People of the Owl: A Novel of Prehistoric North America (North America's Forgotten Past) (58 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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I
n the light of a half-moon, Anhinga drove her canoe onto the muddy landing below Sun Town. Her stealthy arrival frightened a raccoon that searched in and among the beached canoes for bits of fish guts or other edibles left by the fishermen. The beast hurried away in its rolling waddle, lucky to have escaped. Raccoon had a succulent and sweet meat.
The night pressed warmly against the land, a blessing after the cold and drizzly winter. The presence of the raccoon made it doubtful that anyone was close enough to witness her return. For a long moment, Anhinga remained still and listened to the sounds of the night: Insect wings whirred around her head. Frogs croaked. Somewhere in the distance a bull alligator roared.
Nothing moved along the line of canoes; many had been flipped over to keep water from collecting inside. The vessels reminded her of a school of sleeping fish.
She carefully stood, stepped out of the canoe, and dragged her slim boat onto the muddy bank. She bent and slung the loop of her daughter’s cradleboard onto her shoulder. Then she reached for the fabric-wrapped bundle that lay in the bow. She handled it with great care. As she started up the slope she made doubly sure that her daughter’s cradleboard hung as far as possible from the fabric bundle. She dare not even let them touch.
She slowed as she neared the top of the slope, hearing music coming from the Men’s House. The clacking rhythm of hardwood
sticks, rattles, and the thump of drums almost covered the sound of bare feet shuffling on cane matting. A heron-bone flute piped a delicate melody. Male voices rose and fell as they sang in accompaniment.
Light reflected in soft yellow from the building’s roof openings. The east-facing window made a glowing square in the dark wall. Figures darted back and forth inside. She could see that they wore masks. Some had deer antlers, others birdlike heads. Still others looked to be redheaded woodpecker, alligator, and dragonfly, all totems of war.
Let them Sing and Dance while they can.
War, like the dancers, wore many different masks.
A grim smile crossed her lips. Women weren’t supposed to see any part of the men’s secret rituals. She considered that as she turned her steps north toward the house she and Salamander had built. The mysteries of the Men’s House had always intrigued her. They had more fun than the women did, the latter sitting around weaving baskets, making pigments, and gossiping while they changed absorbent and passed their moons.
I should have been born a man
. But no, had she been, she would never have had the opportunity that now presented itself. A Swamp Panther warrior would never have been allowed—as she had—to walk freely among the Sun People.
What is it about them that they do not consider a woman to be dangerous?
Arrogance? Stupidity? Or just a lack of respect for her and her kind? Certainly their Clan Elders, also female, should have had the intelligence and resources to appreciate the threat she posed.
Then she recalled her uncle’s insistence that she bide her time, endure the passing seasons among the Sun People. How she had hated the wait. How smart her uncle had been; she now passed where she would, hardly garnering a second glance. She would have been faceless but for her reputation for breaking Saw Back’s face.
Thinking back, she didn’t regret it. Of course, she would have been faceless, even more invisible than she was now. Over the moons, however, that act had brought her a curious sort of recognition. People made way for her, sometimes giving her a curt nod. Not friendly, just respectful. She decided she liked that, liked it a lot.
One day soon, she would be returning home. She would see that same look in the eyes of her people. If she managed to do this thing, if it unfolded the way she planned, it would stun the Sun People to the roots of their souls. Indeed, her descendants would speak her name with awe for generations.
All it would take was courage, and the hope that she didn’t get caught before she could remove herself well beyond the Sun People’s wrath.
As she walked past it, the Women’s House was silent and dark, although the faint smell of cooking cattail and smoke hung on the heavy air. A lone dog stood up in the doorway, shook, and growled at her. She made a soft cooing noise and the cur trotted down the incline of the Mother Mound, its tail wagging. The animal appeared happy that she hadn’t thrown an old cooking clay at it.
“How are you tonight?” she asked softly.
If she could trust her night-veiled eyes, the dog was a young bitch. She bounced and whined as she followed along behind. Like most dogs in Sun Town, she didn’t receive kind words very often.
