Otter’s heart skipped. Red Moccasins couldn’t be mistaken for any other—, tall and elegant, the firelight gleaming on her perfect face. She’d parted her hair differently, on the right side, in the style of a married woman. As Otter watched, she bent her head, whispering something’to Four Kills, who stood at her side, “holding her hand.
Otter knew that slight frown. Lines formed between her eye170 Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear brows, and the serious set of the mouth caused dimples at the corners of her lips.
Go away, Otter. You’re only hurting yourself. He even started to leave, half-turning when he noticed the Elders.
Old Man Blood moved at last, standing and composing himself. He nodded at one of the children, who brought him a finely beaded, red pipe-bag. People hushed as he ceremonially loaded the pipe with tobacco and lit it with a burning stick from the fire. One by one, the Clan Elders passed the pipe between them.
Together, they raised their faces to the night sky and Sang, their old voices wavering and twining together in the Blessing Song. The lilting notes carried on the still night. As if in response, the stars seemed to pulse with the rhythm of the words.
A silence fell over the expectant crowd. Then Old Man Blood began the story about how Green Spider had fasted, purified himself in the sweat lodge, chanted, and Danced. How he’d entered the temple four days before the solstice and cried for a Vision, finally passing into a trance. And then, on the day of the solstice, lightning had struck.
“We pulled him from the burning building,” Old Man Sun took over the narrative. “We, ourselves, were burned. You can see where patches of our hair are singed.” He pulled back a sleeve, exposing healing skin. “Our flesh still renews itself.” “We thought that Green Spider was dead,” Old Man Sky explained. “He showed no sign of life, so we had his body carried to the charnel hut and laid there among the other corpses. He was washed, his flesh rubbed with hickory oil.
For four days, he lay like that—dead in the charnel hut. On that last day, we went for him, to carry him to a log tomb we had cut into the ground just to the north of the Temple Mound.”
Old Man North nodded his assent. “We dug the pit into the ground and lined it with clay. Into that pit we placed cane matting, and then several layers of fine cloth to cushion the body and show our respect. With great care, we laid Green Spider into the tomb, placing a drinking shell beside his head and copper plate upon his chest. Logs had been brought from the forest to lay over the tomb. Other young men had been sent upriver in canoes to find sandstone slabs to lay across the top, as is our custom.”
“And then … ” Old Man Blood hesitated “… then we ordered the young men to place the logs. They had lifted the first and were struggling to set it across the tomb—”
“—when he woke up!” cried Old Man Sun. “Sat up! Right there in the tomb! He blinked, groaned, and rubbed his eyes.”
“People stood as if they had been turned to wood,” Old Man Sky insisted. “Green Spider climbed to his feet, wobbling, weak and sick. He called out to us, and we rushed forward, asking him what had happened.”
Otter shifted and flexed his knees to ease the cramp in his legs. As he crossed his arms, he happened to glance across the fire. His stare locked with that of Red Moccasins; he could read the misery in those large dark eyes, which seemed to suck at his soul with worry and pain.
Otter forced himself to look away as Old Man North raised his hands to the crowd, his ancient face possessed of wonder.
“He told us he had been to speak to the Dead, that he had been given a Vision. Listen, my people. Hear Green Spider. He has seen a young girl floating in a river. Behind the child, a woman flounders in the water, coughing, spitting, her arms splashing as she tries to reach the child. In the struggle, she loses a sacred bundle that is strapped to her back.”
“The water begins to move faster,” Old Man Blood cried.
“It rushes around rocks, sucking and whirling. The pretty little girl is torn beyond the mother’s reach as she spins away in the foaming rapids.”
“A roaring can be heard! It grows louder and louder.” Old Man Sun shook an age-spotted fist. “Power fills the air, and the helpless child is tossed on the angry waves, crashing this way and that as water pounds the rocks into fury. At the last minute, it seems that the innocent girl might be spared, for a mat of debris lies just ahead, just at the edge of the tumbling water.”
“But this is not to be.” Old Man Sky tilted his face toward the star-speckled heavens. “A twist of the current carries the child away from the piled logs and sticks. She cries out, spitting water as she grabs onto the floating bundle. She tears at it, and a beautiful Mask floats free. Meanwhile, the woman manages to grasp onto a rock, clinging desperately as she watches in horror. Her child and the bundle are carried on by the rapid current, carried over the edge. Together, they vanish, falling among the rainbows of spray that rise up from the roaring depths.”