Black Skull squared his shoulders then, plying his paddle. His atlatl felt warm beside his thigh. The darts were laid out with the usual care, and his war club waited close at hand. Every now and then he’d steal a touch to instill Spirit into the wood, stone, and metal. For soon now, they would be ready for their # final challenge.
A War Song, one his granduncle had taught him, rose in his throat, and as they approached the island the fisherman had spoken of, Black Skull began to Sing softly to himself.
This was the way a man was meant to die.
Forty-seven
Star Shell marveled as they coasted into the mouth of the Roaring Water River. The entrance was broad, wider than even the Serpent River in the south. She could sense the current pulling her toward the end of her trial, and despite the horror that she knew loomed just ahead, she put what little remaining strength she had into paddling. Rapidly, they passed fishing weirs, net floats, shell middens, and canoe landings.
She could see farmsteads and fields through breaks in the trees, and people hailed them from canoes as they hurried by.
She glanced up, aware of the slanting afternoon sun. She had never witnessed a sunset like this, the rays of light streaking through the high clouds, shimmering in colors of pink and purple, rose and violet. The very light seemed to have burst into a halo of the heavens.
The water, too, was clear, deep and dark, possessed of a Power she’d never felt before. Despite her exhaustion, she straightened, paddling onward. The end lay up ahead somewhere, frightening and reassuring at the same time.
She glanced back at Pale Snake. The snakes tattooed on his cheeks stood out, dark against his unnaturally pale skin. Only his eyes blazed, a reflection of the fire that burned in his soul.
Silver Water sat quietly behind her, watching with sober, dark eyes as the banks passed and the water swirled and eddied in the sinuous coils of the river.
Star Shell looked up at the clouds again. What caused them to glitter in such gemlike fashion? Had the majesty of Power, the infinite swelling and contracting of earth, water, and season, all gathered here to see the Mask of Many Colored Crow reach its final, watery end?
“There.” Pale Snake spoke as the river split into two forks.
“Land on the point. Right there on the sand.”
Star Shell pointed the canoe toward the low beach, wondering which fork one took to reach the Roaring Water. She felt, as well as heard, the hollow grinding as the canoe beached and the wakes rippled into obscurity along the sandy littoral.
Pale Snake sighed, then winced as he rose to his feet. He stepped out, tossing his paddle onto the shore, where it clattered on driftwood.
Star Shell didn’t move but watched his jaw muscles as they clenched and quaked, giving life to the serpents on his cheeks.
“Pale Snake, what are we doing? We can’t camp here, can we? How far is it to the Roaring Water?”
He lifted the first of his packs from the canoe. Then he extended his hand to her, helping her to her feet and out onto the shore. She locked her knees, aware that until the pins and needles of renewed circulation had finished making her miserable, she’d be just as likely to pitch forward onto her face as to make a step.
With characteristic gentleness, he lifted Silver Water from the canoe.
“Don’t go far, Silver Water,” he told the little girl. “Your mother will be leaving very soon.”
Silver Water nodded and walked down the beach, picking up shells and bits of driftwood. She bent down to peer into the clear water that lapped the shore.
“This place,” Pale Snake said, “is special. Here the river splits—it is said that it does so because it does not want to leap over the edge of the Roaring Water and plummet so far down onto the violent rocks below. Only when it can no longer deny the inevitable does it come back together and rush toward the terrible precipice.’,’ His jaw trembled and then steadied as his voice lowered. “Here I, too, must encounter the inevitable.”
“What did you see last night?”
He grimaced and propped his hands on his hips. “Did you know that Tall Man was dying? That he’d seen his own death?”
“You mean that he knew Robin was going to catch him?”
“No, not that at all. A terrible sickness had penetrated his body and was eating his liver. A disease that not even he, with all of his Power, could cure.”
“No, I didn’t. But … he kept having a pain on the trail.” She pressed a hand to her right side beneath her ribs. “About here.”
Pale Snake grasped her by the shoulders, staring into her eyes, trying to see into her soul. “The Mask said I should ask you about the woman, the one Tall Man talked about.”