“Mud Puppy? Why would the Serpent be watching him? He’s harmless. Witless. And as to his Dreams”—she made a face—“you can tell people to relax. I have more faith in Power than to believe it would be interested in a skinny half-wit like him.” She paused, then added pointedly, “He’s Thumper’s yield, you know.”
“Yes. Curious isn’t it? He’s so different. Matings are such puzzling things.”
She raised an eyebrow, shooting him a glance from the corner of her eye.
“Now that White Bird is back,” Clay Fat mused, “Spring Cypress has just passed her first menstruation. She is a young woman now, and I know she favors White Bird.”
Wing Heart knew for a fact that Spring Cypress had passed her first menstruation last winter out at Sweet Root Camp—where she would have remained had Clay Fat and Graywood Snake not decided that White Bird was dead. In lieu of that decision they had brought her back to Sun Town to troll her through Frog and Alligator Clans to see what young man snapped at her allure. Gorgeous nubile thing that she was, and Rattlesnake, having the influence that they did, she had had more than her share of young males swarming after her. Either of those clans would have been more than happy to send one of their sons to her house.
“We shall see,” Wing Heart replied casually. Did she dare contemplate another alliance with Rattlesnake Clan? Or, given the potentials of White Bird’s exploding popularity, would she be better served marrying the boy to one of the other clans?
“You could do worse, you know,” Clay Fat continued. “And, well, until tonight, a great many people were worried.”
“As was I,” she relented.
“They thought you might name Mud Puppy as Speaker!” Clay Fat laughed, his rotund belly wiggling.
“Mud Puppy as Speaker …” At that moment she caught sight of old Mud Stalker. He was walking in the shadows off to the side, his ruined right arm cradled in his left. Beside him, Deep Hunter was talking, his hands moving to emphasize his words. The one person Deep Hunter hated more than Mud Stalker was the Swamp Panther cutthroat, Jaguar Hide. So, why were they talking now? What venom are you concocting, old man? How do you intend to inject it into my flesh?
The thought of it sent a cold shiver down her spine.
When she looked back toward the night-veiled lake, she could see nothing. No fire had yet been built on the Turtle’s Back.
Instead, oddly, she noticed Mud Puppy where he stood at the water’s edge, a solitary figure, totally absorbed by his cup.
Mud Puppy? Speaker for the clan? I’d lose my souls before I’d allow that to happen.
Four
That night as Mud Puppy lay deep in sleep, a soft gulf breeze blew up from the south. It carried the tendrils of rising smoke northward, away from the curved lines of houses that dotted the concentric ridges of Sun Town. The darkness lay thick, light from Father Moon and the myriads of stars blotted by the mass of clouds that alternately drizzled rain on the land.
As the Dream slipped its hazy fingers around Mud Puppy’s souls, Owl wings sailed silently through the falling tendrils of misty rain and over the arched ridges of Sun Town. The great bird circled slowly above a single dwelling on the eastern end of the first ridge.
The oval-shaped house had been built of saplings driven into the ground, woven together with vines, and plastered with clay. Sheaves of grass formed a thick thatch that was bound to the cane roof stringers by wraps of stout cord. The tight thatch shed the rain, letting it drip just beyond the clay walls to pool in the rich soil.
The door was an oblong hole in the wall covered with a hempfabric hanging just thick enough to block most of the chill. Around the top, and along the overhang of thatch, smoke drifted out, carrying with it the odor of hickory and maple.
Inside, a cane-pole bench that served as seating and bedding had been built into the wall circumference. The woman slept fitfully on the western side, her aging body covered with a fine deerskin blanket. The boy, in his bed on the eastern side, lay lost in dreams, his body covered with a worn fabric. He had curled on his right side, the rounded angles of his face visible in the reddish glow cast by the coals in the central hearth. His eyes flicked and wiggled under tightly closed lids.
The Dream knotted itself in Mud Puppy’s souls, wrapping around them, spinning and cavorting.
He sat at the top of a high mound, the ground warm under his buttocks and thighs. He reached down and raked the earth into his hands. Holding it to his nose, he sniffed the pungent musk, drawing it into his body and souls. After it became one with him, he pinched the dark silty soil into shapes with his fingers. The moist earth seemed to flow as though of its own accord, forming at his very thoughts, the image perfectly rendered by his supple brown fingers.