Читать книгу People of the Mesa: A Novel of Native America - Ardath Mayhar - Страница 6

Chapter Three

The old men were turning away toward the circling junipers. Ki-shi-o-te led, his skin cloak draped in its most dignified folds. The Old Woman came from around the corner of the pueblo and greeted her peers before falling in behind him, and Uhtatse came last. In single file, the Teacher, the Seer, and the two Ones Who Smelled the Wind made their way along the paths to the spot where their way would intersect that of the approaching Anensi.

Uhtatse was aflame with curiosity. Except for glimpses of distant Kiyate, as they moved across the low country beneath the mesa, he had seen no outlanders since he was a tiny child, too small to notice the things he now wondered about. His memory was blurred, and only flashes of alien colors and scents came to him as he strained to recall that long ago visit.

Filled with excitement, he yet managed to keep his face still, his motions dignified, so as to make a match for the Elders. He took his place with them at the Meeting of the Ways, where others from the tribes living on other parts of the joined mesas were already assembling.

There was an air of festival about them. Tonight there would be dancing on the roofs of the kivas, feasts of venison and turkey and hare, and long, long tale-telling. He had heard accounts of other visits of the Anensi, and even the regular festivals for the weather gods did not have the intense excitement these rare occasions did.

Now he heard voices. Their tones were different, their words ringing strangely upon his ear, the cadences alien to him. His nose twitched, too, nostrils flaring. The scent that had come to him on the breeze was stronger now, as the first of the newcomers rounded the last steep rise of the buttress rock. A dark face, much like the faces of his own people and yet shaped with a subtle difference, gazed upon those waiting there. A dark hand rose in greeting.

The Healer had joined them quietly as they waited. Now he and the Teacher, the Old Woman Who Sang the Future, and the One Who Smelled the Wind went forward together, the trailing paws and tails of their fur robes whipping in the brisk breeze. Four gray-haired people, filled with cautious courtesy, moved to greet these guests.

Uhtatse closed his eyes, thinking of a day when he would make one of those elders, representing his part of the People of the high green mesa.

As the Anensi drew nearer, he saw that many were laden with hide-wrapped packs or with stick and fiber cages in which parakeets fluttered and small animals showed as furry lumps. Bags bulged heavily against the muscular shoulders bearing them. What exotic things might fill them?

He would have liked to join the rest of the children, who were now running forward, chattering questions at the patient traders. They felt the contours of packs and bags and poked their inquisitive fingers between the sticks of the cages, only to be nipped by irritable parrots or bitten by impatient beasts. One small one was already crying silently, great tears rolling down her round cheeks.

That was not the way for one who was to become the protector of his people to behave. Such childish things were now behind him, and he waited quietly, keeping his expression sober. Control of the self was the first of the matters he had learned from Ki-shi-o-te.

As the long string of walkers passed him, he watched everything. This was an entire tribe. There were old people and children, warriors and women and lads of his own age. Among those latter, he found one in particular who captured his attention.

This was a boy who walked proudly, his shoulders straight under the huge pack he carried. His eyes, too, were watchful, quick to note everything that came into their field. Those alert eyes met his, as he stared. For an instant, something flashed between them, along their bonded gazes. Recognition? Impossible. But, perhaps, a certain kinship of spirit.

Uhtatse turned to follow the last of the Anensi toward the great Talking Place that his people had begun building on the edge of a commanding precipice. It was a long way, and he had the time to think, as he trudged along behind his excited people, of all the strange things he had encountered in the space of one short morning.