People of the Owl(86)
“Your words don’t inspire us with confidence,” Pine Drop noted sourly.
“You don’t need confidence,” Mud Stalker added in a precise tone. “All you need is to think of your future, and the clan’s.”
“How long will we have to endure this?” Night Rain asked.
“Just until Owl Clan is discredited,” Mud Stalker replied. “And, given the anger growing between Wing Heart and Moccasin Leaf, that may not be as long as I had originally thought.”
“So when do we marry this half-wit?” Pine Drop had crossed her arms under her pointed breasts.
“Today, if you’d like.” Mud Stalker turned to study his young kin. At the expression of dismay on their faces, he burst into laughter.
The forest rose tall and green. Interlocking branches heavy with the bright growth of spring leaves cast a perpetual gloom over the leaf-matted earth. Wraiths of mist, like ghost fingers, wove their way between moss-encrusted trunks whose thick girths were wrapped and wound with vines. Mushrooms poked colorful heads from the moldy soil and broke through the thick and spongy layer of leaf mat. Water dripped from above, pattering here and there. Occasional patches of heartleaf, mayapple, and native pipe lived in the gloom. Dead saplings, their battle for the light long lost, and rotting corpses of long-felled giants scattered the forest floor.
Salamander slipped silently through the trackless depths. The few sounds of his passing were immediately masked by the endless noises of living forest. Birds sang in a melodic cacophony. The chirring of insects and the chattering of the squirrels fought in direct competition with the rustle of the highest leaves. Occasional discarded flower petals came drifting down from the gum, ash, and maple as new seeds were born in swelling green pods.
Salamander stepped carefully, his bare feet rising and falling with the grace of a cat’s. He tightened his grip on his atlatl where it rested in his right hand. He wasn’t particularly good with the weapon, but only a fool wandered the forest unarmed. The danger posed by the occasional black bear or cougar, though slight, was not to be discounted; but nothing could make a young man feel more like an idiot than to watch a deer, raccoon, or porcupine walk out, present a perfect target, then fade away into the forest. Meat was forever at a premium.
He slowed, bending his head back to stare up at the high canopy. Sunlight filtered through layers of green, speckles of light but mere pinpricks that glittered in the heights. The branches were interwoven with vines of honeysuckle, cross and trumpet vine, fox grape, and greenbrier until they resembled webs. Filling his lungs, Salamander took in the scents of the forest, damp, sweet, and perfumed.
No one would find him here. Salamander allowed his souls to relax and enjoy the solitude of the forest. In the dense isolation of the endless trees, he had time to sort out the painful vortex of the last few weeks.
Masked Owl and Many Colored Crow? I am caught between warring Powers. The Serpent had as much as told him so when he incised that painful and deep cross in Salamander’s chest. Why did they choose me? What do they want of me? Why do they call on a mere boy?
He still had trouble thinking of himself as a man. The name Salamander echoed oddly in his ears—but he still held hopes that one day the Earth Being might deign to become his Spirit Helper.
In the midst of horrific events young Mud Puppy had been plucked from obscurity by both the forces of Power and the dealings of the clans, and in one fell swoop thrust from a boy’s preoccupations into the role of an authoritative man. All this while Spirit Power loomed ever larger in his life.
Why, for instance, had he been given the vision of the Swamp Panther raid? Why had he been told to free the captive girl? Why had Mud Stalker insisted on becoming his mentor—and worse, remained intent on seeing him married to his brother’s widows? The sensation was similar to being held by the wrists and spun around so fast that his feet had flown off the ground. He was being spun faster and faster until the world was a blur and his arms were aching from the tug.
What if the Powers that held him suddenly let go? Would he fly off like a cast dart to land who knew where?
He swallowed hard, the fingers of his left hand prodding tenderly at the scabs on his chest. Where the wounds were swollen and inflamed, his touch produced yellow pus and a sting.
He took the faint trail down an embankment, crossed a sluggish creek, and climbed the other side. Figuring himself to be deep enough in the forest that no one would stumble upon him, he seated himself on a fallen beech tree, laid his weapons to one side, and removed a bit of red stone from his pouch. Using a chert flake he began the laborious process of carving the round body of another of his endless line of owls.