It Sleeps in Me

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Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear

BOOK: It Sleeps in Me
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DEDICATION
 
 
To Father Gabriel Sagard, a member of the Recollect Order, who arrived in New France in June 1623. Without his detailed descriptions of the erotic healing rituals practiced by the Huron tribe, our understanding of their culture would be greatly diminished. His book,
The Long Journey to the Country of the Hurons,
published in 1632, is still indispensable to any serious study of the aboriginal peoples of North America.
“OF COURSE, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. HOW COULD ANY SANE person believe that he is still alive inside me? He’s my heartbeat, my breathing. He’s always there looking out through my eyes. It doesn’t matter that he’s been dead for …
“Yes, of course, I know how crazy that sounds. But this obsession isn’t recent. It started the moment I met Flint. That first moon was one breathless secret rendezvous after another. His best friend, Skinner; or a slave; or a Trader—anyone who wished to help the young lovers—would bring me a message: ‘He’s in the charnel house’ or ‘You’ll find him at the canoe landing.’ Often it was ‘Go to him in the forest near the giant redbay tree … the dead oak covered with moss … the shell midden near the lake …’
“I had seen fourteen winters. I loved him desperately. Despite my mother’s orders to stay away from Flint, I’d excuse myself from whatever meeting I was attending and run all the way to meet him.
“We loved each other in caves and moss-shrouded meadows, even treetops. The massive oak branches provided perfect hideaways where we would lie together for half the day, each exploring the other’s body, listening to the oblivious people who walked the trails below. The sensations he brought forth
during those lazy days of touching left me feeling as though the gods themselves had taught me what it meant to be human.
“But it was really Flint who taught me. He …
“What? I’m sorry, Strongheart, what did you ask?
“ … No. No, it happened in the first half-moon. He talked me into wearing loose-fitting clothing so that no matter where we happened to be, I could just spread my legs and allow him to enter me.
“Even in the dark moments when his needs shocked me, he managed to make me relax enough that I didn’t resist.
“I remember once, ten days after we met, my mother ordered me to attend a council meeting with her. She was grooming me for my eventual rise to the position of high chieftess of the Black Falcon Nation. Just before the meeting, I met Flint in the forest and he tucked an oiled wooden ball inside me, which he tied in place with a strip of woven hanging-moss cloth expertly passed between my legs and knotted around my waist beneath my dress. Throughout the meeting, whenever I moved, it caressed me. By the time the meeting was over, all he had to do was touch me for waves of joy to explode in my body.
“From that day onward, the carefully selected objects he brought into our life evoked a searing sweetness. It didn’t take long before I couldn’t even use a stone to pound dirty clothing in the lake without thinking of what Flint might …
“No. Just the opposite. The euphoria intensified over the fourteen winters we were married, probably because our couplings grew progressively more dangerous. He took me wherever and whenever he pleased. During a midnight ceremonial when hundreds of people filled the plaza, he would push me against a dark wall and take me standing up. Or he’d slip a marble owl inside me before I had to discuss a critical Trade agreement; then he would watch my eyes during the negotiations. More than the owl, it was his expectant gaze that brought me pleasure.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m trying to explain why I had no choice but to kill …
“No, I couldn’t run away! He would have followed me. He would not leave me alone! And I could not stay away from him.
“I wanted Flint inside me.”
SPIDERWEBS, BLOWN FREE BY THE SPRING WIND, DRIFTED across Persimmon Lake and strung glittering filaments on the sunlit oaks that ringed the seven pyramid-shaped mounds of Blackbird Town, but the people who stood in the broad plaza barely noticed. They had their gazes on the field, watching the game play out.
As Chieftess Sora ran down the field after the chunkey stone, she didn’t recognize War Chief Skinner, not at first. All she saw was a muscular man brushing webs from his long black hair as he walked through the shadows of the mounds. A massive chert war club hung from his belt, and he had a bow and quiver over his left shoulder. He used his spear as a walking stick.
Warriors unconsciously placed their hands on belted stilettos as Skinner passed by, while women turned to stare admiringly at the stranger dressed in a war chief’s raiding garb. His knee-length buckskin shirt was plain, except for the shark’s teeth sewn across the front and the red buffalo-wool sash that belted his trim waist.
As she neared the throwing line, Sora called, “Your cast or mine, Wink?”
Fifty paces ahead of her, the chunkey stone, round and about the width of her hand, rolled like the wind.
“My cast!” Matron Wink shouted from her right. When her foot hit the casting line, she launched her spear. Thirty-six winters had passed since Wink’s birth. More gray than black shimmered in her long braid, and wrinkles incised laugh lines around her ample mouth. Her given name, the name bestowed upon her at her initiation in the woman’s house, was Marsh Wren, but she’d had a bad habit of winking at people. The nickname had stuck like boiled pine pitch.
