People of the Lightning(147)
“What friend?”
Diver struggled to get his feet under him, twisting his head to watch Cottonmouth walk across the twilit village. Racing children and barking dogs filled the plaza. Men and women spoke gently to each other where they crouched in their shelters piling wood to feed the nightly fires. The succulent smell of turtles simmering in their own juices wafted on the sea breeze. Diver had not eaten in three days. He felt lightheaded. The tens of thorn wounds in his body burned and ached, but he could ignore them. This hunger, however, stalked him like a bear with a wounded doe in sight.
Woodduck came forward, grinning maliciously, and used a hafted knife to saw through the vines; he pulled them off, and tossed them out of the shelter. Then he cut Diver’s bonds, and as his numb arms slapped his sides, he fell to his knees on the floor mats. His shoulder and back wounds lanced him with staggering pain, and he leaned forward to retch, but no liquid came up, only dry heaves, over and over.
Woodduck bent down, grabbed Diver’s unfeeling hands, and tied them with a rawhide cord. He whispered, “Don’t worry. This will all be over soon. Cottonmouth says we’re going to kill you tomorrow.”
At Diver’s horrified look, the warrior roared with laughter, turned on his heel, and tramped away, waving his other warriors to follow him. They took up their guard stations thirty hands away.
Diver’s dry heaves lasted until his body simply no longer had the strength, then he toppled onto his side and blinked wearily out at Sea Girl. Big waves tormented the beach tonight, crashing upon the shore in a constant deep-throated growl. Purple twinkles of light danced on the water, and in his foggy sight they resembled scatters of dogwood petals.
Dogwood … blooming … so sweetly scented …
Diver drifted into an exhausted sleep.
And in his dreams, he heard singing, the voice so pure, the notes so deep and resonant, that Diver feared the woman might not be human. Many forest Spirits wandered these scrub oak woods, playing pranks on passersby, and there would be angry ghosts out here too, seeking to take revenge on living humans for the fact that they still walked the earth. Diver tiptoed forward carefully, his atlatl nocked, breathing shallow.
Dogwood flowers dangled from the branches overhanging the trail, filling the air with sweetness. He carefully pushed the lavender clusters out of his way as he ducked beneath the limbs.
He stopped when he heard voices coming from up ahead, followed by the erratic scratching of a bone straightener being worked down the length of a dart shaft.
People! He had seen no one in days!
He broke into a trot. Young again, vibrant and strong, he was dressed in his warrior’s tunic, the front painted with the black image of Whale. Gulls floated through the halo of sunshine over his head. The warm spring breeze flapped the hem of his tunic, and fluttered long black hair before his eyes. Serenity filled him. For the first time in moons, his burdens and fears had vanished. Through the maze of tree trunks, he saw a small palmetto-choked hill. Hickory and oak trees grew densely on the crest, and gray wisps of smoke twisted away in the wind.
The sound of the bone straightener working wood came so clearly now that Diver could almost feel it working up the lengths of his own long bones. He slowly ambled up the hill, holding aside palm fronds and ducking beneath oak boughs.
A boy, perhaps ten-and-four summers, leaned against the base of a huge hickory tree making cordage from the neck skin of a sea tortoise. When cut into very thin strips, then stretched and two strands twisted together, it made a very strong cord. A big dog lay on his side beside the boy. The animal studied Diver with kind brown eyes, and wagged its tail. The boy lifted his chin in greeting. Diver nodded, then continued along the trail.
He entered a section of dark shadows, and from somewhere far away … memories struggled to surface … horrifying … his sons dying one by one … his beautiful daughter screaming …
He fought to meld with the calm heart of the dream again, concentrating on the oak trees towering above him. On the crooked branches, thick with gray-green beards of hanging moss. On the air, redolent with dogwood blossoms. They swayed in the breeze, swirling the air like a fan. Diver lifted his sweating face, and let the blossoms breathe fragrant coolness over him.
The delicious odors of burning hickory logs and hot grease met his nostrils, as well. He inhaled deeply, and grew frantic to reach that food …
He ran headlong down the winding trail. Breaking out of the tall trees, he burst into a grassy clearing filled with people.
Men and women sat in the shade at the edges of the clearing, some laughing, others talking in low tones. Baskets of food nestled around them. In the center of the clearing, a fire burned. A broad bed of glowing coals filled the pit that had been scooped out in the sand. On the far side of the fire, in a patch of wavering shadows, a woman worked the bone straightener—a femur bone split in half with a hole drilled in one end—down the length of her dart shaft. A neat line of tools lay to her right side: chert flakes and knives, a wooden bowl of bear grease, two blocks of grooved wood filled with sand, a pile of owl tailfeathers. And last, a roasted section of deer ribs. Another warrior, a young man, sat beside her.