Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Shaman by Robert Shea (nice books to read TXT) 📖
- Author: Robert Shea
Book online «Shaman by Robert Shea (nice books to read TXT) 📖». Author Robert Shea
Much has happened to them while I was gone.
"I told you White Bear had come back," Three Horses said over and over again.
White Bear breathed in the familiar smells of campfire smoke and roasting meat, of leather and freshly cut wood and tobacco[188] smoke. His delighted eyes took in quillwork and beadwork and paint, blankets and ribbons, bodies clad in fringed buckskin, warm brown faces, dark, friendly eyes.
Murmuring greetings, he searched the crowd for specially loved faces.
"Where is Owl Carver?" he asked. After such a long time the Sauk language came awkwardly to his lips.
Three Horses said, "Owl Carver visits the camps of the Fox and the Kickapoo, to invite them to Black Hawk's council."
What is Black Hawk planning now?
White Bear did not like the sound of the news, but there would be time to think about it later.
"Where is Sun Woman, my mother?"
Water Flows Fast spoke up. "She has gone to gather medicine plants." She looked as cheerful as, he remembered, she always had, but her eyes penetrated him.
"Will no one find her and tell her that I am here?"
Water Flows Fast said, "Redbird should go and tell Sun Woman. Redbird lives with Sun Woman now."
Redbird!
He felt almost dizzy at the sound of her name, a name he had not heard spoken aloud in six years.
As soon as Water Flows Fast spoke, she started to giggle, putting her hands over her mouth. Many of the other women in the group giggled too. White Bear wanted to hide his burning face. He had forgotten how painful it could be to be made fun of by those who knew him so well.
But joy blazed up in his chest. Redbird living with Sun Woman? He wanted to whoop with happiness, even as Wolf Paw had whooped with rage. That could only mean that she had not taken a husband.
Then he took a deep breath and stiffened his body to hide his feelings. He looked at the laughing faces all around him, especially the bright, curious eyes of Water Flows Fast. If they saw how excited he was, they would laugh at him all the more.
Trying to keep his voice steady, he asked, "Where is my mother's wickiup?"
With a knowing smile—but what was it that she knew?—Water Flows Fast beckoned to the wickiup of Sun Woman—and Redbird. "Come. I will take you."[189]
She turned, her fringed skirt swinging. The women parted to make way for her. Shouldering his rifle, White Bear followed. Three Horses walked beside him. White Bear heard the whisper of many moccasins and the murmur of many voices behind him.
Water Flows Fast marched up to a wickiup near the center of the camp. The dark, rounded shelter of sheets of elm bark and tree limbs was small, just big enough for two people, three at the most.
White Bear's heart was beating like a dance drum. The buffalo-hide flap was pulled down over the door, showing that if anyone was within they wanted privacy.
"The wickiup of Sun Woman," said Water Flows Fast. "And of Redbird." She looked at him expectantly.
"There is no one here," said White Bear.
This brought shouts of laughter from the women around him. He wished they would all go away.
"I saw Redbird go in there," said Water Flows Fast, "and I did not see her come out."
White Bear's discomfort increased as he watched her face redden and her cheeks puff out. It seemed that mirth would make her burst.
Every beat of his heart seemed to shake his whole body. He looked around slowly, trying to calm himself. Even if Redbird had waited for him, his sudden return must have shocked her. She needed time to prepare herself to meet him. And, like him, she did not want all these women watching their meeting and laughing. He would simply have to wait until Redbird was ready to greet him.
A rack of crisscrossed wooden sticks for drying skins stood by the closed doorway. Slowly, deliberately, he walked over to the rack, leaned his rifle against it, and laid down his pack and bags.
Then, turning his back on the wickiup, he sat down cross-legged on the ground.
Water Flows Fast looked at him, open-mouthed.
"Thank you for showing me the way," he said. Hiding his embarrassment, he made himself smile at the hundred or more women gathered to watch him.
"What are you going to do?" Water Flows Fast asked.
"I am going to rest and thank Earthmaker for seeing me here safely."
"White Bear is a man of sense," said Three Horses, smiling his approval.
"Is that all?" Water Flows Fast asked.[190]
"I am going to wait for Sun Woman, my mother."
"Is that all?"
"That is all," said White Bear.
Three Horses, who was no taller than his wife, gripped her plump upper arm firmly. "Let White Bear alone."
"But—" Water Flows Fast started to protest, and her husband jerked her arm.
"We will leave this man in peace," he said.
Her lower lip jutting out, Water Flows Fast let Three Horses pull her away through the crowd.
White Bear sat with his eyes downcast to discourage people from talking to him. Gradually the rest of the crowd dispersed.
The back of his neck bristled. He knew Redbird was in the wickiup behind him. Sooner or later she must come out.
To have her so close after all this time, to know she was there and to hear nothing but that terrible silence, and yet to sit with his back to that buffalo-hide curtain, all this was a torment for him. The urge to jump up and tear the curtain away pressed against his resolve to hold himself still. He thought he might explode like a barrel of gunpowder.
He forced himself to breathe slowly and pretend that he was hidden in shrubbery with a bow and arrow, watching for a deer.
After a time—he could not tell how much time—a face was peering into his. Dark and square. The brown eyes brimmed with tears.
His eyes opened wider. Sun Woman was kneeling before him.
