People of the Owl(73)
Wing Heart bit her lip, aware of the darkening clouds. Black stringers of rain could be seen where they whisked down from the closing storm bank in the south. “It may well be. He saw it work among the Wolf Traders to the north and wants to try it here, that’s all. He just wishes to see.”
“I had better get home,” Moccasin Leaf mused, her eyes on the storm front with its flashing lightning.
“Would you help me move my loom inside first?” Wing Heart asked, standing.
The old woman took the other end of the loom. “That boy of yours, I should say, the Speaker, he’s going to get wet planting all those seeds of his. From the look on his face, he’s determined.”
“That is what makes a good Speaker,” Wing Heart agreed, casting a glance over her shoulder. White Bird’s body bent and swayed as he continued driving the sharp stick into the dirt, breaking the grassy sod, turning the soil. The expression on his face hadn’t changed, as if it were a matter of honor that he plant his seeds.
The notion that it was a little silly lodged in Wing Heart’s souls, but then young people acted on whims on occasion; Snakes knew, she had as a young woman.
Together, she and Moccasin Leaf maneuvered the loom into the shelter of the house and propped it against the wall beside the doorway. In the shadow of the storm, the interior was dark, inky.
“Thank you for your help,” Wing Heart began. A sudden white flash lit the interior, rendering the beds, pots, and fire pit in brilliant contrast to the sharp black shadows. A split heartbeat later, a bang! fit to deafen exploded outside. The closeness of the lightning bolt left Wing Heart breathless, half-scared out of her wits.
She glanced at Moccasin Leaf, seeing the old woman’s shadowy form, panting, her hand to her heart. “Close one,” she gasped.
“Good thing we weren’t outside,” Moccasin Leaf agreed. “It might have scared the souls out of our bodies.”
Wing Heart led the way out into the open. The first large drops of rain came pattering down. She could see people ducking out of houses or peering out from under ramadas. They were owl-eyed, wary, postures half-crouched. Some stared, eyes locked, a look of horror on their faces.
Wing Heart turned, following their gazes. Her thoughts stumbled for a moment, unable to fathom what she was seeing. A faint blue streamer of smoke rose from the lump, rapidly tugged away by the gusty wind. The shape confused her for a moment. A human body didn’t smoke like that; it shouldn’t be lying so stiff and … and … Her souls froze. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think. The word “no” echoed hollowly inside her as if she were but an infinite emptiness.
“Snakes take us,” Moccasin Leaf whispered as she stared through the increasing rain at White Bird’s smoldering body. The digging stick had splintered; yellow flames flickered on the seed sack beside the body. The rain came in a pounding rush to extinguish it.
Seventeen
The village called the Panther’s Bones lay on a low, flat-topped terrace that rose above the surrounding backwater swamp. Six individual mounds, some of them three times a man’s height, overlooked the swamp. The seventh, a single conical mound, guarded the western edge of the village, a lone sentinel against the Land of the Dead and the dangerous souls that hid beyond the horizon. A prominent rise guarded the north, the symbolic place of darkness and cold.
A strong man, skilled with the atlatl, could cast a dart from east to west; it would take him two long casts to span the distance between the Bird Mound at the southern edge of the site and the northern prominence. Within that area, several clans of the Swamp Panthers had built their homes: domelike structures with thatched roofs atop low wattle-and-daub walls.
Jaguar Hide’s people lived in a land of plenty. The pine-covered uplands to the west provided them with stone for tools, as well as pinesap to be mixed with bear grease to keep hordes of stinging and biting insects at bay. At the foot of the piney hills lay Water Eagle Lake, a dependable body of water that refilled annually when the spring floods inundated the land. His people wanted for nothing, except, perhaps in bad years like this one, for a little dry land. Relatives had come seeking shelter among clansmen and kin, bringing with them larders of smoked catfish, oven-baked duck, seasoned deer, raccoon, and opossum. Housing was so critical that cane-framed lean-to shelters had been attached to house walls and quickly roofed with palmetto and grass fronds. Under the high bank, row upon row of canoes had been drawn up onto the mud. When they weren’t fighting amongst themselves, or squealing in play, a roiling tribe of children and flea-infested dogs was pestering people, snatching morsels of food, and generally being a nuisance.