“Shsht! Don’t do that!” She raised the bundle high as the dog grabbed it with its teeth and tugged. “That’s poison! Not for you to be playing with!”
The bitch whined again, and backed off at the harsh tone. Tail wagging expectantly, she stared up at Anhinga in the faint light of the half-moon.
“Go on!” She waved her away. “Go back to whoever was feeding you back there. You don’t want any part of me.”
Cowed, the bitch dropped behind, trailing by a short distance.
Anhinga walked past the borrow pit to her dark house. Swallowing hard, she removed the door and ducked inside. On stealthy feet she crossed to Salamander’s bed, feeling his empty buffalo robe.
Good. He’s at Pine Drop’s.
She carefully laid her sleeping daughter on the bench, felt for the small ceramic pot she knew was by the bed leg, and walked back to the square of light that marked the doorway. There she found her fire-hardened digging stick where she had left it. With the pot in one hand, and the digging stick and her bundle in the other, she stepped out into the night. Haze softened the half-moon’s face, dimming the brighter stars. From Wing Heart’s house Anhinga could hear the burr of the woman’s snoring.
Anhinga laid the pot and fabric bundle on the ground. Pressing her breastbone against the end of the digging stick, she drove the sharp point into the soft earth and levered it up. It took her less than two fingers of time to dig a hole large enough to take the pot. Using only her fingertips, she placed the fabric bundle inside the pot and then capped it with a wooden plate that lay beside Wing Heart’s loom. Lowering the pot into the hole, she scooped earth over it. The excess dirt she scattered around here and there. Finally,
she laid a section of cane matting over the hump of earth and pressed it down to hide her handiwork.
In that instant, the image of Salamander’s face flashed between her souls. Panther’s blood, this was going to hurt him so. Only at that thought did her souls ache.
T
he crow caught Red Finger’s attention when it swooped down out of the overhanging forest and clutched a lock of his graying hair in its feet.
Shocked and surprised, Red Finger ducked, then yipped at the pain as the gleaming bird pulled the length of hair out by the roots.
In anger, he almost capsized his canoe as he scrambled for his atlatl and darts. He sent a long dart flying after the bird, clawing for balance as his canoe wobbled with the force of his release.
The crow dodged artfully to one side, the dart sailing between the branches of a tupelo before arcing down to cut cleanly into the water.
Red Finger rubbed the top of his head, glaring at the circling crow.
“What do you want?”
The bird answered with a raucous call and dived at him again. Red Finger flattened himself into the bottom of his rocking craft and glanced up warily.
The crow had landed on a low-hanging branch. It stared at him with a curious brown eye, opened its mouth, and flicked a sharptipped tongue at him.
“Insolent bird.” Red Finger carefully braced himself; easing his atlatl back as he fitted another dart into the nock. In a sinuous movement his arm went back. The cast was liquid, fast, and accurate.
To his amazement, the crow bobbed down, flattening itself on the branch as the dart hissed within a feather’s breadth of its shining back.
C a a a a w w w w w!
The sound echoed through the swamp as the crow mocked him and bounced to yet another branch. There, it flapped its wings, teasing him.
Red Finger muttered under his breath and picked up his paddle. The cursed bird had to have been someone’s pet. A fledgling stolen from the nest, raised and trained by some swamp hunter.
As he closed, the bird flipped off the branch and sailed farther
into the swamp. Red Finger paddled after it, stopping on occasion to reach up and finger the raw place on his scalp.
For a hand of time he followed the pesky bird. Each time his interest waned, the crow dived at him, snatching at his hair, raising his ire to the boiling point again.
Thus it was that by the middle of the day, he found himself deep within Swamp Panther territory.
The crow circled him, fluttering just out of reach. Red Finger used his atlatl to flail at it, hoping to smack the miserable pest from the sky. It avoided his wild blows with uncanny ease.
