People of the Owl: A Novel of Prehistoric North America (North America's Forgotten Past) (47 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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As the Council broke up, he stood in the gray center of the circle, thinking. Deep Hunter’s game, he could understand. There were ways of dealing with the Speaker. But what about Salamander? Just what sort of game was he playing? Why did he care if Night Rain and Deep Hunter were dragged through the mud? What difference would it make to him if Alligator and Snapping Turtle Clans tore each other apart?
S
alamander kneaded his temples in a futile attempt to soothe his pounding headache. The idea of sneaking over to the Serpent’s for some jimsonweed paste, or perhaps for a couple of puffs on the old man’s pipe, was so tempting.
Now, with the Council mollified, or at least held at bay, he considered his more immediate problem. He looked at his wives, together for the first time. They sat in his house, equidistant from each other, eyes hard, brown, and fiery. Their feet rested on the burned bones of his ancestors. That thought seemed to stick sideways inside him. Was White Bird’s Dream Soul watching him even now? Was he shaking his head in pity, or just laughing outright? A man with three wives deserved anything they dished out for him.
Anhinga sat defiantly, muscular arms crossed over her rounding belly, her chin high. Pine Drop shifted back and forth, fists knotting and opening as if she’d like to wrap them around Anhinga’s smooth throat. Night Rain glared miserably up from the floor, a fabric wrap around her waist. Her face was swollen from tears, and a red welt marked her forehead where the tumpline had bruised it.
“The whole of Sun Town is talking about what happened!” Pine Drop cried.
“Good! Perhaps we will finally get some respect!” Anhinga shot back.
Salamander raised his arms. “Stop it!” Pain blasted through his head, reflecting on his face.
In the sudden silence, only the cracking of the fire could be heard. Then his mother’s voice asked from outside, “Is everything all right in there? Do I need to send the Speaker to deal with this?”
He winced, wishing he could press the ache out of his skull. “He’s here, Mother. He’s already dealing with it.”
“All right. Be sure and send your uncle home when he’s finished. I have a stew cooking. Acorns and raccoon mixed with squash. His favorite.”
“Yes, Mother.” Salamander closed his eyes, fists knotting. “Snakes, if it’s not one thing, it’s another!”
“Husband?” He heard the first change in the timbre in Anhinga’s voice. By Masked Owl, was that concern replacing the anger? “What would you have had me do? Let Saw Back break my neck and leave me under a log?”
“You did what you had to,” Salamander replied, making up his mind.
Pine Drop pointed a hard finger. “Very well, Husband, I see where this is going. You just remember, I did as you asked me to today. Against my judgment I held my uncle back during the Council. You asked for a favor, and I trusted you enough to grant it—at no little risk to myself. But I’m not finished with Anhinga. She didn’t have to humiliate my sister. She could have let her sneak back to camp, dressed, and with some self-respect.”
“Then it would have been her word against mine!” Anhinga cried, thumping her chest between her breasts. “She and that slithering serpent she had locked hips with could have said anything about me! Who would the Sun People have believed then, first wife? Who? Night Rain? Or the barbarian bitch?”
“Enough!” Salamander cried, his souls aching in time to his head. “Night Rain, do you understand how dangerous the game is that you are playing?”
“Husband, you can’t—”
He silenced Pine Drop with a slash of his hand. “She has betrayed you, too, Wife. Not just your position as first wife, but your position as the next Clan Elder.” He saw the struggle inside as Pine Drop juggled the information. She was caught between loyalty and what Night Rain had done to them all.
“She is young,” Salamander added in a gentle voice. “People make mistakes when they are young. We have controlled the damage.”
“You
forgive
her?” Anhinga asked in disbelief.
“This stops here.” Salamander squinted against the throbbing. “This is not a matter for the clans, or the Council, or the Clan Elders
to work out. We barely kept our world from exploding like a mudtempered pot out there. But for Deep Hunter’s guilt, and Pine Drop’s intervention, we would have Snapping Turtle and Alligator Clans at each other’s throats. If it had come to blows, if some of the hotheaded young warriors had started to fight … Well, you know how close we just came to the abyss.”
