“I think you should be fasting,” Bobcat said to Salamander as he leaned forward and lit the end of his stone pipe with a twig from the fire. The mixture of sumac, sweetgum, and wild cherry leaves left an acrid tang in the air.
The Serpent’s house was new; but the poles, saplings, and vines that supported the roof already had stained to a dark amber color. The place smelled new, having yet to develop that characteristic smoke-flavored stuffiness of an old house. The plaster hadn’t been smudged by greased bodies.
Bobcat leaned back, puffing contentedly, and raised his eyebrows as he studied Salamander. “I don’t know what more to tell you, my friend. Perhaps if the old Serpent had lived? Who knows? He might have known what you could do to prepare yourself.”
Salamander squirmed as he leaned forward on the pole bench. He propped his elbows on his knees and blew through his fingers before saying, “Fasting would do little good.”
“Purification always helps when it comes to the ways of Power.”
“In my case, I don’t need to find a vision. It seems like every time I close my eyes some Spirit Helper is chasing down my Dream Soul to impart advice. Masked Owl wants to lead me away to bliss as I Dance with the One. Many Colored Crow will give me the authority and prestige to save Sun Town from clan violence. He will make us great. That is the choice that looms before me. Enlightenment or fame and glory.”
“Given my calling, Salamander, I would have to choose enlightenment. I can only imagine what the One must be like.” Bobcat shook his head. “Truly, friend. I wonder sometimes if I am not fooling myself and everyone around me by becoming the Serpent.”
“You know how to Sing the cures. You know the plants, Bobcat, and how to conjure their spirits to heal. I’ve been thrilled at the sound of your voice as you Sing the ceremonies.” Salamander paused. “I think being the Serpent is more than losing your souls in the search for the One. Many Colored Crow is right about that. You have a duty here, to do your best for the People.” He chuckled hollowly. “That is the trap, my friend. Do you save yourself? Or do you save others?”
“How can you save others if you do not save yourself first?” Bobcat asked.
“For that, I have no answer.” Salamander rubbed his face. “But if you fall into the One, you will not want to leave it. I’ve touched it, felt its caress at the edges of my soul. It’s …”
“Yes?”
“More wonderful than I can ever tell you.”
Bobcat frowned at the wistful tone in Salamander’s voice. He puffed and exhaled a cloud of blue, thoughtful brown eyes watching the smoke rise. “I would give anything to have even that. Why don’t you just give in to the Dream? Let the rest of us sort this out on our own.”
“I have obligations.”
“Ah, yes, obligations.”
“They are what make us the Sun People, Bobcat. Obligations and responsibilities are what separate us from the animals.” Salamander pulled his hands back, studying the lines in his palms. “Snakes, I recall Mother giving me that lecture the night she sent me up the Bird’s Head. What I would give to be that simple boy again.”
“You could go away, Salamander. Take your wives and travel off to the Twin Circles Camp on the gulf. Or perhaps over to Yellow Mud Camp. We have camps and villages throughout the land for five days’ journey in any direction.”
“That might solve my problems here, but what about Many Colored Crow’s vision? Do you really think Deep Hunter and Mud Stalker could end up fighting? Could they really cause a war?”
Bobcat nodded seriously. “Yes, my friend. I believe it. They are driven men who see an opportunity. Owl Clan’s very success has led them to desperation.”
“If I choose one, how does the other react? If I choose Many
Colored Crow, is my head split by a lightning bolt the next day?”
“If you leave, you are no longer at the center. Maybe they will lose interest in you.”
“And maybe they will torment me and my wives for having disappointed them!”
“Well, you never can tell about Spirit Helpers.”
“Thanks.”
“I don’t feel like I’m doing you much good.”
“What would the Serpent have said?” Salamander mused. “What do you think he would have told me to do?”
Bobcat squinted one eye as he inspected the sooty end of his tubular stone pipe. “I think he would have told you to listen to your souls and to follow their bidding.”
