Spots of blue broke the overcast of gray winter clouds. The island, normally her refuge against the world, now felt oppressive, dangerous. Anhinga’s souls kept flashing images of the assault. The leering expression on Eats Wood’s face hung behind her eyes. She could glance over her shoulder to see the tree. Beneath those branches, Eats Wood’s body was growing cold, his empty eyes turning gray.
His angry and frightened souls are rising, staring at me from among those naked branches. A shiver traced down her muscles, as if he were reaching out for her with ghostly fingers.
She didn’t feel better. Not even Striped Dart’s arrival, a half hand of time ago, reassured her. Salamander sat close beside her. He kept reaching out, patting her in reassurance. When she looked into his eyes, though, she could see the disquiet he tried so hard to hide.
Panther’s blood! Why am I still scared? After all I’ve been through, I shouldn’t be shaken by anything!
“Anhinga?” Salamander asked as he leaned forward, searching her face.
“I thought it would be Saw Back,” she whispered.
The fire popped, blue smoke rising from the fire pit that separated her from Striped Dart. Her brother looked anything but happy; the deep grooves of worry might have been carved into his forehead. She could tell he didn’t approve of the situation. His expression darkened at Salamander’s solicitation, as if he begrudged this stranger’s intimacy with his sister.
Salamander made a face as he scrubbed Eats Wood’s blood from his ax. He kept shooting curious glances at Striped Dart.
In the moons since Anhinga had seen him last, Striped Dart, too, had changed. She didn’t remember this long-boned young man, his hair coiled tightly on top of his head. He wore a new puma hide; the gray-brown pelt hung over his shoulders with white belly fur gleaming in the gray light. He had a triangular face, attractive, much like hers but with harder, masculine lines. A stifled anger burned behind his brown eyes and reflected in the set of his jaw. He held an ax in his hand and slapped it against his callused palm.
“I thought I saw movement behind me.” Anhinga closed her eyes and hugged her bulging belly protectively.
“I didn’t want to get too close,” Salamander told her. “It was difficult, racing after you, then having to slow down and wait for you to get out of sight.”
“Why didn’t you call to me?”
He made a dismissive gesture. “If you had been safe, I would have turned around and left.” He inspected his ax, picking at bits of dark red in the binding. “You didn’t ask me to come here, Anhinga. This is your time with your own people.”
She stared. Why would you do that? Surely you know I come here to plot against you! Aloud she said, “I don’t understand.”
His dark brown eyes seemed to see right through her. Another shiver ran down her spine as he said, “You must be free to follow your heart, Wife. Wherever that takes you. Whatever the price.”
By the Sky Beings, what did he mean by that?
“She could have been killed,” Striped Dart’s accented voice interrupted. “This is too dangerous.”
“What do we do, Brother-in-law?” Salamander asked. “If you come farther north, someone—like Eats Wood—will take the opportunity to kill you.”
Anhinga glanced back at the oak, feeling the presence of the corpse lying there in the blood-soaked grass. Snakes! What is Pine Drop going to say? Eats Wood is her cousin.
Striped Dart finally said, “If she will not come home with me to the Panther’s Bones, she is safer staying in Sun Town until the child is born.” He looked up at Salamander and smiled. “It would seem that you are more than capable of protecting her.”
“When she’s not battering her enemies herself,” Salamander replied. She could tell from his expression that he didn’t feel the levity he projected.
“I was told that you were a fool.” Thick muscles slid under
Striped Dart’s smooth brown skin. “But my uncle, he sees things differently than I do.”
“Many people call me a fool,” Salamander replied.
“But you’re not, are you?” Striped Dart asked.
Salamander’s lips twitched. “Can any of us truly know that he is not a fool, Brother-in-law? I doubt myself all the time.”
Anhinga blinked, as if seeing her husband anew. He seemed so controlled, possessed of a calm sadness. He had just killed his first man—one of his own, someone he knew, not a stranger. He sat across from an enemy, yet he might have been comfortably at his mother’s fire rather than deep in Swamp Panther territory with the corpse of Pine Drop’s cousin weighing on his souls.
Striped Dart’s eyes narrowed. “I did not approve of Anhinga going north. I did not approve of this ‘peace’ of his. Our sandstone is ours, given to us by the Creator at the beginning of the world.” Striped Dart shot Salamander a steely look, daring him to disagree.
“You speak truthfully, Striped Dart. I cannot second-guess the Creator’s reasons for placing things where he did when he made the world.” Salamander stood and slashed his ax through the air to fling the water off, then walked over to lower himself beside Anhinga. He took her hand, rubbing his fingers across her soft brown skin. The touch soothed her as he added, “In Sun Town, we have a need for sandstone.”
