Chapter the Third of Part the Fifth
In which the narrative recounts acts from the life of Danzigger Singing Fiddle in Baschdynn.
The haunting melodies sung by Kyle echoed in Danzigger’s mind as he stepped out of Merithwell with Polnar and Passenell and into his tent. Morning light was rising outside.
“Do they know that Kyle is truly what they call disinherited?” Polnar asked.
“I think they do not know,” Danzigger replied.
“Surely, if they find out, they will change their minds about not allowing their disinherited children to sing,” said Polnar.
“I do not know what they will do if they find out,” said Danzigger. “We can only hope they allow his singing to heal them. Come, the morning food is being served.”
As the boys approached the central pot, they received several sour looks, as they had each morning since Danzigger brought Polnar and Passenell to the Baschi. Danzigger was quite sure that if he were not the Spirit Speaker’s apprentice and if Maranzigga had not herself spoken up for the two boys, Sampanzigger would probably have demanded that Polnar and Passenell be sent back to the world they came from.
“We’ve never stayed so long in one place,” complained one man standing near the central pot.
“The grass is growing short. The lashampas need fresh grass to feed on,” complained another.
“We should take back the land by the lake that Terrenzigger has taken from us. Then there will be enough grass for the lashampas.”
“Let him have it. There is good grazing land everywhere and there are many other lakes.”
“Terrenzigger took the best land and the best lake.”
“How do you know it’s the best land and the best lake?”
“Because Terrenzigger took it, that’s why.”
Danzigger would not mind the arguments so much if some of the men and older boys didn’t come to blows over them. He also feared the possibility Sampanzigger’s people might attack Terrenzigger’s settlement because he was building a wooden tents and tearing up the earth to force plants to grow there.
Danzigger and his two friends received their food while the surrounding hostile stares intensified. Danzigger decided not to linger but to eat back in his tent.
“How many more people are going to invade our world and take it from us?” Sampanzigger asked Danzigger as they walked away from the central fire.
“My friends only need to live here while they heal,” Danzigger answered. “They wish to take nothing that is ours.”
“They are already taking our food and our furs,” said the chief.
“I thought that the Baschi always shared with strangers in need,” said Danzigger.
“Times are not the same,” said Sampanzigger with a look towards Terrenzigger’s settlement.
Later in the morning, Danzigger took his friends to a high hill where they had a good view of both Sampanzigger’s camp and Terrenzigger’s settlement. Some boys from Terrenzigger’s settlement were herding their lashampas well beyond the fence that their chief had put up. That could mean trouble if Danzigger played the fiddle, but he was not about to let Terrenzigger’s people tell him when to play the fiddle and when not to.
“Do you feel stronger, Passenell?” Danzigger asked.
Passenell still looked more like a shadow than a full person and he turned a blank face to Danzigger when he replied.
“Stronger, yes, but I still feel weak inside.”
“It is your spirit that is still weak,” said Danzigger. “I think that when the people in your world offered you to their gods, the gods took your spirit before their spirit speaker raised his knife.”
“Yes,” said Passenell in a faraway voice, “it took something out of me. I am glad to sing with the boys in Merithwell. That is making me stronger again. And your singing makes my spirit stronger as well.”
“Will you be ready for your solo when you are asked to sing it?” Polnar asked Danzigger.
“I am ready already,” Danzigger replied. “It is no harder than the healing chants I must sing for the people when they are stricken. It is too bad that I cannot heal other problems among the Baschi.”
“If you can sing your solo already, why don’t you sing it now?” Polnar said. “And why don’t you play your fiddle while you sing it?”
“There is no fiddle part in The West Wind,” said Danzigger.
“You can make one up when you are singing here,” Polnar urged.
“I think the song The West Wind makes a good fiddle melody,” said Danzigger. “I will try it.”
First Danzigger sang the song “The West Wind” with the other two boys joining in, and then he played it on his fiddle while he and the other two boys sang it again.
“Now, we will sing the song again,” said Danzigger, “and I will make up a different tune on the fiddle, the way other tunes are sung against the song in what Chet from Chicago calls a Mass.”
Danzigger started to sing the song as he said he would and he added a fiddle part that seemed, for the most part, to go with it. Not satisfied the first time, Danzigger continued to play with the melody, making use of the notes he had recently learned. When he decided he had the right feel of the melodies under his fingers, he sang the song against his fiddle with the other boys singing with him.
“Are you feeling more strong, now?” Danzigger asked Passenell.
“I think so,” Passenell replied.
“Did you see the animals coming to listen to you?” Polnar asked.
“No.”
But by the time Danzigger had answered the question, he saw lashampas up and down the hillside and at the foot of the hill itself. Children, scattered among the lashampas, were yelling at the animals, and each other.
“Get that one!” a boy yelled at two other children.
“What’s that one doing up there?” cried a girl.
