People of the Owl(35)

“Would you like me to make the ritual announcement, Elder?” Water Petal’s voice remained so eerily reasonable.

“No, Cousin. Thank you. That is my job.”

A long silence passed as Wing Heart sat in numb misery, flashes of memory tormenting her with images of Cloud Heron, of the times they had shared triumph and pain. How did one pack a lifetime of memories, as if into a clay pot, and just tuck them away?

Brother, after a turning of seasons of watching you die, why is it now beginning to hurt?

“Elder, someone should at least let White Bird know that his uncle is dead. He should know before the others. It will give him time to prepare.”

“Yes.” Tomorrow, yes, tomorrow I will be able to think again. She waited hesitantly, struggling to hear Cloud Heron’s response to that, but the clinging silence of grief washed about her.

“And Mud Puppy?” Water Petal asked as she rose and crouched in the doorway.

“What about him?” Wing Heart asked, slightly off guard at the change of subject.

“Should I tell him?” A pause. “He’s up on the Bird’s Head. The Serpent left him up there at dark.”

Wing Heart shook her head, trying to clear the dampness from her eyes. She blinked in the firelight, gaze drawn inexorably to Cloud Heron’s death-strained rictus. “No. Forget him. He’s a worthless half-wit. It’s the future, Water Petal. That’s what I have to deal with. The future.”





“This is not a good idea,” Cooter said from the darkness in the front of the canoe. He stroked his paddle in the rhythmic cadence they had adopted.

Anhinga glared where she sat in the back behind the others. She hadn’t anticipated the night being this dark. They canoed northward in an inky blackness that was truly unsettling. On occasion someone hissed as unseen moss flicked across his face or over his head.

“You would think you had never been out at night,” Anhinga managed through clenched jaws. Truth to tell, she was a little unnerved herself. Was it lunacy and madness to strike out like this with her young companions, to sneak north through the swamps in darkness?

“But for the wind, we’d be lost,” Spider Fire reminded. Overhead the south wind continued to roar and twist its way through the backswamp forest. With that at their backs they couldn’t get lost. And it helped to keep the humming hordes of mosquitoes down. They had greased their bodies, but the bloodthirsty insects still swarmed.

“I don’t worry about getting lost,” Mist Finger muttered. “I do worry about smacking headlong into a tree, capsizing, and drowning out here in the darkness.”

“Not me,” Right Talon declared uneasily. “It’s the stuff we keep sliding under. I don’t know when it’s hanging moss or when it’s a water moccasin dropping down to bite me in the face.”

“Thanks,” Slit Nose grumbled from his place in front of Anhinga. “That’s just what I needed to hear! Panther’s blood, I’d just about let myself forget about the snakes, and then you let your lips flap.”

“Some brave warriors,” Anhinga cried. “Should we turn around and go back? Is that what you want? My brother’s ghost is wandering about, unavenged because my uncle will do nothing!”

“Out here, in the darkness, where spirits can drift in with the mist and kill us, I’m not inclined to argue,” Cooter replied from his position up front. She could barely see his shoulders moving, or did she just imagine them as he stroked with his pointed paddle?

“He was your friend,” she reminded hotly. “You were there. You saw it.”

“I did,” Cooter said. “It was all I could do to escape. There was only the two of us against ten of them, their bodies slick with grease. We caught them levering our sandstone from the side of the hill. When Bowfin shouted at them they turned … didn’t even hesitate, and cast darts at us. Luck must have guided the hand of the first, for his dart sailed true. I still don’t know how Bowfin could have missed seeing it. He should have been able to dodge out of the way.”

“But he didn’t,” Anhinga told them. “I was there when he died. No one should die like that, their guts stinking with foreign rot while their blood runs brown in their veins and fever robs them of their wits.”

“I was lucky enough to run.” Cooter’s vigorous paddling mirrored the anger in his voice. “It was stupid of us to make ourselves known. It would have been better if we’d just sneaked away, called for more warriors.”

“That’s wrong!” Anhinga felt the anger stir in her breast. “It’s our land! It’s our stone! They have no right in our country, treating it as if it were theirs!”