Across the Spectrum (32 page)

A practitioner needed not only magic and medicine; a
practitioner needed herbs and wood lore. But tracking and hunting were useful
for any man, living as far west as Ohio and the Northwest Territory beyond.
With my oldest brother Dolph dead and only the little boys following us, Josh
was needed on the trap line come winter.

I’d be needed, too, someday, but probably not for trapping.
I’d lost one brother to the dark on the other side, nipped by a werewolf. Death
would have to arm-wrestle me for anyone else.

“Al-lee! Stop woolgathering!” Josh yelled.

Looking back, I could see that Wylie and Shaw were about
finished tying on their collars of dusty green leaves. They were blending in
nicely with the rim of the little lake—at least from the neck up.

You see, the idea was to look like a floating tussock. The
reeds towered over Wylie and Shaw’s heads, making them look like they were
standing in a field of grass. This trap was easiest for Shaw, with his dark
mane—if we ever had to depend on this trick for dinner, the rest of us would need
to dirty or dye our hair. Right now we relied on thick leaves and stems.

I used my new knife to cut Josh a few more rushes, and then
chose a clump for my own disguise. Cutting vegetation let me forget that the
practice was over . . . today Papa expected us to really grab a
duck. And since I was pretty good at pretending to be marsh grass, I had no
excuse to miss.

Lord, I didn’t want to drown a duck. I knew this was
silly—I’d spent the winter and spring learning how to set traps that worked,
and I’d scraped more pelts than I could easily count—but there was something
about grabbing duck feet and yanking down . . .

It didn’t take long to have more grass than I could use,
plus some cattails and a few of those sectioned tubes we’ve always called snake
sticks. I carefully wiped clean my knife on the indigo tail of my cotton shirt
and tucked it into its sheath. Then I started twisting and peeling reeds to
make strands long enough to tie around my neck. I could cheat, of course, and
tuck them into the collar of my shirt, but what if someday I needed to try this
without clothes?

Not if Momma had anything to say about it. She was mad
enough about Papa teaching me to swim, much less the lessons with Josh, Wylie
and Shaw. She put her foot down firmly on the idea of us in the water stark
naked. Granted, I don’t look much like a woman, yet, but I suppose it wouldn’t
have been a good idea. So the boys wore old worn pants, and I wore a sleeveless
tunic with a skirt that reached to my knees. I think Momma thought I was wearing
leggings under it, but I got by with my linings. Who needed the weight on legs
and feet? I mean, legs are legs.

Although the sun was still under the rim of the world, I
wasn’t cold at all. In some ways the month of Sun was my favorite, because
there’s all that wonderful heat, but none of the stickiness of the month of
Fruit. I couldn’t see far in the dusty light, but the sound of soft ripples
pushing against the shore meant that Shaw and Wylie were already in the water.

Once I had my disguise adjusted to my satisfaction, I set my
knife over on a tree stump where the boys had piled their things. Papa was
somewhere nearby, but he never hovered—he just told us what to do and then
disappeared. That morning he’d said: “I want you four to duck blind today, and
catch Sunday dinner.” In other words, be floating bushes.

’Course, the boys just had to catch—and maybe pluck—a duck.
I’d have to cook and season it, too. Sometimes I thought God must be female,
because life had entirely too many little things that were needful, and women
were best at handling the little things.

I didn’t want to drown a duck. Sure, Cousin Cory had said
the ducks had a fighting chance, and I knew what he meant—if the duck wasn’t
fooled by my clump of weeds, then the duck wouldn’t come close. And if the duck
was stronger than I was, it didn’t matter if the duck was fooled—it could pull
away and take off. But I—well, you know my feelings on the subject.

Why didn’t I want to grab a duck? Good question. I didn’t
have an answer, not at that point, but I’d been right glad that all those trap
line animals had done their dying when I wasn’t around.

Wylie and Josh looked solemn, like they were going into
church or something. I’d never thought of a bush as looking serious—it was
almost worth a giggle. They made fairly good bushes, if a bit rigid. Both of
them splashed too much when they swam, so I expected them to sneak around the
lip of the lake and settle over where the water lilies grew.

