“And you didn’t tell us?”
“None of this was meant to happen,” she replied.
“You didn’t have to be arrogant when the warriors arrived. We could have been meek. Like little voles hiding in the grass.”
“Yes,” Trader said mockingly, “we didn’t have to be sound asleep when they arrived, either.”
“Dying is a different way to live,” Two Petals said softly. Then she looked out at the water. “I don’t know how Deer Man can stand out there.” She cocked her head, eyes fixed on a spot on the water. Then she frowned as if listening to some voice beyond their hearing. “Only Dancing keeps you from sinking?” She smiled. “That’s why you’re skipping your feet.” A pause. “That’s right. Kick out the droplets of water.”
Trader shook his head. “We’re all going to die.”
Two Petals ignored him, expression on the swirling waters. “Is it going to be bad?” Then she nodded, her shoulders slumping.
“Two Petals?” Trader asked. “What’s going on?”
Old White arched an eyebrow. “Whomever she’s talking to, this is Power, Trader. Let it play out.”
“Power is known to be capricious at best.” Trader snorted derisively. “But for Power, I would have a wife, home, and position.” He paused, adding bitterly, “Why am I even here?”
“To set things right,” Old White answered. “That’s why we’re all here. You just have to trust yourself, that’s all.”
“I’ll trust myself before I trust to Power.”
Old White winced at the anger buried in the young man’s voice. “Trader, you wish to possess what is not yours. Nothing, especially copper, ever belongs to you. It only passes through your hands to another.”
“I could be buried with copper,” he shot back. “I could have it with me forever.”
Old White let him stew for a while before he said, “I saw a grave once, in the bank of the Red Earth River down in Caddo country. The river had changed course, eating away at an abandoned mound. The graves were all spilling into the river. Bones, stone and shell ornaments, fine fabrics—they were all washing away. Even the copper.”
“This is supposed to make me feel better?”
“It is supposed to remind you that the only possessions you ever really have are your souls. Eventually, even your bones will vanish as if they’d never been.”
Trader narrowed an eye. “Then how can you even be sure of the souls?”
“I can’t. Which is all the more reason to live well while you are living.”
“Like Trading my copper among the Natchez or Tunica like I had originally intended?”
“Assuming Power meant for you to do that.” His voice turned mild. “I suspect that we are where we are supposed to be right now.”
“Is it all so simple for you?”
Old White couldn’t help but notice how worried Two Petals had become. She had lowered her gaze to her hands, where they fluttered in mirror motions. The Spirit she’d seen Dancing on the water had warned her of something unpleasant. No doubt about it.
To Trader he asked, “Did you ever see a Healer perform a sucking cure? You know, when he places a tube to a sick man’s side and sucks on it?”
“Don’t be a silly rabbit,” Trader muttered. “Of course I have. He uses sleight of hand to drop some object—a bloody feather, a bit of bone or something—into the bowl so that the sick man thinks it was drawn out of his body.”
“Do you know why?”
“To make the man think something was shot into him to cause the sickness.” Trader gave him a hard look. “They’ve done it to me on occasion. It’s just a trick.”
“No,” Old White insisted. “It isn’t.” He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Oh, I thought so, too, once upon a time. But I didn’t understand. Not until I was trained by a Tlingit shaman.”
“Ah.” Trader rolled his eyes. “Then, you’ll enlighten me?”
Old White glanced thoughtfully at the water off to the side, where Two Petals had seen her mysterious Deer Man. “Where we see one world, there are two. Our world—the one we see, touch, smell, and taste—and the Spirit World, where Power flows and Dances. We live separate from the Spirit World, Trader. It is parallel to our own, surrounding us, intermixed with ours.”
“So what does that have to do with a shaman sucking a bloody bone from my thigh when I have an ache in my leg?”
“A Healer has to trick the Spirit of the ache into leaving you. That’s what the tube is all about. He places a bit of bone in his mouth, then bites the inside of his lip to make it bleed. Washed in blood, the bone becomes an enticing home for the Spirit. Don’t you see? He uses it as a lure, a more tempting prize for the pain. By drawing it from you to the bit of bone, he can remove it, and then dispose of it in a fire, or bury it.”