People of the Owl: A Novel of Prehistoric North America (North America's Forgotten Past) (48 page)

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

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

BOOK: People of the Owl: A Novel of Prehistoric North America (North America's Forgotten Past)
2.17Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Night Rain looked as if sunshine had penetrated a cloud. Pine Drop and Anhinga both looked uncomfortable. He closed his eyes for a moment, wishing the headache would pass. When he reopened them, his little world hadn’t changed.
Pine Drop relented. “Night Rain, do you think you can do this? Act like a wife should to Salamander?”
She nodded.
“What if Saw Back planted a child in her?” Anhinga asked, shooting a hard glare at Night Rain.
Salamander shrugged. “That is Snapping Turtle Clan’s concern, not mine. Like your people, the child belongs to the mother’s clan.”
Pine Drop filled her lungs and exhaled a roomful of tension. “Very well, Sister, let’s take you home and clean you up.”
“No.” Salamander gave a brief shake of his head. “We all sleep here tonight.”
All eyes turned to him, expressions ranging from Anhinga’s arched eyebrow to Night Rain’s sudden horror.
He pointed at the door. “A small crowd is loitering out there in the cold. It would do them good to wait, to watch the fire’s glow
grow dim around the roof. Some can’t wait to rush back to their clans with fresh gossip.”
“Very well, for tonight,” Pine Drop agreed.
“And periodically after that,” Salamander amended. “If we are to survive this, we must do so together. From now on we are going to be a household.”
“Yes, yes, we are agreed.” Pine Drop looked at her sister, then at the crackling fire, and added with a wary chuckle, “Fortunately, someone carried in a good supply of firewood.”
Anhinga smiled ironically at Night Rain.
Salamander’s own smile was false, a mask to relieve his wives. His thoughts turned to Saw Back. The side of his face was crushed. He would be clawing at the walls for revenge.
W
ater trickled in the close darkness to explode into hissing, spitting founts of steam. Bobcat retracted the thin-walled stone bowl. The hot rocks sizzled, and invisible rolls of wet heat rose around Salamander’s body. He opened his mouth, gasping, feeling the steam eat at the insides of his nostrils and his throat.
“Is that better?” Bobcat asked, his form barely visible in the red glow of the hot stones.
“Better,” Salamander agreed. He used his fingers to slick sweat from his forehead, eyebrows, and nose.
The close darkness inside the sweat lodge cupped around him like hands, the rounded roof close over his head. It pressed the stinging heat into his skin, threading it through his muscles, blending it with the blood in his veins.
“You need to be cleansed every so often, Speaker.” Bobcat shifted in the darkness. “Water can only wash the outside of your skin, but steaming cleanses not only the whole of the body, but the souls as well. It maintains a purity of the blood, a balance of the organs. These things go back to the beginning of the world, to a time when First Woman used fire and water to cleanse herself.”
“First Woman?” Salamander smiled, feeling water dripping from his chin to spatter on the folds of his stomach. The tops of his thighs prickled, his sides burned, and only by rubbing his hands along the outsides of his arms could he stand the steam’s bite.
“So many stories are told about her,” Bobcat replied. “One of the things I have learned, talking to the Traders who come from all over the world, is that they have stories about the Hero Twins, and
about First Woman. About how she was there at the Creation.”
“I know little about her.”
Bobcat rubbed the sweat from his arms. “It is said that she lives in a cave at the center of the world. It is said that her essence is released in steam. That she was the first to teach the values of hot water to the People. She was the First Dreamer, the one who taught Wolf Dreamer the way to the One.”
“Do you believe that?” Salamander asked, thinking about all the stories he had heard about First Woman. “Do you really think she lives in a cave at the center of the Earth, and that a huge tree grows out of the cave’s mouth?”
Bobcat shrugged. “I don’t know, my friend. She is reclusive. Few Dreamers, Serpents, or Soul Flyers see her. It is said that while the brothers and the lesser Spirit Helpers often interact in the world of men, she prefers her cave, her Dreams slipping in and out of the One, while she mourns a long-lost love. It is said that even the Hero Twins and Sky Beings defer to her. That she is the heartbeat of the One.”
