The Dancers of Noyo Page 2

  I didn't think this remark needed an answer. There was a silence. One of the dancers slowed and stumbled, and the Dancer reached out its long whip and flicked him with it.

  "He doesn't seem to be getting much benefit from the dance," I said.

  "Never mind that." It was getting annoyed; its body-smell, a little like that of ripe watermelon, came to me. "... You're a bad influence, Bright Moon,"

  "Sorry."

  "I'll give you until tomorrow noon to change."

  "You mean, to start dancing?"

  "Either that, or to leave on the Grail Journey."

  "Grail Journey?" I said. I was surprised, "I thought I wasn't considered nearly ready for that. I haven't danced half long enough."

  "We'll make an exception in your case."

  "What happens if I refuse both the alternatives?"

  "You will die."

  "The county agent might object to having a tribesman murdered," I said with more assurance than I felt.

  It showed its pink teeth in a laugh. "It will be suicide, not murder. The county agent will have nothing to say. I will make you kill yourself."

  Was it bragging of its hypnotic powers, or saying that it could rig my death to make it look like suicide? I stared at the thing. After a second it made a dismissing gesture with its hand, and the Avengers took me away. As we walked through the cluster of huts people looked at me curiously, but nobody spoke to me.

  My guards left me at the door of the Noyo Inn. "We'll be around at noon to get your answer," B.L. said.

  I went up to the room I was occupying. One of the windows was broken, and the bed sagged, but it was comfortable enough. I sat on the edge of the bed wishing Pomo Joe would come back. He was off visiting his relatives on the reservation—the real reservation, for genuine Indians, at Round Mountain—and I didn't know when to expect him. He was just about the only person older than myself that I had any confidence in.

  I didn't sleep much. About three o'clock, when the Pleiades were coming up in the east, one of my pals knocked at my door. He identified himself as Mao Briggs.

  "Hi, Sam," he said when I had let him in. "Want to go fishing with us? We'll be back by ten."

  "Nope."

  " 'He who does not work, neither shall he eat'," Mao quoted. "It's been quite a while since you've gone out fishing and helped with the nets."

  Fishing nets was one of three supports of the tribe's rudimentary economy. The other two were the women's basket-making and donations from the California Republic government.

  "I know," I told him. "Be patient for a while."

  "Unh ... I hear you and the Dancer had a dust-up about whether you should join in the dancing."

  "That's right."

  "What did you decide?"

  "I don't know yet. Listen, why don't you go catch yourself a tide or something? It's too early in the morning for me to answer a lot of questions."

  "OK," he said, still lingering. "Keep up the good work, Sam," he said at last. "We're glad somebody finally had guts enough to stand up to the Dancer." He went out.

  Yeah, I thought, they're glad, hut nobody's offered to hack me in a showdown. I went back to bed, and this time managed to get to sleep. I woke about eight with the sun in my eyes.

  I cadged a late breakfast of acorn mush from Joan. She didn't ask me anything about the Dancer, for which I was grateful. I was scraping the last of the mush out of the bowl when Jade Dawn, the woman who thought she was my mother, came up. (The reason for the confusion in both our minds on this topic was that the tribe had had a communal nursery in my young days and on more than one occasion had got the scions mixed up. I rather liked Jade Dawn, and would as soon be her son as that of any other woman her age in the tribe.)

  She was a plain, earnest middle-aged woman with her gray hair loose on her shoulders. She was wearing a fitted purple velveteen jacket, an ankle-length skirt of something that looked like a white lace curtain, and lots and lots of beads. Her earrings were rather pretty, though—beads of "Pomo gold", which is magnesite that has been ground down, perforated, heated, and polished. They were a handsome salmon-buff, with darker streaks.

  "I hear the Dancer has given you until noon to decide whether you want to go on the Grail Journey or join in the dancing," she began without preamble.

  "Yes."

  "Don't go on the journey," she said, looking at me and then looking away again.

  "Why not?"

  "People who come back from it don't seem very ... well."

  "Like Julian?"

  "Yes ... I've seen others, from other tribes, and they're all the same. Nobody ever seems to have the Grail Vision—I mean the sunbasket vision—but they don't know who they are, or where they belong, for a long time. They act like they're stoned out of their heads and aren't enjoying it. Some of them never do get over it.

  "Join in the dancing, Bright Moon. Dancing's good for you. It's one of the roads to spiritual enlightenment."

  "Even if I elect to dance now, I'll have to make the Grail Journey eventually," I said.

  "Yes, but something might happen before then. Your Neptune's afflicted just now. Later on would be better for you to make the journey."

  "Would any of the Man—I mean, the older generation—help me if I simply told the Dancer I refused both the alternatives?"

  "No," Jade Dawn answered promptly, "they'd help the Dancer. We've been waiting to get a Dancer for years. It's only that you're my son—I mean, I think you are."

  She got up from where she had been sitting beside me. The thin fabric of her skirt caught on a piece of driftwood that was waiting to be put on the fire, and tore in a long slit-like rent. "Motherfucking wood!" she said irritably and then, smiling at me, "Love and peace, Bright Moon."

