Spiritwalkers

Five: Caller

Nascha found Ahiga by himself with the horses, evidently feeling just about as useless as she did at the moment. Una snorted when she saw Nascha and came over for a scratching. Nascha complied, and as she was doing so glanced over at Ahiga. "Can you hear me?" she asked him silently.

He glanced at her, puzzled. "I can hear you, what?"

There was an abrupt lump in Nascha's throat, joy and sorrow warring. "I'm not speaking aloud."

Ahiga was staring at her now. "You didn't?"

"I didn't," she said silently, and then changed to speaking aloud, feeling resistance coming from him. "Well, evidently there's not one but two spiritwalkers in the family."

"I am spiritwalker? Can't be." Ahiga was shaking his head, disbelieving.

"That's what I said, too. I asked the question, and you answered. You're one of us." She reached out to the rest, said silently, "Ahiga is one of us."

Cheveyo answered, not sounding surprised in the least. "That's one. Four more to find. If he is willing."

She turned her attention back to Ahiga, who was still looking stunned. "Are you willing to come with us, and be one of us?" she asked him.

Ahiga took a sharp breath, and his face had lines on it that she hadn't seen since Sakhyo had been in labor with their son. "I want the same as you. Sakhyo back, and Nastas."

"If you're one of us, you'll be able to directly help in rescuing them," she said.

"I am in." His tone was definite, with little shade of doubt in it. Nascha had to smile.

"Good," she said, smiling a little. "I assume that your training will start tonight. And about Sakhyo and Nastas--that's what I was coming over to talk to you about." Nascha took a deep breath. "It may be months before we can go after them. The same skinwalkers that killed most of our family are guarding them, and most of us are wounded now."

He swayed back a little, as if she had hit him. "I see." There was a long pause then, as he struggled for words. "Will she survive that long?"

Nascha didn't want to be telling Ahiga this, but there could be no secrets, and he was going to find out about it in a few days' time anyway. "I hate to say this, but if she does, she's going to have to give in to the one who's claimed her," she said. "If she lives as one of them--the one who claimed her was protective of her, and I think she and Nastas will survive."

"I will become what I have to, even if it means never seeing her or my son again."

She offered him a small smile. "Well, I hope that you do get to see her again. If she survives, she'll need you."

Ahiga looked away from her. "I hope she will still want me," he muttered, his voice dropping low.

Nascha tried to imagine Sakhyo even liking any of the skinwalkers, much less coming to prefer them to the man she'd lived ever since they were children. It was an impossible image, but by the sickness in Ahiga's eyes, it was a real fear for him. "I don't think she'll ever forget that she was not taken by her own choice, and I know she loves you," she said, trying to be reassuring. Anything more she could say might make him worry more.

He nodded sharply, and looked back at her. "When do we start?"

"Tonight, I believe, with Cheveyo telling you his story. Each of us will tell you their story, one a night, until the eighth night comes and you tell us yours. There can't be any secrets between any of us."

"And if there are?" Ahiga asked.

"Then we can't speak to each other in our heads. If one of us has a secret they cannot tell the others for some reason, they must leave the group." She spread her hands, thinking about everything she knew about her spiritwalker brothers, the things that none who was not a spiritwalker would ever know. "That's never happened before, as far as Cheveyo's told me, but it's a warning handed down."

"I understand. I don't know about this speaking in our minds part. Is it strange?"

She raised a hand, rubbed one aching eye. "At first, it is. You get used to it, though. I'm still startled sometimes."

"I am sure it can be," he said. "Thank you for saving me, however you did. I am sorry you lost Tse."

The thornbush was abruptly back in her throat. She forced words past it. "I saw him die not once, but twice. It hurts a lot. But even if I went back to the moment, I would still make the same choice."

Someone had told him, probably Dichali, that Nascha had been the one to make the choice whether to save him, Tse, or Yas. "I am sorry you had to make that choice. Why did you save me?" he asked.

She looked down at the dusty ground. "I knew, if Sakhyo survived, she was going to need you. That outweighed how much I loved Tse."

"Is that what being a spiritwalker means?" Ahiga asked. He was looking at her steadily, now, watching her speak and weighing her words carefully.

Nascha gave him the best answer she could. "Part of it, yes. The tribe comes first, always. Or it should, at least. We are human, and sometimes we make mistakes."

"I am not sure I could make that choice." Ahiga was shaking his head, something like awe in his eyes.

"With luck, you'll never have to," she told him. "It's going to be a while before I'm completely at peace with that decision."

Ahiga nodded, then asked, "How is life, living with these people?"

She thought about the question, wondered how to explain. "Very strange, in parts," she said slowly. "But I have brothers to ask questions of and who care for me, and I them. It has good parts and bad. On the whole, outside of the fact that I had to watch Tse die and now Dichali is dead, I think I like this life."

"A lot of death in such a short time."

We do not grow old. "It weighs on me. Chogan and his group are fierce opponents, and dangerous, and I think that the deaths will keep on happening as long as his group still lives."

"Then that is what I will train for," he said, and he surprised her by smiling fiercely.

"Good." she said, returning his smile a little. "There's a lot to learn in a short period of time. If we can find four more, all five of you will train together, I think. You have more experience in fighting than I started out with, at least." She winced. "I still have a few of the bruises that Otaktay gave me."

"He looks impressive, even just laying there," Ahiga said.

She ached suddenly; she still felt some guilt about Otaktay's injury. "He's very good with a hatchet. Once he's up and around, he'll probably show you some things if you ask."

"I would like that," he said.

They settled down into a conversation about fighting techniques, Ahiga not exactly being subtle about asking her for information about her--their--spiritwalker brothers. After a bit, she wandered away, back towards Cheveyo.

As she reached Hania's wickiup and ducked inside, she felt a strange pressure inside of her head. Adoeete wanted to speak to them. His voice was cast to all of them. "I know we have had loss today. My father has informed me that another tribal elder died. They voted for me to take my place among them. I will be leaving the spiritwalker group."

Both Cheveyo and Nascha took sharp breaths, though for much different reasons, Nascha knew. "I know you can't refuse this summons, Adoeete, but I will miss you," she said.

"I will miss you too," Adoeete said. "So search for five more again. Sorry to you all, but this was my first calling." He paused, as if he were taking a breath. "I will have to delink with you. There is ceremony to perform, but I don't want to interfere with linking with your new members only to delink later. I will come to you."

Adoeete arrived at the wickiup a bit later, after Cheveyo had explained that the delinking ceremony was short and painless, though Adoeete's voice would take some time to fade from their minds. He stooped to enter the wickiup, hobbling inside.

Nascha looked up at him from where she sat next to Cheveyo. "Ready?" she asked quietly.

"I am," he said, and knelt with some difficulty. He took her hands in his, and Nascha could feel him pulling back and away from her mind. His voice was surrounding her, then retreating, until he sounded very far away and then faded into the distance to silence. Aloud, he said, "What was once one is now two. I will miss you, Nascha. I once told you that I didn't think women should be spiritwalkers. I think I was wrong." Adoeete smiled at her.

Adoeete admitting that he had been wrong was a rare and precious thing indeed. She smiled back at him, choosing not to tease him as she might have before. "From you, that is good to hear. I will miss you, Adoeete."

"Good luck and good hunting. But remember now that you report to me." He smiled again, and Nascha chuckled and let go of his hands, telling him that she would. Adoeete moved until he could grasp Cheveyo's hands, and repeated the delinking ceremony. The two of them were cordial but by no means warm with one another, and Adoeete hobbled out of the wickiup to go find the rest.

