People of the Owl: A Novel of Prehistoric North America (North America's Forgotten Past) (62 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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“No! No one could! That sounds completely witless. We are who we are: Sun People, Snapping Turtle Clan.”
Pine Drop nodded. “I thought so, too.”
Night Rain’s expression had tightened. “Is Salamander thinking about running away?”
Pine Drop shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. It was just a question he asked … like so many of the other questions he asks. What is it about him? He can look you in the eyes, that gaze all soft and concerned, and ask you a simple question. It upsets your souls so that everything that you are is turned upside down and spilled out.”
Night Rain’s chuckle held a bitter irony. “I don’t know, Sister. I don’t know what to think of him.” She paused. “He knew I was pregnant before I did. How could he know that?”
“How can he do a lot of the things he does? The man is a mystery!” She took a breath. “Night Rain, I have come to love him like I never thought I could love a man. When he’s not around, I am obsessed with thoughts about him. I keep things to show him, just waiting to see his smile.”
Night Rain nodded distantly. “I recall the day when we first married White Bird, and how horrified we were at the thought of ending up married to Salamander.”
“After he asked that question today we were working on the fish, gutting them, packing them in the canoe, and the next thing I knew, we were touching. And the next we were on the grass. I will never forget that coupling. It was as if he was trying to make it last forever. In the end, when his loins let loose in mine, I would have sworn my body had exploded into beams of sunlight.
“And then?”
“And then, after I finally returned to my body and caught my breath, the baby was crying.”
Night Rain smiled, teasing the fire with her burning stick. “Keep that memory, Sister. Hold it close to your souls like a precious stone.”
“I will.” She glanced at Night Rain, reading her troubled eyes. “What happened to you today?”
“I got out of bed. I shouldn’t have.”
“You get out of bed every day. Why should this one be different?”
Night Rain’s shoulders jerked. “You are right about Salamander. Things happen to him. It’s odd how coincidences are. Just after I got out of bed this morning, I saw Saw Back. Everything goes back to him and Anhinga’s ax. It makes me wonder if I’m not just Power’s tool.”
“I have enough worries about Power. Don’t you get involved in it, too.”
“It’s too late. I already am.” She jabbed the burning stick angrily at the fire. “Somehow we ended up talking about Salamander. Saw Back hates him. Hates me. Not only for being there that day, for witnessing what Anhinga did to him, but because I went back to Salamander.”
“He’s your husband, what does Saw Back think wives do?”
“He knows that Uncle would have let me divorce. He knows that Salamander kept him from taking his revenge out on Anhinga by defusing that Council meeting. But the irony this morning was that he made such a big thing about Salamander being nothing more than a boy promoted beyond his means.”
“Salamander’s age baffles us all,” Pine Drop agreed.
“Saw Back called him a coward, said that he’d faint if he ever had to really fight another warrior for his life. That he couldn’t kill a beetle with a pestle.”
“Salamander isn’t a warrior,” Pine Drop agreed.
Night Rain gave her a hooded look. “Isn’t he?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Red Finger found Eats Wood’s body. He was in his canoe, sunk under some roots down in the Swamp Panther country. Salamander’s ax fits the hole in Eats Wood’s head. Our husband killed our cousin, Sister. That’s why Uncle has called the Council meeting for tomorrow. He is going to accuse Salamander of murder and witchcraft.”
“We have to go. Warn him.”
“No, Sister. Uncle and Mother both have ordered us to stay here. At this house, until tomorrow when the Council convenes.”
“Rot eat them, Salamander is our husband. I’m going to warn him!” Pine Drop stood on aching legs, swinging her daughter up to her hip.
From the darkness, Water Stinger stepped out, calling, “Pine Drop, I am here on both the Elder’s and Speaker’s orders to see that you stay home tonight.”
O
ver the past turning of the seasons, Anhinga had become used to Sun Town and its marvels. She had never expected to be awed by the place again, but this was her first experience with the summer solstice ceremonies.
She sat in the shadows of the ramada and watched the tens of tens of tens of fires winking around the span of Sun Town. A thousand yellow eyes flickered and filled the air with the scent of smoke. The reddish tint they cast into the hazy sky amazed her. Sun Town was shining its own light into the night. She could imagine the Sky Beings circling, looking down, and gasping with delight as night and day blurred.
Wing Heart sat at her loom, humming to herself as she worked the threads and continued her endless weaving. How she produced perfect fabric in the faint reflection of firelight never ceased to amaze Anhinga.
