Dangerous People Page 5

  Duhe said, “Well, well, well, well. Monkeyflower, you get to work early!” She came into the pharmacy. Monkeyflower sat very small.

  “What’s this one?” Duhe said. She picked up the red jar. She looked at the child, took his hand, and sniffed it. “Sticky Monkeyflower, you are going to be constipated,” she said to him. “When you become a doctor you can use all these things. Until you become a doctor you’d better not. So let’s go outside.”

  Monkeyflower let out a wail. He had pissed on the floor.

  Duhe said, “O Spring of the Yellow River! Come on outside now!” He would not get up, so she picked him up and carried him out to the porch.

  Kamedan woke and came out on the porch. Monkeyflower was standing there, and Duhe was washing his buttocks and legs. Kamedan said, “Is he all right?”

  “He is interested in becoming a doctor,” Duhe said. Monkeyflower put up his arms and whimpered to Kamedan. Duhe picked him up and gave him to Kamedan to hold. The child was between them in the first light of the day’s sun, hinging them.§§§§§ Monkeyflower held his father tight and would not speak or look at Duhe, being ashamed.

  Duhe said, “Listen, brother, instead of going to the lofts this morning, maybe you could go with Monkeyflower somewhere, do some work with him. Stay out of the sun in the middle of the day, make sure there’ll be plenty of water to drink where you go. This way you’ll be able to judge for yourself whether he’s well or ill. I think he’s been wishing to be with you, since his mother is away. You might come back by here with him towards the end of the day, and we can talk then about whether we might want to hold a singing, or a bringing-in, and about other things. We’ll talk, we’ll see. All right?”

  Kamedan thanked her and left, carrying the child on his shoulders.

  After Duhe had straightened up the pharmacy, she went to bathe and eat breakfast in her household. Later in the morning she started across the arms to Hardcinder House. She wanted to talk to Hwette’s people. On the way, in the narrow gardens, Sahelm came to meet her. He said, “I’ve seen Hwette.”¶¶¶¶¶

  “You saw her? Where?”

  “Outside the house.”

  “Is she home, then?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Who else saw her?”

  “I don’t know that.”

  “Hwettez—Hwette?”

  “I could not tell.”

  “Whom have you told?”

  “No one but you.”

  “You’re crazy, Sahelm,” the doctor said. “What have you been doing? Moongazing?”

  Sahelm said again, “I saw Hwette,” but the doctor was angry at him. She said, “Everybody’s seen her, and each in a different place! If she’s here, she’ll be in her house, not outside it. This is all crazy. I’m going to Hardcinder House and talk to the women there. Come if you want to.”

  Sahelm said nothing, and Duhe went on through the narrow gardens. He watched her go around the oleander bushes towards Hardcinder House. Somebody up on a balcony of that house was shaking out blankets and hanging them over the railing to air. The day was already getting hot. Squash blossoms and tomato blossoms were yellow all around in the narrow gardens, and the eggplant flowers were beautiful. Sahelm had eaten nothing but lettuce and lemon the day before. He felt dizzy, and began to separate and be in two times at one time. In one time he was standing among squash blossoms alone, in one time he was on a hillside talking to a woman wearing white clothes. She said, “I am Hwette.”

  “You’re not Hwette.”

  “Who am I, then?”

  “I do not know.”

  The woman laughed and whirled around. His head whirled around inside itself. He came back together on his hands and knees on the path between tomato vines. A woman was standing there saying something to him. He said, “You are Hwette!”

  She said, “What’s the matter? Can you stand up? Come on out of the sun. Maybe you’ve been fasting?” She pulled his arm and helped him up, and held his arm till they came into the shade of the drying-racks at the end of the narrow gardens by the first row of Pedoduks vines. She pushed him a little till he sat down on the ground in the shade. “Are you feeling better at all?” she asked him. “I came to pick tomatoes and saw you there, talking, and then you fell down. Who was it you were talking to?”

  He asked, “Did you see someone?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t see well through the tomato vines. Maybe some woman was there.”

  “Was she wearing white, or undyed?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know the people here,” she said. She was a slender, strong, young woman with very long hair braided nine times, wearing a white shift belted with a many-colored woven sash, carrying a gathering basket.

  Sahelm said, “I’ve been fasting and going into trance. I think I should go home and rest a while.”

  “Eat something before you walk,” the young woman said. She went and took some plums off the racks and picked some yellow pear-tomatoes from a vine. She brought these to Sahelm, gave them to him, and watched him eat them. He ate very slowly. “The flavors are strong,” he said.

  “You’re weak,” she said. “Go on. Eat it all, the food of your gardens given you by the stranger.” When he was done, she asked, “Which house do you live in?”

  “Between the Orchards,” he answered. “But you live in Hardcinder House. With Kamedan.”

  “Not any more,” she said. “Come on now, stand up. Show me where your house is between the orchards, and I’ll go with you.” She went with him to his house and up the stairs to the first floor; she went with him into the room he used, laid out his mattress, and said to him, “Now lie down.” While he turned away to lie down, she turned away and left.

