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People of the Owl(164)

By:W. Michael Gear






Forty-two

Night Rain squatted to relieve herself at the edge of the borrow ditch below her sister’s house. The night was still, cold. Only the distant barking of one of the camp dogs broke the silence. Smoke hung low; its odor tickled her nostrils. When she looked up it was to see a white ghosting of stars across the night sky. Father Moon still hid in shame below the horizon, and Bird Man’s path across the sky glowed with an eerie luminescence.

As she started to stand, a hand reached out from behind to grab her. That touch brought a squeal from her frightened lungs.

“Hush!” the familiar voice ordered. “What’s going on?”

“Uncle?” her voice failed, breath short in her panicked lungs. Mud Stalker wheeled her around to face him, his crushing grip hurting her elbow.

“What is your game, Niece? Who are you playing against whom? Deep Hunter against Salamander? Deep Hunter against me? What’s your sister’s role in this? What were you doing out there with Saw Back? Rutting, like everyone says? That I don’t doubt! But why didn’t you tell me?”

“Uncle, please!” She squirmed away from the pain.

“You tell me, woman. You start at the beginning, and you tell me.”

“Uncle, honestly, I didn’t do anything …” His hard slap sent her stumbling. She slipped, falling backward into her damp urine.

“Don’t lie to me!”

She caught her breath, swallowed hard, and cast a desperate glance at the dark shape of her house up on the ridgetop. Pine Drop would be asleep, ignorant of her plight. Not that it would matter, not even Pine Drop would interfere with their uncle over clan business.

“Please don’t hurt me.”

“I’ll beat you until your souls cling to your body by a thread!”

He drew back a foot, as if to kick her. She scrambled back, hands and feet sliding in the mud. “I swear, I did nothing against the clan. I just wanted Saw Back! You know that! You know I’ve always been in love with him!”

Mud Stalker loomed over her. “Deep Hunter knew I was going to offer Eats Wood for Green Beetle. He beat me to it, offered Thunder Tail his cousin, Needs Two, and access to a root ground before I could take the Speaker out to that bear tree. I couldn’t figure it out. But after the Council meeting, and what Pine Drop did, I finally understand. You were there, you heard me discuss it that night with your mother.”

“I didn’t, I swear!” She was suddenly thankful for the darkness. He couldn’t see her face, couldn’t read the lie in her expression.

“Why did Salamander take you back? Why didn’t he just throw you out like the punky worm-riddled piece of wood you are?”

“I don’t know! You’d have to ask him. He’s … he’s …”

“What?”

“Odd, Uncle. Strange. He hears things, has Dreams.” She lurched backward like a crawfish on land as he stepped nearer. “I don’t know what possesses his souls to make him do the things he does.”

“What does the barbarian hold over him? Is she a witch? Does she control his souls?”

“I don’t think so. She’s just mean. She hates us. You heard Eats Wood; he says she’s the one White Bird caught. You’ve seen those scars on her skin? We did that to her when she was a prisoner.”

“Why did you betray me to Deep Hunter?” His voice sounded tired now, wounded.

“Uncle, I didn’t. You have to believe me.”

“I shouldn’t have trusted you. You were too young, not smart enough. I see that now. Snakes! What was I to do? Don’t you understand, woman? We’re almost at the top! We’ve worked all of our lives to see our clan become preeminent. The gains we have made can disappear from beneath us like water from a puddle, and you let a little pleasure in your canoe, and the promises of a crafty lizard like Deep Hunter, turn you against your own family!”

“Uncle, I swear!”

She squatted there, her butt in the mud, waiting as his dark body hulked against the stars. The silence grew interminable.

When he finally broke it, he asked, “What part did Salamander play in all this? What did he do to get Pine Drop to support him in the Council?”

“He asked her to trust him,” she whispered, unable to see what it would hurt. “That it would explode like a chert nodule in a fire if she didn’t.”

She could see him, a dark blot against the sky as he fingered the scars on his maimed arm.

“Salamander was trying to keep our clan from fighting with Alligator Clan.” There, would that mollify him?

“Why? What difference does it make to him?”

“We’re his wives.” She swallowed hard, trying to find the right answer. “He cares for us. For me.”