“She must be very Powerful.”
“I would not want to be the individual who disturbed her Dreams, I’ll tell you.” Bobcat shivered.
After a moment, Salamander asked, “How is the Serpent?”
“Not well. I do not know what to do for him. I have had him here, day after day. In an effort to prolong his life I have been feeding him a diet of snake meat.”
“Snake meat?”
“Have you ever seen a snake that died from old age, Salamander? Snakes live forever, or until something eats them, be it a man, an eagle, a raccoon, or a weasel. Power lies in their meat.”
“But it isn’t helping?”
“No, my friend.” Bobcat sounded weary.
“I cannot prove this, but I think that men like the Serpent hear Dream Souls, Bobcat. I think the Dead talk to them, call to them, and the Dream Soul begins to long to talk back. Think about it. So many of the Serpent’s friends are dead. Perhaps he longs to join them.”
“Perhaps. But I do not think so in his case. Have you felt the lump in his belly?”
“No.”
“It is something evil, some vicious spirit that is growing inside him, eating away at his life.”
“You’re sure you can’t kill it?”
“No, and neither can he. Snakes know, we’ve tried everything.”
“I am sorry to hear that. He has always been good to me.”
Bobcat was silent for a time. “The Serpent picks few people for his close association. He is fond of you.”
“As I am of him.”
“I know. It is a rare thing for him to show that kind of affection: therefore, I will have you know that I extend my own friendship, no matter what the future brings.”
Salamander smiled wistfully as droplets of sweat tickled on his face. “You may wish to reconsider, Bobcat. I am caught between Masked Owl and Many Colored Crow. I don’t understand my destiny yet, but I fear it will not be pleasant. Those who stand close to me should fear the lightning.”
“As your brother did?”
“As my brother should have.”
Salamander stared sadly at the faint glow of the hot rocks. They lay like giant red eggs in the shallow pit—cobbles imported from the source of the White Mud River. A hot fire of white ash had been burned around them for several hands of time. The heat rolling off the stones curled his skin when he reached out.
“You should know that Deep Hunter is enraged.” Bobcat’s voice caressed the darkness. “His nephew’s face is ruined. I have done what I can for Saw Back. He will be marked for the rest of his life, and his sight is blurry in the left eye.”
“You should not tell me these things. When you become the Serpent, you must favor no one.”
“I have learned something from the Serpent that you have not. I must favor those who are favored by Power,” he replied. “I know the responsibilities of the Serpent. I will not abuse them, Speaker. Not for you, or for anyone. But being the Serpent doesn’t mean that I can’t help those I think work for the common good.”
Salamander steepled his fingers. “Do you think that of me?”
“I do.”
“I am not so sure, Bobcat. Trouble is brewing around me like a pot of black drink. Sometimes I think it would be best if I simply left, went down to the Owl Clan holdings at Twin Circles on the gulf, or over to Yellow Mud Camp, or one of the outlying camps, and lived out my life.”
“You can’t, Salamander. You have responsibilities.” Bobcat trickled another finger of water onto the rocks. Steam popped and billowed, the cloud suffocating in the close confines of the lodge.
Salamander leaned his head back, mouth open, and let the steam drive needles into his flesh. His skin might have been blistering,
splitting from the muscle beneath. He coughed when he inhaled, and the damp fire stung his throat.
“Someone wants to kill your wife,” Bobcat said softly.
“I know.”
“He says she is a witch, come to kill us all. He says she was the prisoner White Bird brought back from the Swamp Panther raid at Ground Cherry Camp.”
“She was.”
“He says that malevolent spirits freed her in the middle of the night.”
“No malevolent spirits freed her. It wasn’t magic, or anything nearly as frightening,” Salamander said wearily. “I did, Bobcat. I cut her loose that night.”
“Why?” An incredulous tone filled the young man’s voice.
“Masked Owl told me to. He came to me in a Dream, when we were flying, and told me she would be important.”
“Then she’s not dangerous?”