Striped Dart said bitterly. “Along with your thefts, your people killed my brother—and countless others over the turnings of the seasons!”
“We were wrong.” His dark brown eyes seemed to suck up her souls. She felt a tingle run through her as he said, “For that I apologize.” He turned his attention to her brother. “Looking back, Striped Dart, one cannot say who started this or who is more wronged. The sandstone is yours. For now Jaguar Hide has offered us safe passage to take one canoe load each moon.”
Anhinga took a deep breath, relieved at the cool air pumping into her oddly starved lungs. Salamander saved my life. This is the second time. I owe him for that. But how did she balance that against her vow to strike back in the names of Bowfin and her friends? Just being here, in the presence of her brother, rubbed the wound raw again.
Striped Dart was giving Salamander a hot look. “I tell you now—do not come for sandstone again, Brother-in-law. My people will kill yours.” He made a dismissive gesture. “It is our sandstone. Why should we allow you to have it just because you promise not to kill us while you help yourselves?”
“We have a peace,” Salamander reminded, “but for one, I do not
wish to send my kinsmen where they are not wanted.” He steepled his fingers, thinking. “Jaguar Hide told me that we could have one canoe load per moon, but that if we wanted to take two, we would have to send a load of gifts.” He glanced at Striped Dart. “You are right, Brother-in-law, it is not equitable.”
What are you saying? Anhinga wondered. That sandstone is one of the few things Owl Clan has left to barter with for obligation!
Striped Dart opened his mouth, but the hot retort died on his tongue. “I’m right?”
Salamander nodded. “Of course you are. We are getting many things for nothing. I have a beautiful wife, a canoe load of sandstone each moon, and peace. You, my friend, just have the peace from one clan. Mine. It is not fair.”
“What are you saying?” Anhinga snapped.
“I’m saying we should renegotiate.” Salamander spread his hands wide. “Striped Dart, what if we sent a load of gifts with each trip? What would your people like?”
“Fabrics,” Anhinga said quickly. “No one makes fabrics like Sun Town. And dyes. You make the most beautiful dyes. Smoked meat, like the buffalo and elk you have Traded for. My people don’t get such luxuries.”
“Stone?” Salamander asked, indicating the sharp greenstone celt hafted onto his ax.
“No. We have plenty of our own,” Striped Dart answered. “Trading rocks for rocks sounds silly. But these other things?” He looked genuinely interested. “You would do that when you didn’t have to?”
“I would, Brother-in-law. I would simply because it is right. And we have to consider safety.” Salamander jerked his head toward where Eats Wood lay out in the weeds. “Someday soon, someone like Eats Wood, from one of the other Sun Town clans, will come to raid and steal sandstone. He will come to break the peace, not because he hates the Swamp Panthers, but because it is a way to hurt my clan.”
Anhinga asked, “So what will you do? Kill him, too?”
“No, Wife. I will try to be smarter than my enemies.” Salamander’s brows lowered. “I will only send a canoe on the full moon, Striped Dart. I will always send someone you know: Yellow Spider, Bluefin, one of my kinsmen. If you see a canoe with strangers in it, be wary. My advice would be to avoid it.”
“Why? It is our territory. Why should we put up with raiders?”
Salamander let that strange brown gaze of his bore into Striped Dart. To Anhinga’s amazement, her brother squirmed, then lowered his eyes.
Salamander spoke in a respectful tone. “The decision is yours, Brother-in-law. I cannot tell you whether or not to attack them, but I would have you consider that so long as this peace lasts between you and me, it is a thorn in the side of the other Sun Town clans. If we break it, they will have won … and you won’t get fine fabrics and exotic foods in return for your stone.”
Anhinga shook her head. “Striped Dart, you can’t make this agreement. It is up to Uncle. He is our Elder! When he hears, he’ll be furious! He already distrusts you.”
“He and I think differently, Sister.” Striped Dart had pursed his lips. “I had to beg to get this chance to see you alone. He has the winter solstice to plan for, or he would be here, telling me ‘no.’ I’m not a child any more than you are. One day, I will be Elder. I want to be a good one.”
“We need not tell Jaguar Hide,” Salamander said easily. “If there is trouble over the Trade, simply say that Anhinga has talked me into sending it as a ‘gift’ to my wife’s people. Such things are done.” His expression went solemn again. “Like you, I am planning not just for this moon, but for many moons in the future.”
Striped Dart smiled, reaching out with a strong hand. “Done.” Then his smile slipped. “We have one other thing to settle between us. The child.”
