People of the Fire by W. Michael Gear Page A

Bundle. I would give everything dear to me!"
                   A stillness fell, the wind ceasing, sage
thrashers going silent in the brush. Not even the call of a meadowlark intruded
on the silence.
                   "Hear me!" Mouth working, he
squinted up at the searing sun. From his pouch, he took his sharp chert knife. Crouching, he placed his left hand on a
rounded quartzite cobble, looking down only long enough to center the sharp
stone blade over the end joint of his little finger.
                   The sting of the knife gratified. The warm
spurt of blood on the blade and hafting sent a shiver of excitement through his
trembling body. He sawed through the tendons and ligaments, his face as hard as
lightning- riven wood, severing the last bit of
clinging skin.
                   Ignoring the pain, he plucked the bit of flesh
from the blood-smeared rock and lifted it. "I offer of myself! With my
flesh I bind myself to you! Take what you will of me, but give me the Wolf
Bundle!"
                   With all his might, he threw the tip of his
little finger up into the air, losing it in the burning glare of sun.
                   For a moment, he reeled, vision blurring. The
glaring rays of the sun shimmered through the tears in his eyes to split the
light into rainbow colors. For a moment, the image might have been a man, a man
of light staring down at him, weighing his words. He blinked; the afterimage of
the sun man burned darkly against his clamped eyelids. Trickles of water traced
his cheeks as he opened his eyes, seeing only the too-radiant orb of the sun.
                   A puff of breeze cooled the tear tracks on his
cheeks. A grasshopper clicked as it rose on the midday air. A bird warbled in the sage below him.
                   Had the Spirit World heard? After all his
years of mocking, had anything happened? He heard and felt the spatter of blood
on his moccasin top. Looking down, he stared dumbly at his throbbing finger.
                   Had anything happened? Or was it only in his
mind?
                   Search as he might, he couldn't find the
severed tip of his finger.
                   Pain . . . pain . . . pain . . .
                   Two Smokes hadn't felt so wretched and hurt
since that day so long ago. Eight long summers had passed since he and Clear
Water had fled Blood Bear and the Red Hand People. Now his soul shriveled as if
burned in fire.
                   Across the lodge, Little Dancer slept, the
muffled sounds coming from his lips echoing tortured dreams. Yes, he knew. Born
under the Wolf Bundle, Little Dancer understood the horror of what had
happened. His mother's Power lived strong in him, almost a throbbing presence
that constantly sought relief.
                   "And I made a promise on the Wolf
Bundle," Two Smokes whispered.
                   In his hands, he stroked the holy bundle,
wounded by the damage done to the sacred object in his care, frightened at the
future retribution he knew lurked just over the horizon. He could feel it,
powerful, heavy in the air like the coming of a storm.
                   His responsibility. He blinked wearily,
remembering Dancing Doe as she dashed her child onto the rocky terrace top. A
child saved, a child taken. Would that be all? Would the defiled Wolf Bundle
ask something more? Some other terrible retribution for his failure?
                   Last time, it had been his leg—and Clear
Water's life-claimed in payment for his incompetence.
                   He went back to that day eight summers ago,
reliving the pain. . . .
                   Just a berdache and
a Spirit Woman, they had no business trying to work a trap like that.
Experienced hunters could read the bison, understand their ways. Clear Water
had located the small herd. His idea had been to hem the