Native Gold (4 page)

"No!" Hintsuli screamed in delight. "No!"

"Oh, yes," he decided, hauling Hintsuli up by his wrists and dangling him over the swirling water. "Brother Trout will be grateful for this little grub."

As Hintsuli dropped through the air, he cried out one final protest that ended in a gurgle when the creek closed over his head. Then he popped up again as quickly as an oak gall, his shiny black hair hanging in strings over his giggling face.

Sakote laughed. "You’re so filthy, even the fish spit you out!"

A sudden rustling from behind him, high on the hillside, intruded upon their moment of play. Sakote whipped his head around, instantly alert, his eyes flicking momentarily toward his fishing spear.

Atop the ridge stood a man as dark as a Konkow, his arms crossed over his chest as he surveyed the scene before him, slowly shaking his head. His teeth bloomed white against his swarthy face.

Hintsuli waved a skinny brown arm in greeting. "Noa!"

Sakote relaxed his stance and grinned. He’d known Noa would come sooner or later. He watched the man scale recklessly down the hill toward them, one hand holding the hat to his head, one arm swinging in counterbalance.

If ever there was a man Sakote could call brother with pride, it was Noa. He’d arrived four leaf-falls ago, before the great herd of miners, from a place he called Hawaii. Unlike most of the white men since, he’d always looked upon the Konkow with respect. He’d shared their deer and learned their customs. In exchange, he’d taught Sakote English and everything else he knew about the world of the
willa
—the white man.

Noa’s boots crunched on the pebbles at the bottom of the hill. Silence was the one Konkow trait he’d never mastered. Sakote smiled as Noa jumped up beside him on the boulder, a bunch of withered blue lupines drooping from his hand. Sakote knew who the blossoms were for.

"What brings you here?" Sakote asked, switching over to the language he knew as well as his own now. He slicked the hair off of his forehead and bit back a grin as he slyly nodded toward the clump of blossoms in Noa’s fist. "Are those for me?"

Noa frowned awkwardly down at the blooms, as if he had no idea how they’d gotten there.

In the water, Hintsuli giggled. Then the little boy’s attention was quickly diverted to a grandfather trout gliding along the silt of the creekbed, and he dove straight down, all slippery bottom and scrambling legs.

Sakote chuckled and clapped Noa on the shoulder. "My friend, I fear there’s no hope for you. Every day for two moons my sister goes to you in the valley. Today you bring her flowers. Maybe in another two moons you’ll bring her a deer." He leaned toward Noa and rapped the buttons of his blue miner’s shirt. "She’ll be an old woman by the time you sleep in her
hubo
."

Noa turned as red as manzanita bark. "Sakote!"

Sakote flinched at the use of his name. He’d never grow accustomed to the way the settlers threw sacred names about as casually as rocks.

"You know that isn’t the way I do things,” Noa said. “It just...it wouldn’t be right." He absently whacked the flowers against his dusty thigh and grimaced. "Towani is...she’s special. And young. And pretty. Pretty as the bloom of an aloalo."

Sakote felt laughter creep into his eyes. He had no idea what an aloalo was, but it was funny to see his friend so befuddled by his little tadpole of a sister.

“You should take my sister from the village,” Sakote said, shaking his head. “She’s no use to us. She’s ruined the weaving of three baskets this past moon with her lovesickness. She burns the trout. She spills the acorn meal. And every morning, she rises before dawn to walk to the valley. Maybe that," he added, thumping Noa on the chest again, "is why she didn’t return to the village last night until everyone was already asleep." He winked. It was a good gesture, one he’d learned from Noa.

But Noa didn’t return his smile. Instead, he blinked in confusion. Then he drew back in disbelief. "You think she came to
me?
That she spent the..."

He backed up a step, and Sakote had to make a grab for his arm before he stepped right off the boulder. Noa sniffed and pulled his arm away. Sakote had obviously offended him.

