Soul Catcher by Frank Herbert
When she looked across the clearing at David, he saw remote brown eyes that told him nothing.
Cally motioned with her head for Ish to bring the boy closer. Katsuk turned at the gesture and a smile moved from his lips to his eyes.
“Come on, boy,” Ish said. He led David to the pair at the doorway.
“You have a good walk, Hoquat?” Katsuk asked. And he thought: It is true and real—the Innocent cannot escape me. Even when he runs away he is brought back.
David looked at the ground. He felt miserable and lost.
There were other people around, squatting at the lake edge of the clearing, standing clustered in the door of another hut. David felt only a cold curiosity from them. He thought:
This can’t be happening. These aren’t wild Indians out of a history book. These people have gone to school and to church. They have cars. They have TV.
He felt his mind trying to draw points of similarity between himself and the people around him. It was a growing-up effort, a stretching of himself out of desperation. He focused on the tennis shoes that covered Cally’s feet. Those shoes came from a store. She had been to a city and a store. Ish had a rifle. He wore clothes which came from a store ... just like Cally’s shoes did. They were people, not wild Indians.
And they were all afraid of Katsuk.
Katsuk glanced at the old woman, said: “Hoquat is tied to me, you understand. He cannot escape.”
“You’re talking crazy,” she said, but there was no force in the words.
To David, Katsuk said: “This is Cally, my mother’s sister. I don’t expect you to understand that, Hoquat, but it is from my mother’s people that I got my first power.”
David thought: He’s talking to impress her, not me.
David shot a penetrating glance at the old woman’s face to gauge her reaction, found only a withdrawn measuring in remote brown eyes. With breath-choking realization.
David saw that Cally was proud of Katsuk, proud of what Katsuk was doing, but had not admitted it to herself. She would never admit it.
Cally asked: “Are you all right, boy?”
David shrugged, still caught in realization of the power Katsuk held over this woman. She was proud.
What can I do? David wondered. He blinked back tears. His shoulders sagged with despair. Only then did he realise how desperately he had hoped this woman would help him. He had thought a woman would have softness for a boy in trouble.
But she was proud ... and afraid.
Cally put a hand on David’s shoulder, said: “You got yourself all soaking and cut up out in that brush. Ought to get those clothes off you and dry them.”
David peered up at her. Was she softening? No. She was only going through the motions. This would keep her from admitting how proud she was.
She glanced sideways at Katsuk, said: “What’re you really going to do with him, son? Are you going to potlatch them?”
Katsuk frowned. “What?” He didn’t like this tone in his aunt’s voice. There was slyness in her now.
Cally said, “You tell me he’s tied to you and you’re the only one can cut him loose. Are you going to give him back to them?”
Katsuk shook his head, seeing his aunt’s fear for the first time. What was she trying to do? She wasn’t talking to Katsuk. She was trying to revive Charles Hobuhet! He put down a surge of rage, said: “Be quiet!” Even as he spoke, he knew it was pointless. He had brought this upon himself with his own thoughtless arrogance. He had said this was his aunt. Katsuk had no relatives. It was Charles Hobuhet who had been related to this woman.
“That’d be about the biggest gift anyone could give,” Cally said. “They’d owe you.”
Katsuk thought: How sly she is. She appeals to the ancestors in me. Potlatch! But those aren’t my ancestors. I belong to Soul Catcher.
“What about it?” Cally demanded.
David tried to swallow in a dry throat. He sensed the struggle between Katsuk and this woman. But she wasn’t trying to save a captive. What was she trying to do?
Katsuk said: “You want me to save my life by saving his.”
It was an accusation.
David saw the truth in Katsuk’s words. She was trying to save her nephew. She didn’t care about any damned hoquat. David felt like kicking her. He hated her.
“Anything else doesn’t make sense,” Cally said.
David had heard enough. He screamed at her, fists clenched at his sides: “You can’t save him! He’s crazy!”