  Coming away from that house she saw a man coming down into Telina between the Telory Hills, following the creek path from the hunting side, carrying a dead deer. She greeted them: “Heya, guest from the Right Hand coming, my word and thanks to you! And you, Hunter of Telina, so you’re here.”

  He said, “So you’re here, Dancer of Wakwaha!”

  She walked along beside them. “Very beautiful, that Blue Clay person who gave himself to you. You must be a strong singer.”

  “And a strong crossbowman.”

  “Tell me all about your hunt.”

  Modona laughed. “I see you know that the best of the hunting is the telling. Well, I went up on Spring Mountain in the middle of the day, and spent the night at a camp I know up there, a well-hidden place. The next day I watched the deer. I saw which doe went with two fawns and which with one and which with a fawn and a yearling. I saw where they met and gathered, and what bucks were about alone. I chose this spike-horned buck to sing to, and began singing in my mind. In the twilight of evening he came, and died on my arrow. I slept by the death, and in the twilight of morning the coyote came by singing too. Now I’m bringing the death to the heyimas; they need deer hooves for the Water Dance, and the hide will go to the Tanners, and the meat to the old women in my household, to jerk; and the horns—maybe you’d like the horns to dance with?”

  “I don’t need the horns. Give them to your wife.”

  “Such a being there is not,” said Modona.

  The smell of the blood and meat and hair of the death was pungent and sweet. The deer’s head was near the dancer’s shoulder, moving up and down as Modona walked. Grass seeds and chaff lay on the open eye of the deer. Seeing this, the dancer blinked and rubbed her eyes. She said, “How do you know I’m from Wakwaha?”

  “I’ve seen you dance.”

  “Not here in Telina.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “In Chukulmas?”

  “Maybe so.”

  She laughed. She said, “And maybe in Kastoha-na, and maybe in Wakwaha-na, and maybe in Ababa-badaba-na! You can see me dance in Telina this evening, anyhow. What strange men there are in this town!”

  “What have they done that you think so?”

  “One of them sees me dancing where I’m not, another doesn�
�t see me dancing where I am.”

  “What man is that—Kamedan?”

  “No,” she answered. “Kamedan lives there,” pointing to Hardcinder House, “though the man says I do. He lives there,” pointing along the arm to Between the Orchards House, “and has visions in the tomato patch.”

  Modona said nothing. He kept looking at her across the death, turning his eyes but not his head. They came to the narrow gardens, and Isitut stopped there, saying, “I was sent to pick tomatoes for our troupe to eat.”

  “If your players would like venison as well, here it is. Will you be here several days? It has to be hung.”

  “The old women in your household need the meat for jerky.”

  “What they need, I’ll give them.”

  “A true hunter! Always giving himself!” said the dancer, laughing and showing her teeth. “We’ll be here four days or five days at least.”

  “If you want enough to go around, I’ll kill a kid to roast with this meat. How many are you?”

  “Nine and myself,” said Isitut, “but only seven of us eat meat. The deer is enough; we will be filled full with meat and gratitude. Tell me what to play for the feast you bring us.”

  “Play Tobbe, if you will,” Modona said.

  “We’ll play Tobbe, on the fourth evening.”

  She was picking tomatoes now, filling her basket with yellow pear and small red tomatoes. The day was hot and bright, all smells very powerful, the cicadas shrilling loud near and far continuously. Flies swarmed to the blood on the hair of the deer’s death.

  Modona said, “That man you met here, the visionary, he came here from Kastoha. He’s always acting crazy. He doesn’t go across into the Four Houses, he just walks around here staring and jabbering, making accusations, making up the world.”

  “A moongazer,” said Isitut.

  “In what House do you live, woman of Wakwaha?”

  “In the moon’s House, man of Telina.”

  “I live in this person’s House,” Modona said, lifting the deer’s head with his hand so that the death seemed to look forward. The tongue had swollen and stuck out a little from the black lips. The dancer moved away, picking from the tall, strong-smelling vines.

  The hunter asked, “What will you be playing this evening?”

  From behind the vines Isitut replied, “I’ll know that when I go back with the tomatoes.” She moved farther away, picking.

  Modona went on to the dancing place. Outside his heyimas he stopped, set the death down on the earth, and cut off the four hooves with his hunter’s knife. He cleaned and strung them, tied the string to a bamboo rod, and stuck this in the earth near the southwest corner of the heyimas roof so that the hooves would dry in the sun. He went down into the heyimas to wash, and talked to some people there. He came back up the ladder and walked down the west steps of the roof, looking for the dead deer. It was not where he had set it down.

  He walked clear round the heyimas roof, and then around the dancing place, hurrying and staring. Some people greeted him, and he said, “There’s a death walking around on four legs here. Where’s it gone?”

  They laughed.

