Devil Moon

Chapter Four

The whites called them Sheepeater Indians because they ate a lot of mountain sheep. They also ate a lot of elk and deer and whatever else they could kill and forage, but the white name stuck.

They called themselves the Tukaduka. In the white tongue it meant “people of the high places.” They preferred the high parks and valleys to the flatlands and low valleys and seldom drifted down from the heights.

Other tribes considered them poor. They did not have horses. They did not have buffalo-hide lodges. They did not have white guns or white blankets or white pots and pans. They did not have white knives or white sewing needles or any of the other thousand and one things the whites had that the other tribes craved. But that was fine by the Tukaduka. They did not envy the whites their many goods. They did not desire to be rich as the other tribes saw rich to be.

To the Tukaduka, richness lay in the simple life. Getting along with others was valued more than all else, even white guns. Devotion to family meant more than white knives or sewing needles. Their families, the whites would say, were everything to them.

They did not live in villages. Each family had its own valley or park and dwelled in perfect contentment. It was true that at times they went hungry. It was true that the icy cold of winter was hard and sometimes cost lives. But they were happy, and to the Tukaduka being happy was the reason Coyote had brought them into the world.

War parties from other tribes left them alone. Counting coup on the Tukaduka, the other tribes believed, was as easy as plucking grass. It was insulting for a Piegan or a Blackfoot to boast of killing one. The Tukaduka were regarded as meek and weak as the sheep the whites named them after.

So the Sheepeaters lived quiet, simple lives, and went about their daily tasks at peace with the other tribes and the world around them.

Two Knives was a father of three. His family dwelled in a small valley watered by a gurgling stream high near the Divide. He had seen white men only twice. The first time it had been a party of trappers who stopped in the valley for the night. They were after beaver. Two Knives told them there were none in his valley, but they didn’t believe him until they had scoured the banks of the stream from one end of the valley to the other. One night two of them got drunk and tried to force themselves on Dove Sings. That angered Two Knives greatly. He was not big enough or strong enough to fight them, but fortunately another white man thought it wrong and stopped them.

The second time had been better. A lone white man with hair like snow stopped for a night. He shared his supper and was kind and smiling. Two Knives liked him a lot and could not understand why other Indians had given the white man the name Wolverine. The man had been as peaceful as the birds that Dove Sings was named after.

Much of what the white man said, Two Knives did not understand. The man had something called a “book,” which he recited with a flourish of his hands and arms. It amused Dove Sings greatly. Two Knives had been considerably surprised when Wolverine told him that the whites kept much of their learning and their wisdom in those “books.” Two Knives always thought that learning and wisdom were best kept inside a person.

Even to this day Two Knives occasionally remembered Wolverine and wondered what became of him. Wolverine had been good and decent, qualities Two Knives admired more than any others.

That had been many winters ago, when the oldest of their children was a baby. By now Fox Tail had lived nearly twenty winters and would soon take a wife of his own and move away. Two Knives was not looking forward to that. He would miss his oldest son dearly. He loved his other two children just as much, but it was always hard on the heart when a dear one left.

Otherwise, all was well with their world. Their lodge, made of pine boughs and brush, was spacious enough that they weren’t cramped. Each evening the five of them sat around the small fire and talked. On this particular evening their eyelids were heavy with the need for sleep. Soon they would turn in.

Elk Running, the middle child, was telling them about how he had nearly caught a fish in a pool with his hands. The fish had proved too quick, and he had slipped and fallen in, and they were smiling and laughing when they all heard the shriek. It pierced the valley like a knife thrust, silencing the coyotes and the owls, and silencing all of them, as well. They sat frozen in surprise as the shriek wavered on the wind and gradually faded.

“One of the big cats,” Dove Sings said.

“It is looking for a mate,” Two Knives guessed. “By morning it will be gone.”

“I hope so,” little Bright Rainbow said. “That scared me.”

Dove Sings took their youngest onto her lap and smoothed her hair, comforting her. “The big cats do not bother us if we do not bother them. We will be fine.”

