Which The Story Begins
IT was a clear, bright day. The sky showed brilliant, cloudless blue all the way to the horizon in the west, and though the air was still brisk, intimations of spring were everywhere: a V of migrating ducks appeared overhead, the arrow of their formation pointing, like a collective thought, to their destination; the creek that laced over Cachagua Pass was now a stream; fruit trees were suggesting buds.
At the edge of the orchard, two starlings fought over a seed, then hopped up into a high branch as two people approached. Joshua and Rose walked slowly into the clearing.
Joshua was a good-looking young man of twenty-seven summers. Strong, weathered features were set off by placid, blue-green eyes; a gently curving nose came down to a firm, straight mouth. He had the body of an outdoorsman, all lean and no fat, yet there was something soft about it as well, or tender. His whole manner and being, in fact, suggested opposites, hence complexity, consequently depth. Too, he was a quiet man.
His dark hair hung down to his shoulders in soft curls, though frequently – especially when he hunted – he wore it in a ponytail, tied with a length of thong. His chest was bare, his pants were soft, worn leather. He wore high rawhide mountain boots. On his beautiful embroidered belt hung two knives, throwing knives. Stuck in the top of his left boot was a third, for infighting.
And finally, nested into the top of Joshua’s right boot was a quill pen, for he was not only a hunter, but a Scribe.
Rose, the woman he walked with, was his friend and the wife of his best friend. She carried her simple, southern good looks naturally, without burden or taunt. Her grace seemed to come from the earth; and now that the earth was coming alive, Rose was blooming.
Her long black hair fell to her hips over her Lincoln green shift. Tied decoratively into her locks were two beautiful feathers, wing feathers from matched falcons she’d had as a child. She’d set the birds free when she realized it was better to be falcon than falconer; she kept the feathers as reminders of this truth.
Joshua had slept in their barn the previous night, on his way home from a two-day hunting trip.
“I’ll leave you the rabbit, I’ll take the squirrel,” he told her as they stood at the end of the orchard. A squirrel and a rabbit is what constituted good hunting at that time: the woods and fields were played out. Most of the game had moved south in recent years, and Josh found himself having to trek farther afield to catch anything at all.
Rose knew it was a hardship to spare the meager game, but they were friends, and gifts could not be easily refused. So in return she offered to read his eyes: she was a seer, and for some a healer as well.
She sat him on a large rock at the end of the grove and had him fix his vision on a point down the hill, had him stare past all the rolling grassland, the twisting brook and bushy briar, to fixate on a craggy stone formation a hundred yards away, to keep his eyes from moving. She stared intently at his pale blue left iris.
“When was the last time I read you?” she asked as she studied the pigment in his eye.
“Maybe a year ago,” Joshua shrugged.
“That’s too long. You’ve got a lot of changes here. There’s a lot that wasn’t here last time.”
He pursed his lips. A bird of some kind flew past his field of vision, but he forced himself not to look, even though it might have been an omen.
Rose said, “You’ve lost something lately, something important. But you’ll find it again.” She brought her face closer to his. “What have you lost?” she asked.
“Nothing I can think of.”
She ignored his response and continued. “I see a long hunt coming up.” She frowned. “You’ll almost die, and then…” She stared deeply past his iris, through his lens, into the dark of his eye. “And then you will die.” Her face knotted; her vision swam in his thick future. “You’ll die by water,” she went on, “you’ll drown. But then, I can’t see how, but clearly, there – you will live again.” She sat up. He looked at her questioningly. She shook her head: “I cannot see deeper.”
The leaves whispered secrets in the trees as a cool wind swelled, then dwindled. Joshua didn’t disbelieve a word of what Rose told him; he’d never known her to be wrong for him. It was a strange reading, though, strange and upsetting, not like her usual readings. Joshua couldn’t fathom it.
“What should I do?” he asked.
She looked perplexed. “Let me give you some herbs I’ve got in the cellar. They have healing properties that might be of some use on a long hunt. Take them when you tire.”
He nodded. He admired her knowledge. He himself could read and write, of course, and there were some who regarded that as potent magic. Black magic, even. But Rose’s medicine was as potent as any Josh had ever known.
“You anxious to see Dicey again?” she asked. Dicey was his young lover, his dear cousin, his new bride.
He smiled, knowing Rose had lain alone herself for the past ten nights. “Where is that husband of yours?”
She laughed in return. “Should be back anytime now. Seed sellers’ convention in Port Fresno was over yesterday morning.” She walked a few steps into the orchard, picked a small nut off the ground, tried to crack it on a tree. It wouldn’t crack. Josh tried to take it from her, but she hid it behind her back, giggling. He just shook his head at her. So often when she wasn’t a wise woman, she was a young girl.
They walked along a peaceful path between two straight rows of young pear trees. The sun filtered through the thin leaves and landed in fuzzy patches on the ground, where it mottled last year’s dead flowers, broken twigs, cicada shells. The whole sweet world, at that moment, was serene. Ponies pranced in the distance, too far away to be heard. They appeared over the farthest hill, whose loamy slope, on the nether side, met the sea.
“Looks like they’re in love,” said Rose. They both got quiet again, as their thoughts drifted over their own loves.
Rose headed out of the orchard, drawing her buck knife out of her belt as she walked, to pry open the nut she was still holding. Joshua watched the starlings in the upper branches. They apparently decided they weren’t ever going to make it back to the seed they were after, so they flew away. Rose broke open her nut and gave half the meat to Joshua.
They chewed meditatively, feeling very close.
“Love,” mused Josh.
“Love’s the gravity of the soul,” she smiled.
“You mean no matter how high it flies it always comes down?” he teased. “Or do you mean it pulls apples from the tree of life and knocks you on the head till you see stars?”
She threw a flower at him in feigned annoyance. “I mean it pulls spirits together.”
“Ahh,” he bowed. “Like heavenly bodies.”
A blush filled her cheek. She had been Joshua’s lover before the Race War. The time held many warm memories for them both, but by tacit agreement they never discussed it. Not since Rose had married.
She
