Faith Hunter: Have Stakes Will Travel

We sa did not answer. We sa shivered in back of mind, in cave-den of mind, in place she had made her own. We watched white men in gorge. We had watched them for two days. We knew where the den of the alpha devil was. We knew he went there at night, always by the same path. Just as deer once used to take same path to water in gorge below, alpha devil took same path to his train-car-den. I had been ambush hunter even before We sa came to me. I knew to study prey.

After long time, shadows began to stretch upon ground. We sa stirred and asked, We will kill yunega asgina? We sa knew this, but still she thought, silent in mind as we watched white man . I do not like to kill humans.

White humans are devils. They kill the earth. I/we will kill them.

But not eat them, We sa said . Elisi, grandmother , say man-flesh makes us sick.

We will not eat him. But I/we will kill killer of hunting territory. Killer of trees and killer of prey.

Man was not good hunter, man was stupid. But man was winning and I/we were losing. After killing alpha male human, I/we would leave this place for deep gorge, many days walk away. We sa knew this. She did not like it, but she understood. We sa had once been human, but not white man human. Tsalagi human— Cherokee . Tsalagi understood how to live with earth and not kill it. Some Tsalagi did not protect the earth, some killed her, but not most. All white men killed earth. White man was evil.

I stood up on paws on tree limb and watched as night dropped darkness over all of earth. When shadows were long and human men left from killing trees to go eat food, I leaped to ground. We sa hid in dark of mind-den, afraid.

I raced down from ledge and trees on sheer part of gorge, place where white man could not get to easily, place of stunted trees and snakes and rock. I leaped straight down, thick tail whirling for balance. Half way down gorge-fall, I twisted like snake, and whipped tail. Changed direction, and landed on tiny ledge. There was small cave in back of ledge. Had once used this place for den to have kits. Liked this place long ago. White man had ruined it. Killed it. I did not go to den now, but pawpawpaw down across tiny ledges, leaping from ledge to ledge, which white men called outcropping , until I reached bottom of gorge. Then I moved in shadows for train car of white man, den of white alpha devil.

Night vision came as sunlight left. Earth turned into silvers and greens and grays. Liked this time of day/night. We sa called it beautiful. I called it safe. Shadows were dark and deep and We sa had explained that humans could not see in dark. I padded through dark over rutted bare earth to den of alpha devil. Curled into darker shadow beneath train car. I waited. I/we are good at waiting. Time passed. Night was dark. No moon stood in sky. Moon had died and would be reborn as kit-moon in one night, tiny and shaped like thin claw. I/we had chosen this night for this reason. We sa closed her eyes, afraid.

When night was full, I alone crept up stairs and leaped high, onto roof of train car. It was warm from sun of day. Was good place to ambush hunt. Looked over edge of train car, to path white man took for food. Was like ambush hunting on ledge in high hills before white man came and sent prey away.

Heard man-paws on earth, loud and scuffling inside dried skin of cow—boots. Man was not balanced and graceful and should not walk on two legs. Would be more quiet and graceful on four legs. But I was happy that white man was stupid and noisy. Listened and watched as he came closer. He carried in one paw much meat. It was cooked, which was bad, but it was meat and I/we had not eaten in two days. We hungered. White man came closer.

I gathered paws close under belly, balanced and steady as rock on flat land. White man came closer. He put one foot on step, one foot still on ground. Was unbalanced on one foot. I leaped. Landed on white man. Hard! Tumbled to ground, tangled in his upper legs. Landed on top of white man. With killing teeth, I ripped out his throat. Then held him by throat as he thrashed. He died. His blood was hot in my mouth. It did not taste good, but I hungered! Wanted to drink!

But We sa put her mind on top of my mind. Tlano! She said. Do not eat!

I snarled but I did not drink blood or eat white man meat. We sa was smart. Blood tasted like blood of buzzard, full of dead things. I took his cooked meat and carried it into night. In shadows, I ate. And listened to sounds of white men when they found my enemy. They gathered together like wolf pack. Like pack hunters. They shouted into night, many white man words. They grabbed white man sticks and made loud noises.

Guns, We sa whispered.

When all the white man’s cooked meat was in my belly, I turned and walked into hills. But that night, the foolish white man pack let man-fire go free. The hills began to burn and burn and burn. Hunger Times were upon us.

I would not come back to my old hunting grounds for many, many years.

Author’s note: This story takes place after the short story “Kits” and before the short story “Signatures of the Dead.” Molly Everhart Trueblood is the narrator.

“Nothing unusual here, Molly,” she said.

I watched Jane Yellowrock as she crawled across the floor of the old house on all fours. Most adults looked foolish or ungainly when crawling, but Jane was graceful, her arms lifting and moving forward with feline balance, her legs raising and lowering, toes pointed like a dancer, even in her western boots. My friend moved silently in the hot, sweaty room, easily avoiding the bird and mouse droppings, the holes in the old linoleum, and avoiding the signs of recent reconstruction—the broken plaster walls, large holes in the floor, and the shattered remains of the toilet, tub, and kitchen sink in the corner. Her shoulder blades lifted up high with each crawling step, visible beneath her thin T-shirt, her head lowered on the thin stem of her neck, moving catlike. I envied her the grace and the slenderness, but little else. Jane was more alone than anyone I had ever known.

Now she breathed in with a strange sucking hiss. Flehmen behavior, she called it, using her hypersensitive senses to smell things the way a cat would, the way a mountain lion would, sucking air in over her tongue and the roof of her mouth, her lips pulled back and mouth open. Mostly, she did it only when she was alone, because it sounded weird and looked weirder—not a human action at all. But because I had asked her for help, and because no one but me would see her, she did it now, scenting for the smell of… of whatever.

As I watched, Jane crawled out of the half-renovated kitchen and into the dining room beyond. We were both dressed in old jeans and T-shirts, clothes that could get filthy and be tossed into the washer, and already Jane looked like something the cat dragged in, which was funny in all sorts of ways. Jane Yellowrock was a Cherokee skinwalker, and her favorite animal form was a mountain lion. She called it her inner beast, which I still didn’t understand, but I figured she’d tell me someday.

I’d met Jane in the Ingles grocery store, when a group of witch haters caught me in the frozen foods section and harassed me. None of us Everharts were officially out of the closet then but most townspeople were okay with my family maybe carrying the witch gene. It was the out-of-towners who had the problem—a group that wasn’t from the religious right, but were just as rabid. I still don’t know what Jane did—she stepped in front of me so all I saw was her back—but the haters departed. Fast. I gave her my thanks and a card to my family café and we parted ways.