None of this bothered her husband, Black Bush, a Strong Back Clan man. His first wife had died in childbirth when the baby wouldn’t pass his wife’s narrow hips. He’d taken one look at Yellow Petal’s broad pelvis, smiled, and sent his relatives to talk with her uncle about finalizing marriage details. To Black Bush’s delight, her first child had slipped easily from her womb after but a half day’s labor.
Yellow Petal stepped out onto the bank, her strong brown toes curling as if to grasp the thick grass. She cocked her head as she studied him where he sat beside the fire.
“You gonna lay like a lump all day?”
Spots gave her a grin. “I’m making meat. This is serious business. The amount of smoke’s got to be monitored, kept just right, or the meat won’t cure.”
“Uh-huh.” She pointed at a large brown ceramic jar that rested at a cant among the rocks. “You see that? That’s another really serious bit of business. It’s called a water jug. You remember that name?”
“Water jug? As in to carry water.”
“Very good, Brother.” She pointed at the small cornfield just beyond his drying rack. “And that’s where the water goes. One jug per plant.” She gave him a mocking grin. “Unless, of course, you can conjure a flood. One just big enough to water that field.”
He glanced distastefully at the brownware jug, then at the river, running low in its banks. Next his gaze went to the distant mountains, the peaks clear in the high dry air. Not a single cloud piled against those rugged slopes.
Figuring where to lay out a cornfield was more of an art than anything resembling an exact process. In some of the better floodplain locations people cut ditches to water the corn and beans. This was the easiest way to grow corn. Simply opening and damming ditches ensured that the plants flourished.
Nothing came without a price. Those selfsame floodplain fields could be easily destroyed by a single flash flood if it came rolling down the valley. A wall of thrashing brown water might flatten the field, snapping off stalks of corn, stripping the beans. Ditches would be filled with silt and stone, necessitating backbreaking labor to clear them again.
If that happened, the next hope would be the terrace fields, laid out above flood stage at slightly higher elevation. This was the sort of field Yellow Petal now indicated. The downside was that water had to be carried if insufficient rain fell during the growing season.
Finally, the upland fields higher on the mountainsides were the ultimate hope. Those fields relied on the ever-more-capricious patterns of rainfall. Steps had been taken to lengthen the odds on the hillside fields. Every catchment had been dammed or ditched to trickle precious runoff onto the terraced flats when those decidedly unpredictable rains came.
Spots glanced at the corn where it stood in rows, interbedded with bean plants and beeweed. The plants looked healthy, green in the sunlight. “I don’t think you want me meddling with that.”
Yellow Petal glanced suspiciously at him as she walked over to where Baby hung. She was Yellow Petal’s latest, a two-moon-old girl with a round face and a nubbin nose. Her cradleboard hung in the shade of a young cottonwood that grew beside the bank. The infant had fallen asleep earlier, entertained by the flat leaves as they flapped in the breeze.
“Why wouldn’t I want you meddling with the cornfield? You’ll spend enough time eating its harvest this winter. Seems to me having a little labor spent in watering the crop will make the gleanings that much sweeter.”
“Oh, no.” Spots shook his head as he watched her lift the cradleboard flap to inspect Baby. The infant wouldn’t be named until it had lived at least a year. “Male sweat really sours the taste of good corn.”
She shot him a disapproving look as she began unlacing the leather around the infant. Baby cooed, yawned, and stretched her short arms; the pudgy hands knotted into fists.
Before Baby could come awake enough to let out a squall, Yellow Petal raised the infant to her left breast and cradled it with one arm. With her other hand she reached in and pulled fouled cattail-down padding from inside the cradleboard and tossed it into the river.
Spots watched her move with such an economy of motion as she fished more padding from a leather pack and tucked it into the cradleboard. “That’s amazing.”
“What is?” She continued efficiently about her business.
He chuckled. “Oh, just the way you make it all look as if you’ve been doing that all your life. Taking care of children, I mean.”
“After the first one, the second is easy.” She shot him a smile. “Your part doesn’t start for another year or two. I can’t wait to see how you deal with discipline, Uncle.”