Shaw and I were better swimmers, so we had the entire
shallow cove to choose from. I slipped off my shoes and tossed them by the
clothes. My toes were begging for some sand to twitch in, and this lovely
waterway was mostly sand at our end.

It was light enough that I could see Josh creeping into the
water lilies. A couple of angry quacks made me look up, but there was no
thrashing going on anywhere. Wylie’s voice floated across the cove.

“Watch out for that li’l point—there’s a momma mallard there
with a mess of ducklings, and she’s in a pecking mood. Those babies aren’t worth
the catching, anyway. They’re no more than a bite of fluff.”

Wish he hadn’t said that. Lord, I never want to be hungry
enough to eat baby ducks.

“Baby ducks ain’t Sunday dinner,” Josh whispered loudly.

Good thinking, Joshua.
I paused a moment at land’s
end, letting cool water lap my toes, and then I started in. The weeds were few
this close to shore, but I moved very slowly, more to keep from getting tangled
than for noise. Sounds don’t count until you’re eye level with ducks . . .
then they might figure out you’re not what you seem. Tall humans they avoided,
but sneaky little shrubs?

The cove was shallow enough to have cooled off some during
the night, but it wasn’t bad if you kept moving. Float with the waves, move
with the wind. Drift with the waves . . . I let my arms move out
away from me, still below the surface but near shoulder height. All I had to do
was keep my weedy face above water.

I found a good spot near a few other tussocks. It was still
pretty sandy, but with more weeds anchored around. I was able to touch bottom
and even bend my knees, which meant good traction if I needed it. Now there was
nothing left to do but watch and wait.

If I was gonna drown a duck, I was gonna get it right the
first time. That duck was never going to know what hit it.

Dawn had finally arrived, glittering off water shining like
polished metal. Things are sharp at the moment of sunrise. I could see Papa
seated on a log back in the trees, a dark form framed by tall black pines and
oaks. Looked a lot like this right at sunset, too, before Indian light set in,
and everything melted into shadows of gray . . .

Fresh sunlight carved a path across the water, the tips of
tiny waves flickering like struck flint. A breeze started up, curling past my
ears and raising a strand of hair. My reeds whispered above my head. The water
still looked dark, even though there was a mess of birds dipping for minnows
and stuff on the bottom. What with wind, waves and the feeding, soon the sand
would be so churned up the cove would be several shades lighter than the rest
of the lake. The marsh at the mouth of the meandering creek had more mud, and
held its color longer.

I’d been still so long a few little fish came up to see if
the floating material around my waist was good to eat. I guess dyed cotton
didn’t do much for them, ’cus they darted away pretty quick. I was worried I’d
startled them until I felt something larger slide by my leg—a big perch, maybe,
I wasn’t real good on fish. Just part of the scenery, I was, a very solid
tussock . . .

Josh got the first duck of the day. It was quite a triumph,
’cus Wylie had just made a grab and missed. The whole flock could have shot
straight up in the air over that. But Josh just stayed still and ignored all
the commotion, like a good clump of weeds, and the ducks floated over his way!
I found out later it took two hands for him to hang on to that duck, but
somehow he kept it from breaking the surface.

Not greedy, my brother. He started floating back to shore,
to hand Papa the duck. After a moment, I couldn’t see him, so I wasn’t sure if
he’d come back out or not.

A group of wood ducks was floating my way, with some
mallards and a few blue teals and ring-necked mixed in. I was surprised to see
the mallards and teals—they don’t dive when they can dabble—but maybe the weeds
were high enough here for them. All my muscles were tightening up, in
anticipation, I supposed, so I tried to calm myself.

No females. I knew my markings well enough to tell the
difference, and I didn’t want to risk grabbing somebody who’d left a nest for a
quick snack. I could see babies bobbing with the gathering, all striped and
speckled in their disguises. Surely a male would land here soon?

∞

Maybe I could grab a male. It was nothing but trouble, the
whole idea. I floated until my fingers were wrinkled and my skin starting to
flare from cold, but I couldn’t attract anything except females. Even the
juveniles came to nibble at my weeds. Maybe my collar was
too
good.

