People of the Owl: A Novel of Prehistoric North America (North America's Forgotten Past) (14 page)

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

BOOK: People of the Owl: A Novel of Prehistoric North America (North America's Forgotten Past)
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White Bird and Yellow Spider straightened, extending their arms to where the Serpent waited several paces beyond them. The old man had a curiously haunted look on his flat, wrinkled face. Water trickled down the faded tattoos on his sagging brown skin. He might have been a standing skeleton, so thin and delicate did he look. Behind him the crowd went silent. White Bird was aware of their eyes, dark, large, and peering at him in anticipation.
“Great Serpent!” White Bird shouted the ritual words into the misty rain. “We are returned from the north with goods for the People!”
“Are you cleansed?” the Serpent called back.
“We are, Great Serpent. By your Power and skill.”
“Are your Dreams pure?”
“They are, Great Serpent! My Dreams have been pleasant this last night. My souls, and those of my companions, have been at peace.”
“Do you leave anger and disharmony behind you?”
“We do, Great Serpent.”
“Then enter this place and be welcome, White Bird and Yellow Spider of the Owl Clan of the Northern Moiety. And enter this place, you Traders of the Wolf People, and be welcome.”
“Is that finally it?” Hazel Fire muttered out of the side of his mouth.
“It is, my friend.” Yellow Spider answered in the Trader’s tongue. “Now come and be dazzled by the greatest city on Earth.”
Together they started forward, but the first to break free from the crowd was Spring Cypress. She shot down the bank on bare feet, hair streaming behind her in a dark wave. She threw herself into White Bird’s arms, hugging him desperately.
“White Bird! I’ve missed you so!”
He clasped her to him, feeling her round breasts against his chest, enjoying the sensation of her damp skin against his. She was taller and fuller of body than he remembered. After a winter of experience he could feel the promise in her woman’s body. Taut and firm, she conformed to him. Her damp hair smelled of dogwood blossoms. From somewhere hidden in the back of his souls Lark’s face flashed, the image unsettling. He pushed it away and clasped Spring Cypress for a moment longer, then stepped back to look at her.
Snakes, she was beautiful, her heart-shaped face dominated by large dark eyes and a slightly upturned nose. She looked so delicate, and her souls were mirrored in her gaze; that longing and excitement was for him. For a moment he struggled with the desperate urge to lift her up and twirl her away from the watching crowd. What a shame that once again he had to be the man his mother demanded of him.
“Where is my mother? I would have thought the Clan Elder would be here to greet me. Is she detained?” he asked, matching her smile with his own.
In that instant Spring Cypress’s eyes dropped, her smile fading. “I am sorry, White Bird. Your uncle. Last night.”
“Is he …?” He couldn’t make himself say the inevitable words.
She nodded. “I just found out. I heard Moccasin Leaf telling the Serpent. Cloud Heron has been sick for so long. It wasn’t unexpected.”
He closed his eyes, exhaling as he controlled his expression. “I
wished to see him one last time.” A pang of loss began to grow in his chest. “I had so much to tell him. So many things to ask about.”
“What is it?” Yellow Spider asked, disentangling himself from some of his friends. They had charged down the slope ahead of Yellow Spider’s sister, Water Petal.
“My uncle,” White Bird said. “Last night.”
Yellow Spider flinched. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“What happened to him?” Hazel Fire asked, nervous eyes on the crowd that surged down toward them.
“Dead.” The word sounded flat in White Bird’s throat.
“He’s the one you are named after?”
White Bird nodded. Then he forced himself to meet the oncoming crowd. The Serpent, he noticed, had already turned to leave, plodding up the slope on his stick-thin legs. No doubt he was wanted at Mother’s. It was his duty to begin the rituals to strip the body of flesh and cleanse the house site.
“Greetings, White Bird.” Gnarly old Mud Stalker strode purposefully down and extended his good left hand. His hard brown eyes took in every nuance of White Bird’s expression. “It seems we have a day of joy and sorrow, all mixed together.”
How did he take that?