"It's strange, losing two people from the group on the same day," she said silently to Cheveyo. "At least Adoeete is still alive."

"It is, but the life of a spiritwalker is change," he said. "We adapt and go on. I fear a bit for the future, though."

She shifted to face him, drawing her knees up close to her. "We're taking on a lot of new people. Counting me, there will be seven new people."

Cheveyo smiled. "To the new ones, you will be old and looked upon in awe."

She rolled her eyes. "I haven't even been a spiritwalker for an entire season. I'm almost as green as they will be, and the ones who are men will all have more experience fighting than I do."

"All that is true, but they can't do what you can," he said. "I am not even sure that Chahta could do what you do."

Nascha straightened, surprised. "What do you mean? It was him I got the tracking from, wasn't it?"

"Yes, you got the basics from him. But he never got that much information from a track."

She felt strange about that, knowing that she was able to do things that her predecessor had not been able to. "Oh. I had no idea. I thought I was seeing what he would have seen."

"I am not sure he saw all that. I knew what could be done and what he could do, and your skills are beyond what he could tell me."

"Strange. Well, it's useful, anyway." She pulled her arms tighter, closed her eyes as a thought about crossing into Spiritworld and seeing Tse's face flashed across her mind. To distract herself, she asked, "Are you planning to start Ahiga on the stories tonight?"

"It is our way," he said, nodding. He will be the new one. Pezi and you will have to do most of the training for the new ones for the next week or so," he added.

Nascha hadn't thought of it before, but it made sense; with most of the spiritwalkers laid up, it would be up to her and Pezi to break the new ones in once they were found. "Should we wait until we have several new ones to do horse ceremony?"

"Yes. Take the camp when you can, and see who answers. It's been four seasons or more since we found Sahale."

Presumably, the gods would have in the meantime made new spiritwalkers ready. She hoped, at least. "I'll walk around the camp tonight and tomorrow, talk to everyone who's the right age."

"Thank you, Nascha," he said, closing his eyes. He looked tired, she thought.

She smiled at him, and reached over to put her hand on his shoulder. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine, for a knife slash," he replied. "Sad about Dichali. Glad and disturbed by Adoeete."

That he was glad that Adoeete was no longer a spiritwalker was no surprise, but-- "Disturbed why? Because you answer to him now?"

"Yes. He can make life even more difficult," he said, grimacing a bit.

"Do you really think he will? I know you two have never gotten along, but I don't think he bears you any real ill will."

"He and I have differing thoughts on what is a threat to the tribe and what isn't," he said. "He could tell us to stand down from finding Chogan as killing them is killing us and we are more important alive to the tribe."

Nascha narrowed her eyes. "But if he tells us that, we'll never be able to get Sakhyo back. I think that would lose us Ahiga. I might go with him, to be honest."

"It is a possibility, not a probability." He rubbed his forehead with one scarred hand, as if his head pained him. "Just why I was feeling disturbed by this."

"I can see why," she said. "All we can do is wait and see. There are other voices among the elders that might overrule him."

"Yes, one can hope for a voice of reason."

"I will," she said, and stretched a bit, sticking her feet out in front of her, feeling the familiar pull of tendons and muscle. She was harder now than she had been weeks ago, physically at least. Places that had once been soft were turning tough, and Nascha was caught between feeling proud of herself and wondering with some trepidation what she was becoming.

A warrior. "I should go ask people if they can hear me," she said. "Pezi? Have you introduced Aquene to your mother yet? If you haven't, it might be a good idea."

"I will," Pezi replied as she climbed to her feet. "My mother would like someone new to talk to."

"Ask her the question too," she said. "Just in case."

"I will." Pezi went to find Aquene, and Nascha stepped outside to go wander the camp and talk to people. It shouldn't be difficult for her to find people who'd like to talk to her, she reasoned.

But she had no more than gone outside the wickiup when Pezi broadcast to them all, "Aquene answered. There is our eighth."

Surprised, Nascha stopped in her tracks, sucking in a breath. "Well, at least I won't be the only woman. Is she willing to join us?"

"She is," Pezi said. "Her tribe was destroyed and she has a reason for going after Chogan herself. Strange part is, she already knew. She was hearing us before."

"That's odd. That doesn't happen often, does it?"

She could hear Pezi's dry laugh. "No, it's a lot strange. But so is two women spiritwalkers."

"True enough. Well, we have our eight. I'll see if I can find any of the next four," Nascha said. Pezi turned his attention away, presumably to talk to Aquene, and Nascha resumed her wandering.

She went from fire to fire, children coming out to climb on her, the older ones asking for stories. Everywhere she went, she was received as an honored guest, and she asked all who were old enough the question.

Only one answered her, a boy who she'd first thought was only about fifty seasons but who turned out to be just over sixty. He had come to sit with her and some of the older children, the boys and girls who were just on the edge of taking up their adult lives. He sat apart from the rest, but the lure of stories of daring and danger had proven too much of a temptation for him to stay away.

When Nascha realized that he was old enough, she asked him the question as he lingered after the story she had told was done. He had turned away from her, looking after the others, and at her question turned to look at her. "I can hear you."

"What's your name?" she asked, still not speaking aloud. She knew before he said it that it was Wahcommo, but she was still testing this choice of the gods. He's so young. I can't believe I asked him. "Well, Wahcommo, congratulations. You're one of us," she said to him.

He stiffened, looking at her suspiciously. "I am spiritwalker?"

Nascha inclined her head. "You are, if you are willing to join us."

There was still that suspicion on his face, and a dawning hope. "You aren't teasing, are you?"

She just looked at him for a moment. "Have you noticed yet that I haven't said a word aloud?"

"No, not really..." His mouth fell open as he went through much the same realization that she had when she had been first asked the question, that she was hearing things in her head that she could not hear aloud.

"Well, I haven't. You answered the question, so you are one of us," she told him.

"I accept, then." He straightened, and she found that he was a little taller than she'd originally thought. He was abruptly glowing with pride. "When do we start?"

Nascha frowned and held up her hand. She asked Cheveyo, "Can we tell our stories to more than one person at a time, or will we need to start the new ones on successive nights?"

"One a night," he said. "Wahcommo we will do when we have the other three, so it may be a bit. We can start him training, though."

"I'll tell him." To Wahcommo, she said, "We can start you training now, but your initiation will wait until we find the other three we're looking for."

"I will be here when you need me." Wahcommo looked a little bashful suddenly, and she reminded herself that he was only ten seasons younger than she was. "Thank you for the opportunity."

She almost flinched as she remembered Dichali, killed and skinned and left in the dirt. Opportunity to die for your tribe. "Thank you for becoming one of us," she said, and smiled.

She found no more new spiritwalkers that day, and that night she and Pezi went and built a platform to post Dichali's body to the sky. The next morning, she and Pezi went looking for the other Apache tribes in the area, to find the rest of the new spiritwalkers.

That day they did find another small tribe, but none answered the question. They got strange looks for the first few minutes, until Pezi explained with some impatience that Nascha was a spiritwalker. They stayed the night there and then set out the next morning, finding another tribe about sunset that day. Again there were the strange looks, but unlike the day before, this time someone answered.

It was a man of about a hundred and sixty seasons, compactly built, with eyes that seemed to stay on the horizon, even when he was looking directly at something. "What's your name?" Nascha asked him.

"Delsin," he said.

She tilted her head. "I asked and you answered, so you are one of us, if you're willing."

