all spirits ill-intentioned and unwilling to be seen by anyone, but especially an unheeding girl, unprepared for the sacred.
-- Kéis -- Compotwas Doctor must know what Rattlesnake, delving under the ground, could tell him.
For maybe it was a kiuks he was looking for, some shaman angry at this girl’s parents or someone else from the family. It could be that this other kiuks shot a pain into her, just as the fish spirit could have done, through her mouth or her ear. And the pain resided now in her, put there to plague another. Compotwas Doctor had asked and knew she had no father, at least not one who would be named. So her uncle had always spoken for her. Perhaps it was that this Keintpoos -- ‘Captain Jack’ the Bostons called him -- had started up the trouble. He had enemies enough. There were those who said he would not listen, found the path he had started his people down a wrong one when he led them back here to Lost River. There were those who said he wanted not only Old Schonchin but himself to be la`qi, and perhaps he did. Leader, sound of judgment, able to act in an emergency, diplomat. He would need to be all those things. Some said being himself a la`qi would be good only for him and for the Bostons, the white men. Not everyone believed this, but that was the talk back on the reservation. As he chose which of his spirits to summon, Compotwas Doctor must not neglect thinking that someone against Jack had caused this illness in the girl. Yes. He thought of Euchoaks, the kiuks from the camp just across the river, whom they called Curley Headed Doctor. They said he was off now raiding horses, not here as the girl sickened. Did his absence not seem somehow wrong? Compotwas Doctor kept his own counsel in all these things, but he had thought about them as he rode down here to do this healing. He was thinking of them now as he summoned his powers.
He would need Lightning. It lit up Sky and Earth and Night. Nothing that could see Lightning could hide. He shut his eyes and thrust his clenched fist against his lips, mouthing the names of other Spirit-ones jostling unseen near him. He thought of those he knew were watching from afar but nonetheless vigilant to see if he would remember this time to call them. Jealous spirits, resentful, unwilling to be tamed. All of them alert to his neglect. And dangerous.
He began with the first of his songs, each his own, each proven from the day long ago when he first gained that spirit, wooed that power into his service. The people responded, repeating the song to him, until The Invoker entreated the spirit to come:
“It will fly here now, certainly,” the Invoker told them, “from above the cloud. Medford Eagle Spirit is coming now, from the eeyrie in the north, because Compotwas Doctor calls Eagle who sees what is hidden. Listen to Compotwas Doctor,” he cajoled the spirit. “Come here and see this girl, Eagle who never fails. Assist her.”
As The Invoker’s words ended, Compotwas Doctor left off his singing, the words fading, replaced by his scream, the call of an eagle as it circled, hunting. As Eagle Spirit entered the house, Compotwas Doctor called out in slurred syllables, made clear by his Spokesman: “Go wait there, Eagle, now, by that wall, to the north, the direction where you come from!” Then Compotwas Doctor went on to summon the next of his powers.
He commanded each chosen one to a place he named for it: near the door, by the center post, at the hearth, so the watching people could understand and remember when later he called one from the shadows to him. Thus they would know which spirit was yielding power to the kiuks. At last he sensed them, all his spirits, in place, the ones he had chosen, restive, impatient. His others had drawn back into the shadows to be guardians, to stave off the spirits of some other shaman who could come to attack him at this dangerous moment of exposure. At last he was ready to seek an answer: how had it come to pass that this girl was sick, even to the point of dying? Who had done this?
He gestured to the north wall of the house where he had placed Eagle and pointed up the ladder to the roof-hole: “Off! Far-seer. Father air. Flame feather. Look! See if there is someone hiding!” His syllables were guttural, half-formed, choked in his gullet. They issued forth in the half-dark, unintelligible.
His Spokesman helped him and filled out the words, instructing the people: “Compotwas Doctor is sending out Eagle to seek the one who did this, even if he is hiding so he will not be found out.” In chorus the women sang, picking up Compotwas Doctor’s Eagle song.
