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

eyes were, and he felt fear.

Pierre said, "He probably will not be there when we arrive. I had to tell you about Raoul, but I do not want you to be afraid of him."

But he was afraid, he told himself as they rode on. His belly felt hollow, and his heart beat faster than his pony's trotting hooves. He was afraid of the pale eyes and their strange ways. He felt more fear now than he had when he walked on the bridge of stars with the White Bear.

"There!" Pierre suddenly held out his hand. Auguste's eyes followed the gesture, and his mouth dropped open.

What at first he thought he saw was a forest of trees covered with snow. In their midst something rose like a great gray hill. Snow in the Moon of Buds? Perhaps the pale eyes did have a magic of their own.

As they rode closer, the snow on the trees turned into flowers. He had seen wild apple trees in bloom and knew that many trees flowered around this time. But these trees were all planted in straight rows, and each one was a mass of white blossoms.

What he had thought was a gray hill was the biggest lodge he had ever seen. He jerked the reins of his horse to stop, so that he could sit and wonder at what he was seeing. He felt Pierre stop beside him.

The great lodge seemed to be made of three or four lodges all joined together with one central building higher than all the rest. Its[99] high peaked roof was of logs split in half with the flat sides turned outward. The lower part of the lodge was made of stones, the upper part of logs.

Dread filled him, seeing that these people could do so much. They could hold so much land that a rider needed half a day to cross from edge to center. They could make the land obey their wishes, fence it, fill it with animals, plant huge fields with crops, enjoy a forest of flowering trees. And in the very center of all this they could make a lodge gigantic enough to hold a hundred families.

The pale eyes could do anything. They were magicians so mighty as to make a shaman like Owl Carver look childish. How could he ever hope to know all that they knew?

Despair crushed him. He wanted to see no more.

Pierre patted Auguste's pony on the neck, and the little horse started forward again. Numbly, Auguste felt himself being led toward the great lodge, his pony's hooves falling softly on white petals.

Pierre pointed proudly. "We call our house Victoire."

Closer and closer they came until the house blocked out part of the sky. It was gray, the logs it was built of having weathered. Auguste saw that there were many smaller buildings scattered around the giant lodge—smaller only compared to the huge one in the center. Some of the smaller houses were connected to the great one by sheltered walkways. The smallest was much bigger than the biggest lodge in Saukenuk.

In a moment they would emerge from among the flowering trees. Auguste saw a log fence ahead. The fence surrounded a low hill covered with close-cropped grass, leading up to the house. One large old maple tree shaded the south side. He checked his pony. He could go no farther.

"What is it?" Pierre asked him.

"I cannot," Auguste said. "I cannot go there." He felt a quaver in his voice and his lips trembling, and he held himself rigid.

"Why not, Auguste?" Pierre said softly.

"I do not know what to do here. I have never seen such a place as this. I will do foolish things. All those people will laugh at me. You will not want me for a son."

"Let us wait," said Pierre. "Get down from your horse."

Biting his lip, Auguste dismounted.[100]

"We shall sit here," said Pierre. They sat, facing each other. Auguste saw people approaching through the straight rows of trees. Pierre saw them, too, and waved them away.

They sat for a long time in silence while their horses grazed nearby. Auguste held his misery in until he felt calmer.

He looked at Pierre and nodded to say that he was in control of himself. Pierre nodded back. Auguste looked at the petal-covered ground, feeling crushed.

"All this is strange to you," Pierre said.

"Yes," said Auguste.

"And it is not foolish to fear. There are some people here who will hate you just because you are a red man. There are people who will be afraid of you. But there are dangers in the life you come from—fire and flood, sickness, bears and wolves, the Sioux and Osage, enemies of your people. You fear those things, but you have been taught how to live with those dangers. There are other people here, people like myself, who will care for you and protect you and teach you how to live with the dangers of the pale eyes' world. You must come to know these people who will help you. I want you to be glad you came from Saukenuk to Victoire."

Auguste did not answer. They sat in silence for a while. Then Pierre spoke again.

"The pale eyes are here, Auguste, and you must learn to live with us."

Auguste sighed and settled down again. He listened to the buzzing of locusts rise and fall.

If my vision of this man meant something, then come to me now, White Bear, and tell me what I must do.

He carried a handful of bits of magic mushroom in a saddlebag, but several times since his spirit journey the White Bear had spoken to him without the help of the mushroom and without his mind leaving his body. All he needed to do, sometimes, was sit quietly and listen. He waited now, sometimes looking at Pierre, sometimes looking at the twigs and moss and grass on the ground.

Perhaps no spirit can reach me here in the land of the pale eyes.

He was about to give up and get to his feet. He would beg Pierre to let him go back to the Sauk.

Then a voice spoke deep and clear in his mind, and it was not his voice.[101]

Go and meet your grandfather.

A warmth spread from the center of his body to hands and feet that a moment ago had been icy with fear. Knowing that he had not left his spirit helper behind when he left Saukenuk gave him new confidence.

He held out his hands, palms up. "Let us go to meet my grandfather."

The smile on Pierre's long face mirrored the glow Auguste felt inside himself.

