Many Turtles, Otter’s tall, muscular father, sat behind Blue Jar. The wind and sun had already begun to weather his face into walnut-brown leather. Those clear eyes had fastened themselves on Otter, probing, knowing.
Heavy Rock, Otter’s uncle, sat in his place behind Round Seed. A chubby man with a bland face, he had amusement lurking in his heavy-lidded eyes. He knew every hole where the fish settled and could track a wary puma across bare stone. Beside him sat cousin Jay Bird, Round Seed’s son.
Along with Aunt Red Dye and her husband, Banded Bird, these were the immediate family, the real power within the clan.
More cousins, including Six Shell, Little Wart, and Three Herons, with their families, had jammed themselves in around the walls.
People of the Ukes 91
“At last!” Grandmother cried as she stepped through the low fabric-hung doorway in the divider. “Satisfied with the rain, Grandson? You spent enough time standing out in it to sprout.”
Otter gave her a crooked grin that he hoped would hide his feelings. “I had to attend to my packs.”
She nodded, fully aware of his sham. On age-pained legs, she moved to the center of the room, stepping around respectful relatives. Taking Blue Jar’s hand, she eased herself down onto the pillow stuffed with cattail down. Her bones crackled in competition with the fire.
Grandmother looked around as her bony fingers smoothed the tightly woven fabric of her red-and-yellow dress into planes over her lap. As her bright eyes sought out each individual, she inclined her head slightly, her toothless mouth puckering in the wealth of wrinkles. The way her hands worked on the fabric of the dress reminded Otter of a crow’s taloned feet, dark with the knowledge and essence of the Dead.
Grandmother waited patiently as Clay Bowl and Teal Wing dropped the last of the leaf-wrapped fish into the earth oven.
Steam rolled up from the pit, carrying the aroma of roasting patties. ‘
When the girls had finished, Grandmother sniffed loudly and rubbed her fleshy nose; the action pulled her wrinkles this way and that.
“Well … ” she began. “May the ancestors and Spirits wish us health and peace. May our crops grow tall and green, and our nets return full when they are cast into the rich waters. May the deer breed and produce fat twins who answer our pleas for meat. May the ducks, geese, and turkeys return to our waters, forests, and fields. May the Great Sun bless our growing plants and ripen our squash. May the blessings of this life and the next fall upon us. First Man, guide us, and ancestors, hear our voices and protect us from evil.”
Then the old woman raised her voice in Song, the usual Blessing of the Clan that Many Colored Crow had taught back in the beginning times.
That duty taken care of, Grandmother reached into her belt pouch and brought forth a beautifully crafted stone pipe that Otter had traded for far up the Serpent River. The piece was carved from reddish-brown slate. The flat stem bore the laboriously sculpted image of a falcon’s head. She tamped a small twist of tobacco into’the bowl and nodded as Teal Wing brought her a glowing ember. Puffing, she blew smoke at the ceiling, at the ground, and then to the cardinal directions.
She made a gesture, and the pipe was taken to Otter, who puffed and inhaled the sweet tobacco that he’d brought up from the south. Carefully, he exhaled in the sacred directions, then handed the pipe back to Grandmother.
“Very well,” the old woman said. “We’ve had a good marriage ceremony. The feasts were wonderful, the celebration superb.
Yaupon was drunk by all, and our hearts, souls, and Songs were pure. May the union be as blessed by luck as it was by the gifts showered upon the happy couple.” Her obsidian gaze drilled into Otter. “No matter what they might have cost the giver.”
To avoid the awkward pause that might have followed, Grandmother quickly stated: “Now, however, we finally have time to hear Otter. He has just-recently returned from the Alligator clan villages near the mouth of the river. He brings us shell, sacred yaupon to boil and drink, dried fish, bright feathers, and many other things. Tell us what you have heard on the river, Grandson, and what you suggest that we do with these wonderful gifts you’ve brought.”
Otter stepped to a spot across the fire from his grandmother, glanced around at his relatives, and lowered himself to a sitting position where everyone could see him. The firelight danced on his brightly dyed clothing, the heat causing the soaked fabric to steam. He laced his fingers together before him, his elbows on his knees.
He would start at the beginning, as was good manners. “I followed the river downstream for four tens of days. When I reached the Alligator clan villages, I made shore and asked for Swamp Bear, the chief there. He greeted me as he always has, with warm friendship, much food, and a dry place to sleep.