The boys were having better luck. At least Shaw was—he had a
knack for this trap. I was turned so I could watch what he was doing, and he
grabbed first one blue teal and then, a few moments later, another one. That’s
how it’s supposed to be—smooth and quiet. He made it look easy . . .
but I didn’t expect it to be easy. Wylie missed again, which made him mad, but
he finally caught a fat female who wasn’t smart enough to stay with the others.

I found myself wondering if she had babies, and then pushed
the thought away. Made me tense up again.

Too cold . . . Papa was going to make me get
out pretty soon, if the ducks didn’t stop feeding first. I
had
to grab a
duck . . . these classes were mostly for me, so I could stay
home, instead of staying with my Aunt Marta for lessons. I couldn’t take up
Papa’s time for nothing.

Just when I was trying to talk myself into a female with no
babies floating around her, two males paddled past. One was an old wood duck,
the other a young mallard mix. It was like a gift from God, and I knew that I
had
to get one of them.

I didn’t think—I grabbed.

Suddenly there was a heap of motion under the water, and my
arms were almost jerked off. Who in creation could have guessed I’d get hold of
both? Never had I held on to anything so tight—I finally understood what a
death grip was like. One of the ducks panicked and kept trying to wiggle away.
That one I hauled deep, so he couldn’t get any air.

The other had leverage. I’d grabbed only one leg, so he was
flapping wings and feet at me, trying to peck whatever had hold of him, beating
at me like an enraged goose. I knew I’d be bruised, but I hung on for all I was
worth; I was afraid I’d hurt his leg, see, and he’d starve if he couldn’t heal.
If he was gonna die from my grab, it was gonna be here and now.

Time slowed, I swear it did—the thrashing changed, no longer
rhythmic, but in scattered, frenzied intervals. The wood duck had exhausted
itself, and finally floated limp, but I will swear to my dying day that mallard
kept moving until the last bit of air was gone from his body.

Finally there was a quiver, a little twitch along his leg,
and then there wasn’t any more motion.

By that time my hands were so cold I wasn’t sure I
could
let go, so I didn’t. Could ducks play possum? If they could, they deserved
their freedom. But I had felt that mallard die . . . I knew I
had. A lump started swelling in my throat.

Slowly I worked my way to the rocky beach, covered with a
thin layer of sand myself. All I could think was that Momma would not be happy
that I needed to wash my hair.

Papa met me at the waterline, nodding as he saw the birds.
“I thought you got both of them. Well done, daughter.”

Tears welled up and over before I could get hold of myself.
Suddenly I couldn’t stop shaking.

“I killed them!”

Well, you never saw such a confused bunch of boys. Josh and
the others had come up to see the ducks, all full of smiles, and then their
expressions sort of fell, like men whose race horse tripped at the line. That’s
all I saw—then my sight was too blurred to see anything.

Somebody pried the birds out of my hands (that mallard took
some work—I’d made sure of him) and someone else had an arm around my
shoulders. “We were supposed to, Allie!” I heard Wylie say as he hugged me.
“How else could we know if we could catch dinner, if we ever needed to?” He
started plucking the reeds from my disguise.

“We won’t waste them, Allie,” came Josh’s voice from
somewhere. “We’ll eat them up on Sunday, honest!” He was almost pleading with
me.

I couldn’t talk, couldn’t say I knew all that, couldn’t
explain worth spit. It was kinder than I’d expect them to act, what with their
usual words about crybaby girls. Guess I’d proved myself enough in the past few
months to merit some respect.

“We can keep the feathers, Allie, and make something
beautiful from them,” came Shaw’s low voice. “So we always remember what a meal
costs.”

“Costs? These ducks were free!” Wylie said then.

The scent of Papa’s tobacco and the feel of his worn
chambray shirt intruded, pulling me away from the others. “You fellows get
yourselves cleaned up. We’ll be over there.” He guided my steps to a sandy
ridge. Sun had already burned away the dew—I was the only wet thing left. We
sat down among the reeds, and Papa pushed his red cotton handkerchief into my
hand.

I cried a bit longer, a drawn out, sobby kind of thing, and
then wiped my eyes with the cloth. Papa just waited, his eyes on the lake, the
light breeze lifting the fair hair laying on his collar. Warm scents of growth
and decay floated in off the marsh.