“He would have killed us all,” Old White said softly. “Once I made sure you and Acorn were safely out of the building, I went back. I pulled his body off of Mother’s. He’d bled all over her. I started to drag her, trying to move her to somewhere where I could sponge the blood from her dead face. Then she coughed. She blinked, and I propped her up against one of the beds.”
Old White sadly shook his head. “The blood was everywhere, and she touched it, looking first at the red smears on her fingers and then at Bear Tooth. She stared at me as if I were some incomprehensible being, like something out of her Dreams. I was told to go and find warm water, fetch some cloths.”
Old White stared thoughtfully at the ax. “When I came back, she’d poured hickory oil all over herself. Then she reached down, picked up another of the jars, and . . .”
“What did she do, Seeker?” Green Snake prompted in the silence.
The old man looked at him. “She smashed it in the fire, Trader. And the flames . . . The flames . . .” He closed his eyes, the weight of the stone ax pulling at his slumping shoulders.
“We are to believe this?” Smoke Shield asked.
“That’s when the Power began to change,” Green Snake said, realization dawning. “That’s why we were called back. So that the Seeker . . . Hickory, could tell the tale. It’s time to heal the wounds, to call ourselves back into harmony with Power.”
“And how will you do that?” Smoke Shield kicked out at the war medicine shining in the sunlight. “With an old box?”
“It’s too late, Rattle,” Green Snake told his brother. “The truth is free . . . no matter what you do to us. You are exposed, destroyed. You will never be high minko now.”
Smoke Shield laughed. “How wrong you are! The Prophet has told me—”
Smoke Shield never finished. At that moment, a man hastened through the entry, calling, “My chief!” He was young, wearing a brown hunting shirt. He raced along the back wall, whispering to Wooden Cougar. The Crawfish Clan chief listened, shock expressed on his face. Then he stood. In a hoarse voice, he stated, “Two Beavers is dead.”
A rustle of fabric was accompanied by the dark looks shot between the clan chiefs.
“Murder,” Two Poisons said, turning eyes on Smoke Shield.
Wooden Cougar pointed at Smoke Shield. “Either restitution must be made, or the same punishment must be meted. Those are the laws of our people. To do otherwise is to invoke blood feud between our clans!”
“The man was with my wife!” Smoke Shield bellowed. “He was in her bed!”
“Smoke Shield is right! There are extenuating circumstances,” Flying Hawk snapped, but his heart didn’t seem to be in it as he kept staring wide-eyed at the Seeker.
Green Snake shook his head, seeing the way it would go. If something wasn’t done, the Council was going to tear itself apart. Even now, Flying Hawk still insisted on defending Smoke Shield? It was lunacy!
Then Green Snake heard it: clear, as though disconnected from the growing din in the tchkofa. The Song was so sweet—just as it had been when he was a child. He glanced down at the medicine box, hearing what Two Petals must have that night in the Kaskinampo camp.
“I will offer restitution for my brother!” Green Snake shouted over the din. He reached down, unfastening the straps. “But it will come with conditions.”
“What conditions?” the fuming Wooden Cougar asked.
Green Snake ran his fingers along the wood, feeling the Power. It began to swell, running from the box through his fingers, hands, and arms. “The war medicine is returned to our people. That part of the Power is restored. But it deserves the care of those who would respect it. Not some war chief who calls it an old box and kicks at it with his toe. Not a war chief who kills an Albaamo councilor, rapes his wife, and then murders innocent people while dressed as a Chaktaw. The war medicine is for a people who do not murder messengers bearing the white arrow!”
Wooden Cougar raised a fist. “Then what do you offer, Green Snake?”
“This!” He flipped the lid back, lifting the edge of the box. He was watching Smoke Shield’s eyes as the heavy copper thumped onto the floor.
Gasps came from around the room. The sunlight shot brilliant beams of copper-colored light that filled the tchkofa. It shone on the faces of the chiefs as they moved closer.
Wonder grew in Smoke Shield’s eyes. His mouth dropped open, arms spreading, as if to take in the copper’s reflected brilliance.
Green Snake cried, “I offer copper in restitution for my brother’s murder of the man Two Beavers. I do this with the condition that he leaves this land, that he divorces the Panther Clan woman known as Heron Wing.” He turned hard eyes on Smoke Shield. “And when you leave, you will never come back.”