People of the Mist(42)

To his right, Sun Conch sat hunched in her feather cape, wet hair framing her round face and large dark eyes. Water dripped from her short beak of a nose. She should at least reflect a little optimism. After all, The Panther was here to hear her friend’s explanation of what happened.

“I pronounce the fish done,” Panther growled. “If I don’t eat, and right now, you’ll find out just how cranky I can get.”

“I thought I’d seen it in the canoe,” Sun Conch said, as she reached for wooden tongs. “You mean you can get worse?”

Panther slitted an eye. “Don’t press me, girl.”

Sun Conch swallowed hard, murmured, “Never,” and plucked the six boiled mullet from the water. She laid them out on sections of bark and handed the first two to Panther. The second helping went to High Fox, and Panther examined their faces as the young man took the bark plate from her hands. Sun Conch’s eyes brimmed with love. In response, High Fox clamped his jaw and tried to smile.

Panther blew on his fish to cool them, and began picking his dinner apart. As he chewed the succulent white meat, he weighed the young man’s actions. He ate listlessly, eyes on the food. Nothing in his manner seemed to exude either guilt or innocence.

“High Fox,” Panther said through a mouthful. “It’s time to hear your story. Sun Conch went to great risk to bring me here. Did you kill this girl?”

“No. I already told you.”

“Look at me. That’s it. Eye to eye. I want to see your soul as you talk.”

High Fox raised his wounded brown eyes and said, I didn’t kill Red Knot. She was … she …” He shook his head. “She was dead when I found her.”

“Tell me, boy. From the beginning.”

High Fox poked at his fish. “She didn’t want him.”

“Who?” “Copper Thunder. He frightened her, repulsed her. She told me that the thought of him touching her was like having a snake crawl across her skin.”

“Did she tell Hunting Hawk and Shell Comb how she felt?”

High Fox shook his head. “A woman in that family would never dare. Hunting Hawk is the Weroansqua, and Shell Comb, she’s just as powerful in her way. In Three Myrtle Village, when they tell stories about Shell Comb or Hunting Hawk, they whisper. People fear those women.”

“Because they are evil?” Panther plucked up another piece of flaky white meat and popped it into his mouth.

“Not like sorcerers or witches …” High Fox paused and glanced up, as if fearing he might have offended Panther, then continued, “It’s just that no one crosses them. They wield a great deal of authority.” He raised his head slightly. “I heard my father, Black Spike, say that when Hunting Hawk clapped her hands, even the thunder quaked in the clouds. It was like a joke, but not really. Do you understand?”

“I think I do.” Panther stripped the bones of the first mullet, flipped them into the fire, and started in on the second. “And when did you first meet this Red Knot?”

“I guess, well, we’ve always known each other. We grew up in allied villages. We played when we were little.” He glanced away, fidgeting. “Then things changed.”

“When?”

“Last… last summer.”

“Gull dung, boy, look me in the eyes.” When High Fox did, he looked as guilty as Okeus after the Creation. “Spill it, boy. Right now. How did things change?”

High Fox tensed, his hands suddenly as active as ants with nowhere to go. “Just changed. You know. Like a man and woman. Not a boy and girl. We—we looked at each other differently.”

Panther muttered dryly, “That happens between men and women.” , “I swear, I never touched her!” High Fox blurted.

Panther’s brows arched. “Indeed.”

“He didn’t, Elder!” Sun Conch came to High Fox’s defense. “I tried to get him to … when I—I asked him to run away with me …” The words faded, and she lowered her gaze to the smoking fire. High Fox had squeezed his eyes closed, as if in pain. Sun Conch glanced at him, and added, “He wouldn’t have dared, Elder. It would have cost him his life, and he knew it.”

Without molars, Panther had to use his worn front teeth to chew his fish. While he did, he mulled over what they’d just told him about their own difficulties. “So, Red Knot was promised to Copper Thunder, but didn’t like him and wouldn’t complain about the marriage to her mother or grandmother, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Well then, what were you going to do about it?”