“Oh, no, Bobcat, she is
very
dangerous. Perhaps the most dangerous person in Sun Town.”
“If that is so, why do you keep her? Why don’t you cast her out, send her back to the Swamp Panthers and let them suck on her poison?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s a crazy answer.”
“Perhaps, but she’s part of Masked Owl’s plan. I just don’t know what it is yet.”
“Be very, very careful. She made a great many enemies when she wounded Saw Back.” Bobcat hesitated. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I have heard that someone is following her. I have not heard who, but word is that she is stalked every time she leaves Sun Town.”
Salamander took a deep breath. “I shall be careful, Bobcat. Not only is she part of Masked Owl’s plan, but she carries my child within her. She is my wife. I will take care of her.”
“Even if she destroys you in the process?”
“I think I will have warning before she does.”
“You
think
? That doesn’t sound very promising.”
“No.” He smiled. “I suppose not.”
“Beware, Speaker Salamander. Your enemies are growing stronger by the heartbeat.”
N
ight Rain squatted to relieve herself at the edge of the borrow ditch below her sister’s house. The night was still, cold. Only the distant barking of one of the camp dogs broke the silence. Smoke hung low; its odor tickled her nostrils. When she looked up it was to see a white ghosting of stars across the night sky. Father Moon still hid in shame below the horizon, and Bird Man’s path across the sky glowed with an eerie luminescence.
As she started to stand, a hand reached out from behind to grab her. That touch brought a squeal from her frightened lungs.
“
Hush!
” the familiar voice ordered. “What’s going on?”
“Uncle?” her voice failed, breath short in her panicked lungs. Mud Stalker wheeled her around to face him, his crushing grip hurting her elbow.
“What is your game, Niece? Who are you playing against whom? Deep Hunter against Salamander? Deep Hunter against me? What’s your sister’s role in this? What were you doing out there with Saw Back? Rutting, like everyone says? That I don’t doubt! But why didn’t you tell me?”
“Uncle, please!” She squirmed away from the pain.
“You tell me, woman. You start at the beginning, and you tell me.”
“Uncle, honestly, I didn’t do anything …” His hard slap sent her stumbling. She slipped, falling backward into her damp urine.
“Don’t lie to me!”
She caught her breath, swallowed hard, and cast a desperate glance at the dark shape of her house up on the ridgetop. Pine Drop would be asleep, ignorant of her plight. Not that it would matter, not even Pine Drop would interfere with their uncle over clan business.
“Please don’t hurt me.”
“I’ll beat you until your souls cling to your body by a thread!”
He drew back a foot, as if to kick her. She scrambled back, hands and feet sliding in the mud. “I swear, I did nothing against the clan. I just wanted Saw Back! You know that! You know I’ve always been in love with him!”
Mud Stalker loomed over her. “Deep Hunter knew I was going to offer Eats Wood for Green Beetle. He beat me to it, offered Thunder Tail his cousin, Needs Two, and access to a root ground before I could take the Speaker out to that bear tree. I couldn’t figure it out. But after the Council meeting, and what Pine Drop did, I finally understand. You were there, you heard me discuss it that night with your mother.”
“I
didn’t
, I swear!” She was suddenly thankful for the darkness. He couldn’t see her face, couldn’t read the lie in her expression.
“Why did Salamander take you back? Why didn’t he just throw you out like the punky worm-riddled piece of wood you are?”
“I don’t know! You’d have to ask him. He’s … he’s …”
“What?”
“Odd, Uncle. Strange. He hears things, has Dreams.” She lurched backward like a crawfish on land as he stepped nearer. “I don’t know what possesses his souls to make him do the things he does.”
“What does the barbarian hold over him? Is she a witch? Does she control his souls?”
“I don’t think so. She’s just mean. She hates us. You heard Eats Wood; he says she’s the one White Bird caught. You’ve seen those scars on her skin? We did that to her when she was a prisoner.”
“Why did you betray me to Deep Hunter?” His voice sounded tired now, wounded.
“Uncle, I didn’t. You have to believe me.”
