***
In the last of the darkness, Katsuk stood outside the cave which was an ancient mine shaft high on the hillside above the lake. He saw lights flickering in the branches below him, campfires beneath the fog that veiled the valley. The lights glowed and swam as though they were moving phosphor in water, shapes blurred in fog ripples.
He thought: My people.
He had crept close and identified them in the night, not by their hoquat names but by their tribal names which were shared only with those who could be trusted. They were Duck Woman, Eyes on Tree, Hates Fish, Elk Jumping, One-ball Grandfather, Moon Water ... In his own tongue now, he said their names.
“Tchukawl, Kipskiltch, Ishkawch, Klanitska, Naykletak, Tskanay ...”
Tskanay was there, thinking of herself as Mary Kletnik, no doubt. He tried to summon a Charles Hobuhet memory of Mary Kletnik. Nothing came into his mind. She was there, but behind a veil. Why was she hiding? He sensed a lithe shape naked in firelight, a voice murmuring, fingers touching flesh, a softness which demanded dangerous things of him.
She was a threat.
He understood this now. Tskanay had been important to Charles Hobuhet. She might strike through to the center which was Katsuk. Women had powers. Soul Catcher must deal with her.
The sun came over the edge of the valley. Katsuk looked beyond the bowl of fog to the mountain suspended in the dawn. Black splotches of rock stood out against snow as white as a goat-hair blanket. The mountain was an ancient shape pressed hard against the sky and left hanging there.
Katsuk prayed then: Soul Catcher protect me from that woman. Guard my strength. Keep my hatred pure.
He went into the mine-cave then, awakened the boy, and fed him chocolate and peanuts from the pack. Hoquat ate hungrily, unaware that Katsuk was not eating. The boy said nothing of his dream, but Katsuk recalled it, sensing the dangerous forces being gathered against him.
Hoquat had dreamed of a spirit who would grant any wish. The spirit had said he was not yet ready. Ready for what? For the sacrifice? It said something that Hoquat had a spirit in his dream. That didn’t happen to everyone. That was a sign of real powers. How else could this be, though? The sacrifice must be a great thing to have any meaning. The Innocent must go into the spirit world with a great voice which could not be denied. Both worlds must hear him or the death would be meaningless.
Katsuk shook his head. It was disturbing, but this was no morning for dreams. This would be a day for testing the realities of the fleshly world.
He went back outside then and saw that the sun had burned part of the fog from the valley. The lake was a mirror catching the bright flare of sunlight. It filled the valley with pale clarity. A black bear came out into the meadow above the lake, drank the air with its tongue hanging like a dog’s. It caught the scent of humans, whirled, and loped back into the trees.
Katsuk stripped off the hoquat clothing, stood in only the loincloth and the moccasins Janiktaht had made, the medicine pouch hanging at his waist.
The boy came out. Katsuk handed the hoquat clothing to him, said: “Put this in the pack. Stuff the sleeping bag on top, and hide the pack beyond where we slept.”
“Why?”
“Do it and come back here.”
David shrugged, obeyed. Presently, he returned, said: “I’ll bet you’re cold.”
“I am not cold. Come. We go to my people now.” He led the way at a fast walk which had the boy trotting to keep up.
They went down across a bracken slope, acid green with red-leaved vines creeping through the green. A gray prow of rock jutted from the slope. They went around the rock and plunged into a dark trail through trees.
David was panting by the time they splashed across rocky shallows in the creek. Katsuk seemed unaware of exertion, keeping up that steady, long stride. There were cottonwoods by the creek—pale, yellow-green moss on their trunks. The trail went through wet salal, emerged on a narrow ledge thick with spruce and cedar, a few tall hemlocks. Four crude huts, one of them as large as all the other three together, were spaced among the trees about fifty feet apart. All had been built of split cedar boards dug into the needle duff of the ground and lashed to a pole framework. David could see the lashings of twisted willow rope. The largest hut had a low door curtained by raw elkhide.
As Katsuk and the boy came in sight of the door, the curtain lifted and a young woman emerged. Katsuk stopped, held his captive with a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
The young woman came fully outside before she saw them. She stopped then, put her hand to her cheek. Recognition was obvious in her stare.
