People of the Owl: A Novel of Prehistoric North America (North America's Forgotten Past) (37 page)

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Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear,W. Michael Gear

BOOK: People of the Owl: A Novel of Prehistoric North America (North America's Forgotten Past)
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large turtle, a slider, lay on its back in the center of the coals. Its head and legs had been lashed tightly with green vines so they didn’t protrude and burn. The flesh steamed, hissing and sending aroma around the activity area between the houses. Salamander’s nostrils kept catching hints of it on the wind. He glanced back from his precarious position atop the thatching of his new roof. The house they had built on the location of his old one was almost completed.
Elder Wing Heart sat under the ramada, preoccupied with her incessant weaving. Her nimble fingers plucked at the warp and weft stretched between the peeled poles. This fabric, nearly complete, was a series of white birds on a brown background. One of the most beautiful pieces Salamander had ever seen. Even Anhinga had stopped short, gasping at its beauty.
The sky was overcast, gray with a thick bank of clouds that threatened even more rain. It cut the muggy heat that made a man’s bones want to wilt. The teasing wind, rising and falling, carried the warm moist scent of the forest, grass, and trees while it promised moisture.
Salamander had never built a house before, and but for Water Petal’s advice and guidance, he’d have made a bad affair of it. Together, the three of them—he, Anhinga, and Water Petal—had excavated the foundation holes, planted the uprights, woven the lattice, and plastered the walls.
They had retrieved longer poles and wrist-thick lengths of cane from the floodplain forest, their quest taking them a day’s paddle
down the winding channels while they searched for just the right sizes of bald cypress. Power laced the wood, making it more resistant to rot than other kinds. Sweating under the sun, they had stepped the largest of them for roof supports. The rest they muscled up, setting them on the wall and interior supports as rafters. Slim cane stringers had been laid crosswise and tied in place with peels of freshly stripped bark. Vines had been interwoven to form a lattice both to support the thatch and to allow it to be fastened tightly.
Thatch, as Salamander found out, wasn’t as easy as it seemed. After the backbreaking labor of cutting the grass and bundling it, care had to be taken to pack the sheaves and tie them. Placing the bundles was as much art as it was hard labor.
Salamander used a length of cord—material provided by Water Petal’s husband, Darter—to pull the last bundle tight. “Watch your hand. Here it comes,” he called as he slipped the bone needle through the thatch.
“Got it,” Water Petal called as she grabbed the needle tip inside and pulled it through.
Salamander watched the cord pull tight, compressing the sheaf, and could imagine her knotting it and cutting it with a stone flake. He turned, perched like a big bird at the peak of the roof. “How does it look?”
Anhinga had her hands placed on her hips, her head cocked as she studied the final product. “It is a house, husband. At last, it is a house.”
He grinned, enjoying the harsh accent that came with her speech. Their languages were mutually intelligible, most of the words the same, but sometimes the usage led to incomprehension, and sometimes mirth. He’d been shocked when she referred to his penis as “your slug.” She had been stopped short in confusion when she found out his people called a vulva “a canoe.”
Water Petal ducked out of the interior and looked up, satisfaction on her face. “We are finished.”
“Tonight we shall conduct the proper ceremonies to bless it.” Salamander turned himself on the wooden ladder they had manufactured—two poles lashed together with thick rope—and balanced carefully, his toes seeking a purchase as he backed down. Water Petal and Anhinga reached up to steady him as he clambered down the last steps.
He helped them lower the ladder and looked up at the dull green thatch. Freshly cut grass couldn’t be used; moist, it would rot and disintegrate. The cuttings had to be seasoned, dried to just the right consistency before being bundled.
“I feel better seeing a house there,” Water Petal told them with a sigh. “It reminds me of better days.” She turned to look at her baby where it lay in wrap of moss-lined fabric.
“How is he?” Anhinga asked, pointing at the child.
“Still asleep, thank the Sky Beings,” she answered. “He cried all night. I dabbed a bit of nightshade paste on my finger and touched it to his tongue before coming over here.”
Anhinga narrowed one of her eyes. “That must be done with care.” She was inspecting the little baby.
“He has to sleep,” Water Petal answered, turning back. “Perhaps it will keep his bowels quiet. For the last couple of days milk goes in and moments later, water comes out. I’ve wiped his bottom until it’s raw.”
To Salamander’s eyes, his little cousin didn’t look healthy; the delicate skin around the infant’s face had shrunk and taken on a dark cast. The baby fat had disappeared from sticklike arms.
“My best thoughts are for him,” Anhinga said.
Salamander watched the interplay between the two women. Anhinga and Water Petal had reached some sort of uneasy coexistence. Not friends, not enemies, but during the hard days since the completion of Anhinga’s cleansing, a careful toleration had developed as they had labored together to build Anhinga’s house.
Looking toward the ramada, Salamander could see his mother, oblivious, her hands working the shuttle as she talked to herself. He dared not step closer, or he would hear her carrying on a conversation with her dead brother. He wondered if she could hear his Dream Soul talking in reply. If so, what was his dead uncle saying? Why didn’t he send her souls back to her?
Instead, he inspected the turtle. It’s once-yellow belly had mottled. The black spots that marked the scoots were now blotched with ash. “He’s about cooked. Every new house must have turtle for the first meal.”
“Why?” Anhinga asked.
