People of the Owl: A Novel of Prehistoric North America (North America's Forgotten Past) (54 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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“It is a first child,” Water Petal reminded. “Your body has never done this before. That infant has to push your hipbones apart.”
“Crack them in two, you mean.” Anhinga gasped as another contraction tightened inside of her.
“Push,” Pine Drop told her. “Push.”
The realization that she herself was only two moons from this same ordeal brought a trickle of fear into Pine Drop’s guts. She absently reached down with her free hand to feel the swell of her pregnancy.
“I’m … ah …” Anhinga didn’t finish but gasped a full breath, chest swelling, her heavy breasts taut as she bit down hard and grimaced with the effort.
Water Petal looked up, met Pine Drop’s eyes, and said, “It is soon. She is opening.”
“By Panther’s blood!” Anhinga gasped, her head flopping weakly to the side as she gulped breath. “My insides are tearing apart!”
“If they were, I would be seeing a lot of blood,” Water Petal answered matter-of-factly. She patted one of Anhinga’s brown knees, her critical eyes monitoring.
“And there isn’t?” Anhinga asked.
“A bit. Watery. Just what’s normal.”
The next contraction brought Anhinga’s head up. Strong thigh muscles slid under her smooth brown skin as she strained. Her hand tightened on Pine Drop’s in a grip the likes of which would slip the skin from her finger bones.
“Aaiiiahhh!” she cried. Her legs were trembling.
Pine Drop saw the change, the difference in the swell of Anhinga’s belly as the infant moved lower.
“Soon, now.” Water Petal smiled. “The tissue down here is swollen. Night Rain, be ready to hand me that moss.”
Anhinga’s jaw worked like a beached fish’s. She kept blinking against the sweat as Pine Drop wiped her brow with the damp cloth.
“Deep breath. Push!” Water Petal ordered, as Anhinga contorted with another contraction. “Hold it! Keep pushing!”
Pine Drop bent to one side in time to see Anhinga’s red vaginal lips peel out and part as the blood-streaked globe appeared. “Push!” she cried. “The head’s almost out!”
“Araghhh!” Anhinga gasped a lungful of air, curled up, and tightened her muscles. Her eyes were wide, staring, as the mound of her belly deflated.
Water Petal smiled in delight as the infant slid into her hands. Pine Drop could only stare at the wet thing, splotched in red, its unsightly blue color picking the odd memory of fish guts from her memory.
Night Rain thrust handfuls of hanging moss out, looking oddly cowed by the sight of the squirming infant, slick with fluid, its thick umbilical trailing back into Anhinga’s vagina.
With practiced hands, Water Petal wiped the mouth clean. She turned the infant facedown, lifting the hips and massaging the lungs. Fluid dribbled from the mouth, and Pine Drop watched the baby take its first breath. It coughed, expelled more fluid, then drew its lungs full and squalled.
“A girl,” Water Petal told the exhausted Anhinga. “Your lineage has an heir.”
Anhinga lay panting, her hands knotted into fists. She had fixed her eyes on something beyond the dark roof. A weak shudder ran through her.
Water Petal used a white chert flake to sever the umbilical. She tied it off with callused fingers. Mindless of the infant’s squalls, she continued to wipe the now-pinking flesh dry. “There, there, little one. You are safe among us. We want you to know that you are welcome here, and we hope that good souls come to fill your body.”
Pine Drop sat back, one hand on her belly. “I pray that it will be that easy for me.”
“Easy?” Anhinga rasped. “My guts are pulled in two.”
It was Night Rain who said, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t think I’m going to let Salamander’s manhood ride in my canoe again. It isn’t worth it. I can find my pleasure in some other way than with a man.”
“You’ll take Salamander back to your bed.” Water Petal chuckled
dryly. “Having been through this, I can tell you that the body forgets the pain, remembering only the pleasure.” She arched an eyebrow. “Night Rain? Could you go find Salamander? He’s atop the Bird’s Head, praying. Tell him he has a daughter, and that his wife is healthy, too.”
“I’ll be right back.” Night Rain ducked out the door into the windy evening.
Pine Drop sighed, smiling down at Anhinga. “How do you feel? The afterbirth still has to come out.”
“In its own time.” Anhinga raised her arms to take the tiny infant to her breast. As the little pink mouth found the nipple, Anhinga closed her eyes. “By the Panther’s blood, that feels good.”
“Is she sucking?” Water Petal asked. “Are you making milk?”
Anhinga nodded, and Pine Drop noticed the wetness around the baby’s mouth. “She’s doing fine.”
Water Petal grinned. “Well, women, that’s that. No complications. We’re off to a good start.” She reached up, massaging her own breast. “It brings a tenderness to me.”