The man blinked, and for the first time she thought she saw some flicker of interest in her presence. "Am I not a bit old to be a spiritwalker?"

Nascha shrugged. "Well, as far as I know, we take all who answer the question. So the answer is no, you're not too old."

"It is an honor to be spiritwalker," he said, though his voice was curiously flat. "I will join you."

"Oh, good," she said, breathing out. "Welcome, Delsin."

There were none else in the camp who answered them, and they were walking to the edge of the camp, preparing to take Delsin back to theirs, when a strange shape caught the corner of Nascha's eye. She turned, her eyes parsing crumpled shape and deciding, on the balance, that it was not a coincidental arrangement of rocks.

Pushed by an impulse she didn't understand the origins of, she silently departed from Pezi's side and walked toward the shape. It was a man, she saw. Unmoving except for breathing, he was tied with his arms behind him to a stake driven deep into the ground, the golden light of sunset unsparing of chapped and torn skin, illuminating the circle tattoos on his shoulders.

Arapaho.

She almost turned away then, but there was that urge she did not understand, and she turned back. "What's the story on this one?" she asked, looking over her shoulder at Delsin.

The older man shrugged. "Arapaho. Found him in the desert. Claims he ran away from a bunch of skinwalkers that were chasing him, because he knew their secret."

Nascha returned her gaze to the man's face. He was awake now, she saw. He was watching her warily. She looked back at Delsin. "Strange. That might be true."

"Might be, might not be. He is Arapaho. We left him to die."

She considered trying to simply walk away and leave this one to die. "Do you speak Arapaho?"

Delsin was giving her a strange look. "A little?" he hazarded.

Nascha glanced at Pezi, and he inclined his head. "I do," he said.

"Could you find out if he really is running from Chogan?" she asked.

Pezi stepped up beside Nascha and directed a long stream of syllables towards the captive. The man looked surprised and answered back, four or five short words. She heard Chogan among them. "Yes, he says," Pezi said.

"I sort of hate to leave him here to die, if he might be able to give us information about Chogan," she said.

Her fellow spiritwalker gave her a long look. "Do we ask him?"

He was not one of the skinwalkers; he could not be. "Just ask him how he got here, and how he found out about the skinwalkers."

Again, Pezi directed words towards the man, and this time the captive answered at some length, sitting up as best he could. "He says he walked here," Pezi reported. "He says Skah raped his wife and when she came back beaten, he went after Skah. Skah and he fought. He wounded Skah and the fight got broken up. Skah is spiritwalker, so above such things as hurting women. They turned him out. He found out about them being skinwalkers as he stayed to watch and wait to kill Skah but saw him turn to a fox and leave. He tried to track him and failed to. He has wandered the desert looking for him, but hasn't found him. He ran into this tribe and expects to die here."

The urge was back, so strong it left Nascha almost breathless. "Do you believe him?" she asked Pezi.

He shrugged. "If he was anything other than Arapaho, yes."

"Maybe," she said, and turned back to the captive. His head had dropped down, and he was staring at the ground. Cheveyo is not going to be happy with me, but-- She asked the captive silently, "Can you hear me?"

He didn't look up. "I can," he said, also silently. Nascha caught her breath, and the urge she had been feeling disappeared entirely.

Nascha glanced at Pezi. "He's one of us."

"I heard. Cut him loose."

She nodded and drew her knife, stepping forward the cut through the man's bonds. "What's your name?" she asked as she sawed.

"Okomi," he said, raising his head. He seemed to understand her when she spoke to him silently.

"Do you know our names?"

"Nascha, Pezi, Delsin," he answered.

She finished with the ropes and stepped back as Okomi pulled the ropes from his wrists and rubbed the red weals that they had left behind. "You're one of us," she told him. "If you're willing."

Okomi just shrugged. "Better than dying."

"True, that," she said. She smiled briefly. "I thought the same. Pezi, are you up for two trips back tonight?"

"I am. Cheveyo is not going to like this," he warned her.

"I'll talk to him," she said. She took a quick breath and directed her next thought to Cheveyo. "We found two. One was an Arapaho prisoner. He has as much reason to hate Chogan and his group as we do."

There was a long pause. "You know," he replied thoughtfully, "maybe I should be doing this." She could almost hear the smile in his voice, and she knew she was forgiven.

She wrinkled her nose. "Well you would be, if you hadn't taken a knife across the chest. And you did say ask everyone."

"I know," he said, and he chuckled. "Do me a favor? Don't ask Chogan if you see him?"

Nascha snorted. "At this point, I'll be way too busy running away to ask." She smiled, then paused and began to think of the practicalities. "Is there going to be a problem when we bring him back?"

"Probably. Find other clothing and tie his hair differently. Minimize the shock until he speaks out loud."

"We will," she said. "Female spiritwalkers, and now an Arapaho one. The gods do love a joke."

"I just hate being the butt of it, Cheveyo said. "But there is a reason."

Even though he could not see her, she smiled. "Who better to help us hunt down Chogan?"

"He does know them and their ways. He could be useful." Cheveyo sounded thoughtful. "And he wants revenge, so if he is not a spy we are good. It will come out in the training and the secret sharing."

"That was what I was thinking," she said. If he were a spy, as remote as that likelihood was, he would have to confess it during his story, or be unable to talk to the rest of them.

"Come on back, and then find me one more. Good job, Nascha."

She was warmed by the praise, and turned to Pezi. "We're good. Take Delsin back, I'll tie Okomi's hair like an Apache's. I have a comb. Bring back a better shirt for him, something that will cover the tattoos."

Pezi nodded, took Delsin's arm, and vanished. "Sit down," she told Okomi.

He did so, moving warily. She started unraveling his multiple braids, pulling the comb through it. She'd just bind it at the nape for the moment. Okomi said, in halting Apache, "You--not afraid."

"No," she said. She moved her body into spiritworld, took half a shuffling step, reappeared in front of him, facing him. "I am not afraid. You are one of us."

Okomi shook his head; whatever his thoughts were, they could not be expressed with his apparently limited grasp of Apache, and she spoke no Arapaho. Nascha stepped around behind him and finished tying his hair, and Pezi reappeared.

They left Okomi in Cheveyo's care, and headed out once more in the morning. The next day was spent search for a tribe that had moved some time ago, their trail old enough to have gone cold even to Nascha. They spent the night in a cold camp, and resumed searching again at sunrise the next day.

Nascha found Pezi restful company; he did not chatter, and both of them dwelled in their thoughts and focused on their work. Occasionally, they pointed out things to each other--a black jackrabbit, an interesting spire of stone. By noon, they had found the small camp they had been looking for, and soon after that had found their final spiritwalker. His name was Gosheven, and he had more muscles in his legs than Nascha thought was even possible.

They took him back after he agreed to become one of them, more eagerly than any of the rest had so far. There were still three days left before it was Nascha's turn to tell her story two nights in a row, and Pezi went out to find horses while Nascha performed the watches that would normally be done by all the spiritwalkers taking turns.

The others were healing. Sahale was beginning to almost walk normally again, and Cheveyo was up and around, though moving slowly. Otaktay was still the worst off, but even he was getting better, able to stand unassisted for a few minutes now. He was able to perform his ritual with Ahiga and Aquene, thankfully.

Pezi found horses the day that it was Nascha's turn to tell her story to Ahiga, but it would take him a few days to get them into a proper canyon. They decided to let him do that, and take all six of the new spiritwalkers into the herd at once.