“My souls are full of questions and troubles, Serpent. They have no answers.” Salamander rubbed his hands together as he watched the smoking fire pit. The pattern in the coals eluded him. “I know things about the future. I have seen Sun Town burned and abandoned. I have seen it strong and invincible. I have seen myself dead in one vision, and old and joyous in another.”
“You have?”
Salamander nodded. “I’ve heard voices whispering on the future’s wind as it blows to the past. I’ve caught flashes of things. Things I don’t understand. Tens of tens of canoes paddling to Sun Town in some visions. And great evil like a foul cloud settling onto us in others.”
“Is this some evil I can fight?”
“No, my friend. Not unless you have a salve for the souls of men.”
“In that realm, I am lost, Salamander.”
“So am I.”
The day was mild, the hazy sky filled with occasional patches of white cloud that sailed northward on the endless breeze. Salamander sat at the edge of the ramada, drilling holes in bison bone while Wing Heart sat at her loom, humming and talking to the ghosts, her gray head nodding back and forth.
In the northern half of the plaza, the moiety’s solstice team practiced pitching. They used sticks as long as a person’s leg, flattened at the far end to cup and sling a deerhide ball. Made up of young men and a few women from the Northern clans, the team would defend the moiety at the conclusion of the summer solstice ceremonies.
In the game the teams represented the struggle of the Powers of the North and South. It was thought that the winning side would be favored by luck and the Spirit Beings during the coming turning of the seasons.
If only it could be so easy. Salamander watched the sleek bodies, greased and streaked with sweat. Yellow Spider ran in the fore, gracefully dipping his stick, flipping the ball up, and while still hanging in the air, batting it with the flat to send it flying forward.
But no game would settle Salamander’s dilemma. He rubbed his hands together and picked up his bow drill. With the device, he could drill holes in beads with dispatch. The hardwood drill stem was pointed by a red chert perforator, essentially a stone needle crafted from a flake. He would twist the stem around his small bowstring, place the tip into the dimple in the end of the bead, and, using a wooden block to guide the stem, saw the bow back and forth to spin the drill. A drop of saliva eased the tip as it cut through the soft bone in the bison scapula.
Drilling the hole was only the start of the process. Short sections of cane, essentially hollow tubes of different diameters, lay ready for use. Beside them on the palmetto matting sat two bowls, one filled with sand, the other with water. Sun Town, lying as it did on fine silt, had no sand deposits. Sand, like so many things, was imported from afar. Salamander’s had been sifted through fabric to obtain the correct grit, and then shipped in by canoe. He had Traded some of the buffalo hide for it that he had in turn obtained from Green Crane and Always Fat the summer before.
Once he had finished the line of holes, he removed his drill and selected one of the sections of cane, studying the size of the hole it would bore. He wet the end, dipped it in the bowl of sand, and fitted it to his bow. In the bead-making process, this final step was the most important. It took great concentration to start the cut so that the sand-tipped cane would grind a precisely round groove around the center hole in the bead. If he were not perfect, the bead would be off-center.
Salamander didn’t realize his tongue hung out the side of his mouth as he fitted the cane over the first of the holes in the bison scapula.
“Have you ever thought of drilling the hole afterward?” Mud Stalker asked, his shadow blotting the sunlight.
Salamander looked up. “It’s harder to hold a small bead and drill the center than it is to do it this way.” He cocked his head. “We always make beads this way. Even when we’re making them of stone.”
Mud Stalker smiled, the lines in his face deepening. “Yes, but you like to do things differently than most people, Speaker.” Knees crackled as he squatted, his ruined arm cradled in his lap. A faint smile bent his sun-creased lips as he looked at Wing Heart. The old woman’s fingers plucked at the fabric on her loom. He raised his voice. “Good Morning, Wing Heart!”
Salamander’s mother remained oblivious, her lips moving as she talked soundlessly to her lost souls.