David stood locked under Katsuk’s grip. He wondered what was in Katsuk’s mind. Katsuk and the young woman just looked at each other without speaking. David studied the woman, his senses abnormally alert. Her hair was parted in the middle, hanging loosely over her shoulders. The ends were braided, tied with white string. Pockmarks disfigured her left cheek, showing around the hand she held there. Her cheeks were broad. They glistened, and her eyes were set deeply into the flesh. Her figure was full and slender beneath a red-purple dress which stopped just below her knees.
All the way down the mountain, David had told himself Katsuk’s people would end this nightmare. The old days of Indians and white captives were gone forever. These people had come here as part of the search for Katsuk. Now David saw fear in the young woman’s eyes and began to doubt his hopes.
She dropped her hand, said: “Charlie.”
Katsuk gave no response. She looked at David, back at Katsuk. “I didn’t think it would work.” Katsuk stirred, said: “Didn’t think what would work?”
“The sing.”
“You think I came because they sang me in?”
“Why not?”
Katsuk released David’s shoulder, said: “Hoquat, this is Tskanay ... an old friend.”
Coming toward them, she said: “My name is Mary Kletnik.”
“Your name is Tskanay,” Katsuk said. “Moon Water.”
“Oh, stop that nonsense, Charlie,” she said. “You—”
“Do not call me Charlie.”
Although he spoke softly, his tone stopped her. Again, she put a hand to her pockmarked cheek. “But ...”
“I have another name now: Katsuk.”
“Katsuk?”
“You know what it means.”
She shrugged. “The center ... kind of.”
“Kind of,” he sneered. He touched the boy. “This is Hoquat, the Innocent who will answer for all of our innocents.”
“You don’t really ...”
“The reality I show you, it will be the only reality.”
Her glance went to the knife at his waist.
“Nothing that simple,” Katsuk said. “Where are the others?”
“Most of them went out before dawn ... searching.”
“For me?”
She nodded.
David’s heart leaped at her response. Katsuk’s people were here to help. They were searching. He said: “My name is David Marshall. I—”
A stinging backhand blow sent him reeling.
Tskanay put both hands to her mouth, stifled a scream.
In a conversational tone, Katsuk said: “Your name is Hoquat. Do not forget again.” He turned to the young woman. “We spent the night in the old mine. We even built a fire. Why did your searchers not search there?”
She lowered her hands, did not answer.
Katsuk said: “Do you still think your pitiful sing brought me in?”
Her throat convulsed with swallowing.
David, his cheek burning from the blow, glared angrily at Katsuk, but fear kept him rooted.
“Who is still in camp?” Katsuk asked.
Tskanay said: “Your Aunt Cally and old Ish, that I know of. Probably one or two of the younger boys. They don’t like to go out into the cold too early.”
“The story of our lives,” Katsuk said. “Do you have a radio?”
“No.”
The elkhide
curtain behind her lifted. An old man emerged—long nose, gray hair to his shoulders, a crane figure. He wore bib overalls and a green wool shirt that flopped loosely on his thin frame. Caulked boots covered his feet. He carried a lever-action rifle in his right hand.
David, seeing the rifle, allowed his hopes to grow once more. He studied the old man: pale face full of wrinkles, eyes sunken above high cheeks. A dark, elemental spirit lay in the eyes. His hair was twisted together like old kelp that had dried and rotted on a beach.
“Been listening,” the old man said. His voice was high and clear.
Katsuk said: “Hello, Ish.”
Ish came fully out of the door, let the curtain drop. He moved with a limp, favoring his left foot. “Katsuk, eh?”
“That is my name.” Katsuk spoke with a subtle air of deference.
“Why?” Ish asked. He advanced to a position beside Tskanay. A distance of about ten feet separated them from Katsuk and the boy.
David sensed the contest between these two, looked at Katsuk. “We both know what opens the mind,” Katsuk said. “Solitude and suffering,” Ish said. “So you think you’re a shaman.”
“You use the correct word, Ish. I’m surprised.”
