People of the Mist (59 page)

 
          
“There’s
High Fox,” Nine Killer said stubbornly. “He still has the means, reason, and
opportunity. Maybe Red Knot changed her mind at the last minute. Maybe Quick
Fawn’s arguments made her feel guilty as she ran up the trail?”

 
          
“And
maybe,” Sun Conch said, her spine stiffening, “Copper Thunder killed her after
all.”

 
          
“How’s
that?” Panther asked. “We’re pretty sure he offered her as bait to Flat
Willow.”

 
          
“Elder,”
Sun Conch said, “Copper Thunder was out there, remember? Maybe he saw her
leave, followed her, figured out that she was deserting him. You know him,
Elder, better than any of us. You saw that rage in his eyes. His alliance with
Greenstone was running off to meet some callow youth. His deal with Flat Willow
was about to paddle off to who knew where? That was a slap to his pride and
manhood. How do you think he’d react?”

 
          
Panther
stared absently at the fire. “I must be getting old to have missed that.
Blood-streaked bats, he’d have followed her to see what she was up to—and once
he’d determined what she was about, he’d have gone into a rage. In that state,
he’d have killed her without a thought.”

 
          
“And,”
Nine Killer reminded, “his war club has that stone ball on the end and a copper
spike just below it. It would have left two dents in the girl’s skull.”

 
          
When
I was young, I used to sit at the base of a waterfall on the
Black Warrior River
, just to watch the misty halo gleam. The
water had climbed as high as it could, and lingered in sparkling glory.

 
          
Like
my life, that halo was a place of eternal suspension.

 
          
And
how I prized that!

 
          
Floating
above was so much easier, and cleaner. Though the water was in fact blood, I
could not see it. Those were not bones grating beneath my feet, but rocks. Not
cries I heard, but wind in the trees. I couldn’t see anything… except myself
haloed in glory.

 
          
I
took great care to sustain that halo, so that I could hide in the blinding
brilliance.

 
          
I
had to witness many Comings of the Leaves—oh, let me see, perhaps five tens and
five—before I realized that the Suspended Life was neither.

 
          
No
matter how I tried, I couldn ‘t stay aloft. That brilliant sparkling halo was
cut from nothingness. It blinded me to the fact that I stood nowhere. I had no
place to stand. In my entire life, I had never built anything solid or lasting.

 
          
If
I had only known. Blessed gods, I wish I could have seen myself for what I was.

 
          
Empty.
Utterly and completely.

 
          
I
did live suspended. For a few brief Comings of the Leaves.

 
          
But
when I fell, the sparkling halo became a whirlpool of tiny glinting knives.
Spinning and murderously beautiful, it cut me to pieces.

 
          
And
I’m still falling.

 
          
And
afraid, terribly afraid, that I lived suspended for so long, there may be no
bottom. Not for me.

 
          
My
sentence may be to fall forever, my soul evaporating as I tumble through the
emptiness. Watching things go by. Reaching out. Never able to touch, or hold. .
Or close my eyes.

 
          
Hunting
Hawk mused on a great many things as she sat before her warming fire. Around
her and her family, the slaves collected dishes. The meal that night had been
the last of Nine Killer and Many Dogs’ catch of fresh fish. A big pot of
hominy, now half-empty, still steamed by the side of the fire.

 
          
For
herself, Hunting Hawk had concentrated on the clams, collected by Yellow Net’s
family and steamed in a fold of damp cloth. Midwinter’s extremely low tides
exposed mud banks hidden through the rest of the year. People and gulls scavenged
this virgin territory by day, raccoons by night.

 
          
Hunting
Hawk’s old dog lay by her side, allowing her the privilege of scratching her
silky ears. The bitch made snuffling sounds through her gray muzzle, and her
fat tail thumped the mat; a particularly sensitive spot had fallen under
Hunting Hawk’s arthritic fingers.

 
          
Across
the fire, Copper Thunder glared into the coals; the red light emphasized his
forked eye tattoos, the spider gorget, and the gaudy copper necklaces. Since
his meeting with The Panther, a sullen anger had hung around him like a black
mist.

 
          
Fascinating,
Hunting Hawk told herself. A most interesting exchange. So much had come clear.
Here, in her village, two old enemies, like circling spiders, were spinning out
their final conflict. Somehow, Red Knot’s death had become the foca] point for
both of them.

 
          
And
for me, Hunting Hawk reminded herself. What had once been a desperate,
risk-filled gamble had now grown into something more. Not just for the future
of her clan and the Independent villages, but for the entire
Eastern Shore
of the
Salt
Water
Bay
. When that blow landed on Red Knot’s head,
a flood of events had been unleashed, a torrent cascading down upon them.