That night, Nascha sat down with Ahiga, and told her story. She could feel him flinching as she saw her and Sakhyo's captivity and capture through her eyes, but she could not spare him it. She showed him the few battles she had fought and the men she had killed, and the persistent ache of missing Tse, the cold place in her blankets where he should be.

After, she asked, "Do you have any questions?"

He was still holding her hands, almost clinging to them. "Do you dream about what could have been with Tse?"

She nodded. "I do, sometimes. I think about what our children would have been like. I miss him, more than I usually tell people."

"Do you have a different dream now?" he asked.

Nascha gave him a slight smile, knowing what he was asking. "I'm still thinking mostly about surviving to find and bring back Sakhyo and Nastas. Though I'm interested in what might happen after that, now. I wasn't before. And, yes, I know Cheveyo likes me, but right now he's a friend and a brother with possibilities for more some day."

"I had thought so. His attraction to you is strong. During his night, that came through very clearly." Ahiga sounded like he wasn't entirely sure what to think about this.

"I've noticed, yes," she said with a smile. "I can't think of him in that way quite yet. And even then, there are things I have to consider."

"Such as?"

"Children, mostly. Some of the others have families, but being a woman, it's not quite as easy for me to do that. And I have to consider whether it's fair to have children when it's very likely that I'll die while they're still young." And if I do not die, their father very well might, if it's Cheveyo. We do not grow old.

Ahiga looked thoughtful. "I hadn't really thought of that. Nastas may end up fatherless, even if we do get him back."

Nascha let go of his hands. "It's always a possibility. You have to believe that what we're doing is worth that, to be spiritwalkers."

"For now, I have to. I see no other choice for getting them back."

"We'll see what happens," she told him, and let go of his hands. "You can leave, if you have to. Adoeete did. But it's never something that's done lightly."

"I know." There was a troubled look in his eyes, but he smiled anyway. "Thank you for the chance to get them back."

"You're welcome. And thank you for becoming one of us." She got up then and walked away from the fire, towards the outer edges of the camp. She had some work to do before she could claim her blankets.

The next night was Aquene's turn to listen to Nascha's story, and Ahiga's turn to tell his. There was little in there that Nascha did not know, but she listened avidly anyway, her hand on Ahiga's leg, the rest of the spiritwalkers surrounding him.

Ahiga's childhood had been mostly uneventful; his family had always been close to Nascha's, and he and Sakhyo had been childhood sweethearts. He had never doubted that he would grow up to marry her, and she felt the same about him. His father had been killed in a hunting accident when Ahiga had been fifty-two seasons old, and after that Ahiga had taken his father's place as the hunter for his family. She saw herself through his eyes, and flinched a little; he was not sparing with the fact that because she had been her parents' only child, she had been a bit spoiled and selfish.

She saw through his eyes what had happened when he and Yas had returned to find their village destroyed, the search for bodies in the ashes, the hope and the fear when they found neither Sakhyo nor Nascha's bodies. She saw Tse, with a terrible wound in his back, and the amazement that he had survived as long as he had.

Ahiga's story ended with the changes he had seen in Nascha. Becoming spiritwalker had been good for her, he thought, and he was startled by how well she was handling losing Tse. He had expected her to be nearly nonfunctional with grief, but he could see that she had thrown herself into becoming spiritwalker, and time and circumstances had not allowed her to fall into despair. His fears were of losing Sakhyo for good, of going to the Arapaho tribe to find her dead, or having him be gone for so long that she decided that she liked her new life. He was also afraid of the forced marriage, and what being repeatedly raped might do to her mind.

There were a few questions, and then the cuts were made and they exchanged blood, making Ahiga one of them. The next night, Ahiga told his story to Aquene, and then the night after was Aquene's story.

She looked rather scared as they came to her that night by the fire, and Nascha felt a surge of sympathy for her. She had probably looked just as afraid, when her turn had come for her story and the blood ceremony. But they sat around her, their hands on her skin, and Aquene closed her eyes and began to show them her story.

She'd been born into a large family, the middle of seven siblings. One of her older brothers had died of a white disease, three others had caught it and survived. Aquene and the others had never caught it. Her father had died in a raid when Aquene was about Nascha's age, and her mother had been taken in as a symbolic second wife by her husband's brother.

They had lived like the Apache, raiding and hunting to survive, but with the coming of the white man to this part of the world the herds had gone south and west. They had followed, and the move had brought them into conflict with the Arapaho and Apache and Ute. Two of Aquene's brothers had died either while raiding or being raided. She married, but had no children, as much as she and her husband tried and hoped. The gods had not blessed them, no matter how many prayers had been raised to them.

Then Chogan had come on a raid with the Spanish, and had killed everyone she had known. Chogan had been about to kill her, but he had looked at Aquene and been brought up short. Instead of killing her, he tied her hands and took her out to the Spanish to keep her safe. The leader of the Spanish had argued with Chogan over Aquene. Chogan had raged about it, but every time he looked at her, he'd stopped arguing, and eventually he'd gone away without her and without a fight.

The Spanish leader had taken Aquene as a slave. He had been about to force her to have sex when Nascha and Otaktay had arrived. She shared then the aftermath of that night with them all, how afraid she had been, how puzzled and then reassured when she'd realized that Nascha was one of the spiritwalkers.

After she was done, Nascha asked, "Do you have any idea why Chogan didn't kill you?"

"I don't know his real motivation for not wanting to, but I have a guess, if you want to hear?" Aquene's voice was unsure.

Nascha tightened her hand on Aquene's leg. "Please."

"From the time I was very young I could hear the spiritwalkers. But I was female and not allowed to become one of them. I would listen to them, when I could. I learned some things from one. He spoke of a way to make men see things differently. I used it first on my brothers, when they fought, it always calmed them." Aquene looked unsure still, but her voice was getting steadier. "Made the anger go away. I used it that night on Chogan."

"Either he knew that you had done something to him that could be used against people, or he simply decided he must like you and wanted to keep you safe."

A small smile lifted the corners of Aquene's mouth. "I think the former first to be used against people, but I think he gave up, when he realized I could affect him too."

"Well, I'd call that a good guess. It's too bad you were never allowed to join the spiritwalkers before," Nascha said.

Aquene shrugged. "I did not know it was acceptable for us to do so. No Sioux women were allowed."

"Well, as far as I know it wasn't really allowed here until Cheveyo decided to ask me the question," she said, remembering her astonishment at being chosen, Cheveyo's matter-of-fact voice telling her she was one of them.

The other woman lifted an eyebrow. "Did you ask him why he did?"

"Never occurred to me. Cheveyo? Why did you ask me the question?"

It took a moment for Cheveyo to answer. "Each of us has a gift different from the others. Some find theirs after a long time, some never do. Some of us get help finding them. I took my first step into spiritworld and the spirits came rushing to me. telling me things, future things. One told me that I would have the choice in the desert of saving a woman who would change everything with the spiritwalkers and me., or let her die to preserve the past." He was looking at Nascha now, steadily. "I swore that I would let her die to preserve our way of life. I couldn't, when I saw her."

She took a moment to think that over. If Cheveyo had decided that saving her was not worth the possible loss of everything he was fighting for...she would be dead, and her bones would even now be bleaching under the sun. "I've already changed it some, simply by being the person I am--a woman, and not raised with the Apache," she said. She was surprised at how calm her voice was.

"Yes, you are. So that is why I asked you. I knew the change was coming and my choice to make."

"Well, selfishly, I'm glad you made the choice you did. Aquene, have you grieved your husband?" Nascha asked.

