Andre Norton - The Magic Books 04 - Fur Magic

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Fur Magic

Andre Norton

The Magic Books 04

A 3S digital back-up edition 2.0

click for scan notes and proofing history

Contents

•Authors Note

•1. Wild Country

•2. Strong Medicine

•3. War Party Captive

•4. Broken Claw

•5. Bearers of the Pipe

•6. Eagles’ Bargain

•7. Raven’s Sing

•8. A Forest of Stone

•9. A Shaping of Shapes

•10. The Changer Challenged

•About the Author

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events

portrayed in this book are either products of the author's

imagination or are used fictitiously.

FUR MAGIC

this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

A Starscape Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.starscapebooks.com

ISBN 0-765-35299-0 EAN 978-0765-35299-6

First Starscape edition: April 2006

Printed in the United States of America

Authors Note

^ »

North American Indians, no matter of what tribe, have many

legends of the Old Ones, those birds and animals (all greater than

their dwarfed descendants we know now) who lived as men before

the coming of man himself. Some of the furred or feathered people

had strange powers. Foremost among them was the Changer. To

the Plains Indians he most often wore the form of a coyote, an

animal noted even to this day for its intelligence and cunning above

the ordinary. To other tribes he was the Raven, or even had the

scales of a reptile.

One of his many names was the Trickster, since he delighted in

practical jokes and in outwitting his fellows. The Changer aided as

much as he harmed, turning the course of rivers to benefit the Old

Ones, altering their lands for their profit. His were the powers of

nature. And widely separated Indian nations agreed that he at last

created man—some say as an idle fancy, others that he wished to

make a new servant. Only it did not work out as he had planned.

The legend that the Changer “turned the world over” is current

with the Indians of the far Northwest.

One version of the story states that he at last defied the Great

Spirit, and through the Thunderbird (that awesome winged

messenger, the greatest of totems) was sent into exile. But a day

for his return has also been decreed. Where upon he shall come

forth to turn the world back again. Man will then vanish and the

Old Ones will once more live to fill the woodlands, the prairies, and

the deserts from which man has so long hunted them.

Wild Country

« ^ »

It was cold and far too dark outside the window to be really

day-time yet. Now if he were back home this morning—Cory sat on

the edge of the bunk, holding the boot he was sure was going to be

too tight, and thought about home. Right now he would be willing

to sit out in the full blaze of Florida sun if only all could be just as it

had been before Dad went off with the Air Rescue to Vietnam. Aunt

Lucy would be downstairs in the kitchen getting breakfast and all

would be—right. Only Dad was gone, to a place Cory could not even

pronounce, and Aunt Lucy was nursing Grandma in San Francisco.

So Florida was not home any more.

“Cory!” It was not a loud call, nor was the rap on the door which

accompanied it a loud rap, but Cory was startled sharply out of his

daydream.

“Yes, sir, Uncle Jasper, I’m coming!” he answered as quickly as

he could, pulling on first one boot, then the other. With speed,

though the buttons did not slip very easily into their proper holes

this morning, he fastened his shirt and tucked the tails into his

jeans.

He longed to roll back beneath the covers on the bunk, maybe

even pull them over his head, and forget all about yesterday.

Horses—

Cory winced, rubbing aching bruises. Riding—But at least they

were going in the jeep today. Only he did not want to face Uncle

Jasper this morning, though there was no hope of avoiding that. He

stamped down hard on each foot, the unfamiliar height of the heels

making him feel as if he tilted forward, so different from Florida

sandals.

Horses—Cory had found out something about himself yesterday

which made him drag his booted feet now as he opened the door and

went reluctantly down the ranch-house hall. He was afraid, not

only of the horse Uncle Jasper had said was old, and tame, and good

for a beginner to learn to ride on but of—of the country—and

perhaps a little—of Uncle Jasper.

Last night he had lain awake and listened to all kinds of

disturbing noises. Of course, he had told himself over and over that

there was nothing to be afraid of. But he had never lived out in the

open before, with not even a paved road, and with all those

mountains shooting up to the sky. Here there were just miles and

miles of nothing but wild things—tall grass no one ever cut and big

trees and—animals—Uncle Jasper had pointed out a coyote track

right beside the corral last night.

Corral—Cory’s memory switched again to his shameful

performance at the corral yesterday afternoon. Maybe it was true,

what he had once read in a book, that animals knew when you were

afraid of them. Because that tame old horse had bucked him right

off. And—and he had not had the real guts to get back up in the

saddle again when Uncle Jasper said to.

