People of the Owl: A Novel of Prehistoric North America (North America's Forgotten Past) (55 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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“Snakes,” Pine Drop whispered. “I could sleep for a solid moon.”
Anhinga sighed, throwing her head back and feeling her dark hair falling down her back. Panther’s blood, she was tired. “I, too, am ready to fall over. If you need me, you’ll find me at Salamander’s. Sleeping.”
“I can call on kin,” Night Rain told her. “Thank you, Anhinga. We didn’t think it would take so long.”
“Mine did,” she replied as she reached for her daughter. Wrapping the fabric to protect the baby’s face from mosquitoes, she took a last look around, nodded, and ducked out into the night.
The faintest of breezes played with the heavy night air. She could feel the promise of summer’s coming warmth. A cloudless sky was painted with stars, while a sliver of moon hung just above the eastern horizon. A whippoorwill called plaintively from beyond the house-topped ridges. Crickets and frogs added their voices to the night. Woodsmoke hung in the air, mixing with the cloying odor of rotting trash and the tang of human waste.
She tucked her daughter close to her shoulder and walked down the ridge before turning north along the edge of the bluff. The ridges here, she was told, had been built atop an old gully. One the Sun
People had filled before plotting out the Snapping Turtle Clan ground.
Below her the tree-filled bottom land south of the lake lay in dark shadow. She could smell cooler air, the pungent scent of the swamp carrying to her position.
She passed the edge of the ridges and glanced uneasily at the dark houses. The last one belonged to Mud Stalker. She stopped, staring at it.
A wicker door blocked the entrance. She cocked her head, stretching down with her free hand to reach into her pouch. Her fingers caressed the stone-tipped knife that lay there. Salamander had sharpened it, using an antler tip to pressure flake an edge keen enough to slice hair.
It would be so easy.
She need only slip that doorway aside, step in, and one quick slash would leave his throat severed from side to side. Before he could fully call his souls to wakefulness, he would be choking on his bubbling blood, tasting it as it rushed up in his mouth and nostrils.
She snorted to herself and hurried on. Pus and blood, what was happening to her? Uncle hadn’t been right, had he? She wasn’t beginning to see these people as her own?
Disgusted with herself, she strode purposefully on her way, passing the head of the narrow ditch that drained Snapping Turtle Clan when she stopped short. Her path had taken her to the plaza where the Men’s House stood on its double-humped mound.
She stared at the structure, its thatched roof inky against the sky. The carvings atop the ridgepole guarded the building—black silhouettes against the night.
She swallowed hard, taking careful steps to the pole where she had been tied. Reaching down, she touched the grass-covered earth. The dirt was cool, damp on her fingertips.
She tucked her chin, smelling her baby daughter’s delicate scent as it rose from the cradleboard. How many things had changed since she had been bound and helpless here?
In the eye of her soul, she relived that terrible day. Remembered how they had cut Cooter’s liver out of his body. How they had laughed as they bent down to defecate into Mist Finger’s empty eye sockets. Once again the camp dogs slung silver drool as they snapped up bits of raw flesh cut from her friends. She could see the stripped rib cage, all that was left of who? Slit Nose? Spider Fire?
So much hatred. So much death.
What brought me here?
A fist tightened around her heart. Was that the price she had paid
by waiting for so long? That her memories would begin to weaken, that the pain of that day, the humiliation to their spirits and memories, would begin to fade?
She could feel Bowfin and her dead friends, watching her from the darkness, their eyes burning as they studied her. She could sense their frustration and swelling anger.
Will you act?
The words seemed to linger on the night.
She steeled herself and stood. To her surprise her fingers hurt, and something firm filled her palm. She opened her hand, wondering when she had clawed the soil from ground.
H
e sat in the doorway of the Men’s House, his form obscured by the deep shadow. He had barely seen her coming as she walked across the plaza. Hadn’t recognized her until she stopped at the pole and bent down to feel the ground.
Now he watched as she hurried away, her gait halfway between a run and a walk.
Saw Back reached up and fingered the side of his crushed face. It would have been so easy. He could have sneaked up on the balls of his feet. She’d have never known he was there until the snapping of her skull as he drove his ax through it.
“Someday, woman.”
It would not be in the darkness. Not in the quiet night. No, he wanted her to know he was going to kill her. He wanted to look into her eyes, see her fear, as he choked the life out of her body.
S
alamander had spent the last week since the birth of Pine Drop’s daughter alternating back and forth between his two houses. On this night he lay in Night Rain’s arms. Their coupling had been like an intimate dance that led to a pulsing ecstasy that Night Rain shared as she absorbed his seed. Wrapped in each other’s arms they had fallen into an exhausted sleep.
Salamander didn’t hear the rasp of black feathers in the night. Above the house, midnight spirit wings enfolded his Dream Soul in downy softness.
The Dream, so vivid, captivated him: He was climbing the Bird’s Head. The day was one of those that came in late spring: bright, sunny, with a scattering of clouds in a light blue sky. Humidity had softened the air, its moist touch on the verdant growth.