“You will have more children,” Pine Drop said evenly. “We pray for you.”
Anhinga’s breathing turned shallow. She blinked, tears hidden behind her eyes as she said, “Thank you. Thank you all for staying with me.”
“We are a household,” Pine Drop said, speaking for all of them. “You would have been there for us.”
“If I survive this”—a faint smile crossed her lips—“I’ll look forward to watching your expression as I repeat all the things you told me.”
Pine Drop laughed as she handed Water Petal the damp rag to clean her hands.
So, somehow, in the face of looming disaster, we have become a household. What a delight it would be if forces were not gathering to destroy us all
.
S
alamander crouched in the darkness, his bone stiletto driving into the dark soil. He laid it to the side and used his fingers to pull the loosened earth from the hole. In his other hand he held the baked silt effigy recovered from under Anhinga’s bed. The hard part had been wiping the fetish with the afterbirth. It had taken all of his wits to accomplish that before Water Petal took it out beyond the rings for a proper burial.
He looked up at the night sky, so incredibly clear on this moonless equinox night. The stars wove patterns of white across the blackness. Bird Man’s trail looked like fog running from north to south.
“Are you watching, old friend?” Salamander stared up into the darkness. “My wife’s baby was born healthy. I am here, as you told me to be. I remember what you instructed me to do.”
He reached down and grasped the little figurine around the head with one hand and the body with the other. Twisting, he snapped the neck cleanly. Then, laying the pieces in the hole, he covered them with the dark earth. “Thank you, Elder. I ask your souls to look over us, to watch out for this little infant girl who has joined our lives. Anhinga has enemies here who would harm her and her child. Guard us from all manner of evil.”
He picked up his stiletto and stood in the darkened ring of the Serpent’s burnt house. His old friend’s flat face smiled at him from the firelit warmth of his memories. Did he feel that warm soul drifting around him now?
Bobcat’s cleansing on the Turtle’s Back was almost complete. He would come here with the full moon and begin construction of a new Serpent’s house on the foundation of the old one. It had always been thus, one Serpent after another living on this spot on the third ridge in the center of Owl Clan’s territory.
In that instant he could feel Power washing around him. Unseen eyes peered at him out of the darkness. Just how many of those little figurines were lying buried around here? How many of the Dead pressed around him, stroking his skin with their fingers? The thought of it brought a shiver to his cool flesh, and he turned his steps for home.
A couple of dogs barked at him, but no one would be out this late at night. He walked alone, accompanied only by the Dream Souls of the Dead.
He ducked into his doorway and crossed to Anhinga’s bed before lifting the buffalo hide and slipping next to his wife’s warm body.
“What was that?” Anhinga asked, catching him by surprise.
“What was what?”
She shifted, and he could feel her eyes with the same intensity that he had those of the ghosts. “That thing you dug up from under my bed?”
He took a deep breath. “I thought you were asleep.”
“The infant was sucking. I watched you dig something out from under the bed.”
“A charm,” he told her. “Something the Serpent gave me before he died to ensure that your pregnancy was healthy. Now that you and the little girl are all right, I had to care for it properly.”
“That is all it was?”
He could hear suspicion in her voice and slipped his cold arm around her, careful not to disturb the infant sleeping between them. “It was enough. You and the baby are fine.”
“Are you witching me?”
“Why would I be witching you?”
“To make me like you.”
He laughed. “Too bad I didn’t think of that earlier. I might have tried it. Instead, you have only me, as I am, with no witching.”
She shifted again, snuggling the infant into the hollow of her hips. “Why did you follow me to the island that day, Salamander? What am I to you? Why did you care if I was safe? Is it just the sandstone?”
“You are my wife.”
“Is it that easy for you, Salamander? No questions about what truly lies in my souls?”
“I know who you are.” He smiled sadly in the darkness. “And I know that in the end, you will do what you must.”
She lay silent in the darkness, and after a moment, he heard soft sobbing.
P
ine Drop climbed the long slope, stopping on occasion to catch her breath. She was tired of pregnancy. Tired of the discomfort, of having to rise every so often in the night to waddle out and urinate. The shifting of her daughter—for she assumed Salamander had been right about that—disrupted what little sleep she managed.
Above her the Bird’s Head loomed out of the graying dawn. The last of the stars were fading. A warm misty breeze blew up from the south, carrying with it the scent of greening grass, the perfume of dogwood, redbud, elder, and locust blossoms.
Spring had warmed the land, stirring the life that had lain dormant in memory of Mother Sun’s flight to the south. As she climbed she could hear the high piping of one of the last flocks of blue herons heading northward on the gulf wind.
The grass, thick and lush, fed by the winter rains, curled around her feet when she wandered off the path. A vole rustled away from her passage.
