Pine Drop climbed the long slope, stopping on occasion to catch her breath. She was tired of pregnancy. Tired of the discomfort, of having to rise every so often in the night to waddle out and urinate. The shifting of her daughter—for she assumed Salamander had been right about that—disrupted what little sleep she managed.
Above her the Bird’s Head loomed out of the graying dawn. The last of the stars were fading. A warm misty breeze blew up from the south, carrying with it the scent of greening grass, the perfume of dogwood, redbud, elder, and locust blossoms.
Spring had warmed the land, stirring the life that had lain dormant in memory of Mother Sun’s flight to the south. As she climbed she could hear the high piping of one of the last flocks of blue herons heading northward on the gulf wind.
The grass, thick and lush, fed by the winter rains, curled around her feet when she wandered off the path. A vole rustled away from her passage.
When she looked up, she could see the ramada, and there, on the palmetto-thatched poles of the cane roof, she made out the solitary shape of an owl. In the twilight, it watched her, huge, the largest barred owl she had ever seen. Black eyes studied her from within the twin circles of the facial disks.
She froze, a prickle running through her as their eyes met. Her souls began to tingle. She could swear that she could not only feel
her own heartbeat, but that of her daughter deep in her womb.
Time seemed to swoon, silvering and shifting around her like vision through clear moving water.
She sensed rather than saw the owl spread its wings. The giant bird drifted down, silent, its wings enlarging until they filled the sky. To the last moment she stared into the liquid depths of those huge brown eyes, and then, as if with a snap, the owl was gone. Vanished.
She spun on her feet, staring behind her—and saw nothing. The clear gray air was empty.
Snakes! Where did it go? How could such a big bird have just disappeared into the air? Her throat had tightened, her mouth become dry. She could feel her blood, bursting through her with each pounding of her heart.
Resuming the climb took every resource and all of the courage she could muster. She laid a hand on one of the ramada poles, panting for breath, and looked up at the great mound’s peak.
She could see him sitting there, legs crossed on the summit, his head back, eyes closed. His hands rested, palms up, on his bent knees. Morning dew had settled on his black hair, turning it silver.
The expression on his face stopped her. He had a beatific look, a lax smile on his lips. He might have been savoring some taste, perhaps a sweet squash flavored with honeysuckle that lay so delicately on the tongue.
Filling her lungs, she forced her weary legs up the last slope and lowered herself quietly to sit beside him. Every muscle in her body vibrated like a stretched cord. An electric sensation, like that from rubbed fur, crackled along her nerves.
She swallowed hard and studied him. What sort of man are you, Husband? Does Power flow through you like sap, or is it a madness?
Salamander seemed oblivious, so locked away in his visions that nothing else existed in the world.
She waited, turning her eyes to the eastern horizon and the reddening beyond the distant tree line. The bulge of the sun slowly emerged from behind the forest’s bulk. She sighed, unconsciously reaching out for Mother Sun’s light, as if she could grab hold of those first glorious rays and scrub the darkness from her souls.
“It is glorious, isn’t it?” Salamander barely spoke above a whisper.
She spared him a glance. His eyes remained closed, the blissful look on his face.
“Yes.” She took a breath to still her souls. “Look how far north it has moved since the solstice. We are forest people, Husband. Knowing that Mother Sun moves across the sky is one thing, actually
seeing it makes the stories about her come true.”
He remained as calm as a rock, unmoving, his hands still on his knees as though supporting something in the air.
“I saw Masked Owl,” she told him nervously. “I think I sacred him away.”
“You did not scare him.”
She shifted, pulling her kirtle around so that it didn’t chafe her pendulous belly. “Does he always come when you call him?”
“No. He came to see me. He is worried.”
“About what?”
“About my new Spirit Helper. She has changed the balance between Masked Owl and Many Colored Crow. The future is no longer certain, Pine Drop. They don’t know what I am going to choose.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean, choose?”
His smile was sad. “Nothing comes without a price.”
She ground her teeth for a moment, then asked, “Husband? I must ask you something. It is very important to me.”
“I am not a witch. Masked Owl is not evil. I seek to harm no one.”
A flood of relief washed through her. “Then you have heard the talk?”
“No. You are the first to mention it to me.”
She flinched, unsettled. “You are becoming ever more strange, Salamander. Power is growing in you, and it frightens me.”
“You are a wise woman.”
“I don’t feel very wise these days, Husband. Things are happening. A trap is being built for you, and I can sense the cords that run to the deadfall trigger. I can feel people tugging on them. If they pull the trigger loose, the weight is going to fall and crush you.”
“I Dance on such a thin edge,” he whispered. Sunlight flooded his face, washing his delicate skin in red. He looked so young and fragile. “I’m scared, Pine Drop. If I slip and fall, it will be into a horrible nightmare. The worst thing is, it isn’t just me. It is you and Night Rain and Anhinga and Water Petal. One misstep on my part can destroy you all.”