Salamander was admiring the way her long black hair hung over her round breast, to be teased aside by the wind. “Among our people it is said that Turtle’s Power is imparted to the new house. Wherever Turtle goes, his house protects him, keeps him from harm.”
She frowned. “My people eat snails as a feast when a new house is occupied. For the same reasons. Snail always has a house, no matter where he travels.” She pointed. “Your turtle there, his house didn’t keep him safe from your fire.”
Water Petal’s lips twitched with irritation. Salamander, however,
smiled, replying, “And I’ll bet your snails’ shells don’t save them from your boiling pot, either.”
“I have sassafras and cedar root,” Water Petal told him as she hid her expression by inspecting the cuts on her hands. “I’ll bring them tonight for the first fire.”
“Why?” Anhinga asked.
“Cedar smoke cleanses,” Salamander told her. “And my people believe that sassafras-root smoke brings good luck. For the same reason, we must not reenter the house until we have made necklaces of flowers, so that all the thoughts and words that people share inside will be sweet.”
Anhinga studied him through sultry brown eyes, the look barely masking the turbulence within her. His souls thrilled. Not only was she the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, but the danger communicated by her large dark eyes drew him like a spell.
“What is it with you two?” Water Petal asked, sensing the tension between them. “I swear, when you look at each other it’s like rubbing fox fur on a winter day. The very air crackles and sparks.”
“It is the Power between us, Cousin.” Salamander turned toward Water Petal. “Anhinga and I are tied by a curious bond.” The secrets of their relationship would be beyond her, and he dared not try to explain about what happened under their blankets. His aunt might be young and adventurous herself, but somehow, Salamander doubted that anyone could comprehend the intensity of his matings with Anhinga.
“It must be something.” Water Petal sighed, reaching down to scoop up her sleeping baby. “You’ve turned the clan on its ear with this marriage. I swear, Moccasin Leaf begins to foam at the mouth if I pass within a stone’s throw of her.”
“She is what she is, Cousin.”
Water Petal turned, eyes flashing. “So you say, but I believe that she has found the votes to remove Wing Heart as Elder.”
Salamander’s smile tightened. “All things in their time. You must trust me. That’s all.”
“And wait until they remove you, too?” Water Petal’s voice tightened. “We’re the last of our lineage, Salamander.”
“What we are is never as important as who we are. We must wait and be smart.”
But for the baby in her arms, she would have thrown her hands up in despair. “You exasperate me, Salamander.” Then a slow smile crossed her lips. “But what else can I do? You’re family.” She turned. “I’ll see you this evening.”
“Thank you for your help, Cousin.”
A final wave was all he got as she disappeared between the houses on her way home.
Anhinga had watched the exchange silently, her arms crossed under her high breasts. “Is it not enough that you are Speaker?”
“She had thought to follow my mother.”
Anhinga glanced sidelong at Wing Heart. “I have heard the stories. Your mother was once a great leader. Even Uncle respected her.”
He frowned. “Perhaps she will be yet again. It is up to her souls to decide whether they will return or not. Not even the Serpent has been able to help her.”
She turned those probing eyes on him again, her expression still guarded. The breeze was toying with her long black hair, dancing it around her slim shoulders with their faded scars. “What about Masked Owl?”
He stopped short, startled. “What do you know about Masked Owl?”
“You talk to him in your sleep.”
“I do?”
“Not everyone talks to a Sky Being when they sleep.” A suspicious look crossed her face. “Does he say anything about me?”
“Sometimes.” He bent and began to work on the knots that held his two-pole ladder together. The rope would be reused, the poles cut into firewood when they dried.
“What?” she asked, stepping to the other end of the ladder and using an awl to loosen the knots.
Did he dare tell her? She was giving him that look, the slightly arrogant and dangerous one. “He said that you came here to kill me.”
She stopped short, fingers frozen, eyes widening. Then, smoothly, coolly, she smiled, flashing her teeth at him. “I will not kill you anytime soon.” A pause. “Unless your heart stops tonight when we share that new bed in there.” She jerked her head toward the house, shining black hair flowing with the motion.
It was, he thought, a most challenging affirmation of his suspicions.
N
ight’s soft dark cloak still covered the skies as Pine Drop climbed the last several steps to the rounded summit of the Bird’s Head. Her lungs were pulling, her muscles warm from the climb. She turned
back to stare out at the charcoal east. Silence, as deep as the night itself, met her ears. She had left early, desperate to be at this place first. Would he come? She seated herself and clutched her jay-feather cloak about her shoulders.
Darkness smothered her.
Then the stillness stirred. She could feel Power gathering. Her skin reacted as it would to the faintest touch of flower petals. The air grew heavy, pressing down from above. She would have sworn she felt giant wings passing silently above. Her heart tripped, hammering at her chest. Every nerve in her body demanded that she rise and charge headlong down the steep incline that led to the open plazas below.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to sit. With all of her will she remained motionless, taking deep breaths of the night. It might indeed be late summer, but she drew the jay-feather cloak more tightly about her shoulders. The breeze that skipped out of the southwest chilled her to the very bones. It ruffled the bright blue feathers, teased at locks that had come loose from her head, and prickled the hair on her arms. Born of the chill or the spirits that hovered around her, a shiver tightened her spine.
Snakes! Where is he?
Or had this been a fool’s errand?
One fool for another,
her souls answered. Only an idiot would come here to this place on the edge of darkness and death. She swallowed hard. An idiot, or a man of Power.

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