People of the Owl(21)

He nodded, hating the eye-to-eye contact she maintained. That burning look made his souls squirm around each other.

“Everything we do is based on obligation.” Her words were like burning coals. “All that I have achieved, I have achieved through binding others to me through their debt. I didn’t achieve my position by studying crickets, or carving little stone figures, but by playing one clan off of the other. By knowing my enemies, and making them beholden unto me. That, my misguided son, is the secret to survival. It is by adhering to such a strategy that, in the long run, we will keep Owl Clan in the center of our world.”

“I understand.” Why did she dominate him like a hawk did a mouse? His ears burned with humiliation. “With obligation comes prestige. With prestige comes authority. With authority comes gratification.”

“Very good.” She stood then, a frown lining her sun-browned forehead as she studied him. Without a thought, she flipped the cricket from the cup and tossed the empty vessel back to him. “I don’t seem to make any impression when I tell you these things.” Her eyes drifted to the distance, searching the west. A sudden smile crossed her thin lips. “I want you to know that you have driven me to desperation. I am going to teach you a lesson once and for all.”

Mud Puppy swallowed hard. Mother’s lessons were never easy.

She narrowed her eyes, a finger on her chin as she thought. “Yes, just as soon as the Serpent can free himself from his duties. It may take a couple of days, but I am going to have him take you up the Bird’s Head—and leave you!”

He blinked, trying to understand. No one frightened him like the Serpent did.

She continued, “I want you to spend the night alone up there, Mud Puppy. All by yourself. Just you and the darkness. And if you don’t come down changed, I’m going to send you up there again and again until the spirits of the Dead finally get you.”

He shot a quick glance westward to where the looming pile of earth rose like a small mountain above the plaza flat. “Can I take Little Needle—”

“Alone!”

“But, if I get afraid—”

“Alone! When you get scared—and I want you trembling to your bones—you will stay and overcome your fear. No son of mine has the luxury of fear. Do you think your brother was afraid when he went upriver? Do you think he let fear stop him from taking the most dangerous of risks? No. And one day he’s going to need you, need your courage and your loyalty to back him.” Her voice hardened. “And you will be there for him, or I will haunt you to your dying day.”

She turned, striding purposefully away down the side of the earthen ridge upon which they lived. Her back was straight, her silver-streaked hair swaying with each regal step.

“But I get afraid in the dark,” he whispered, turning his eyes to the southwest, past the house where his uncle lay dying, past the line of clan houses and across the plaza. As if embraced by the curve of the raised earth, the tall mound stood, and just below the top, he could make out the little thatched ramada. Terrible things happened up there. Gods came down and whispered things into people’s ears. Lightning frequently blasted that high summit. From those heights, it was said that a man could see into the Land of the Dead. Worse, that the Dead could look back and see you. That’s why nobody but the most Powerful of hunters and warriors, and old Serpent and his students, ever spent the night up there.

“You’ll lose your souls,” a tiny voice said.

Mud Puppy looked down at the broken fragment of red chert between his feet. He reached down and plucked it up, watching the sunlight shine off the smooth stone. “Then you’ll lose yours with them,” he answered, “because I’m taking you with me. Whatever happens to me will happen to you.”





The swampland around the Panther’s Bones had been inundated for two moons now. Sultry brown waters lapped at the water oak, sweetgum, tupelo, and bald cypress. Long wraiths of hanging moss dangled from the branches. Birds perched amidst the lush green leaves, disturbed only rarely as squirrels scrambled from tree to tree in search of ripening fruits. Fish leaped with hollow splashes that barely dented the whirring of the insects and the rising birdsong. Far out in the swamp, a bull alligator roared his desire for a mate.

At the sound, Jaguar Hide turned his head, holding his paddle high. Was it worth turning, going after the big bull? As he considered, his canoe drifted forward, a V-shaped wake disturbing the smooth surface and rocking bits of flotsam and tacky white foam.

“I would rather go home, Uncle,” Anhinga said from the bow, her paddle resting on the gunwales. “I have a feeling.”