The night after Back Scratch’s funeral, Salamander blinked his eyes open and listened to the sounds. Birdsong had sent its first melodies through the darkness. Dawn couldn’t be more than a hand’s time from breaking over the eastern horizon. He reached out and lifted the deerhide, aware of Night Rain’s sleeping form where she lay beside him. His second wife was snuggled against the wall, her back to him. She shifted, some sleep-ridden sound deep in her throat as he slipped from the covers into the cool air and resettled the deerhide over her shoulders.
The events of the previous night came tumbling out of his sleep-heavy souls. After Wing Heart had excused herself and gone to bed, he and Water Petal had sat up late, discussing the implications of Jaguar Hide coming to Owl Clan. Did it mean that he had heard of their weakness, or did he still come to them believing that he dealt with the most prestigious of Sun Town’s clans? Assuming the former, did he have designs on Wing Heart, seeking to further damage her standing among the clans? Or would this be the challenge that would snap her out of her endless mourning for her brother and son?
Salamander stretched in the dark shadows and glanced at the door, a bare gray portal to the predawn outside. Moving in silence, he tied a cord around his waist and pulled his breechcloth into place.
Under his bed he found the wooden box that contained his herbs. The sweetgum wood had been decorated with an interlocking owl
motif, the wings of one blending into the wings of another to encircle the box. Opening it, his fingers encountered a soft leather bag in one corner. This he lifted and loosened the drawstring. He took a pinch, sniffing to ensure he had the right mixture. A quick glance ensured that both women were hard asleep; he dropped a dash of the powder into the stewpot. Sniffing his fingers again, he confirmed the ingredients: wild ginger, licorice root, dogbane, milkweed, and rue. Both Pine Drop and Night Rain were destined for another day of female discomfort.
He wearily returned the herbs to his box before closing it and restoring it to its place under the bed. From the clay pot beside the box he scooped out a liberal handful of rendered bear grease laced with pine resin. This he smeared liberally over his arms, legs, face, and belly—protection against the hordes of stinging and biting insects.
Finished, he reached for his atlatl and darts. To his dismay, one of the long cane shafts caught on the deerhide hanging from Pine Drop’s bedding.
“Huh?” she mumbled. “What’s wrong?”
He could see her shifting, sitting up under the soft hide. “Nothing. I’m sorry. It’s still early. Go back to sleep.”
“Salamander?” she groaned. “Snakes, the sun’s not even out yet.”
“Shush, go back to sleep.” He started for the door.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
“Out to greet the sun. And then hunting.”
“Have a good hunt.” She started to roll over, then stopped short as if suddenly thinking of something. “Wait. I’m coming with you.”
He froze. “Why?”
“I’m your wife. Can’t I come with you if I want to? You might be able to use some help.”
He could feel his souls sinking. “I might be gone for most of the day.”
“It’s all right. Night Rain can do the chores. I brought us bladderwort from one of the bogs down south. She can boil it and drain it.”
Fortunately, she couldn’t see his face while he waited for her to stand, tie her kirtle around her waist, and grease herself.
“Drink some of that stew,” he told her insistently. “If you don’t, you’ll be chewing sticks in two hands’ time.”
She crouched, lifting the ceramic pot and drinking deeply of the mixture. That, at least, brought him a little satisfaction.
“Wretched Snakes,” she said as she replaced the bowl and wiped her lips. “The fire is stone dead, and that tastes like swamp muck.”
“It’s food,” he reminded. “You’ll need the strength.” He wondered what he was going to eat. It wouldn’t do to go begging breakfast from Water Petal as he’d been doing for the last couple of months while he laced his wives’ food with the Serpent’s potions. It might turn into a very long day for his stomach.
He led the way out into the morning. Moisture rode on the southern breeze, speckling his skin and filling his nostrils. In the darkness, he could see tufts of mist curling along the ridge. The line of domed houses seemed to solidify as if from fragments of dreams as he and Pine Drop walked along the earthen berm to the first gap. From there he crossed to the Southern Moiety commons and cut across for the ramp leading up the eastern side of the Bird’s Head.
“Do you do this every morning?” she asked.
“Yes.” It had become a ritual with him. The last place on Earth he wanted to be was in Pine Drop’s house when his wives awakened. Having begun with such low expectations, their relationship had been deteriorating every since. It had been safe to assume that they wanted as much to do with him as he did with them.
He passed the Council House and started up the long ramp. It never ceased to amaze him that his ancestors had built such a triumph. He often tried to wrap his comprehension around the number of baskets of earth that had been dug, carried, and piled to create the Bird’s Head. The sheer size of it filled his souls with awe.
He had taken to sprinting up the long climb and chafed now that Pine Drop was clambering along behind him. Still, he hurried as much as he could, hearing her breath begin to strain when not even halfway up.
“Is there some pressing hurry?” she called from behind.
“Normally I run up this.”
“Well, go.” She waved him on in the foggy grayness. “I’ll see you at the top.”
