“Why?” Sun Conch asked. “His father couldn’t help being killed in battle.” “Does a young boy understand that?” Panther asked. “Sun Conch, Grass Mat’s father was a very influential Trader. He didn’t have to join the battle for Stalks-By Night’s town. The boy worshiped his father—thought the man invincible—and no matter how he died, Grass Mat couldn’t forgive him for not living up to expectations. Children do that, especially if they are taken into slavery along with their mothers—whom they also love. It has to be someone’s fault.”
“So the boy turned all that rage against his father?” Nine Killer shook his head.
“Being dead, and unable to defend himself to his son, he made the best target.” Panther glanced at Sun Conch. “And, naturally, Grass Mat hated me, and my chief, White Smoke Rising, but because we won, he couldn’t hate us too much. After all, the one thing Copper Thunder wants today is to win.” “I heard you telling Shell Comb about the tattoos. If he hated the Serpent Chiefs, why try to look like them? And, if he did, why come back to Fish River and the Salt Water Bay?”
“War Chief, answer me this: What would you say if I told you I wanted to be the next Weroance for Flat Pearl Village?”
“I’d tell you that you were crazy. It’s impossible, and you know it.”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re not Greenstone Clan, Elder,” Sun Conch reminded. “Exactly, and Grass Mat didn’t belong to any of the ruling clans among the Serpent Chiefs. He was forever an outsider.”
“So, when he came back to his mother’s people on the Fish River,” Nine Killer mused, “he had a place.”
“Now he wants to build a chieftainship on the Salt Water Bay that will be like the ones he knew on the Black Warrior, or the Serpent River, or the Father Water.” Panther kicked at the melting snow. “Can he do it?” Nine Killer asked.
Panther shrugged. “I would think, War Chief, that the answer to that lies with you, the Mamanatowick, and Tayac Stone Frog.”
Nine Killer tightened his grip on his war club. “I heard you say that anything Copper Thunder accused you of was probably true.”
Panther peered intently into Nine Killer’s eyes. “I told you once that the hardest thing to share was honesty, War Chief. I haven’t forgotten that I made that bargain with you. I said that to Shell Comb for a definite reason: I want her to know exactly what sort of man I was.”
“Why?”
Panther shrugged. “In due time, War Chief, I will tell you. I’m not ready to yet, and I’m not even sure why that is. Just a hunch—an itch that tells me it will be the right thing at the right time. But getting back to the point: Yes, I did murder, assassinate, poison, and otherwise eliminate my enemies. Unfortunately for us, here today, Copper Thunder knew, or at least suspected, most of those terrible murders.”
“But that was part of your duty as War Chief, wasn’t it?” Nine Killer asked.
Panther snorted irritably, rubbing his chilled arms for warmth. “Some were killed on orders from my chief. Others I killed because I feared them, or disliked them, or wished them punished from some slight or another.” His gaze hardened. “The point is, War Chief, I killed them. And yes, sometimes a man can kill from duty, and it is all right. But mostly those people died—some horribly —because I wanted them to.”
Sun Conch paled, a stricken look on her face.
Panther noticed and turned. “You may relax, my friend. None of them died by witchcraft. Those that I killed, I killed deliberately, with weapons, poison, or suffocation. None of them were witched, or had their souls driven away by sorcery. I give you my word.” Sun Conch whispered, “Thank you, Elder.”
Nine Killer swallowed hard, shaking his head. “You told Shell Comb that you had a dream? That First Man came to you?”
Panther’s lips twitched, voice softening. “Yes, that part was true, too.” He glanced at Nine Killer. “You heard those things I told Shell Comb, about losing everything to find everything? I meant that, War Chief. That is the most important lesson I can teach anyone.” He smiled wistfully. “But so few people understand just how important that lesson is.”
The old man gestured for silence and continued plodding his way through the snow for the palisade. Sun Conch Hesitated long enough to give Nine Killer a questioning look. He frowned, then raised his shoulders in a vague shrug. The original bond had been forged between the two of them. If Sun Conch didn’t understand, Nine Killer couldn’t be expected to, either.