People of the Weeping Eye (North America's Forgotten Past) (13 page)

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

BOOK: People of the Weeping Eye (North America's Forgotten Past)
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She cocked her head, staring off to the side. Just a moment ago, a huge black wolf had been standing there, watching her with glowing yellow eyes. When she finally blinked, it had vanished. From old experience, she knew that were she to go look, no tracks would be imprinted in the damp sand.
Old White extended his hands to the flames, sighing as if thankful for the heat. He sat with his back to a rotting log: an oak that some long-forgotten flood had deposited crossways on the sandy spit. He had his legs folded, back bent. The ornately carved wooden box he carried lay by his side. When he had placed the heavy fabric sack atop it, the wood had clunked, as if the bag’s contents were stone. That was puzzle enough, but what could such a beautiful box contain? She stared at the carvings visible in the firelight. Some were winged snakes with horned heads, others panthers with circles adorning their bodies and legs. Pearls had been inlaid for eyes, and now they gleamed maliciously in the firelight.
Having warmed his knobby fingers Old White reached into his belt pouch. Squinting in the dancing yellow light, he used a chert flake to carve at a round section of whelk shell about the size of his palm.
Two Petals hunched beside the fire, checking the brownware pot that rested beside the flames. She kept peering in at the contents: cornmeal, sunflower seeds, bits of dried pumpkin, and meat from a small turtle who had lingered too late in the season before diving to the depths.
“Fast Palm was a poor war chief. No way he could have taken our town. Surely you didn’t drive him off. Not an old man like you. Tell me you didn’t use a weapon. Did you?” she asked.
Old White smiled. “An herb. Comes from the far southwest. I came to appreciate it when I lived with the Azteca.”
“Oh, them. Lots of Azteca around, yes?” He used so many names she’d never heard before.
“A people way down in the south.” He paused, looking up from his carving, an expression of amazement on his face. “You wouldn’t believe. They make temples out of stone. Pyramids taller than the highest of our mounds. Well, maybe not Cahokia, but stunning nevertheless. I went there, ventured into their lands in the company of the Pochteca.”
“My father had Pochteca. Two of them in his pack.”
“Traders.”
She was suddenly confused, seeing little people in her father’s pack. “How did they fit inside there?”
“They don’t come here.” He smiled. “We have nothing they want.”
She made a scoffing noise. “Everyone wants something that someone else has. Like the way you bested Fast Palm.”
“It’s a powder called chili. In the southwest it is used as a food. It’s hot. Like beeweed, only hotter. I blew a pinch of it into Fast Palm’s face.”
“Not Power?”
“Of a sort, I suppose.”
She caught him studying her from under his brows. “What?”
“You’re speaking more plainly. Can you control it? Or does it just come upon you?”
“It comes and goes. Goes and comes. Dancing like butterflies wiggling through the mud. Charms glitter in the sunlight,” she answered softly, using a stick to stir the contents of the pot. “Sometimes I’m riding a log over a waterfall. I just hang on and hope that when I finally hit the bottom, the foam will be soft.”
She waited for that look of irritation and disbelief. He only nodded, intent once again on his carving. He fascinated her. Since the night when Power first came to her, she’d trusted no one. This man, however, hadn’t looked at her with revulsion, fear, or disgust. Not once. Even when she turned, talking back to one of the voices, or staring at the sudden apparitions that formed out of
midair. When the Power was flowing through her like a spring current, he listened, and even seemed to understand.
“These Azteca, did you see them?”
“I did.”
She hesitated. “Were they real? Did they leave prints in the dirt?”
“Yes.”
“They didn’t vanish?”
“No. They are real people. I went to see them.”
“Why?”
“To see if the stories were true.”
“Were they?”
He looked up. “Until you have seen, you would never believe.”
“I believe everything. It helps.”
“I’m sure it does.”
“Where else have you been?”
“Everywhere.” The word carried the weight of the world.
“Why?”
In the firelight, she could see sadness cross his face. “I was looking for the end of the world.”
“Did you find it?”
“Yes.” A pause. “No.”
After a longer silence, he said, “It depends on the direction you go. In the east, the ocean washes the land. Those who have tried to sail out on it say it goes on forever. Few who have sailed out beyond the horizon have ever returned. But there are rumors. Among the Chumash, on the western ocean, they tell of Traders who venture in from across the sea. The Chumash say they learned to build their plank canoes from these people. And up among the Pequot, I have personally seen a man, his skin white, like the best tanned leather, and hair all over his face. He was the only survivor of a huge wooden canoe. I have seen some of the pieces of wood
the Pequot kept. Supposedly there is a land far across the eastern ocean. I have never gone that far.”