Unnervingly, Katsuk began to laugh.
Cally turned on the boy, said: “Be still!”
Katsuk said: “No, let him talk. Listen to my Innocent. He knows. You cannot save me.” He stared across David’s head at Ish. “Did you hear him, Ish? He knows me. He knows what I have done. He knows what I must do yet.”
The old man nodded. “You’ve got a bloody look on you.”
David felt himself frightened into stillness. His own actions terrified him. He had almost told about the hiker’s murder. Katsuk had realised this. “He knows what I have done.” Did all of these people know about the murder? Was that why they were afraid? No. They feared Katsuk’s power from the spirit world. Even while some of them didn’t admit it, that was what they feared.
Katsuk stared at Cally, asked: “How could we make the hoquat owe us more than they do already?”
David saw that she was angry now, fighting against the realization of her own pride. She said: “There’s no sense crying over the past!”
“If we don’t cry over it, who will?” Katsuk asked. He felt amusement at her weakness. The past is dead!” she said. “Let it be!”
“As long as I live it is not dead,” Katsuk said. “I may live forever.”
“That boy’s right,” she snapped. “You’re crazy.”
Katsuk grinned at her. “I don’t deny it.”
“You can’t do this thing,” she argued.
His voice low and reasonable, Katsuk asked: “What thing?”
“You know what I mean!”
Katsuk thought: She knows and she cannot say it. Ahhh, poor Cally. Once our women were strong. Now they are weak. He said: “There is no human being who can stop me.”
“We’ll see about that,” she said. Anger and frustration in every movement, she turned away, grabbed David’s arm, hustled him down the line of huts to the end one.
“Get in there,” she ordered. “Take off your clothes and pass them out.”
Katsuk called after her: “Indeed, we will see, Cally.”
David said: “Why do you want my clothes?”
“I’m going to dry them. Get in there now. There’re blankets in there. Wrap up in blankets until your things are dry.”
The split plank door squeaked as David opened it. He wondered if Cally might yet try to save him—out of anger. There were no windows in the hut. Light came in the door. He stepped inside onto a dirt floor. The place smelled of fish oil and a wet mustiness that came from the fresh hide of a mountain lion pegged to the wall opposite the door. Thin strips of something dark hung from the rafters. There were a jumble of nets, burlap bags, rusty cans, and boxes on the dirt floor. A pole frame in one corner held a crumpled pile of brown-green blankets.
“Get a wiggle on,” Cally said. “You’ll catch your death in them wet clothes.”
David shuddered. The hut repelled him. He wanted to run outside and beg the people there to save him. Instead, he stripped down to his shorts, passed the clothing out the door.
“Shorts, too,” she said.
David wrapped up in one of the blankets, stripped off the shorts, and passed them out the door.
“These’ll take a couple hours,” she said. “Wrap up warm and get some rest.” She closed the door.
David stood in the sudden darkness. Tears began running down his cheeks. All the alien strangeness of people and place weighed in upon him. The young woman had wanted him to escape. Old Cally seemed to want to help him. But none of them would really stand up to Katsuk
As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw that the door did not shut completely. There were cracks and holes all around to admit light. He heard people moving outside, low voices. At one point, there was a sound like young boys playing—the sound of a stick hitting a can.
Tears continued running down David’s cheeks. He stifled a sob. Anger at his own weakness overcame him. He thought: I couldn’t even escape!
Katsuk had power over birds and people and his spirits all through the forest. There was no place to hide. Everything in the forest spied for crazy Katsuk! The people in this camp knew it and were afraid.
Now they held Katsuk’s captive trapped without clothes.
David smelled smoke, meat cooking. There came a shout of laughter outside, quickly silenced. He heard wind in the trees, people moving about, low conversations with the words unintelligible. The blanket around him smelled of old perspiration. It was rough against his skin. Tears of despair ran down his cheeks. The sounds of activity outside gradually diminished. There came longer and longer silent periods. What were they doing out there? Where was Katsuk? He heard footsteps approaching his hut. The door squeaked open. Tskanay entered with a chipped bowl in one hand. There was an angry furtiveness about her movements.
