Soul Catcher Read online

  Newspapers and magazines would reproduce those pictures. An arrow would point to one face among the boys—David Marshall, son of the new Undersecretary of State.

  The announcement will come on the six-o “clock news over the rec room’s one television. There,will be pictures of the Marshall boy and his mother at the San Francisco airport, the father at a press conference in Washington, B.C.

  Many hoquat would stare at the pictures Clark had taken. Let them stare at a person they thought was Charles Hobuhet. The Soul Catcher had yet to reveal Katsuk hidden in that flesh.

  By the moon shadow on the wall, he knew it was almost midnight. Time. With a single motion, he arose from the bunk, glanced to the note he had left on the room’s tiny desk.

  “I take an innocent of your people to sacrifice for all the innocents you have murdered, an innocent to go with all of those other innocents into the spirit place.”

  Ahhh, the words they would pour upon this message! All the ravings and analysis, the hoquat logic ...

  The light of the full moon coming through the window penetrated his body. He could feel the weighted silence of it all along his spine. It made his hand tingle where Bee had left the message of its stinger. The odor of resin from the rough boards of the walls made him calm. Without guilt.

  The breath of his passion came from his lips like smoke: “I am Katsuk, the center of the universe.”

  He turned and, in a noiseless glide, took the center of the universe out the door, down the short hall into the bunk room.

  The Marshall boy slept in the nearest cot. Moonlight lay across the lower half of the cot in a pattern of hills and valleys, undulant with the soft movement of the boy’s breathing. His clothing lay on a locker at the foot of the cot: whipcord trousers, a T-shirt, light sweater and jacket, socks, tennis shoes. The boy was sleeping in his shorts.

  Katsuk rolled the clothing into a bundle around the shoes. The alien fabric sent a message into his nerves, telling of that mechanical giant the hoquat called civilization. The message dried his tongue. Momentarily, he sensed the many resources the hoquat possessed to hunt down those who wounded them.

  Alien guns and aircraft and electronic devices. And he must fight back without such things. Everything hoquat must become alien and denied to him.

  An owl cried outside the cabin.

  Katsuk pressed the clothing bundle tightly to his chest. The owl had spoken to him. In this land, Katsuk would have other powers, older and stronger and more enduring than those of the hoquat.

  He listened to the room: eight boys asleep. The sweat of their excitement dominated this place. They had been slow settling into sleep. But now they slept even deeper because of that slowness.

  Katsuk moved to the head of the boy’s cot, put a hand lightly over the sleeping mouth, ready to press down and prevent an outcry. The lips twisted under his hand. He saw the eyes open, stare. He felt the altered pulse, the change in breathing.

  Softly, Katsuk bent close, whispered: “Don’t waken the others. Get up and come with me. I have something special for you. Quiet now.”

  Hesitant thoughts fleeing through the boy’s mind could be felt under Katsuk’s hand. Once more, Katsuk whispered, letting his words flow through his spirit powers: “I must make you my spirit brother because of the photographs.” Then: “I have your clothes. I’ll wait in the hall.”

  He felt the words take effect, removed his hand from the boy’s mouth. Tension subsided.

  Katsuk went into the hallway. Presently, the boy joined him, a thin figure whose shorts gleamed whitely in the gloom. Katsuk thrust the clothing into his hands, led the way outside, waiting for the boy at the door, then closing it softly.

  Grandfather, I do this for you!

  ***

  Fragment of a note by Charles Hobuhet found at Cedar Cabin:

  Hoquat, I give you what you prayed for, this good arrow made clean and straight by my hands. When I give you this arrow, please hold it in your body with pride. Let this arrow take you to the land of Alkuntam. Our brothers will welcome you there, saying: “What a beautiful youth has come to us! What a beautiful hoquat!” They will say to one another: “How strong he is, this beautiful hoquat who carries the arrow of Katsuk in his flesh.” And you will be proud when you hear them speak of your greatness and your beauty. Do not run away, hoquat. Come toward my good arrow. Accept it. Our brothers will sing of this. I will cover your body with white feathers from the breasts of ducks. Our maidens will sing your beauty. This is what you have prayed for from one end of the world to the other every day of your life. I, Katsuk, give you your wish because I have become Soul Catcher.