Anhinga’s cunning eyes narrowed.
“Don’t even think it.” Salamander turned on her. “You are part of this. Start that fire, and you will not only scorch the Sun People, but the Swamp Panthers, too. Warfare between the clans will burn its way through the Panther’s Bones as surely as you broke Saw Back’s head.” He held her eyes. “You know I’m right.”
Anhinga shrugged and turned away. Pine Drop’s eyes hardened in response.
Salamander reached down and tilted Night Rain’s tear-puffy face up. “Do you understand? If Deep Hunter wasn’t as smart as he is, he would have forced me to tell everyone. Would you have wanted that? Wanted your uncle and mother to know you were plotting against them?”
Pine Drop’s expression slacked with understanding. “Snakes, then it’s true?”
“Answer me,” Salamander insisted.
“No.” Night Rain’s voice sounded small.
He ignored Pine Drop, holding Night Rain’s gaze. “He was playing with you like a toy on a cord. You are meaningless to him. A tool to be used. No more than a stone dart point. Once you lost your edge, he would have discarded you.”
“No!” Night Rain blurted hotly. “He would make me Clan Elder!” Realizing what she had just admitted, she stared aghast at Pine Drop.
“I don’t believe what I’m hearing.” Pine Drop shook her head.
“You could only be Clan Elder if Alligator Clan could dominate Snapping Turtle Clan,” Salamander replied gently. “Think, Night Rain. They have been trying to get rid of me as Speaker for moons now, but I still speak for my clan. It isn’t as easy as Deep Hunter led you to believe. The clans won’t allow outsiders to meddle in their business.”
“Who cares about Owl Clan? It’s broken,” Night Rain shot back.
“Night Rain, Saw Back tried to kill Anhinga. That’s true, isn’t it?” Salamander asked.
Pine Drop looked sick to her stomach as she settled back on the bedding.
Night Rain tucked her arms into her lap and leaned forward. “He
didn’t even have a weapon! He didn’t see her ax. The camp bitch hid it behind her.”
He turned to Anhinga. “Couldn’t you have just walked away, ignored them?”
“Maybe you could have done something like that.” Then, sensing his distress, she added in a softer voice. “He mocked me with the bones of my dead friends. He would have come after me. I could see it in his eyes.”
He nodded, wondering what he would have done. Walked away probably to bide his time. It just wasn’t in Anhinga’s souls to react that way. He raised his eyes. “Pine Drop?”
“She is my sister.” The words were wooden, pained.
“She’s my wife.” He lowered himself to the bench, using fingertips to massage his temples. “I remember an evening in your house when you cautioned her about behaving with responsibility. Since then she has given Deep Hunter and his warriors both her body and your clan’s private dealings. I would imagine she heard a great many things discussed at Elder Sweet Root’s fire.”
“This is how a wife behaves? She
humiliates
us!” Anhinga cried.
“That is enough!” Salamander shot her a cautionary look. “Indignation is like sassafras root, Anhinga. Use too much of it, and the pot turns bitter.” He rubbed his hands together. “The question remains: What should we do about this?”
“I
hate
you,” Night Rain managed through clenched teeth. “All of you!”
Pine Drop’s lips hardened. “You hate me, too?”
Night Rain nodded, lip twitching. “No one shamed you when you were bedding Three Stomachs.”
Pine Drop paled.
Anhinga lifted an eyebrow. “Ah, now we see how deeply the rot runs.”
“Enough!” Salamander avoided Pine Drop’s stricken eyes. “What is past cannot be undone. I know of no one in this room who has not made mistakes.” Going from Anhinga, to Pine Drop, to Night Rain, he met their eyes. “So let us start anew tonight. We have all done terrible things to each other, and to ourselves.”