“And to think people tell me I am full of wild tales.” At his disapproving glance she asked, “Well, these Azteca, are they at the end of the earth?”
“They told me of still more peoples, and more peoples beyond them. In the north, I learned of distant peoples clear up to the eternal ice.”
“You really went all those places?”
He nodded.
She desperately wanted to ask why, but countered with, “I thought the earth had ends.”
“So did I. Once.” He shifted, turning his piece of shell toward the firelight. She could barely see the etching he was making.
“Do you know what that’s going to be?”
“A gorget.”
“And the drawing?”
“A rendition of our world. The outer circle is the Sky World; the pole in the center is the Tree of Life. The lower circle is the Below World.”
Her curiosity was piqued. “And you’ve been to these places?”
He shook his head slowly. “Only in my Dreams.”
That she understood. The things that popped up in her Dreams—sleeping and awake—were startling enough. She wrapped her long black hair in a nervous twist. “Then why are you drawing it?”
“Because it’s the world my people have always believed in. Sometimes illusions are comforting. They are familiar in the way an old blanket is. You find comfort from it because your parents did before you. You think it will always keep you warm, even though the threads are frayed and it’s full of holes. Still, you pull it around you in the blackness of the coming storm, assuring yourself it will keep you safe—and all the while the first sprinkles of freezing rain are stinging your skin with the certainty
that it is no longer the protection you once thought it was.”
She used a doubled fold of cloth to move the pot back from the flames. “You’re a strange man.”
“Perhaps that’s why I was drawn to you.”
Power shifted, surged. It seemed to rise from the ground, to pulse in the air around her. It leaped with the firelight, and Sang with the breeze in the cottonwoods. Her heart skipped, then stopped dead in her breast. Breath caught in her throat. No, not now. Please. Not right at this moment. She closed her eyes, knotting her fists. Breath by breath, she made herself breathe deeply and calmly. Only when she was sure it was past did she open her eyes.
Old White was giving her an evaluative stare.
“I’m all right,” she said warily. “It comes and goes. Mostly I can’t control it.”
“The greater the gift, the more hideous the curse,” he said in answer.
“What was your curse?”
“A mixture of love and justice.”
Though a thousand questions crowded her tongue, his tone of voice left her mute. Pain and regret seemed to ride his shoulders like a too-heavy blanket. The lines in his face, the lack of any tattoos or ear spools, all bespoke a life interrupted.
Who is this man? And why did he come for me?
“All in due time,” he whispered softly.
T
ransporting furs was always problematic. Moisture was the enemy. When brain-tanned furs grew damp, circles of fungus would creep into the leather. Hair slipped and fell out by the handfuls. Any strength and resilience the hides might have had vanished. Smoking during the tanning process helped, but a thorough and comprehensive smoking took as much as a moon. Few of the northern tanners bothered with that. After all, why invest that kind of time when another pine marten was as close as the next forest.
Trader, however, was taking his two packs of expensive furs south. He scowled up at the misty rain that trickled down from the gray skies and low clouds. It came in spiraling stringers of mist, curling downward to chill and soak the river. It landed on the leaf-bare trees, collecting to drip on the soft forest floor. Patterns of it fell on the smooth roiling waters, only to be whisked away as the current eddied and sucked.
The world seemed to hunker down. The thick forest lining both sides of the river looked sodden and miserable. Even sound had disappeared, damped and heavy, gone to earth with the cascading droplets of water. The few birds Trader saw were perched on limbs, feathers ruffled, heads tucked low on their shoulders. This was the kind of day that even fish stayed undercover.
Trader glanced at his two packs of furs. He had fashioned a birch-bark cover for both, beneath which was a waxed leather sack that would divert any leaks. The furs
had been pressed using leverage from a log that pivoted on a fulcrum, then had been tightly bound into a square bundle with double-knotted basswood rope. The packs rested on two aspen branches laid side by side on the canoe bottom to keep them out of shallow water and allow air to circulate. It had been raining for hours. A pool had collected in the canoe bottom.
Trader used his finger to measure the depth of the water. It reached up to his first knuckle.
Shipping his paddle, he bent and used a ceramic jar to scoop and bail until it was no longer worth the effort.
