Cottonmouth stretched out on top of his blanket and peered upward at the soot-coated roof which seemed to have sprouted fur in the past three moons of rising ash and smoke. Musselwhite’s smile, Glade’s happy face, drifted across his souls, and a powerful, familiar ache beat in his chest.
… Blessed Sun Mother, after what she had done to him, how could he still love her so deeply?
Seventeen
On the second day of their journey home, they reached Manatee Lagoon. Here the coastline took a smooth westward swing inland, and the silent green blanket of the land retreated from the shore, leaving a wide white beach to sparkle and glitter in the lavender gleam of sunset.
Seedpod paused to shift the circular bag draped over his left shoulder. With old Moonsnail’s help, the bag had grown twice as heavy, weighing down his shoulders like a sack of stones. Pondwader and Musselwhite walked a short distance in front of him, hand in hand. Every now and again, Musselwhite had been apologizing to Pondwader, then disentangling her fingers from his to shift her three long darts to her other hand. When she did, Pondwader would trot around so that he might grip her newly freed hand. The young man had a perpetual smile on his oval face. The sight brought joy to Seedpod’s old breast. How wondrous to know that young love still existed. In the purpling veils of light that fell with silken quiet over the land, the couple seemed truly .radiant. Or at least his new son-in-law did.
“Pondwader!” Seedpod called. He smiled when the tall, skinny youth turned, his face pink in the frame of his tan hood. “Your grandmother is a master at torture. She gave us enough food to keep us fat for half a moon—and to prove to me I still have every blasted muscle that I recall from my youth.”
Pondwader’s mouth opened and he ran back. “Oh, Seedpod, I’m sorry. Please, allow me to carry that for you. I—” He reached out his hands.
“No, no,” Seedpod said. “I’m fine. Really. You have your own pack to carry. I just wished you to know you are obliged to lighten my load by eating heartily tonight.”
“Gladly,” Pondwader agreed, and confidentially whispered, “And the sooner the better. I’m so hungry I could eat a whale by myself.”
Musselwhite had been pushing them hard, demanding they keep up a brisk pace from before sunrise until after sunset. The same worry that tormented Seedpod had turned to desperation in her. They had been gone too long. They both knew it. He would swear that over the past nine days, since they left Windy Cove Village, another handful of silver strands had emerged in her lustrous black hair.
Musselwhite halted and looked back at the two men. She had plaited her hair into a single long braid, which hung down to the middle of her back, and wore a plain tan tunic, belted with a strip of leather. Though she appeared calm, Seedpod knew differently. Fear lay in the very set of her face. She ran a hand up and down the shafts of her darts, like a woman terrified they might have grown wet in the rain, too waterlogged to fly straight.
“And how are you, my beautiful daughter?” he called.
She surveyed the golden underbellies of the clouds that drifted lazily across the blue-gray background of coming night. Gulls squawked and wheeled in the skies above them. “We haven’t much light left. Why don’t we make camp early tonight? It’s been a long walk.”
Seedpod patted Pondwader on the back, and said, “Both of the men in your life are grateful!”
As they started forward, Pondwader said, “Please, Seedpod, let me carry that.”
“No, no, really. I’m fine.”
“But I am much younger than you. Please let me have it,” he said as he lifted the bag from Seedpod’s shoulders and swung it over his own.
Seedpod smiled. “I suppose I won’t feel guilty letting you carry it this short distance,” he said. “Thank you, Pondwader.”
They followed Musselwhite around the shimmering lagoon, toward the trees that created a dark green wall along the beach ahead.
Fragrances of fish and salt grew heavier as night closed around them, making Seedpod’s belly squeak with hunger. “I think I’m even hungrier than you,” he murmured to Pondwader. “It seems the great Musselwhite is conniving to keep both of us so weak from hunger that we can’t argue with her about this murderous pace.”
“I think she’s scared, Seedpod,” Pondwader said softly. “She’s been waking several times each night and lunging for her darts and atlatl—as though she expects an attack. I don’t really understand it. I’ve been trying to make her feel safe.”
Seedpod gazed into those depthless pink eyes and smiled gently. “She has been a warrior most of her life, Son-in-law. She knows that the only safety in life comes from her own hand, her own abilities. Old habits do not die just because you are newly married. We should thank the Spirits for her vigilance.”