Two Knives said, “It is the brown bears you must watch out for. When you see one, climb a tree as high as you can climb.”

“I am not afraid of them,” Elk Running declared.

“You should be.” Two Knives had lost a cousin to a brown bear. His cousin lingered for days with half his face bitten off and half his chest torn to ribbons. Two Knives’s secret fear was that one day a brown bear would catch him as it had his luckless cousin.

“I will look for sign tomorrow,” Fox Tail announced.

“The cat will be gone,” Two Knives stressed.

“I will look anyway. It is not often we find cat sign.”

Two Knives was proud of his oldest’s tracking skill. His son would sometimes spend half a day tracking an animal for the fun of tracking. “Be careful.”

“I am always careful,” Fox Tail said.

The next morning started like any other. They were up at the first blush of dawn. Dove Sings made a breakfast of grouse eggs and strips of sheep meat. Fox Tail took his bow and quiver and went off to search for sign of the big cat.

Two Knives spent the morning helping Dove Sings cure a deer hide. Unlike some of the other tribes, the Tukaduka did not think it beneath a man’s dignity to do what other tribes called “women’s work.” He and Dove Sings did nearly everything together. Sometimes he even cooked their meals.

The sun was at its highest when Dove Sings looked up and remarked, “He should have been back by now.”

Two Knives did not need to ask who she was talking about. Elk Running was over by the stream with Bright Rainbow. “The cat was high up. Fox Tail could spend most of the day looking and not find anything.” The big cats did not leave a lot of sign as other animals did; they were too stealthy, too secretive.

“I wish he had not gone.”

“You are worried?”

“Yes. Here.” Dove Sings touched her bosom over her heart.

“I will go look for him.”

“No,” Dove Sings said. “You are probably right. The cat is gone and he is safe and I worry over nothing. I would rather you stay here with us.”

“As you want.” But now Two Knives was worried. His wife often had feelings she could not account for that turned out to be right. He spent the rest of the afternoon constantly glancing at the forested slopes that rimmed their valley and were in turn capped by ramparts of stone or in the case of the highest peaks, by cones and spires of glistening snow.

The sun was low on the horizon when Elk Running came to him and asked, “Shouldn’t Fox Tail have been back by now?”

“It could be your brother found sign and followed it,” Two Knives suggested. He did not mention that Fox Tail knew better than to be abroad after dark. The Tukaduka were never abroad after dark.

“Fox Tail is strong and brave. Maybe he will slay the cat and bring us the hide.”

“Maybe,” Two Knives said.

Dusk settled over their valley. They ate supper and sat around the fire, all of them quiet, and listened. Coyotes yipped and a wolf howled and near their lodge an owl hooted.

“Fox Tail would never be gone this long.” Dove Sings voiced what was on all their minds.

“I will look for him in the morning,” Two Knives said.

He did not sleep well. Nor did his wife. Usually they slept cuddled together, but on this night they turned and tossed and for long stretches he lay on his back and stared at the empty air, worried. He was up much earlier than was his wont, and dressed and went out. The brisk chill made him shiver. He gazed at the stars and out over the valley, and frowned.

A doeskin dress whispered, and Dove Sings was beside him. “Something has happened to him.”

“I think so, yes,” Two Knives admitted.

“You should not go alone. Take Elk Running.”

“Bright Rainbow and you should not be alone.”

“I can use a bow, and I have my knife.”

“I want him to stay with you,” Two Knives insisted. He seldom forced his will on her, but in this he was firm.

Dove Sings took his hand in hers. “We have lived many winters together. I would not like to live a winter alone.”

Two Knives smiled. “I am not a Shoshone. I do not test my manhood with my courage.”

“I will not sleep until you return.”

His stomach was in no shape for breakfast. He left shortly after sunup armed with his small bow and short arrows and a pair of flint knives. Dove Sings filled a pouch with dried deer meat, and he slanted the strap across his chest. She and Elk Running and Bright Rainbow stood and watched him jog off. He looked back at them right before he entered the trees, and Dove Sings waved. He waved to them.