Thus freed, he ran, enjoying the pull in his muscles as he dashed to the top. He came to a halt just past the ramada and filled his hot lungs with the cool air. As he turned back to the east, he could see the faint graying of the horizon. The south wind pushed at him, a last faint filtering of stars visible through the heavy air as they began to fade in the east.
She emerged out of the mist below, thin and well formed, her movements female and sinuous as she climbed. Her hair, loose and long, swayed with each step. Were it anyone but Pine Drop, the
moment would have been enchanting. As she neared, her image grew into Spring Cypress’s. A fantasy that passed as she raised her face to his.
“Now what?” she asked, a tone of resentment barely hidden.
Salamander seated himself and dug into the moist soil with his fingers. “Now we wait.”
“Just wait?” She turned, staring out at the graying world around them. Her breathing slowed as she paced back and forth.
He found the little stone owl he had been carving and the flake that he had buried beside it the morning before. Wiping the black clay from it, he resumed his carving.
“That’s what you do up here? Just sit and carve?” She pointed at the stone image in his hands.
“Why don’t you go back and sleep? This can’t be pleasant for you.”
He could make out her features now. She was a striking woman, her round face balanced with a thin nose and perfect cheeks. She comported herself with a proud bearing and quiet dignity. He could see her teetering on the verge of stomping off. At the last instant, apparently by force of will, she relented and plopped herself down beside him to stare out toward the eastern horizon. The light there had begun to yellow.
He asked, “Why are you doing this?”
She mulled over the words before she said, “I thought that, perhaps, we might try spending some time together.” She was winding her gleaming black hair into tight ropes, only to flip them free and repeat the process. “If we are to live together, we must build some trust between us.”
“All right.” He shot her a wary look.
“Do you hate me?”
The question caught him by surprise. “No. I don’t hate you. I just don’t like you.”
She stared out at the distance, arms crossed as she leaned forward. He could see her expression tensing, as if she were fighting a pain in her stomach. Returning his concentration to the little red owl, he carefully began the notch that would separate the figure’s feet.
After several heartbeats, she said, “Just because we are married doesn’t mean that we can’t be friends.”
“That wasn’t the impression I had when I first moved into your house.”
“I’m sorry.”
Ask her if she is just friends with Three Stomachs. He resisted the
impulse, thinking instead of how Salamander was when raccoon was sniffing around his log.
“Sacred Snakes,” she whispered, and he looked up. A band of red had burned across the far northeastern horizon. Before them, Sun Town was wreathed in silvered mist, only the black tips of the rooftops protruding in curving rings.
“It’s beautiful,” she continued. “I had no idea.”
“That’s why I come here. For this one moment of the day, everything in the world is at peace, locked in beauty. In this instant, my souls Dance in joy and breathe the miracle of life.”
The distant fire of morning had illuminated her eyes with an unearthly shine and cast her smooth face in orange. Her lips were parted, and she moved her hands from her belly to the spot between her breasts, as if to feel the beating of her heart.
“ … My souls can Dance in joy,” she murmured absently, “ … breathe the miracle of life.”
“Watch this.” He raised a hand, anticipating the moment as the sun cracked the horizon and shot a seething sea of red across the mist. It rolled toward them, flicking color from the fingers of mist that deepened as the filaments of dawn threaded in to illuminate Sun Town itself in a warm orange glow.
“Beautiful,” she whispered, her face alight with joy.
Her expression stopped him. He had never seen her look this way. Monsters of the deep, she hadn’t actually allowed the morning beauty to touch her souls, had she?
“On clear mornings”—he watched the glowing world of color—“you can watch the sun as it moves through the Sky. The turning of seasons is marked as Mother Sun makes her way north and then back south. If you pay close attention, you can see her pass each of the ridges.”
“This is a thing the Serpent taught you?”
“Among others.”
“And there is Power in this?”
“There is Power in many things. Humans just don’t always understand them. Most of the time we refuse to hear the voices the world uses to speak to us. Listening for them isn’t something that comes naturally to people.”
She studied him, her face profiled in the red light. He had the sudden urge to reach up and trace the line of her forehead and straight nose. To follow the hollow onto her full lips and around her chin.
“Do you really hear those voices?” she asked in an oddly shy voice.
“Some of them.” With reluctance, he had to remind himself that this was the same woman who had been in Three Stomach’s arms yesterday. That, coupled with her sudden interest in sharing his day, brought wary reality back to roost between his souls.
“Well, come,” he said, carefully replacing his owl in its hole and covering it up. “We ought to get on with our hunting. I was thinking of taking a canoe and loading it with fish traps. The water level has dropped enough that the channels are forming.”
She looked uncharacteristically sad as she sighed and stood up. “Yes, I suppose so.”
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we really could live like this, share not only moments of beauty but the heart, too? A bitter laugh formed in the back of his throat. Such things were not meant for him. He might as well consider walking across the surface of the water.