Eagle Mask

Hayoqwis realized that he might break into the house and take the weapons to replace the the gear lost after the sea lion attack.

"It is still morning and we must climb down to reach the Flatheads today. But, if they depart before we reach them, we may need to take these weapons for hunting," he said leaning closer to peer through the sliver in the wall of the house.

Without a canoe, they would need to build a new one to return home. Falling a tree, carving a seaworthy vessel would take until after midsummer at the least for three men.

Among the fir trees many tiny birds chattered in the branches and seemed to chant a song for the dead men hanging there. Hayoqwis tried to discern the meaning of the chickadee's faint whistles. He held his breath to listen closely. Suddenly the dream of the rattle snake falling from the tree came to his mind. Spe-eth had said that the dream foretold his victory over danger.

Soon the chickadee flock flew away like a gust of wind passing through the trees, leaving the grove in a strange silence -- disturbed only by distant cries of gulls and sea lions barking beyond the rocks. Spirits were here, watching them. That was sure.

Spread out on the ground below the four wrapped corpses stung in the thick limbs of ancient, gnarled trees, the men identified the brown growths of mushrooms poking holes in the moss that spread between masses of sword ferns.

"These growths are what the Selawick call underworld-fruit," said Hayoquis squatting down to look at the thumb-sized fungi treasured by the Selawick Raven Society for imparting powers.

He had seen the distinct mushrooms as a boy when a traders offered them at a Bloodroot Bay potlash. The trader boasted that a single taste permits a man to fly with raven wings to breathe the source of storm winds at the top of the world.

Although the men were hungry they knew to avoid this plant -- which promises power but in truth invites destruction. Spe-eth had told them stories of the rage the mushrooms produce for initiates who consume them and the terrible vision that he himself endured after tasting the trickster fruit.

As they withdraw from the burial plot, the party heard the high pitched call of an eagle flying overhead. Passing quickly between tree tops they spotted the white head of the large bird, and immediately behind him a black raven pursuing with its rough, taunting voice. The raven followed the eagle to a perch on the dead branch at the tip of a twisted fir tree, screaming furiously at its foe. The raven hated the eagle and sought to chase him away. The eagle called back a defiant war cry, then lifted off again into the sky, only to be followed by the harassing raven as both passed out of the men's sight.

How easy it would be, thought Hayoqwis, for the eagle to crush the smaller raven with his talons. He wondered why such a large eagle chose to flee instead.

Hearing a raven call from a near by tree was a bad sign enough, but to see it chase after an eagle was worse since eagles are the only bird known to fly to the outskirts of heaven. Eagle Ghost himself -- chief of all birds -- carries the faithful dead to the final hunting grounds. If the men were unafraid at seeing the shaman corpse sitting in his mortuary house and the other dead bodies fixed in the tree limbs, this sign made them all the more uneasy.

"Let us go away from this place of death. Father is gone now. The black eyes of Raven is drawing away true light, shrouding our vision with evil," said Wountie with an urgent sigh.

"This rock is barren of anything good," said Kalis looking around in hope of finding something to eat.

"All of the red huckleberry bushes are empty when they should be covered with fruit. Down at the beach at least we might find some clams."
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