People passed in a constant stream, most of them strangers, clan members from outlying camps and distant settlements, many of them from as far away as the gulf, two tens of days distant by canoe. They came bearing gifts: feathers, meat, and bones from pelicans; or plumage from rosy spoonbills, red egret, and purple gallinue; fish like black drum, red snapper, barracuda, and even one odd flat specimen that had both eyes on one side of its head. Some came with the smoked crab, conch, and whelk meat, and some came to Trade tanned sharkskin. Other canoes arrived filled with dried yaupon
leaves for making black drink, and others with items like stingray spines to be used as needles and awls.
Trade flourished everywhere. She had seen no less than five marriages brokered between the different clans. No sooner had she gone back to work before another greeting was called between old friends who hadn’t seen each other for seasons. Until this day, she would never have believed so many people lived in the whole world! The numbers of the Sun People left her dumbfounded.
And I thought I could fight them? That by the six of us raiding them, we would pay them back for Bowfin’s death?
What a fool she had been, and how wise her uncle was. Old weathered Jaguar Hide had truly understood. And now, so did she, in a way she wasn’t sure that even her uncle could.
She nodded, remembering his wisdom in sending her back to stay. He had said something about learning their ways, not just for the moment, but for the future when she returned to the Panther’s Bones for good. Yes, she knew them now. Knew their strengths and weaknesses. Most of all, she knew that the Swamp Panthers could never challenge such immense strength.
So how did her people prevail against so many?
She recognized Salamander before she could make out his features. It was the way he walked, the set of his shoulders, his movements. He had grown so familiar to her, become part of her in a most unsettling way. Panther’s blood, wouldn’t it be so much simpler if he just left with her? She could make a place for him among her people. He could be happy with her. They could live out the rest of their lives together, raise their children, and love each other until they grew old, knotty, and decrepit.
“Greetings, Husband.” She rose, seeing that he labored under a burden. “What have you brought?”
“We made a good catch. Filled the canoe,” he told her, fatigue riding his voice.
She caught the odor of fish as she walked up to him and helped him to lower a full basket to the ground. “What has been done with them?”
“We gutted them. They need to be smoked and dried. I don’t know how long they will last, especially given the number of people who have come for the ceremonials.”
“Husband, most of them arrived in canoes gunwale full of food. I’ve never seen so much to eat, or so many mouths to feed.”
He bent over to hug her, and she felt the trembling in his muscles. When she wrapped her arms around him, it surprised her to find
his body hot from exertion. She pressed him to her and sighed. “You feel good, Husband.”
“So do you. I could keep you like this for days.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, but it will make attending the solstice activities a bit awkward. People will point at us and talk.”
“They talk anyway. Look! There goes Speaker Salamander and his barbarian wife. We are already the center of attention. You should have been here today.”
“How is our daughter?”
“Fine. She slept, ate, and messed, and slept and ate and messed, all day long. I made three trips for firewood, figuring that as things get busy we won’t have much time. It’s a long way to go, and believe me, everything close has already been scavenged for the fires. Even the big trees that fell last winter are being chopped up.”
“Thank you,” he whispered. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Poor man, you would have to make do with only two wives!”
He chuckled at that and patted her shoulders as she broke away. She strained to lift the basket of fish and waddled to the ramada. Throwing more wood on the fire, she started laying the fish out on the split-cane matting.
“What’s cooking?” Salamander indicated the two earth ovens.
“Lotus root,” she lied heartily. “What would people say if the Owl Clan Speaker ate anything else for the solstice?”
“They’d say that he was deranged.” He lifted his arms, smiling in the firelight. “But they say that anyway.”
“As I started to tell you, a stream of people have been here. They come in bits and dribbles, wanting to speak to you. Most of them want to get a look at me, to see the famous barbarian wife. Others want to see you, to see if it’s true that the clan has such a young Speaker.” She made a face. “And many come to see your mother. Mostly the older ones, the ones who knew her when she and Cloud Heron were laying the opposition low. They look, shake their heads, and drift off to Moccasin Leaf’s to discuss marriages, bickering between the lineages, and grievances with other clans.” She pointed to the glow of a huge bonfire two ridges away. “Half Thorn is busy strutting back and forth like a mating pigeon. You could go look; he has all of his feathers preened.”
“I’ll pass,” he muttered, a heaviness in his voice.
She watched him from the corner of her eye. “What is wrong, Salamander?”
“I want you to promise me something.”
“Of course.”
“If things begin to go badly, I want you to dress in Owl Clan clothing. Something Mother made, and take our daughter. I want you to get into a canoe and paddle south to your family.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about your safety. It is summer solstice. Canoes full of strangers are everywhere. If you’re dressed as Owl Clan, no one will notice. You are just one of many. By the time you are in Swamp Panther country, you’ll be safe.”
She cocked her head. “What do you know, Husband?”