“I’ve had a little education, boy.”
Katsuk said: “I sought the old ways, I suffered with hunger and cold in the high mountains. I gained a spirit.”
“You’re a woods Indian now, eh?”
In a cold, hard voice, Katsuk said: “Do not call me Indian.”
“Okay,” Ish said. He shifted his grip on the rifle.
David looked from the rifle to Katsuk, hardly dared to breathe, afraid he might call attention to himself.
Ish said:” You really think you got a spirit?”
Tskanay said: “Oh, this is idiot talk!”
Katsuk said: “I will not be disinherited by my own people in my own land. I know why you are here. My spirit tells me.”
“Why are we here?” Ish asked.
“You used the excuse of hunting for me to poach in your own land. You came to break the hoquat laws, to kill game your families need to survive and which is ours by right!”
The old man grinned. “Didn’t need a spirit to tell you that. You think we weren’t really hunting for you?”
“I heard the sing, “Katsuk said.
“It brought you in, too!” Tskanay said.
“Sure did,” Ish agreed.
Katsuk shook his head. “No, uncle of my father, your sing did not bring me in. I came to show you my rank.”
“You didn’t even know I was here,” Ish protested. “I heard you ask Mary.” Tskanay,” Katsuk corrected him. “Mary, Tskanay—what’s the difference?”
“You know the difference, Ish.”
David realised suddenly that, despite his glib tone, the old man was terrified and trying to hide it. Why was he afraid? He had a rifle and Katsuk only had the knife. The fear was there, though—in the pallor, in the stiffness of his grin, the tension in his old muscles. And Katsuk knew it!
“So I know the difference,” Ish muttered.
“I will show you,” Katsuk said. He spread his arms, lifted his face to the sky. “Raven,” he said, his voice low, ‘show them that my spirit is all powerful.”
The old man sighed, said: “This sure as hell isn’t why we sent you to the university.”
“Raven,” Katsuk said, louder this time.
“Stop calling your damned bird,” Tskanay said. “Raven’s been dead for a hundred years at least.”
“Raven!” Katsuk screamed.
A wooden door banged in one of the huts off to the left. Two boys about David’s age emerged, stood staring at the scene in the clearing.
Katsuk lowered his head, folded his arms.
David said: “I saw him bring the birds once.” Immediately, he felt foolish. The others ignored him. Did they doubt him? “I did,” he insisted.
Tskanay was looking at him now. She shook her head sharply. David saw that she, too, was fighting down terror. She was angry, also. Her eyes flashed with it.
Katsuk said: “I accept what Raven gives.” He began singing, a low chant with harsh, clicking sounds.
Ish said: “Stop that!”
Tskanay looked puzzled. “That’s just names.”
“Names of his dead,” the old man said. His eyes glittered as he glanced around the clearing.
Katsuk broke off his chant, said: “You felt them last night during your sing!”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” the old man growled, but there was fear in his voice. It trembled and broke.
“Felt what?” Tskanay demanded.
Cold gripped David’s chest. He knew what Katsuk meant: There were spirits in this place. David sensed a dirge humming in the trees. He shivered.
“While you sang, I heard them here,” Katsuk said. He touched his chest. “They said: “We are the canoe people, the whale people. Where is our ocean? What are you doing here? This lake is not our ocean. You have run away. The whales taunt us. They spout only a spear’s throw from the beach. Once, they would not have dared this.” This is what the spirits told me.”
Ish cleared his throat.
Katsuk said: “Raven protects me.”
The old man shook his head, started to lift the rifle. As he moved, a single raven flew in through the trees from the lake. Its pinions clattered in the clearing. It alighted on the ridge of the largest hut, tipped its head to stare at the people below it.
Ish and Tskanay had turned their heads to follow the flight. Tskanay turned back immediately. Ish took longer to study the bird before returning his attention to Katsuk.
David kept his attention on Katsuk. What a thing that was—to summon the raven.
Katsuk stared into the old man’s eyes, said: “You will call me Katsuk.”
Ish took a deep, shuddering breath, lowered the rifle.
Tskanay put both hands to her cheeks, lowered them guiltily when she saw David glance at her. Her eyes said: “I don’t believe this and neither do you.”