“I have to tell Speaker Mud Stalker,” Pine Drop said listlessly. “This goes beyond this household. It’s clan business.”
“No!” Night Rain cried, looking stricken. “You can’t tell the Speaker. He’ll beat me! Cast me out! Send me off into exile!”
“You
betrayed
us!” Pine Drop cried. “Betrayed
me
!”
“Uncle arranged it! Just like he did with you and Three Stomachs!” Night Rain began to leak tears again.
“But I didn’t tell him clan secrets while I …” Pine Drop winced, shaking her head. “By the Sky Beings, never mind. Our husband is right, what’s done is done and can’t be undone.”
“There is a way for us to solve this, Night Rain,” Salamander spoke wearily.
“I hope leeches drink your blood,” she mumbled.
“Sister!” Pine Drop warned. “I will not hear you speak that way.”
“You and your ways,” Night Rain muttered. “You make me sick! So proper and correct. Over what? Him? He’s a fool, Sister. You’re married to a fool, carrying
his
fool child! You’re a laughingstock!” She glanced up at Salamander. “And you? Are you a warrior? I see no tattoos. You are a coward. You send your barbarian bitch to do your fighting for you!”
Pine Drop paled, a hand against one of the support poles. Anhinga smiled like a fox over a nest of hatchlings. At a word, she’d have been happy to help Pine Drop thrash Night Rain into pulp.
“Your sister is a fool?” Salamander managed a bitter smile. “Strong words, Night Rain, for a woman who was marched naked through the middle of town after being routed away from her lover. Do not talk to me of fools.”
“What did he promise you?” Pine Drop asked. “What did Deep Hunter say would be yours?”
“He told her that you would never be Clan Elder,” Salamander supplied for her. “That’s what Deep Hunter promised her. That, and Saw Back, and prestige, and status, and who knows what else. She’s not as smart as you are, Wife.”
“Indeed?” Night Rain asked smugly. “We’ll see who’s smart in the end.”
“If you were,” Pine Drop said wearily, “you would know Deep Hunter is through with you. Disgraced and embarrassed, you can’t serve him. Uncle is suspicious now—if he hasn’t already figured it out like I told him. So is Mother. They will never speak freely in your presence. You’ll be watched like a mouse in a jar. Despite the pleas of our husband, I am still tempted to tell Uncle and Mother the extent of what you’ve done. If I do, you
will
be destroyed, Sister.”
For the first time fear glazed Night Rain’s eyes.
“There is a way out, Night Rain,” Salamander said carefully.
“What?” Pine Drop demanded. “Hold this over her so that she can become Owl Clan’s pawn?”
“No. I would not do that. She is my wife, as you are. As Anhinga is.” He paused. “Night Rain, everyone in Sun Town has heard about you. From the moment you walk out of this house, every eye
is going to be on you. There are probably thirty people within a stone’s throw of this house right now, their ears pricked like a dog’s to hear the row.”
“I could step outside,” Anhinga suggested, and tapped her ax. “I’ll bet they’d scurry away like wood rats in a cane patch.”
“Night Rain,” Salamander continued, “if we forget what you’ve done, will you act like a proper wife?”
“Just forget?” Pine Drop asked in wonder. “Like you just said, every tongue is going to be wagging! And it’s clear that she’s been working with Deep Hunter!”
Salamander nodded soberly. “If she can see this thing through, learn from her shame, I would suggest that you not tell your Clan Elder, or your Speaker, about her transgressions.”
Anhinga interjected, “You will be considered a fool, Salamander. People will look at you and whisper behind their hands, saying, ‘Look, there’s Speaker Salamander! He took his wife back after his barbarian brought her home still steaming with another man’s sweat!’”
“They will, Salamander,” Pine Drop agreed.
He shrugged. “I am used to it. Night Rain isn’t.” He took a deep breath. “Let us be honest, Wives. A great many forces are building against me. Alliances are being made in dark places, all seeking eventually to destroy me. We must ensure that the rest of you can go home and restart your lives.”

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