People of the Lakes(102)
They’d been a wonderful audience, gasping at his ferocious expressions, their souls drinking in every word. At Long Squirrel’s insistence, he’d twirled his war club and brought cries of amazement and awe from the assembled people.
Black Skull had seen worship reflected in those eyes. They had understood the sort of warrior he was. Then, after he’d retired to his bedding, two young women had ghosted in out of the darkness and slipped under his blanket. Closing his eyes, he could remember their warmth, the softness of their skin against his. Tireless, they had taken turns, each stroking his manhood to reawakened vigor when he thought himself drained. He could hear their soft cries, feel their flesh tighten in ecstasy at his pulsing release.
They’d left in the faint graying of dawn, whispering excitedly to themselves about the strong children they would bear from his seed.
It was a wonder he could even wield a paddle this morning.
The canoe wobbled again as Green Spider began wrestling with Catcher.
“Be still!” Black Skull thundered. “You’ll tip us over!”
Green Spider immediately stood up, waving his hands and dancing around. The canoe rocked and bobbed dangerously.
“Dance!” Otter shouted in the stern. “Go wild, Green Spider, like a young ferret in spring!”
The Contrary promptly seated himself and crossed his arms, as motionless as a stump. Catcher cocked his head, then pawed at Green Spider and whined.
“One of these days,” Black Skull grumbled to himself in promise.
“What was that?” Otter called.
Seeking to recover his rhythm with the paddle. Black Skull thought for a moment. “Trader, have you ever considered? We could just brain the fool. That, or strangle him. I’ll even cut his throat, if you’d like. We could weight the body down and sink it in a backswamp. After that, we’ll hole up in some nice place like Green Turtle and go back to the Elders next spring with some story we’ve made up. No one will ever know the difference.
When he glanced back, Green Spider was miming having his throat cut, choking, and stabbing himself, but Otter was grinning.
“I don’t think we’d better kill him yet.”
“Oh? Much more of his foolishness and I’m going to break this paddle over his idiot head.”
“Don’t,” Otter chimed back. “I beg you. Let’s keep him alive. Long Squirrel was so engrossed by the two of you that he never thought to haggle over the purple shirts. I got four of them—and he never asked for anything in return!”
You don’t know how lucky it is that you have these,” Star Shell declared. She lifted the long wooden pestle—crafted from the trunk of a small tree—and thumped it down on the dried pawpaw seeds in the old mortar. Like most, the mortar had been hollowed out of a stump. She worked in a constant rhythm, ta-tunk, ta-tunk.
Tall Man sat in a half-shelter, little more than a south-facing arbor that cut the wind and shaded a person in the summer, while sunning him in the winter. The farmstead sat in a cove where a small tributary trickled out of a narrow valley before joining Blue Duck Creek, which ran westward through the hills toward Moonshell River.
Clamshell’s holding consisted of her small hut, a couple of fields, the arbor, and several storage pits excavated into the ground before the arbor. Trees screened the small farm from the main trail that ran on the other side of Blue Duck Creek. Beyond the worn pestle and mortar, the old woman’s only large pot was now steaming over a small fire.
The morning sun had burned through the last remnants of the storm, which now fled eastward as billowy clouds. The land gleamed in the white clarity of a fresh snow. Their tracks, once so damning, appeared only as dimples in the white.
“I always go prepared,” Tall Man said easily. “I keep a lot of the necessities in that little pack. You never know when you’ll need something critical.”
Star Shell continued to mash the dried brown seeds. “I hope this is enough. I’m being eaten alive.”
“It will be. I know that tree. The seeds are particularly virulent.”
Star Shell inspected the crushed hulls and nodded, reaching down to rub the powder off the bottom of the pestle.
“Stop!” Tall Man cried. “Don’t touch it!” He stood up on his too-short legs and waddled over to hand her a long blade of sacred chert. “Use this. Scrape off the excess carefully. It probably wouldn’t hurt you, but let’s not take chances. I know that particular tree. I followed rumors for two years to find it.” “Rumors?” Star Shell asked as she took the chert blade and shaved the powder from the pestle.
“I heard of people dying. Everyone knows that pawpaw fruits are excellent fare but that the seeds are poisonous. It turns out that a little girl had eaten one of the seeds because she didn’t know any better. For days she lingered with her soul half out of her body. Perhaps in that state it met an evil ghost, I don’t know. But something malicious worked on the girl’s soul. Over the years, other people were poisoned. It turned out that it was the girl—not so little by this time—who was causing all the problems. She’d taken to slipping ground seeds into the food of people she didn’t like. I finally got her to show me the tree.”