People of the Owl: A Novel of Prehistoric North America (North America's Forgotten Past) (13 page)

Read People of the Owl: A Novel of Prehistoric North America (North America's Forgotten Past) Online

Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear,W. Michael Gear

BOOK: People of the Owl: A Novel of Prehistoric North America (North America's Forgotten Past)
10.65Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“Then why are you here?” Anhinga asked, anger festering at the bottom of her throat.
“I’m here for you.” Mist Finger’s voice carried an unsettling undercurrent. “As are the rest of us. Bowfin was our friend and your kinsman. We would indeed see his ghost given a little peace.”
“But you don’t think this is going to do any good?” Anhinga tried to stifle her irritation.
“In the long run, no.” Mist Finger sounded so sure of himself.
“But you came anyway?”
“Of course.” Where did that reasonable tone come from? He might have been discussing the relative merit of fishnets rather than a raid against the Sun People. “Like my companions, Anhinga, I am here for you. As I said.”
For me?
“I don’t understand.”
“Then I shall lay it out for you like a string of beads.” Humor laced Mist Finger’s voice. “Though I doubt my friends will admit to it out loud. We are here to prove ourselves to you. Oh, to be sure, we wouldn’t mind killing a couple of Sun People in the process. Bowfin was a good friend. We share your anger over his death. But, most of all, when this is over, each of us wants you to think well of us, to admire our courage and skill.”
Her thoughts stumbled. “What are you talking about? Prove yourselves?”
“Shut up, Mist Finger,” Spider Fire growled unhappily.
His admonition brought another laugh from Mist Finger, who added, “Anhinga? Are you not planning on marrying soon? And when you do, which of your suitors would you choose? Some simpleminded fisherman who worried more over the set of his gill nets, or one of the five dashing young warriors in this canoe?”
“Be quiet, Mist Finger,” Slit Nose muttered.
Anhinga started, considering his words, ever more unsettled by them. “Why are you telling me this?”
Mist Finger calmly replied, “So that my companions here know that they have no chance.”
Chuckles and guffaws broke out from the others while Anhinga felt her face redden. Snakes take him, he’d embarrassed her, and in the middle of this most important strike against the Sun People.
“Well,” she told him hotly, “if and
when
I marry, it won’t be to you, Mist Finger! And for now, it would do all of you good to think about what we’re doing. This isn’t about courting. It’s about revenge.”
“Nice work, Mist Finger.” Right Talon couldn’t keep the gloating out of his voice. “That’s one person less the rest of us have to worry about.”
The canoe rocked as someone in the darkness ahead of her slapped a paddle on the water, spraying the front of the boat where Mist Finger sat. Laughter followed.
“Stop that!” Anhinga ordered. “You want to know who I’ll marry? Very well, I’ll marry the man who kills the most Sun People.” There, that ought to set them straight.
“Is that a promise?” Slit Nose asked.
“It is. My uncle might be willing to remain at the Panther’s Bones and talk about revenge,” she told him. “I intend on doing something about it. If I do nothing else in my life, I will see to it that the Sun People finally pay for the wrongs they have committed against us. On that, I give my promise. By the life of my souls, and before Panther Above, I swear I will harm them as they have never been harmed before.”
“No matter what?” Right Talon asked.
“No matter what,” she insisted hotly. “So there. If you’ve come to impress me, do it by killing Sun People.”
Out in the blackness of the swamp, the hollow hoot of the great horned owl sent a shiver down her soul. It was as if the death bird heard, and had taken her vow.
L
ightning flashed in the night. The wind continued to gust up from the south. Atop the Bird’s Head, Mud Puppy pulled his ragged shawl about his shoulders and huddled in the wind-whipped darkness. He had removed the little red chert flake from his belt pouch and clutched it tightly in his right fist while he rubbed his temples with nervous fingers.
Sick. I feel sick
. His stomach had knotted around the bits of mushroom that he had swallowed. Now it cramped and squirmed, while the tickle at the back of his throat tightened and saliva seeped loosely around his tongue.
Please, I don’t want to
… The urge barely gave him warning as his stomach pumped. Time after time, Mud Puppy’s body bucked as he heaved up his meager supper; and then came slime until finally a bitter and painful rasping was all his wracked body could produce.
Coughing, he gasped for breath. When had he fallen onto his side? Cool dirt pressed against his fevered cheek. Hawking, he tried to spit the burning bile from his windpipe. Vomit ate painfully into the back of his nose. Tears dripped in liquid misery from his eyes, coursing across the bridge of his nose and slipping insolently down the side of his face.
