“That might solve my problems here, but what about Many Colored Crow’s vision? Do you really think Deep Hunter and Mud Stalker could end up fighting? Could they really cause a war?”
Bobcat nodded seriously. “Yes, my friend. I believe it. They are driven men who see an opportunity. Owl Clan’s very success has led them to desperation.”
“If I choose one, how does the other react? If I choose Many Colored Crow, is my head split by a lightning bolt the next day?”
“If you leave, you are no longer at the center. Maybe they will lose interest in you.”
“And maybe they will torment me and my wives for having disappointed them!”
“Well, you never can tell about Spirit Helpers.”
“Thanks.”
“I don’t feel like I’m doing you much good.”
“What would the Serpent have said?” Salamander mused. “What do you think he would have told me to do?”
Bobcat squinted one eye as he inspected the sooty end of his tubular stone pipe. “I think he would have told you to listen to your souls and to follow their bidding.”
“My souls are full of questions and troubles, Serpent. They have no answers.” Salamander rubbed his hands together as he watched the smoking fire pit. The pattern in the coals eluded him. “I know things about the future. I have seen Sun Town burned and abandoned. I have seen it strong and invincible. I have seen myself dead in one vision, and old and joyous in another.”
“You have?”
Salamander nodded. “I’ve heard voices whispering on the future’s wind as it blows to the past. I’ve caught flashes of things. Things I don’t understand. Tens of tens of canoes paddling to Sun Town in some visions. And great evil like a foul cloud settling onto us in others.”
“Is this some evil I can fight?”
“No, my friend. Not unless you have a salve for the souls of men.”
“In that realm, I am lost, Salamander.”
“So am I.”
The day was mild, the hazy sky filled with occasional patches of white cloud that sailed northward on the endless breeze. Salamander sat at the edge of the ramada, drilling holes in bison bone while Wing Heart sat at her loom, humming and talking to the ghosts, her gray head nodding back and forth.
In the northern half of the plaza, the moiety’s solstice team practiced pitching. They used sticks as long as a person’s leg, flattened at the far end to cup and sling a deerhide ball. Made up of young men and a few women from the Northern clans, the team would defend the moiety at the conclusion of the summer solstice ceremonies. In the game the teams represented the struggle of the Powers of the North and South. It was thought that the winning side would be favored by luck and the Spirit Beings during the coming turning of the seasons.
If only it could be so easy. Salamander watched the sleek bodies, greased and streaked with sweat. Yellow Spider ran in the fore, gracefully dipping his stick, flipping the ball up, and while still hanging in the air, batting it with the flat to send it flying forward.
But no game would settle Salamander’s dilemma. He rubbed his hands together and picked up his bow drill. With the device, he could drill holes in beads with dispatch. The hardwood drill stem was pointed by a red chert perforator, essentially a stone needle crafted from a flake. He would twist the stem around his small bowstring, place the tip into the dimple in the end of the bead, and, using a wooden block to guide the stem, saw the bow back and forth to spin the drill. A drop of saliva eased the tip as it cut through the soft bone in the bison scapula.
Drilling the hole was only the start of the process. Short sections of cane, essentially hollow tubes of different diameters, lay ready for use. Beside them on the palmetto matting sat two bowls, one filled with sand, the other with water. Sun Town, lying as it did on fine silt, had no sand deposits. Sand, like so many things, was imported from afar. Salamander’s had been sifted through fabric to obtain the correct grit, and then shipped in by canoe. He had Traded some of the buffalo hide for it that he had in turn obtained from Green Crane and Always Fat the summer before.
Once he had finished the line of holes, he removed his drill and selected one of the sections of cane, studying the size of the hole it would bore. He wet the end, dipped it in the bowl of sand, and fitted it to his bow. In the bead-making process, this final step was the most important. It took great concentration to start the cut so that the sand-tipped cane would grind a precisely round groove around the center hole in the bead. If he were not perfect, the bead would be off-center.
Salamander didn’t realize his tongue hung out the side of his mouth as he fitted the cane over the first of the holes in the bison scapula.