Aquene closed her eyes, and pain tightened her mouth. "I have had very little time, just like you."

"If it makes things easier to talk, I am always here."

"For you, too." Aquene tried to smile. And then it was time for the blood ceremony, and Cheveyo sat with Aquene that night, as he had sat with Ahiga the night before.

The next day passed uneventfully, but the next night, Nascha was woken out of a sound sleep by the sounds of a fight, a woman screaming, a man shouting. Nascha sat up, knuckling her eyes, and reached for her shoes.

Cheveyo was already up and at the entrance to the wickiup. He was looking out, his eyes narrowed. "Get up, all of you," he said to them all. "We have unpleasant business."

Nascha glanced at his face, the grim lines of it, and chose not to ask. All of them gathered at a wickiup, where the sound of fighting had been coming from. "This is the home of Jodrava and Izusa and their children," Cheveyo said. "Surround the home." They spread out, each able to see at least two others. Nascha was standing next to Ahiga, and he glanced at her, looking worried. She heard Cheveyo say aloud, "Jodrava, Izusa come out."

From out of the wickiup emerged a woman and a man. The woman was disheveled, her face a mass of bruises, her mouth bleeding. There was a stricken, numb look in her eyes. The man who followed her had slumped shoulders and a fiercely sullen look on his face. Cheveyo's voice was stern, holding no mercy. "Jodrava. You have been warned of hurting your wife three times. The first, we left you naked in the desert a day's walk away to let you contemplate what you have done. The second, we beat you as you beat her, the third, we beat you again but far worse. It has been nearly two years since you recovered." His dark gaze was fixed on Jodrava. "This is the fourth. Your father died the same way you are about to. Have you learned nothing?"

Jodrava looked up, and there was fear on his face. "Mercy, she makes me so angry sometimes--"

Izusa, next to him, was staring at her husband now, and there was no compassion in her look. "I see no mercy in her face, that part which you can see," Cheveyo said. "Zotum."

Almost too quickly to see, Zotum raised his bow and released an arrow. It went through Jodrava's throat, and he crumpled to the ground soundlessly. "Spiritwalkers, take the body the long way through the tribe to the desert. Leave it for the coyotes, it deserves nothing and it shall get nothing."

Nascha stepped forward, helping to pick up the body that still had the warmth of life in it. They lifted the corpse, carrying it through the village. There had been some sort of signal that had gone out, it seemed, and families were standing outside of their wickiups, watching them as they wound their way through the village and then walked out into the desert beyond. There was sadness and acceptance on many of their faces, as if they were sad to have it happen, but understood the necessity.

They left the body exposed to the sky on a flat rock, and even before they left, Nascha could see the slinking forms of coyotes gathering nearby. Then they walked back, each of them going to their homes. Nascha paused before going inside the wickiup she was now sharing with Hania, Cheveyo, and Ahiga, and stepped around back.

Cheveyo followed her. "I know that was justice," she said quietly, feeling shaken.. "I didn't know we are to deal with issues within the tribe like that."

"We do," he said. "We enforce the rules by which we live. That behavior hurts us all. So we eliminate it when we have to. The Navajo don't do something similar?"

She nodded. "In a way. The last resort, if we can't restore harmony, is to exile whoever the one causing trouble is. It's as much as a death sentence, though I'm sure sometimes they find their way to another village and start again."

"We don't believe in letting them live to carry on doing what they are doing, even if it's to another tribe."

Absently, Nascha rubbed her left arm with her hand. "I can see that. It would probably be--cleaner, I suppose, than exiling them. Make sure they die instead of trusting the land to change them or kill them."

Cheveyo grimaced. "I both hate and love that part of the job."

"I can see why," she said. "Do you sit down to talk things through with the one who's hurt and the one who's been hurt, before it gets to that?"

"The first time, we explain that this cannot happen again," he said. "We lay out what will happen if it happens a second, third and fourth time. Some choose to correct their ways, some, like Jodrava, don't."

There was a deep shock in her, though she knew that the Apache did not practice peacemaking as her birth tribe had. "Ah. Among us, we sit down with someone, usually someone known for being able to create harmony, and each party tells their side. Then you bring both sides back into harmony, through whatever means. Like I was starting to try to do with you and Adoeete."

Cheveyo inclined his head. "We probably have a lot to learn from each other then. Ours ends the hitting but sometimes not the pain, maybe yours ends the pain as well."

She thought about her mother and aunt, about her grandmother's attempts to make peace between them. "Sometimes. Sometimes not. Sometimes there is lesser pain to avoid the greater pain--Jodrava and Izusa, among us, would probably have been parted after the second incident, and Jodrava would have needed to make restitution to Izusa's family. It would have been up to her mother or grandmother if he would have ever been allowed to be a husband to her again."

"Ah, the difference between the Navajo and the apache. Navajo think first and act later. We act first and say oops later." He smiled at her, a little ruefully.

She smiled back. "Both ways of thinking have their good points. It can take days to bring people back into harmony, or longer if the conflict runs deep."

"Well, you can work on Adoeete to change it now. Being a spiritwalker carries weight with the elders."

Nascha nodded. "I'd like to. The conflict between the two of you runs very deep indeed. I'd wondered why nobody had sat the two of you down before and made you talk, and now I know. I'm not really a peacemaker, but I'm probably the closest you're going to get. My grandmother was one, and I saw her work a lot."

Cheveyo gave her a long look. "Are you all right? You looked a bit startled by this and by my answer to your question in Aquene's story."

"I think I am," she said, letting go of a long breath. "I'm still getting used to living with people I wasn't raised with, and whose beliefs differ from mine. And about your answer...I'm not sure what to think. It's strange to know that you might have passed by without me even waking up."

"Fear of change is a great motivator. I was afraid of what was to change." He shook his head. "So I told myself that I wouldn't let it happen on my watch. When the time came there was no choice for me."

"Why not?" she asked. "What made that decision for you?"

He was looking at her very directly now. "You did. I couldn't let you die out there. I couldn't look at you and not want to know you. So I asked. Adoeete had a fit."

There was color rising in Nascha's face, she could tell, feeling suddenly warm. "So I've gathered, from things he and the others have said. Adoeete's not much of one for taking chances."

"No, he isn't," Cheveyo said. "Are you?"

The question hung between them, and she could tell that there was much more to what he wanted to ask her than simply that. She ignored the way her stomach tensed, trying to turn over within her. "I ran away from the man who kidnapped me and set out to find help on my own. When asked to become a spiritwalker, I said yes. I think that's your answer, there." She smiled ruefully then, remembering. "Though, really, I didn't so much say yes as not run away. Same thing, in the end."

"I know soon enough we are going to be having to take a lot of chances," he said.

Nascha thought about Dichali, and the place in her mind that was silent now, instead of being filled with lively chatter. "I know. Going against Chogan...not everyone will survive it. I miss hearing Dichali's chattering."

"Me, too. He annoyed me, but I miss it too." Cheveyo rolled his shoulders, dropping them down. "I don't miss Adoeete and his second guessing. Zotum is now the second, but he never says much."

"I don't know, I'm going to miss Adoeete," she said. "But it wasn't me he was second-guessing either. And Zotum's almost as quiet as Pezi, sometimes. You've seen loss before. You were once the youngest member of your group. Does it ever get easier?" Nascha asked.

Cheveyo just looked at her silently for a long moment. "Sometimes I wish I could lie to you. But I can't. No, it doesn't."