She clenched her fists. “The clans are moving against you.”
“Wife, it would be so sweet if my only concern was the clans. Masked Owl would have me believe that the One and the Dance are all that matter. The One is so Powerful. It calls to me. It would be so easy to give in. To find happiness like Mother did. The only thing that calls me back is you, Pine Drop. My wives and my daughters. They need me. The People need me.”
“Of course we do.”
A great sadness filled his voice. “Wolf Dreamer said that a man couldn’t love and Dream. I want to do both. If only I could tear myself in two, send my Dream Soul to spin with the One, and my Life Soul to embrace you and watch my daughters grow.”
“Half the time I have no idea what you are saying.”
He smiled sadly. “Someday you will. You are the future.”
“Forget that for a moment and listen to me!” She took a breath. “Uncle is working in secret, building an alliance to have you declared a witch.” There, she’d done it. Betrayed her clan as surely as Night Rain had done. A sick feeling stirred in her gut.
“They can’t destroy what they do not comprehend.”
“They can smack you in the back of the head with an ax,” she declared. “If the Council decides to brand you as a witch, they won’t give you any warning. They will act by surprise, and you won’t know until you feel your skull split open.”
For a long time he sat there, eyes flickering under the closed lids. “Why do you care, Pine Drop?”
She looked down miserably where she picked at her fingers. “I have come to love you.”
“There is no greater gift and no greater curse.”
“Curse? What do you mean?”
“You draw me back from the edge.”
She squinted in disbelief. “You really want to fall off that edge you were talking about?”
“More than anything you can imagine, Wife.” A faint smile bent his lips. “But for you, all of you, I would be drawn like a bee to a pitcher plant. I would lick desperately at the sweetness as I fell into the depths.”
“By the Sky Beings, why?”
“Because the other way would be too painful.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about what I will have to give up for the future, Pine Drop. I just don’t know if I am strong enough to see it through. I am so tempted to choose a long and happy life.”
“Then choose it! Help me stop this witchcraft story before it starts.”
He smiled, as if amused by her worry.
“I need to know something, Salamander. Did Anhinga kill my cousin, Eats Wood?” There, she had asked. Now, waiting for his reply, her souls twisted in anticipation. In response, he just sat there, legs crossed, eyes closed, holding his hands palm up. “Salamander?”
“No, she did not.” He raised his hands, inspecting them intently
as he worked his fingers back and forth. He blinked, clenched his fists, and stiffened his back as if stung.
“Salamander? Did you kill him?”
“I think it would have taken someone with a warrior’s courage to kill your cousin.” He shot her an innocent smile. “I’ve been meaning to give you something.”
She frowned, unsure what had just happened between them.
He reached into the tuck of his breechcloth and pulled out a sinew-wrapped square. With careful fingers he unwound the thread, revealing two pieces of flat bark. This he handed to her.
The wood felt warm to her fingers, as though they had been baking in the sun. She separated the pieces finding five blue jay feathers that had been resting there, perfectly pressed by the soft bark.
“What?” she asked, lifting the delicate feathers.
“You left them the morning you took the little carved owl. I am returning them. You didn’t have to leave anything in payment. That owl was for you. I just hadn’t finished it yet. I would rather see those feathers sewn into the bare patch on your cloak.”
Tears caught her by surprise and blurred her vision with silver. “What is happening to you, Husband? What are you becoming?”
“The future.”
Pine Drop’s daughter had been born in the middle of the night while a misty spring rain fell. They had run low on wood, having to send Night Rain to borrow from one of her cousins. Anhinga wrung out a cloth as she cleaned the blood-streaked infant. Curious, wasn’t it, that caring for a newborn could become such second nature in so short a time?
She glanced at her own daughter, asleep in a cane-framed cradleboard. The child’s wispy black hair was visible above the cloth bundle, her skull like a delicate gourd. Looking closer, Anhinga could see that her eyes were closed, the tiny mouth open to expose pink gums and a curl of tongue.
“It was easier this time,” Night Rain said as she held Pine Drop’s hand.
“Easier for you,” Pine Drop answered wearily as she lay gulping air like a dying fish. Sweat beaded on her brown skin, pooling in the stretch marks around her navel.
“I thought it was enjoyable,” Anhinga said, eyes flashing. “I enjoyed repeating those things you told me.”
“Next time,” Pine Drop mumbled, “you can deliver your own child.”
Night Rain used hanging moss to wipe up the last of the blood from the matting that lay between Pine Drop’s legs. She pressed it into a bundle, and before Anhinga could draw breath to stop her, tossed the moss into the smoldering fire. Flames licked around it before climbing through the moss. The wet blood and tissue steamed and hissed as it burned. The air filled with a pungent odor.
“I would have burned it outside,” Anhinga said, scrunching her nose.
