People of the Mist (47 page)

 
          
“Thank
you, White Otter. If you think of anything else, please, come and tell me.” She
smiled up at him. “Yes, Uncle, I will.”

 
          
Nine
Killer rose to his feet, and clasped his muscular hands. So, Copper Thunder had
followed a warrior out into the night? Which warrior? All the men from the
Independent villages wore their hair tied off on the left side of the head.

 
          
Then
a chill ran down his back. Yes, all the men. Even the Mamanatowick’s warriors!

 
          
The
ridge turned out to be steeper than Panther had anticipated. Each foot had to
be placed with care on the narrow trail that led straight up through the trees.

 
          
“Oh,
be assured, War Chief, Grass Mat—or Copper Thunder, as he calls himself now—is
entirely capable of arranging a marriage with Greenstone Clan at the same time he’s
scheming with the Mamanatowick,” Panther declared between puffs as he stopped
to catch his breath.

 
          
Sun
Conch wasn’t even breathing hard, nor was the War Chief. Only Panther’s lungs
labored.

 
          
Nine
Killer didn’t seem to’ see the forest, or the steep ridge they climbed. He
stood there, expression clouded, his right hand resting “on the war club that
lay over his broad shoulders.

 
          
“Scheming
what with the Mamanatowick? The destruction of his new wife’s people?” Nine
Killer shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. Why marry Red Knot at all? If
he was scheming, why not just ally with the Mamanatowick, and crush us?”

 
          
“Then
the man White Otter saw had to be one of yours.”

 
          
“I
just can’t make myself believe it.”

 
          
“War
Chief, only your heart doesn’t want to believe it. Your head knows better. You,
and your allies, have shared the war trail, taken care of each other. If one of
your men is dealing with the Great Tayac, you feel betrayed. Such a betrayal
frays the very fiber of your soul, but you must never forget that nothing lies
beyond human capability.” Panther propped his foot on the steep slope and
looked up the game trail. “You need only remember your loyal lieutenant Stone
Cob. Who, I remind you, was supposed to post the guard that night.”

 
          
They
had climbed halfway to the top of the ridge, following the route of Red Knot’s
illfated morning journey. Panther wished he hadn’t insisted on seeing the spot
for himself.

 
          
“I
can understand Stone Cob warning
Three
Myrtle
Village
.” Nine Killer fingered his war club and
glanced reassuringly at Sun Conch. “He had kin there. Everything we do is for
the clan.” “Everything for the clan,” Panther mused as his eyes roamed the old
trees that rose from the steep slope. The way the naked branches wove together
over his head, he might have been in a huge lodge supported by a thousand
mighty posts.

 
          
From
the inlet, he could hear geese and ducks. Without seeing them, he knew the
loons were diving for young menhaden in the shallows. The forest around him
echoed in birdsong. Not the boisterous chatter of summer, but a mellow
chittering that filtered through the trees. He watched a nuthatch prance up the
bark of an elm, which led his eye in turn to a flight of tundra swans winging
overhead, the air rasping with each beat of their powerful wings.

 
          
The
girl whose trail they now followed would miss the migration of her namesake
come spring. She wouldn’t see the hordes of red knots swarming the beaches for
helmet crab eggs. She would never see the return of the ospreys in the new year’s
third moon. Such visions had died just up above him.

 
          
Everything
we do is for the clan. He resumed his climb, pondering that terrible truth. The
clan was everything: the rule and guide of the

 
          
people.
That thought needled him, as if a thread lay in it, somehow, some way. All he
had to do was pull it, and the knot would come unraveled for him.

 
          
Nine
Killer looked preoccupied, unhappy with the thoughts circulating behind his
eyes. He climbed easily, the muscles rippling in his short legs. Sun Conch followed
along behind them, looking through every gap in the maze of trees, peering up
the trail to ensure that disaster didn’t descend from above.

 
          
Panther’s
lungs heaved, his old heart thumping solidly against his breast bone. The
age-flaccid muscles in his legs were already sapped, and now they complained in
unison with his joints. Despite the chill, he wore his blanket open, thankful
that he wasn’t climbing this ridge on one of those sticky hot midsummer days
that rolled over the
Salt
Water
Bay
country. But then the forest would have
been alive, the buzzing of insects covering all hint of approaching sound.

 
          
Panther
had liked the summers as a boy. On those warm nights he’d walked out beyond the
palisade and felt the world pulsing and vibrating with life. With it came the
swarms of mosquitoes that had floated around his greased body like a personal
mist. Grease kept them from sucking a man dry, but it didn’t stop them from
clogging nostrils or filling his throat when they flew into his open mouth.

 
          
Maybe
winter was a better season after all. The harvest was in, the bugs were gone,
and white perch could be collected from the fish weirs. The hunters had
traveled up the peninsulas to drive deer into their surrounds. Big baskets of
nuts had been collected from the ground or shaken from trees. During those
cold, blustery months, a man could sit by the fire and tell the old stories,
gossip with his friends, and watch his family through contented eyes.

 
          
But
not me, oh no, I had to leave all of that behind.

 
          
Irritated
with his sudden longing, he pushed himself that much harder. From what hidden
corner of the soul had all of these long-stifled desires arisen? Was it sitting
by Nine Killer’s fire that stirred the embers of memory?

 
          
He
was gasping for breath as he climbed up next to a great spreading beech tree,
and finally topped the ridge. There, he bent double, puffing like a toadfish
hauled from the water.