“What do you want of me?” he declared, half in anger, half in wary suspicion. Snakes! This wasn’t a spirit bird, was it? Or, blood and pus, worse, it wasn’t some creature trained by the Swamp Panthers to lure unwitting hunters into their territory where they could be ambushed and killed?
With that thought, he lifted his paddle, prepared to leave the accursed bird to its own devices, when he saw it wing to a cypress knee. Sunlight shone on its sleek black feathers. It studied him with an intelligent brown eye.
The crow bobbed its head, pointing its beak toward the brackish water.
“What do you
want
of me?” Red Finger glanced around, wary of a Swamp Panther ambush. Every direction he looked, he could only see the swamp, the surface of the water marred here and there by the normal rings left by water bugs, fish, and bubbles. Insects fluttered around him, songbirds filled the spring-flush leaves with song.
Red Finger cocked his head as the crow plucked a white stone from the top of the cypress knee and dropped it into the water with a plop.
A stone? Out here? Atop a cypress knee?
He paddled forward, an eerie fear climbing his spine. No, this was no trained pet, but something else. He wasn’t a man used to Power, but he could feel it swelling around him.
As the bow of his canoe slipped past the knee, the crow gave him a loud squawk, leaped into the air, and flapped through a ragged hole in the canopy above. Rays of vibrant color, reds, blues, and greens flashed off its wings.
Red Finger scratched his cheek in confusion. Then, bending over the side of his canoe, he looked down into the water. There, several hands below the surface, he could see a small round white stone. It was resting in what looked like a sunken canoe.
S
alamander trotted down from the Bird’s Head after his sunrise devotions. He felt a lingering sense of foreboding, partly from his disturbing Dreams the night before, partly from Night Rain’s violent bout of morning sickness. Whereas neither Pine Drop nor Anhinga had been bothered much, Night Rain’s first experience of pregnancy was proving to be downright miserable.
“Must be a boy,” Pine Drop said as she cuddled her suckling daughter to her breast.
“That or a monster,” Night Rain had insisted as she wiped her mouth and cast suspicious eyes on Salamander.
He had raised his hands in defense, and said, “I would have asked Power for another daughter. I’m in deep enough trouble with your uncle as it is. Knowing that I had produced another heir for his lineage might make him smile a bit more kindly when I’m around.”
The round red-yellow sun seemed to drift off the horizon and higher into the morning sky. The light made Salamander squint as he rounded the first ridge, where Cane Frog’s house stood. The old Clan Elder hadn’t emerged yet to greet the morning with her sightless eyes. Nor had Three Moss come to check on her mother and see to her needs.
He cast a cautious glance at the round Council House as he passed, knowing that soon, no doubt just before the solstice celebration, he was going to face expulsion. The topic of his witchcraft was now on every lip, some people even speaking openly of it.
How does a person prove he is not a witch?
How could he blame them? Last spring he had been considered an odd boy, even despised by his mother. Within a turning of the seasons his popular brother was dead, Salamander was Clan Speaker, with three wives, two houses, and an unheard of alliance with the Swamp Panthers. People knew that he was tied up in the ways of Power, that he spent a great deal of time with the Serpent. He had helped prepare the bodies of the dead. Each morning found him alone at the top of the Bird’s Head when normal young men were waking up in their wives’ arms. If witchcraft didn’t explain that, what did?
With those thoughts lodged in his head, he was surprised by a sudden prickling of unease. He stopped short, collecting his thoughts. He came this way every morning, following the trail that was beaten into the grass where people rounded the eastern end of the borrow ditch before climbing Owl Clan’s first ridge.
The dog lay on its side in the weeds at the water’s edge. From the way the vegetation was bruised, it was apparent that the animal had thrashed as it died. Even the earth was torn up where it had clawed frantically in its last moments.
Salamander stepped over and bent down. The animal, a bitch, was young. Her expanded nipples and fat sides indicated that she was just days shy of a litter. Her lips were pulled back, exposing foam-flecked teeth and gums. Even in death, terror reflected from her wide brown eyes, the pupils gray. Feces had been squirted onto the matted weeds behind her.