The forest was eerily quiet. Normally birds warbled and squirrels chattered, but today not a single chirp or chitter broke the stillness. Even the wind had died and the trees were motionless and foreboding.

Two Knives did not like to think what it might mean. The shriek the night before had come from the north, and it was to the north end of the valley that he bent his steps. His moccasins made little noise on the carpet of pine needles, but each sound they did make was like a thunderclap to his ears. He walked with an arrow notched to the sinew string.

The higher Two Knives climbed, the steeper the slopes. He suspected that the cat had entered their valley through a pass in the north ring of peaks. If so, that was the smart place to start looking for sign. It was where his son would have looked.

By midmorning Two Knives could see the pass, still a ways off. The next slope was mostly barren of vegetation. Years ago an avalanche had torn most of the growth away, and it was just starting to reclaim the soil. He started up and there, in the dirt, was a footprint he knew as well as he did the wrinkles in his palm. “Fox Tail,” he said out loud. The footprints pointed up. He eagerly followed them and was almost to a broad belt of firs when the footprints changed direction. The reason was another set of tracks that came down from above and turned toward the valley floor. His son had followed them

Two Knives stopped in consternation. The tracks were plainly those of one of the big cats—but he had never in his life seen or heard of cat tracks as big as these. The tracks were almost as big as young brown bear tracks. Sinking onto a knee, he tried to cover one with his outspread hand and couldn’t. He was more than a little afraid. “Fox Tail, no,” he said. His son should know better than to follow a cat that big.

He hurried on into thick woods where it was harder to find sign. He had to go slow and stay bent low to the ground. Only once did he come across a complete set of the cat’s prints, all four paws in a row; they confirmed something he had noticed. The cat was limping. He attributed the cause to the fact that one of the front paws was smaller than the other three.

Shadows dappled the greenery. Silence reigned saved for the buzz of a fly that flew around Two Knives’s head and then winged off. He stepped over a log and skirted several spruce. Ahead was a boulder larger than his lodge. He went around it, as the tracks did, and on the far side drew up short. His chest seemed to burst outward and his breath caught in his lungs. “No!” he said.

Fox Tail lay on his back. Most of his throat was gone. A gaping cavity and puncture marks showed where the cat had ripped it out with its teeth. Fox Tail’s stomach had also been torn open and his intestines strewn about as if the cat were in a frenzy of vicious glee. Fox Tail’s glazed eyes were locked wide in surprise.

The tracks told Two Knives the story. His son had come around the boulder and the cat had been waiting, crouched on a niche well above Two Knives’s head, a niche that only the sinuous cat could reach. Two Knives figured that Fox Tail had been so intent on the tracks that he had not noticed the cat until it was too late. Fox Tail’s broken bow was next to him. His quiver had been torn apart and the arrows scattered and bit in half.

Two Knives bowed his head. His eyes misted and he had a lump in his throat. He put a hand on his dead son and said tenderly, “I loved you with all that I am.” He did not want to leave the body there, but he could not take it back either; he would spare Dove Sings the horrible sight. Accordingly, he gathered fallen limbs and dry brush and rocks and covered his son so that scavengers could not get at the remains.

Two Knives had a decision to make: go after the cat or go back. He turned and headed down. Too many obstacles and too many thickets delayed him. It seemed to take forever to descend to the valley floor. He came out of the pines and broke into a run. The high grass swished about his legs and he startled a rabbit that bounded off in fright. He was still a long distance from the lodge when he noticed the grass to his right about twenty steps away swaying as if with the wind—only there was no wind. He stopped, and the grass stopped moving.

For the second time that day Two Knives shivered, but not from cold. He raised his bow and strained his ears but heard only the hammering of his heart. Time crawled. Finally he made bold to move on, and with his first step the grass bent. He stopped moving again and so did the grass. A tingle ran down his spine.

There could be no doubt.

The cat was stalking him.