 
          
“This
is where it happened,” Nine Killer said as he stepped past Panther and looked
around the flat ridgetop. He tapped his war club on his left palm, making a
smacking sound. “Are you all right, Elder?” Sun Conch asked, bending down to
peer at him. She laid a cool hand on his hot shoulder, and patted Trim
encouragingly.

 
          
“Lost
my wind.” Panther waved her away and straightened on his rubbery legs. “Youth
is wasted on the young. Red Knot no doubt ran up that, completely unaware of
how desperately some of us would crave that ability.”

 
          
“Few
know what they have, Elder, until it is taken away from them,” Nine Killer
concurred. “You’re not going to fall over dead, are you?”

 
          
“No.
I’d hate to make you carry another corpse back from this place.” Panther
coughed, his throat rasping from the effort.

 
          
“You’re
assuming I’d carry you back.” Nine Killer prodded the leaf mat with his war
club. “I might just leave you here for the crows and raccoons.”

 
          
“They’d
have a poor feast, I assure you.” Panther had caught his breath. “Very well,
show me where it happened.”

 
          
Nine
Killer followed the shallow rut of the trail. He stopped about midway across
the narrow ridge. “We think she was killed here. That someone stepped out from
behind that tree.” He indicated a gray-barked walnut.

 
          
Panther
stepped up to the walnut, its trunk so thick he couldn’t quite reach around it.
If the hard wood knew any secrets, they remained hidden in that cracked and
lined bark. Then he walked back to the big beech tree, and studied it. The
thick roots had knotted and flexed from the bottom of the wide trunk. “Look
here, War Chief. Since the tree is perched on the lip of the edge, a person
could crouch down here in this hollow and watch the trail below.”

 
          
Nine
Killer and Sun Conch came over and studied the little leaf-filled hollow
between the thick roots. From there, the trail could be seen snaking down into
the trees, and the branches overhead would have broken a watcher’s silhouette.
Nine Killer bent down, with Panther looking over his shoulder, and carefully
picked out some of the leaves that had drifted into the hollow. “I think this
is fruitless. That morning was damp, so the leaves would have been flexible.
None of them are broken or crushed from a person’s weight, and I can’t tell if
the ones that are stuck together are that way from being stepped on, or from
being frozen and thawed since they blew in here.”

 
          
Panther
pointed to a spot where the smooth gray bark had been slightly polished. “Did
someone lean there?”

 
          
“Maybe.”
Nine Killer shrugged. “Do you know of a way to tell if that was rubbed by Red
Knot’s killer, or by children playing around the tree over the last moon?”

 
          
“No,
I don’t,” Panther straightened and stepped thoughtfully back, looking between
the beech and the walnut. No more than six paces separated the two. “The beech
is a big thick tree. But rather than wait there, the killer retreated to the
walnut.”

 
          
“I
would,” Sun Conch volunteered. “It’s closer to the trail, and being but little
wider than a person, the victim has less time to react when the attacker steps
out from behind cover. Not only that, the victim would let his guard down after
having topped the ridge and determined the way was clear.”

 
          
“You’re
learning.” Panther approached the walnut and studied the relationship between
the tree and the trail. “Sun Conch, come here. Pretend you are going to ambush
Nine Killer. War Chief, you’re a little shorter than Red Knot was, but I want
you to drop over the crest of the ridge, and then act as if you were Red Knot
crossing toward Oyster Shell Landing. Can you do that?”

 
          
Nine
Killer gave him a skeptical shrug and trotted past the beech and over the edge.

 
          
“Now,
Sun Conch, you know she is coming, so hide yourself and ambush him in the most
logical way.” Panther stepped back, watching.

 
          
Nine
Killer climbed up to the crest, couldn’t help but glance around the beech tree,
and then trotted across the ridge. Panther noted the sounds as his moccasins
rustled the leaves. When Nine Killer passed, the walnut tree was no more than
two paces on his right. It wasn’t until he was past that Sun Conch stepped out
and mimicked bashing him on the head.

 
          
“Hold!”
Panther came forward, studying the situation. “Where was the blood spot, War
Chief?”

 
          
Nine
Killer frowned, and glanced about. “A step or two behind me.”

 
          
Panther
pulled thoughtfully at his chin. “Sun Conch and I would have struck you right
where you stand, War Chief, As Sun Conch just pretended, she would have bashed
you right in the top of the skull. From the momentum of the blow, the knees
would have buckled, and you would have fallen on your face. The bloodstain
would have been at least a pace in front of you.”

 
          
Nine
Killer turned around, seeing where Sun Conch stood, how she held her club. “I
see what you mean. So, if the bloodstain is back there …”

           
“Indeed.” Panther rubbed his hands
together. “Let’s do it again, but this time, Sun Conch, I want you to step out
from behind the tree just before he passes.”

 
          
Once
again, Nine Killer retraced Red Knot’s path across the ridge. This time as the
rustle of Nine Killer’s trotting moccasins came close, Sun ConcTi stepped out
from behind the tree, war club raised.

 
          
Nine
Killer came to an immediate stop.

 
          
“Hold
still, right there.” Panther stepped forward, comparing where Nine Killer stood
and where he said the bloodstain had been. “Now, step out, Sun Conch. Just one
step, as if you were talking to him. That’s it.”

 
          
Sun
Conch closed the distance.