“Hey! This one’s ours!”
“No it’s not! It’s ours?”
“How do you know?”
“I can tell by this mark on the lashampa’s fur.”
“I don’t see any mark different than anything else.”
“That’s because you can’t see!”
“How come our lashampas started running away from us?”
“How come our lashampas started running away from us?”
“You’re trying to steal our lashampas!”
“You’re trying to steal our lashampas!”
“How come everybody’s fighting?” Polnar asked.
“Because they like to fight, I think,” said Danzigger. “But our people did not fight like this in days past. This fighting started when Rossonzigger gave me this fiddle in the spirit world before he made his final journey.”
“But they’re fighting over lashampas,” said Polnar.
“I know,” said Danzigger.
Two larger boys broke into a fist fight and several more children jumped into the fray. The other children made a circle around the fighters, urging on their side. The lashampas skittishly moved away in different directions. Several men and a few women came running from both camps.
“Somebody will get hurt,” said Passenell.
“Somebody is already hurt,” said Danzigger. “I must try to heal the hurt.”
Danzigger promptly started down the hillside to where the children were fighting, leaving Polnar and Passenell to follow as best they could. By the time Danzigger reached the fighting children, one boy had a misshapen and bloody nose and another had a stream of blood flowing down the side of his face.
“The Spirit Speaker!”
“The Spirit Speaker!”
The fighting stopped and the children backed away.
“It’s just the apprentice,” said Petzigger.
“The Spirit Speaker is too sick to come to us,” said Lonzigga.
“There is need for healing,” said Danzigger. “There are injuries here.”
“He started it!”
“He started it!”
“I will sing the healing chants,” said Danzigger. “The chants will heal no matter who started the fighting.”
None of the children seemed quite happy with that but they fell into a sullen silence as Danzigger began to play the fiddle and then sing a healing chant over his fiddling. The men and women with the children eyed each other uneasily. Danzigger had sung only a small part of the chant when he felt something nudge him in the knee. Danzigger stepped aside from the lashampa and tried to concentrate on his chanting but then another lashampa rubbed up against him. Baschi from all directions tried to pull the lashampas away from Danzigger and the injured boys but the greater their efforts, the more the lashampas crowded in on the Spirit Speaker’s apprentice until one of the lashampas knocked Danzigger backwards. His fall was broken by another lashampa that then skittered away, leaving Danzigger on his back on the grass.
“Now we know who started this,” said Petzigger.
“Yea,” said Framzigger. “Now we know all right.”
Danzigger carefully cradled the fiddle in his arms and rose to his feet. He stepped up to the injured boys and saw that very little healing had taken place as yet.
“I need to sing more healing chants,” said Danzigger.
“We don’t need your healing chants,” said one of Terrenzigger’s men. “All they do is make the lashampas come to you.”
“It mixes up all the lashampas so that we don’t know whose lashampas are whose,” said a woman from Sampanzigger’s camp.
“And that’s why we have these fights,” Framzigger charged.
“If we would be one people as we once were,” said Danzigger, “we would not have to worry about which lashampas belong to which people.”
“If you didn’t play that fiddle you stole from my grandfather we wouldn’t have this trouble,” said Petzigger.
“Your grandfather gave me this fiddle in the spirit world,” said Danzigger.
“My mother says you took it away from my grandfather when he was dying,” Petzigger charged.
“He did not!” Lonzigga yelled.
“He did too!”
“He did not!”
“HE STOLE MY GRANDFATHER’S FIDDLE JUST SO HE COULD STEAL OUR LASHAMPAS AND DESTROY OUR SETTLEMENT!” Petzigger yelled.
“NO HE DIDN’T!”
“IF DANZIGGER DIDN’T STEAL YOUR GRANDFATHER’S FIDDLE WE WOULDN’T HAVE THIS PROBLEM!”
“IF DANZIGGER DIDN’T STEAL PETZIGGER’S GRANDFATHER’S FIDDLE, OUR LASHAMPAS WOULDN’T BE MIXED UP!”
“IF DANZIGGER DIDN’T STEAL PETZIGGER’S GRANDFATHER’S FIDDLE, WE WOULDN’T HAVE THESE FIGHTS!”
“IF DANZIGGER DIDN’T BRING STRANGERS TO US, WE WOULDN’T LOSE OUR LASHAMPAS!”
As they yelled at each other and at Danzigger, the Baschi moved until they gradually formed a large circle around Danzigger and his two friends. Frozen speechless by the accusations, Danzigger saw in the eyes of his own people the same look that overcame the people in the tent made of stone when they tried to kill Passenell and Polnar. The Baschi, possessed of a spirit that was not a spirit, started to bend over and pick up stones.
“HE’S GIVING OUR LASHAMPAS TO THEM!”
“HE’S STEALING OUR LASHAMPAS!”
Proceed to Chapter the Fourth of Part the Fifth