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

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BOOK: People of the Weeping Eye (North America's Forgotten Past)
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“Then it has turned against them,” Violet Bead said darkly. “I, for one, say that we replace the Chahta in the squares with Albaamaha mikkos if it turns out that some of their people were responsible.”
Heron Wing shook her head. “Do that and our land will be burning within the moon. We will be so busy trying to keep the Albaamaha subdued that Yuchi, Chahta, and Talapoosie war parties will be slipping down every trail to take advantage of our confusion.”
She watched her words strike home. Weakness was the last thing they could afford. Every chiefdom in the surrounding regions would smell it, and their warriors would be close behind, seeking to exploit Sky Hand confusion for slaves, scalps, and booty. Should another town suffer the fate of Alligator Town, and have its granaries burned, the ensuing food shortage would fan the flames of chaos, leading to famine and intervillage raiding that would follow as neighbors turned on each other to feed their families.
Heron Wing glanced at Morning Dew to see her reaction. The woman had a stunned, disbelieving expression on her blood-smeared face. No wonder. She’d been in Smoke Shield’s bed for days. That would be enough to stun anyone. On top of that she had just learned that her husband was dead. The wonder was that she could muster the energy to walk.
Heron Wing asked Thin Branch, “Why have you come?”
“The war chief has sent you this woman. He asks you to keep her for him.”
Wide Leaf made a hissing sound, her expression turning sour.
Heron Wing shot her slave a reproving look before asking, “And what am I supposed to do with her?”
“Whatever you need her to do. I will come for her whenever my master sends for her.”
“I take it the war chief will provide food for her from his stores? Or does he expect her meals to come out of Panther Clan granaries?”
“My master didn’t say, but were I his wife—the slave being his property—I would imagine the answer would be self-explanatory.”
“You assume a great deal.”
Thin Branch shrugged noncommittally. “If you have no other use for me I will be off to the tchkofa in case my master has need of me.” With that he bowed, and turned on his heel.
Heron Wing shot a dubious glance in Morning Dew’s direction, then turned back to Violet Bead. “With charges of witchcraft on the air, I would be most cautious.”
“Indeed, I will.” She gathered her daughters. “Come, let us be off. There’s no telling what might be flying around here.” She cast a glance at the fog, shuddered, and marched her girls toward home.
Heron Wing lifted an eyebrow. “Have you eaten today, Morning Dew?”
“No.” The woman kept her gaze fixed vacantly on the ground. She kept rubbing her hands together, as if subconsciously trying to clean them. Heron Wing usually had the same impulse after touching Smoke Shield.
“We have some of that pumpkin bread left over from this morning’s meal.” Heron Wing gave her son enough of a shove to start him toward the door. She watched Stone and then Wide Leaf step inside. To Morning Dew she said, “I’ll say this. You’re back in record time. And walking on your own two feet, too.” She studied the woman. “Your nose is still bleeding.”
“He threw me against the wall.”
“I don’t see any bruises or cuts.”
“He didn’t beat me.” She was scrubbing at her hands again.
Looking closely, Heron Wing could see blood in her cuticles. She gave the woman a sly smile. “That he has lost interest so quickly is most unusual, but then, perhaps he underestimated you. You should be proud.”
When Morning Dew looked up, tears were welling in her eyes, her jaw trembling. “After the things I …” In a broken voice she whispered, “I’ll never be proud again.”
T
wo Petals stood, her feet on the sandy shore. Small waves from the Tenasee reached for her before sinking back into the river. She stared after the Kaskinampo. They were wasting no time on their journey home. Their paddles rising and falling, the Kaskinampo rounded a distant bend. When the last canoe vanished, she was alone with the river, aware of its Spirit winding back and forth across the muddy bottom. She could sense it fingering the rocks, moss, and mud as it slipped this way and that within the confines of its banks. Did it long for freedom from the imprisoning shores? Did it chafe as it rubbed against the banks?
The world slowed. The Kaskinampo were gone. She closed her eyes, breathing more easily, thankful for the respite.
I need to be alone.
The disembodied voices whispered around her, just beyond her hearing for the moment.
“The northern Yuchi outpost, a place called Cattail Town, is a half-day’s paddle upriver. You should reach it by high sun tomorrow,” Buffalo Mankiller had told them after landing at the sandy beach. The sun had been low in the west, casting the shadows of trees into the murky river water.
“You could camp with us,” Old White had offered. “I know your men are tired.” Fatigue had lain like a map on the old man’s face.
