Frank Herbert Soul Catcher

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fifty feet down the game trail, pulling off salal leaves, sampling a sour
berry. He could see Katsuk through the brush and trees. The sound of the
obsidian knife on the bow remained clear: a slithering that noised its way
oddly into the woods. Katsuk's murmurous conversation with himself remained
audible.
'Ahhh, beautiful bow. Here's a beautiful bow for the message ... '
'Crazy Indian,' David whispered.
Katsuk hummed and chanted and mumbled at his work.
David broke off a huckleberry twig, studied his situation.
No ravens. Katsuk distracted. An open trail, all downhill. But if Katsuk
caught him trying to escape again ... David took a trembling breath, decided
he wouldn't really try to escape, not yet. He'd just explore this trail for a
way.
Casually, he wandered down into the trees. The neatly collected flight of a
flicker dipping through the forest caught his attention. He heard deerflies
singing. A dusty sunshaft spread quiet light on the brown floor of the woods,
illuminating a delight of greenery. David saw it as an omen. He still felt
anger at Katsuk. The anger might break the spirit spell.
David ventured farther down the trail. He crossed two fallen trees, went under
a low passage of moss-draped limbs. The trail forked at the brink of a steep
hill. One track plunged straight down. The other angled off to the left. He
chose the steep way, went down through the trees to a long slope scarred by an
avalanche. David studied the open area. A
single cedar had survived the slide, sheltered by a prow of granite directly
above it. Part of the tree had been shattered, though -- one side half
stripped away. Great shreds of wood had been left dangling.
Deer tracks led straight across the scarred area.
David stayed on the mossy, fern-patched forest floor, skirted the open area.
Several times, he glanced around, searching out his back trail for signs of
pursuit.
Katsuk was nowhere to be seen.
He listened, could not hear the scraping of the obsidian knife on the bow.
There was only the wind in the trees.
The avalanche had lost itself in a small, gently rounded valley, leaving a
tangle of trees
and earth which dammed a small stream. The stream already had cut a narrow way
across the slide. Water tinkled over rocks below the scarred earth.
David broke his way through a salal thicket above the water, surprised a
spotted fawn which splashed through the shallows.
For a moment, David stood trembling in the aftermath of the shock at the way
the fawn had burst from the thicket.
Then, he went down to the stream, pushed his face into cold water to still his
trembling.
He thought: Now, I'm escaping.
Sheriff Pallatt:
There's a goddamned lot of horseshit around about who's going to get the
credit in this case -- us or the FBI. All I want is to save that kid -- and
the Indian, if I can. I'm tired of playing sheriff! Me'n Dan Gomper, my chief
deputy, is gonna take our own crew in there and find that pair. A couple of
old boar woodsmen like us can do it if anyone can. We're gonna camp cold so's
the Indian don't see smoke and know we're trailing him. Gonna be outrageous
hard work, but we'll do'er.
Katsuk looked up from the completed bow. It was a lovely bow, just right for
the walrus-
gut string in his pouch. He felt the notches for the string.
His chest ached and there were sharp pains in his back from bending so long in
one position. He coughed. Why was it cold now? He looked up. The sun stood low
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over the trees.
Katsuk got to his feet, sought his captive.
'Hoquat!' he called.
Forest silence mocked him.
Katsuk nodded to himself.
Hoquat thinks to escape.
Again, Katsuk studied the sky. No sign of Raven.
He thought: Raven invites everyone to go with him and be his guest, but on the
new day, Raven turns against his guests and wants to kill them. So the guests
fee into the woods.
Now, I am Raven. I have the bow; I need only the arrow.
Again Katsuk coughed. The spasm sent pain shooting through his chest.
It was clear where Hoquat had gone. Even from up on the slope, Katsuk saw the
scar the boy had carved on the tree beside the game trail.
Is it a new test? Katsuk wondered. Do my spirits test me now that the bow is
completed?
Why would they not wait for the arrow?
He took the walrus-gut string from his pouch, fitted it to the bow, tried the
pull. His grandfather had taught him to make such a bow and use it. He felt
his grandfather beside him as he pulled the bow to its fullest arc.
It was a great bow, truly a god-bow. Katsuk lowered the weapon, stared down
into the forest. Sweat drenched his neck and waist. He felt suddenly weak. Had
Hoquat cast a spell upon him?
He glanced over his shoulder at the snow peaks. He thought of the long night:
Death lurked up there, calling to him with Soul Catcher's rattle. It was a
spell, for sure.
Once more, Katsuk studied the forest where Hoquat had gone. The trail beckoned
him. He measured the way of it in his memory: by shadows of trees and passages
of moss. He
sensed the way that trail would feel beneath his feet: thinly flowing dampness
of springs, the roots, the rocks, the mud.
Janiktaht's moccasins were growing thin. He could feel the raw ground through
them.
The trees -- Hoquat had gone that way, trying to escape.
Katsuk spoke aloud to the trail: 'I am Katsuk, he who buried Kuschtaliute, the
land otter's tongue. My body will not decompose. Boughs of the great trees
will not fall upon my grave. I
will be born again into a house of my people. There will be many good things
to eat all around me.'
Deadly whirlwinds of thought poured through his mind, shutting off his voice.
He knew he must go after Hoquat. He must plunge down that trail, but lethargy
gripped him. It was a spell.
An image of Tskanay filled his mind.
Tskanay had cast this spell, not Hoquat! He knew it. He felt her eyes upon
him. She had looked upon him and found him alien. She stood this moment amidst
the perfume of burning cedar needles, reciting the ancient curse. Evergreens
arose all around her, a green illusion of immortality.
'Raven, help me,' he whispered. 'Take this sickness from me.' He looked down
at the cinnamon leather of the moccasins Janiktaht had made for him.
'Janiktaht, help me.'
The vision of Tskanay left him.
He thought: Has the curse been taken away?
Far away, with inner ear and eye, he heard and saw a vaporous river speaking
with its primitive tongues. He saw dead trees, wind-lashed, sparring with
eternity. Amidst the dead, he saw one live tree, torn and scarred but still
standing, a cedar, straight and tall, straight as an arrow shaft.
'Cedar has forgiven me,' he whispered.
He stepped out onto the trail Hoquat had taken then, strode down it until be
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saw the tree standing alone on the scarred earth -- exactly as his vision had
shown it to him.
Cedar for my arrow, he thought. And already consecrated.
The hullabaloo of a raven caucus sounded over the forest. They came over the
avalanche scar, settled into the cedar.
Katsuk smiled. What more omen do I need?
'Katlumdai!' he shouted.
And the sick spirit of the curse left him as he called it by name. He went
down into the scarred earth then to make his arrow.
Charles Hobuhet's dream, as recounted by his aunt:
When I was small I dreamed about Raven. It was the white Raven I dreamed
about. I
dreamed Raven helped me steal all of the fresh water and I hid it where only
our people could find it. There was a cave and I filled it with the water. I
dreamed there was a spirit in the cave who told me about creation. The spirit
had created my cave. There were two entrances, a way to enter and a way to
leave. There was a beach in the cave and waves on it. I heard drums there. My
dream spirit told me there really is such a place. It is clean and good. I
want to find that place.
Katsuk sat with his back against a tree, praying for the earth to forgive him.
The bow lay [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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