Wink’s spear arced upward, and hundreds of onlookers made awed sounds. One of the opposing headmen reached the casting line and hurled his spear. For a deadly serious game, the rules of chunkey were relatively simple. Whoever hit the stone earned two points. Whoever’s spear landed closest to the stone earned one point. They played three games, each to a score of six.
Sora slowed to watch the two spears sailing toward the rolling chunkey stone. Her white dress, made from combed palmetto threads, fluttered in the wind.
Wink stopped beside Sora, breathing hard. Though Sora was four winters younger, they’d been friends since childhood. While Sora had ascended to the chieftainship, Wink had become matron of their Shadow Rock Clan. They both wore elaborately incised copper breastplates that signified their status. Sometimes she thought she knew Wink better than she knew herself. The reverse was certainly true.
“That’s Chief Short Tail’s spear right behind yours,” Sora said.
Wink glanced at Short Tail and Pocket Mouse. Both chiefs wore red knee-length shirts decorated with shells from the far western ocean. “I know. I saw the moron cast.”
Sora suppressed a smile. Wink’s candor was legendary—though few people appreciated it. In fact, most of the other matrons and chiefs heartily disliked her because of it.
Wink groaned when the heavy stone slowed and fell onto its
side just before the spears landed. Almost at the same time, her spear lodged in the ground a good pace from the stone. Chief Short Tail’s spear landed ahead, but it looked to be about the same distance away.
“Oh, gods, what do you think?” Wink asked.
“I can’t tell.”
As the judges trotted out to see who had scored, Sora’s heartbeat quickened and her head grew light. People shoved to the very edge of the field, trying to get a better look.
Sora whispered, “If you scored, we win, and it’s over. If not …”
“If not”—Wink inhaled a deep breath and let it out in a rush—“we have one more cast to stop a war that will surely destroy our people.”
One of the judges, old Club-in-His-Hand, pulled a coil of twine from his belt. The other judge, the young warrior Far Eye, held the end of the cord against the stone while Club-in-His-Hand extended it out to Short Tail’s spear point. They made an odd pair. Club-in-His-Hand was short, with a full head of gray hair, while Far Eye was tall and lean. Tattoos covered every part of his body. His long black hair hung to the middle of his back. Wink called him her nephew, though that wasn’t technically true. Wink’s brother had married a woman from the Water Hickory Clan, and since the Black Falcon Nation traced descent through the female, that meant Far Eye was really Water Hickory Clan, not Shadow Rock Clan. But Wink loved the youth as if he were her own nephew.
Hisses of disapproval went up from Sora’s side as the judges lifted the twine for the audience to see the measurement. Short Tail’s people remained silent, gazing wide-eyed at Wink’s spear. They seemed to be holding their breaths. On the sidelines, warriors marched back and forth, eyes blazing.
As the judges moved to measure Wink’s cast, Sora’s gaze drifted around Blackbird Town.
Four of the great flat-topped mounds rose directly in front of her. The largest, upon which her magnificent pitched-roof home
stood, was six times the height of a man and measured one hundred paces along each side of its square base. To her left, the crystal green water of Persimmon Lake glistened. In the winter, when everyone returned from their summer farming plots, the population of Blackbird Town swelled to almost one thousand. Two hundred small houses, the homes of commoners, ringed the shore. Animal bones covered the roofs like glistening white sticks. The bones of animals caught in snares or traps were never thrown away, but respectfully hung up or placed on the roof of the hunter’s house. If this ceremony was not followed, the trap would become useless because the Spirits of the animals would be offended and their relatives would refuse to allow themselves to be caught.
“Please, Skyholder,” Wink murmured to the Creator, “for the sake of everyone, let us win.”
“What’s taking so long?” Sora asked.
Wink shook her head. “The casts are too close; they’re measuring each again.”
Chunkey games were sacred contests where the players represented the primordial heroes of creation: the forces of Light and Dark, Peace and War, Female and Male. Villages routinely wagered everything they owned on the outcome of a game, but this was more. They played to decide a tie vote in the High Council. If Shadow Rock Clan won, there would be peace. If Water Hickory Clan won, they would be at war tomorrow. The Loon People, east of the Palmetto River, would fall like autumn leaves before the warriors of the Black Falcon Nation.
Wink made a small sound of dismay just before riotous cheers went up from Short Tail’s side of the field. The judges held the two lengths of cord side by side, showing that Short Tail’s cast had been closer, by a finger’s length, to the chunkey stone.
“We’re tied. The next point will determine the game.”
Wink shook sweat-soaked strands of graying black hair away from her face. “If we’re lucky Short Tail’s manhood will wither and fall off before he can cast again.”
