“Trade, right?” Otter called, and after helping to pull Wave Dancer up on the beach, he gave each of his grinning guides a couple of sharks’ teeth. Instead of the usual response, he received blank stares as they turned them over and over, perplexed.
“Sharks’ teeth,” Otter repeated.
“Don’t know.” The elder youth ran his thumb along the sharp, serrated edge of the triangular tooth.
“From big fish in the Salt Water Sea.”
“For jewelry,” Pearl stated as she stepped up beside Otter.
“Drill holes and make a necklace. Like a gorget. No one else will have one—and not from so far away.” She took the young woman’s hands, guiding them up so that she could model a hanging ornament between her round young breasts.
Then the smiles grew. People began crowding around them, chattering and gesturing. Catcher, back on full-time guard duty, snarled and barked as he walked back and forth on the packs that bulged within Wave Dancer’s canted hull.
People gave way for an old man, gray of hair and white in one eye, as he strode forward imperiously. His bony fist clutched a long wooden staff that swung with each pace, the end tapping the ground. His breechcloth bore the image of a ferocious bear, long-toothed, with widespread claws. Wrinkled skin hung from the Elder’s visible ribs, and his belly was rounded, the navel sticking out like a walnut on a river rock.
He stopped, studying the landing with his one good eye.
“Greetings, Traders. I am Shinbone. Welcome to Wenshare village.” “Wenshare?” Otter asked, stepping forward and bowing politely.
“We do not know that word, respected leader.”
The chief cataloged Otter and his companions, then took in Wave Dancer and the snarling Catcher. He spoke one word— an order—and people retreated, calling and cuffing their dogs back. The Elder then stated, “In Trade tongue, it means ‘
place where the big nuts fall.’ Have you come from far away?”
“I am known as the Water Fox, a man of the White Shell Clan. This big man is Black Skull, of the Winter Clan of the City of the Dead. This woman is Pearl, of the Anhinga people.
Finally, this is Green Spider, a Contrary. Yes, we have come from far away. Some of us have come from the shores of the Salt Water Sea, many moons’ travel to the distant south.”
Shinbone frowned at that. “I know of no Salt Water Sea to the south. I have heard of the one to the east … beyond the mouth of Wind Lake.”
Otter pointed to the southwest, his arm making an arc as he talked. “We came up the Father Water … the great river. Then we made passage up the Ilini River to the Fresh Water Sea on the other side of the land to the west. We paddled all the way around and had to outrun some of the wild people. The Badger people, we think.” Shinbone nodded thoughtfully. “Ah … you have come from far. I have heard stories of the passage to the Father Water in the western land of the Ilini. Traders have told me.”
Shinbone turned his attention to Wave Dancer, stepping down to touch the carved fox’s nose. Catcher growled a dire warning, lips curling on his long muzzle. “But I have never seen a canoe such as this.” He looked at Black Skull, who stood with his club neutrally balanced on his shoulder. “Or a man such as this.
A warrior, yes?”
“A Trader,” Black Skull replied easily, “who was once a warrior.” Shinbone smiled, making a motion with his hand. “Come, Traders. I declare you my guests. Upon my word, your packs and -goods shall be safe. Join me and my band of the Spotted Loon people. Trade with us, and tell us of your adventures.”
Amidst the chattering of excited people, Otter took Pearl’s hand and led the way forward—but for Green Spider, of course, who followed backwards. Shinbone’s people pointed, exclaiming to themselves, obviously curious, some even worried.
“Don’t be afraid of him,” Black Skull said. “He’s just demented.
Those who understood Trade pigeon nodded, more out of politeness than belief, since a glance told them that they reserved the right to be suspicious of anything a man that ugly might tell them.
A winding path carried them a dart’s throw from the river to a village on a rounded hillock. There longhouses, twenty to thirty paces in length, stood, looking uniformly new—last fall’s construction at most. Tall and arched, they had been sided with strips of bark lashed to a substantial framework of logs and poles.
Shinbone led them to an open plaza in the middle of the houses, where a fire pit smoldered in the twilight. At a clap of his hands, youngsters scurried away to return with firewood that was then unceremoniously dumped into the big hearth. Shinbone motioned everyone to sit, and a gray-haired woman bearing a pipe bag emerged from the mouth of one of the houses. She wore a white-leather skirt and walked with a limp, but despite the ravages of time and weather, the sparks of intelligence and beauty remained. She offered the pipe bag to Shinbone and nodded at Otter’s party.