“Hope this breaks,” he muttered as he took up the paddle and corrected his course for the center of the current. He had been making good time, but then traveling downriver seemed like flying after the hard paddle upstream.
As he rounded one of the endless bends in the river, the forest gave way to a clearing on the eastern shore; several small farmsteads dotted the now-brown fields. Blue wreaths curled from the smoke holes, seeming to flatten against the endless drizzle. Four canoes had been pulled up on a landing where the bank had collapsed on the downstream end of the clearing. They looked disconsolate, crudely made from hollowed logs, unlike his sleek birch-bark vessel. No one was about—not that he’d have expected them to be given the conditions. It was only fit weather for idiotic Traders traveling late in the season. As quickly, the farmstead fell behind.
Trader sighed, imagining the friendly fires, and how warm and dry the interiors of those lodges were. A pot of deer or perhaps turkey stew would have been boiling, sending a warm aroma to combat the chill air.
His thoughts were thusly occupied when a shout from shore caught him by surprise.
“Greetings, Trader!”
He turned, seeing two men, each dressed in a wolfhide cloak with a bark rain hat on his head. They carried bows,
fletched arrows filling the quivers on their backs. Their thick trail moccasins and leggings looked soaked.
“Greetings yourself,” Trader called back in pidgin. He backed water, sending his canoe toward their bank. He stopped several body lengths from shore. Traders were protected, guarded by the Power of the Trade, but one still didn’t take any chances.
“Have you seen a dog?” one of the men asked.
“In my travels, I have seen many. But I suppose you are asking about a particular dog?”
“We chased him into the river,” the second man said. “He dove underwater.”
“He’s a demon dog,” the first asserted. “Since he showed up three days ago, hanging around our village, we’ve had nothing but misfortune. His feet turn into hands at night. Nothing else could explain how he can open our corn granary. He was seen in the night, stalking through one of our houses. The following morning, Old Root was found dead, eyes wide open, and crossed.”
“Any dog that dives underwater can’t be normal,” the second man insisted.
“No, I’d say not,” Trader agreed.
“We thought to warn you, lest the demon dog leap out of the water and attack you. No one expects to have his throat ripped out by some water-borne mongrel.”
Trader considered the stories of tie snakes and Horned Serpents he’d first heard in his youth. Few people doubted the existence of water cougars, either. Deep water was the home of numerous monsters. “Personally, I’ve never been troubled by the things that live underwater. But I shall be careful.” He hesitated. “How shall I know this demon dog?”
“Black, with some brown, a white face and chest. Long hair, long pointy nose like a fox. You’ll see a glow in his eyes, like red embers in a fire.”
Trader nodded. “I shall be on my guard.”
“Where to, Trader?” the first asked.
“Far south. Perhaps all the way to the salt water.”
“You’ve several moons of travel ahead of you yet. And it’s not that far to solstice.”
“I know. Peace and health to you.”
“Beware the demon dog!” the second man warned. “He’ll steal your packs.”
Trader allowed himself to chuckle when he’d drifted out of the hunters’ sight. Demon dogs? What next?
He glanced at the somber waters around him. The current seemed to flex, sending his canoe headlong down the channel. After his years on the rivers, reading the current was almost second nature. Today, the water was dark green, like a fine translucent chert. It fooled the eye with the illusion that one could see through it, but stole detail when a person peered into its depths.
Surely there was no dog down there. He took another look into the dark green, half expecting the shadow figure of a dog to be stalking him down there in the depths.
“You’re being silly as a stone-struck loon.” He shook his head, returning his attention to the river ahead. He kept an easy rhythm, stroking along, dragging the paddle blade for a rudder. He always sought to move faster than the current, keeping steerage, making time as fast or faster than most men could run. But for the oxbows, bends, and twists, he could have made the gulf in less than a moon. As it was, the river wound back on itself in a serpentine path.
As he rounded one of the interminable bends, he spotted a twirling raft of driftwood in the current. While such hazards to navigation were thick during spring flood, they were rare this late in the season. He closed on it, figuring to pass well clear to the left.
That’s when he saw a streak of white at the edge of the thicket of floating branches. It flowed up from the dog’s chest, bordered in damp brown and wet black. A button point of a nose tipped the long muzzle. Pricked triangular ears were laid back. Soft brown eyes met his with an unmistakable supplication. Adding to the unhappy illusion, the dog shivered so hard droplets flew from his ears.
The demon dog?
