These Serpent clan people didn’t understand who the Caribou people were, or what they were like. The Caribou people came out of the forest in midwinter, when their yearly migration brought them south. By the deep cold, they would have made their kill off of the wintering caribou herds. They would appear then, traveling behind sleds pulled ‘ dog packs, to Trade for manufactured goods—copper, and lightweight, portable foodstuffs such as goosefoot-seed cakes.
Stone Wrist tapped his arm. “Do you know how many Traders it takes to fill a clan leader’s bed?”
“If you’re talking about me—just one; but I’d better not come back that way, because when I’ve worn her out, she’s never going to look twice at another man. And I’ll remember that the next time I come to Buckeye clan grounds. I’ll expect you to be married by then. Your sister is going to be disappointed as it is. She worries about you.”
At that moment, a crow came spiraling down from the blue sky to caw excitedly. Pale Snake had barely looked up before the bird flapped off to the north with a rasping of wings. He frowned, wondering.
“Married? Me? Do you think I could ever find a woman willing to bear this much weight?” Stone Wrist slapped his rotund belly with both hands. “But then, I suppose you’d be visiting all the time, eating my food, trying to bed my wife.”
Stone Wrist tugged at his belly, a most astonishing mountain of flesh. “You and your stories about women! Why do I think it’s all bluff? Eh?”
Pale Snake caught sight of a woman walking down the muddy slope. She’d be beautiful if the grime were washed off—and appealing if she weren’t towing a little girl, which meant that she’d be married to someone who’d object to his interest.
The Trader punched his friend in the gut. “You wouldn’t want me visiting too often, old friend. With as much belly as you’ve got sagging there, your manhood couldn’t find its way to a woman in the first place … and you’d crush her dead in the second.”
“That, or suffocate her. Ah, well, I can always dream.” Stone Wrist watched as Pale Snake placed the last of his packs in the canoe. “I’ll miss you. It’s such a treat when you come. And only once every two years. Why did you insist on living out at the edge of the world? You’re as far as you could get from here and still be someplace!”
“I like it that way. It’s a long journey back and forth. Two passages to make—and one never knows what, or who, might drift down from the north.”
“So be it. May Many Colored Crow go with you and keep you safe.”
“And may your ancestors keep you, Stone Wrist.” They clasped hands and hugged each other. Pale Snake bent down, starting to shove his loaded canoe out into the brown floodwaters.
“Wait!”
He stopped, turning with Stone Wrist to see the woman and her child running toward them. Something about the child’s gaze was most unsettling. A cold chill ran down his back. He knew that look.
“You are a Trader?” the woman asked. Her hard eyes had narrowed at the sight of the snakes tattooed on his cheeks. He could see the muscles in her jaws tense. The humped pack on her back, her frayed clothing and loose black hair bore spatters of mud. To look like that, she might have lost a wrestling match with a raccoon. The little girl looked no better.
“I might be a Trader, but then, it would depend on what you might want to barter. I’ve got a canoe as full of goods as I can get it. Unless you’re interested in sacred chert, slate pipes, copper awls, and goosefoot seed, I don’t have much to offer a local.”
She would be gorgeous if she were washed and those clothes taken out and burned. And what’s in that pack?
She straightened under his gaze, “I need to travel to the Roaring Water. Do you know the place? A friend of mine … ” She glanced uneasily at Stone Wrist. Then she took Pale Snake’s arm and led him several steps to the side. “Would you know the High Head Magician, Tall Man, by any chance?”
Pale Snake tensed, and his soul chilled. Of all the things she could have said, nothing would have captured his interest so completely. Who was this hard-eyed woman? Her speech was that of a prestigious Flat Pipe lineage, one with a long tradition of authority. From the fine shape of her face and the delicate nose, she must be of the northern Serpent Clans. This woman, despite her appearance, wasn’t used to rags—and he’d heard of only one such association with Tall Man. “You’re Star Shell.”
She didn’t react: proof of either complete confidence or unmitigated idiocy. “And you are?”