Sky Stone
by John Biggs

Bird Singer didn't like anything about peyote, the bitter taste, the way it made the moon twist across the night sky, and especially the nausea. He tried not to think about it while he chewed dried cactus buttons. Waiting was the hardest part of a vision quest; a holy man needed patience.

"Help me." His prayer was weak, but so was his magic. Rain callers could make demands of the spirits, but a shaman like Bird Singer had to beg for visions like a camp dog at the cooking fire.

"Please help me."

Coyotes sang to him from across the desert. Whether that was a good sign or bad remained to be seen. He released a pinch of corn pollen into the air and grasped the amulet bag he wore around his neck. Most of his helping spirits didn't fly at night, but he called on them anyway. Lives hung in the balance.

A coyote bit a woman three days ago. Would a killing spirit fill her mouth with foam? Would sickness spread through the pueblo? He needed answers.

The wind nudged Bird Singer along a path through stray boulders and jojoba plants, just as she'd done on the day his spirit helper chose him – the proudest day of his life, when he brought the red-backed hawk down from the sky with a single pebble from his sling.

Bird Singer moved where the wind pushed him until he came to a solitary set of Hopi sandal prints. What fool would travel alone at night? His eyes followed the gentle curve of the trail until he found the answer.

I am the fool. Tricked into a circle. Peyote's laughter filled the air, like music from an abalone shell wind chime. Then the melody stopped, replaced by harsh Apache words and more coyote songs.

Were the marauders and the tricksters laying traps? With spirits, nothing was certain.

"Help me."

A yellow light flashed in the western sky and five red streaks reached toward the world. A dust cloud rose where the nearest bright finger touched the desert. Now Bird Singer knew where Peyote intended him to go, but he was in no hurry.

The Apache lay face down between a smoldering fire and a blanket. Bird Singer hid in the brush and weighed the possibilities. No breathing motions, but Apaches were famous for deception.

The shaman held his breath until he couldn't hold it any longer. He held it three more times. Even an Apache warrior couldn't go so long without breathing.

Bird Singer moved on all fours, like big cat stalking a rabbit. He knew little about Apaches, but he knew this: the raiders seldom traveled alone, and they never ventured far from camp after sunset. There was only one explanation for this solitary warrior. The dead man was a shaman, like Bird Singer. He'd been seeking supernatural wisdom when the spirits struck him down.

The items on the dead man's blanket confirmed Bird Singer's suspicion – a falcon's wing, a copper bell, and two perfectly round rocks with mineral patterns that made them resemble human eyes. The contents of the holy man's medicine bundle were laid out to attract helping spirits. The fist-size hole in his back was evidence the magic didn't work.

Bird Singer rolled the holy man over so his eyes were open to the sky. He removed an eagle feather from his amulet bag and brushed it first across his own lips, then across the dead man's.

"The sacred lands don't welcome you," he said. "Carry this message to your brothers."

Death's touch had made a hole straight through the Apache, and left a depression in the sand filled to the top with blood.

Like a ceremonial cup, an offering to the living desert. Did it hold anything else? A power object Bird Singer could add to his amulet bag? The Hopi shaman plunged his arm into the warm dark liquid, staining his tunic sleeve to the elbow.

His hand closed on the spirit gift. He lifted it from the pool of blood and rolled in his hand; a lump of shining metal with a surface like a glistening collection of bubbles. Heavier than stone and warm to the touch.

Peyote whispered, "Spider Woman's gift."

Bird Singer closed his eyes and chanted a prayer for guidance. When he opened them, he saw the silhouettes of three large dogs at the top of a nearby hill. After a dozen heartbeats, an Apache warrior joined the dogs – then another, and another.

One of the warriors shouted a command and the animals charged.

How did Spider Woman mean for a Hopi holy man stop three war dogs? There had to be a way. The gods didn't bestow gifts on a man one moment and kill him in the next.

The dead man's medicine bundle. The two eye stones on the Apache holy man's blanket were the perfect size for Bird Singer's sling. He loaded one stone at a time and sent them flying.

