People of the Mist(12)
Like a shadow, Quick Fawn had faded into the cover of the trees, and placed a hand to her pounding heart. She had glanced around, frightened, to reassure herself that no one else was close.
The next day, High Fox left with his father, Black Spike. Red Knot walked as if in a private mist. She had a happy, moony look. “Do you know what you’re doing?” Quick Fawn asked that afternoon. They were using heavy pestles, made from straight branches, to pound corn kernels into flour. Each beat of the pestles was accompanied by the hollow thump of wood. Together, they beat out a rhythm.
“Know what I’m doing?”
“You and High Fox!” Quick Fawn whispered. “I know about the two of you! But I’m your friend. What if someone else finds out? You could be ruining your life!” Red Knot laughed, her supple body flexing as she thumped the heavy pestle down on the dancing corn in the mortar hollow. “No, my friend. Just the opposite. I’m saving myself. Blessed bats, Quick Fawn. We’re going to be married, live the rest of our lives together. He’s going to be a great chief someday, maybe even Mamanatowick. And I’ll be his wife.”
Quick Fawn frowned down into the powdered corn and hammered it with extra vehemence. “I suppose that Hunting Hawk and Shell Comb have agreed to this?”
“Oh, they will. I’m sure of it. Mother has always had her way with Black Spike, and Three Myrtle Village. Why would they object?”
“I think your. sight has been blinded by High Fox’s radiance, my friend. The Weroansqua and your mother never do things for convenience, or because someone wishes. You are the granddaughter of a chief, the daughter of a woman who will become chief. Remember that. You’re not like other people.”
Those words had been prophetic. Less than a month before Red Knot became a woman, it was announced that she had been promised to Copper Thunder.
How well Quick Fawn recalled her friend’s eyes that day. Shock, disbelief, and desperation all mixed together to turn that pretty face into a mask of crushed hopes.
No, I don’t want to become a woman. Let me stay as I am. Free, happy, and without worries beyond my daily chores.
Everything had come to a head early that very morning. In the darkness before dawn, Quick Fawn had sneaked out to see her friend. Red Knot had spilled her plans: “I’m running away with High Fox! We’re leaving at first light from Oyster Shell Landing!”
Quick Fawn rubbed her face, an empty feeling in her gut, as she recalled her desperate pleas that Red Knot couldn’t run off, couldn’t betray her responsibility and duty to the clan.
And they’d argued, almost to the point of violence.
I could have stopped her. Quick Fawn closed her eyes, seeing the triumph in Red Knot’s face.
What a fool her cousin was. The War Chief would hunt her down and bring her and High Fox back in disgrace. Quick Fawn sighed, and pulled her knees up until she could rest her chin on them. The forest had grown oddly quiet.
Quick Fawn frowned at the prickle of premonition. On the point of hopping down to resume her wood collecting, she caught a faint movement in the corner of her eye.
She froze when two tens of warriors filed past on the slope below her, bows strung, arrows nocked. The faintest whisper of moccasins sounded on the damp leaves. Dark eyes gleamed warily as they scanned the forest around them. Each face was painted in red and black, the colors of war and death.
She knew them by their hairstyle—the right side of the head shaved bald, a long, braided roach falling down the back from the center scalp lock and a war fetish pinned into the tightly wrapped bun on the right. These men belonged to the Mamanatowick, Water Snake.
But what were they doing here, sneaking through Flat Pearl lands?
Quick Fawn tried to swallow down a fear-choked throat. Her heart hammered hard, fit to burst her chest. Every nerve screamed at her to run, but panic had frozen her to the old oak.
One of the warriors seemed to look right at her. The world swayed as Quick Fawn’s guts went runny.
And at that instant, a rabbit burst from beneath her, frightened by the closeness of the men, and streaked away, its fluffy white tail bobbing with each leap. Distracted, the warrior watched the rabbit go, his pace unbroken.
She remained there, gasping for breath after they’d passed, then slid off the fallen oak. Her wobbling legs would have failed her but for locking her knees.
“I have to warn the village!”
Quick Fawn had earned her name because she was the fastest girl in Flat Pearl. Now she lived up to her reputation, hair streaming out behind her as she streaked away, arms pumping, bare feet pattering.
Nine Killer juggled his thoughts as a magician did green walnuts. That ability had saved more than one war party from disaster. He could take up a problem, give it a moment’s thought, and toss it up again as he entertained yet another thought, eventually recapturing the first in an uninterrupted flow.