Two Petals understood. Their travel through the
Kaskinampo lands had been like a flurry. Buffalo Mankiller had pushed his young men—marching like a war chief during the portages, timing their travel so that camp was made at a distance from the towns, and always in isolated locations.
Two Petals knew why: The Kaskinampo feared them.
What do they know of fear?
Images of the visions slipped through her souls. She closed her eyes. Her souls twisted inside her, struggling to be free. But they, like the rest of her, were bound as if by rawhide. She relived a vision of water closing over her, her body riding down into the depths. Around her, rainbow colors shone and blazed as sunlight played through the water.
Voices hissed and laughed, urging her to run.
“You must survive the trial, if you are ever to find your husband,”
one of the voices said.
She opened her eyes to see the half-man–half-deer figure of Deer Man standing on the water. He was watching her, eyes glowing yellow, antlers rising from the top of his head. He stood on the moving liquid, waves washing through his feet.
“I know.”
“Are you strong enough?”
“I have seen the end. I know the final Dance.”
“But is your husband real? Or illusion?”
Deer Man asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Beware of the blind man. He has Power all his own.”
A tendril of fear wound around her. For a moment, she felt lost, disconnected. Her souls floated like a canoe cast adrift on the current.
She started, hearing Trader’s voice behind her. It intermingled with the whisperings of Power that hovered around her. She bowed her head, souls crying silently within her. It was all so impossible. Power lied. She knew that. But truth and falsehood were woven through the universe like threads in a fine fabric.
When she looked up, Deer Man was as gone as the Kaskinampo.
She had felt incredible relief as Trader and Old White had doled out the Trade, handing each piece to Buffalo Mankiller before he extended it to one of the young men who had labored so hard to pull them upriver. Each piece had been valuable—enough to compensate the men more than fairly for their labor and danger.
She shivered, aware that she was being watched. For a moment she thought it was Deer Man, but no such figure stood upon the water. Looking around, she could see no one. Behind her, in the camp, Trader and Old White huddled over a fire. So who had eyes upon her? Cocking her head, she listened as the rustling whisper of the voices grew still. She sniffed, reached out, and fingered the air as if to touch the Watcher’s presence. Then she placed the familiarity.
She turned her head, looking upriver.
The blind man has Power all his own. He is there, watching you.
Deer Man’s warning, however, wasn’t unexpected. In the Dream Vision, she had seen the blind man and felt his startled reaction to her awareness of him. He was old, gray haired, and wore a cloth tied around his sightless eyes. The skin that she could see bore hideous burn scars, and the fingers were missing on his right hand. When he had looked up, Power came swirling out of the Dream to obscure his form. The last thing she saw was the beautiful shell gorget that he wore around his neck. In the middle was a circle that contained three spiraled arms that curled together in a point. The surrounding ring had been divided and contained eight smaller circles. The spaces between them were dotted, like stars. The edge had been scalloped, as if portraying clouds.
“Who are you?”
he had called out from the shining haze that hid him.
“I am Two Petals,” she had told him in return.
His Power had grown, and with it, he closed the portal through which she had seen him.
Sister Datura had just Danced away and clapped her hands.
He was close now. She had felt him as they traveled ever southward, but not like this. His presence hung there, just below the horizon, like a gathering black storm. Men were coming, warriors, their hands caressing weapons. Fear and worry burned brightly around their hearts. They were the Watcher’s arms, reaching out to enfold her.
“Are you there?” she asked the empty river. “Can you hear me?”
She turned her head, listening, but for once the voices were silent. She could feel the Power in the world around her, changing, ebbing and flowing. The future that she knew as the past was moving inexorably around her. Something was coming, going, receding as it roared ever closer.
Swimmer’s sniffing nose prodded at her leg, and she looked down to find warm brown eyes and a wagging tail. “There is no time for us, is there?”
Swimmer seemed happy with the moment.
Why can’t I?
Her fingers reached out, curling into a tight grip. Try as she might, she could no more grasp the present than she could the very air around her.
Fragments of Song filtered through her souls, unbidden. Had the medicine box reacted to the blind man’s attention? She remembered her amazement when she first heard the Singing. The lovely voice had risen on the night air, brought to life by Trader’s gentle touch.
It knew it was going home.
She thought back to what had been; her gaze shifted longingly to the north, replaying the unwinding of the rivers she had traveled. In the eye of her souls, she imagined her house, Father, the familiar forests and fields where she had lived.
I will never go home.