  “There’s a two-legged coyote around here,” Modona said. “If you see a spike-horn buck walking without hooves, let me know!” He went off at a run, across the Hinge, to the middle common place. The troupe of players from Wakwaha were all sitting around in the shade of the gallery and the booths, eating flat bread, sheep’s-milk cheese, and red and yellow tomatoes, and drinking dry Betebbes. Isitut was with them, eating and drinking. She said, “So you’re here, man of the Blue Clay. Where’s your brother?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” he said. He looked around the booths and gallery. A cloud of flies was in one place behind the gallery, and he went to look there, but it was dog turds they were clustering on. The deer was nowhere there. He came back by the players, speaking to them: “So you’re here, people of the Valley. Has any of you seen a deer’s death go by this place?” He made his voice sound easy, but there was an angry look in his body and face. The strangers did not laugh. A man answered politely, “No, we have not seen such a thing.”

  “It was to be a gift to you. If you see it, take it, it’s yours,” the hunter said. He looked at Isitut. She was eating, and did not look at him. He went back to the dancing place.

  This time he noticed some marks in the dirt at the foot of the southwest side of the roof of the Blue Clay heyimas. He looked with care and saw that farther on there were dry grass stems broken, pointing away from the heyimas. He went on in that direction. Clear over at the bank of the River, down under the bank, he saw something white. He walked towards it, staring. The white being moved. It rose up and faced the hunter. It stood over the deer’s death, which it had been eating. It showed its teeth and cried out.

  Modona saw a woman in white clothes. His mind whirled round in his skull and he saw a white dog.

  He stooped and picked up rocks and threw them hard, shouting, “Get away! Get off that!”

  When a rock hit the dog in the head she shrieked and ran away from the death, downstream, towards the dwelling-houses.

  This dog’s mother was hechi, her father dui, and she was unusually tall and strong; her coat of hair was white, with no other color, and her eyes were bluish. When a puppy she had been befriended by Hwette, and they had played together and gone together whenever Hwette went outside the town. Hwette had called her Moondog. After marrying Kamedan Hwette had seldom called the dog to walk or guard, and nobody else knew her well; she would not have anything to do with any human being but Hwette, and kept alone even in dogtown. She was getting old now and had lost keenness of hearing; lately she had been getting thin. Hunger had given her the strength to drag the death from the heyimas down to the River, and she had eaten most of one haunch. Bewildered by the pain where the rock had struck her between eye and ear, she ran up into Telina, between the houses, to Hardcinder House.

  Inside Shamsha’s household the people heard a clawing and a crying at the outer door, which was closed to keep out the day’s heat. Fefinum heard the voice crying and said, “She’s back! She has come back!” Speaking, she cowered down in the corner of the room farthest from the door.

  Shamsha jumped up and said, talking loudly, “Children playing on the porches, it’s a shame, it’s never quiet here!” She stood in front of her daughter, concealing her from Duhe.

  Duhe looked at them, went over to the door, and opened it enough to look out. She said, “It’s a white dog, crying here. Hwette used to walk with this dog, I think.”

  Shamsha came to look. “Yes, but not for years now,” she said. “Let me drive her away. She’s crazy, coming here, trying to get inside the house like that. Old and crazy. Get away, get off, you!” She took up a broom and poked it out the door at Moondog, but Duhe kept the broom from striking the dog, and said, “Please wait a minute. It seems to me the dog’s been hurt and wants help.” She went out to look more closely at Moondog’s head, having seen blood on the white hair about the eye. Moondog cringed and snarled at first but feeling that the doctor was not at all afraid, she held still. When the doctor’s hands touched her she felt great authority in them, and she made no objection while Duhe examined the wound the rock had made between her left ear and eye.

  Duhe spoke to her: “What a beautiful old woman-dog you are, though a queer color for a dog, better for a sheep; and you haven’t been overeating recently, to judge by your ribs. Now what happened, did you run into a branch? No, this looks more like a rock was thrown at you and you didn’t dodge it; that’s not so smart, old woman-dog. Shamsha, may I please have some water and a clean cloth to wash this injury with?”

  The old woman brought a bowl of water and some rags, grumbling, “That dog is worthless, of no account.”

  Duhe cleaned the wound. Moondog made no protest and stood still and patient, trembling a little in the hindquarters. When Duhe was done the dog wagged her tail several times.

  “Please lie do
wn now,” the doctor said.

  Moondog looked into the doctor’s eyes, and lay down with her head on her outstretched front legs.

  Duhe stroked her head behind the ears. Shamsha was inside the room, Fefinum had come near the door to watch. Duhe said to them, “She may have some concussion of the brain. That was a hard blow.”

  Shamsha asked, “Will she go into fits?”

  The doctor said, “She might. More likely she’ll sleep it off, if she’s allowed to stay in a quiet place where she isn’t disturbed. Sleep is a wonderful healer. I didn’t have much of it myself last night, between the moon and your grandson the Monkeyflower.” She came back indoors, bringing the bowl and rags. Fefinum kept her back turned, and started cutting up cucumbers for pickling. Duhe said, “That is the dog who used to go along with Hwette, isn’t she? What did Hwette call her?”

  Shamsha said, “I don’t remember.”

  Fefinum said without turning round, “My sister called her Moondog.”

  “It seems she came here to find Hwette, or to help us find Hwette,” said Duhe.