not one was left and he fell silent. Reluctantly then he turned and pointed to the west, beyond The Invoker and the clustered heads of the people. Resigned that he must do so, Compotwas Doctor called Ghost Spirit from the place in the house where he had sent it, stood there as the power limped through the space that had opened in the midst of the people. Compotwas Doctor held his head flung back as if some force pulled his hair from behind. From his scarcely parted lips, the word issued: “Doc-tor,” he hissed.
“Doctor!” his Spokesman cried. “Ghost Spirit says a kiuks has done this. No sacred right broken by the girl; no vengeful spirit. A doctor has caused this, has put in the object that pains her.”
Now from Compotwas Doctor’s mouth gibberish flew, the sounds all mixed of Eagle and Crow and Mountain, disputing, then sinking into angry silence. He heard the quick disagreement of the women. When he clapped his hands at them sharply, they, too, fell quiet, waiting to hear Ghost Spirit’s words naming the man. But none came. Again Compotwas Doctor tried to summon the spirit. But if still there, Ghost Spirit was mute, and Compotwas Doctor found no word in his heart. And then he understood: Ghost Spirit thus would chastise him for choosing others to send forth instead. Cruel, the power would now tell the shaman less than all that could be known. Ghost Spirit, neglecting to tell him the fullness of what he needed to hear, would teach him about neglect.
The night was half gone, and Compotwas Doctor had gotten only part of an answer. He stood there, shaken by the silence, wrung out from his efforts. Ghost Spirit’s refusal drew his sweat from him, dried his mouth. He thought to quit, admit he could not go on until he had made peace with the angry spirit. He could not search out the one named, as he always did, and force him to retrieve the pain. Still, his heart urged him to continue. He would proceed alone, not knowing just where to look or what he would find. Shaking his head at his Spokesman, bidding his spirits wait, he sank to the floor at the foot of the pallet. He found again his pipe and the red-willow tobacco. He would rest, then continue. This night would be a long one.
#3
By dawn, he had finished, but the girl lay dead. What if at the outset another doctor did sicken her, because of some hidden hatred for Jack? Or what if the women were right and she did dream of herself and not dance? None of that mattered, and he was sure of it. The last fault was his own. Had he quit last night to make peace with Ghost Spirit, she might have lived. Another kiuks could have been called to save her. By proper action, Compotwas Doctor could have made it right. Instead, he had thrust on toward this shaman’s death.
He had plunged into the curing ceremony sure he would find the clear splinter, the pain icicle shot into the girl by some spirit at the hidden doctor’s bidding. He had called on his own aides to find and grasp it: Fish Hawk and Osprey with strong talons; Pelican, with pouch and beak; Mouse, who could squirm into small places. He himself had tried here and there on the patient, seeking the hiding place of the object: her head, her stomach, her breast. He had sucked until he feared her skin would break, but he did not receive into his own mouth the blood around the object or the object itself. When he spat into the basket, the issue was not a bloody poison, only his own spit. Try as he might, his mouth would not taste the familiar flavor of healing. And later, when he should have been able to draw the green bile from the site, again only spit. Once more he tried the ablutions, dipped his finger into the water basket, cleansed his tongue and lips. Then he fell again to sucking, but nothing came. The girl grew cooler, and at last he understood that the breath had left her heart, gone out through the top of her head.
It had been as if he had forgotten how to do it, as if he had never known. Even now, lying here in the night and waiting for what must surely come, it was as if those ancient actions were gone from him, vanished even as his spirits. He had stood up, his sight darkened, not sure where he was. And The Invoker had shouted to the people:
“Leave now! Leave this place! The spirits, Ghost Spirit….”
But The Invoker had not been able to finish. The people, terror-stricken at the last name and the death of the girl, had cast him aside as they fought one another to climb the ladder through the roof hole, had tumbled through the doorway out into the night. Except for the girl’s mother and Jack. They had grasped the body, the woman wailing, “The doctor was Compotwas Doctor! The doctor was Compotwas Doctor!”
He himself turned and fled, less from the site where he had failed than from the place where he had been deserted. Outside, the people had stopped running. They waited at a distance to see what he would do. The horse still stood where it had been tethered. Crossing to it, he flung the blankets to the ground, untied and mounted it. The horse was his now, rightly. No one would stop him. But one would follow, leading others, and he knew it. Not now, but after the body’s burning and after the five days of ritual mourning. The reservation could not save him. He accepted that nothing could. But he must return there. There were things to finish before the next nights ended and Keintpoos came to find him.
He gathered the bitter rope reins in his hand and turned the horse north, toward the place where he could ford the river.
Chapter 2: Golden Eagle Chief
#4
Compotwas Doctor knew the knowing would precede him. He could ride the wind, and still, when he arrived at the Yainax Station commissary on the Klamath Reservation, the word would already be there, waiting for him. It would be in Ivan’s mouth.
He must not see Ivan.
Or Ivan’s brother. Especially his brother: Oliver, the leader once, now teacher.
As always, Oliver would have the word about Compotwas Doctor’s doing of the old, forbidden way of his people. Not for nothing the young bucks called this Oliver ‘Blaiwas La`qi’ -- ‘Golden Eagle Chief.’ His eyes could see.
Compotwas Doctor would have to hide the horse from the gaze of Oliver’s golden eyes, too. Or let it go.
Could be his own medicine had failed because of those brothers. He could see their medicine was other, sent to bring him down. And with him, the other shamans.
The old headsman, too. It was Oliver who did that. Compotwas Doctor’s mouth still tasted the bitterness of the day he had witnessed it, and heard the end of time in the roar of Oliver’s big laughter:
Oliver’s hands were huge. Hanging at the ends of the arms he draped along the corral’s top rail. That big day two years ago, the hands had seemed at rest and easy, sure of how to do things. They could lay hold of an axe handle so it looked like a twig or gather in a Klamath man toward his bosom as if the man were child. The hair grew golden on the backs of the hands, and on the arms it thickened, pouring up out of his shirt collar. Hair overflowed his face, young as it was, half hiding the wide, determined mouth -- like Ivan’s.
They knew to call him ‘Captain,’ though he was the youngest of them all. From a distance Compotwas Doctor had seen how the young bucks pressed in around him and listened when he told them how to clear a field of sod, turn the dark earth and plant it. How to ditch, or wright a wheel. The young Klamaths were proud in the face of the Modocs and Snakes. Oliver taught them; he did not teach the others. “You’ll be my proof,” he said to the young Klamaths. The old Klamath men hung back, listless, and as soon as Oliver was out of sight, they sifted away into the trees. Left the row unfinished, until he came and found them, prodded them back into the clearing
