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The Echo Makers
Chapter 44. Secrets of Darkness

Chapter 44. Secrets of Darkness

The drum began to pound like the beat of a heart. With a very slow motion, Ajijaak took his first step. His body moved as if it were liquid dancing in the wavering light. He drew his hands before his face and when they fluttered away, his face was covered in white ash. He looked far into the distance, his feet ever moving. He held up many fingers and made them undulate and march, speaking of an approaching people whose faces were as pale as the ashes. The dance continued as he circled around and around. His hands fluttered before his face again and he smeared one side with red paint. It dripped down upon his bare chest like drops of blood, and still his feet moved around and around in sacred step with the beating drum. He threw open his arms as if in welcome and then he crumbled as something unseen but deadly hit his body. With arm splayed he fell to the ground and lay very still. Then all at once he leapt to his feet, and on his face was the earth. The paint and dust were gone. He held out his arms and thrust his hands into the band of his breech cloth. Blue dye stained his fingers. He dappled them on his face like so many tears. He pulled out a packet of something and crushed it against his chest white ashes spewed into the air. His feet began the dance again. His arms and fingers traced shapes, designs of people, and animals and forests. With each symbol another cloud of ashes was tossed into the sky until he was totally obscured, When the ashes settled, Ajijaak was gone, disappeared like a spirit. In his place inscribed in the earth was a symbol of a people and a place destroyed. Ziibi shivered as she read it. This was no mere dance. It was a prophesy of a time yet to come, a time when a people would destroy life without reverence or gratitude. How could the Great Spirit let such a thing happen? The people cherished the earth, but someday, there would be those that would rape the earth like the bad men who raped a woman and left her to die. Ziibi was moved to tears. She felt utterly helpless to stop this thing, and yet it was coming one day. She felt it deep down inside where her spirit writhed. How awful it must have been for Ajijaak to receive this dance. Had it come from some dream?

Around her the people murmured about what they had just seen. All were stunned and frightened, by the vision given them by the mute dancer. Still beside her, Waabooz said, “He is crazier than a loon.” Waabooz shook his head in derision. His eyes traveled from Ajijaak to Wiinizik. Had she been one of his willing conquests? Ziibi didn’t know. A slight breeze swirled around Waabooz. A sickly sweet aroma emanated from him. It was an odor Ziibi didn’t recognize, but sensed was dark magic.

An Elder called out for Ajijaak. Ziibi saw him emerge from the darkness. His face had been wiped off and though he was still dusty, he smiled. The smile of a man who had executed his vision to the best of his ability and was very pleased his dance had affected his audience. He seemed in that moment to shine with a kind of brilliance that Ziibi had never seen in another person. She was also aware at once that the dream Ajijaak had danced was not his own, but had come from some other source and perhaps, he did not even understand the dance he had been given to share. How could he have understood it with the way he was smiling, basking in the admiration of the people?

A shadow moved away from the circle of light. Ajijaak, so caught up in the moment did not see the going of his woman and child. Unlike him, Waabooz did notice, and so did Ziibi. Waabooz’s eyes were tracking Ajijaak’s broken woman. All around Ziibi she felt the the dark begin to dance with tempting spirits. The drums and pipes began again. The crowd moved back. Ajijaak began to dance, but Ziibi did not watch him. All her senses were focused on Waabooz.

She felt an evil spirit brush against her. The cold of it pimpled her flesh. Waabooz left the circle of light. It was dangerous to follow Waabooz into the dark, but she must. A ghost from the past had been raised and she could sense its nearness. With measured stealth Ziibi left the crowd and moved through the cedars. The air was pungent with their scent. She listened hard, and could hear the baby’s soft jabber. Then, Waabooz spoke. Ziibi stopped where she was, they were closer than she thought.

Waabooz asked Winizik, “Why did you chose that cursed one, over me? Why did you not wait for me?”

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There was a bitter laugh, the bitterest laugh Ziibi had ever heard, before Wiinizik replied. “Wait for you? You never came back. You took my grandfather’s knowledge, charmed him, took me as your mate and then left us both. I have not seen you in many, many seasons, and you question me?”

“Did you take that cursed trash so you could be his ruler? You always tried to rule me.”

