It was the fourth day after Bob’s visit when he saw the smoke. He’d come up to his vantage atop the hill for his daily look around when he spotted it about seven or eight miles off. Thick smoke, like somebody’d dumped damp leaves over the fire.
He had to think about that. He took up the monocular and gave the smoke a good hard look. It was issuing up from what looked to be a slash in the trees where he seemed to remember there was a stream. Not the one where he’d left his own signal, but another, closer one. Entirely too close.
He wondered if they knew where he was, or just had a general idea. He also wondered whether the smoke was a friendly message, a warning, or a trap.
He sat and watched for awhile, working on a response. He still wasn’t altogether ready. But then, when would he be? He’d been studying the research for months now, and thought he could figure out the rudiments, but he’d never really heard it spoken aloud by anybody who spoke it. Just a bunch of scholars extrapolating what they thought it should sound like based on a book written by a guy who’d set it down five hundred years earlier and before spelling had become a standardized thing.
In the end, he knew he was going to check it out. It would bug him unto death if he didn’t, the wondering. All that was left to decide was the impression he wanted to make.
The clearing before the cave didn’t resemble what he’d found when first he’d encountered it. Where there had been trees, there were stumps, many of them chopped or sawn short, others turned into work surfaces, at least one with a plank table built atop it. The wood he’d been collecting for the cabin was stacked to one side, the detritus of scrap piled across from it, awaiting its eventual fate as either firewood, charcoal, or some tool or container or other.
Anything of any value was already in the cave, which now had a thick plank door. And while there was no way to bar that door from out here, he had invested the twelve ounces to pack in a steel hasp and a good padlock. Anybody who wanted in could, he supposed, just bash in the door, but the strangeness, he hoped, would maybe frighten the casual thief away.
He wore the armor, of course. The bump helmet with the NVGs, he hung from his belt.
The .45s, he was still carrying in his pockets, one to each side. And, of course, the rifle. The short one, this time. The one he’d bought in the windup to the trip, not his own. Nor did he bother with the suppressor. If this went hot, he wanted the thunderous roar of the gunpowder ringing through the forest. To that end, he dug out the earpro. He hadn’t bothered with it to this point, but he’d lived through tinnitus once already, and he did not want that shit back!
No pack this time. He wasn’t going to be gone long enough, and he wasn’t going hunting. No parka, despite the cold. He’d do with a couple of layers beneath the BDU blouse. The poncho he’d wear initially. Later, he’d decide whether he’d need to stow it.
And finally, he was going to bring the spear. He had no idea how to fight the thing, but it would be something a stone age native would recognize.
* * *
Kills Bear wondered whether the spirit would heed the call. He was still trying to decide whether he wanted it to or not.
On the one hand, the meat had been welcome in a time of great hunger, and the bone and horn had provided valuable resources. On the other, it was never safe to deal with spirits. They were capricious and often cruel. One could never tell for sure what they might do until they did it. But one paid the spirits their due if he knew what was good for him, and this one hadn’t taken the offerings they’d left at the last gifting place.
If the reason for the refusal was that the offerings weren’t sufficient, that was a thing that must be taken care of before the band attempted to move back to the great water. The journey was difficult enough without vengeful spirits causing mischief.
The smudge had been going all day with no sign of recognition. Could it be that the spirit had simply moved on? Perhaps it hadn’t picked up the offering because it had already forgotten about the gift. That might be the best thing. Still, as Sagamore of his band, it was his duty to make sure. He tossed another bundle of leaves on the small fire and waited, heart pounding.
* * *
The sun was thinking about heeling over by the time Sam drew near to the smoke. He’d swung very wide around to the south, scanning the trees and brush carefully. He was looking for tracks or disturbed sticks— anything that might hint that humans had been by.
He found the tracks nearly fully around his circuit, coming from the north. No attempt at all had been made to hide them, as though whoever was walking was just strolling through the forest without a care in the world. Only a single set of tracks. Nonetheless, he completed his circle, checking for more stealthy companions.
Moving back to the tracks, he hunkered down beside the thread of deer trail that they followed and considered. It was looking less like an ambush, at least.
