People of the Owl: A Novel of Prehistoric North America (North America's Forgotten Past) (52 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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“Is that bad?” she felt herself lost, adrift in the peculiar ideas spinning out of his Dream.
“When the time comes, you can reach out to them. Accept their canoes, and make the future.”
“I can reach out to whom? What are you talking about?”
“I can Dream the future, Pine Drop.
You
have to
live
it!”
Blessed Owl, tell me he is not insane!
As the words formed in her souls, he threw back his head and laughed.
S
ick! So very sick!
Salamander curled on his side, eyes closed against the violence in his aching head. He kept one arm on his stomach, feeling the painful knots that had tied themselves in his guts. Between breaths, they pulled tight, only to twist and then loosen. The watery tickle of vomit hung behind his palate.
“Salamander?” Anhinga’s voice came from far away. He barely felt her cool hand on his sweat-ridden forehead. “I went for help.”
Anhinga? Where had she come from? Where was he? Floating. Floating above a dark pool of death.
“How are you feeling?” Pine Drop asked, also from a distance.
“Can’t … Dance …” he whispered, and in his fractured souls, the images of what he had experienced tried to form. Like bent and distorted memories, they wavered and refused to coalesce. As if part of his souls could just reach out. There. In the red-black haze beyond his consciousness.
“Drink this.” The thick rim of a ceramic cup was placed to his lips.
He opened his eyes to slits. The misery of white light burned the backs of his eyeballs, searing his thoughts into charred meat. Cool liquid rolled around his tongue, only to make him gag as he tasted the bitterness. Nevertheless, he drank, each swallow knotted agony, until the cup was pulled away. He let his eyelids slide closed, accepting small relief in the hot acid darkness.
I am sick. Dying. The mushrooms are going to kill me, I wasn’t strong enough. Help me! Help! By all the Beings in the Sky and Earth, Help me!
His calls echoed away like thunder over a distant and dark land.
He felt himself turning, ever so slowly as his body slipped away. His souls had begun to float, carried on the waves of fever, spasms, and chill. A burning sensation, like half-dead embers, lay heavily on his gut.
A dull glow—like a forest burning in the distance shone crimson in the darkness.
Dying.
The glow continued to grow, filling the horizons of his consciousness.
Help!
“Help you with what?” a crone’s reedy voice asked.
Why are the mushrooms killing me this time?
“Because they want you to die.”
He focused the eye of his Dream Soul, and saw her—a shadow behind the red glow.
Who are you?
“I have been called differently by different Dreamers. In the beginning I was ‘Spirit Woman’ to some. ‘Witch’ to others. Wolf Dreamer knew me by the name of old Heron. Other names have come and gone through the passing of ages.”
What are you doing here?
“I heard you call, boy. It happens, with the ones who have Power.”
I called you?
“Not by name,” she told him.
He could see her now. She didn’t look like the old woman her voice suggested, but beautiful, with gleaming black eyes that danced with internal light. Sharp cheekbones made soft angles over her full mouth and delicate chin. Hair, in a raven wealth, tumbled from her head and pooled around her shoulders before spilling down to her waist. Her high breasts and narrow waist were partially hidden by a white bearhide that she draped around her naked flanks.
You are beautiful!
“Not as beautiful as Broken Branch was.” She smiled, and he felt his souls soaring. “I can appear as I please. For the moment, it pleases me to appear as I was, before I tripped over love and fell facefirst into the Dream.”
Are you one of the Sky Beings?
“Older.” She stepped closer in a fluid grace. “I was there at the beginning. I have been here since, tied to Power. I came before First Woman, before First Man. I was there before Runs In Light Dreamed the Wolf. I have Sung the Sacred Bundles, and watched the world change. I have seen the final Dance of the mammoth, mastodon, sloth, and short-faced bear. I have loved and cursed the People, and tricked and beguiled the Dreamers as they came and went. I have Danced between the Hero Twins.” She smiled, and the radiance of it melted his heart. “As you now Dance between them.”
You mean Masked Owl and Many Colored Crow?
“They, too, have had many names.” She cocked her head, exposing her perfect throat. “Who are you, boy?”
Salamander.
“You are aptly named.” Her dark gaze sharpened like obsidian. “Powerful, boy. The golden haze of the mushrooms surrounds you. Dangerous things, mushrooms. They live off Death, grow out of rot and corruption. They are rebirth, Salamander. Treat them with respect. Never toy with them. The most Powerful Dreaming of all comes of Dancing with the mushrooms. Unless you become the One, they will kill you.”
Sick. So sick. Pain is tying knots in my body. My bones and muscles ache. My souls … they are floating up into Death.
“Why did you wish to Dance with brother mushroom? What were you trying to do, Salamander?”