“Yes?”
“It is ours. A member of my clan. I want my nephew to be raised as a Panther, not as a Sun person. He is to learn our ways, and I am to teach him.”
“And if it’s a girl?” Anhinga asked.
“Then she is to be raised by Mother.”
“Our child will be raised by me!” Anhinga told him sharply. “I will see to its needs.” What was she saying? She wasn’t going to be in Sun Town for much longer. All she needed was Jaguar Hide’s order to act, and she would impliment the plan she had in mind. Immediately she would take a canoe, head for home, and her clan would raise the child.
“You are going to teach my nephew to hunt?” Striped Dart cried. “How to fish and stalk enemies?”
Salamander raised his hands. “This is a matter between the two of you. But know this, Striped Dart, if anything should happen to Anhinga, I will bring you the child as soon as I safely can.”
“Why?”
“Because it will be your kin, Striped Dart.”
Striped Dart looked confused, as if he fished for thoughts in his
head. He asked, “Do you fear me? Is that why you do this?”
Salamander shook his head. “You do not scare me. No, just the opposite. I think that you and I could become great friends in spite of what our peoples have done to each other in the past.”
A crooked grin crossed Striped Dart’s lips. “You are not what I expected.” He paused. “I think you should keep my sister safe until the child is born.”
“No!” Anhinga started to say. “I have …” Her voice trailed off as both men gave her an inquiring stare. To say more was to give away everything. “Very well, tell Uncle I will come after the child is born.” Somehow she had been outmaneuvered, placed in a position she didn’t want to be in.
Salamander said, “I will send word with the sandstone boat when she will be coming to meet you again. And perhaps I shall send an escort, trusted warriors who will deliver her safely, then stand off. This place”—he gestured around—“is too well known now.”
“We think alike.” Striped Dart’s eyes were hooded. “I didn’t agree with Uncle’s plan in the beginning. You, Speaker, have shown me that it is good.”
“If I can be of service, Striped Dart, if a problem should develop, send word with the stone shipment. Give me a time, and I will meet you here, or send a known representative if I cannot come.”
Salamander stood. “I will leave you now. You probably have family matters to discuss.”
“You’re leaving?” Anhinga cried as she struggled to her feet. “Now?”
“I must get back.” He jerked a nod toward the body. “There are things I have to deal with.”
Worry tightened in her breast. He couldn’t just up and leave her. Not on this island, not with Eats Wood’s souls lingering about. “What will you tell Pine Drop and Night Rain?”
“Nothing, Anhinga. I am going to load his body into my canoe. Somewhere, out there”—he indicated the swamp—“he might slip off the side. That’s all.”
“You can’t just ignore it.” She thumped her breast in emphasis. “You killed to protect your family! Your child and your honor!”
“Do you think I should announce myself at the Men’s House and demand a warrior’s tattoos?” He smiled sadly, reaching out and running his fingertips along her cheeks. “This must remain our secret.”
“He attacked me!”
“Put yourself in Pine Drop and Night Rain’s position. I have
killed their kinsman. You know the pressure Mud Stalker and Sweet Root are already putting on them. No matter what, Anhinga, I will spare them.”
She could only stare in disbelief. He did everything for others. Did he do nothing for himself?
“Wait!” Anhinga turned, looking at Striped Dart. “I am going back with my husband. Brother, take the body, dump it on the way home. Someplace where no Sun Person can stumble across it. That way no bloodstains will be on our canoes when we get back to Sun Town.”
“And his canoe?” Salamander pointed to the craft they’d found hidden in the grass.
“Take it, Striped Dart. But you must promise me that you will destroy it.” She walked up to him as he rose to his feet. “Do you understand why that is so important to me?”
He nodded. “No one must recognize anything of his in the future. He will just have vanished.” A grim smile played on his lips. “Perhaps some large cat was out hunting?”
“You must tell no tales!” she reminded, shaking a finger in his face. “Not one, nothing about what happened here today.”
Striped Dart offered his hand to Salamander again. “You have my silence, Speaker, and my sister’s respect. A rare combination.” A veiled look crossed his eyes. “I look forward to dealing with you in the future.”
Salamander reached into his belt pouch. “A token,” he offered. “My Spirit Helper. If you ever need anything, send me this carving of Masked Owl.”
Striped Dart studied the little potbellied owl he held between thumb and forefinger. “It looks as pregnant as my sister.”
“Come, Husband.” Anhinga studied the brooding sky. The patches of blue had vanished, and the clouds had taken on a heaviness. “I think it will rain, and in this weather that will be most uncomfortable.”