Moving in carefully, he crept along beside the trail, taking his time. He stopped the instant he caught a glimpse of the smoke. Oozing aside and straining his eyes, he sought out the traveler. It took him a moment, for the man was sitting very still.
This wasn’t one he’d seen before, although he seemed to be dressed in a similar fashion. It was difficult to tell for sure, since most of those he’d seen, he’d seen through the NVGs, and those didn’t render color. But the first two he’d seen had looked much as this one did.
Easing back, he completed another cautious circuit, this time closer in, trying to keep the guy more or less in sight. Finally, satisfied that, if the guy wasn’t alone, his accomplices were hidden beyond Sam’s ability to find them, he stood slowly up and approached the stream bank where the native waited by the fire.
Kills Bear heard the rustle of foliage and turned slightly, starting at the sight of the spirit as it appeared from between the trees, moving deliberately. It had chosen the shape of a man, although the shape was strange, and the clothing moreso.
It had draped itself with some sort of billowy cloak that covered it from knees to head, leaving its face shadowed beneath a wide, mouthlike opening. What he could see of it beneath the knees was colored as the forest, in mottled browns and greens. On its feet, it wore strange black boots, laced with something that looked at once like lacing but again, not. that must be the cause of its strange tracks.
It carried a peculiar shining spear in its left hand, and that hand was covered by more of the black of the boots. Perhaps that was its skin, and the rest clothing. Its right hand was hidden beneath the cloak.
As it drew near, its face came into view, and he saw that the black must not be skin, not that he could see much skin. There was hair all over it beneath the nose. A strange, pale colored hair such as he’d never seen. What he could see of its flesh was lighter than any person’s he’d ever encountered.
Perhaps the spirit had never seen a man close up, and had guessed at what one might look like. Why, then, had it helped the band?
The spirit waded through the shallow stream and joined him on the bank, and he could now see that the material of its garb was not anything like the cloth the people weaved. Not the cloak, nor the boots, nor the things covering its hands. Likewise, the spear was some smooth substance that shone in the reflected light of the sun, its blade smoother than any stone he’d ever seen.
When it opened its mouth to speak, his theory of it gained strength. The words were all garbled, as though the creature had heard of them, but never the words themselves. He could hear the ghosts of proper words, but nothing he could immediately identify.
“I am Kills Bear,” he ventured once it had stopped, placing a fist over his chest. “I am Saginaw of the Tall Trees band of the Agawam people of the Massachusett. I thank you for your gifts.
Sam struggled with the words, trying to replay them back in his head. Personal pronoun, he thought, which was reinforced by the fist to chest motion. Followed by death or make dead. The next word he didn’t recognize at all. So, either this guy was telling him he’d killed something, or maybe that his name indicated that he’d killed something. Sam really wanted to check the proto-Algonquin dictionary, but wasn’t willing to do the juggling that it would take to haul it out just yet.
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But Saginaw he knew, or at least he thought the word would equate to Saginaw. It sounded sort of like it, and the placement would fit. It was a sort of chieftain. Lower than a clan chief. A band chief, if he remembered correctly. He’d be the guy running a single village’s worth of people. Somewhere between thirty and a hundred and fifty, figuring broadly. And finally, Agawam and Massachusett, which he’d sort of known coming in he would be. The words weren’t pronounced quite as he’d learned them, but that was hardly surprising. It was kind of surprising they were as close as they were, truth be told.
Experimentally, he moved his left hand, spear still clutched in his fist, to his chest, unwilling to let go of the rifle with his right. “Sam,” he said.
The Indian squinted his eyes and leaned forward a bit. “Sang?”
“Sam,” he pronounced it more slowly, tapping his chest again.
The Indian nodded. “Sam.” Then something else that Sam couldn’t translate, followed by what sounded like a question, which he also couldn’t understand. This was going just great. He’d be gossiping like an old maid in no time at all.
He looked around for someplace dry to sit, but there wasn’t anyplace. Sighing to himself, he thrust the base of the staff into the sand of the bank, a good solid thrust, leaving it standing upright. Then, crossing his legs, he squatted as he pulled the poncho beneath his ass, hitting the sand a soft thump.