  "The same to you," I said.

  After she left I got up and wandered among the huts disconsolately. Maybe she was right. If I elected to dance now, I'd be buying time, time to organize an opposition to the Dancer—if I had any energy left for organization, after stamping about in the circle most of the day. I felt painfully at a loss. The Dancer might be merely trying to intimidate me, of course. But he had sounded awfully self-assured.

  Time wore on. I still hadn't made up my mind what to do. I noticed that one or two Avengers were always in my vicinity. About eleven I saw Pomo Joe walking toward me.

  "Joe! I was afraid you wouldn't be back for days. I've been wishing you'd come back."

  "Had a fight with Maria," he explained. He looked rather cross. "Why, what's with you, Sam? You're not usually so glad to see me."

  I told him. He listened, making small faces. When I was done, he said, "Make the Grail Journey."

  This wasn't what I had expected. "But Julian—the journey was pretty hard on him."

  "It may not be like that with you," Joe answered. "You've had special training. You're better able to cope with loss of identity, or confusion about it, than most people are."

  "I guess so," I answered. We were both talking in low voices. "But what's to be gained from making the Grail Journey? I'd still be submitting to the Dancer. And that's just what started the trouble in the first place."

  We had walked out through the huts and were now standing among the redwoods. "Make the journey anyway," Joe said. "Something may turn up. I have a hunch that it will. For one thing, you'll be meeting people from a lot of different tribes."

  "You think that'll help?"

  "Yes. You might find an ally."

  There was a little silence. "What can the Dancer do, after all, if I don't go?" I said at last. I was feeling resentful at being advised to set out on a fool's errand. I had thought Joe would be able to tell me how to deal with the Dancer immediately and effectively, and I was disappointed in him. "I don't believe all that guff about the Dancer's being immortal, I think he's bluffing. I don't believe he'd dare kill me or have me killed."

  I had raised my voice somewhat. Before Joe could answer me, an arrow came whizzing between us and landed with a solid thunk! in the bark of a r
edwood behind us, pinning a lock of Joe's long black hair against the wood.

  An instant later one of the Avengers came shambling up with his bow in hand. "Excuse me," he said, grinning. "I was shooting at a rabbit behind you, and I missed. A rabbit's a small target, compared to a man. Could I have my arrow, please?"

  With no particular expression on his face, Joe pulled the arrow from the wood and handed it to him. A few severed hairs fluttered to the ground.

  "Thank you so much," the Avenger said, turning away.

  "You see? They're serious," Joe said when he had gone.

  "I still don't see how they could make my death look like suicide. I've never used drugs, even pot, except under your supervision. And hypnotism can't be used to make somebody do something he has a real objection to doing."

  "Yes," Joe answered, "but illusion can. Suppose you thought the Noyo Inn was on fire. You'd jump out of the window."

  "My room's only on the second floor," I said. "I might break my leg jumping, but I wouldn't be killed."

  "You wouldn't be jumping from your room," Joe said with a touch of impatience. "The Dancer would make you have the illusion on the edge of a sea cliff.

  "That's only an example, of course," he went on. "But you'd better go. Don't forget your medicine bag."

  His dark eyes were steady and serious. I began to waver. "But how about you?" I said. "If there's any real trouble with the Dancer, I wouldn't be here to back you up."

  Joe smiled, a small, almost pitying smile. "I can take care of myself. Don't argue any more. The Dancer's over there." He pointed with his chin. "Go tell him what you've decided."

  "I ... all right."

  A few moments later I was standing in front of the Dancer. "I've decided to make the Grail Journey," I said. "Please get my passes ready." I thought its pink eyes seemed rather surprised.

  -

  Chapter II

  The Grail Journey has to be made on foot. I missed my bike badly; I felt like a fool, putting one moccasin in front of the other beside the pavement of Highway One. But the rule was strict; and the Avengers had impounded my motorbike.

  I was oddly tired. This may have been partly caused by resentment at my plodding pace; it certainly wasn't to be attributed to the weight of the load I was carrying. Bow and quiver, a bag of acorn meal and a slab of something like pemmican, water, medicine bag slung around my neck, passes, fire-making equipment—the whole thing wouldn't have come to more than a couple of pounds. I planned to sleep on the beach when I couldn't take shelter with one of the tribes.

  There was almost no traffic. This wasn't because the road was in bad shape; the Republic tries to keep One always passable, and there are no rockslides in summer anyhow. I suppose most motorists prefer straighter roads.

  When a car did finally pass me, it seemed to be going very fast indeed, and this increased my sensation of toiling through an unchanging landscape. I had been puzzled to understand how Julian could have taken six weeks for a foot trip to and from Elk. It's only about eighty miles round trip. Now I felt I'd be lucky to make two miles a day. I didn't wonder why this was, particularly. I merely accepted it.

  The morning mists had cleared away and the sun had come out. The sea beside the highway had changed from slate-gray to blue. The brightening in the water cheered me, despite my plodding pace, but a little while after the sun came out I began to have the sensation of being followed. Every few steps I felt impelled to turn and survey the road behind me. There was never anything there.

