People of the Sky by Clare Bell

helped.”
    Bajeloga said patiently, “That is why I have reminded you of the eagle hunt. To you, it is an ugly thing, like the image of a woman grinding corn until her fingers bleed or walking behind her husband. But you must look and see that these things had a reason for being.”
    Lisa tossed her head. “They had a reason for being, but they were cruel. What I say probably sounds like it comes right from a pahana , but one thing the whites are right about: anyone should have the right to be what they want, no matter what sex they are. Outside these pueblos, no one even thinks about it any more. And here we are, still struggling. Isn’t it time we grew up along with the rest of the world?”
    Bajeloga looked at her. “I cannot say you are wrong. Nor can I saw you are right. What was done to women or eagles was done with the beauty of the whole within the heart. The old life was one that gave great sorrow as well as great joy, yet it gave us things we have little of now.” He paused and then his voice trembled a little. “Let me at least give Kesbe those things.”
    The conversation had ended there, for it was late and Kesbe had to get up the next morning for school. But even the excitement and uncertainty of the changes she knew were coming could not drive the memory of the Deer Dance from her mind. That experience was one of those things Bajeloga had struggled to give her.
     
    Now, in her dreams she danced again though her right knee throbbed at every step. It would be a disgrace to stop, even to falter, and so she danced on with the pain and the chanting around her, though someone kept touching her and pulling at her as if to take her from the dance. No, she could not sit down yet. Though her knee begged her to, she had to finish…had to finish.
    The chanting faded. The stamping faded. The beat of the drum was the boom of the river, but the shaking went on. “Wake!” Imiya’s voice hissed in her ear. She didn’t want to wake. Drunkenly she slapped his hand away, but before she rolled back into sleep, she remembered what had happened before her dream of the Deer Dance. She struggled to sit up. “The wuwuchpi.” she gasped.
    “Dead. My friends have finished killing it.”
    “Haewi Namij?”
    “Wind Laughing dries its wings in the sun. Come, you are needed.” Imiya tugged at her arm
    She tried to get up, felt a fierce twinge from her knee “I can’t, Imiya,” she said in his tongue. “Why were you hunting such a creature?”
    “I was hunting other prey when it decided to hunt me,” the boy answered. He pulled at her again. “Come.”
    “What do you need me for, now that the thing is dead? Let me rest.”
    “Hotopa Wuwuchpi lies on the river beach, but its spirit still wanders. You and I, we have the duty,” the boy said. His head turned sharply. “Hai, my friends come. They carry you.”
    Before Kesbe could object, a group of slender figures ran up from the beach where the wuwuchpi now lay. They all kneeled about her, staring at her with solemn faces. Young faces. There was not an adult among them. Surprised, Kesbe turned to Imiya. “Where are the people who finished killing the wuwuchpi ?”
    “They are here.”
    She scanned the circle of kneeling children. Most were barely Imiya’s age. She saw dark-skinned girls and boys, all bearing lances or bows and arrows. But they are just children …Kesbe almost said the words before she saw the stains of yellow on their weapons.
    Many bared their front teeth in the strange grimace Imiya had used. They lapped air as if tasting it and panted with flaring nostrils. The expression fascinated and revolted Kesbe. There was something essentially animal in it, yet she could not decide what.
    She let Imiya speak her name for her, as was proper. “This is the woman who struck the wuwuchpi and pulled it away from Haewi Namij,” he told the group. “She came on the wind, like a kachina, in a great aronan called Gooni Bug . Like the rohoni , the three-legged