"My son." She reached out to him, and he scrambled to embrace her. When her strong arms held him he felt like a little boy again.
He sat back to look at her dear face, wet with tears. Resting beside her on the ground was the familiar basket with blue cloth cover that she used to gather herbs.
He looked around for the sun. It was low and red on the western horizon. It had been high when he sat down here. He must have gone on a spirit walk.
"I knew it would be like this," Sun Woman said. "It would come one day when I least expected it—my son would be back again."
He sighed deeply. "To see my mother makes my heart as big as the prairie."
They sat facing each other and she gripped his shoulders. "You are a man now, a very handsome man." She ran her hand along his[191] cheek, and his whole face felt warm. He kept his gaze fixed on her eyes.
She said, "You have learned much. You have been hurt. Your face is scarred." She followed the line of the scar with her thumb, leaning forward to peer still more closely at him. "I see sadness in you. Your father is dead. That is why you have come back."
She sat back and closed her eyes for a silent moment. Then she began a song for the dead.
Lead him over the bridge of stars and sunbeams,
Along the westward Trail of Souls.
Take his soul into your heart."
After she had finished the song, Sun Woman wiped the tears from her face with her blunt fingers. She reached out and stroked his cheeks as well. He had not realized that he was crying.
But grieving for Pierre reminded him to reach into his medicine bag.
"I have a gift for you, Mother." He took out the flat silver case with its velvet neck cord, opened it and showed her the pair of spectacles Marchette had brought to him from Victoire. "Do you know these?"
"Your father wore circles of glass like these. To see the marks on the talking paper."
"Yes. These are the same ones." He closed the case and pressed it into her hand. "Now you have something that was close to Star Arrow."
She said, "He was with me for five summers only, but in spirit, ever since. Now I will feel even closer to him." She slipped the ribbon over her head and dropped the case down the front of her doeskin dress.
He saw the tracks of more tears on her smooth brown cheeks in the fading light. This time she did not wipe them away.
"Tell me all that has happened to you," she said.
As White Bear talked, he deliberately made his voice loud enough to carry, so that Redbird, in the wickiup, might hear.
When he was through telling his story, he felt weighed down by guilt.[192]
"I fled, Mother, even though I promised my father I would care for the land. And smoked tobacco with him to seal the promise. Should I have stayed?"
She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "You kept your promise as far as you were able. That is all the calumet requires. Your father would not want you to die fighting for that land. It is better that you come back here and be a Sauk again."
White Bear looked down, unable to meet Sun Woman's eyes. Feeling an ache deep in the center of his body, remembering the great stone and log house, the blizzard of blossoms in the orchards, the fields of green corn and golden wheat, the herds that darkened the hillsides, he wanted to clutch his chest where it felt as if it had been torn open. He could not so easily forget Victoire.
When I was at Victoire I yearned to go back to my people. Now I am with my people and I miss Victoire. Will my heart never be at peace?
Nancy had wanted him so desperately before they parted; Redbird would not even let him see her.
White Bear saw that once again women had started to gather nearby, among them the round-faced Water Flows Fast. And now White Bear saw another familiar face he had not seen earlier, Redbird's mother, Wind Bends Grass. She glowered at him as she always had, her fists on her broad hips.
O Earthmaker! Why would Redbird not come out and speak to him?
A dozen cawing crows flew over the camp. Laughing at him.
He heard a movement behind him, a rustling of the buffalo-hide curtain. He dared not look around.
A voice at his back said, "Go away, White Bear!"
A cool, sweet flow poured from his heart like a mountain spring at the sound of Redbird's voice. He unfolded his legs, stiff from hours of sitting, and pushed himself to his feet. He turned.
Weakness washed over him; he thought he might fall to the ground. Redbird stood before him, her cheeks flushed, her slanting eyes sparkling with anger. Her face was thinner than he remembered, her lips fuller. She still wore a fringe of her hair over her forehead.
Standing silent and open-mouthed, he felt he must look utterly foolish.[193]
"Go away," Redbird said again. "We do not want you here."
"To see you is a sunrise in my heart, Redbird."
"To see you is a foul day in my stomach!"
Reeling back from her anger, White Bear saw a little boy standing in the doorway behind her.
He was bare-chested, brown-skinned. He wore a loincloth of red flannel and fringed buckskin leggings. He was shifting uncomfortably from one moccasined foot to the other and clutching at himself under the loincloth.
Now White Bear understood why Redbird had finally come out. She and the boy must have been inside the wickiup all the time he was sitting out here, and the boy was about to burst.
It would have been funny, except that a much more important discovery struck White Bear.
He looked closer at the boy's urgent eyes. Blue eyes.
White Bear's own eyes were brown, but Pierre's were blue. Could eye color be passed in the blood from grandfather to grandson? Around his eyes, in the narrow shape of his head, his long chin coming to a sharp point, White Bear could see that this boy was a de Marion.
This is our son! Redbird's and mine!
Joy blazed up in his body like a fire that warms but does not hurt.
He asked, "What is his name, Redbird?"
She glanced over her shoulder at the boy. "What are you standing there for? You have to go. Go!" The boy ran off toward the woods. White Bear watched him. He ran well, even though he was very young and most uncomfortable.
White Bear wanted to reach out and take Redbird
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