  Time passed. The feeling that something was following me abated. I was plodding along dully, listening to the slap of my moccasins against the pavement, when I heard a sliding roar just behind me. I looked around, startled. It was a rockfall, a sizable rockfall, with a lot of large rocks. I began to run. It was a good thing I did, for a really big rock came bounding down, gathering momentum, and crashed on the spot where I had been a moment before.

  Had it been an accident? I didn't think so. It was the wrong time of year for a rockfall, especially one of such size. I crossed over to the seaward side of the road and began to watch the skyline as I walked along. After a while I was rewarded by seeing Brotherly, on my motorbike, making a slow detour around the hole the rockfall had left in the height above me. I suppose the reason I hadn't seen him before was that I'd been too close to the cliff.

  I was convinced he'd tried to kill me. Hastily I pulled my bow off my shoulders, fitted an arrow to it, drew the string. "Come down!" I yelled. "Come down! Or I'll shoot." He was within easy range.

  BL knew that if he made a move toward his bow I'd skewer him. He directed the bike toward a relatively low place in the bluff and came slithering down the slope toward me, scattering rocks and shale as he came.

  I awaited him with fury, my arrow still at the ready. It wasn't only that he had tried to kill me, it was that he'd been riding my bike when he did it. His first remark, though, as he came up with me was a disinfuriating one: "Say, do you hear music, Bright Moon?"

  I considered. I hadn't been conscious of much except the roar of the surf, but now that my attention was directed to it it did seem that I heard a high ringing in the air, golden, musical, and remote. "I guess so. I mean, it could be music. Why?"

  "I've never been on One before when a Pilgrim was going down," he answered. "Maybe it's the usual thing, but it bothers me."

  I shook my head, annoyed at being distracted from my rage. "Never mind that. Why are you following me? Why did you try to kill me just now? I'm not doing anything."

  "The Dancer told me to follow you to be sure you really made the Grail Journey," he said after a very slight pause, a pause so small that I thought I had imagined it. "About the rockslide, it was an accident. I got too close to the edge. I wasn't trying to kill you. Why, I might have been hurt myself!"

  It sounded plausible, but I kept my arrow to the string. "What would I do if I didn't make the journey?" I demanded.

  "I dunow. Goof off somewhere, I guess. Everybody knows you're browned off at having to make the journey."

  "Are you going to follow me all the way to Gualala? On my motorbike?" I asked.

  "... No."

  "Then turn around now. Go back to Noyo. Tell the Dancer I promise to make the journey. I'm even"—I managed a grin I tried to make sinister—"I'm even looking forward to it. It's going to be a real experience."

  "Yesh, but—" Brotherly looked distressed. "I wish I could go back. It's no pleasure to me to watch you clumping along like a duck with flat feet. But I'm supposed to stay with you until I'm positive."

  "What keeps you from being positive? I promised. It's against the rules for a Pilgrim to be disturbed. How am I ever to have the Grail Vision if you keep bothering me?"

  "Well—" He seemed perplexed, rubbing his bearded chin and looking at me doubtfully while the afternoon shore breeze blew around us and whipped our pants around our legs.

  "Go on, go on," I said. I made a dismissing gesture with my bow. "Get going. And mind you take good care of my bike. Or I'll skin you alive after I get back."

  He grinned suddenly. "OK, Bright Moon. I'll tell the Dancer that you're really going through with it. Good luck. I hope you see the Grail, unh, sunbasket." He wheeled my bike around and glided swiftly off.

  I resumed my plodding—BL was right in characterizing it as flat-footed—along the highway. I was tireder than ever, and now that I had been made to notice it, I kept hearing the music. It seemed to slip in and out of my mind, beautiful and distant, not like the sound of any instruments I knew. Then suddenly it was gone, and I could never pick it up again.

  I decided that if I had something to eat I might feel a little more alert. The highway at that point was close to a tiny sandy beach, lying between two rocky outcroppings. I worked my way through the white fence and clambered down to the water. It was pleasant to sit on the sand, eating pemmican and watching the sea birds. The beach looked as if it might harbor a few clams, but it was the wrong time of year for clams even if I'd wanted to dig f
or them.

  The pemmican was strictly a synthetic product. The California Indians seem never to have had it; pemmican was a Plains Indian invention. The person who had made my batch of the stuff had mixed raisins, deer suet, dried deer meat and a good deal of ground-up peppergrass seeds. I suppose the peppergrass seeds were put in to give body. The result wasn't bad, really, but the raisins were a mistake. Either that, or the deer meat should have been dried longer. There was a mildewed taste to the stuff.

  While I was eating, I got the bunch of passes out of my pants pocket and looked at it. It consisted of five or six thin slips of wood, about four inches long and less than an inch across, strung on a strip of leather through a hole bored in one end of the wood. Various notches and grooves had been cut in the flat of the wood. These marks were supposed, to indicate to the Dancers of the various tribes I would encounter during up journey that I was a genuine Pilgrim, entitled to safe conduct and even some hospitality. The whole idea of passes struck me as silly. I could simply have told the tribesmen I met who I was and what I wanted. We weren't at war with each other.