“Then it is true?” Clay Fat asked, one eyebrow raised.
“So it would seem.” Mud Stalker cradled his ruined arm.
“What does it mean?” Clay Fat asked.
“Nothing!” Deep Hunter’s lip curled. “An occasional canoeful of sandstone isn’t going to bring Owl Clan back to prominence.”
“But we must keep an eye on them,” Mud Stalker mused.
“Why?” Clay Fat asked. “Wing Heart is crazy. That boy sure isn’t any Speaker.”
“Indeed he is not,” Deep Hunter agreed. He glanced up, meeting Mud Stalker’s eyes and nodding. “We must watch this Trade with the Swamp Panthers. If it becomes too popular, we must take steps to stop it.”
Mud Stalker fingered the scars on his right elbow. “You and I may not agree about many things, Speaker, but we do about this.”
Clay Fat looked uneasy. “It is Owl Clan’s business.”
“Not if we make it ours, old friend.” Mud Stalker replied. “I still haven’t forgotten your obligation to my clan, Clay Fat. We prepared quite a feast. Copperhead turned down several very profitable offers in order to save himself for Spring Cypress.” He paused, letting Clay Fat squirm.
“All it would take would be a raid. A party of warriors sent into the Swamp Panthers’ lands. This Trade would end as quickly as it began.”
Clay Fat swallowed hard. “You would have to have Council approval. This is Owl Clan’s business. You cannot do this alone.”
Mud Stalker considered the situation. Deep Hunter would act immediately given the slightest encouragement. But would that necessarily be good for Snapping Turtle Clan’s position among the people?
“I must agree, reluctantly, with Clay Fat.” Mud Stalker watched Deep Hunter’s expression harden and smiled to himself. “However,” he soothed, “if this sandstone becomes too irksome, Deep Hunter, I might be prevailed upon to support you.”
“Indeed?” Deep Hunter muttered, sensing a trap.
“All things in time, my old friend.” With that Mud Stalker turned on his heel and strode off.
Thirty-seven
The fire popped and cracked, curls of thin white smoke rising from the dry wood. Pine Drop had built the rick in a hollow square, placing the cooking clays in the middle, where they would absorb the heat. The arrangement had to be made correctly so that the specially formed cooking clays heated to a white-hot glow in the center of the fire.
Normally water lotus was gathered for the great solstice feast, but the harvest had been so good this turning of the seasons that she had extra. It wouldn’t keep in the midsummer heat, so she had mashed the remaining roots in the mortar to form a sweet paste. One by one she had formed the cone-shaped cooking clays, indenting the convex side to resemble the lotus’s seedpods.
During the process, she sang the Harvest Song that recounted the origins of the lotus. In the beginning Mother Sun and Father Moon had both shared the Sky with equal duration and brightness. There was no night, no summer or winter, for when one dropped behind the horizon, the other waited until the first reemerged.
And then one day Father Moon glanced down and saw a beautiful woman bathing in a pond. She was the daughter of a great Clan Elder. His light shone in her long black hair and on her soft bronzed skin. He had never seen such a beauty before, and resolved to have her.
That night, when Mother Sun slipped behind the western edge of the world, Father Moon eased down from the Sky. He took the form of a young man and found the pretty young woman. She had never seen such a handsome man before, and lay with him.
Meanwhile, the night Sky had gone dark. The animals that normally were awake, bats, raccoons, flying squirrels, and crickets were all running around, bumping into things, saying, “Where is Father Moon? What is happening?”
But Father Moon was busy locking hips with the pretty young woman. He was so involved that he forgot the time. Thus it was that Mother Sun peeked over the eastern horizon to find the world in darkness, and the animals of the night running around in panic.
“Where is Father Moon?” she asked, concerned that some terrible thing might have happened to her mate.
“He is lying with a beautiful woman,” opossum said. “He has left us in darkness so that he can lock hips with her.”
Mother Sun sent her rays over the earth, and sure enough, there was Father Moon, lying with the pretty young woman. Rage burned in Mother Sun’s heart, and in anger she fled to the south. She kept going and going, going so far that the world was plunged into darkness.
Horrified, Father Moon rose into the Sky, calling for Mother Sun to come back to him. But she refused, heading ever southward.