She swallowed, thinking of the eleven people her life was tied to now. "Sometimes I wish you could lie to me, too. I suppose you just have to hold on to what time you have with your brothers and sisters."

"Husbands, wives, children," he said, echoing her. "Yes, you do. Sometimes I think I am nothing but memories anymore."

She had seen so many people in his memories when he'd told his story, brief glimpses of spiritwalker brothers, the faces of his wife and child. "More than memories, I think. I know what you mean, though." She spread her hands, gesturing to the darkened world around them. "This is what the gods ask of us, so here we are."

"If I didn't say this when you became a spiritwalker, I should have. It's a gift, and a curse."

"You did, and it is. And the longer you live, the more pain you see."

Cheveyo shook his head. "We train, we protect, we fight, we die. Something else would be a welcome change."

Nascha eyed him, thinking about that last statement. "Do you ever think about just walking away? It seems to be possible."

"I have," he said. There seemed to be more to what he wanted to say, but he just closed his mouth on it, glancing away from her.

She regarded him for a few heartbeats, waiting. Then she asked, "Is this one of those questions I shouldn't ask, or is there something you wanted to tell me?"

He looked back at her. "Depends on if you really want to know."

"I'm curious now," she told him.

He gave her a look that said, all right, you asked. "After my family died, I was only spiritwalker. There was no life other than that, no possibility of life, just waiting until I got killed in battle. I only now think that I would and could quit, if I had someone to go with me."

"And given that I know how you feel about me, I assume that would be me," she said, trying to sound calm, though her breath caught and the fluttering in her stomach was back.

"Yes," he said. "It may only be just something to dream about, but it has started me dreaming again."

She considered this, and said slowly, "Well, one of these days, my heart will start healing. It might be something to think about, later. I don't want to give you false hope, Cheveyo, I don't know how long it'll take or whether I'll end up returning your feelings. But I do like you, and I'm willing to wait and see."

"So am I. I just hope we live long enough to find out."

Maybe we will and maybe we won't. Unbidden, the memory of Dichali's body rose in her mind again. "Me, too. I'm starting to care whether or not I live beyond when we get Sakhyo back, now."

"It will be only a matter of time now. He hit us where he knew it would hurt to slow us down, but it got him too."

"Yes. And by the time he's healed up, we will have the new ones trained," she said.

Cheveyo nodded. "And he probably won't. It's easier to find a spiritwalker than a skinwalker."

"We just need to remember to try not to kill Chuslum, the big one. If he dies, Sakhyo probably dies too."

Twitch of Cheveyo's eyebrow. "Ah, and that is my idea that I may try, it's dangerous though."

She tilted her head. "What is it?"

"Aquene and Chuslum. If she can do what I think she can, she might be able to influence him to let Sakhyo go. Otherwise we have to fight our way into an Arapaho camp and kill them."

Nascha considered the idea. "You're right, that's dangerous. But if it works, we get Sakhyo back without too much of a fight."

"None if I can help it. Trouble becomes, how do you get them together long enough for her to affect him?" He shook his head. "We capture him and she can influence him, but release him and Chogan thinks something is up."

There was a metallic taste on her tongue, as she contemplated the idea. "I have an idea I don't really like. Let her be recaptured."

Cheveyo looked dubious. "And hope that Chogan doesn't kill her?"

"Right. Like I said, I don't like it. Maybe Okomi will have an idea. I could be bait, if need be, but Chogan knows I'm a spiritwalker now."

"And he will kill if he sees you," Cheveyo said, finishing her thought. "One question for you, which is the one I am having trouble with. Is Aquene's life worth Sakhyo and her son. I know it's Ahiga's wife, but are we willing to trade one of us for her? It could happen."

Nascha took a breath. "I know what Ahiga's answer would be. Me...I don't know. Sakhyo is family, but so is Aquene, now."

"It's a hard choice, but one after training we can pose to her and to the rest," he said.

She tried to think of Aquene lying dead like Dichali, killed by a situation that Nascha had sent her into in an attempt to retrieve Sakhyo and Nastas. "I have a duty towards Sakhyo, and a promise to keep, but I don't know if it's worth Aquene's life."

"Aquene may choose to help," Cheveyo pointed out.

"If she chooses freely to help, then yes. Otherwise, I think we need to find another way."

Cheveyo nodded in an almost satisfied manner, as if the question had been a test and she had barely passed. "Keep thinking, so will I."

"I will. I hope Sakhyo lives long enough for us to rescue her."

"So do I," he said, and smiled briefly. "We should probably go inside. My grandfather will come out soon, in hopes of catching us kissing."

Nascha laughed and went inside with Cheveyo, wrapping herself up in her blanket. She tried to imagine life with Cheveyo, leaving the spiritwalkers and striking out on their own. Where would they go? Which tribe would they live with? She tried to imagine what would come before it, kissing Cheveyo, touching his skin...her blankets were suddenly too warm for her, a flush creeping its way down her body.

She wriggled to put her arm outside her blankets, listening to the others in the wickiup. Cheveyo was not asleep, she could tell. I wonder if I could... She could go over to him, ask silently to share his blankets. But on the heels of that thought came a flash of Tse's eyes, disappointed and angry, and she pulled the blankets tighter in shame. I'm so sorry, Tse. She stayed where she was, and eventually fell asleep.

The next day, Pezi reported that the horses were in position, and he helped run the new spiritwalkers out to the herd. Cheveyo and Nascha went with him, and they found some shade and watched the herd mill around the six new ones. All of them looked by turns intimidated and outright scared, except Wahcommo who was looking around him, fascinated.

The first surprise of the day was that the black stallion that had rejected Nascha so volubly when she had been in horse ceremony capered right up to Wahcommo only seconds after he'd arrived in the canyon, before he even had a chance to sit down. The stallion nuzzled his head, and Wahcommo gave a delighted grin and swung up on the horse's back, riding towards where the brush blocked the canyon.

"That was the shortest choosing I have ever heard of," Cheveyo muttered.

"He looked like he was expecting Wahcommo," Nascha said.

Pezi muttered, "Probably was." Then he got up to pull the brush aside. Wahcommo rode over to the rest of them and slid off the stallion's back, looking pleased. "How about everyone else?" he asked.

"It'll take them a bit longer," Cheveyo said. "Just wait."

As the sun rose towards the high point, a spotted mare chose Okomi. A few hours after that, within minutes of each other, Delsin and Aquene were chosen, by a chestnut mare and a dark brown mare respectively. A few moments after sunset, Ahiga was chosen by a black mare with a white blaze on her face, one that looked very much like Cheveyo's black and white mare.

Gosheven stayed the night in the herd, the horses milling around him, his eyes shut tight. "He'll be chosen, they're just being stubborn," Cheveyo said. "You'll see." And a few minutes after the sun crested the hills the next morning, a dappled mare finally stepped forward to Gosheven, nuzzling the top of his head. He rode out and they pulled away the brush from the canyon entrance, waiting as the herd ran by them, heading upwards, probably towards water.

Once they were gone, they turned the horses back towards the camp. Riding, Nascha surveyed the new spiritwalkers, seeing how they sat their horses. Wahcommo was a born horseman, and he and his horse moved as one being. Aquene was also a good rider, comfortable on horseback as she rarely seemed to be on land.

They made it back, and settled into training. Otaktay still wasn't well enough to work the new ones over himself, but Zotum, Cheveyo, and Sahale were, and Nascha began to collect a whole new set of bruises on her arms, shoulders, and legs. Time passed, and they all told their stories. Wahcommo was the first of the new batch to tell his story and do blood ceremony, and the other three were right on his heels.