I wanted to Dream. To fly on Masked Owl’s wings. I wanted a vision! To see the channels of the future. I must know why Masked Owl gave me such gifts—and killed my brother. Why did Many Colored Crow warn
me? What does Power
want
of me? How can I do what is right when I don’t know what Power wants?
She was so close now, he could almost reach out and touch her. He had never seen skin so beautiful, soft, and sleek. Her perfect round breasts rose and fell behind the white bear’s hide. “Do you ask for yourself, for your own gain? Is it glory you seek? Fame? Authority or prestige?”
I just need to understand, Heron! That is all. I want to know what to do. What is right. For everyone
.
“My poor young Dreamer, are you truly so naive? People are good and evil at the same time, in the same breath, in a single heartbeat. Justice for one is injustice for another.”
Would you help me?
“What would you give for my help?” She gave him a predatory stare.
Fear stabbed through him.
Whatever you asked.
“Would you give your life? Would you let me destroy you? What if I say I will help, and let brother mushroom take you here, now? Alone? Will you give me your souls here, in the darkness?”
How did he answer that? How could he do the right thing if he were dead? How could he make things better if he didn’t understand? How could he find the One?
“Ah, the One? That is a different matter entirely.” She laughed, the sound so musical his souls ached at the beauty. “You are not even close to finding the One, Salamander. You have a long, long way to go.” Her expression saddened. “And no one among your people to teach you. Like me, you must find it on your own.”
Grief stung him.
Heron’s gleaming eyes ate through his souls, turning him inside out, seeing into the corners, behind his thoughts. Fear paralyzed him, and he cried out. In that instant, he felt himself vanishing, burning away under the heat of her blazing dark eyes.
She’s eating me! She is devouring my souls
. Terror, horrible engulfing terror, filled him as she violated every corner of his souls, eviscerated his memories and thoughts, and inspected his most private fantasies. Bit by bit she tore pieces out of him the way a fisherman plucked guts from a catfish’s belly.
It seemed an eternity before she backed away, leaving him whimpering and weak like a wounded puppy. Her chin was down, brow furrowed. This time her eyes didn’t violate him, but simply watched in a passive stare.
After an eternity she said, “You are an unusual young man, Salamander.” She paused. “You would have made a great Dreamer.”
I won’t be a Dreamer?
Nothing had prepared him for the sense of loss that washed atop his fear.
She smiled then, an expression of pity on her perfect lips. “Nothing comes without a price.”
A feeling of despair washed through him. How did he chose between Dreaming and helping his people? How did he know what was right.
It would be easier to let brother mushroom kill me.
“It would.” Her smile challenged him. “Is that your choice?”
No. I will live.
“Once upon a time, I, too, followed the path you have taken. Brother mushroom can show you a great many things, but unless you are trained, it is illusion. Not to be taken lightly.”
I know.
“I will help you Dance with brother mushroom’s Power. We will have to do this together, you, and I, and brother mushroom.”
Thank you!
“Do not thank me, Salamander. My help will rouse jealousies. Wolf Dreamer and Raven Hunter rarely join forces, but my interference could be enough to ally them against you.”
Who?
“You know them as Masked Owl and Many Colored Crow. They are the Hero Twins, the brothers of Light and Dark. Terrible things happen when opposites are crossed.”
She reached out, her slim fingers tracing his cheek. Waves of cool relief washed through him. Had he ever felt such pleasure?
“You cannot escape brother mushroom by yourself, Salamander.” She stepped closer, her ethereal body a hand’s breadth from his. Her dark eyes sucked at his souls. “You do not know the way to the One. I will have to Dance it with you. In the process, you can see the channels of the future. I warn you now, it will come at a price, young Salamander. Will you pay it?”
Yes.
He was aware of the white bearhide as she wrapped it around them, pulling his souls against hers, locking them together. He opened his mouth to cry out.
And then … ecstasy!
S
ecrets! The whole world was filled with secrets! Night Rain fumed, but it did little good. She kept her own secrets, while the secrets of others remained hidden from her. She didn’t want to be here, out in the cold gray day, pinned in place by her uncle. Alone, she had to bear that hard penetrating look in his eyes.
Mud Stalker clamped a hand on her shoulder. “You must have heard something about Eats Wood?”
“I can tell you honestly that I have never heard my husband or Anhinga mention Eats Wood. Not once.”
Uncle’s gaze pricked at her souls like a copper needle. “He vanished the last time that barbarian bitch left Sun Town, Niece.” His eyes narrowed. “You and I, I thought we had a special relationship. Especially after our last little talk.”
Like a fish in a weir, she could feel bars rising to catch her. “I would hope that we do, Uncle.”
He shook his head, glancing around at the blustery brown day. “I raised you better. Think, woman, what could you possibly owe that barbarian bitch? And after what she did to you? The way she humiliated you?”
Night Rain bit her lip.
