People of the Lightning(6)

Ahead, pale amber light suffused the mist, blushing color into the dark spreading limbs of a huge live oak. The light bounced, like a torch being carried, and tree shadows danced to the rhythm, painting the forest with odd stripes and elongated diamonds. Diver held his breath. In the shifting heart of that weave, men walked.

It took an eternity before the first warrior appeared.

Tall, no more than two tens of summers, he held the torch high. He walked so close Diver could smell his sweat. Two other men came behind the first, laughing softly at some private joke. They followed their leader around a curve and disappeared into the trees. Their voices faded. The bouncing golden halo marked their path as they veered away from him, heading north.

Were there others?

He listened.

Night hawks called across the twilight woods, and somewhere far away Diver heard the wail of a conch horn. Three short blasts. Where are you? Two long blares answered. Here. Then two short and one long. We are making camp for the night.

Hope turned his breathing shallow. He wet his chapped lips. It might be Musselwhite. If one of Diver’s warriors had escaped the battle and run all the way home …

He fought his confusion. Was that possible? So soon? How far was home? He did not even know his position, let alone where Windy Cove Village sat. Diver struggled to think. Sun Mother had descended to his right, that meant south lay straight ahead. He drew a line on the fabric of his soul, trying to trace his winding course through the forest over the past two days. Windy Cove could not be more than half a day’s run to the southeast. Could it? No, no, he—he felt certain of that.

It really might be Musselwhite.

Trembling, he drew himself to his knees, and inhaled a deep breath … .

The forest went quiet around him.

The impact of the dart sent Diver toppling backward, his feet flying from under him as he struck the forest floor.

A warrior erupted out of the swirling mist, and his shrill war cry shattered the night. The youth leaped the fallen log and stood over Diver with his dart poised to strike again. A wildly swinging torch light came up behind him, casting his shadow against the trees like a dancing giant.

“Old fool!” the warrior snarled. “Did you think we would not see the places in the trail where you dragged your left foot? We were just waiting for you to show yourself!”





Three

“What’s she doing out there?” Thorny Boy asked.

Seedpod patted his six-summers-old grandson’s plump cheek, and his old eyes drifted to where Musselwhite stood, alone, on the beach. “She’s waiting for your father.”

As evening deepened, wavering translucent veils of rain swept in off the ocean, and the feathery shadows of live oaks and brush gradually pooled with the night. An unearthly silence took hold of the land, broken only by the whine of mosquitoes, the soft conversations of people cooking supper, and the gentle pattering of rain.

Seedpod handed Thorny Boy his supper bowl. The roasted catfish sent a tendril of steam up to tickle the boy’s pug nose. Thorny Boy smiled. With his round face and light brown eyes, he looked very much like his father, Diver. He wore a tan, loose-fitting tunic that fell to just below his hips. A thin strip of fabric encircled his forehead to keep his unruly black hair out of his eyes.

“The fish is very hot, Thorny Boy,” Seedpod said. “Test it before you put it in your mouth.”

“I’ll blow on it, Grandfather.” Thorny Boy lifted his bowl and began blowing on his fish to cool it. “Isn’t mother going to eat with us?”

“No, I—I don’t think so.”

Seedpod left his own bowl sitting on the floor mat to cool. Flickers of firelight danced over his shelter. Open-sided, three body-lengths across and four long, it consisted of four pine poles sunk into the earth, roofed with palm fronds. Coils of cordage and fishing nets draped from pegs on the poles, while fabric bags hung from the rafters. Seedpod wove his bags large and in two shapes, circular and globular. They bulged with smoked fish, hickory and pine nuts, armloads of fresh persimmons, gourds of differing sizes, and other belongings he wanted to keep from prowling animals. Raccoons proved the most pesky. Not a night went by that someone in the village didn’t wake to the scritching sounds of a raccoon climbing the shelter poles to bat around the food bags.

Seedpod lived alone now. His wife had died two summers ago, and after her passing he had reluctantly begun arranging the shelters for his own convenience. Woven palmetto mats covered the floor to keep the ground’s chill from leeching into his old bones. Along the shelter’s northern side, a folded pile of blankets and clean tunics marked the location of his bed, and just above where his head rested at night, a small gourd pot hung from the pole, filled with a mixture of grease and marsh-flea bane. He rubbed the mixture on his skin to keep away biting insects. A small firepit lay in the middle of the floor, and along the southern side was everything else he owned. A big wooden bowl sitting beside the southeastern pole held an oak pestle, a flat stirring paddle, and several chert scrapers and choppers, all for preparing food. Two baskets, with lids, nestled alongside the bowl. One contained bone sewing awls, a spinning whorl to make thread, and an antler punch for holing leather. A chunk of dead coral, which he used as a hammerstone, lay on the floor in front of that basket. The other basket protected his jewelry: hairpins made from the leg bones of dogs and deer, drilled shark’s teeth necklaces, and a variety of seashell pendants. Finally, a loom, just two wooden sticks really, leaned against the southwestern shelter post. Balls of fine palm thread filled his biggest circular bags, waiting to be woven into bright hoods, or blankets, or clothing.