David felt sorry for her.
Katsuk said: “You, of all our people, Ish, must know what I am. You have seen the spirits work in men before this. I know it. My grandfather told me. You might have been a shichta, you, a great leader of our people.
Ish coughed, then: “Lot of damned nonsense. That bird’s just a coincidence. I haven’t believed in that stuff “for years.”
Softly, Katsuk asked: “How many years?” Tskanay said: “Do any of you really believe he called that bird in here?”
David whispered: “He did.”
“How many years?” Katsuk insisted.
“Since I saw the light of reason,” Ish said.
“Hoquat reason,” Katsuk said. “Ever since you fell for the hoquat religion.”
“By God, boy ...”
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Katsuk demanded. “You swallowed the hoquat religion like a halibut eating the bait. They pulled you right in. You swallowed it, even though you knew it took you out of all touch with our past.”
“That’s blasphemy, boy!”
“I am not boy! I am Katsuk. I am the center. I say you blaspheme! You deny the powers that are ours by right of inheritance.”
“That’s damned nonsense!”
“Then why don’t you shoot me?” He screamed it, leaning toward the old man. David held his breath. Tskanay backed away.
Ish hefted the rifle. As he moved, the raven on the roof squawked once. Ish almost dropped the rifle in lowering it. His eyes reflected terror now, peering at Katsuk as though he were trying to see inside the younger man.
“Now, you know,” Katsuk said. He waved his right arm.
At the gesture, the raven leaped into the air, flew back toward the lake.
“What is my name?” Katsuk demanded.
“Katsuk,” the old man whispered. His shoulders sagged. The rifle dragged at his arm as though he wanted to drop it.
Katsuk gestured at David. “This is Hoquat.”
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“Hoquat,” the old man agreed.
Katsuk strode between Ish and Tskanay, went to the elkhide curtain. He lifted the curtain, turned back to the girl. “Tskanay, you will keep watch on Hoquat. See that he doesn’t try to run away. It is too soon for him to die.” He went into the hut, dropping the curtain.
“He’s crazy,” David whispered. “He’s wild crazy.”
Tskanay turned on the old man. “Why did you cave in like that? The boy’s right. Charlie’s—”
“Shut up!” Ish snapped. “He’s lost to you, Mary. Understand me? You’ll never have him. I know. I’ve seen it before. He’s lost to all of us. I’ve seen it.”
“You’ve seen it,” she sneered. “Why, you old fool, you just stood there with that rifle while he—”
“You saw the bird!”
“The bird!”
“It could just as well have been lightning to strike us dead!”
“You’re as crazy as he is!”
“Are you blind, girl? I was just talking to keep up my nerve. I didn’t even have to see him call that bird. You can feel the power in him. He didn’t come in because of our sing. He came to show us his power.”
She shook her head. “Then what’re you going to do?”
“Going to wait for the others and tell them.”
“What’re you going to tell them?”
“That they better watch out before they go up against Katsuk. Where’s Cally?”
“She went out before I did ... about ten minutes.”
“When she gets back, tell her to fix the house for a big meeting. And don’t let that kid there get away from you. You do, Katsuk’ll kill you.”
“And you’d just stand there and let him!”
“Damned right I would. Don’t catch me going up against a real spirit. Soul Catcher’s got that one.”
***
Special Agent Norman Hosbig, FBI:
Look, I told you media guys how much we appreciate your cooperation. We’re giving you everything we can. I know how big a story this is, for Christ’s sake. We’re in complete charge and the sheriff is talking out of turn. We consider that note Hobuhet left to be a ransom note. As soon as that comes up, we automatically take jurisdiction. We’re operating on the rebuttable presumption that the kid has been transported in interstate, or foreign commerce. I know what the sheriff says, but the sheriff doesn’t know everything. We’re going to get another ransom demand before long. Hobuhet was a university student and we’ve reason to believe he was an Indian militant. He’s going to demand that we cede Fort Lawton or Alcatraz or set up an independent Indian Territory somewhere else. Now, for God’s sake, don’t print any of this.