  ***

  David, his mind still drugged with sleep, came wide awake as he stepped out the door into the cold night. Shivering, he stared at the man who had awakened him—the Chief.

  “What is it, Chief?”

  “Shhhh.” Katsuk touched the roll of clothing. “Get dressed.”

  More from the cold than any other reason, David obeyed. Tree branches whipped in the wind above the cabin, filled the night with fearful shapes.

  “Is it an initiation, Chief?”

  “Shhh, be very quiet.”

  “Why?”

  “We were photographed together. We must become spirit brothers. There is a ceremony.”

  “What about the other guys?”

  “You have been chosen.”

  Katsuk fought down sudden pity for this boy, this Innocent. Why pity anyone? He realised the moonlight had cut at his heart. For some reason, it made him think of the Shaker Church where his relatives had taken him as a child—hoquat church! He heard the voices chanting in his memory: “Begat, begat, begat ...”

  David whispered: “I don’t understand. What’re we doing?”

  The stars staring down at him, the wind in the trees, all carried forboding. He felt frightened. A gap in the trees beyond the porch revealed a great bush of stars standing out against the night. David stared into the shadows of the porch. Why wasn’t the Chief answering?

  David tightened his belt, felt the knife in its sheath at his waist. If the Chief were planning something bad, he’d have removed the knife. That was a real weapon. Daniel Boone had killed a bear with a blade no bigger than this one. “What’re we going to do?” David pressed.

  “A ceremony of spirit brotherhood,” Katsuk said. He felt the truth in his words. There would be a ceremony and a joining, a shape that occurred out of darkness, a mark on the earth and an incantation to the real spirits.

  David still hesitated, thinking this was an Indian. They were strange people. He thought of Mrs. Parma. Different Indian, but both mysterious.

  David pulled his jacket close around him. The cold air had raised goose pimples on his skin. He felt both frightened and excited. An Indian.

  He said: “You’re not dressed.”

  “I am dressed for the ceremony.”

  Silently, Katsuk prayed: “O Life Giver, now that you have seen the way a part of your all-powerful being goes ...”

  David sensed the man’s tensions, the air of secrecy. But no place could be safer than this wilderness camp with that cog railroad the only way to get here.

  He asked: “Aren’t you cold?”

  “I am used to this. You must hurry after me now. We haven’t much time.” Katsuk stepped down off the porch. The boy followed. “Where are we going?”

  “To the top of the ridge.” David hurried to keep in step. “Why?”

  “I have prepared a place there for you to be initiated into a very old ceremony of my people.”

  “Because of the photographs?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t think Indians believed in that stuff anymore.”

  “Even you will believe.”

  David tucked his shirt more firmly into his belt, felt the knife. The knife gave him a feeling of confidence. He stumbled in his hurry to keep up.

  Without looking back, Katsuk felt the boy’s tensions relax. There had been a moment back on the
porch when rebellion had radiated from the Innocent. The boy’s eyes had been uncertain, wet and smooth in their darkness. The bitter acid of fear had been in the air. But now the boy would follow. He was enthralled. The center of the universe carried the power of a magnet for that Innocent.

  David felt his heart beating rapidly from exertion. He smelled rancid oil from the Chief. The man’s skin glistened when moonlight touched it, as though he had greased his body.

  “How far is it?” David asked.

  “Three thousand and eighty-one paces.”

  “How far is that?”

  “A bit over a mile.”

  “Did you have to dress like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if it rains?”

  “I will not notice.”

  “Why’re we going so fast?”

  “We need the moonlight for the ceremony. Be silent now and stay close.”