As the door opened wide and she stepped inside, the light revealed a blue bruise down her left jaw. She closed the door, sat down beside him on the pole bed, and offered the bowl.
“What’s that?”
“It’s smoked trout. Very good. Eat it.”
David took the bowl. It was smooth and cold against his fingers. He stared at her bruised jaw. Light coming through the cracks in the wall drew stripes down across the mark on her skin. She appeared restless and uncomfortable.
David said: “He hit you, didn’t he?”
“I fell down. Eat the trout.” There was anger in her voice.
David turned his attention to the fish. It was hard and chewy with a light and oily fish flavor. At the first bite, he felt hunger knot his stomach. He ate a whole trout before speaking, then: “Where’re my clothes?”
“Cally’s drying them in the big house. Be another hour at least. Charlie and Ish and some of the others have gone out hunting.”
David heard her words and wondered at them. She seemed to be saying one thing but trying to tell him something else. He said: “He doesn’t like you calling him Charlie. Is that why he hit you?”
“Katsuk,” she muttered. “Big deal.” She looked toward the door as she spoke.
David ate another of the trout, licked his fingers. She was acting uncomfortable, shifting on the pole bed, picking at the blankets beneath them. He said:
“Why’re you all afraid of him?”
“I’ll show him,” she whispered.
“What?”
Without answering, she took the bowl from David’s hands, tossed it aside. He heard the clatter of it in the shadowy center of the hut.
“Why’d you do that?”
“I’m going to show that Katsuk!” She made the name sound like a curse.
David felt a surge of hope, quickly extinguished. What could Tskanay do? He said:
“None of you are going to help me. He’s crazy and you’re afraid of him.”
“Crazy wild,” she said. “He wants to be alone. He wants death. That’s crazy. I want to be with someone. I want life. That’s not crazy. I never thought he’d be a stick Indian.”
“Katsuk doesn’t like you to call him Indian.”
She shook her head, setting the string-tied braids in motion. “Fuck Katsuk!” It was low and bitter.
David sat in shocked silence. He’d never heard an adult say that openly before. Some of his more daring friends said it, but never anyone such as this young woman. She was at least twenty years old.
“Shocks you, huh?” she asked. “You’re an innocent, all right. You know what it means, though, or it wouldn’t shock you.”
David cleared his throat.
Tskanay said: “Big mean, crazy Indian thinks he has an innocent, huh! Okay. We’ll show him.” She got up, went to the door, closed it.
David heard her moving, the slither of clothing. He whispered: “What’re you doing?”
She answered by sitting down beside him, finding his left hand and pressing it against her bare breast.
David hissed in surprise. She was naked! As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could see her beside him.
“We’re going to play a game,” she said. “Men and women play this game all the time. It’s fun.” She slid a hand beneath his blanket, caressing, touched his penis. “You got hair. You’re man enough for this game.”
David tried to push her hand away. “Don’t.”
“Why not?” She kissed his ear.
“Because.”
“Don’t you want to get away from Charlie-Katsuk?”
“Sure.” Her skin was soft and exciting. He felt a strange eagerness in his loins, a hardness. He wanted to stop her and he did not want to stop her.
“He wants you innocent,” she whispered. She was breathing fast now.
“Will he let me go?” David whispered. There was an odd milky smell about her that sent his pulse racing.
“You heard him.” She guided his left hand, pressed it into the tangle of hair between her legs. “Doesn’t that feel good?”
“Yes. But how do you know he’ll ...”
“He said he wants you innocent.”
Frightened and fascinated, David allowed her to pull him down onto the pole bed. It creaked and stretched. Eagerly now, he did what she told him to do. They were showing that Katsuk! Crazy damned Katsuk.