What is his real meaning?
“Indeed, Mud Stalker”—White Bird gave the man a facile smile—“it is always a joy to see you. Or were you thinking of something else?”
“I was referring first to your return, and second to the news about Cloud Heron. He was most adept.”
He was … especially when it came to thwarting you and your clan.
“He will be mourned by all.”
“At least the alligators didn’t get you, White Bird.”
“Well, we can’t always depend on alligators, can we?” He avoided glancing at the man’s mangled right arm. “I have brought a great many gifts for your clan, Speaker. I thought of you constantly while I was upcountry.”
“I shall look forward to hearing your tales,” Mud Stalker said, touching his forehead in deference. “But I am taking up too much of your time, what with the death and all the responsibilities that now fall on your shoulders.” He kept his eyes locked on White Bird’s. “My deepest sympathies. If I can be of any service, or if I can advise you on any subject, do call on me.” He walked on to greet Yellow Spider.
Clay Fat came next, a jolly smile on his face as he clapped White Bird on the back. Rainwater traced rounded paths over his belly and dripped from his knob of a navel. “Glad to have you home, young man. And even happier to see that welcome you gave Spring Cypress.”
He winked, the action contorting his round face. But behind it, White Bird could sense the man’s nervous tension. “I think she’s going to be declared a woman soon!”
“Oh?” White Bird asked, wondering what his mother’s old friend was hiding behind his bluff and glowing expression.
Clay Fat lowered his voice. “Well, perhaps we could have done so several moons ago, but we were waiting for a special event.” A pause. “Have a word with your mother, young man. I can’t think of a better match than the two of you.”
So, Mother is against a match with Spring Cypress? Why? What has happened since I have been gone?
“I will speak to her as soon as I can.” He cast his eyes up the slope of the canoe landing, searching for some sign of the Owl Clan Elder.
“I think she’s detained. About your uncle, my deepest sympathies, White Bird. He was a great man.” Water ran from Clay Fat’s bark hat. It sat crooked on his ball-shaped head so that the runoff trickled onto the curve of his greased shoulder. The drips beaded and slid down his brown skin in silver trails.
“As are you, Speaker. You filled my thoughts the entire time I was upriver.”
“Better that you had spent your thoughts on Spring Cypress than me. That would have been a great deal more productive—not to mention more pleasant, eh?”
“We will talk more later, Speaker.” White Bird clapped him on the back, passing to face Thunder Tail and Stone Talon from the Eagle Clan as they took their place next in line.
“Greetings, young White Bird.” Aged Stone Talon offered her hand, birdlike under thin skin. As she balanced on rattly crutches, the top of her head barely reached the middle of his chest; the old woman seemed to have aged ten tens of turnings of seasons since he had seen her last. Her flesh reminded him of turkey wattle, loose and hanging from her bones. Hair that had been black a summer ago had gone as white as the northern snows. Her back had hunched and curled like a crawfish’s tail. But she looked up at him with the same predatory eyes that a robin used when it considered plucking an unlucky worm from the ground. “So, the barbarians and the monsters of the North didn’t get you?”
“No, Elder, they did not.” Instinct told him that no matter how her body had failed, her wits seemed as sharp as a banded-chert blade. The question was, which way would she cut? And which clan would drip blood when she was finished?
Her son, Thunder Tail, the Eagle Clan Speaker, cleared his throat. He wore a necklace made of split bear mandibles that hung
like a breastplate. His weathered face reminded White Bird of a rosehip that had been kept in a pot for too many winters. His tattoos had faded through the turning of seasons, darkening and blurring until, like the patterns in his soul, they were hard to decipher. “Are we to call you Speaker, now?”
“Respectfully, I have no idea. I have just arrived.”
“Difficult, isn’t it?” Stone Talon gave him a toothless smile that rearranged her shriveled face. The thoughts behind her eyes, however, were anything but pleasant. “Having to face all of this when your souls are freshly plunged into grief.” She gestured toward the crowd that still awaited him. “Your uncle was a strong leader. Where will you find his like?”