“I didn’t think of that,” Night Rain replied sheepishly.
Anhinga finished her cleaning before dropping to her knees beside Pine Drop. The newborn hung on Pine Drop’s right breast. The woman’s tired arms cradled the infant. Anhinga watched from half-lowered eyes as the tiny mouth worked the nipple.
She thought it curious that Salamander had arrived bearing a fiber-tempered bowl and offered to carry the afterbirth out beyond the clan grounds for burial. Shifting, she noticed the turned earth under Pine Drop’s bed, as if something had been recently dug from there. A slow smile crossed her lips.
“Snakes,” Pine Drop whispered. “I could sleep for a solid moon.”
Anhinga sighed, throwing her head back and feeling her dark hair falling down her back. Panther’s blood, she was tired. “I, too, am ready to fall over. If you need me, you’ll find me at Salamander’s. Sleeping.”
“I can call on kin,” Night Rain told her. “Thank you, Anhinga. We didn’t think it would take so long.”
“Mine did,” she replied as she reached for her daughter. Wrapping the fabric to protect the baby’s face from mosquitoes, she took a last look around, nodded, and ducked out into the night.
The faintest of breezes played with the heavy night air. She could feel the promise of summer’s coming warmth. A cloudless sky was painted with stars, while a sliver of moon hung just above the eastern horizon. A whippoorwill called plaintively from beyond the house-topped ridges. Crickets and frogs added their voices to the night. Woodsmoke hung in the air, mixing with the cloying odor of rotting trash and the tang of human waste.
She tucked her daughter close to her shoulder and walked down the ridge before turning north along the edge of the bluff. The ridges here, she was told, had been built atop an old gully. One the Sun
People had filled before plotting out the Snapping Turtle Clan ground.
Below her the tree-filled bottom land south of the lake lay in dark shadow. She could smell cooler air, the pungent scent of the swamp carrying to her position.
She passed the edge of the ridges and glanced uneasily at the dark houses. The last one belonged to Mud Stalker. She stopped, staring at it.
A wicker door blocked the entrance. She cocked her head, stretching down with her free hand to reach into her pouch. Her fingers caressed the stone-tipped knife that lay there. Salamander had sharpened it, using an antler tip to pressure flake an edge keen enough to slice hair.
It would be so easy. She need only slip that doorway aside, step in, and one quick slash would leave his throat severed from side to side. Before he could fully call his souls to wakefulness, he would be choking on his bubbling blood, tasting it as it rushed up in his mouth and nostrils.
She snorted to herself and hurried on. Pus and blood, what was happening to her? Uncle hadn’t been right, had he? She wasn’t beginning to see these people as her own?
Disgusted with herself, she strode purposefully on her way, passing the head of the narrow ditch that drained Snapping Turtle Clan when she stopped short. Her path had taken her to the plaza where the Men’s House stood on its double-humped mound.
She stared at the structure, its thatched roof inky against the sky. The carvings atop the ridgepole guarded the building—black silhouettes against the night.
She swallowed hard, taking careful steps to the pole where she had been tied. Reaching down, she touched the grass-covered earth. The dirt was cool, damp on her fingertips.
She tucked her chin, smelling her baby daughter’s delicate scent as it rose from the cradleboard. How many things had changed since she had been bound and helpless here?
In the eye of her soul, she relived that terrible day. Remembered how they had cut Cooter’s liver out of his body. How they had laughed as they bent down to defecate into Mist Finger’s empty eye sockets. Once again the camp dogs slung silver drool as they snapped up bits of raw flesh cut from her friends. She could see the stripped rib cage, all that was left of who? Slit Nose? Spider Fire?
So much hatred. So much death.
What brought me here?
A fist tightened around her heart. Was that the price she had paid
by waiting for so long? That her memories would begin to weaken, that the pain of that day, the humiliation to their spirits and memories, would begin to fade?
She could feel Bowfin and her dead friends, watching her from the darkness, their eyes burning as they studied her. She could sense their frustration and swelling anger.
Will you act? The words seemed to linger on the night.
She steeled herself and stood. To her surprise her fingers hurt, and something firm filled her palm. She opened her hand, wondering when she had clawed the soil from ground.
He sat in the doorway of the Men’s House, his form obscured by the deep shadow. He had barely seen her coming as she walked across the plaza. Hadn’t recognized her until she stopped at the pole and bent down to feel the ground.
Now he watched as she hurried away, her gait halfway between a run and a walk.
Saw Back reached up and fingered the side of his crushed face. It would have been so easy. He could have sneaked up on the balls of his feet. She’d have never known he was there until the snapping of her skull as he drove his ax through it.
“Someday, woman.”
It would not be in the darkness. Not in the quiet night. No, he wanted her to know he was going to kill her. He wanted to look into her eyes, see her fear, as he choked the life out of her body.