People of the Owl(107)

At his abrupt tone, she nodded, sat up, and reached for her paddle. As they pushed the canoe out of the shallows, it was as though something delicate and precious had suddenly turned cold.





Mud Stalker sat in the ramada as the evening fire crackled and popped, thankful that one of the youngsters in his lineage had thought to bring a supply of wood. The day had been busy, his authority called upon to mend a rift between two brothers over a woman and to make a judgment in a case of fish stealing. In the first instance, he had forbade either brother to see the woman, a member of Rattlesnake Clan. Perhaps they would learn a valuable lesson in this: Kinsmen did not compete with each other. Acting in such a manner had been disrespectful of the clan.

In the second case, he had found against the thief, requiring him to forfeit his canoe and to deliver one basket of fish to the aggrieved family per moon for an entire cycle. That the thief had been from Snapping Turtle Clan, and the victim from Owl Clan, had made his day more than a little sour, but with two neutral witnesses from Alligator Clan observing the theft, he couldn’t have found any other way.

The fire popped, and he slapped at the mosquitoes that came with the fall of night. Despite his greased skin, they seemed unusually bloodthirsty. They kept flying into his ears, somehow aware that the insides were vulnerable. The soft whining of their wings was about to drive him mad.

He had a length of cane before him—the shaft for a new atlatl dart. To compensate for his bad arm, he had the shaft pinched in the crook of his right leg and clamped in his worn teeth. Staring from the corner of his eye, he reached out with his left hand and carefully placed a stone point into the grooved end of the cane. This next was the delicate part. Careful not to jiggle the point loose, he retrieved a length of damp sinew from the bowl before him and carefully maneuvered a pretied loop around the point. When it was in the right place he pulled it snug. In the process, he barely noticed someone coming to take a seat opposite him. Whatever they wanted could wait.

Having immobilized the point, he wound the sinew round and round the shaft, pulling it tight enough to keep the point in place. As he came to the end of the sinew, he formed a complicated knot, bending and rolling the fine thread between his fingers. Switching his grip, he took the shaft in his left hand and used his teeth to yank the knot tight.

Satisfied, he studied his work in the light of the fire. The point lay straight, perfectly aligned. The thick wrap of sinew would dry and shrink, tightening into a hard, immovable hafting.

“It always amazes me to watch you do that,” Pine Drop said by way of greeting. He lifted his new dart and balanced it in his good hand. She had seated herself across the fire from him. He tried to read her expression but couldn’t decipher the complex frown that marred her young forehead.

“Where have you been all day? Night Rain was here, and there, and the other place looking for you. She wasn’t entirely sure what you wanted done with that bladderwort. In the end, I think she boiled the whole sackful. It took every pot in the house.” He cocked his head. “Is she feeling all right? Her stomach seemed to be bothering her.”

“It’s nothing,” Pine Drop answered. She had her legs bent before her and was rubbing her hands along her smooth muscular shins. “I was out with Salamander all day.”

“Ah. And?”

The preoccupied look deepened. “Nothing.” Her expression betrayed puzzlement. “Such an odd man. We watched the dawn from the Bird’s Head. Why have I never done that before?”

“I have no idea.”

“After that we went fishing.”

“That’s good.” He suddenly understood her thinking. Smart girl. Men liked to talk when they were fishing. For some reason, it directed their thoughts to important matters, unlike hunting, which might deepen a man’s thoughts but had to be conducted in quiet and discipline.

“Is it?” she wondered. “We spent more than two hands’ time watching a blue heron stalking the shallows. Another two hands’ time was spent studying how a yellow spider spins its web.”

“I assume that you talked during these things?”

She nodded absently. “About everything but his clan. We talked about patience and organization, and what humans refused to hear or learn. Thinking back, none of it made sense.” Her lips bent with irritation. “Do you know that I’ve never watched a spider build a web from nothingness before? Or seen that a heron flips a minnow in the air to swallow it?”

“Fascinating, I’m sure. I don’t suppose that Jaguar Hide came up in any of these conversations?”

“No.” She gave him a flat look. “When I grew desperate, I even asked him straight out.” She paused. “I think he was expecting that question. I’d swear that he gave me a faint smile after that, a sadness in his eyes. The only thing he would tell me was that Wing Heart was going to promise Jaguar Hide safe passage, and that beyond that it was clan business.”