ache and a faint memory of the good feelings. She wanted more pleasure. Sun Woman had told her it would hurt only the first time. And that from then on it would be better and better.

Slowly he withdrew from her and they lay on their sides looking at each other. His eyes were huge right before her face.[94]

"For a moment," he said softly, "I felt as I did when I walked on the bridge of stars."

She thought of asking him whether it made him so happy that he would stay with her now instead of going to the country of the pale eyes with his father. But she knew what his answer would be, and that his saying it would only hurt him and her.

She said, "It was Sun Woman, your mother, who told me about this—about what men and women do together."

He laughed. "It was also she who told me." His face reddened. "I feel as if my mother were here watching us."

It was Redbird's turn to laugh. "What would she see that she did not know about already?"

He shook his head. "I would not want anybody to see us doing that."

"The spirits watch us."

"That is not the same. They watch everything, so it is not special to them."

"Is it special to you?" she asked.

"Oh, yes. Something has passed between us. I have given a part of myself to you. And I have a part of you too. Now, even if I must leave you, we will still be with each other."

She did not want to hear him speak of leaving. She wanted to stay here with him in this grove of ancient trees forever. When she had spoken to him of going off and being alone together, this was what she imagined it would be like. But then a dark thought crossed her mind.

"White Bear, they might send people looking for us. They might catch us together like this." Anxiously she started to pull her clothing together.

He sat up beside her and put his hand over hers. "I do not think anyone is coming." He sounded so sure that she thought he must be speaking as a shaman.

"They know I will come back to the village," he added. "They saw me smoke the calumet. And in a few days I will leave with Star Arrow."

He said it with such finality that the sun seemed to go out.

"And so there is time," he said, "If you want ..." and guided her hand to touch him. To her joy she felt him strong in his readiness to be within her again. This time, she was sure, it would not[95] hurt. She would know the full delight that Sun Woman had told her of. The afternoon sunlight slanting through the budding branches was warm again, bathing her and making her feel joyful and free.

Their flowing together lasted longer this time, and gave her all the happiness she had hoped for.

And it came to her, as they lay peacefully side by side afterward, that this might have happened someday, but it would not have happened today if Star Arrow had not come to claim his son.

[96]

7
Raoul's Mark

On the morning of the fourth day of their journey north from Saukenuk along the Great River, when the sun was halfway up the sky, White Bear and Star Arrow emerged from a forest into a prairie. To their right were gentle hills covered with new green buffalo grass and prairie flowers of every color. To their left the hills stood taller, then dropped suddenly to the Great River. White Bear saw a large boat with great white wings above it to carry it along.

Star Arrow brought his tall black stallion to a sudden halt and climbed down, gesturing to White Bear to dismount from his brown and white pony.

"Look at this stone," Star Arrow said, pointing to a large gray rock that stood upright on the edge of a bluff overlooking the river.

White Bear saw carving on the rock and, remembering Père Isaac's lessons, recognized it as the pale eyes' letter M.

"M for de Marion," said Star Arrow. "We are now on land belonging to the de Marion family. You see no fences here because we could not cut enough wood to fence off all our land. There is so much of it."

He reached out and rested his hand on White Bear's shoulder, his fingers squeezing through the buckskin shirt. "But before we come to the place where I live, and where you will live, we must speak of names. Among the pale eyes I am called Pierre de Marion. My full name is Pierre Louis Auguste de Marion."

He made White Bear say "Pierre de Marion" after him.

"According to our custom you should call me Father," Star Arrow said, saying the word in English. White Bear already knew it.[97]

"Now I will tell you what your name will be among the pale eyes."

White Bear pulled free of Star Arrow's hand and took a step backward.

"I already have a name. I was born Gray Cloud because I am neither white nor red." He could hear reproach in his voice, though he had not meant to sound that way. "But now I am White Bear. That is the name given me by the shaman Owl Carver after my spirit journey. I must keep that name."

"And you will keep that name, son. You will always be White Bear. But, just as I am happy to have the British Band call me Star Arrow, so you can have a pale eyes' name. One that tells pale eyes when you go among them who you are—that you are a member of the de Marion family—that you are my son."

He is proud that I am his son. White Bear's anger faded and he felt a warmth toward this man who wanted to give him a name. He decided that if Star Arrow could have two names, so could he.

"What is my pale eyes' name to be, Father?"

Star Arrow put his hand on White Bear's shoulder. "I wish you to be called Auguste de Marion. Auguste is a very old name. It means 'consecrated,' a sacred person, and that is a good name for one who has seen a vision and wishes to be a shaman. Say it after me. Auguste."

"O-goose."

As they rode on through the de Marion lands, people called out from cabins. Mounted men, who saluted Pierre with a wave of their hands, rode among herds of cattle and horses.

Dozens of horses! Auguste thought, realizing he was seeing wealth that would amaze any man of the British Band.

Farther along they passed fields fenced off with logs split in two and piled one on top of the other. Sheep roamed over low hills and cropped the prairie grass to its very roots. Inside a smaller plot huge gray and pink pigs rolled in mud beside a pond.

They passed fields planted with crops. The whole village of Saukenuk with all the farmland around it would fit into one of those fields. He recognized one crop, corn. Corn as far as he could see. How much corn could the de Marions eat? They must be a huge tribe.

As they rode along, Pierre said, "One more thing for you to know, Auguste. You will meet the rest of your family today—your[98] grandfather and your aunt, my sister." He stopped his horse. Auguste reined up his pony and waited. Unhappiness dragged down the lines in Pierre's face.

"I must tell you that I also have a brother, your uncle, who—" He hesitated. "Who may not be friendly to you."

"Why?" Auguste asked.

"Thirteen summers ago another sister of mine and he were captured by the Potawatomi during the war between the British and the Americans. My sister was murdered by them. Raoul, my brother, suffered greatly until we found him and ransomed him. He hates not just the Potawatomi, but all red men. He did not wish me to bring you back here to our home."

"I do not understand," said Auguste. How could a man hate all tribes because of what the men of one tribe had done to him? Again he realized what a mystery the pale