“I shouldn’t have trusted you. You were too young, not smart enough. I see that now. Snakes! What was I to do? Don’t you understand, woman? We’re almost at the top! We’ve worked all of our lives to see our clan become preeminent. The gains we have made can disappear from beneath us like water from a puddle, and you
let a little pleasure in your canoe, and the promises of a crafty lizard like Deep Hunter, turn you against your own family!”
“Uncle, I swear!”
She squatted there, her butt in the mud, waiting as his dark body hulked against the stars. The silence grew interminable.
When he finally broke it, he asked, “What part did Salamander play in all this? What did he do to get Pine Drop to support him in the Council?”
“He asked her to trust him,” she whispered, unable to see what it would hurt. “That it would explode like a chert nodule in a fire if she didn’t.”
She could see him, a dark blot against the sky as he fingered the scars on his maimed arm.
“Salamander was trying to keep our clan from fighting with Alligator Clan.” There, would that mollify him?
“Why? What difference does it make to him?”
“We’re his wives.” She swallowed hard, trying to find the right answer. “He cares for us. For me.”
The kick caught her by surprise. His foot slammed into her ribs, rolling her. She yelped at the pain, frightened by the hollow thump.
“You’re
stupid
, Night Rain! No one cares for a woman like you.” Mud Stalker turned his head and spat. “Least of all your skinny, witless husband.” A pause. “No, this is something else. Some plotting he must be doing at the behest of that Panther witch who wraps him around her bony fingers.”
“Uncle, I—”
“Shut up! I’m thinking, trying to understand.”
“Please, Uncle, I didn’t do
anything
!”
“You betrayed me. You and Pine Drop. But don’t think I haven’t learned, Niece. Indeed, I have learned a great deal about you—and your husband. I’ve underestimated him. I won’t do that again.”
She could feel his gaze as he studied her. She wanted to shrink, to shrivel up and burrow into the waste-tainted mud.
“In the future when I come to you, you will tell me the truth, Night Rain. And someday, to make up for this humiliation to Snapping Turtle Clan, to your lineage, and me, I am going to ask you for something. When I do, you are going to do as I say, or I am going to break your head with a stone-headed hammer. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Uncle.” Her voice came as a hoarse whisper.
“In the meantime, stay out of my sight.”
He turned, walking wearily away—head down, shoulders bowed. He plodded up past her house and headed east on the ridge.
She closed her eyes and sagged into the stinking mud.
B
ranches, like gray fuzz, softened the distant border between the forest and sky as if one faded into the other. The morning was cold, silent but for the calls of the winter birds. Not even the ducks stirred when Anhinga’s canoe slipped silently down the channel.
Her breath puffed whitely. Despite the cold she paddled with her cloak thrown back over her shoulders; her muscles provided enough warmth. On the still water the cold seemed thicker, sticky, ready to sap a body’s heat. She glanced at the canebrakes, tawny and gray. The banks were brown, the trees black, their fringe of branches lonely and longing for spring.
“You shouldn’t be taking this trip,” Pine Drop had warned the night before.
As if I need advice from her!
Anhinga made a face, feeling the cold in her cheeks. The bulge of her belly made sitting in the canoe awkward, but she needed time away. Besides which, her brother, Striped Dart, would be coming to meet her this time. Half a cycle had passed since she had seen him last. He would be bursting with news about people at the Panther’s Bones. She, in turn, had so much to tell him about the Sun People, and Night Rain, about smacking Saw Back, and the ruckus she had stirred in the Council as a result.
Thinking about Saw Back brought a shudder to her. The side of his face looked horrible. In the weeks since the incident, he had healed, but her ax had peeled a long scar that ran from beside his navel to just under his left nipple. The thin arch of bone ahead of his ear had been crushed. Had she not turned the ax at the last moment the blow would surely have penetrated his skull.
When he, or any of his clan, looked at her now, it was with a simmering hatred.
He attacked me.
That memory clung to her like summer cobwebs. The incident filled her thoughts, recurring in her Dreams.
