People of the Weeping Eye(14)
“Hmm? Oh, sorry. I lose my thoughts sometimes. Thinking, you know … thinking about all those Albaamaha who fled back down into the Below Worlds. What do you think happened to them all? Do they still remember us? Do they tell stories down there in the deep earth, remembering those of us who stayed in this world?
“I agree; it’s an unsettling thought. We look down at the ground, and somewhere, four days’ journey into the earth under our feet, someone is looking up with equal curiosity. I tell you, what a difference that owl made. In frightening so many people into fleeing back down the cave, those of us who remained—us and the Koasati—are so few as a result.
“Hmm? Pardon? Of course things would be different today. These Mos’kogee would never have been allowed to settle in our lands. Instead of scattered farming villages, they would have found a strong and thriving population capable of resisting their incursions. Rather than coming here, they would have looked elsewhere for a place to settle. This land—from which we sprang in the beginning—would have remained ours, and ours alone!
“You see, it all goes back to that owl. Even today the owl’s haunting night call still raises the chill-flesh on our skin. It’s a portent. A sign that somewhere, someplace, ill is befalling someone. No matter what, should you ever hear an owl hoot in the night, be sure to touch your most sacred objects. You never know when it might be hooting for you.”
Four
The old man—an Albaamaha elder known among his friends as Paunch—rested on a log and stared thoughtfully at the brown and somber day. The ridgetop where he sat high in the rolling hills west of the Black Warrior River bottoms was obscured by a thick forest that carpeted the uplands. Winter colors daubed the land in a mixture of browns, grays, and occasional greens where evergreens could be seen through the maze of trees. A somnolent breeze blew down from the north, its path marked by a faint whisper through naked branches and interlaced vines. Here and there worn gray sandstone outcrops peeked furtively from beneath a thick blanket of new-fallen leaves. They carpeted the uneven hilltop and made a resilient mat underfoot. Faintly spiced, the scent of wood, mold, and moisture carried heavily on the air.
The old decayed log beneath Paunch’s butt had been long softened by rot and was spotted with moss. It had been a huge black oak once, a virtual forest giant, and its fall had opened a small clearing in the trees that thrust up from the ridgetop. His single companion was a slender young woman who stood at the clearing’s edge, vacant eyes fixed on something far down the slope. He straightened his back and made a face as if in pain.
White hair had been pulled up into a bun atop the old man’s head. Star-patterned tattoos had faded, barely recognizable on his sunken cheeks. He clasped a furry bear robe around his shoulders, hair catching what gray light managed to filter through such a cloud-packed sky. Beside his gnarly feet, two ceramic bowls rested on the leaf mat. The first was blacker than a cave’s heart; its polished slip had a deep luster, the finish so perfect that it reflected a dark mirror image of the world. Water covered the bottom of the luminous ebony pot, making the bowl’s dark recesses oddly bottomless. On the leaves beside it, its mate consisted of a simple burnished brown bowl, its sides decorated with the effigy of Tailed Man, prancing, his arms raised. The brown bowl contained a gray-white paste: a concoction of ground plant material and grease. The paste’s surface betrayed where two fingers had dipped lightly into the contents.
Paunch gave the slender girl a worried glance, then tilted his head back to stare upward. Skeletal trees seemed to finger the dull winter sky with their thin branches. Squirrel nests, mistletoe, and vines had captured clots of the fallen brown leaves. Grape and greenbriar wound up around the tree trunks like futile ropes. The effect was as if they were seeking to restrain the forest giants that reached so diligently for the sky.
The girl stood like a slim pole, her back to the old man. Her breasts were young and full; the rounded curve of her hips narrowed to long legs. The cape she clasped around her thin brown shoulders had been festooned with chevron patterns of yellow, blue, green, and red feathers. Belted around her waist, a white hemp-fiber skirt was decorated with a pattern of alternating ducks woven into the fabric. A rope belt clung to her waist; its intricately tied knot hung down the front to indicate her status as an unmarried virgin. Her feet were covered with fawnskin moccasins topped by dark beads crafted from freshwater clamshells.
She slowly lifted her eyes to the southeastern sky. There, through the pattern of branches, a plume of black smoke hung like a worm that inched off to the south. The thick winter forest combined with the curve of the hill to hide the source of the blaze.