“What are you hiding?” Mud Stalker shifted, leaning back. “Don’t trifle with me, woman. I’ve been at this game for so long I can smell deception.”
“I swear to you on my souls that I haven’t heard a single word
about Eats Wood from anyone! Salamander hasn’t mentioned him. Neither has Anhinga!”
“And your sister?”
“I can only tell you that she doesn’t think Salamander had anything to do with his disappearance.”
“What does Deep Hunter say?”
“I haven’t seen him since I went home to my husband.”
“And Saw Back?”
“I haven’t seen him either, and I don’t want to.”
He watched her through narrowed eyes. “For the right reasons I could be tempted to support a divorce. Owl Clan couldn’t deny us—and that silly Moccasin Leaf would agree to fly off to the moon if I asked her to. She is desperate to curry our favor.”
“No, Uncle.”
“What?”
She glared at him. “I will stay with Salamander.” Assuming she could figure out who this new Salamander was. During his illness, something had changed. When he looked at her now, it was with a longing that melted her souls. She could feel it, a sensation of Power that spun around him. It was as if he could touch a winter-dry stem, and it would burst into bloom.
Uncle, his eyes narrowed, might have heard her thoughts the way Pine Drop claimed that Salamander had heard hers. “What is it, Night Rain? Snakes and poison! I’m your uncle. You can tell me. What hold does he and that cunning barbarian witch have on you and Pine Drop? Is it witchcraft? Some spell he’s cast on the two of you?”
“He is my husband,” she replied softly. “I can’t … well you wouldn’t understand.” Snakes! How did she explain to her hardeyed uncle that no matter what happened in their bed, but for Salamander’s goodwill she’d be a laughingstock throughout Sun Town? That in his arms, she was safe from the guffaws and jokes?
Mud Stalker studied her thoughtfully. “I saw him the day of the old Serpent’s cleansing. He was hearing things, talking to the air. His eyes were vacant, as hollow as the Land of the Dead. Pine Drop was so frightened she dragged him away—and then he was out of sight for days, rumor said he was sick.”
“He was.” Night Rain swallowed hard. “He ate mushrooms. Something he found at the Serpent’s after cleaning the bones. It did something to him.”
“I see. Are you sure it wasn’t poison? Something a witch would be involved in?”
“Salamander? A witch? No, Uncle, he’s no witch.”
But what is
he?
That question had begun to preoccupy so many of her thoughts.
“You are protecting him! Why? What has he done to you?”
“Nothing!”
He grunted, lips pressed in thin anger.
“I have told you the truth.” She could feel sweat beginning to warm her armpits, and the flush that rose in her face.
“Yes,” he hissed. “I see. The truth.” He paused, as if an idea had been born in his head. “A witch would have many ways to bend people to his will. And, what if …”
“What if what?” she demanded, a feeling of unease creeping through her.
Mud Stalker’s smile took on a predatory look. “If I asked you to make a choice, would you choose to serve your clan, or Salamander?”
“The clan,” she insisted doggedly.
He chuckled then, a coldness in his eyes. “Remember this day, Niece. I will hold you to your words.”
She breathed a sigh of relief when he stalked off. But what had been behind that last hard look?
S
alamander sat with his back to the clay-daubed wall and watched his mother as she worked at her loom. Her hair, once so dark and perfectly kept, now reminded him of dirty cottonwood seed, windblown and tumbled. Her face had sagged. He thought the tissue that had once held it to the bone had grown tired and no longer cared.
A yellow fire popped in the central hearth, sending sparks to dance up toward the rafters. Above him the packed thatch slumbered under a blanket of soot. Bags and netting hung from the high poles, preserving the last of the pecans and acorns against the coming of spring. The other bags he remembered from fall had disappeared over the winter.
His mother’s bed, on the west side of the house, was unkempt, as if she’d just thrown the buffalo robe to one side and gone about her work.
“I have come to understand something,” Salamander said. “About you. I began to understand the night I watched the Serpent’s souls rising. With the help of the mushrooms, I could hear his souls.”
His mother slapped at her ear as if pestered by a mosquito.
“I think you tried so hard to talk to Uncle Cloud Heron that your Dream Soul slipped into the realm of the Dead. When White Bird died, he took the last of your world with him. I understand why you would want to send your souls after White Bird and Cloud Heron.” He paused. “I have seen the different paths of the future, Mother. I have to make some terrible choices. It would be so easy just to let go.”
She tilted her head, her fingers using the shuttle to pass more of the white thread through the warp. If he listened intently, he could hear the soft hum of the Lotus Gathering Song coming from deep in her throat.
“I want you to know that I don’t blame you.” He looked down at his thin hands. “Since I Danced the One with brother mushroom and old Heron, I have been haunted by what is coming. There is a very good chance that I will lose everything: my wives, my children, my family and clan. How am I supposed to choose between my life and a Dream?”
