He tried to suck in air, flailing around for balance, or to put up a pretense of defense. All he could manage was a vague idea that his attacker must have been one of Calligan's hired stooges, a rent-a-cop or something. But he was too busy trying to force a breath into his lungs, which burned with pain, and felt as if they'd collapsed. His attacker ignored him, and scrambled to his feet.
Finally, after a terrible muscle spasm, his chest unclenched, and he sucked in a long and painful breath in something close to a sob; a breath that hurt so much that his eyes watered. He looked up, through tearing eyes, to see who had hit him-
Jennie? What the hell?
She stood over him, her face set in a tight, fierce mask, a she-wolf defending her cub. That was when he looked at what she was looking at.
And nearly stopped breathing all over again.
His mind babbled that he wasn't seeing this-he couldn't be seeing this-that it was all a hallucination.
No. Oh no-I'm going crazy. I'm seeing delusions. I'm still knocked out-
But shaking his head didn't make them go away. And despite all his rational thinking, college learning, and disbelief, they were still there.
The Osage Little People.
He knew what they were; old man Talldeer had spun a tale or two for him and the rest of the neighborhood kids, back when he and Jennie were both in grade school. And any Indian kid in Claremore knew about Claremore Mound, the Little People there, the things that would happen to males who were stupid enough to climb it; boys used to dare each other to go up on it, and none of them ever would.
Yeah, he knew what the Little People were supposed to look like. And they had to be spirits; for one thing, they were transparent, and for another, no Osage had dressed the way they were dressed for the last hundred years or so. Wearing only gypsum-rubbed deerskin leggings, with roaches of deer-tail hair and turkey-gobbler beard attached to the long roaches of their own hair, which had been shaved in the style that the whites called a "mohawk," they surrounded him and Jennie, their eyes gleaming with mingled rage and hunger.
Their eyes glowed.
And one other thing told him that they were Little People, and not ordinary spirits.
No feathers. No face paint. Each of them should have been wearing an eagle feather in his roach; either a soft, under-tail covert if he was of the Tzi-sho or a full tail-feather if he was Hunkah. The Little People wore neither, nor were they painted. If they had once been human, they had died in such a way that they had no honor, and must go through a strange afterlife stuck here on earth and not in the Summer Country, existing without paint or eagle feathers. . . .
Just as old man Talldeer had whispered to them, on those long-ago October nights.
"They are hungry for blood. They search for prey-"
If they had once been human, they could have been killed by his people, in the raids that left no one in an entire village-every man dead, every woman and child made a slave. To die a slave-to die in a sneak attack and rot where you fell, without paint or ceremony-that would leave your spirit wandering.
At any other time than the night of the dark of the moon, you might be able to talk them into sparing you. They might even content themselves with simply pulling a trick on you. " But during the dark of the moon, they became pretty single-minded killing machines.
David did not need to scan the sky; he knew it was the dark of the moon. He'd planned on that, when he'd decided to make his little raid tonight.
The Little People were ignoring Jennie for the most part, staring avidly down at him. Whatever was going on, she seemed to have some kind of protection from them. He didn't.
I'm dead, he thought, his mouth going dry with a terror so profound it couldn't even be called fear.
Then Jennie pulled something out of the inside of her jacket; a beaded feather-no, two feathers, eagle-tail and eagle-covert bound together with beadwork, like a peyote-fan, but different in a way that felt important. She held it before her like a shield-
He blinked to clear his eyes of the strange triple vision that suddenly came over him, but the vision remained. There was Jennie, legs braced slightly apart, the Jennie he knew, in blue jeans and a beat-up jacket decorated with Osage ribbon-work embroidery and ribbon-weaving-
And Jennie, in full Osage regalia, but with some additions; a kind of shell necklace he knew was only supposed to be worn by men, a beaded Tzi-sho eagle feather braided into the hair on one side of her head, and a beaded Hunkah feather on the other, a modified warrior's roach, and some other things that she didn't wear to the powwows-
And over all that, a bird. A kestrel. And the second and third images were a lot stronger than the "real" one.
The Little People slowly raised their eyes, and stared instead at Jennie, and David began to hope that maybe he wasn't going to die after all.
One of the Little People straightened up from his crouch. He stood much taller than Jennie; he must have been at least six feet in height, and towered over her, but she didn't seem the least intimidated.
He said something in what David recognized as Osage; he didn't know much of the language, but it was Siouan in derivation, and he knew Lakotah. He understood just enough to get the basics.
You have interfered with our hunt. This is our rightful prey.
She shook her head, and replied in the same tongue.
David didn't understand any of what she said, and it was a fairly long speech. The rest of the Little People straightened and surrounded her, looking down at her, ignoring him.
Oh, please don't make them mad, Jennie. I don't think kung fu, or whatever it is you know, works on them.
Finally she finished with something he vaguely understood. Sorry about this, but he's with me. He's a little stupid, please forgive him.
He didn't know whether to kiss or kick her. Maybe he'd better not do either. They might not like it.
The leader looked down at her, taking her measure; looked down at David, and there was no mistaking the contempt in his eyes. Finally he raised his chin in agreement, though it was obvious that he did so grudgingly. The glitter in his eyes spoke volumes. Here was a man, saved by a woman who was more warrior than he was, at least in the estimation of the Little People. David felt his ears reddening.
The leader folded his arms across his chest, and slowly faded from view; the rest of the Little People followed him a heartbeat later. And the strange triple vision of Jennie faded as well, leaving only the Jennie he knew. David finally remembered to breathe. He thought that Jennie would say something, probably scathing, but she ignored him. Instead, she tucked her feathers back into her coat and returned to the place where he'd been crouching, and dropped down to sit on her heels and stare at the medicine-pouch he'd found. . . .
Which was no longer so desirable. In fact, he didn't want it at all anymore; his earlier lust for it made him a little nauseous.
She stayed there for an awfully long time as he slowly picked himself up out of the dirt and assessed the damages. Not bad, really. A couple of bruised ribs, some other bumps and bruises and scrapes. She didn't seem the least interested in him anymore, and he was torn between being fawningly grateful and really pissed off. If there was a death worse than fate-well, she'd just saved him from it.
If the Little People had gotten hold of me, they'd have killed me, and they'd have taken their time about it. Not only that, but I'd have had to join them. ...
He shuddered, and his nausea increased. An eternity of hunger and frustration, never being able to leave the earth, never doing anything constructive . . . and he could just imagine the reaction Calligan and the press would have had to finding him cold-dead on Calligan's property.