People of the Lakes(26)

“I don’t think my husband would let his motherin-law suffer the chills if he could help it. He knows who his friends are.”

Yellow Reed jerked a stiff nod of approval. “You did well by him, girl.”

The canoe ‘ them all forward as it snubbed into the beach. Otter was already over the side, sloshing forward to help’ Yellow Reed to her feet. Without even straining, he lifted her free, setting her on her feet on the muddy bank.

“I need to see you,” she said simply. “Wait until we get settled, then come.”

The thinly veiled delight that had possessed him on the river evaporated as he looked down at her, his face turned as gray and gloomy as the day. “Yes, Grandmother.”

She stared at the muddy path that led up the slope to the clan house. The thought of climbing all that brought bile to her gut, but Blue Jar offered a steadying arm. In the meantime, she would concentrate on Otter. He’d be wanting to leave soon, to travel north despite the season. Well, perhaps that would be for the best. Young men went crazy when the women they loved married others. Better to send him off than to have him around causing trouble between Red Moccasins and Four Kills.

Several weeks’ journey to the south, four slim war canoes traveled upriver. Powerful arms plied the paddles that bore the craft relentlessly northward, away from the crystal-blue gulf waters and the warm breezes. No one could mistake these men—four tens of them. These were Khota warriors, feared throughout the north. Tattooed, scarred, they wore their hair in tight buns, scowling out at the river with hard eyes. In the lead canoe sat a lo’the woman wrapped in a blanket The bow wake rippled out in silvered chevrons across the brown water as the slim Khota war canoe raced forward. From her seat in the bow, Pearl watched the smooth water with a detached indifference. Today, at least, she could be happy that the wind had stopped.

To think any further, to attempt to understand the sudden change that had ripped her from her familiar world, was to realize the enormity of what had happened to her. Better to simply sit and watch with vacant eyes as the winter-brown vegetation passed.

Yes, and pretend you are living a curious sort of dream. That life will return to the way it was.

And the moon might rise in the west.

She was only fooling herself.

Pearl had learned to close her ears to the sound of the Khota warriors as they sang and rhythmically drove their pointed paddles into the river—a melody of swirling, sucking waters, punctuated by tinkling drips. The paddles rose and fell, endlessly lifted for yet another bite. Each stroke propelled her forward, upriver, toward a future she could scarcely imagine.

Pearl sat straight-backed, staring at the wooded banks they passed. Cypress and tupelo waited patiently for summer, while the vines twined through their branches like bleached ropes. The world had dulled to winter shades in response to the cold storms that rolled down from the north.

Perhaps it would work out satisfactorily. Women had traveled the length and breadth of the continent before—and even been happy with their marriages and families. The unsettling dread had to be homesickness. That was all.

Her veins pulsed with the blood of the Anhinga Clan: the Snakebird people. With her marriage to the Khota leader, Wolf of the Dead, she would ensure her clan’s wealth and prosperity.

She lifted her head. Anhinga, yes, that’s what she was.

Proud, strong, cunning. A hunter. That knowledge had been instilled into her very bones. In the distant past, Anhinga—the hunter bird that swam with its body submerged—had mated with a beautiful human woman, and from her womb had sprung the people who would become the Anhinga Clan.

Her people had always shared behavioral traits with their totemic ancestor. They hunted with serrated spears—like the bird’s beak. As the bird spread its wings to the sun, so did the Anhinga spread their arms to its renewing warmth. The Anhinga Clan controlled the mouth of the Great River, known to northern peoples as

“The Father Water.”

I am Anhinga. I must show these Khota what it means to have the snakebird’s blood run in my veins. She felt better at the thought. Stories did that, strengthened people.

The seventh daughter in a matrilineal clan, she should have had the right to choose a mate. Her fate, however, had been sealed when the Khota landed at her village. They called themselves Traders, who, despite their warlike appearance, had come down from the north. But most important of all, they had arrived bearing loads of copper plate, sheets of mica, and greenstone celts.

The young Khota men had been looking for conch shell, mar ginella for beads, sharks’ teeth, and stingray spines—all of them worth a great deal in the north. As they had become familiar with the Anhinga, their haughty manners began to creep past the initial unease of being in a strange land and among strange people.