Kills Bear watched this display critically, his heart racing, apprehensive that the Sam spirit seemed unwilling to identify itself. Of course, he’d had very little to do with spirits in his life, so this might be normal behavior. Or Sam might be a type of spirit with which the people were unfamiliar. The wise woman had been equally unwilling to expound on how one dealt with a spirit in person, or how one distinguished between them. None of these things gave cause for Kills Bear’s mind to be set at ease.
It was growing obvious that the Sam spirit was holding something that it did not wish for him to see. A war club, perhaps, although why it should display one weapon but conceal the other was a mystery. He could clearly see some sort of angular shape deforming the strange cloak, although he could not decide what it was. There was still no evidence of a weapon that might be capable of causing the wounds they’d discovered in the deer it had left for them. Perhaps that was the reason.
He waited for a bit as it settled itself before risking asking again, “What kind of spirit is Sam, and why has it helped us?” Perhaps if he could learn what sort of spirit it was, he could arrange for gifts more in keeping with its desires. He wouldn’t really feel comfortable until the debt was paid.
It was no use. Sam, while he’d been studying the grammar, hadn’t a wide enough lexicon of words, or the ability to parse them on the fly. “Speak slow,” he tried.
Kills Bear thought a bit, striving to place the sounds with the words they might be. Then he nodded, trying to hide his relief. It was not unwilling, then, but unable. Or perhaps it had learned from some far off band who spoke the words differently. Unless he was mistaken. In the end, he was only really guessing at what he thought the words meant.
“I will speak slowly,” he said slowly, enunciating each word carefully.
The Sam spirit smiled and nodded in its turn.
“What,” Kills Bear asked carefully. “Kind. Of. Spirit. Is. Sam?”
Sam had his head tilted toward his host, trying to assign meaning to the words. Obviously, it was a query. Spirit? Was that word spirit? Oh, he thought Sam was some kind of nature elemental. Maybe the other words were an attempt to catagorize? Or asking Sam to provide a category? How did he even answer that?
“Friend,” he said, smiling. Perhaps that would be enough.
Friend, Kills Bear thought. Perhaps. It sounded close. He took a chance and repeated the word, pronouncing it correctly to see did the Sam spirit recognize or deny. The Sam spirit smiled broadly and nodded, repeating the word again. Kills Bear corrected it once more, and the response this time was correct.
It was strange to think that he was sitting thus with a spirit and correcting its pronunciations as though he were conversing with an ordinary trader new to the region. It occurred to him that he should probably be far more frightened than he was, although he was certainly frightened. A part of his mind worked on why he wasn’t, while the most of it concentrated on feeling his way through the rest of the meeting. Perhaps it was all the time he’d spent with the council, and the strange sachems and saginaws of the tribes.
He considered offering the Sam spirit something to drink, but wasn’t sure if it was correct. Did spirits—? But they must eat at least some of the same food as the people. There had been evidence of a third deer taken at the last gifting place. The Sam spirit had taken meat, hide, brain, and liver, along with much of the fat. Almost as though it were a person itself. It had left the heart behind, but had destroyed it for some reason.
Would it drink sassafras tea? It seemed friendly, so he offered, pointing to the clay pot beside the fire.
Sam looked dubiously at the pot the Indian was gesturing to. Did he dare? He had no idea what might be in there, or what sorts of contaminants it might contain, living or otherwise. For that matter, where had the clay come from? Drinking from unglazed clay pots was a nifty way to acquire lead poisoning.
The damned watch chimed! Sam whipped his hand back beneath the poncho, his face reddening. Letting go the rifle for the first time since he’d seen the native sitting by the stream, he pulled the neck of the poncho clear enough to see down where his hand now lay pressed against his chest. He pressed down on the flashing light, revealing the first message in days.
A viewer offers fifteen points to sample the offered consumable.
Squeezing his eyes closed, he raised his head to regard the curious— the chime sounded again.
The offer has been raised to twenty-five points.
Teeth clenched, he looked around and upward, glaring, but making no move toward the pot.