They remounted and rode around to a gateway in the west side of the fence surrounding the house. Auguste, with his newfound strength, endured the curious stares of the men and women gathered at the gate to greet Pierre.

"Look, your grandfather is waiting for you," said Pierre, his voice ringing with joy.

Before a doorway sheltered by its own wooden roof, an old man, a very stout young woman and a plump young man awaited them.

The old man's eyes were blue like Pierre's but they seemed to glitter and to see deeply into Auguste. He was tall and thin and slightly stooped with age. His clothes were simple—a black jacket over a white shirt, and black trousers that tightened below his knees and ended in straps that ran under shiny black shoes. He leaned on a black stick with a silver head.

His heart fluttering with excitement, Auguste got down from his horse and took a tentative step forward. The old man approached him, his expression as fierce as a hawk's. He looked hard into Auguste's face.

The old man spoke to him in a language of the pale eyes, so rapidly that Auguste could not hope to understand him.

Pierre said, "Your grandfather says he sees at once that you are a member of our family. He sees it in the shape of your eyes. He sees it in your nose, in your chin. He sees that like all de Marion men you are very tall."

"What is my grandfather's name?" Auguste asked.

"He is the Chevalier Elysée de Marion."

"El-izay," Auguste said, and his grandfather clapped his hands and grinned.

"But you should call him Grandpapa," Pierre concluded.

"Grandpapa." That was another word Père Isaac had taught him.[102]

Grandpapa gave a cackling old man's laugh, threw his arms wide and hugged Auguste. Auguste hugged him back, rather gingerly, fearing his bones might crack. A thought came to Auguste, and he let go of his grandfather. He hurried back to his horse and took out of the saddlebag the tobacco pouch he had packed along with his small medicine bundle.

He went back to Elysée and held the pouch out with both hands.

In his best English he said, "Please, I give Grandpapa tobacco."

Elysée took the pouch and opened it, sniffed and grinned appreciatively. He and Pierre exchanged words.

Pierre said, "I have told him that among the Sauk, tobacco is offered to honored friends, to men of high rank and to great spirits. This pleases him."

"Thank you, Auguste," Grandpapa said. "I will smoke it in my pipe after we eat together." This time he spoke slowly enough for Auguste to understand him.

Grandpapa now took the stout woman by the arm and pulled her forward.

"This is your aunt, my sister, Nicole Hopkins," said Pierre.

Never among the Sauk had he seen a woman with such broad hips and such a vast bosom. She stepped forward and placed her lips, to Auguste's surprise, on his cheek, making a little smacking sound. Not sure what to do, Auguste put his arms around the woman as he had around his grandfather. She felt soft and comfortable and not at all fragile, and he hugged her hard. He felt powerful muscles under her ample flesh. His aunt returned the embrace with strong arms. She smelled of flowers.

All at once, Auguste sensed that there was a baby growing inside the woman holding him. Not because she was so big; it had nothing to do with the way she looked. It was a sensing, and he was pleased to know that, along with the White Bear, he had not left his powers behind at Saukenuk.

Pierre said, "Now meet Frank Hopkins, your uncle by marriage."

At Pierre's gesture the sandy-haired man approached Auguste. Auguste opened his arms to hug him, but the man stuck his right hand out. The man's fingers were black. That was odd; he had never seen painted fingers before. Was this another pale eyes custom?[103] Auguste decided he was expected to hold out his own right hand. Frank seized his hand in a strong grip and shook it up and down.

"Frank makes the talking papers from which people may read and learn things," said Pierre. "He also builds things of wood. He built some of the newer buildings here on our land. Frank and Nicole and their children live over by the river in a town called Victor. He built many of the houses there, too."

The people had been so friendly that Auguste had gotten over much of his fear, but when he saw Pierre wave him toward the door, which yawned above him like an enormous cave mouth, he felt cold once again.

But he followed Pierre through the door, and his breath left his body in amazement.

It was like being in a forest clearing where the trees towered over you and their branches met high up, blocking out the sky. In a Sauk lodge he could reach up and touch the roof without straightening his arm. Here the ceiling was hidden in shadows, and huge square-cut timbers crossed the open space above his head.

Hung by ropes from those timbers were big circles of wood that Père Isaac had said were called wheels. These wheels were turned on their sides, and set on them were dozens of the little white sticks of wax that pale eyes used to make light. A few of the more prosperous Sauk families sometimes used such wax sticks to light their lodges.

Auguste looked around in wonder. The huge room was full of objects whose purpose he could not guess. Doorways led to other parts of this house or to attached houses. Cooking smells of many kinds of good food filled the air.

Pale eyes men and women stood about in the hall and watched Auguste and his father and grandfather enter.

Two small boys and a girl running through the hall stopped to stare at him. Frank Hopkins called to them and they approached slowly.

"These are Thomas, Benjamin and Abigail, Nicole and Frank's children," said Pierre.

Their other children, thought Auguste, wondering whether Nicole herself knew what he knew about her.

Abigail stood close to her father, her mouth and eyes wide open.[104]

Thomas, the biggest of the three, said, "Gosh almighty, I got a real Injun for