“Can I be of help, Speaker?” Salamander asked.
Mud Stalker turned flinty eyes on him. “I thought perhaps we could have a little discussion, you and I.”
“Speak.” Salamander eyed his drill, positioned it just so, and began rotating the sand-encrusted cane. To his satisfaction it didn’t slip to one side or the other.
“I made you.”
“What?”
“I made you what you are, Salamander. Without me you would have had nothing. On White Bird’s death, the Speakership would have gone to Half Thorn.”
“I suppose.”
“Good. I’m glad that you have enough sense to understand that.” His eyes hardened. “You are in a great deal of danger, Salamander.”
He couldn’t stop the faint smile. “If only you knew, Speaker. But I think you are more worried about Pine Drop and Night Rain than any predicament I might find myself in.”
“I would like you to divorce my nieces.”
Salamander sawed back and forth on the bow as the drill ate its way through the bone. Only when the sand-tipped cane cut a clean round hole through the bone, did he look up. “Have you discussed this with Pine Drop?”
Mud Stalker’s gaze hardened. “She has decided that she will stay with you. I am hoping that you—obliged as you are to me—will be a little smarter than she is.” His smile widened. “I would not like anything to happen to you.”
Salamander carefully positioned his drill over the next of the holes. Using his block to bear down, he rotated the tip carefully to create a guide. “Speaker, let us make one thing clear, shall we?”
“Indeed, Salamander.”
“I admit that you had a hand in making me Speaker. You were responsible for my initiation at the Men’s House, and for all of that, odd as it may sound, I thank you.”
“Why would that sound odd?”
“Because each of the things you did for me was for your own
personal gain. You wanted me as Owl Clan Speaker precisely so that you could destroy me. Through me, you could strike at Mother and at Owl Clan. Given that fact, I have no obligation to you. That is the thing I would like made clear.”
Mud Stalker reached up with his left hand to stroke his chin. “Others might not see it that way, Salamander.”
“But I do, Mud Stalker. So does Pine Drop.” He smiled. “Night Rain is pregnant.”
“She hasn’t missed her moon yet!”
Salamander enjoyed the rasping sound of his drill as it ground through the bone. “Shall we dispense with the rest of our pleasantries? Stated as briefly as possible: I owe you nothing. You and I have no obligation between us. In fact, if memory serves, Snapping Turtle Clan still has obligations to Owl Clan in return for the many gifts that my brother, White Bird, bestowed upon you when he returned from the north.” With his chin, Salamander indicated the copper turtle hanging on Mud Stalker’s necklace.
The Speaker’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Do not attempt to remind me of my obligations.”
“It is the food that nourishes the clans, Speaker.” Salamander shot him a measuring glance. “Without obligation, we are nothing. Harmony disappears, and we end up at each other’s throats. Depending on what happens, will you remember that in your dealings with Deep Hunter?”
“I have the ability destroy you.”
“By branding me a witch?”
Mud Stalker made a forgiving gesture. “All right, perhaps you are not obligated to me. I grant you that, but if you work with me, help me to unseat Thunder Tail and put Sweet Root in his place, I might be persuaded to save your life. Allow you to remain married to Pine Drop, at least.”
Salamander chuckled softly. “As if that was my only worry? Oh, Speaker, if you only knew the choices that lie before me.”
“Then I take it we cannot come to an accommodation?”
“Not this way, Speaker.”
“This is your last chance.”
“You railed when Night Rain acted in concert with Deep Hunter. Don’t you think it difficult to blame her when you would use me, meddle with my clan’s affairs?”
He didn’t answer that, only saying. “I must destroy you, then.”
“It is what you have wished from the beginning.”
Mud Stalker jerked a nod, his eyes on the ballplayers across the
barrow pit. “They’re going to lose, you know. And so will you.”
Salamander said nothing as the Speaker stood, shot a piteous look at Wing Heart, and walked around the borrow pit before heading south to his clan grounds.