A shiver washed down her spine, and someone’s hard
gaze burned into her back. Wheeling, she turned, staring upriver, fully expecting to see the blind man standing there.
The riverbank was empty but for Swimmer and the beached canoes.
 
 
O
ld White glanced at Two Petals where she stood outlined against the river, her slender body no more than a silhouette. He sighed and inspected the camp, an aching weariness in his bones. Buffalo Mankiller had worn him out as he pushed from dark camp to dark camp. Rations had been one hastily cooked meal at night and cold dried meat, nuts, or whatever he could pull out of the sacks during the day.
“You’d think he didn’t like our company,” Trader said as he laid out tinder and used his fire bow to create a smoking ember. This he carefully scooped into the twigs and crushed leaves, blowing to coax a flame.
“It must have been something I said.” Old White stepped over, then groaned as he lowered himself onto one of the packs. He stared at the medicine box, remembering how Trader had been able to lay the heavy copper plate inside it.
Which had been formed to fit the other?
The copper that they had pounded into a square could not have been more perfectly fitted had they measured it. The box was the last thing he had expected when Buffalo Mankiller had come walking out of the darkness. How long had it been since he’d seen the box last? Fifty winters? More? He’d been so young that day.
“You want to tell me about that box?” Trader asked, looking up from the fire. “Your eyes have been on it constantly, your expression like you were watching a live tie snake.” He pointed a finger. “And how could Two Petals hear it Singing?”
Old White stared at the wood, tracing its patterns with his gaze. He began in a soft voice: “The last time I saw that box it was on my father’s back when he marched away to war. It was a grand spring morning. He led a party of forty warriors north to drive the Yuchi out of our lands. The women were Dancing, clapping their hands. The Power of war filled all of us. We were so certain that Power favored us. I had no idea that my life was about to be turned upside down. None of us did.”
“Ah, so your father was a war chief? Finally, the Seeker speaks.”
“Two of his party returned. My father never did.” He paused, seeing Trader’s pinched expression. “That was but the first of a series of calamities.”
“As a child, I remember hearing about a lost medicine box.”
“Many have been lost over the years. This was not the first, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”
Trader was figuring in his mind, adding the years up, no doubt. He finally asked, “How old were you?”
“That is the earliest memory I have. I just recall the sunlight shining on that seeing eye in the middle of the hand. I remember thinking that I would be a great warrior one day; and that I, too, would carry this box off to war against our enemies.” He chuckled, feeling the weariness riding his bones. “Children have such limited understanding.”
“Want to tell me the rest?”
“When the time is right.”
“Ah, yes,” Trader said sarcastically. “I should have known.” He shook his head, tired too. “This whole silly venture is mad.”
“Madness is only the other face of sanity.”
“Gods, you’re starting to sound like Two Petals.”
“I wish I could see it as clearly as she does.”
“That’s it. I’m going to go drown myself in the river.” Trader lurched to his feet, stalking off toward the forest.
“River’s the other way,” Old White offered.
“Don’t remind me,” Trader called over his shoulder.
Old White stared at the box, hearing branches snapping in the darkness beneath the trees as Trader gathered wood. Somewhere an owl hooted to greet the coming night.
Firelight bathed the medicine box. It accented the carvings, casting shadows into the grooves. The images on the wood wavered and Danced in the warm light. The Seeing Hand seemed to watch him with a penetrating stare.
You have come back to me. Why?
Tomorrow they would land at a Yuchi town. He realized that they would know exactly what the medicine box was, and what it signified.
Two Petals walked up. Swimmer—feet and legs wet—wagged his tail by her side.
“Are you as worn out as I am?” he asked.
“Wide awake,” she told him. Her head tilted. “I can see that you’re not worried about the Yuchi.”
“Oh, not at all.” He glanced up. “Got any advice?”
She paused, her eyes going vacant. “The Watcher’s arms are reaching out for us. A thousand souls will be unleashed. Can souls float on a flood?” She winced, as if pained. “You can see them, can’t you?”
“Who?” he asked.
She pointed upriver. “The blind man’s fingers. Right there. Reaching out.”
“What blind man?”
“The one who is watching me.”
He sighed. “What about Trader’s medicine box?”
“No medicine in that.”
“Oh, yes. There’s a heap of medicine there.”
“The box Sings of want and desire, fear and anxiety. Like keeping a rattlesnake for the sole purpose of admiring its colors. Is it safer to keep it in a jar, or let it loose to be encountered who knows where?”
BOOK: People of the Weeping Eye (North America's Forgotten Past)
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