Kills Bear started at the first noise coming from the Sam spirit’s arm. Not so much as the Sam spirit itself, however. Something was wrong with it. It was growling to itself now, or at least, he hoped it was to itself and not at him. He was reminded that spirits had their own habits and motivations, and that he knew none of them, which was not something that went very far in setting him at ease.
The noise kept repeating, as though a tiny, invisible bird were scolding the Sam spirit. A spirit spirit? Was such a thing possible? Did spirits also have those powers they must answer to? For some reason, Kills Bear found this notion hilarious, and had to force himself through considerable will to not laugh aloud.
The spirit was mumbling angrily to the little bird in a language that sounded nothing like that of the people, or even its previous garbled version. He found himself following the roaming gaze of the spirit, hoping to catch a glimpse of what was so agitating it.
This was going to make a grand story if he survived it.
There was apparently a bidding war going on now. Drink the mystery brew was up at one hundred points, and throw it into the stream was at one-thirty. Shoot the Indian was tailing badly at fifty-five. Some asshole was offering a thousand points if he’d eat the man. Sam was beginning to see why nobody’d ever made it before.
The watch chimed again, and the bid was one-fifty to drink.
“Alright, goddamnit!” he said angrily to the sky. “I’ll drink it!”
He turned to his host, who seemed tickled as hell, god only knew why. Sighing, he reached behind himself for the canteen cup, but hesitated. Switching targets, he fished a kerchief out of a pocket and wrapped it around his left wrist, over the watch. He had to duck his head within the hood and catch a corner in his teeth, but he got it tied off. Then he reached back to winkle the canteen and cup clear of their cover, slipping the canteen back in. While he was at it, he pulled the small packet of iodine pills clear of their little pocket, slipping one of those clear and dropping it into the canteen cup. He’d drink whatever it was that was being offered, but he didn’t have to go in bareback.
Kills Bear watched the gyrations curiously. What could the Sam spirit have hidden beneath that cloak that could occasion so much activity? His eyes widened when it pulled a large cup of the same shiny material as the spear from beneath it. He tried not to stare too openly.
That was when he noticed the strange, brightly colored cloth wrapped about the wrist from which the tiny bird had spoken. He tilted his head and leaned aside, trying to make out the form of the bird beneath the wrapping. He couldn’t see its shape, but he thought he could still hear its muffled cheeping. Well, if the bird did have some power over the Sam spirit, it must not be overly great, or it would not stand for being bound to the wrist.
The Sam spirit placed the cup down onto the sand and its hands went back beneath the cloak. More gyrations followed, after which the hand, which was now the same pale skin as the face, reappeared holding two strips of dried meat. One, the creature gripped at the corner in its teeth, the other, it leaned forward to offer to Kills Bear.
Now it was his turn to be self-conscious, and some of the fear —vanished with the comedy of the bird spirit— was back.
It was one thing to offer drink, but to share meat? Was this more of the spirit’s lack of knowledge of the people, or an honest offer? And did shared food mean the same thing to spirits as to people? But then, it had already given them meat, hadn’t it. Twice now. And from the evidence left behind at the last gifting place, more and larger game than it had kept for itself.
There were people in Tall Trees who were alive now who might not have been without that meat.
He reached hesitantly forward, taking the strip delicately, as though it might be poisoned.
Then he watched the Sam spirit lean clumsily forward to take up the clay pot and pour tea into its strange, shiny cup, all with the same hand. Perhaps the Sam spirit only had the one hand. It was always possible that the shape beneath the cloak wasn’t so much something held in its other hand as it was its other hand, or some monstrous substitute.
Kills Bear gasped his surprise as the tea filled the cup, swirling into a deep reddish hue as it filled. More magic, the reason for which he could not understand. The Sam spirit seemed not to think anything unusual about this, which was itself frightening. It sat for a moment, gazing down into the tea as the color enveloped the liquid.
The Sam spirit then moved the cup to its mouth, but did not drink. Instead, it removed the strip of meat and held it in the hand holding the cup. The cup it held out to Kills Bear, raising it with a smile. “Friend,” it repeated.
“Friend,” he told it, holding his own cup in imitation.