She plucked a knot out of the weave, part of a pattern of interwoven flowers and swooping eagles.
“I caught a faint glimpse of myself in the future. Old, wise, and surrounded by my children and grandchildren. At that moment, I knew complete contentment. I was surrounded by love the way a person is bathed with golden morning sunshine in the spring. I had this knowledge that I had lived my life to the fullest. My souls were bursting, and my wives were smiling their love at me. It was so wonderful!”
He smiled at the glorious ache of happiness.
Wing Heart mouthed words, lips moving silently.
“Another part of the vision let me share the One. Old Heron Danced me through it. You cannot imagine! Mother, it is bliss. Like flying while weighing nothing. The purity of that brief instant makes a part of my souls crave it with a hunger you can’t conceive.” He shook his head. “No words will describe the silent thunder of its beauty. How can I give that up?”
She began to hum louder. He could see the thin muscles in her neck and imagine the brittle bones under that sagging skin.
“Another fragment of the vision showed me Sun Town, tens of tens of tens of years from now. All that was left was unbroken forest. The People were scattered, living in little villages among the trees. We no longer built our giant earthworks, no longer built monuments
to the Creator and the Sky Beings. The Trade was dead. Each tiny band feared its neighbors. They lived in isolation.” He shook his head. “They had lost their souls, Mother. Had lost that inner strength that told them who they were. I felt such emptiness.”
He watched Mother’s long fingers. Never had anyone seen such fabrics as those that came off of Wing Heart’s loom after she lost her souls. The weave, so tightly packed, could hold water. The intricate designs she wove into the warp and weft were magical. The creatures she created looked real. Even the texture of feathers could be seen in the pattern of threads she used to make her birds. Veins filled the leaves and flowers. With a fingertip, one could trace the texture of bark on the stems she wove.
“I caught another flash of the future. Of all the bits and pieces of visions, this is in many ways the hardest to explain. The people were so different. They lived for one ruler, crushing all others under their feet for his glory. Imagine what the clans would be like if instead of obligation, they used force to achieve their ends. What makes that future enticing is the size of the cities, the splendor of the high mounds and great buildings. I see canoes so huge they carry tens of tens, and cross the oceans to the ends of the world. We could be so great.” He shook his head. “Imagine your great-grandchildren raising mounds in the distant lands. Imagine them speaking your name in barbarian languages.”
Wing Heart smiled despite her empty eyes. Her lips must have felt something the rest of her body did not.
“I don’t understand how the visions are linked together yet. The choices I make will influence those futures. To make one come true, I must give up something else. I just don’t know how it all fits together.” He leaned his head back, an emptiness in his breast. “I can see the coming trial. I know what they have in store for me. I have seen it, Mother. When I flew with Masked Owl, I caught glimpses, but only those that Masked Owl wanted me to see. When Heron and I Danced with brother mushroom, I saw the whole future unfolding like a magnolia flower in the morning.”
She chuckled under her breath, hearing something in her imagination. The twitching of her lips slowed, humor in her eyes before it faded to blankness.
“I understand why you made the choice you did. I wish I could choose the past, too. It would be so easy.” Salamander frowned down at his hands. “I could tell Heron that I wanted to Dance the One. She could take me away from all of this. How does a lone man
make that decision? How can Power expect me to choose misery over paradise?”
Wing Heart gave him no answer.
“Oh, Mother, how I envy you.”
M
ud Stalker lay with his back pressed into the rounded stern of the canoe and peered out through the screen of cane and grass that had been tied around their craft. He fingered the hard knot of his bola with his good left hand. The weapon lay on his flat stomach. The bola was a series of three leather thongs the length of a man’s arm, each tied with a round stone at the end. When thrown, it rotated through the air like a three-legged spider to ensnare whatever it encountered.
In the bow, Clay Fat lay with his bulk wedged between the gunwales. The Rattlesnake Clan Speaker made the bow float considerably lower in the muddy shallows than Mud Stalker’s stern.
On the strengthening southern winds, the migratory fowl were riding their way northward toward spring. Sun Town lay at the southern end of the great flyway. This was just the beginning of the great migration. For days the flocks would blacken the sky, Vs of birds winging northward. From it the people harvested any number of ducks, geese, coots, cormorants, herons, and other species.
Mud Stalker’s clan had used this old choked channel for many turnings of the seasons. Last night he and his kin had strung nets along three sides of the narrow cove. The netting was stretched from tree to tree, and propped on posts to overhang the brackish water.
The open end that emptied onto a sluggish channel had two screened blinds at the entrance: One that he and Clay Fat rested behind, and the other, opposite them, where Red Finger and Thumper waited, their canoe obscured with a similar willow, grass, and cane blind.
In the middle of the trap, duck decoys made of feathers, wood, and bundled reeds floated in a fair imitation of a flock.

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