People of the Lakes(67)

However, coupled with Trade pidgin, she’d come to be fairly proficient as long as she didn’t need to say anything rapidly.

To her, the language still seemed to be that of a people who sneezed a lot.

The boat slid up on the sandy mud with a shishing Sound, and Pearl sighed, pushing painfully to her feet. The miserable, prickling sensation of numb legs returning to life had to be endured before she could trust herself to step out.

“Weak, woman?” Round Scar asked as he stepped out and placed his oar in the canoe. The wood thunked hollowly.

“Maybe you need me to help you carry all the blankets up to camp?”

“May the leeches suck your blood,” she rattled off in her own tongue. Then in the Trade pidgin, she added, “I’m fine.

You?”

Round Scar chuckled and hefted the weight of his atlatl as he and several others pulled darts and fanned out to investigate the approaches to the camping spot.

The worst of the prickling over, Pearl trusted her legs to take her up onto the spit of sand. Others had camped here in the past.

Several charcoal stains indicated where hearths had been dug out. Bits of broken pottery hinted that someone had dropped a food jar—or else the vessel had been broken in a canoe and the remains tossed out here.

Behind the sand spit lay a brackish backwater from which cypress had begun to grow, and tall cane lined the crumbled bank where the forest started. Sparse grass shaded into brush, and finally into dense forest. Even as she considered the site, several of the warriors trotted past her toward the trees, perhaps to hunt meat for the camp.

Pearl walked down to the head of the backwater, screening herself with brush. She squatted and pulled her skirt up, thankful to relieve her full bladder and change her absorbent. At the last stop, she’d tucked a thick loop of bark into the top of her moccasin, and now she removed it.

One Arm walked up behind her, grinning, sniffing. “Aren’t you done yet, woman?”

“Just a moment longer.” She took her time replacing her old absorbent with new. There had to be a way to pay these arrogant The plant stood right before her. Brown, dead, but the oval leaves couldn’t be mistaken. They had grown straight out of the now-desiccated stalk: no stems. The seeds were long gone, but the many-forked umbels remained.

They wanted her to do all the cooking, did they? She picked up a twig and dug at the dirt as though burying her old absorbent, which was her habit. One Arm would expect it.

The plant might be dormant, but the roots would still be there, waiting, full of the Power that flowering spurge was noted for.

Pearl gripped her precious root, stuffed it into the top of her moccasin, and stood up.

One Arm had a crafty gleam in his eyes. He lifted his breechclout, pointing at his enlarging penis. “You want this? Maybe tonight? When everybody else is asleep?”

She shook her head, placing her feet carefully as she backed away.

“I’m good!” he insisted. “Real good! Make you happy.”

“I’m for Dead Wolf,” she insisted. “Remember him? Your war leader?”

He laughed at that, wagging his engorged penis. “1111 come to you tonight. Make you happy, yes?”

“No!”

She slipped to the side as he grabbed for her. With a twist of her body, she avoided his fingers and sprinted for the camp.

Behind her, he laughed.

Seeking to recover some sense of dignity, she strode forward purposefully, her head held high, back arched.

Grizzly Tooth had used a splintered piece of driftwood to dig out one of the fire pits. He looked up, noting Tier expression and the flashing anger in her eyes.

“Trouble?” he asked.

“One Arm wants me. Offered to crawl into my robes.”

Grizzly Tooth nodded. “You’re the only woman. What do you expect? Now stop causing trouble and go pack our blankets up to camp.”

“Does Dead Wolf want his warriors sticking themselves in his woman?”

Grizzly Tooth sighed. “It’s Wolf of the Dead … not Dead Wolf. And the answer is no. You stay within my sight. Besides, the way you talk Khqta, you might mean no and say yes. It sounds like you’re talking with too much food in your mouth.”

“Khota don’t talk like real people.”

They watched her like hawks as she lugged their gear up to the camp. As she worked, she studied the bedrolls in her hands, and a sly smile curled her lips.

She carried one of the cook pots to Grizzly Tooth’s fire and set it on the sand, watching as he placed kindling in the hollowed-out fire pit. He opened a small pottery jar he’d taken from the canoe and poured gray ash on the ground before bending down to blow on it. A puff of fine powder blew away, but several embers glowed redly to life. These, Grizzly Tooth plucked up with twigs and settled at the base of the under.