Two solid cracks, like a cottonwood limb breaking under the weight of ice. Two of the three charging animals fell to the ground with fissures in their skulls large enough to free their souls. The third dog skidded to a stop. He might have run away but the warriors on the hilltop urged him on.

No more eye stones on the blanket. The falcon's wing and copper bell were useless.

The sky stone. Would Spider Woman strike him dead for using it? The dog would surely kill him if he didn't.

"Forgive me!" He loaded the sky stone into his sling and sent it flying. Bird Singer followed the path of the power object in the moonlight. The silver talisman pierced the throat of the charging animal in a gush of blood.

The Apache warriors moved cautiously down the hill. They'd watched him dispatch three battle-hardened dogs with a weapon favored by children.

As the men approached, Bird Singer drew a deep breath and made his owl call. He knew the night birds carried souls to the land of the dead. He hoped Apaches knew that too. Three more calls in quick succession, then he clutched his amulet bag and waited for the magic.

Four perfect calls brought the Apache's to a stop but they didn't break and run until a great horned owl flew out of the darkness and perched on the dead man's chest.

Bird Singer ran as well, and while he ran, he sang a song of thanks to Spider Woman.

"Where is this power object?" Six elders ruled Bird Singer's pueblo. Each one asked him the same question. This time the interrogator was old lady Larkspur, matriarch of the Ant Clan.

"Why didn't Spider Woman give her gift to a rain maker?"

Bird Singer tried to plead his case without sounding argumentative. "The spirits toss. The shaman catches."

Old lady Larkspur wasn't convinced. Bird Singer used a power object to kill a dog, not the stuff of legends.

"What of the coyote?" Five elders already asked that question, but that didn't stop the matriarch from asking it again. "And the woman who was bitten?"

In the end, they believed enough to send scouts looking for Apache raiders. They posted sentries and planned ceremonies.

As old lady Larkspur put it, "The spirits favor those who take precautions."

Several days passed with no signs of the raiders. There were rumors of Ute warriors attacking a Tewa pueblo twelve days walk to the north; perhaps Bird Singer had seen stragglers from that battle.

"Or perhaps," one of the elders suggested, "Peyote played a trick on the shaman."

Even Bird Singer began to have his doubts. He'd gone into the desert seeking a coyote vision; perhaps the trickster filled his mind with nonsense.

The shaman purified his body in a sweat lodge, denied himself food and water, and prayed for guidance from the creatures of the air. He sat cross-legged in the plaza focusing his mind on the pristine spirit of the red-backed hawk, when a vulture fluttered from the sky and landed at his side.

Bird Singer opened his eyes and watched the vulture pace around him. "Welcome, Bird Who Cleans The World. What news have you brought me?" The vulture made four circles around the shaman, each one larger than the last. People gathered in the plaza to watch the vulture do what vultures never did.

"The bird has been poisoned!" suggested an old man. It was possible. Alkali salts covered low-lying regions of the desert. Rivulets of water ran through them and collected in poison pools. Perhaps an animal drank from one of these pools, died, and was eaten by this vulture.

"Look!" a young girl shouted, "The bird's foot prints make a power spiral."

The vulture's path formed the familiar twisted pattern the Hopi used to decorate their pots, the same pattern in which corn and beans were planted. No one doubted this vulture was a spirit messenger.

The carrion eater stopped pacing, hopped over to Bird Singer, and regurgitated the contents of its stomach directly in front of him. It made a slow, graceful turn, tested its wings and ran to the south, the direction of good news. The Bird Who Cleans the World launched itself into the air and rode the wind over the horizon.

Something silver glittered among clumps of dog fur, deteriorated muscle, and strands of intestine. The shaman reached into the partially digested remains and retrieved the sky stone. He held it up so that everyone around him could see. Now they would have to believe him.

Discussions of the spirit visitation buzzed in every household. People spoke in whispers whenever the holy man approached. The story of the vulture and the sky stone took on the features of a legend. The problem was, no one knew how the story would end.