“You look anything but demonic,” Trader called as he backed water, slowing to the floating driftwood’s speed.
Barely audible in the sodden air, a soft whine carried to him. Trader raised his paddle, figuring to bypass the whole affair, but when he did, the dog let out a yelp and pushed away from the driftwood float. He began swimming madly downstream, using the current to make as much distance as possible from the canoe.
Trader followed as closely as he dared, watching the long black hair on the dog’s back flow back and forth like midnight moss. The animal was panting, shivering, and clearly running out of strength.
“They said your paws turned into hands,” Trader remarked neutrally. “That true?”
The panicked dog paddled harder.
Trader frowned. This was scarcely the sort of beast that would leap out of the river and rip his throat out. Was that his imagination, or was the dog’s head lower in the water?
The animal went under, pulled down by a sucking whirlpool that spun off to the side. When the nose broke surface, the dog tried to sneeze and cough, only to flounder again. Then he thrashed in panic, choking and coughing as he was sucked down.
Impulse overcame reservation. Trader reached out, grabbed a handful of fur behind the animal’s neck, and lifted. The dog wasn’t that big, but his thick fur was logged with water. The canoe rocked as Trader found the right balance and dragged the dripping beast over the gunwale.
With one hand he reached for his war club, a wicked copper-bitted thing more handy for close quarters. Rather than try and smack the dog with the long paddle, Trader could easily brain him with a short stroke of the war club if he lunged at him. The dog staggered to his feet, sneezing, coughing, and shivering out of control. He gave
Trader one terrified glance through glazed eyes, arched his back, and threw up.
Trader glanced at the shivering cur, then at the pitiful bits of leather, splinters of charred bone, moldy pumpkin husk, and yellow bile.
The dog licked his pointy nose, looked up, and cowered back in horror.
“That’s all you’ve got in your stomach?”
The dog continued to shiver, staring up with terrified eyes.
Dangerous? Still, one could never tell. A demon dog, drowning in the middle of the river, wouldn’t want to come across as an immediate threat. No, he’d want to lure an unsuspecting Trader into a false sense of security before he leaped up to sink fangs in a man’s throat.
The canoe was drifting sideways, spinning lazily out of the current. Trader lowered his war club, extending his paddle to right his course. The dog cowered in anticipation of a blow.
Trader considered as he stroked his way back to the center of the current. “If you’re truly a demon dog, you can understand human speech. So you should know, you’re not acting like a good demon dog should. Or is it that you’re a really poor specimen of a terrible demon? Is that why you’ve only got old garbage—and not much of it at that—in your stomach?”
The dog’s head lowered, ears pinned back. The soft brown eyes reminded him of worried wet pebbles.
Trader satisfied himself with his course, and reached down with the ceramic cup. The dog scrambled backward, trying to make himself small and invisible against the closest pack. Trader scooped up as much of the dog’s goo as he could. He washed the cup out over the side and scooped up some more of the spreading stain. Fortunately water drained out of the dog’s thick fur fast enough to help keep the mess in place. With each movement, the dog cringed as if trying to sink through the canoe bottom.
Trader replaced his bailing cup and cocked his head. Out of the water, his coat soaked, the thing looked like a collection of walking bones. Ribs, hips, and spine stuck out, while the belly made a hollow behind the ribs.
“I have to say, for a tricky demon, you haven’t been eating well.”
The dog blinked frightened eyes.
“Oh, blood and piss,” Trader exclaimed, the dog cowering back at the tone.
Trader reached into a leather sack beside him and drew forth a slab of dried venison. “Here.” He bit off a piece and spit it onto the canoe bottom in front of the dog.
The pointed nose quivered, ears slowly rising. A fit of shivering barely distracted the animal, and a thin filament of drool appeared at the corner of his mouth. Still the wary eyes remained fixed on Trader.
“It’s all right,” he said gently. “I think you’re starving.” Hunger overcame the dog’s good sense. With deliberate care, he reached out and plucked up the morsel. The jerky vanished in a wolfish gulp. To Trader’s surprise, the tail thumped twice.
For the next hand of time, Trader alternately chewed on his jerky and shared it with the shivering dog. The thing was ravenous. Nor did he ever snap, growl, or show so much as a whit of the glowing eyes the two hunters had described.
“What do I call you? Everything has to have a name,” Trader told the dog. The shivers had stopped as the dog’s stomach filled. The continuing drizzle ensured that his coat wasn’t going to dry out anytime soon.

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