Back? Mud Puppy frowned in the red-tinged gloom. Perhaps the party that had gone down to steal sandstone from the Swamp Panthers? Over the turning of seasons they had become ever more stingy about their precious sandstone. The trouble was that the Sun People depended on the hard sandstone for so much of their manufacturing. When people weren’t packing baskets of earth for the mounds, or Singing and celebrating, they were making things. Making plummets, gorgets, celts, and adzes required hard gritty sandstone. It was used for all kinds of things, even smoothing wood and grinding pigments. Lately it seemed like every expedition to the Swamp Panthers’ country, two days’ journey to the south, ended in a fight. Surely, there had to be a better way.
The cricket darted a finger length out from the mat, its body a black blot against the charcoal-stained dirt of the floor.
Mud Puppy waited, still as could be. The gray cup filled his hand, his arm poised. He would have to be fast, like a striking snake, lest his little target escape. Did his muscles have it in themselves? Could he do it?
Wait. Let Cricket relax. He is on his guard now, freshly removed from cover.
Mud Puppy didn’t breathe, wondering how long it would take for Cricket to drop his guard. Long moments passed as Mud Puppy closed his ears to the continued calling and laughter outside. He blinked his eyes when Cricket’s black body blurred into the shadowed earth and seemed to lose its shape.
At last the little beast began its high-pitched screeching.
Mud Puppy nerved himself and clapped the cup down over the cricket, the move so violent it was a wonder the fiber-tempered pottery didn’t shatter.
“Got you!”
Now, how did he turn the cup over without allowing the cricket to escape? For a moment he puzzled on that and, in the end, rose from his bed and crossed the room to the net bag that held basswood leaves. Reaching in, he removed one of the big leaves and returned to his cup. He took a moment to toss a couple of hickory sticks onto the fire and waited for the flames to cast yellow light over the inside of his mother’s house.
He glanced around at the wattle-covered walls and the woodframed thatch ceiling overhead. Seeing nothing helpful there, he considered the soapstone bowls, the loom with its half-finished cloth, and the stacked pottery, then returned his attention to the cup, upside down on the dirt that separated the cane matting from the fire pit.
He stooped and carefully slid the leaf under the cup. Only when it extended past the other side did he lift both leaf and cup, slowly turn them over, and smile.
“Got you!” The swell of triumph expanded under his heart. “Now, tomorrow, when the sun is bright, I’m going to see how you can make such a loud noise, little fellow.”
Feet beat a cadence toward the doorway, and Mud Puppy looked up as Little Needle came huffing and puffing to duck his head into the doorway. Despite being thirteen, Little Needle—of all the children—was Mud Puppy’s only good friend. He had a face like the bottom of a pot with a pug nose pinched out of it; his most prominent feature was a set of large dark eyes that had a moony look. “Are your ears plugged, or what?”
“My ears are fine.” Mud Puppy held up his leaf-capped cup with pride. “I just caught a cricket!”
“Why do I put up with you?” Little Needle shook his head, a look of disbelief on his round brown face. The black tangle of his unkempt hair had tumbled into his eyes, and he took a swipe at it with a grimy hand. “Your brother’s back! He’s alive. After all this time … and despite the people who bet he was dead. And you won’t believe it, but he’s brought four canoe loads of Trade. Four! Can you imagine?”
Mud Puppy nodded, a thrill shooting through him. “I know.”
“You know?” Little Needle’s brow furrowed. “He just got here, fool. You couldn’t have known.”
“Maybe,” Mud Puppy retreated, using one hand to tap his chest. “But I’d have known here if he was dead.”
“Uh-huh.” Little Needle’s frown deepened. “I suppose one of your pets”—he indicated the jar—“came to tell you.”
Mud Puppy’s expression fell. “I can’t say. I promised.”
Little Needle studied him thoughtfully. “At times, my friend, I’m almost tempted to believe you. It’s scary, some of the things you know. Like Soft Moss being hit by lightning that time. You said it was going to happen.”
“You didn’t tell anybody, did you?” Mud Puppy felt his souls twisting with sudden anxiety. He hadn’t meant to tell Little Needle, but there were times that his souls just cried out to share some of the things Masked Owl told him. He didn’t. He wouldn’t. Not even to Little Needle, whom he trusted completely. Masked Owl was too precious to him.