No one had seen anything like the sky stone. Its glittering surface exceeded the brightest gloss a skilled artisan could produce on the richest nugget of native copper. Some of the older villagers had seen polished discs of gold carried by traders from the distant south, but even those treasures hadn't sparkled like Spider Woman's gift.

"There is nothing to fear," the shaman promised, but old lady Larkspur told him to keep the talisman out of sight.

"It has killed an Apache holy man and a war dog," she said. "Then traveled in the belly of a carrion eater." No one could imagine what kind of power the sky stone held.

"It killed an enemy of the Peaceful People," he told the old woman. "It fell from the heavens. It was lost and then returned by a creature of the sky."

The Shaman placed the sky stone into his amulet bag. At least the people believed in Bird Singer's Apaches, even if the scouts found nothing.

"The spirits took me to the enemy once before," Bird Singer told the elders. "Perhaps they'll do it again."

But the War Chief refused his company.

"A man might be in the spirits' favor one moment, and broken out in boils the next. My men won't walk beside a wizard."

The shaman didn't like the sound of that. It was a small step from wizardry to witchcraft. When things went wrong, people went looking for a witch. If the rain failed to come, if the corn failed to grow, if a sickness swept the pueblo, a witch could find himself buried in a shallow grave with a large stone pinning his soul under the earth. When he heard people refer to the Apaches as "the shaman's spirit enemies" he knew it was time to act.

The night sky was familiar but not friendly. The quarter moon provided barely adequate light, and shooting stars flew across the heavens at a rate of one or two in every hundred heartbeats.

Bird Singer comforted himself with mental chants to keep the forces of the world in balance. His life would find its center again once the Apaches were discovered. The coyotes would regain their fear of people. Bird Singer could resume his place as a lesser shaman whose principal function was persuading eagles to give up their feathers.

A cloud of bats fluttered across the moon. The tiny creatures consorted with spirits of the sky after the sun had set, but in the daylight hours they hid in caves. Bats concealed themselves almost as well as Apache raiders.

Could that be a message? Caves were good for hiding bats and Apaches.

Perhaps the night fliers would help a holy man who could speak with owls. Bird Singer removed the sky stone from his amulet bag and held it in his hand. He rolled the sky stone through his fingers, appreciated its complex cobbled surface in the moonlight, offered a prayer of gratitude, then tossed it high into the air.

A large bat dove and caught it.

Chief of the bat tribe.

When bats are fooled into snatching tossed stones, they drop them quickly, but the Bat Chief didn't do this. He carried the sky stone high above his tribe. The talisman glittered in the moonlight like a star, and when the bat released the power object, it fell so slowly that Bird Singer caught it easily in his extended hand.

"Thank you brother."

The dark flyers made a slow turn in front of the crescent moon. They fluttered across the night sky in a swirling motion easy to follow from the ground. The shaman fell behind, but moonlight glittered on the creatures' wings like sparks carried on a gentle breeze.

By the time he lost sight of his spirit guides, the holy man could hear the voices of Apache warriors. He crouched, still holding the sky stone. The raiders had chosen their cave wisely. Its mouth opened onto an empty part of the sacred land. Cracks in the rock carried smoke from their fire through a thousand tiny chimneys where it wouldn't be seen even in the full light of day.

Twenty warriors sat around a smoldering fire, boasting, laughing, and pulling chunks of meat from a charred leg of venison. Hopi archers could make short work of this lot. Bird Singer held the talisman in his open hand and offered a prayer of thanks.

The sky stone was a dazzling gift. It concentrated the intensity of ambient light while holding the distorted images of the stars and moon on its cobbled surface. Bird Singer watched the entire night sky roll around his palm. The reflected light pulsed and flashed in cadence with his prayer. The effect pulled at his mind the way trickling water draws a restless spirit into sleep. For a handful of heartbeats he forgot about Apaches.

Then the light dimmed. It had been weeks since the Rain Callers had been about their business and the sky was completely clear. It was not a cloud that obscured the illumination of the stars and moon. The shaman rolled the stone a little more, and a face reflected from its surface, an Apache face.