When she looked up, she could see the ramada, and there, on the palmetto-thatched poles of the cane roof, she made out the solitary shape of an owl. In the twilight, it watched her, huge, the largest barred owl she had ever seen. Black eyes studied her from within the twin circles of the facial disks.
She froze, a prickle running through her as their eyes met. Her souls began to tingle. She could swear that she could not only feel
her own heartbeat, but that of her daughter deep in her womb.
Time seemed to swoon, silvering and shifting around her like vision through clear moving water.
She sensed rather than saw the owl spread its wings. The giant bird drifted down, silent, its wings enlarging until they filled the sky. To the last moment she stared into the liquid depths of those huge brown eyes, and then, as if with a snap, the owl was gone. Vanished.
She spun on her feet, staring behind her—and saw nothing. The clear gray air was empty.
Snakes! Where did it go? How could such a big bird have just disappeared into the air?
Her throat had tightened, her mouth become dry. She could feel her blood, bursting through her with each pounding of her heart.
Resuming the climb took every resource and all of the courage she could muster. She laid a hand on one of the ramada poles, panting for breath, and looked up at the great mound’s peak.
She could see him sitting there, legs crossed on the summit, his head back, eyes closed. His hands rested, palms up, on his bent knees. Morning dew had settled on his black hair, turning it silver.
The expression on his face stopped her. He had a beatific look, a lax smile on his lips. He might have been savoring some taste, perhaps a sweet squash flavored with honeysuckle that lay so delicately on the tongue.
Filling her lungs, she forced her weary legs up the last slope and lowered herself quietly to sit beside him. Every muscle in her body vibrated like a stretched cord. An electric sensation, like that from rubbed fur, crackled along her nerves.
She swallowed hard and studied him.
What sort of man are you, Husband? Does Power flow through you like sap, or is it a madness?
Salamander seemed oblivious, so locked away in his visions that nothing else existed in the world.
She waited, turning her eyes to the eastern horizon and the reddening beyond the distant tree line. The bulge of the sun slowly emerged from behind the forest’s bulk. She sighed, unconsciously reaching out for Mother Sun’s light, as if she could grab hold of those first glorious rays and scrub the darkness from her souls.
“It is glorious, isn’t it?” Salamander barely spoke above a whisper.
She spared him a glance. His eyes remained closed, the blissful look on his face.
“Yes.” She took a breath to still her souls. “Look how far north it has moved since the solstice. We are forest people, Husband. Knowing that Mother Sun moves across the sky is one thing, actually
seeing it makes the stories about her come true.”
He remained as calm as a rock, unmoving, his hands still on his knees as though supporting something in the air.
“I saw Masked Owl,” she told him nervously. “I think I sacred him away.”
“You did not scare him.”
She shifted, pulling her kirtle around so that it didn’t chafe her pendulous belly. “Does he always come when you call him?”
“No. He came to see me. He is worried.”
“About what?”
“About my new Spirit Helper. She has changed the balance between Masked Owl and Many Colored Crow. The future is no longer certain, Pine Drop. They don’t know what I am going to choose.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean, choose?”
His smile was sad. “Nothing comes without a price.”
She ground her teeth for a moment, then asked, “Husband? I must ask you something. It is very important to me.”
“I am not a witch. Masked Owl is not evil. I seek to harm no one.”
A flood of relief washed through her. “Then you have heard the talk?”
“No. You are the first to mention it to me.”
She flinched, unsettled. “You are becoming ever more strange, Salamander. Power is growing in you, and it frightens me.”
“You are a wise woman.”
“I don’t feel very wise these days, Husband. Things are happening. A trap is being built for you, and I can sense the cords that run to the deadfall trigger. I can feel people tugging on them. If they pull the trigger loose, the weight is going to fall and crush you.”
“I Dance on such a thin edge,” he whispered. Sunlight flooded his face, washing his delicate skin in red. He looked so young and fragile. “I’m scared, Pine Drop. If I slip and fall, it will be into a horrible nightmare. The worst thing is, it isn’t just me. It is you and Night Rain and Anhinga and Water Petal. One misstep on my part can destroy you all.”
She clenched her fists. “The clans are moving against you.”
“Wife, it would be so sweet if my only concern was the clans. Masked Owl would have me believe that the One and the Dance are all that matter. The One is so Powerful. It calls to me. It would be so easy to give in. To find happiness like Mother did. The only thing that calls me back is you, Pine Drop. My wives and my daughters. They need me. The People need me.”
“Of course we do.”
A great sadness filled his voice. “Wolf Dreamer said that a man couldn’t love and Dream. I want to do both. If only I could tear myself in two, send my Dream Soul to spin with the One, and my Life Soul to embrace you and watch my daughters grow.”
