People of the Mist(151)
“I can’t.”
“No, you can’t. And now, I want you to think about this: Raven was a War Chief for one of the most powerful of the Serpent Chiefs, yet, here he is, a broken-down old man, living on an island in the middle of Salt Water Bay. How does a man like Raven become The Panther? What makes an influential War Chief into a reclusive witch?” Copper Thunder gave her a menacing glare. “Don’t you wonder about that? About who he really is?”
Hunting Hawk nodded. “I most definitely wonder. But he never seems to slip, to give any indication.”
“Well, consider… I remember the night he left White Smoke Rising’s service. Raven had just returned from a successful raid. He and his warriors had delivered his captives to White Smoke Rising. They had built a pyramid of severed human heads at the foot of the Serpent
Chief’s high mound. Copper plate, shell gorgets, brightly colored feathers, strings of pearls, and man-sized statues of the gods, taken from the plundered temples of Sun City, were placed on the chunkey field in the plaza so that all could come and see the terrible strength, authority, and Power of White Smoke Rising and his warriors.”
“Is there truly such wealth among the Serpent Chiefs?” Shell Comb asked. She had stopped short to hang on his words.
“That, and more.” Copper Thunder smiled. “The size of their cities would leave you in awe.”
“Go on with your story,” Hunting Hawk told Copper Thunder, and scowled at Shell Comb. How like the girl to ask about nutshell when the meat was at issue.
Copper Thunder leaned back, hands clasped around his knees. “Raven had been feasting inside of White Smoke Rising’s high temple. Something happened between them. I don’t know what they argued about that night, but everyone within the high walls could hear their voices, if not their words. From the tone, the fight between them was bitter.
“I was waiting at the gate in the wall that protected Raven’s high house. It stood on a mound on the west end of the city, over the Black Warrior River. From there, I could watch as Raven came stalking across the plaza. He paused there at the pyramid of heads. They were stinking, rotten, covered by a black blanket of flies during the day, wiggling with maggots at night, but Raven let out a growl, and climbed atop them. A most frightening whimpering came from his throat as he tossed them, one by one, like heavy pumpkins to thump on the hard ground.
“I watched in horror as he pitched the last one like a perverted chunkey stone. It rolled peculiarly—a man’s head not being really round—and finally wobbled off to one side. Then Raven came on a dead run. I hid in the shadows as he climbed the steps three at a time to the top of his house mound. When he came through the gate, I saw his face in the moonlight. Tears streaked his cheeks in silver threads; his expression was horrible—that of a man in agony.”
Copper Thunder stared thoughtfully into the fire, as if seeing that night again.
“And for that you call him a witch?” Hunting Hawk asked.
Copper Thunder shivered, as if taken by a sudden chill. “You should have seen him. If ever a man was possessed of evil spirits, that night Raven was.”
“What did he do next?” Shell Comb asked, her beading forgotten on her lap.
Copper Thunder shook his head. “I only know what my mother told me. She was in the house. She didn’t talk about it after that but for one thing: She said that she kept him from killing himself.” Copper Thunder’s lips twisted. “An act for which I shall never forgive her.”
Hunting Hawk sucked at her lips. “Did he ever say what it was that made him so crazy?”
Copper Thunder shrugged. “I was a frightened boy, I hid. The next morning, he had gone. Vanished. No one ever saw him again. I thought he was long dead until I walked into the War Chief’s long house and found him there, alive—and as pustulous as ever.”
“Whoever he is, he wasn’t born among the Serpent Chiefs,” Shell Comb gestured with her bone awl. “He has no accent.”
“No, he’s from here,” Copper Thunder agreed. “He and Mother used to talk about the clans, the seasons. He was born here.”
“But, what is his clan?” Shell Comb had a genuinely puzzled look. “All he will say is that they consider him dead. That he is clan less Did he ever mention anything to your mother?”
“If he did,” she never said anything to me.”
“What happened to your mother?” Hunting Hawk asked.
“The man White Smoke Rising appointed to follow Raven as War Chief finally tired of her. Unlike Raven, when he mounted her, she cried out in pain. He beat her head in with a war club.” The jaw muscles in Copper Thunder’s head knotted.