her eyes. She came on the breast of thunder as the kachinas do, yet she did battle with the winds that brought her. In the old stories, kachinas are always wise, guiding those who meet them. It was I who guided her.
I thought kachinas danced a slow, sure path through life, yet she stops and starts, does one thing, then another as if she does not know what she wants or cannot take time to think. She struck down my Wind Laughing, then helped me raise my aronan up again. She was afraid of me when I grew angry and leaped at her. Do spirits fear the children of men?
Ai, it is too strange to understand, even as a story! I will think no more of it now and will sleep beside my Wind Laughing.
When Kesbe woke, the air outside smelled brilliant and fresh, with an early morning quality that told her she had slept through the previous night. With a stab of disappointment, she saw the boy and his aronan were gone from the tent. She felt creaky and grimy as she rose up on her knees, stretched and scolded herself for wasting time in sleep. Again she thought of the mysterious Indian village that must be waiting somewhere in the vastness of the Barranca. She wished she could go there, then reluctantly turned her mind to more practical things.
By now, if her last message had been heard and interpreted by Canaback, rescue craft would be in the air over the Barranca. She should build a smoke beacon.
Taking a ration bar from her flightbag and stashing it in a flightsuit pocket for breakfast on the run, she crawled out of the tarp shelter. She nearly blundered into a large tangled mass hanging from the underside of the plane’s wing. For a confused moment, she thought that an entire hydraulic assembly had come loose from its mounting.
She blinked once. No, this was not a portion of the aircraft’s innards dangling from tubes and wires. Those were legs. The hanging shape was the aronan. Haewi was upside down again, but this time by choice. Its fly-feet stuck tenaciously to Gooney Berg’s underside. Its head was tucked under one back-folded wing. Kesbe noticed that it had chosen to sling itself near the engine cowling and within proboscis-reach of the forbidden prop. Who knew what mischief ithad been up to during the night.
Her delight at finding the creature still nearby was overwhelmed by a surge of possessive indignation at this treatment of her aircraft. With her knuckles on her hips, she addressed the sleeping bundle of legs and wings. “Hey, chosovi amigo. Get down off there.” Haewi only curled its head down to stare at her. Little question-ripples of metallic gold crossed its compound eyes.
“Down!” Kesbe made the gesture emphatically, but the aronan continued to hang inverted. It lowered one leg at a time, cleaning each with its mouthparts. Kesbe had never been more innocently or more completely ignored. Gooney Berg, however, had its own solution to the problem. A glob of black oil dripped from the big radial engine onto the aronan. With an outraged flurry of wings, Haewi fled to the Indian youth, who was standing a short distance away.
“Don’t’ say I didn’t warn you, chosovi!” Kesbe yelled after it. She flung a rag to the boy to use on the aronan. He took a fingerful of goo, smelled it and grimaced. Kesbe left him to the job of cleaning up his flier while she set about attacking her own problems.
She stuck a small hatchet in her belt before going off to scout for wood. In the crevices at the back of the terrace, she found a few scraggly thorn-trees. She hacked branches off them and brought the wood back to the plane. Studying the wind, she eyed the ledge, estimating the best place to locate her smoke-beacon.
She started slicing chunks from one of the plastic cargo pallets. This stuff would burn too, making an inky smoke-plume visible for miles. With some of the antiquated friction matches in her survival kit, she soon had a healthy signal fire wafting its message into the sky over the Barranca.
She also had
I thought kachinas danced a slow, sure path through life, yet she stops and starts, does one thing, then another as if she does not know what she wants or cannot take time to think. She struck down my Wind Laughing, then helped me raise my aronan up again. She was afraid of me when I grew angry and leaped at her. Do spirits fear the children of men?
Ai, it is too strange to understand, even as a story! I will think no more of it now and will sleep beside my Wind Laughing.
When Kesbe woke, the air outside smelled brilliant and fresh, with an early morning quality that told her she had slept through the previous night. With a stab of disappointment, she saw the boy and his aronan were gone from the tent. She felt creaky and grimy as she rose up on her knees, stretched and scolded herself for wasting time in sleep. Again she thought of the mysterious Indian village that must be waiting somewhere in the vastness of the Barranca. She wished she could go there, then reluctantly turned her mind to more practical things.
By now, if her last message had been heard and interpreted by Canaback, rescue craft would be in the air over the Barranca. She should build a smoke beacon.
Taking a ration bar from her flightbag and stashing it in a flightsuit pocket for breakfast on the run, she crawled out of the tarp shelter. She nearly blundered into a large tangled mass hanging from the underside of the plane’s wing. For a confused moment, she thought that an entire hydraulic assembly had come loose from its mounting.
She blinked once. No, this was not a portion of the aircraft’s innards dangling from tubes and wires. Those were legs. The hanging shape was the aronan. Haewi was upside down again, but this time by choice. Its fly-feet stuck tenaciously to Gooney Berg’s underside. Its head was tucked under one back-folded wing. Kesbe noticed that it had chosen to sling itself near the engine cowling and within proboscis-reach of the forbidden prop. Who knew what mischief ithad been up to during the night.
Her delight at finding the creature still nearby was overwhelmed by a surge of possessive indignation at this treatment of her aircraft. With her knuckles on her hips, she addressed the sleeping bundle of legs and wings. “Hey, chosovi amigo. Get down off there.” Haewi only curled its head down to stare at her. Little question-ripples of metallic gold crossed its compound eyes.
“Down!” Kesbe made the gesture emphatically, but the aronan continued to hang inverted. It lowered one leg at a time, cleaning each with its mouthparts. Kesbe had never been more innocently or more completely ignored. Gooney Berg, however, had its own solution to the problem. A glob of black oil dripped from the big radial engine onto the aronan. With an outraged flurry of wings, Haewi fled to the Indian youth, who was standing a short distance away.
“Don’t’ say I didn’t warn you, chosovi!” Kesbe yelled after it. She flung a rag to the boy to use on the aronan. He took a fingerful of goo, smelled it and grimaced. Kesbe left him to the job of cleaning up his flier while she set about attacking her own problems.
She stuck a small hatchet in her belt before going off to scout for wood. In the crevices at the back of the terrace, she found a few scraggly thorn-trees. She hacked branches off them and brought the wood back to the plane. Studying the wind, she eyed the ledge, estimating the best place to locate her smoke-beacon.
She started slicing chunks from one of the plastic cargo pallets. This stuff would burn too, making an inky smoke-plume visible for miles. With some of the antiquated friction matches in her survival kit, she soon had a healthy signal fire wafting its message into the sky over the Barranca.
She also had
Similar Books