Had he ever felt this miserable? When he blinked his eyes, odd streaks of color—smeared yellow, sparkling purple, smudges of blue and green—belied the blackness of the night. His body seemed to pulse, his flesh curiously distant from his stumbling thoughts.
Waves, timed to the beat of his heart, rocked him. Yes, floating, as if on undulating darkness. He had felt this way in water. Water. The notion possessed him, and for a moment he forgot where he lay, so high on the Bird’s Head.
“Hold on to your souls,” he reminded himself, and when he swallowed, his body turned itself inside out.
What is happening to me?
The words scampered around his tortured brain, echoing with an odd hollowness.
“Are you afraid?” The voice startled him.
“Who spoke?”
“I did.”
“Where are you?”
“In your hand.”
Mud Puppy tried to swallow the bitterness in his throat again and felt his flesh rippling like saturated mud. Raising his hand, he opened it, staring at his palm, nothing more than a smear in the darkness. The flake! That tiny little bit of stone that had winked at him in the sunlight.
“You can talk?”
“Only to those who dare listen.”
Mud Puppy blinked his eyes, his body seeming to swell and float. Bits of colored light, like streamers, continued to flicker across his vision. “Do you see them?”
“See what?” the flake asked.
“The lights.” Mud Puppy told him in amazement. “Colors, like bits of rainbow broken loose and wavering.”
“You’re seeing through the mushroom’s eyes,” the flake said.
“How?”
“The world is a magical place. An old place, one in which so many things have become hidden. The simple has become ever more complex. Creatures come and go along with the land, growing and shrinking, mountains rising and being worn away. Shapes shift. Forms flow.”
“How do you know these things?”
“I am old, boy. So old you cannot imagine. Carried across this world from my familiar soil, I am left here, separated from the rest of myself.”
“Do you grieve?”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then I do, too.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.”
Mud Puppy frowned at the thin bit of stone, running his finger over the smooth chert. “What are you?”
“Whatever you make of me. I was alone until you picked me up. As long as you hold me, I shall be whatever you want me to be.”
Was it the flake of stone talking? Or the voice of the mushroom echoing around his souls? Mud Puppy blinked, his souls twining about and floating in his chest. Did it matter? The flake’s answer was oddly reassuring: “
I shall be whatever you want me to be.
”
The first spatters of rain pattered his skin. The impact of the drops went right through him, as though he were pierced by a cast dart. He forced himself to sit up, dazed, failing to understand as the raindrops thumped and hammered on his head. Each drop sent echoes of its impact through his skull, like rings on a pond. Eternity stretched as he lost himself in the sensations. The water trickling down his cold skin was alive. He could sense its living essence, silver and fluid.
Cold. Have I ever been this cold?
Dumbly he ran his hands down his arms, squishing the water from his skin. He could feel himself, feel the blood being pushed around inside him as he tightened his grip on his arm. His body seemed to glow despite the cold.
A gust of wind pushed at him and relaxed. Wind, a thing of the sky.
I flew!
The memory of the Dream floated out of the recesses and re-formed within his souls. Yes, hadn’t that been magical? His souls turned hollow with the sensation of dropping, weightless, from a great height. Were those really Owl’s wings that had carried him?
“They were indeed,” a deep voice told him from the night.
He blinked, lashes wet and cold on his face. “Flake?”
“No.” A pause. “Do you remember me? Do you remember the promise you made?”
“Masked Owl?” In the flickering glow of distant lightning, Mud Puppy saw him. The giant owl perched on the grass-thatched ramada. Those huge eyes seemed to gleam in the night.
“Are you seeking the One, Mud Puppy?”
“The One?”
“The One Life. It comes after the Dance.”
“Which you will teach me?”
“Someday.” Masked Owl agreed. “But first, I want you to talk to your uncle. He is here with a message for you.”
“My uncle?” Mud Puppy frowned. “Cloud Heron? Is that whom you mean?”
Lightning flashed again, this time to display Cloud Heron, his body lit by a pale shimmer. To Mud Puppy’s surprise he stood
several hands above the earth, floating as though it were the most normal of activities.
“Hello, boy.” Cloud Heron cocked his head; his eyes looked as if they’d been painted with charcoal.
“You look well, Uncle,” Mud Puppy cried happily. “The illness is gone! I’m so happy! Now, everything is right again. You are well, White Bird is home from the north. Mother won’t have to worry so much.”
“I’m dead, Mud Puppy. What you see is my Life Soul.” The words sounded hollow on the storm. “As we speak, my sister is crying beside my body. I came here, to the Bird’s Head, because it is the way.”
“What way?”
“To the West, Nephew. You know what lies there?”
Mud Puppy suffered a sudden shiver. “The Land of the Dead.”