Without breaking the rhythm of his prayer, Bird Singer found a rock almost too large to hold in his free hand. He stood, turned and threw the stone in a single movement without stopping to aim.

Masau, the god of life and death, was the shaman's ally that night. His rock struck a large Apache warrior squarely in the forehead. The man went down without a sound.

Only one!

Bird Singer felt the warrior's chest, no heartbeat. He heard the Apache's soul escape with his final breath. The shaman looked back into the cave. Two dogs stood in the entrance, taking in his scent. They bared their teeth, put back their ears. It wouldn't take the warriors long to notice.

There were plenty of stones on this mountainside. Bird Singer found two suitable for his sling. In less than ten beats of a frightened heart, the dogs fell dead at the mouth of the cave.

Before the animals stopped twitching, the shaman mimicked the sound of the great horned owl – four calls, quickly followed by another four. The effect on the raiders was immediate.

Bird Singer recognized a few words: witch, demon, evil spirit. He made four more owl calls, tucked Spider Woman's gift into his amulet bag, then broke into an easy run.

Only after his breath grew ragged did he risk a look behind him. One lone warrior walked toward him from the direction of the cave. One more than he anticipated.

Bird Singer picked up his pace as much as the uneven terrain and the darkness would allow. He expected the warrior to give up the chase and return to the safety of his cave, but the man's silhouette remained a constant feature on the mountain landscape. The warrior plodded across the desert carrying neither bow nor lance. He meant to tear the life away from the Hopi shaman with his bare hands. Or worse, he'd capture Bird Singer, take him to his band's main encampment and give him to their women.

The sun peeked over the edge of the world as Bird Singer reached his valley. Only half a morning's run to his pueblo if the Apache didn't kill him.

When Bird Singer looked back over his shoulder one last time, the warrior broke into a full sprint, closing the distance between them with every pace.

The shaman clasped his amulet bag and prayed as he ran. Only the spirits could save him. The holy man's heart raced like a sparrow hawk's. His muscles burned and tightened enough to double him over. His chest ached. The rush of blood through his ears sounded like the ghosts of his ancestors calling him to the afterlife.

Bird Singer stopped running. He turned to face his death.

The Apache warrior slowed his pace, no longer in a hurry to finish things.

The shaman would either escape or die this day; he would not be taken alive. He opened his amulet bag and removed the sky stone. The talisman had saved him twice before. Perhaps it would save him again.

"Power is with me!" Bird Singer looked to the heavens and chanted, holding the sky stone in the open palm of his left hand. "My need is great."

His adversary stood twenty paces away. He'd drawn an obsidian stiletto and assumed a fighting stance, but his eyes were not turned toward the shaman.

A large male coyote moved from the shadow of a boulder and fixed his attention on the Apache. Foam dripped from the animal's muzzle; it staggered as it moved toward the warrior. If this was the same animal that attacked the woman from Bird Singer's pueblo, evil days lay ahead of her. The bite of such a creature would turn a human into a monster.

No one deserved such a death, not even an Apache marauder.

The warrior stepped backward, matching the coyote pace for pace. He knew the demon would own his body, even if he killed the animal it possessed. He held his stiletto ready and prepared to meet his doom.

The coyote stumbled as he tried to leap – once, twice, three times. Bird Singer drew his sling. He loaded the weapon with the sky stone, and by the time the animal sprang, his missile was in the air.

The silver talisman flashed in the morning sun like a lightning bolt as it struck the coyote's head. The animal fell at the warrior's feet. It trembled for a moment, and then lay still.

The Apache knelt beside the coyote. He reached out to touch the animal that had almost taken his life, but his hand changed course before his fingers brushed against the creature's fur. Instead he grasped the glittering object that lay beside the dead predator.

The warrior stood holding Bird Singer's talisman in his outstretched hand. There was no malice in his eyes as he approached the shaman.

The Apache spoke a single word when he placed the sky stone into Bird Singer's hand. He said the word again as he walked away.

The holy man returned Spider Woman's gift to his amulet bag. He understood almost nothing of the Apache language. But he understood this: his people would have no trouble with these raiders.