Even now, though it was so cold in the very early morning, Cory

felt hot all over remembering it. Uncle Jasper had not said a thing.

In fact he had talked about something else, brought Cory back here

to the ranch-house and showed him all the Indian things in the big

room.

Indian things—Cory sighed. All his life he had been so proud of

knowing Uncle Jasper, boasting about it at school and in the

Scouts, bragging that he had a real live Indian foster uncle, who

had served with Dad in Korea and now lived in Idaho and raised

Appaloosa horses for rodeos. Then Uncle Jasper had come to Florida

just about the time Dad got his orders to ship out and Aunt Lucy

was called to Grandma’s. And he had offered to take Cory to his

ranch for the whole summer! It had been such a wonderful, exciting

time, getting ready to go, and reading about the West—all he could

read—though it had been tough to say goodbye to Dad, too.

He stood in the doorway looking out into the early morning,

shivering, pulling on his sweater. Now he could hear men’s voices

out by the jeep and the moving of horses in the big corral.

Horses. When you watched the cowboys on TV, riding looked so

easy. And when Dad and Uncle Jasper had taken him to the

rodeo—well, the riders had taken a lot of spills—but that had been

watching, not trying to do it yourself. Now when he thought of

horses all he could really see were big hoofs in the air, aiming

straight at him.

“Cory?”

“Coming, Uncle Jasper!” He shivered again and began to run to

the jeep, resolutely not looking towards the corral. There had been

a couple of stories he had read about devil horses and cougars and—

The hills were very dark against the greying sky as he reached

the jeep. Uncle Jasper was talking to Mr. Baynes.

“This is Cory Alder,” Uncle Jasper said.

Cory remembered his manners. “How do you do, sir.” He held out

his hand as Dad had taught him. Mr. Baynes looked a little

surprised, as if he did not expect this.

“Hi, kid,” he answered. “Want to see the herd, eh? Well, hop in.”

Cory scrambled into the back of the jeep where two saddles and

other riding gear were already piled, leaving only a sliver of room

for him. Two saddles—not three—one for Uncle Jasper, one for Mr.

Baynes—He felt a surge of relief. Then Uncle Jasper did not expect

him to ride! They would be at the line camp, and maybe he could

stay there.

He tried to find something to hold on to, for Uncle Jasper did not

turn into the ranch road, but pointed the jeep towards a very dark

range of hills, and cut off across country.

They bounced and jumped, whipping through sage-brush, around

rocks, until they half fell into the dried bed of a vanished stream,

and used that for a road. Once they heard a drumming even louder

than the sound of the motor. Uncle Jasper slowed to a stop, his

head turning as he listened so that the silver disks on his hatband

glinted in the strengthening light. Then he got to his feet, steadying

himself with one hand on the frame of the windscreen, his face up

almost as if he were sniffing the wind to catch some scent as well as

listening so intently.

Cory studied him. Uncle Jasper was even taller than Dad. And,

though he wore a rancher’s work clothes, the silver-studded band

on his wide-brimmed Stetson, and the fact that he had a broad

archer’s guard on his wrist, made him look different from Mr.

Baynes. The latter was tanned almost as dark as Uncle Jasper and

had black hair, too.

Then Cory forgot the men in the front seat as he saw what they

watched for, a herd of horses moving at a gallop. But the wildly

running band passed well beyond the stream bed and Cory sighed

with relief.

“Cougar started ’em maybe,” Mr. Baynes commented. His hand

dropped to the rifle caught in the clips on the jeep side as men had

once carried such weapons in saddle scabbards.

“Could be,” Uncle Jasper agreed. “Take a look when we come

back—though cougar is more interested in deer.”

The jeep ground on. Now Cory thought of cougar, of a big

snarling cat lying along a tree limb, or flattened on top of a rock

such as that one right over there, ready to jump its prey. He had

read about cougars, and bears, and wolves, and all the other

animals of this country when he was all excited about coming here.

But that had been only reading, and now that he was truly living

on a ranch—he was afraid. One could easily look at the picture of a

cougar, but it was another thing to see shadows and think of what

might be hiding in them.