“That’s right. And once my Life Soul crosses the boundary, steps off the mound, it can’t come back. Not to this place. Spirits can’t cross the rings, boy. They can’t walk across water or lines of ash. My Life Soul will be gone forever.”
Mud Puppy frowned. “I’ll miss you.”
“Why?” Cloud Heron demanded. “I never liked you.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
The ghost seemed to waver, shifting when the wind blew through him. “You are right. It doesn’t matter now. I never understood who you were, what you were. If I had known, I would have taught you more. Treated you differently.”
“Taught me more of what?”
“The things you will need to lead. The world will have to teach you. So many will try to kill you, to destroy you, you must be crafty and cunning. You have so much to learn, and no one to teach you.”
“You could teach me, Uncle.”
“I don’t have time now, Nephew. Perhaps my Dream Soul might, if it is ever so inclined. I can’t say how it will decide to treat you.” The ghost shifted, twisting in the air. “A canoe is coming. From the south, from the Panthers. Five young men. As many as the fingers on your hand. With them is an angry young woman. They are going to raid Ground Cherry Camp. Can you remember that?”
“Ground Cherry Camp,” Mud Puppy repeated.
“They will strike at first light on the third day. She must be allowed to escape.”
“Who?”
“She will try to kill you, Mud Puppy. She is very devoted, her
soul wounded and angry. Don’t trust her.” The ghost wavered again. “I don’t want to go. So much … undecided. He’s going to die.”
“Who, who is going to die?”
“So much greatness. Taken before his time. How wrong I was … how very wrong.”
“Uncle?”
“Don’t fail us, boy …”
Only black wind remained. In the distance to the east, white strobed the clouds as lightning flared and died.
“Uncle?” Mud Puppy tried to stand, wobbling on his feet. His senses spun and tricked him. His small body thumped as it dropped onto the mound’s sticky wet clay.
“He has taken the leap,” Masked Owl said, his eyes glowing like coals in the darkness. “His Life Soul has fled. From here it will begin the journey to the West. Do you remember the promise you made to me?”
“That I will help you, yes.” Mud Puppy’s vision kept swimming, losing sight of the gleaming owl’s eyes. “Are you still wearing your mask?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“Why does anyone wear a mask?”
“To make them look like someone else.”
“Sometimes, but not this time.”
“Then why?”
“You must find the answer to that, Mud Puppy.”
“Everyone is asking things of me.”
“It is your destiny. Do you have another question to ask me?”
From the recesses of his head, the question came: “Why did the Creator separate the Earth from the Sky?”
Masked Owl laughed at that. “You must answer that one on your own, too, boy. But, lest you become totally frustrated, I bear a message for you.”
“You do? Is it from Salamander? Would he be my Spirit Helper?” Hope leaped up within him like a fountain of light.
“He is considering it. But, no, the message isn’t from him. It is from Cricket.”
“Yes?”
“He wanted you to know that he sings with his legs. By rubbing them together. He also said to tell you that there is a lesson in that. The lesson is that you should never judge based upon appearances.
A cricket might be a very small creature, but it can still make a great noise. In all the world only thunder has a louder voice than Cricket. Remember that, Mud Puppy.”
“I will.”
“You had better rest now. Your body needs time to Dance with brother mushroom. Oh, and about your uncle’s message, I would give it to the Serpent. He is the one most likely to understand. And, for the time being—outside of myself—he is your single ally.”
Masked Owl vanished as if he had been but a fanciful flight of imagination. Blackness, cold, and a terrible sickness remained.
W
hite Bird could have chosen better weather for his homecoming, but instead of bright sunshine he got a gray drizzle that filtered down in streamers from the cloud-choked skies. Nevertheless, he stood in the rear of his canoe as it slid onto the mucky bank of the landing.
On shore a throng had gathered amidst the clutter of beached canoes. People stood respectfully behind the Serpent, their brightly dyed clothing creating a speckling of color against the gray, dreary day. In dots and clots they stretched up the incline above the landing. An expectant excitement ran through them as they talked anxiously with each other. Most were wearing flats of bark on their heads to shed the persistent drizzle.
Yellow Spider leaped out of the bow as White Bird stepped into the calf-deep waters at the stern. Together they pulled the heavily laden dugout as far as they could onto the bank. The dark silty mud seemed to grip the rounded bottom in a lover’s tight embrace. Behind them, the rest of the Wolf Traders landed, dragging their canoes fast against the bank.

Other books

The Devil's Intern by Donna Hosie
Fighting by Phoenix, Cat
Death & the City Book Two by Lisa Scullard
A Peach of a Pair by Kim Boykin
Awakening Rielle by Cierlak, Crystal
The Devil's Wire by Rogers, Deborah