 
          
Hunting
Hawk sucked at her few stubby front teeth. Okeus, tell me, did I do the right
thing?

 
          
She
let her gaze travel around the warm room. Shell Comb—perpetual problem that she
was—sat to the right of Copper Thunder. With a bone awl, she poked holes into a
deer hide apron. As each set of holes punctured the supple leather, she used a
stingray spine needle to sew on a tubular blue bead. Cut from quahog clamshell,
these were the very valuable beads her people called peak. The number of them
that Shell Comb now sewed on the apron was worth a clan’s ransom.

 
          
Yellow
Net was directing Quick Fawn as she laid out the bedding for the guests. A’s
Hunting Hawk watched Yellow Net work, she couldn’t help but notice the woman’s
concise action, the way she composed each thought before she implemented it.
Young Quick Fawn had inherited that same sense of deliberate competence.
Perhaps it was in the blood, passed from mother to daughter. But, then, what
had happened between her and Shell Comb? How could Shell Comb have turned out
the way she did? In any comparison Hunting Hawk made between her niece and her
own daughter, Yellow Net seemed so much more efficient. Yellow Net carried
herself with reserve, whereas a won ton abandon had plagued Shell Comb since
infancy.

 
          
Okeus
help us all if I die too quickly and Shell Comb becomes Weroansqua. Hunting
Hawk ran aching fingers through the ruff on her dog’s neck. She wished her sons
had lived. Brown Jaw, her oldest, had had a clever head on his shoulders. He
would have made a worthy successor to her, had Stone Frog’s Conoy not killed
him in a raid. Her second son, Green Clam, had broken his leg in a bad fall.
Despite its having been set, evil had entered the leg where the splintered ends
protruded through the flesh. Green Clam had lasted almost three moons, the last
one punctuated by fevered sweats and chills, his mind wandering in and out of
delirium.

 
          
Okeus,
you have treated me unfairly when it came to my children. Only Shell Comb had
lived to follow her, and of Shell Comb’s children, only Sea Nettle and Red Knot
had survived. Sea Nettle now lived in
Duck
Creek
Village
, the farthest west of the Independent
villages. Sea Nettle—happily married to the Weroance of Duck Creek—had declared
emphatically that she would have nothing to do with her mother or
Flat
Pearl
Village
. No communication had passed between them
for many Comings of the Leaves.

 
          
Of
course, information still shuttled back and forth like the very winds. Sea
Nettle was nevertheless Greenstone Clan, and she’d borne four children, two of
them girls. From the reports, Sea Nettle’s offspring were well thought of,
responsible, and all potential leaders.

 
          
So,
should I call Sea Nettle here? See if she would inherit? Hunting Hawk mused
distastefully on the question as she watched Shell Comb’s eyes straying to
Copper Thunder, lingering on his broad shoulders, and the way his muscular
thigh jutted to one side.

 
          
No!
No matter what, I cast the reeds long ago, and I shall bet on what I could
grab. Sea Nettle turned her back on me. That was her decision. I shan’t go
crawling to her, now. Curse the girl, anyway. She’d cut the ties with mother,
home, and this very Great House. Well, by Okeus, she could live with the
consequences!

 
          
Her
old dog moved uncomfortably, and Hunting Hawk realized she’d knotted her fist
in the bitch’s hair. In apology, she patted the animal and returned to stroking
the soft fur.

 
          
She
studied Copper Thunder, reading anger in his flashing black eyes. The Panther
had unleashed a maelstrom in the Great Tayac’s soul, and that brooding fury, in
turn, stoked a deep-seated worry in Hunting Hawk.

 
          
He’s
capable of anything. One by one, she considered her options. Were she to order
it, Nine Killer would ambush the man and kill him and the handful of warriors
left in his retinue. In one fell blow, she’d have solved the problem of Copper
Thunder. Next, she could pin Red Knot’s murder on the Great Tayac, and fight a
sporadic but prolonged war with the upriver villages. To do so would add even
more pressure to the alliance than the constant attrition caused by Water Snake
and Stone Frog.

 
          
The
second option was to go ahead and let Copper Thunder kill The Panther. Canny as
the old man-had been in his manipulation of Copper Thunder, he’d forgotten one
important weakness: People thought him a witch. A smart Weroansqua like Hunting
Hawk could poison someone’s food with may apple root until they became sick,
then reluctantly admit in public that she’d caught the old man casting spells.
Mayapple was a tricky poison. She’d have to measure the dosage perfectly. Among
the Lenape, a boiled concentrate from the root was the preferred means of
suicide. She need not fear repercussions; with a witch, accusation by a
Weroansqua was as good as a death order. After they’d executed The Panther, the
sick person would slowly recover and she and Copper Thunder would be
vindicated.