"I’ve known you for four years,” Noa said. “You’ve been like a brother to me, Sakote, and I’ve always treated Towani with respect. I would never..." He lowered his voice and straightened proudly. "I would never take her like that without the benefit of a proper Christian marriage."

If Noa hadn’t looked at him so solemnly, Sakote would have burst into laughter. For the Konkow, there was no such thing as a proper marriage. If a man felt affection for a woman, he simply moved into her
hubo,
her home. If she didn’t cast him out, then they were wed. But Sakote understood Noa’s customs and his concern. He nodded and slung a companionable arm across his friend’s shoulders.

"I know, my brother, I know," he told Noa gently. "But you know her heart already belongs to you."

Relief softened the lines in Noa’s forehead. Sakote knew it would be a good marriage. Noa and Towani would live in the place the miners called the Valley of the Squaw Men, where she’d find companions among the other native women who’d married settlers.

"Wait." The happiness dimmed in Noa’s eyes. "What did you say about Towani?"

"That her heart belongs—"

"No, no, no." He looked faintly alarmed now. "About last night."

“That she didn’t return until...” Sakote frowned. "My sister wasn’t with you last night?"

Noa shook his head almost imperceptibly.

“Then where..?”

"
I
know where she was," Hintsuli volunteered, squinting up from his perch on a small boulder in the midst of the stream. His interest in the trout had obviously waned some time ago, and he could understand enough of their words to know they were talking about Towani.

Sakote nodded for him to continue.

"She went to the
willa
camp."

Noa stiffened beside him.

"What?" Sakote asked. "Why?"

Hintsuli shrugged. "She said she was taking medicine to the white healer.”

Sakote’s scowl deepened. Medicine? What medicine? And who was this white healer? Going to the
willa
camp was forbidden. It was too dangerous for the Konkows to mix with the white miners. Towani knew better.

But he could see that Noa’s thoughts were traveling a different path. Noa worried that someone else—this white healer perhaps—might be vying for Towani’s heart.

Sakote clasped Noa’s forearm. “Don’t worry. I’ll sort things out.” He
would
sort things out, even if he had to deal with Towani the way the whites handled disobedient children, by taking a willow switch to her backside. “You go home. I’ll talk to my sister.”

"No talk! No talk! No talk!" Hintsuli chanted cheerfully in English, tromping up the bank of the creek, his wet, bare feet making mud boots of the fine silt. "She’s in the time of
yupuh
. She’s gone to the women’s hut."

"What?" Sakote glared sharply at his little brother. How did Hintsuli know about
yupuh?
Had he peered into the women’s hut? "Wicked boy! It’s forbidden to look—"

"I didn’t look!” Hintsuli jutted out his smug chin. “She told me to tell you she was in the time of
yupuh
."

Sakote tightened his jaw. A shadow had fallen across the beautiful day. His sister was up to something—sneaking off to the miner’s camp and telling Hintsuli to lie for her—and he had to find out what it was.

"I promise, brother," Sakote swore to Noa, "I’ll find the truth."

Noa nodded brusquely, but his step was heavy as he began the long journey home, and Sakote’s heart ached for his friend. He squeezed his hands into fists. He wanted to shake his foolish sister, shake her till her teeth clattered like a
shokote
rattle and she came to her senses.

When Sakote returned to the village, he resisted the urge to barge into the women’s hut and yank his sister out. Instead, he let his blood cool in the lengthening shade, filled his belly with trout, and waited patiently for her to emerge.

But she didn’t. Not when the women returned from digging bulbs beside the creek. Not when the sweet smoke of roasted fish drifted into the canyon. Not when the young men finished gambling beside the dying embers of the fire. The hunting-bow moon moved far to the west, the tribe retired for the night
,
and still she didn’t come out.

Sakote spit onto the gray coals of the cooking fire, making them sizzle. He glared toward the women’s hut. Did she think she could hide in there forever? Towani had always been willful, but how dared she defy him—the man who was to become the next headman of the Konkow? And how could she break Noa’s heart with such deception?