“What happened to you?” Salamander asked, his heart softening. He grabbed a foot, pulling the stiff animal over. She hadn’t died that long ago. Not even the flies had found her yet.
Salamander made a face, feeling the presentiment that tingled along his soul.
“Why are you trying to warn me, little mother?” he asked gently. “What do you wish to tell me?”
He closed his eyes, trying to hear the dead dog’s Dream Soul. With an aching longing, he listened, and heard nothing.
Some people said dogs didn’t have Dream Souls, but he didn’t believe it. Too many times he had seen the sleeping animals, their eyes twitching, their feet jerking, as they made muffled woofs. If they weren’t Dreaming, running in the Dream world, what were they doing?
“I am sorry, little mother, but I will beware. Thank you for trying to tell me, even if I’m too stupid to hear.”
He lifted the animal, feeling how stiff the body was, as if wooden
beneath the thin hair. With great care he bore the carcass to the drop-off overlooking Morning Lake and laid it over the edge. The dead dog slid down along the steep embankment and lodged in some stalks of marsh elder that clung there.
Depressed, he turned his steps for home. Wing Heart sat at her loom despite the early hour. Water Petal—hunched at the side of the ramada—was graining a deerhide on a polished post set in the ground.
To Salamander’s surprise, a third person sat in the morning sun just outside the ramada. It took a moment for the silver hair, the thick shoulders, and lined face to register. Thunder Tail wore one of his bear necklaces, which consisted of claws strung to either side of twin mandibles. A sleek cloak of black bearskin was draped over one shoulder.
Salamander walked past his house and over to the ramada. “Good morning, Council Leader. What brings you here?”
“Good morning to you, too, Speaker Salamander.” Thunder Tail’s serious face reflected the gravity of his visit. “I came to see Elder Wing Heart. It has been a while since I have had the pleasure of her company.”
“She is no longer an Elder.”
“She will always be an Elder to me, Salamander.” Thunder Tail smiled precisely.
Salamander could see that his mother was oblivious to her guest. Her fingers continued to work the threads, arms rising and falling with a supple grace. Those vacant eyes saw nothing of this world but the fabric before her. Her head continued to move loosely as she dwelt on conversations no one else could hear.
“We thank you for your concern, Speaker. She didn’t say anything to you, did she?”
Thunder Tail shook his head, pensive brown eyes on Salamander.
“I am sorry you didn’t reach her. We remain hopeful. Water Petal and I keep believing that some familiar face will draw her back long enough that her souls would remember this world.”
Thunder Tail gestured for Salamander to sit, then wrapped his thick arms around his knees. “I was a good friend of your mother’s. She and I …”
“Yes, I know. You were lovers. She always spoke of you with great respect and admiration, Speaker. I’m sure that she is proud that you followed her into the leadership of the Council.”
Thunder Tail studied him for a long moment. “You speak very well for such a young man, Salamander.”
“I had good teachers.” He indicated his mother. “I spent my childhood listening to her and Uncle Cloud Heron. Something of their skill must have rubbed off.”
He hesitated. “I didn’t just come to see Wing Heart.”
“You are concerned about the talk of witchcraft,” Salamander filled in. “Mud Stalker and Deep Hunter are going to introduce that claim at the next Council meeting, aren’t they?”
“Are you so complacent that you do not understand the threat, young Salamander?”
“It isn’t a matter of complacency, Speaker. I face the perennial problem of those accused of witchcraft: belief. No matter what I state in my defense, people will believe what they will believe. I am not a witch. I wish no one—even my enemies—ill. The more strident my voice is as I cry out my innocence, the more assured others will be that I am guilty of using Power for my own gain.”
“And what gain is that, Salamander?”
He gestured around. “If I had that kind of Power, Speaker, I would return my mother’s souls to this world. Owl Clan and the People have more need of her wits and knowledge here than do the souls in the Spirit World.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Yes, Speaker Thunder Tail. The Spirit World is already well served—it has my uncle and brother.”
“Your mother never spoke very highly of you.”
