People of the Lightning(3)

But she would leave anyway.

Musselwhite would boldly face the rage of Sun Mother herself to keep her relatives from falling into Cottonmouth’s hands. For two-tens-and-six summers his bitterness had been festering, eating him alive. She would rightly fear what tactics he might use to repay that old debt of honor.

He looked up to watch the bats flitting through the darkness, their wings flashing in the moonlight, and wondered what he would do when she came.

The ache in his chest grew overpowering. He dropped his head in his hands, and closed his eyes.

He knew only that he would be waiting for her.





Two

Gently, so that he made no sound, Diver gripped the palm frond blocking his path, and eased it forward. When he had stepped by, he returned the frond to its original position and released it. It barely swayed, tapping the dense tangle of grape vines on either side. He scanned the twilight forest, breathing hard, his legs shaking.

His thoughts had grown blurry, indistinct. For long hands of time, he could remember nothing, not his name, nor his clan, not even the direction which led home, then it would all come back in a terrifying rush and he would break out in a dead run.

A short length of dart shaft protruded from the lower left side of his back. It wouldn’t stop bleeding. He pressed his hand over the wound, and tremors of pain possessed him. Every move he made caused the sharp chert point to slice deeper. He’d tried pulling out the shaft, but couldn’t get a grip on it through the blood. He’d broken the shaft off … broken it … when?

Cottonmouth’s warriors, he forced himself to think. They attacked … the dart pierced my side. I fell … .

He forced a swallow down his dry throat. Horrifying images of running men filled his souls.

He blinked at the tufts of fog that lay like cattail down in the thick vines looping the trees. As the evening cooled, the mist condensed and a constant patter of drops rained down upon the brown leaf mat of the forest floor, creating a faint drum-like cadence. Soaked to the bone, Diver shivered. Not even the hooded mid-thigh-length tunic he wore could shield him from the bitter wind. It sent probing fingers right through the fabric, taunting his skin.

Birds watched him with their feathers fluffed out for warmth, but few dared to chirp. The whole world had gone silent and glistening.

Only the mist moved.

Silver veils meandered around the broad bases of towering oaks, and climbed the trunks of pines to coil in their pointed tops.

Diver limped forward in ghostly silence. The single dart he carried had grown slick. He clutched it more tightly. He had tucked his atlatl, his dart thrower, into his belt. The weapon consisted of a piece of wood four hands long which had a shell hook in the end. When the butt of his dart was secured on the hook, the atlatl allowed him to cast his dart five times as far as he could have with his bare hand. Out on the sandy beaches, atlatls made lethal weapons, but in this dense forest he would be lucky to get a shot at all, let alone strike an enemy.

He pushed aside a curtain of hanging moss and saw a small pond ahead, crystal clear, ringed by lichen-covered logs. Mist haloed the surface. Desperately thirsty, Diver got down on his stomach and crawled toward it. Scents of wet leaves and grass filled his nostrils. He could not risk being out in the open for long … but he had to have water. He would die if he could not drink.

As he neared the pond, he saw the alligator that floated motionless in the center, covered entirely with green duckweed. Watching. Waiting. Diver’s obsession with quiet, his shaking body, the scent of his fear, and blood, would tell the alligator all it needed to know about this hunt. The prey could not run much further. The desperate game Diver had been playing for two days would end soon. One way or another.

Diver’s tunic whispered against the plants as he parted them, laid down his long dart, and stealthily dipped up a hand of the sweet cool water. He dipped another, and another, gulping the water, letting it run down his chin and throat, until he felt ill, then he sank into the grass and propped his chin on one hand. One of his souls, his reflection-in-water soul, stared at him from the calm surface of the pond. Knotted black hair framed his round face. That morning he had used charcoal from an old fire pit to paint his skin, but in the mist the designs had melted to gray smears which circled his brown eyes and flowed down around the corners of his wide mouth. A blood-caked lump the size of his fist protruded above his right temple. He stared at it, unable to recall being struck.

Blessed Spirits … what happened two days ago?

He had set out with a scouting party of eight to check the boundaries of their clan’s territory. Stories had been filtering in on the lips of travelers that Cottonmouth planned to attack Windy Cove Village again, to steal food and women, and kill anyone who stood in his path. On the second day out, Diver’s party had run headlong into two tens of Cottonmouth’s warriors. He remembered the initial attack, being struck by the dart … .