People of the Masks(36)
She grabbed the two sticks that rested near the hearthstones, picked up a large red coal from the fire and dropped it into her bowl. She violently crushed the coal with her hammerstone, and shook her bowl to scatter the embers. When the wood began to smoke, she dumped the embers back into the fire. The charring appeared fairly even. She reached for her hafted gray chert scraper. Rounded on the top, and about the size of her palm, the stone gleamed brightly in the last sunlight. The stick it was hafted to—tied to with deer sinew—was about as long as her hand. She tipped her bowl on end and braced it against the ground, then started scraping out the char, revealing the pale aspen wood beneath. The burning and scraping process created the bowl’s basin, and the heat from the coals hardened the wood. Care had to be taken, Bogbean had said, to assure that water had not seeped into a crack in the wood. If it had, when the coals were added, steam built up in the crack and split the bowl in two. Wren had seen it happen. First came the loud crack, then flying splinters sent people diving for cover.
She said, “I don’t care who you do or don’t like. I think you both have caterpillar brains for condemning the False Face Child before you have heard all sides—not just the words of the gossips in your longhouse. If—”
“You would call Loon, Mossybill’s wife, a gossip?” Dark Wind snapped. “Her husband is dead!”
Wren scraped more charred wood from her bowl and dumped it out. “Loon is heartsick. Her words cannot be trusted.”
“It isn’t just Loon. I have heard that all the people in Journeycake’s house are going to cast their voices for death.”
Vine grinned, and her two front teeth stuck out like boards. “I heard that, too.”
“Haven’t we suffered enough deaths?” Wren said, exasperated. “The least we owe White Kit, Mossybill, and Skullcap is to think about this before we take another life.”
“You think.” Dark Wind used the sticks to lift a coal from the firepit and toss it into her sloppy bowl. She had not even bothered, as Bogbean had shown them, to patch the tiny bug holes by pushing in sticks of the right size. “I already know my voice.”
Wren went cold inside. Perhaps everyone in the village had decided. Except her. Her hand sneaked beneath her cape to touch the knotted strip of rawhide hanging from her belt. A flicker of Trickster’s soul rose from the toy, and like a single flame on a dark winter night, it warmed her heart.
“What are you doing?” Dark Wind asked sharply, her gaze on the place where Wren’s hand rested beneath her cape. “Stroking that filthy piece of rawhide again? You act like a five-winters-old child, Wren.”
Wren drew out her hand and formed it into a fist. Getting to her feet, she walked over and held the fist in front of Dark Wind’s gaping mouth. “And you act like you want a broken nose.”
“You wouldn’t dare—!”
“What’s happening over there?” Bogbean shouted as she stamped toward Wren. Her portly body shook the ground. “Little Wren, are you fighting again?”
“Not yet.”
Could she hit Dark Wind and get away before anyone caught her? She glanced at Bogbean, judging her speed, then reluctantly lowered her fist. “If you wish to stay pretty for the boys, Dark Wind,” Wren advised, “you will be more careful in the future.”
Bogbean lumbered up, grabbed Wren’s hand and twisted it. “We do not strike each other in this village. We talk about things. Apologize to Dark Wind. Right now!”
Wren clamped her jaw, and gave Dark Wind an evil look.
Bogbean said, “What were you fighting about?”
Wren didn’t answer, and Dark Wind feigned ignorance. “I never know what upsets Wren! She’s like a weasel. She leaps up and down for no reason!”
Bogbean’s eyes slitted. “Dark Wind,” she said threateningly, “you had better tell me, or I—”
“I said that I was going to cast my voice against the False Face Child, that was all!”
Bogbean looked at Vine, who’d shrunk as low to the ground as she could, trying to avoid the elder’s glare. “Vine, is that true? Is that what the fight concerned?”
Vine nodded heartily. “Oh, yes, that was it. Wren didn’t like the way Dark Wind planned to cast.”
If Wren disagreed, she would have to explain about Trickster’s toy and how much Dark Wind had hurt her. The truth would embarrass Wren, and Dark Wind knew it. She gave Wren a knowing smile.
Bogbean shook Wren’s hand. “What is your side?”
Wren replied, “I told Dark Wind we owed it to the dead to think carefully before we decided to take another life. Life is too precious.”