  Katsuk felt brass laughter in his chest, picked up the pace. The smell of newly cut cedar drifted on the air. The rich odor of cedar oils carried an omen message from the days when that tree had sheltered his people.

  David stumbled over a root, regained his balance.

  The trail pushed through mottled darkness—black broken by sharp slashes of moonlight. The bobbing patch of loincloth ahead of him carried a strange dream quality to David. When moonlight reached it, the man’s skin glistened, but his black hair drank the light, was one with the shadows.

  “Will the other guys be initiated?” David asked.

  “I told you that you are the only one.”

  “Why?”

  “You will understand soon. Do not talk.”

  Katsuk hoped the silence brought by that rebuke would endure. Like all hoquat, the boy talked too much. There would be no reprieve for such a one.

  “I keep stumbling,” David muttered. “Walk as I walk.” Katsuk measured the trail by the “feeling of it underfoot: soft earth, a dampness where a spring surfaced, spruce cones, the hard lacery of roots polished by many feet ...

  He began to think of his sister and of his former life before Katsuk. He felt the spirits of air and earth draw close, riding this moonlight, bringing the memory of all the lost tribes.

  David thought: Walk as he walks?

  The man moved with sliding panther grace, almost noiseless. The trail grew steep, tangled with more roots, slippery underfoot, but still the man moved as though he saw every surface change, every rock and root.

  David became aware of the wet odors all around: rotting wood, musks, bitter acridity of ferns. Wet leaves brushed his cheeks. Limbs and vines dragged at him. He heard falling water, louder and louder—a river cascading in its gorge off to the right. He hoped the sound covered his clumsiness but feared the Chief could hear him and was laughing.

  Walk as I walk!

  How could the Chief even see anything in this dark?

  The trail entered a bracken clearing. David saw peaks directly ahead, snow on them streaked by moonlight, a bright sieve of stars close overhead.

  Katsuk stared upward as he walked. The peaks appeared to be stitched upon the sky by the stars. He allowed this moment its time to flow through him, renewing the spirit message: “I am Tamanawis speaking to you ...”

  He began to sing the names of his dead, sent the names outward into Sky World. A falling star swept over the clearing—another, then another and another until the sky flamed with them.

  Katsuk fell silent in wonder. This was no astronomical display to be explained by the hoquat magic science; this was a message from the past.

  The boy spoke close behind: “Wow! Look at the falling stars. Did you make a wish?”

  “I made a wish.”

  “What were you singing?”

  “A song of my people.”

  Katsuk, the omen of the stars strong within him, saw the charcoal slash of path and the clearing as an arena within which he would begin creating a memory maker, a death song for the ways of the past, a holy obscenity to awe the hoquat world.

  “Skagajek!” he shouted. “I am the shaman spirit come to drive the sickness from this world!”

  David, hearing the strange words, lost his footing, almost fell, and was once again afraid.

  ***

  From Katsuk’s announcement to his people:

  I have done all the things correctly. I used string, twigs, and bits of bone to cast the oracle. I tied the red cedar band around my head. I prayed to Kwahoutze, the god in the water, and to Alkuntam. I carried the consecrated down of a sea duck to scatter upon the sacrificial victim. It was all done in the proper way.

  ***

  The immensity of the wilderness universe around David, the mystery of this midnight hike to some strange ritual, began to tell on him. His body was wet with perspiration, chilled in every breeze. His feet were sopping with trail dew. The Chief, an awesome figure in this setting, had taken on a new character. He walked with such steady confidence that David sensed all the accumulated woods knowledge compressed into each movement. The man was Deerstalker. He was Ultimate Woodsman. He was a person who could survive in this wilderness.

  David began dropping farther and farther behind. The Chief became a gray blur ahead. Without turning, Katsuk called: “Keep up.” David quickened his steps.

  Something barked. “Yap-yap!” in the trees off to his right. A sudden motion of smoky wings glided across him, almost touched his head. David ducked, hurried to close the gap between himself and that bobbing white loincloth.