The kiuks felt Eagle shudder to life, then lift up, sweep the room with broad wings; saw in his heart the flight, arrow-quick, up into the blinding sky of night. Compotwas Doctor heard, too, the people mutter their satisfaction as the shaman turned and gestured next to the place he had sent Rattlesnake. Now Compotwas Doctor would search not just from the sky but in the earth as well. The people’s assent buoyed him. Echoing their agreement that this was right, they gave him strength to command such a spirit.
One by one he called forth the spirits he had chosen from his familiars, sent them out in order: searching, looking for another shaman or another spirit, the one who could have sent the pain into the girl through some sound, some water, some food. Surely he would find who had hidden the object, the pain, in her. His spirits would return, were coming, to argue and tell him. Through his heart their travels; through his mouth their voices until all was resolved: how this had happened. He felt, as the spirits came at his calling, sped away to do his bidding, that nothing could ever stay hidden from these. Ghost Spirit lingered, most dangerous of all, ill-intentioned, friend to none. But able to sweep away all dissention, able to speak clearly when other spirits had fallen to wrangling and would not agree. Ghost Spirit then must be believed and obeyed. The kiuks had not needed to send Ghost Spirit today or in many curings lately, so great were the skills of his other spirits. The others, who were returning even now, so soon, so quickly.
The sounds poured from his mouth as they rushed back, eager to tell what they had seen or heard. Compotwas Doctor gasped out the spirit voices, filling the dark air with half cries. His Spokesman struggled to unbraid the sounds, weave them again into words for the people.
Frog had returned first, said not food. Frog had looked at all she had eaten of, had tasted with that long tongue. Then Fish came back. Not water from the pool. Fish had swum in it, had learned she drank only from her cupped hands, had not dirtied it. Not the Bostons’ kiuks, either. Beaver Spirit had been to the Boston camps along the river, and there were no Sunday doctors with medicine strong enough to command a spirit; only one at the town, and he was just saying words; his medicine was weak. Mountain Spirit said not Curley Headed Doctor; he had not sent the afflicting spirit. He was not hiding, only raiding for horses over on Pit River, as he had said he would do. One after another the spirits returned, each denying any luck. In the thick air of the earth house, the watchers grew restless, worried, as nothing was discovered.
With each disappointed murmur of the people, Compotwas Doctor struggled, urging the next denial from his throat, until not one was left and he fell silent. Reluctantly then he turned and pointed to the west, beyond The Invoker and the clustered heads of the people. Resigned that he must do so, Compotwas Doctor called Ghost Spirit from the place in the house where he had sent it, stood there as the power limped through the space that had opened in the midst of the people. Compotwas Doctor held his head flung back as if some force pulled his hair from behind. From his scarcely parted lips, the word issued: “Doc-tor,” he hissed.
“Doctor!” his Spokesman cried. “Ghost Spirit says a kiuks has done this. No sacred right broken by the girl; no vengeful spirit. A doctor has caused this, has put in the object that pains her.”
Now from Compotwas Doctor’s mouth gibberish flew, the sounds all mixed of Eagle and Crow and Mountain, disputing, then sinking into angry silence. He heard the quick disagreement of the women. When he clapped his hands at them sharply, they, too, fell quiet, waiting to hear Ghost Spirit’s words naming the man. But none came. Again Compotwas Doctor tried to summon the spirit. But if still there, Ghost Spirit was mute, and Compotwas Doctor found no word in his heart. And then he understood: Ghost Spirit thus would chastise him for choosing others to send forth instead. Cruel, the power would now tell the shaman less than all that could be known. Ghost Spirit, neglecting to tell him the fullness of what he needed to hear, would teach him about neglect.
The night was half gone, and Compotwas Doctor had gotten only part of an answer. He stood there, shaken by the silence, wrung out from his efforts. Ghost Spirit’s refusal drew his sweat