Wahcommo was young enough that there was little to his story, but it did have its moments. His mother had had terrible trouble trying to hold on to a pregnancy, but had managed to keep Wahcommo until almost term. He had been born early but had survived, though his early birth meant that he was slow to grow, and was still not growing like the other boys his age. It was a constant source of teasing from others his age.

He had reacted by withdrawing from those who should have been his playmates, disappearing into the wild for days at a time, playing by himself when he did play. He had always known he was drawn to horses, and they to him; if he was not careful, he sometimes acquired a hooved following when he was out and about.

He was slow to trust humans, always suspecting that they were making somehow a joke at his expense. The last thing that filtered through to the rest of them was the sense that he was going to wake up and being chosen as a spiritwalker was going to be nothing more than a dream, and the pride he took in being chosen and the balancing fear that he was going to die. "Are your parents pleased you are spiritwalker?" Nascha asked.

Wahcommo gave her an image of a pair of people, both older, looking pleased and worried. "They are proud of me, but they are overprotective of their only son," he answered. "They are afraid."

"For good reason. This is a dangerous thing to be. But the rewards are great."

He smiled then, and she could feel the intense pride in him. He burned so brightly for one so young. "I know. I have heard the stories."

Nascha nodded. "So what draws you to horses? Do they show you things?"

"No, I have never seen anything from them. They answer when I ask them to do something. They only talk when they want something." Images of horses over the years, ill, injured, hungry, thirsty, afraid. "Because I understand them, they all come to me."

"A great talent, that one," Nascha said and there were no more questions. They completed blood ceremony, and welcomed Wahcommo in as one of them. Wahcommo, for his part, looked as though he had been hit with something heavy, and spent the night talking with Cheveyo, asking questions.

The next night was Delsin. He had been the youngest of three siblings, and his life had been, to a point, almost idyllic. His parents had died when they were old, of the things that afflicted old people, passing peacefully and in the fullness of their years. His older brother had died in battle, and his older sister was still alive, with a pair of children who were growing up well under her watchful eye.

He'd had a wife, once, and he had loved her with a difficult and consuming passion. She had died in childbirth, their much-anticipated daughter stillborn, strangled with the birth cord. He had never gotten over losing her, withdrawing into himself and retreating into silence. He had stopped being an active member of the tribe, stopped talking to anyone. Delsin carried with him a great and suffocating silence, filled with bitterness about losing the life he should have had with his wife, the children who should be laughing in the sun and the potential for whom had died with her.

Delsin did not really want to be spiritwalker, but had accepted so he could get dying over with, instead of dragging it out over the years. The gods had abandoned him, he thought, and he had returned the favor. Having the abilities of a new spiritwalker confused him, an old argument between him and the gods reopened, a battle between believing and seeing. And the question that echoed through him, that filled the silence within him, was the angry shout of, why me?

There was another silence after Delsin had finished his story. "So what would you need to see, to know why you were chosen for this?" was the question that came, afterward.

Delsin's voice held raw pain in it. "I have the ability, so you have said. I don't know why the gods are playing with me. I just wanted to be left alone by them, but they had other plans. I tried to abandon them but they have dragged me back. I just want to know what they want."

Nascha found her voice. "I can't presume to speak for the gods. Maybe they're just trying to tell you you're not done yet."

No smiled played on Delsin's face, and except for the firelight that moved across his features and shadowed his eyes, he was entirely still. "Maybe they are. I am here to find out what they really want with me."

"Well, I'm still pretty sure they're laughing at me," she said, trying to provoke a smile.

She was disappointed; Delsin did not smile. "I think they are laughing at us all. But we do what we must."

"We do," Nascha said.

That night, after blood ceremony was complete, Nascha went to find Una, to scratch her behind the ears and run her hands over her back. She'd had an odd reaction to Delsin's story, finding in it an echo of things she was felt herself, anger at the gods for taking away the life she'd had and giving her a new one in which her family and husband were dead, and she was spiritwalker.

Delsin was so unhappy, and she suspected that he was making himself that way, by closing himself off from the new. She wondered, with some unease, if she were beginning to do the same thing. "Surely not," she muttered to Una. "It's only been a little while. I'm still grieving."

It didn't help, and after a while she went back to the wickiup, staying quiet for the rest of the evening.

The next night, it was Okomi's turn.

The Arapaho had been the enemies of the Navajo and Apache for a long time, but despite that, his life had been quite similar to theirs. He'd grown up, had parents, and his father had been a warrior who had become a tribal elder. He had died a year ago, and the tribe had voted Okomi to take his place, but Okomi wanted yet to be a warrior while he was still young. There would be time to accept being an elder later, he thought.

He had married his wife three seasons ago. They had been trying for children, but Skah had interfered. He and Skah, it seemed, had been born hating one another, from the time they could walk always trying to hurt the other, to win the upper hand. There had never been a smile between them, and neither of them could remember how the hatred had begin. Over the years, the violence between them had grown and spread. Okomi strongly suspected Skah of killing his horse, out of revenge for a careless word of Okomi's.

Skah had become spiritwalker, and suddenly all his sins had been forgiven. Okomi had not believed it, and with good reason. Skah had always lusted after Isi, and when Okomi had married her he had expected trouble. He had not expected what had happened, thinking that the anger would be turned against him, not Isi.

But Skah had, as he always did, taken it one step too far.

They all watched as Okomi's story played out, coming home to find Isi missing, looking and finally finding her stumbling towards the camp, beaten and sobbing. She had told him what had happened in a halting voice, and he had taken her back to the tent, told her to pie down, and went looking for Skah.

The fight happened, Skah grinning, the satisfaction as an overconfident Skah miscalculated how fast Okomi was and got a nice long slash on his arm for his trouble. That was when the other had arrived, breaking up the fight. None believed Okomi when he said that Skah had raped Isi, and he had been told to leave and never return.

Okomi, burning with rage, had not left. Instead, he had hidden near the camp, watched, and waited. He was going to kill Skah for what he had done. Instead, he had seen Skah pull a skin over his head, and change into a fox. Skah was skinwalker.

There were days and days of wandering the desert, trying to pick up the skinwalkers' tracks. He had found nothing, and had run into an Apache tribe just as his strength had failed. They saw through his eyes as two compactly built people, one male, one female, and a tall, thin older man came out of the Apache camp. The woman had turned to look at him, and he had known that her name was Nascha, and that he was supposed to go with those she was with.

He worried, most of all, about his wife. She was probably in Skah's possession, and he feared what was happening to her. He wanted them dead, all of them--the skinwalkers for what they were and what they had done, the elders who had once wanted him and then had turned him out. His revenge encompassed the whole of his tribe, for the wrongs that he thought they had done to him.

The rage in him was deep, and he laid it all out for them, the bare burning bones of it. "Would you be content with simply killing Skah and bringing your wife out?" Nascha asked him.

"No," he answered sharply. "I would be content, though, to kill all the skinwalkers and bring her out."

"That, we may be able to do," she said. She looked at him, measuring. "Is it worth your life?"

"To kill them all. Yes, any price."

As they had done the nights before, Cheveyo called forth memories of a spiritwalker who had died before, calling the knowledge that he had carried with him in his lifetime into Okomi. Okomi say unmoving, his face turned up to the stars. There was a look a surprise on his face, and slowly the surprise was drowned by a sort of fierce peace, Okomi in the center of the storm of his self, of the one who had been called to teach him.