Cory stared at the rocky ridge they were now nearing, really

coming much too close. Was that a suspicious hump there, a hump

that could be a cougar ready to launch at the jeep? Cougars did not

attack men, he knew, but what if a very hungry cougar decided

that the jeep was a new kind of animal, maybe a bigger species of

deer?

The trouble was that Cory kept thinking about such things all

the time. He knew, and tried to keep reminding himself, of what he

had read in all the books, of stories Dad had told him of the times

he himself had stayed here with Uncle Jasper—that there was

nothing to be afraid of. Only now that he was here, the shadows

were too real, and he was shivering inside every time he looked at

them. Yet he had to be careful not to let Uncle Jasper know—not

after what had happened yesterday in the corral.

They bounced safely past the suspicious rock, and the jeep pulled

up the bank to settle down again in a very rough and rutted way.

Uncle Jasper guided the wheels into the ruts and their ride, while

still very bumpy, was no longer so shaky. The sky was much lighter

now and those big, dark shadows, so able to hide anything, were

disappearing.

Save for the ruts, they might have been passing through a

country where they were the first men ever to travel that way.

Cory saw a high-flying bird and thought, with a thrill not born from

fear this time, that it must be an eagle. It was the animals possibly

lurking on the ground that scared him, not birds.

The rutted way swung around the curve of a hill and they came

to a halt before a cabin. Cory was surprised to see that it looked so

very much like those he was familiar with in the TV Westerns.

There were log walls, with the chinks between the logs filled with

clay. A roof jutted forward to shelter the plank door, and there were

two windows, their shutters thrown open. To one side was a pole

corral holding several horses. And a stone wall, about knee-high,

guarded a basin into which a pipe fed a steady flow of water from a

spring.

In a circle of old ashes and fire-blackened stones burned a

campfire. There was a smoke-stained coffee-pot resting on three

stones, with the flames licking not too far away.

Cory sniffed. He was now very hungry. And the smell from a

frying pan, also braced on stones, was enough to make one want

breakfast right away. The man who squatted on his heels tending

the cooking stood up. Cory recognized Ned Redhawk, Uncle Jasper’s

foreman, whom he had seen only at a distance a couple of days

before.

“Grub’s waitin’. Light an’ eat,” was his greeting. He stooped

again to set out a pile of aluminium plates, and then waved one

hand at some logs rolled up at a comfortable distance from the fire.

“Smells good, Ned.” Uncle Jasper uncoiled his long length from

behind the steering wheel of the jeep. He stood for a moment

breathing deeply. “Good mornin’ to hit the high country, too.

Baynes is ready to pick him out some prime breedin’ stock.”

“White-top herds most likely,” Ned returned. “Saul says they’re

movin’ down from Kinsaw now at grazin’ speed. You should be able

to take your look ’bout noon, every thin’ bein’ equal.”

“Been huntin’, Ned?” Uncle Jasper nodded towards the

still-barked tree log that formed one support for the porch roof of

the cabin. Cory was surprised to see what hung there—an unstrung

bow, beneath it a quiver of arrows. Of course, he knew that that

big bracelet Uncle Jasper wore was a bow guard, and he had seen

bows in a rack at the ranch. But he thought they were only for

target shooting. Did Uncle Jasper and Ned still use them for real

hunting?

“Cougar out there has got him a taste for colt. Plenty of deer

’bout, no need for him to use his fangs on the herds,” Ned said.

“He’s a big one, front forepaw missin’ one toe, so he marks an easy

trail. Found three or four kills this past month, all his doin’—two of

them colt.”

“Should take a rifle,” Mr. Baynes cut in. He pulled the one from

the jeep clips as if ready to set off hunting the big cat at once.

Uncle Jasper laughed. “You know what folks say about us, Jim.

That we’re too tight with pennies to buy shells. Fact is, we like to

use bows, makes things a little more equal somehow. Killin’ the

People goes against the grain, unless we have to. Anyway—this is

our way—”

What did he mean by “the People,” Cory wondered. Did he mean

that he and Ned hunted men? No, that could not be true. He wished

he dared to go over and examine the bow. And the quiver—he could

see it was old, covered with a bead-and-quill pattern just like the

very old one back at the ranch. And there was a fringe of coarse,

tattered stuff along the carrying strap. He had seen something like

that in a picture in a book—scalps! That was what it had said under

that picture—scalps! Cory jerked his eyes from the quiver and sat

down beside Uncle Jasper on one of the logs, determined not to

imagine any more things.