 
          
She
ran the fingertips of her other hand along the angle of her jaw. But, do I want
to do that? In all honesty, she rather liked The Panther. Not for some time had
anyone dared to look her in the eye with the same audacity he did. That, for
some odd reason, refreshed and entertained her.

 
          
At
the sound of giggling, Hunting Hawk scowled at Quick Fawn. Yellow Net had
turned to the Great House slaves, directing them to see to the hominy pot in
the next room. White Otter had entered, back bent under a corn husk basket
brimful of shelled corn. Now she and Quick Fawn were giggling, nervously next
to the room divider and casting uneasy glances at Copper Thunder. What silly
grouse young girls were.

 
          
Hunting
Hawk turned her thoughts back to the problem at hand. Her third option was to
marry Shell Comb to Copper Thunder. The Panther had been right—and she’d been a
fool not to see it. Unlike Hunting Hawk’s desperate gamble, Copper Thunder
needed this alliance. She’d naturally assumed that he’d been hanging around
looking for weakness, but in truth—as The Panther had observed—the Great Tayac
was an opportunist looking for a way out of his own dilemma.

 
          
Thank
The Panther for it, her position had strengthened in relationship to the Great
Tayac. If she married Shell Comb to the man, she could bargain for a great deal
more from the upriver villages and their indispensable trade route to the
interior. Concessions could include territorial access, shared resources, and
who knew, perhaps even some token tribute.

 
          
White
Otter and Quick Fawn were still laughing, but had started shoving each other.
The action seemed oddly stiff and forced, as if they were putting on a show.
But for who? Her? No, they’d know better than that.

 
          
White
Otter had picked up a section of matting, cavorting around as if it were
dancing, and she mimicking its gyrations. In the process, she tipped over a jar
of chestnuts, spilling them along the sleeping bench where Copper Thunder’s few
possessions were stacked.

 
          
“Here!”
Hunting Hawk finally snapped. “You two stop that silly foolishness!” She
gestured at them to desist. “You clean up that mess, and then pick things up
around here. Go on, get to work.”

 
          
“It’s
the weather,” Shell Comb said absently. “The cold is keeping people inside.” Her
nimble fingers continued driving the bone awl through the leather, the peak now
forming a pattern of overlapping chevrons.

 
          
To
Hunting Hawk’s satisfaction, the girls looked duly chastened and scrambled to
their duty. White Otter rolled the mat into a tube and laid it aside as she
bent down to scoop up the spilled chestnuts. Quick Fawn busied herself by
picking up the bowls that Copper Thunder’s warriors had left scattered around
the long house

 
          
Hunting
Hawk sighed. “Yes, the cold is terrible this year. I don’t think I’ve ever seen
such a gray winter. The solstice celebration is almost upon us. The greening of
spring won’t come a bit too soon for me.”

 
          
Copper
Thunder made a fist, watching the muscles slide and knot under the smooth skin
of his forearm. “The time has come for a choice, Weroansqua. I would have been
happy to wait for you to consider all options, but I think the old man has
forced us to cast the reeds.” He raised his hard black eyes to meet hers. “What
are you going to do?”

 
          
The
muscles tightened in Hunting Hawk’s rickety back as she met Copper Thunder’s
challenge. “I will do nothing, Great Tayac, until I know who killed my
granddaughter, and why.” She raised a placating hand.

 
          
His
eyes narrowed. “Am I to think that you believe me to be the killer?”

 
          
“No,
Great Tayac.” Careful, Hunting Hawk. This must be done with the greatest
delicacy. “Were I convinced that you had killed her, you would already be
dead.” She smiled slyly. “And, since you’re alive, I’d say that speaks for
itself.”

 
          
He
laughed, the sound bitter. “Thank you for your confidence and reassurance.” He
shot a quick glance at

 
          
Shell
Comb, “I will wait… but not for long, Weroansqua. In the meantime, the old man
will continue to work his poison into our bodies and souls.”

 
          
“We’ve
cleaned up,” White Otter called, all the while looking as if she’d been caught
stealing food from the elderly.

 
          
Did
I snap at the girl that harshly? Hunting Hawk took a deep breath. The tension
was wearing on them all. “All right. Go now, and thank you.” She waved her
frail old hand to dismiss the girls. Quick Fawn and White Ottej scooped up the
rolled mat, carrying it between them as they hurried for the doorway.

 
          
Copper
Thunder rubbed his hands together, the callused skin rasping as his biceps
swelled and rolled. “I warn you now that I will not put up with his
accusations. Weroansqua, please, think about what he’s doing. He has come here
on his own to work his evil. What is his purpose? To find the person who
murdered Red Knot? I ask you, why? What interest does he have in a girl he
never met? Why would he do this? Answer me that.”