Sora gave her a peeved look. “Don’t you think it would be more practical to wish that his hand fell off so he couldn’t throw accurately, or maybe his feet, so he couldn’t run so fast?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He has the souls of a thirteen-winters-old boy. His manhood is his entire world. Crush it and you crush him.” Wink calmly straightened her enormous engraved copper breastplate; it gleamed against her white dress. She gestured to Short Tail. “Look at him. Can you believe that man has seen thirty-eight winters?”
Chief Short Tail jumped up and down like an exultant child, slapping his teammate, Chief Pocket Mouse, on the shoulder and whooping, much to the delight of his kinspeople, who roared their approval.
Club-in-His-Hand trotted down the field with the chunkey stone and gave it to Sora.
“It’s your roll, Chieftess,” he whispered, and desperately glanced around. “Make it a good one.”
Sora nodded. “I’d better.”
She and Wink marched back to the starting line. While she waited for Short Tail and Pocket Mouse to finish their conversations, Sora’s gaze moved down the field to where her husband, Rockfish, stood. He had been very handsome in his early days, tall and slender, with a triangular face and large dark eyes, but he’d started to show his sixty winters. His hair had gone completely gray, and his muscles had evaporated. Though he still carried out most of his husbandly duties—hunting, fishing, and advising her on clan matters—each was becoming more difficult for him. Their marriage had been one of convenience, an alliance of political advantage, but she genuinely cared for him. It worried her that his strength had begun to fail.
They’d married three winters ago, after her first husband, Flint, set her belongings outside the door and headed home to his mother’s village. The divorce had disgraced Sora. Not only that, she’d loved Flint. She’d made a fool of herself, running after him,
begging him to return. When he’d shoved her away, she’d been consumed by despair. The simplest daily tasks, getting dressed or making a pot of tea, had seemed overwhelming.
In response, her mother, High Chieftess Yellow Cypress, had selected Rockfish as her new husband. He came from a renowned family of Traders who lived far to the north. It had been a good choice—for both of them. Since her mother had no sons, and the chieftainship was a hereditary position destined for the eldest daughter, Sora had become chieftess after her mother’s death two winters ago. What she gave Rockfish in prestige, he gave her in Trade goods. The day of their joining, a flotilla of canoes had appeared, filled to overflowing with rare cherts and mica, silver nuggets, pounded sheets of copper—and the Trade goods had never stopped coming. Every moon, another flotilla arrived. Rockfish was much older than she and knew things about people that she did not. Sora was often deeply grateful for his wisdom. He negotiated the Trade, making certain his people received things they needed: extraordinary seashells, dried holly leaves to make sacred Black Drink, fine fabrics, and exquisite pottery. He also made sure Sora’s people received precious goods in abundance, which Sora generously distributed among the other Black Falcon villages. They loved her for it.
Rockfish was talking with a burly man who held a painted box clutched to his chest like a precious child.
She knew him, didn’t she? From this distance, she wasn’t certain.
Short Tail trotted up and grinned like a wolf with a rabbit in sight. His clan, the Water Hickory Clan, had a bloodthirsty reputation. Only last winter, they’d voted to make war upon the Conch Shell People to gain control of their oyster beds. The winter before, they’d wanted to kill the Red Owl People to capture their buffalo-hunting territory. Sora and Wink had blocked them by convincing the other clans it was far more profitable to work out Trade agreements than to lose their own warriors in a war over lands they could occupy but never fully possess.
“Are you ready, Chieftess?” Short Tail asked. His two front teeth had rotted out long ago, and the few remaining were well on their way.
“I’m ready.”
He chuckled. “Good. Before you make your throw, I want you to know that tomorrow, when I lead our warriors east, yours will be out in front.”
Sora gave him a suspicious look. “You will honor them by allowing them to lead the War Walk?”
“Of course.” He grinned. “Why should my people die when your young men and women can block the first barrage of arrows?”
Wink’s eyes narrowed. “I wish you’d try impersonating a dung beetle, Short Tail; it would take a lot less effort than pretending you’re a chief.”
His grin sagged. “Roll the stone, Sora, so we can settle this before I’m forced to strangle your matron.”
In the shadows of the mounds, huge pots of stew bubbled on the cook fires. After dried venison was pounded up, it was dipped in salty moss that had been dissolved in water, then boiled in hickory nut milk. To make the milk, they mixed the nut meats with water and pounded until they became a delicious white liquid. The stew would be served with cornbread fried in bear grease and dipped in plum oil, which they obtained by boiling acorns, then skimming off the sweet oil and mixing it with dried plums. The rich scents mingled together and wafted across the playing field.
Sora took a deep breath and whispered, “Are you ready, Wink?”
“Yes. Let’s see whom the gods favor.”
Sora bowled the chunkey stone down the field. The four players broke after it, racing to the throw line. Cries rose from the crowd: some people cheering, others hissing.

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