Then that night was done, and the next night was Gosheven.

Nascha was getting used to what childhood was like for a boy of the tribes; similar to girls in many ways, but with some differences that still surprised her. Gosheven had grown up with one brother; his father, a warrior, had died when Gosheven was young. Both Gosheven and his brother had become warriors; Gosheven had never married, though his brother had.

He was the runner, his legs and his breath were the very best of him. It was his job to scout the places that horses could not go, over broken terrain and into canyons, to look and listen and report back. He was very good at remaining unseen, and had not seen much combat because of it. He lived for the run, the chase, the breath in his throat and the pounding of his feet against the ground.

There were a flickering parade of faces, of bodies, people he had spied on, Spanish, Arapaho, Navajo, Ute, other tribes. Nascha saw some people from her own tribe that Gosheven had spied on at one time or another. He had always wanted to be spiritwalker, knowing that a spiritwalker's abilities along with his own would make him a much better spy.

After the stories they had heard from the others, Gosheven seemed positively well-adjusted. He was the type of person a spiritwalker was supposed to be, dedicated to what he was doing and fearless. On this night, Zotum sat with Gosheven for the night, since Cheveyo had been awake for three nights running.

Nascha had wandered a little way away from camp, sitting to watch the small night wildlife move at the edge of the light cast by the camp's fires. She heard footsteps behind her and glanced over her shoulder, seeing Cheveyo approaching. He came up to her and she scooted over, inviting him to sit on the part of the rock that she wasn't using. He accepted, his long legs bracing him on the stone.

"What do you think?" he asked her.

She glanced over at him. He was near enough that she could feel the warmth of his body, in contrast to the rapidly cooling evening air. "About Gosheven, or about the new ones in general?"

"All of them."

She turned it over in her mind. "I think we have some work to do," she said, finally.

Cheveyo looked at her, frowning. "Nothing other than that?"

"Well, I have to say that I think this may be one of the strangest group of spiritwalkers I've ever heard of." Nascha chuckled. "And I'm glad there are people with a lot more experience than I have training them."

"That would be your fault," he said with a smile. "You will get to train with them. Otaktay still has a hatchet with your name on it."

Nascha groaned. "My poor bones. And yes, my fault. Pezi by himself would probably have come back with different people."

"But the advantage is the unexpected. I think they can handle it. Do you?"

She turned the new ones over in her mind. Such strange people to be spiritwalkers, but all with reserves of strength, she thought. "I think so. I'm most worried about Delsin, to be honest."

Cheveyo nodded. "He wants to die. I noticed that. He reminds me of me, a bit."

"I was just thinking that," she said, her voice dry. "I think he'll need to have an eye kept on him, at least at first. Reminds me of something my father told me, when I talked to him in spiritworld."

"What was that?"

At the edge of the light, something moved--a jackrabbit, running home late to its den. "He told me to remember to live," she said, quietly. "I think Delsin forgot."

He nodded, lifting his hand to rub the place where his healing wound went across his chest. "I think he did. Not sure there is much we can do for him but give him the chance to start again."

"Maybe it'll be enough." She shifted, and sighed. "I feel a little bad about taking Wahcommo in, to be honest. He's so young, and he's his parents' only child."

"He answered the call. I am curious, though, about his ability. We seem to have some strong ones. Aquene, Wahcommo."

And they had those abilities even before they completed initiation," she said. "I'm guessing that's not usual."

"Not terribly. I did, but none of the rest until these two. Spiritworld enhances what is there, what comes out the other side is usually stronger than before."

She quirked one corner of her mouth. A pale shape passed overhead, soundless; a hunting owl. It paused, circling briefly, and moved on. "Well, I'm guessing the gods think we're going to need them. Maybe they're part of that change you were talking about."

"I think they are. Tomorrow should be fun." Nascha looked at him inquiringly, and he chuckled. "Pezi found peyote. Time to walk the spiritworld."

Nascha grinned. "All six of them. Better take them away from camp a ways."

"Yes, if nothing else for the smell they will create throwing up. All of us have to do this, and when they pass through it, it will interesting to see them grow into something else."

"Like I did," she said, remembering. She shifted, muscle and bone and skin all connected, and thought about Dichali sticking his tongue out at her, the first time she tried tracking in spiritworld.

"Like we all did."

She nodded. "It'll be good to see it from this side. Living through it's different than watching someone else go through it."

"Ah yes, and you will enjoy it I think, maybe a bit too much." He smiled at her again, and she wrinkled her nose.

"Why do you say that?" she asked.

"Just a feeling." He gave her an arch look. "Are you denying it?"

Nascha laughed, and a stone's throw away something dark sprang away from the sound. "No, I'm not. And now there will be other new ones for Otaktay to hit."

"Yes, we will let Zotum start them after tomorrow. Otaktay could use a bit more rest." He paused, looking out into the night. "The birds have picked Dichali's body clean. We will burn it tomorrow night while the new ones throw up."

"I'm glad. It seemed like his death was unfinished, somehow," she said. She stood. "You should sleep, Cheveyo. We're going to have our hands full tomorrow." Nascha walked back into camp, feeling his gaze on her all the way back.

The next morning, they walked out from camp a ways at sunrise, and gave all of the new ones peyote. Nascha was given Delsin to shepherd the first time, and was very pleased when he got into spiritworld on the first try. For the next hour or so afterwards, the air was filled with six people throwing up everything they had in their stomachs, reduced to dry heaves when there was nothing left but bile. Nascha stepped among the new ones, chivvying them back into spiritworld, getting them to follow her. "If you do this enough the first day, you'll never have to take the peyote again," she told them. Just like it had motivated her, the thought of never being so miserably sick again motivated them to do what they might have thought impossible.

By evening, she was fairly sure that all of the new ones could come in and out of spiritworld reliably. At that point, they traveled to where Dichali's body had been posted to the sky, Pezi making several trips back and forth to collect his wife, children, and close friends and family members.

They built a large fire under the platform where Dichali's body was laid, and lit it as the sky darkened above. Nascha had thought she had grieved Dichali, but as the fire crept up the platform to claim his bones, she found that she was not done, not nearly.

Dichali's wife and children cried through most of the night, as they told stories and stoked the fire. Nascha found herself in tears more than once, as stories were told of funny things Dichali had done or said. He had been a kind man, and Nascha had her own story to tell, how he had welcomed her in to the spiritwalkers and made her feel at least a little at home, brightened the dark days right after Tse's passing with his talking.

It still seemed impossible that he was gone, that there was silence where he had once been. But when sunrise paled the eastern sky and nothing but ash remained, Cheveyo took some of the ashes and mixed them with paint, painting all of the spiritwalkers in their colors for battle. "A brother has died," he said to them. "This is how we honor those who fall, who die to ensure the safety of the tribe."

He sprinkled the children with the ashes as well, even the smallest who was sleeping on Abequa's shoulders. Then they went back.

Walking through the camp, Nascha was reminded of something, just the smallest scrap of memory. It was her mother's hands, busy at the loom. She was working in the last of some red-dyed wool into a blanket. It was a small Nascha's favorite color. "You can't use it all," she'd protested. "It'll be all gone."

"It's not gone," her mother had said, and her voice was kind. "See, how it goes into the patterns here? It becomes part of something greater than it was, little one. Threads end, but the pattern remains."

It was like that with lives as well, Nascha thought. Dichali was part of the pattern now. Ahiga carried his memory.

We do not grow old.

It was as much comfort as she could be afforded, right now.