Soul Catcher Read Online Free PDF

back, Katsuk felt the boy’s
tensions relax. There had been a moment back on the porch when
rebellion had radiated from the Innocent. The boy’s eyes had been
uncertain, wet and smooth in their darkness. The bitter acid of
fear had been in the air. But now the boy would follow. He was
enthralled. The center of the universe carried the power of a
magnet for that Innocent.
    David felt his heart beating rapidly from
exertion. He smelled rancid oil from the Chief. The man’s skin
glistened when moonlight touched it, as though he had greased his
body.
    “How far is it?” David asked.
    “Three thousand and eighty-one paces.”
    “How far is that?”
    “A bit over a mile.”
    “Did you have to dress like that?”
    “Yes.”
    “What if it rains?”
    “I will not notice.”
    “Why’re we going so fast?”
    “We need the moonlight for the ceremony. Be
silent now and stay close.”
    Katsuk felt brass laughter in his chest,
picked up the pace. The smell of newly cut cedar drifted on the
air. The rich odor of cedar oils carried an omen message from the
days when that tree had sheltered his people.
    David stumbled over a root, regained his
balance.
    The trail pushed through mottled
darkness—black broken by sharp slashes of moonlight. The bobbing
patch of loincloth ahead of him carried a strange dream quality to
David. When moonlight reached it, the man’s skin glistened, but his
black hair drank the light, was one with the shadows.
    “Will the other guys be initiated?” David
asked.
    “I told you that you are the only one.”
    “Why?”
    “You will understand soon. Do not talk.”
    Katsuk hoped the silence brought by that
rebuke would endure. Like all hoquat, the boy talked too much.
There would be no reprieve for such a one.
    “I keep stumbling,” David muttered. “Walk as
I walk.” Katsuk measured the trail by the “feeling of it underfoot:
soft earth, a dampness where a spring surfaced, spruce cones, the
hard lacery of roots polished by many feet ...
    He began to think of his sister and of his
former life before Katsuk. He felt the spirits of air and earth
draw close, riding this moonlight, bringing the memory of all the
lost tribes.
    David thought: Walk as he walks?
    The man moved with sliding panther grace,
almost noiseless. The trail grew steep, tangled with more roots,
slippery underfoot, but still the man moved as though he saw every
surface change, every rock and root.
    David became aware of the wet odors all
around: rotting wood, musks, bitter acridity of ferns. Wet leaves
brushed his cheeks. Limbs and vines dragged at him. He heard
falling water, louder and louder—a river cascading in its gorge off
to the right. He hoped the sound covered his clumsiness but feared
the Chief could hear him and was laughing.
    Walk as I walk!
    How could the Chief even see anything in
this dark?
    The trail entered a bracken clearing. David
saw peaks directly ahead, snow on them streaked by moonlight, a
bright sieve of stars close overhead.
    Katsuk stared upward as he walked. The peaks
appeared to be stitched upon the sky by the stars. He allowed this
moment its time to flow through him, renewing the spirit message: “I am Tamanawis speaking to you ...”
    He began to sing the names of his dead, sent
the names outward into Sky World. A falling star swept over the
clearing—another, then another and another until the sky flamed
with them.
    Katsuk fell silent in wonder. This was no
astronomical display to be explained by the hoquat magic science;
this was a message from the past.
    The boy spoke close behind: “Wow! Look at
the falling stars. Did you make a wish?”
    “I made a wish.”
    “What were you singing?”
    “A song of my people.”
    Katsuk, the omen of the stars strong within
him, saw the charcoal slash of path and the clearing as an arena
within which he would begin creating a memory maker, a death song
for the ways of the past, a holy obscenity to awe the hoquat
world.
    “Skagajek!” he shouted. “I am