  Abruptly, Katsuk stopped. David almost ran into him.

  Katsuk looked at the moon. It moved over the trees, illuminating crags and rock spurs on the far slope. His feet had measured out the distance. This was the place.

  David asked: “Why’d we stop?”

  “This is the place.”

  “Here? What’s here?”

  Katsuk thought: How is it the hoquat all do this? They always prefer mouth-talk to body-talk.

  He ignored the boy’s question. What answer could there be? This ignorant Innocent had failed to read the signs.

  Katsuk squatted, faced the trail’s downhill side. This had been an elk trail for centuries, the route between salt water and high meadows. The earth had been cut out deeply by the hooves. Ferns and moss grew from the side of the trail. Katsuk felt into the growth. His fingers went as surely as though guided by sight. Gently, gently, he pulled the fronds aside. Yes! This was the place he had marked out.

  He began chanting, low-voiced in the ancient tongue:

  “Hoquat, let your body accept the consecrated arrow. Let pride fill your soul at the touch of my sharp and biting point. Your soul will turn toward the sky ...”

  David listened to the unintelligible words. He could not see the man’s hands in the fern shadows, but the movements bothered him and he could not identify the reason. He wanted to ask what was happening but felt an odd constraint. The chanted words were full of clickings and gruntings.

  The man fell silent.

  Katsuk opened the pouch at his waist, removed a pinch of the consecrated white duck down. His fingers trembled. It must be done correctly. Any mistake would bring disaster.

  David, his eyes adjusting to the gloom, began to make out the shadowy movement of hands in the ferns. Something white reflected moonlight there. He squatted beside the man, cleared his throat.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “I am writing my name upon the earth. I must do that before you can learn my name.”

  “Isn’t your name Charlie something?”

  “That is not my name.”

  “Oh?” David thought about this. Not his name? Then: “Were you singing just now?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were you singing?”

  “A song for you—to give you a name.”

  “I already have a name.”

  “You do not have a secret name given between us, the most powerful name a person can have.”

  Katsuk smoothed dirt over the pinch of down. He sensed K
uschtaliute, the hidden tongue of the land otter, working through his hand upon the dirt, guiding each movement. The power grew in him.

  David shivered in the cold, said: “This isn’t much fun. Is this all there is to it?”

  “It is important if we are to share our names.”

  “Am I supposed to do something?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  Katsuk arose. He sensed tensions in his fingers where Kuschtaliute still controlled his muscles. Bits of dirt clung to his skin. The spirit power of this moment went all through his flesh. “I am Tamanawis speaking to you ...”

  He said: “You will stand now and face the moon.”

  “Why?”

  “Do it.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  “You will anger the spirits.” Something in the man’s tone dried David’s mouth. He said: “I want to go back now.”

  “First, you must stand and face the moon.”

  “Then can we go back?”

  “Then we can go.”

  “Well ... okay. But I think this is kind of dumb.”

  David stood. He felt the wind, a forboding of rain in it. His mind was filled suddenly with memories of a childish game he and his friends had played among the creekside trees near his home: Cowboys and Indians. What would that game mean to his man?

  Scenes and words tumbled through David’s mind: Bang! Bang! You’re dead! Dead injun cowboy injun dead. And Mrs. Parma calling him to lunch. But he and his friends had scratched out a cave in the creek bank and had hidden there, suppressing giggles in the mildew smell of cave dirt and the voice of Mrs. Parma calling and everything stirring in his head—memory and this moment in the wilderness, all become one—moon, dark trees moved by the wind, moonlit clouds beyond a distant hill, the damp odor of earth ...

  The man spoke close behind him: “You can hear the river down there. We are near water. Spirits gather near water. Once, long ago, we hunted spirit power as children seek a toy. But you hoquat came and you changed that. I was a grown man before I felt Tamanawis within me.”

  David trembled. He had not expected words of such odd beauty. They were like prayer.

  He felt the warmth of the man’s body behind him, the breath touching his head.