“Here you are, son.” A plate of bacon and beans, a mixture he

would not ordinarily consider breakfast, was offered him.

“Thank you, sir. It sure smells good!”

Ned looked at him with some of the surprise Mr. Baynes had

shown. “Cliff Alder’s boy, ain’t you?”

“Yes, sir. Dad’s in Vietnam now.”

“So I heard.” But there was something in that bare statement of

fact which was better than any open concern.

“This all new to you, eh?” Ned made a sweeping gesture which

seemed to include the hills and the beginning of the valley in which

the cabin stood.

Before Cory could answer, there was a sharp yelp from farther up

in the heights, which was echoed hollowly. Cory did not have a

chance to conceal his start, the quick betraying jerk of his head.

Then he waited, tense, for Uncle Jasper, someone, to comment on

his show of unease.

But instead, Uncle Jasper set down his coffee cup and looked up

the slope as if he could see who or what had yelped. “The Changer

is impatient this mornin’.”

Ned chuckled. “Takes a likin’ for some plate scrapin’s, he does.

Wants us to move out and let him do some nosin’ ’bout.”

“The Changer?” Cory asked, his shame in betraying his alarm

lost for a moment in curiosity.

It was Uncle Jasper who answered, his voice serious as if he were

telling something that was a proven fact. “Coyote—he’s the

Changer. For our tribe, the Nez Perce, he wears that form, for

some other tribes he is the Raven. Before the coming of the white

men there were my own people here. But before them the Old

People, the animals. Only they were not as they are today. No, they

lived in tribes, and were the rulers of the world. They had their

hunting grounds, their warpaths, their peace fires.”

“But the Changer,” Ned was rolling a cigarette with loose tobacco

and paper, and now he cut in as Uncle Jasper paused to drink more

coffee, “he never wanted things to be the same. It was in him to

change them around. Some say he made the Indian because he

wanted to see a new kind of animal.”

“Only he tried a last change,” Uncle Jasper took up the story

again, “and it was the Great Spirit who defeated him. So then,

some way, he was sent out to live on an island in the sea. When

enough time passes and the white man puts an end to the world

through his muddlin’, then the Changer shall return and turn the

world over so the People, the animals, will rule again.”

“Could be that story has somethin’,” commented Mr. Baynes,

“considerin’ all we keep hearin’ of world news. Most animals I’ve

seen run their lives with a lot more sense than we seem to be

showin’ lately.” He raised his own cup of coffee to the direction from

which the coyote yelp had sounded. “Good mornin’ to you, Changer.

Only I don’t think you’ll get a chance to try turnin’ the world yet a

while.”

“When,” Cory asked, “is he supposed to turn the world over?”

Uncle Jasper smiled. “Well, you may just be alive to see it, son. I

think the legend collectors have it figured out for about the year

2000, white man’s time. But that’s a good way off yet, and now we

have some horses to look at.”

Cory’s fork scraped on his plate. Horses—but there were only two

saddles in the jeep. He glanced—unnoticed, he hoped—at the rail

beside the corral. One there—that would be Ned’s. Maybe—maybe

Uncle Jasper would not force him to say right out what he had been

trying to get up courage enough to say all morning—that he could

not, just could not, ride today.

But Uncle Jasper was talking to Ned. “Seen any more smoke?”

“Not yet. But it’s time. Sometimes he just rides in without

warnin’—you know how he does.”

Uncle Jasper looked down now at Cory. “You can help me, Cory.”

“How?” the boy asked warily. Was Uncle Jasper just making up

some job around here to cover up for him? He felt a little

sick—after all his big plans and wanting to make Uncle Jasper glad

he had asked him—and Dad proud of him—

“Black Elk is due about now. He is an important man, Cory, and

he generally stops here before goin’ on to the ranch. There’s a line

phone in there.” Uncle Jasper nodded at the cabin. “But Black Elk

keeps to the old ways, he won’t ever use it. If he comes, you can

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摘要：

FurMagicAndreNortonTheMagicBooks04A3Sdigitalback-upedition2.0clickforscannotesandproofinghistoryContents·AuthorsNote·1. WildCountry·2. StrongMedicine·3. WarPartyCaptive·4. BrokenClaw·5. BearersofthePipe·6. Eagles’Bargain·7. Raven’sSing·8. AForestofStone·9. AShapingofShapes·10.TheChangerChal...

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