People of the Raven(11)

Bark huts wavered in the veils of fog, and patches of silver-crested waves crashed onto the shore to the west. First she would wash, then put on her fine dress and don her jewelry. She might be seeking asylum, but she would do it as Naida’s daughter, not some ragged forest sprite with fir needles clinging to her hair.

She didn’t see any guards.

But very soon … they would see her.





Four

Rain Bear, great chief of Sandy Point Village, rarely found time to enjoy the morning. Generally the demands of his people left him in the midst of a maelstrom. Either someone was sleeping with someone else’s wife, or a miscreant had stolen a fishing net or just perhaps borrowed it without asking. Sometimes it was a fistfight that had broken out between friends, or the division of household goods during a divorce that had to be solved while the bickering clans waited in the wings and fingered their war clubs.

This morning he had risen early, awakened by Dreams of his wife, Tlikit. She had been staring down at him, warning in her light brown eyes, urging him to do … what? He couldn’t remember that part. Only that something was about to happen.

Not that it took a ghost to remind him of that. His world was changing before his eyes.

So he had dressed, walked down to his heavy canoe, and perched on the bow to watch dawn purple the sky over the forested ridges behind Sandy Point Village. In that moment of peace, he could reach back with his memories and smile once again as he and Tlikit relived some of the tumultuous events of their life together. She had been in line to follow Astcat as matron for the North Wind people. A stunningly beautiful woman, with hair the color of burnished wood, light brown eyes, and a mischievous smile, she had surrendered her heritage and run off with him over ten and six summers ago.

During the following years, she had borne four children, of whom one, his daughter Roe, still lived in Sandy Point Village. One, a boy, had drowned at the age of six, and his second daughter had been taken by an infection of the bowels at the age of ten.

He was pondering that notion when War Chief Dogrib emerged from the trees and picked his way down the beach, stepping between exposed rocks and brown bits of kelp that dried in the cool air. Dogrib had been specially touched by Song Maker. Long white hair framed his round face, and his skin was unnaturally pale, like sun-bleached wood. Long muscles ran down his arms and legs, and rippled on his broad shoulders.

“Many people have made it onto the water before us.” Dogrib walked up, propped his hands on his hips, and studied the canoes bobbing out on the waves. The dark hulks of forested islands appeared and disappeared as the mist shifted.

Old Woman Above had not stepped out of her lodge and begun to carry the ball of the sun across the sky, but a faint yellow gleam now haloed the east.

“Well, forgive me for saying so, War Chief,” Rain Bear said with a smile, “but I had to wait for you again this morning.”

Dogrib smiled apologetically. “Algae and I spent the past several nights together. Finding time to be together is difficult. We are still desperate to hold each other. It’s like a fever.”

“I wish you two would marry; then you wouldn’t have to sneak into the forest to enjoy each other. You could move her into your lodge.”

“Her grandfather doesn’t like me. He thinks she should marry Blackbird.” Dogrib shrugged as though it didn’t matter. He’d seen two tens and four summers and had already lost a wife and two children to North Wind raiders. Unlike Rain Bear, he seemed to have come to terms with his grief.

“Well,” Rain Bear said in sympathy, “she has only seen four and ten summers. Her grandfather is just trying to protect her.”

Rain Bear rose from the bow of his elaborately painted canoe, thoughts returning to Tlikit. Her death had been so senseless. A fall in the forest. He had seen where her foot had slipped in the moss, tumbling her down a steep slope. She was dead when he finally found her, the terrible lacerations in her head long dried and crusted. Though his clan kept insisting he remarry, he’d just never found anyone that interested him.

“I know. It’s just … difficult,” Dogrib said.

“What isn’t, my friend?”

Tall and muscular, with long black hair and deeply set brown eyes, Rain Bear had seen three tens of summers. The fringed hem of his otterhide cape swirled the mist as he stowed his harpoon and fishing pole, then bent to touch the red, beautifully stylized face of Grizzly Bear painted on the prow. Softly he prayed, “Grandfather, I ask that you help us today. Call the fish and the sea lions. Bellies are empty, and our children are crying. If the creatures will surrender themselves to us, we will honor their souls and pray for their kind.”