“Right there,” she whispered. There! Ahhhhh ...” Then: “You’ve got a good one. You’re good. Not so fast. There ... that’s right ... that’s right ... ahhhh ...”
It seemed to David much later. Tskanay rubbed him down with a blanket while he stretched out, tingling and excited, but calm and relaxed, too. He thought: I did it! He felt alive, in direct contact with every moment. Pretty Tskanay. He reached up boldly, touched her left breast.
“You liked that,” she said. “I told you it was fun.” She stroked his cheek. “You’re a man now, not a little innocent Katsuk can push around.”
At the sound of Katsuk’s name, David felt his stomach tighten. He whispered: “How will Katsuk know?”
She giggled: “He’ll know.”
“He’s got a knife,” David said.
She stretched out beside him, caressed his chest. “So what?”
David thought about the murdered hiker. He pushed her hand away, sat up. “He’s crazy, you know.” And he wondered if he could tell Tskanay about the murder.
She spoke languidly: “I can hardly wait to see his face when he—”
The door banged open, cutting her off and bringing a gasp from David.
Katsuk stepped inside, his face in black shadows from the back lighting. He carried David’s shoes and clothing in a bundle. As the light from the doorway revealed the two naked figures on the pole bed, Katsuk stopped.
Tskanay began to laugh, then: “Hey, Charlie-boy! He’s not your little innocent anymore! How about that?”
Katsuk stared at them, consternation tightening his throat. His hands went to the knife at his waist and he almost drew it. Almost. But the wisdom of Soul Catcher whispered to him and he saw the trickery in her woman power. She wanted the knife! She wanted death and the end of him by that death. She wanted the ancient ritual defeated. Ahhhh, the slyness of her. He threw the clothing at David, took one step forward, his face still in shadows and unreadable.
“You going to kill us, Charlie-boy?” she asked.
David sat frozen with terror. He expected the knife. It was the logical thing to happen—the right thing. His chest ached. His body felt even more exposed tha
Katsuk said: “Don’t think you will steal my spirit that way, Tskanay.”
“But he’s not your innocent little hoquat anymore.” She sounded puzzled. Katsuk wasn’t reacting the way she had expected. She wasn’t sure precisely what she had expected, but certainly not this quietness. He should be raging and violent.
Katsuk glanced at the terrified boy. Innocent? Could sex make the difference? No. The quality of innocence was something else. It was tangled with intent and sensitivity. Was there selfishness in this hoquat? Was he indifferent to the fate of others? Was he capable of self sacrifice?
“Are you sure he’s not innocent?” Katsuk asked.
She slid off the pole bed, stood up, angrily defiant in her nakedness, taunting him with it. “I’m damned sure!”
“I am not,” Katsuk said.
“You want another performance for proof?” she demanded.
Slowly, David got his knees beneath him on the bed. He sensed that Katsuk was not completely in this room, that the man listened to voices from another world. Tskanay still could not see this. Katsuk was obeying his spirits or he would have struck out with the knife. He might hit Tskanay again if she continued to taunt him, but he wouldn’t use the knife.
David said, “Katsuk, don’t hurt her. She was only trying to help me.”
“You see,” Katsuk said. “You tried to use him against me, Tskanay, and still he doesn’t want you hurt. Is that not innocence?”
“He’s not!” she raged. “Damn you, he’s not!”
David said: “Katsuk, she doesn’t understand.”
His voice oddly soft, Katsuk said: “I know, Hoquat. Get dressed now. There is your clothing all dry and clean and mended by Cally.”
Tskanay whispered: “He’s not, I tell you. He’s not.”
“But he is,” Katsuk said.
David touched the clothing Katsuk had thrown onto the bed. Why couldn’t Tskanay shut up? It was a stupid argument. He felt defiled, tied to Katsuk even more strongly than before. She hadn’t been trying to help. She’d been trying to get back at Katsuk, but she couldn’t reach that part of him in the spirit world.