By the Panther’s bones, that had been a close one. But for her quick wits, it could have turned out worse than it had. Oddly, she rather enjoyed having put Night Rain in her place. Over the long
term, however, she had a hunch that her actions that morning would come to haunt her.
Overhead a V of geese crossed above the web of branches. The swish of their wings and the lonely honking were the only sounds outside of the water gurgling around her paddle.
She glanced up at the banks—just enough higher that each tangle of dormant honeysuckle or nightshade could conceal a crouching warrior. She could imagine Saw Back’s smile of anticipation as her slim canoe coasted within range. He would feel the joy of revenge in his breast as he rose, sighted, and drove a dart through her body.
He will kill my baby
. Her mouth went dry. Panther! Why hadn’t that thought occurred to her? It wasn’t just her anymore. If anything, the baby was even more of a temptation to Saw Back. He could kill her and Salamander’s child in one stroke. He could wreak his retribution on her while repaying Salamander for his trickery in allowing Jaguar Hide to escape: two for one.
A stick cracked in the forest. A squirrel dropping a nut? Or the weighty step of a man’s foot?
The silence pressed down upon her. As the canoe coasted she pulled her atlatl and darts closer to hand. Next she slipped her ax through the belt of her kirtle.
Ghostly fingers of breeze stirred the quiet air. She whirled, rocking the canoe. The channel behind her lay empty, her wake spreading toward the banks. In the cold winter sun the water had a silver sheen. She couldn’t see far, the channel twisted and looped, choked with cypress, tupelo, and water oak. The trees watched her, silent, as if their ancient souls were waiting.
Eyes, a thousand of them! She glanced around, looking up in the branches where brown-tinted hanging moss drooped wearily. Her quickened imagination saw faces leering out from the patterns of dry vegetation.
Swallowing, she picked up the paddle and drove her canoe forward.
Hurry! Just leave this place behind. If he is after you, outrun him. Paddle like you have never paddled before.
The canoe flew ahead.
He could be just behind her, and knowing these passages, he could beach his canoe, cut across a narrow neck of land, and ambush her from any patch of tangled brush.
Flee, you have no other choice.
She couldn’t go back, not and take the chance of running headlong into him.
She tightened her hands on the paddle handle.
You’re being silly, Anhinga. You have no proof that he’s behind you. No proof that he’s after you at all.
She was just jittery. Her imagination was teasing her. The strain had begun to make itself felt in her shoulders and arms.
I would be out hunting, if I were he.
She couldn’t help but remember that she herself, smarting from injustice, had brought a war party north to avenge Bowfin’s death. Perhaps Saw Back wasn’t as impetuous as she, but could she take the chance? How many eyes had been watching that morning as Salamander saw her off from the landing?
Paddle!
A new surge of fear drove her onward. They would know she would have taken this channel south. It was the most direct way through the bottomlands paralleling Sun Town’s high silt bluff. If she made it to the rendezvous alive, she could always take another route home. It might be longer, out of the way, but a hunter wouldn’t know when or where to expect her.
If I go home.
That thought caught her by surprise. She didn’t have to go back. Not after the affair with Saw Back. Uncle wouldn’t expect her to and neither would Striped Dart. They would rather have her safe, especially carrying her clan’s child.
She shot a quick look over her shoulder again. Nothing. Her wake was undisturbed by so much as a fish jumping.
Salamander would approve of her caution. In the gray dawn of the canoe landing she had seen the worry in her husband’s eyes.
“I have to go,” she had told him simply. “They will be waiting for me. If I don’t show up, they will worry. It might lead them to foolishness. We both know how dangerous it would be if they came here looking for me. Only Owl Clan is bound by your word of peace.”

Other books

In the Spinster's Bed by Sally MacKenzie
Falling by Debbie Moon
A Rake's Midnight Kiss by Anna Campbell
Colmillo Blanco by Jack London
The Tale of the Rose by Consuelo de Saint-Exupery
The Detective Branch by Andrew Pepper
THE DARKEST ANGEL by Gena Showalter
The Arraignment by Steve Martini
A Long Thaw by Katie O'Rourke