Departures

Without bothering to break his fast, he opened Taxonomy. He felt like cheering when he discovered that many of the scientific names contained therein had more familiar ones alongside them, though the latter were written in brackets and in smaller letters, as if to show they really weren’t quite as good or as scientific-a word to conjure with, he thought, and smiled to himself inside his tent-as the impressive products of binomial nomenclature.

Navigating through classes, orders, families, and genera took some doing, but before too long he found that the white-tailed deer’s scientific name, its secret name, was Odocoileus virginianus. He said it several times. It filled the mouth in a way that white-tailed deer never could. Saliva filled his mouth, too, at the thought of venison roasted with bacon and wild onions.

He left Mammalia and went over to Aves. He ran his finger down each column of names until he found what he was looking for. “Meleagris gallopavo,” he intoned reverently, and then again: “Meleagris gallopavo. “ Not only were the secret names true, they were also beautiful. He knew he’d never be content just to say turkey again.

At this point hunger, excitement, and a bursting bladder drove him outside. After imagining the rich savor of Odocoileus virginianus and Meleagris gallopavo, duck hash made from rather stale duck proved a disappointment. He was even more disappointed to see Jorj sitting around fletching arrows. “You’re not going out today?” he asked in tones of despair.

“Hadn’t planned to, no,” the chief hunter said. His big, blunt fingers picked with surprising delicacy through a pile of feathers. He found one that suited him and began trimming it to fit the groove in an ashwood arrow.

“But if you do-if you give me time to make a proper magic, a scientific magic first-if you do, you’ll bring back deer and turkey both,” Madyu said. Jorj stared at him; he’d never made that definite a prediction before. “I promise,” he added, thinking he’d already said enough to ruin himself if by some disastrous mischance he was wrong.

“How can you promise what we’ll catch?” Jorj demanded. “You don’t know what we’ll stumble on out there in the woods. You don’t know the first thing about what hunting is like; you’re only good for stumbling over yourself.’’

“But I know what I’m talking about when it comes to magic, I truly do,’’ Madyu said. The hunter shook his head and started to go back to feathering his arrow. Desperately, Madyu added, “Did I help you bring in all those ducks?” He knew the real answer to that was no, but since Jorj didn’t know it, he played the card without compunction.

Jorj looked at the bright blue duck feather he held in his hand, then back up at Madyu. Slowly, deliberately, he set aside the feather and put away his tiny fletching tools. When he got to his feet, he towered over the shaman. “All right,” he said. “We’ll hunt. But if you’re wrong-if you’re wrong, wizardry sir, you’ll not have the chance to make many more such mistakes. Do you understand me, Madyu?”

“I understand you-Jorj.” The tiny pause there should have reminded the chief hunter that Madyu knew and might have used his secret name. It was not as good a threat as Jorj’s big, hard, bunched fist, however. Even with a secret name, magic had a way of going wrong (Madyu suddenly wished he hadn’t remembered that just before the most important conjuration of his life). Brute force was inelegant but always worked.

Still shaking his head, Jorj went off to gather the hunting band. Madyu hurried back to his tent. He began to incant as he’d never incanted before; whatever his doubts and worries, they washed away in ritual chants and passes, dances and prayers.

Again and again he intoned the majestic secret names he’d learned. When he held the white-furred deer tail, his cry was, “Odocoileus virginianus!” When he pranced with a turkey plume, “Meleagris gallopavo!’’ rolled trippingly off his tongue. As an added touch, he tried to pronounce the secret name as if he were a turkey himself. “Gallopavo!” he gobbled. “Gallopavo!”

Being a meticulous man, he did not forget some magical encouragement for the pack of Canis familiaris that coursed with the hunters. The dogs had as much to do with a hunt’s success as the men, sometimes more. They were more susceptible to magic, too, as they lacked the wit that sometimes blunted it when it was turned against people.

At last he had done all he could do. He stayed in his tent regardless, not caring for the loss of dignity that would come from the women of the tribe watching him pace nervously back and forth while he waited for the hunters to return.

Staying inside didn’t end up helping his dignity, either. Hozay and some of the other boys started chanting, “Madyu don’t dare show his face, show his face, show his face…!” With the insane persistence small boys would sooner show in mischief than in honest work, they kept chanting it for a good part of the afternoon.