“There is no one like him,” White Bird agreed easily. “My clan’s loss is indeed grievous, but it wounds us all. My uncle served all the people. Fortunately, Elder, I have four canoes to help lighten the People’s sadness. I have set aside some special presents for the two of you. As soon as I find a moment, be sure that I shall bring them to you personally.”
“Clever boy, that one,” he heard Stone Talon say as they passed on.
“At last!” Three Moss cried from where she waited impatiently. “Come, Mother. Let us greet White Bird.” Three Moss led Elder Cane Frog into White Bird’s presence. Her hand rested on her mother’s bare shoulder.
He reached out, taking the blind Elder’s frail hand and clasping it respectfully. “My souls are pleased to see you, Elder. I’m sure your daughter has told you about the Trade we have returned with.”
“She has.” Cane Frog smacked her lips, as if something distasteful clung to her pink gums. Her sightless right white eye wiggled and quivered, while dirt encrusted the empty orbit of her missing left. “She also told me you brought barbarians with you?”
“I did, Elder.” He laughed lightly. “There was no other way to carry so much Trade. It was that, or sink the canoe.”
“Never that,” Cane Frog agreed. “You know, I lost my oldest brother that way. Tragic. Such a Speaker he would have been for the clan. Best to be safe out on the water. Yes, always safe.”
“I agree, Elder.”
“Our hearts are wounded by the news of your uncle.” Three Moss was looking at him speculatively. Life had been unfair to her. Plain, thickset, and bland of feature, she didn’t have that spark of animation in her flat brown eyes. “We are, however, joyous at your safe return. So many had declared you dead. Most had lost hope.”
“Hope should never be given up completely,” White Bird told
her evenly. “In my case, I must apologize for making so many people worry. Events, however, dictated that I go farther than I had planned, and once there, that I dedicate myself to the Trade through the winter. But I assure you I longed for home. In fact, I have some special gifts that I have picked out, just for Elder Cane Frog.”
“We are obliged to you,” Cane Frog rasped. “Your return was propitious, young White Bird. Indeed, most propitious. But then, luck has always favored your clan, hasn’t it? You know, it was just a couple of days ago that we were talking—”
“Mother”—Three Moss took the old woman’s arm—“come, we can’t monopolize White Bird. Others wish to welcome him home. There is still Yellow Spider to see and the barbarians to welcome.”
“Yellow Spider? Who is he?” White Bird heard the old woman ask, as Three Moss led her away.
“Brother to Water Petal, of the Owl Clan,” Three Moss was hissing as Speaker Deep Hunter led Elder Colored Paint to White Bird.
Deep Hunter, Speaker for the Alligator Clan, was watching Cane Frog as Three Moss stopped her in front of Yellow Spider. He had a curious smile on his lips. By the time he turned to White Bird his expression had grown thoughtful. “So, you are well and healthy. Welcome home, White Bird. After so many declared you dead, it is a joy to know that your souls are safe and returned to those who love and cherish you.”
“Thank you for your kind greeting. I regret that I worried so many, Speaker.”
“Oh, fear not. It does them good every once in a while to be proven wrong.”
“Who, Speaker?”
“The ones who come to think that they know how the world works … and that they are the smart ones. It is always such a shock when they find out that they are not as cunning as they thought. It is healthy to be reminded that people, things, or events can come from unexpected quarters to disrupt everything and throw the simplest of plans into confusion.” Deep Hunter’s thoughtful black eyes were taking White Bird’s measure. His long face always had a sad look, but Deep Hunter was never a known quantity. “Stew, as you no doubt know, is tastier when it is stirred every so often.”
“I hear the wisdom in your words, Speaker.”
“Do you?”
To change the subject, White Bird reached out to take Colored Paint’s hand. “Greetings, Elder. I have brought you some special gifts from upriver. You filled my thoughts throughout the winter. So much so, that it gives my souls great joy to see you again.”
“It was cold, your winter up north?” Colored Paint asked, her glinting brown eyes on White Bird.

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