Grass waved at his feet as Salamander climbed. Around him, the world seemed to glow with an emerald heartbeat. He could feel the earth, alive, breathing. Even the air seemed to swell in his nose and lungs.
His climb was effortless. He almost floated upward—a leaf borne upon the breeze.
At the top, a lone figure made a dark silhouette against the sky.
Salamander squinted against the glorious light, trying to identify the person. But no, not a person at all. Rather, it looked more birdlike, or was that just a black-feathered cape that hung from the figure’s shoulders? The head, when it turned, was indeed a giant
bird’s. A straight black beak protruded, shining like polished jet.
Salamander slowed, suddenly uncertain.
“Come, my friend!” the being called, waving a feather-laced arm. “It is time that we finally talked.”
Salamander trod the last couple of body lengths, studying the apparition. Long black feathers hung down from a cloak that covered the man’s arms. From behind a raven’s mask, two sharp brown eyes could be seen. A short tunic made of snakeskin ran down between the man’s legs to end in a rattlesnake’s tail.
“Bird Man?” Salamander gasped.
“I have come to see you, Salamander. Come to see who and what you are. There are things you have not been told. It wasn’t easy to reach you as it is. Masked Owl guards you well.”
“Why? What is he afraid of?”
“He fears that you might find all the pieces of your scattered visions. He fears that when you fit them together, you may choose a different path than the one he has been so carefully planning for you.”
“I don’t want to be in the middle of this!”
Bird Man extended a feathered finger to indicate the crossshaped scar on his chest. “You have been marked with it, young Dreamer. Whatever you wished, Power has found itself at the center of those intersecting lines over your heart. Do you feel it?”
When Salamander lifted his fingers he detected the throbbing under the hard knot of scar tissue. Looking down, he could see a yellow glow at the center of his breastbone.
“Yes, there,” the gentle voice told him. “What an unlikely sort of hero you are. I can understand Masked Owl’s interest in you. He always seems drawn to the odd ones, to the deformed, or the naive.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. He seems taken with that silly notion of looking for strength in weakness. You are his type, but what I really don’t understand is how you could have managed to involve the old woman. Mostly she huddles in her cave like an infant wrapped tight in the womb. She seems content to watch from afar.”
“What old woman? Do you mean one of the Clan Elders? Cane Frog, or …”
“No, young fool. I mean old Heron. For some reason—and it’s beyond me—she has taken a liking to you. It upsets things, you know. Any hint of predictability vanished the moment she saved you from dying from your stupidity.”
“Stupidity?”
“Taking those mushrooms you found in the Serpent’s lodge.
That first time the old man gave you just a taste. Only enough to allow your souls to drift up and glance the Spirit World. The second time, you ate too much. I thought all of our problems were over—and by your own hand, too.”
“Problems?”
“What did the old woman promise you? That you would become a great Dreamer? Is that what you intend to do? Just when everyone needs you the most, you are going to bundle yourself into a canoe, paddle off to some secluded isle, and Dream for the rest of your life?”
Salamander frowned. “The One calls to me.”
“It calls to everyone,” Bird Man said irritably. “Just because it has a certain lure, you’re set to abandon all of your responsibilities to your wives, your children, Water Petal and Yellow Spider, your lineage, and Owl Clan. How noble of you. You will spend the rest of your life eating bugs and leaves, trying to escape yourself in an attempt to find nothingness.”
“But to Dance with the One—”
“Means disappointing people who love you and depend on you.”
“Then why is it there?”
“An accident of the Creation. You answered your Serpent’s question, didn’t you? When the sky was separated from the land it was to create duality, otherness. Opposites, if you will. Do you really think a young man like you can Dream them back together? What you feel, fool, is the hole that was left, and it’s trying to pull you in.”
“It is?”
Bird Man cocked his head. “Think about it, Salamander. I remember my idiot brother trying to tell me once, long ago, that I was unschooled, but that I could still find a way to the Dream.” His lips quirked behind the mask. “Now, having been part of the Spirit World for so long, I can tell you that the One isn’t all that there is.”
“It’s not?”
Bird Man spread his feather-clad arm to take in the huge vista of Sun Town. “Look down there, Salamander. Do you realize the majesty of this place? Nothing else like it exists in our world. It is from here that the vision will spread. You and your brother have spurred it. Hazel Fire and his companions have taken the bait! So, too, have so many of the others. You have set fire to their imaginations, like blowing on a dying coal. Even Striped Dart is beguiled. Your impulses are correct, Salamander. You can grasp the future!”
“As my brother did with his seeds?”
“Yes, my friend.” A thoughtful brown eye studied him. “I could do nothing to save him.”
“Masked Owl killed him.” Salamander frowned. “I don’t understand it. White Bird would have made a brilliant Speaker, the greatest ever.”
“You are wrong.”
“I am?”