The firmness in Wiinizik’s voice broke, “I did not.”

In a caressingly sweet voice, Waabooz asked, “Is he as good as I? Can he make you forget? You want to forget. You want to feel what only I can give you. My Sweet, I will make you feel better. I will make you forget…everything.

Ziibi wanted to cry out, to stop this moment, but it was not her moment to stop, it was Wiinizik’s. Would she stop? On the ground beside the couple was the forgotten in baby in his cradleboard. His hands were outstretched to the moon and he laughed.

*

When the sound of the drums began again Ajijaak spun into another realm. He felt himself carried by a power greater than himself. He did not stop to question whether the power was good or evil, only that it carried him and he some how controlled it or at least he thought he did. He was the best dancer there and pride filled him. For one brief second he glanced outside of himself to the place where Wiinizik sat, only she was not there. Most likely she was tired or the baby was fussy. Wiinzik’s absence was the first hint of something amiss, but he was too caught up in the dance to pay it heed. He would wish later that he had, but now, now was his moment of glory. The dances he had copied from the sacred book were finally being communicated, not in symbols or words but in movement, movements the spirits themselves had given to him. When the drum finally died down, and his steps halted. A wave of evil jerked his spirit and pulled him right out of himself. The person he most loved was in danger. Grave danger. He bowed to the crowd. Other dancers rose to perform. He did not know how to contain the panic that was steadily rising inside of him. Once he was beyond the ring of fire light he took off running at full tilt.

Still on the trail, Ziibi heard Ajijaak coming. He had waited too long. She had not interfered in the consensual tryst of the Waabooz and Wiinizik. She could not save Wiinizik from herself, all she could do was close her eyes. She must stay near for the baby’s sake.

Ahead on the trail, Ajijaak saw the silhouette of a woman, his woman. He ran to her and grabbed her up into his arms. She was safe! The eyes that looked into his were not his woman’s but Ziibi’s. All at once he heard the moan of his woman’s ecstasy. He looked beyond Ziibi and saw his woman in the embrace of another man. He dropped Ziibi. All reason left him, and he could never remember much about what came next. The sound he remembered, the sound he seldom made came croaking out of his throat. The couple, stopped. Wiinizik’s face turned to him. Her eyes were lit with a strange light. Waabooz, the man holding his woman, turned as well. A malicious smile spread across his face, the moonlight revealed the white evenness of Waabooz’s teeth. Wiinizik, cried, “Ajijaak!”

Ziibi saw Wiinizik pull away from Waabooz like he was poison.

Ajijaak lunged for Waabooz. A rage like he had never known surged through him. He hit Waabooz as hard as he could in the chest. The next thing he knew a hot searing pain shot into his side, and he felt the heat of his own blood.

Wiinizik screamed, “No Waabooz!” She leapt to her feet and grabbed at the bloody knife. Ajijaak, picked himself up. As he started toward Waabooz, he saw Ziibi pick up his son, and run away with him. This instant of distraction cost him. Another slash crossed his chest. The blade of the knife glanced off one of his ribs. Wiinizik pushed herself between the two men, and in an instant Waabooz’s knife slipped across her fragile throat. Blood, her blood gushed in the moonlight. All of life slowed to a strange rate of speed for Ajijaak. It was as if each moment existed singularly of its own accord. Like the coward he was, Waabooz turned and ran. Ajijaak did not follow. He sank to the ground beside Wiinizik and cradled her in his arms. Hurt though he was, bleeding though he was, he did not blame her, he blamed himself. He knew she was ill, he had felt a tug inside of him that trouble was coming but he had not heeded it. He had been too consumed by his own glory. His trembling fingers went to her wrist. The instant he touched her skin, he knew her spirit was gone. Though she had betrayed him, she had also sacrificed herself for him.

People had heard his croak and had come running. He felt hands lifting him up. He heard people speaking. No one questioned him. It would have done no good, because he could not have answered them. He was vaguely aware of the dripping of his own blood. He could not think. He could not see. His life partner was gone forever. For the rest of his life he would have to endure the image of her locked in another man’s arms. Numbness was washing over him. Was death coming for him too? Is this what it felt like? He hoped so. He sunk into a darkness, whose depth seemed bottomless.