He pressed his face against her hair, and murmured, “Thank you for bringing him, Sun Conch. No one else would have been brave enough. I’m not even certain I would have been.”
She lifted her head and saw grief in his eyes, grief that he kept under tight rein. She saw other things as well, the fear that choked him, and a desperation that verged on insanity. “I love you, High Fox. I would do anything for you.”
A shiver climbed his spine, and his hands slid down her arms. “Sun Conch?” he said in a low hoarse voice. “Tell me about this old man. You have spent a few days with him. What do you know of him? Can we trust him?”
“What you’re really asking me is if he’s a witch, aren’t you?”
“Yes. That’s what I’m asking.”
“I’ve seen nothing to prove it. But I don’t think it matters. So long as everyone thinks he’s a witch, his words will have Power.”
High Fox nodded. “That’s true. I just wish I knew if he thinks I’m innocent or—”
Sun Conch interrupted, “He will tell you in the morning, and if he decides to try and prove your innocence, you will need to be rested.” A fragile smile touched his lips. “Do you remember when you had seen ten Comings of the Leaves,” he said, and the sadness in his voice seemed to cast a spell over her. She could hear his careless laughter echoing from those long-ago days, and see his face shining for her, and her alone, as they ran deer trails, chasing each other through the forest. A tide of happiness swept through Sun Conch.
She rested her head against his shoulder, and said, “Yes. I remember.”
He lifted her chin to make her look into his eyes, and the bright beauty of the moment was gone. Despair lay in every line of his face. “I never realized then how much I cared for you. I just knew you were the only one I could talk to. And you still are. Thank you. Thank you for always being there for me.”
Sun Conch looked at him through blurry eyes. “I always will be.”
He bent toward her, and she thought for a moment he might kiss her, but a tremor ran through his arms, and he released her and backed away. “You–you don’t need to stand guard,” he said. “You are as tired as I am. I’ll be fine.”
“I want to be certain of that,” Sun Conch said as she reached beneath her feathered cape, untied his war club from her belt, and drew it out. “Why don’t you roll up in your blanket beside the fire. I’ll watch from here, where the shadows will hide me. Go on, now. You need to sleep well, High Fox, so that you will be able to think straight tomorrow.”
High Fox took her hand and held it a moment, then walked to the fire.
After High Fox had rolled in his blanket, and had begun snoring softly, The Panther raised his head to look at Sun Conch. She saw sympathy in his faded old eyes. Was it directed at her, or High Fox, or, perhaps, both of them?
She sucked in a breath of frigid mist, spread her feet, and laid her war club over her shoulder, preparing for the long night ahead.
Nine Killer sat at the middle fire of his sister Rosebud’s long house He cupped a forgotten shell half-full of lukewarm tea. He had come here to discipline his young nephew, Two Birds, for talking back to his mother. That was the way of a matrilineage: a man raised his sister’s children, for they were clan and family. His own children belonged to his wife, White Star. Since White Star belonged to Sun Shell Clan, her older brother, Half Moon, was responsible for the discipline and training of the children.
Nine Killer had grabbed the little boy by the shoulders, sat him down, and glared into his little black eyes, telling him just how a man of the People behaved, and all the terrible things he’d do to the boy if he didn’t straighten up.
“Now,” Nine Killer finished, “if I ever hear you’ve raised your voice to your mother again, I’m going to pack you up and send you off to The Panther! You hear me? He eats little boys, and then he curses their bones, and grinds them up. Then he leaves them around where his enemies can find them. Those bones make bad people bleed through their ears until they’re dead. Hear me?”
Two Birds had swallowed hard and nodded soberly, his eyes half bugged out from his face.
“A bit dramatic, don’t you think?” Rosebud had asked dryly after the tot had fled for his favorite toy, a corn husk doll, and the safer company of his big sister White Otter.
Rosebud was a sturdy woman of two tens and eight years. She generally wore her hair long, in a single braid that hung down her back. Her face was round, given to a generous mouth and a broad, straight nose. She went about life with a sense of competent efficiency that Nine Killer had always admired. Her most notable trait was her eyes, brown as berries, but with a depth that Nine Killer had never been able to fathom. When she looked at him, she had that knowing look, as if possessed of some deeper understanding of life that had eluded Nine Killer. It drove him half mad. When he asked her about things, she didn’t seem any wiser than he, but, Okeus take him, she still looked like she knew.