He poked at the charred remains of the fire with a dogwood branch and scanned the cluster of
hubos
—the bark-covered houses that made up the village. No smoke curled from the tops of the conical roofs. The Konkow slept.

Sakote had seen his people through another day, brought food to his mother’s fire, told a tale of
Oleili, Coyote, to the children, and listened to the wisdom of the elders. He should be content. Yet it was never contentment he felt when the sun went to sleep behind the hills. It was always relief. Which was why his sister’s defiance troubled him.

Their world was changing. The elders didn’t see it, partly because they didn’t travel as far or see as much as Sakote did, and partly because they didn’t want to. They didn’t see how the white men arrived as thick as grasshoppers in the flower season. How they planted sticks in the ground as if they could possess the land. How they fought with fists and drank whiskey till they couldn’t walk. How some of them looked upon the Konkow with hateful eyes and Coyote’s sly grin.

Noa was different. He understood the Konkow ways. He would provide meat and shelter for Towani, and he’d carry her in his heart. They’d make babies together to grow and thrive among the other children of the valley. Noa would care for Towani. He’d protect her. And Sakote would have one less Konkow to worry about.

But if Towani mingled with the white men from the mining camp...

One brave cricket attempted to sing, his chirrup slow and hesitant across the cool night. Sakote pulled the deerskin up over his shoulder and dropped the dogwood branch onto the coals. He sighed, and it felt as if his spirit left him with his breath.

How could he protect Towani? How could he protect the village and his people? There were too many white men, and he feared what his vision foretold—that he wouldn’t be around to keep them safe.

The chirping cricket abruptly ceased his song, and Sakote froze, pricking up his ears. Furtive but heavy footfalls approached, crunching the mulch of the forest. It was a man, by the sound. Sakote slipped his knife from its sheath, testing the edge with the pad of his thumb, and stared quietly toward the source of the commotion.

The footsteps slowed as a figure broke through the shadowy cedars into the village clearing. When Sakote saw who it was, he put away his knife and waited.

Noa hunkered down beside him. "We have to talk, Sakote,” he whispered. “Something’s happened. Something bad, very bad." He rubbed his fingers nervously across his mouth.

Sakote’s heart thudded. He despised the English language at the moment, with its subtleties and endless ways to stretch out the telling of a story.

"A friend of mine brought news from the mining camp," Noa said under his breath, "about that white healer Towani went to see. Doc Jim was his name, Dr. James Harrison. It seems he...well, he up and died last night."

Sakote’s heart turned to ice.

"No one knows what he died of," Noa continued, "since he was the only doctor for miles around. There weren’t any marks on him or anything. He just dropped dead in his cabin."

Sakote stared hard into Noa’s eyes, black as pitch in the darkness, and he feared he knew what was behind the white healer’s death. Towani’s “medicine.”

Noa bit his lip. "Most of the miners suspect it was too much liquor. It seems he had an unnatural hankering for whiskey." He dropped his head down, his hat shielding his eyes. "But if someone were to look too closely into the man’s liquor bottle...or if there were, I don’t know, a couple of long black hairs on his coat or a...a footprint by his cabin where there shouldn’t be..."

Sakote’s blood, frozen in fear, now began to heat with rage. How could his sister have done such a thing? How could she have killed a white man? How could she have endangered their people in this way? He clenched his fists and thrust out his jaw. His nostrils flared with a breath deep enough to feed a loud bellow of outrage. But he remained silent, instead channeling his fury into the icy glare he shot toward the women’s hut. Noa seized his arm, trying to stop him as he lurched forward, but Sakote wrenched from his grasp.

Noa cussed under his breath and followed Sakote as he stalked off.

It was forbidden for a man to enter the women’s hut. The Great Spirit, Wonomi, would be vexed. But at the moment, Sakote didn’t care. He’d waited long enough. He ducked down and crept through the low crawlway.