People of the Mist(7)

“Well,” she told them bluntly, “I’ve done it. Time will tell if it was for the clan’s best, or not.” She propped herself against one of the posts, the wood honey-colored with age and soot. “I’ve done something terrible. But necessary. I had no choice. I want you to know that. No choice at all.”

She could sense the ghosts stirring, and cocked her head. Someone had once told her that in the final moments of life, a person could finally hear the ghosts talking. But nothing came to her ears.

“It’s this feeling I’ve got. I’ll be up there with you soon. We’ll just have to wait and see who the next Weroansqua will be. Someone who truly knows her duty to clan and lineage. I hope she’s worthy of all of you.”

Flat Willow eased his muscular body between the tree trunks, each foot placed with care. As a boy, he had studied the praying mantis, each movement the mantis made as it stalked and captured its prey; now he, too, hunted like the mantis, every movement spare and precise.

He wore only a breech clout his skin greased against the cold. A bone skewer pinned his long hair into a bun on the left side of his head. His legs were clad in leggings, moccasins on his feet. An ash-wood bow filled his left hand, and an arrow lay nocked against the bowstring in his right, ready to be drawn and released.

Of all the days he’d lived, this one would be the hardest. He needed to kill, to make him forget, to still the dull ache in his breast. As long as Red Knot had been a girl, he could stand to be close to her. But now she was a woman—and promised to a man Flat Willow despised.

So, as the others had danced, feasted, and celebrated

Red Knot’s womanhood, and the arrival of Copper Thunder, Flat Willow had suffered. Then Stone Cob had accosted him, assigning him the most onerous of duties. Well, events had taken care of themselves. Even predators could make deals among themselves; and one day Stone Cob would pay—as they all would. He had learned patience and stealth from the mantis.

His life had changed last night after Red Knot’s dance. And this morning he-had taken matters into his own hands. What had prompted him? Betrayal? Revenge? Or the unexpected opportunity? Perhaps the reason didn’t matter. What did was that he had committed himself, and acted. Afterward, stunned by what he’d done, Flat Willow had quietly drifted away, preferring the stillness of the forest and time to think about future and past.

The sullen gray morning made for perfect hunting. The leaf mat was damp and silent underfoot. Any colder and it would have rustled with frost. Drier and it would have crackled with the shifting of his weight. The stringers of mist carried by the faint breeze would confuse the deer’s keen eyes at the same time they carried Flat Willow’s scent away.

Two years had passed since the summer day when he’d emerged from the Huskanaw ceremony where the boy he had once been had been ritually “killed.” He had been tested to determine his strength and endurance, and to determine how much pain he could endure without crying out. His skin had been tattooed, and finally the priest had struck him dead with a Power wand, driving the boy’s soul from his body. After that he lay in a painful daze as his body was painted black like a corpse, and funeral songs were sung over him and his fellows. He’d fasted for days, and drunk sacred datura and yaupon tea. Then the priest had whipped him painfully to his feet, splashed him with water, and blown tobacco smoke over his body to purify him. The black paint of death had been washed off before he was repainted red with puccoon root and slathered with bear grease.

A man had been born where a child had once stood.

From that time forward, Flat Willow had dedicated himself to the hunt. He had sworn before Okeus’ altar that he would be the finest hunter in the Greenstone Clan. Day after day he stalked through the woods, practicing his craft. He learned the ways of the deer, the bear, and the bobcat. His soul became one with the forest. To the core of his being, he’d believed that his growing fame would bring him notice, and allow him to approach Shell Comb after Red Knot was made a woman.

With the silence of smoke, he crossed an open patch and slipped into the trees, no more than a shadow in the gloom, as he followed the small heart-shaped tracks of a deer.

His eyes missed no clue. His ears caught the faintest sounds. When he found the pile of droppings, he touched them to feel the heat. He was close now, almost upon them.

He sniffed the damp air to judge the breeze. Before him, the trail split. On a hunch, he ghosted to the right, sensing that the deer would head for the oak grove and a few last acorns before bedding down for the day in the dense hawthorn and grapevine cover.

He followed the slope of the ridge, testing each step through his moccasins. Between the bare branches, he could see the fog-patched inlet shining silver down below him, then … the barest flick of a tail caught his attention. No more than a bow shot ahead, a doe stood at the edge of the oak grove, her head up, ears alert.