“You could make an even greater Speaker, Salamander.” Those piercing brown eyes were taking his measure. “That is one of the things Masked Owl doesn’t want you to know. As Speaker you can change the People forever. You can start them on a path of greatness that will rival anything in the world.”
Bird Man smiled at Salamander’s surprise, and said, “Salamander, you have been agonizing over your visions of the future. You caught glimpses, but not a full picture. You saw the grand ruler, high above the river. Do you remember?”
“Yes.”
With a swirl of his feathers, Bird Man outlined a burning circle against the sky. Within its ring Salamander could see pointed pyramids of stone, people beyond count laboring in fertile fields alongside a winding brown river. Giant stone buildings stood above the sun-baked shores. Square stone spears thrust into the sky like giant awls.
“They are already building marvels over there,” Bird Man whispered.
“Where is that?” Salamander gasped, trying to understand the scale of the buildings and pyramids. Was it his imagination, or did they dwarf Sun Town?
“In another world, my friend. Far to the east, across a huge ocean of water.” Bird Man shrugged.
“We could do that? Here?” Salamander marveled. “We don’t have the stone!”
Bird Man laughed again. “Just because you live on a low ridge of windblown silt, do not worry about stone. I can teach you to think in grander terms. I can help you to break the petty politics of the clans. Smash them once and for all. You can begin the process of molding the People into a new direction. You can do it the same way you shape your little red owls. It won’t be easy, it won’t be painless. But
you
could do it! You could sit atop this mound and control this entire river! Generations of your descendants will speak your name with awe as they rule from on high.”
Salamander shook his head in disbelief, thunderstruck by the images
that formed within Bird Man’s fiery circle: Scenes of people in huge canoes that crested tremendous ocean waves. Cities of stone and wood. A literal flood of people tending fields where plants grew. Others, warriors bedecked with plumes of colored feathers, marched in thick rows and carried weapons of shining silver metal.
“It is illusion!” Salamander cried.
“A possible future,” Bird Man corrected. “A shining vision of what could be. Provided, of course, that you have the courage and commitment to see it come true. That, or we can fulfill my brother’s vision. You could turn the People into nothing more than scattered bands of Dreamers, lost in the mystical, empty-eyed and wandering the forests, ever tied to the One.”
“I could make that kind of difference?”
Bird Man smiled in a beguiling way. “Somehow, my young friend, it has come down to you. Sun Town, at this time and place, can change the future of the People. Choose one way, and you, and this place, will be remembered forever. Choose another, and you, and the greatness that is Sun Town, will vanish from the People’s memory.”
“I would have to give up the One?”
“It would seem a small sacrifice, Salamander. In return you get to live your life, watch your children grow. You saw yourself in old age, surrounded by your wives and basking in contentment from having
served
your people. In doing so, new earthworks will rise. Trade will expand from ocean to ocean. In your lifetime you will see cities founded across your world.
You
will make the Dream live.”
“And if I choose Masked Owl’s way?”
“Mud Stalker and Deep Hunter will destroy the magic of Sun Town. The clans will be at war within a turning of the seasons.” Bird Man flashed his feathered arm in a circle, and Sun Town appeared. Houses were blackened and burned. Wreckage lay scattered about. Among the weeds and seedling trees growing along the ridges lay the rotting bodies of dead people. “Masked Owl didn’t show you that, did he?”
Salamander stared at the half-rotted corpses. “Mud Stalker and Deep Hunter will cause this?”
“Along with the allies they convince to side with them. Despite public appearances, in their hearts they hate each other. They will do anything to place their respective clans in the void left by Wing Heart’s madness. In their rush to rid themselves of you, they will set in motion the seeds of their destruction. Lies will lead to betrayal and murder. Yours first, and then Thunder Tail’s, and Clay Fat’s and Half Thorn’s. They have already forgotten their obligations.
Honor will be next. Their actions will split the People down the middle. You and I, however, can prevent this.”
“This is the result of my choice?”
“You must choose the future, Salamander.” He added softly, “Choose well.”
With that, Bird Man spread his arms and leaped into the sunlit sky. His cloaked arms flattened, becoming black wings that shone in the sunlight. With each changing position they blazed in blue, red, orange, and green.
S
alamander jerked upright in his bed, stunned. “
Many Colored Crow!
”
Night Rain cried, “Ouch! You smacked me with your elbow!”
Salamander blinked in the darkness of Pine Drop’s house. A faint glow marked the fire pit. Coals still smoldered among the branches of green wood they had left to smudge the mosquitoes.
“A Dream,” he murmured. “A Dream unlike any other.”
“What are you talking about?” Night Rain repositioned herself, one hand on his shoulder.
“The future, Night Rain. Giant cities like Sun Town up and down the river. Warriors beyond count, marching in lines. Huge canoes that can cross oceans of salt water.”
“You saw this?” she asked.
“That, and war between the clans. Sun Town deserted and burned. Many Colored Crow showed me. He was dressed as Bird Man. He said I could save Sun Town. All I had to do was choose it.”

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