“Half the time I have no idea what you are saying.”
He smiled sadly. “Someday you will. You are the future.”
“Forget that for a moment
and listen to me!
” She took a breath. “Uncle is working in secret, building an alliance to have you declared a witch.” There, she’d done it. Betrayed her clan as surely as Night Rain had done. A sick feeling stirred in her gut.
“They can’t destroy what they do not comprehend.”
“They can smack you in the back of the head with an ax,” she declared. “If the Council decides to brand you as a witch, they won’t give you any warning. They will act by surprise, and you won’t know until you feel your skull split open.”
For a long time he sat there, eyes flickering under the closed lids. “Why do you care, Pine Drop?”
She looked down miserably where she picked at her fingers. “I have come to love you.”
“There is no greater gift and no greater curse.”
“Curse? What do you mean?”
“You draw me back from the edge.”
She squinted in disbelief. “You really want to fall off that edge you were talking about?”
“More than anything you can imagine, Wife.” A faint smile bent his lips. “But for you, all of you, I would be drawn like a bee to a pitcher plant. I would lick desperately at the sweetness as I fell into the depths.”
“By the Sky Beings, why?”
“Because the other way would be too painful.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about what I will have to give up for the future, Pine Drop. I just don’t know if I am strong enough to see it through. I am so tempted to choose a long and happy life.”
“Then choose it! Help me stop this witchcraft story before it starts.”
He smiled, as if amused by her worry.
“I need to know something, Salamander. Did Anhinga kill my cousin, Eats Wood?” There, she had asked. Now, waiting for his reply, her souls twisted in anticipation. In response, he just sat there, legs crossed, eyes closed, holding his hands palm up. “Salamander?”
“No, she did not.” He raised his hands, inspecting them intently
as he worked his fingers back and forth. He blinked, clenched his fists, and stiffened his back as if stung.
“Salamander? Did you kill him?”
“I think it would have taken someone with a warrior’s courage to kill your cousin.” He shot her an innocent smile. “I’ve been meaning to give you something.”
She frowned, unsure what had just happened between them.
He reached into the tuck of his breechcloth and pulled out a sinew-wrapped square. With careful fingers he unwound the thread, revealing two pieces of flat bark. This he handed to her.
The wood felt warm to her fingers, as though they had been baking in the sun. She separated the pieces finding five blue jay feathers that had been resting there, perfectly pressed by the soft bark.
“What?” she asked, lifting the delicate feathers.
“You left them the morning you took the little carved owl. I am returning them. You didn’t have to leave anything in payment. That owl was for you. I just hadn’t finished it yet. I would rather see those feathers sewn into the bare patch on your cloak.”
Tears caught her by surprise and blurred her vision with silver. “What is happening to you, Husband? What are you becoming?”
“The future.”
P
ine Drop’s daughter had been born in the middle of the night while a misty spring rain fell. They had run low on wood, having to send Night Rain to borrow from one of her cousins. Anhinga wrung out a cloth as she cleaned the blood-streaked infant. Curious, wasn’t it, that caring for a newborn could become such second nature in so short a time?
She glanced at her own daughter, asleep in a cane-framed cradleboard. The child’s wispy black hair was visible above the cloth bundle, her skull like a delicate gourd. Looking closer, Anhinga could see that her eyes were closed, the tiny mouth open to expose pink gums and a curl of tongue.
“It was easier this time,” Night Rain said as she held Pine Drop’s hand.
“Easier for you,” Pine Drop answered wearily as she lay gulping air like a dying fish. Sweat beaded on her brown skin, pooling in the stretch marks around her navel.
“I thought it was enjoyable,” Anhinga said, eyes flashing. “I enjoyed repeating those things you told me.”
“Next time,” Pine Drop mumbled, “you can deliver your own child.”
Night Rain used hanging moss to wipe up the last of the blood from the matting that lay between Pine Drop’s legs. She pressed it into a bundle, and before Anhinga could draw breath to stop her, tossed the moss into the smoldering fire. Flames licked around it before climbing through the moss. The wet blood and tissue steamed and hissed as it burned. The air filled with a pungent odor.
“I would have burned it outside,” Anhinga said, scrunching her nose.
“I didn’t think of that,” Night Rain replied sheepishly.
Anhinga finished her cleaning before dropping to her knees beside Pine Drop. The newborn hung on Pine Drop’s right breast. The woman’s tired arms cradled the infant. Anhinga watched from half-lowered eyes as the tiny mouth worked the nipple.
She thought it curious that Salamander had arrived bearing a fiber-tempered bowl and offered to carry the afterbirth out beyond the clan grounds for burial. Shifting, she noticed the turned earth under Pine Drop’s bed, as if something had been recently dug from there. A slow smile crossed her lips.

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