“Let us say that I wasn’t what she expected in a son.”
“But you ended up as Owl Clan’s Speaker.”
Salamander smiled wryly. “I think we both know how that happened. But, since it did, I will do my best for my clan, Speaker. I was unprepared for this. I can only hope that as time passes, I will do a better job.”
“And the witchcraft?”
“Were I a good witch, my clan would be preeminent. I would be basking in the reflected fear and respect of my fellows. I would be plotting with Mud Stalker and Deep Hunter to replace you as leader of the Council. I would be surrounding myself with copper, stone, and exotic hides from the far reaches of our Trade. I think I would be busy destroying my enemies, making them die horrible deaths.” A smile crossed his lips. “I ask you, do my enemies tremble at my name?”
“No, Speaker Salamander, they do not.” Thunder Tail fingered the soft bearhide on his shoulder as he thought. His eyes kept straying to Wing Heart, and Salamander could see the hurt.
“She loved you,” he said softly. “More than all the others.”
Thunder Tail looked uncomfortable as he returned his attention
to Salamander. “I don’t know what good it will do in the end, Salamander, but for one, I don’t think you are a witch. There is, however, something about you that worries me. When I am around you, I can feel it, a tension in the air, as if you are headed for some terrible fate.”
“With all of my souls, Council Leader, I hope not. But I give you my word, I will do everything within my ability to keep from hurting the People.”
“What of your barbarian wife? People would accuse her of witchcraft, too.”
“Assuming that I knew how to recognize a witch, I’ve never seen it in her.”
“And when she goes away?”
“She meets with her family.”
“Does she plot against us?”
“Of course. We killed her brother and her friends.”
“But you don’t think she’s dangerous?”
“Speaker, never, under any circumstances, believe that she isn’t dangerous.”
“Then why do you live with her? Surely not just for the sandstone.”
Salamander chuckled softly, shaking his head. “It is a complicated thing to explain. I love her. She is my wife, and I enjoy the time I spend with her. Can you understand that? She does things for me, excites my souls when I look into her eyes.”
“What of your other wives?”
“They are the same. Each one is different, each has her own qualities.”
“But you can trust Pine Drop and Night Rain. You know they won’t cut your throat in the middle of the night.”
Salamander felt the prickle of warning again. “Speaker? Whatever made you say that? I can anticipate the threat Anhinga poses. She came to us as an enemy. It is those we trust the most who will drive the dagger deepest into our hearts.”
Thunder Tail nodded in agreement, and a fist tightened around Salamander’s souls.
N
ight Rain slipped as she followed her cousin, Water Stinger, down the path south of Sun Town. The trail was slick with mud
from an afternoon rain shower. Water Stinger had appeared at her house as she patiently drilled stone beads while seated in the ramada’s shade. The young warrior had been winded from a long run, and asked for her and Pine Drop.
“Sister is gone. You just missed her. She has taken a basket and gone to collect the first goosefoot greens.”
“Then you come!” Water Stinger had insisted, practically dragging her after him as he headed south the way he had come. “It’s important. Uncle wants you there.”
So they hurried, taking a deeply worn path that led south along the steep embankment overlooking the bottomlands. The way wound through trees that gave periodic glimpses of the cane bottoms where the channel was obscured by the spring flood. Water gleamed silver as sunlight was reflected through the vegetation. The whole world had taken on a blinding green, and the smell of blossoms carried on the air.
“What is it?” Night Rain placed a hand on her belly, wondering what a run like this would do to her queasy stomach.
“Uncle will tell you.”
“Where are we going?”
“The landing just below Raspberry Camp.”
She knew the place: the first camp south of Sun Town where the south channel looped back against a break in the high terrace. Not more than a half hand’s run away, people often camped there when they came from the outlying settlements. Close enough to allow easy access to Sun Town, it was far enough away to avoid the noise and confusion. Not all of the Sun People liked the bustling of Sun Town. She had relatives—people in her own lineage—who lived in the outlying camps, preferring the solitude of the swamps and forest to the city of ridges.

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