“I know that you are in great danger.” Pain reflected in his smile. “I’ve done a terrible thing, Anhinga.”
“What?” she asked, her gaze darting to the earth oven where the water-hemlock root roasted in a bedding of yellow lotus.
“I’ve been selfish. Kept you and my little girl here with me. I knew better. I should have sent you south during the past moon.”
“You’re being silly,” she answered uncertainly. “We’re a family, remember? We decided that night after the affair with Night Rain and Saw Back.”
“He’s yet another worry. You must leave in secret,” Salamander warned. “And make three times sure that no one sees you leave, especially Saw Back. You, of all people, know how dangerous he can be. This time, I won’t be there to save you.”
She stopped short, the cold carcass of a bass in her hands. “What do you mean? Tell me, Husband. What do you know? What has Masked Owl told you?” She felt her heart skip with fear, and not over the poisoned roots she was cooking.
He sank down, his back against one of the ramada poles, his head tilted as he stared up at the palmetto roofing. “Sometime soon now, I am going to have to do something very difficult. I have no reason to believe that what I am planning will work. You have heard the witchcraft stories?”
“Of course. Half of Sun Town thinks I’m a sorceress. The other half thinks you are a witch. Let them stew. No one wants to make a witch mad. It has repercussions. Like Dancing on the Bird’s Head during a lightning storm. You never know when the next bolt might blast you dead.”
“I wish you wouldn’t use that analogy.” He glanced nervously at Wing Heart’s shadow where she worked the dimly lit loom.
“Sorry.”
“It’s not a joke,” he answered. “That’s why I need you to promise.
If I tell you to, you must leave. If I fail, they will come to kill you. Do you understand what that means?”
She nodded, sobered, memories of being bound to the pole at the Men’s House still fresh in her nightmares. “Yes, Husband, I do.”
“Then you will go if I ask? You will save yourself and our daughter?”
She nodded, meeting his eyes. They reminded her of dark pools of misery. “I will not let them cut me apart, urinate inside my chest, and feed bits of my body to the dogs.”
He sighed then, body limp with relief.
Hope rose in her heart as she softly said, “You could come with me. They don’t need you here, Salamander. You do so much for these people who despise you, who call you a witch and a fool. They think you are a joke, a spineless boy parading as a Speaker.”
“Sometimes I think that, too,” he answered.
“You are not, you know.” She smiled, laid out the last of the fish, and reached out to grasp his hand. “You have the respect of my clan. Of my brother and my uncle. I
love
you, Salamander. I, for one, don’t want to live without you.”
His smile was wary. “I thought you came here to kill me.”
She hesitated. What did she say? How did she handle this? “I did. I have no love for the Sun People. I never will. You know what they did to me—did to my friends. But I have a great love for you.” She swallowed hard, and added, “I wish I had never had our daughter.”
“Why?” He looked truly hurt.
“Because then I could stay and fight at your side,” she said proudly. “If Half Thorn came for you, he would find two warriors ready to defend you rather than one.”
“Warrior?” He stared off into the distance, no doubt remembering the blow that dispatched Eats Wood.
“Warrior,” she affirmed. “Come with me, warrior. In time we can work something out, some means whereby we can see Pine Drop and Night Rain.”
“We?” he asked with mild curiosity.
She shrugged, as if it were nothing. “Well, somehow, over the moons, I have come to like them a little. It wouldn’t displease me to see them periodically.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
She gave him a slow smile, hoping against hope. “Will you come away with me?”
“Funny, isn’t it? I asked that same question of Pine Drop. Not
meaning quite the same thing, but with the same result. She, too, said no.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It would be so easy, and at the same time, so hard. We could all escape the pain, Anhinga. All we have to do is give up our responsibilities. Why is that so hard? Why is it easier to stay and die than it is simply to stop being ourselves to become someone else?”
She stared at him, frowning, hearing the importance of his words but not quite understanding the weight of the ramifications.
He pointed at Wing Heart. “Isn’t that what Mother did? She gave up. Her souls left her body so that they didn’t have to face the pain and disappointment. Pine Drop won’t stop being who she is to run off with me. I won’t stop being who I am to run off with you.” A faint smile bent his lips. “You won’t stop being who you are to stay here with me.”
I won’t stop being who I am? What is he talking about?
And then her gaze slipped to the covered earth ovens with their simmering cache of hemlock-laced yellow lotus root. She felt a tingle race across her skin. Panther’s blood! He couldn’t know, could he? If he did, why didn’t he stop her? Challenge her over it?
She could feel his knowing stare burning through her skin as she avoided his gaze.
It’s your nerves. If he knew, he’d never allow you to get away with this!

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