Soul Catcher by Frank Herbert Read Free Book Online Page B

blows at the rockslide. Speaking
softly, he said: “Do not make me strike you again. We should not
have that between us.”
    The boy blinked. Tears formed in the corners
of his eyes, but he shook them out with an angry gesture.
    Still in that soft voice, Katsuk said:
“Answer to your name when I ask you. What is your name now?”
    “Hoquat.” Sullen, but clear.
    “Good.”
    Katsuk went to the cave mouth, paused there
to let his senses test the area. Shadows were shortening at the end
of the notch as the sun climbed higher. Bright yellow skunk
cabbages poked from the shadowed water at the lower end of the
spring pool.
    It bothered him that he had struck Hoquat,
although strong body-talk had been required then.
    Do I pity Hoquat? he wondered. Why
pity anyone?
    But the boy had showed surprising strength.
He had spirit in him. Hoquat was not a whiner. He was not a coward.
His innocence lay within a real person whose center of being
remained yet unformed but was gaining power. It would be easy to
admire this Innocent.
    Must I admire the victim? Katsuk
wondered.
    That would make this thing all the more
difficult. Perhaps it would occur, though, as a special test of
Katsuk’s purpose. One did not slay an innocent out of casual whim.
One who wore the mantle of Soul Catcher dared not do a wrong thing.
If it were done, it must fit the demands of the spirit world.
    Still, it would be a heavy burden to kill
someone you admired. Too heavy a burden? Without the need for
immediate decision, he could not say. This was not an issue he
wanted to confront.
    Again, he wondered: Why was I chosen for
this?
    Had it occurred in a way similar to the way
he had chosen Hoquat? Out of what mysterious necessities did the
spirit world act? Had the behavior of the white world become at
last too much to bear? Certainly that must be the answer.
    He felt that he should call out from the
cave mouth where he stood, shouting in a voice that could be heard
all the way to the ocean:
    “ You down there! See what you have done
to us!”
    He stood lost in reverie and wondered
presently if he might have shouted. But the hoard of life all
around gave no sign of disturbance.
    If I admire Hoquat, he thought, I
must do it only to strengthen my decision.
    ***
    From the speech Katsuk made to his
people:
    Bear, wolf, raven, eagle—these were my
ancestors. They were men in those days. That’s how it was. It
really was. They celebrated when they felt happy about the life
within them. They cried when they were sad. Sometimes, they sang.
Before the hoquat killed us, our songs told it all. I have heard
those songs and seen the carvings which tell the old stories. But
carvings cannot talk or sing. They just sit there, their eyes
staring and dead. Like the dead, they will be eaten by the
earth.
    ***
    David shuddered with aversion to his
surroundings. The gray-green gloom of the cave, the wet smoothness
of rock walls at the sunlit mouth which his thong leash would not
permit him to reach, the animal odors, the dance of dripping water
outside—all tormented him.
    He was a battleground of emotions: something
near hysteria compounded of hunger, dread, shuddering uncertainty,
fatigue, rage.
    Katsuk came back into the cave, a black
silhouette against sunlight. He wore the Russell knife at his
waist, one hand on the handle.
    My knife, David thought. He began to
tremble.
    “You are not sleeping,” Katsuk said.
    No answer.
    “You have questions?” Katsuk asked.
    “Why?” David whispered.
    Katsuk nodded but remained silent.
    The boy said: “You’re holding me for ransom,
is that it?”
    Katsuk shook his head. “Ransom? Do you think
I could ransom you for an entire world?”
    The boy shook his head, not
understanding.
    “Perhaps I could ransom you for an end to
all hoquat mistakes,” Katsuk said.
    “What’re you …”
    “Ahhh, you wonder if I’m crazy. Drunk,
maybe. Crazy, drunken Indian. You see, I know all the cliches.”
    “I just asked why.” Voice