Blood Ties (52 page)

She tried to stand, to face them, but her legs were still weak from the night spent in the cage and she slipped down again onto one knee. The one False Face who had stayed began to dance around, raising the turtle shell rattle on high then bringing it down to hover over the ground, hopping from one foot to the other, turning in half circles, gradually swooping closer and closer. She tried to look him straight in the painted face, to show that she did not fear him but he did not stay still for long, moving to different parts of her body, sniffing exaggeratedly with the huge nose, letting out long sighs of disgust.

She followed him around in a circle, pivoting on her knee. Behind him, back toward the cliffs, she saw the crowd open again and Gaka was carried into the circle. She was set down in her basket chair, then rose unsteadily on the arm of one of her grandsons. He helped her across toward Anne. At her approach, the False Face span away, still making his noises of revulsion.

‘Will you tell him that he’d smell that way if he’d spent the night in a dog cage?’ Anne hissed at Gaka.

‘Ssh, child. Listen.’ Gaka was looking past her.

Tangled the Chief had stepped forward from the throng of elders. His brow was encircled with a snakeskin braid, his grey hair combed and parted on either side of his face. Around his neck hung length after length of shells, the wampum so prized among his people, the number and size a sure sign of his status. In his right hand he held an elaborately carved and polished staff, faces both human and animal lining its length, crowned with a spray of eagle feathers. He raised this over the crowd, describing a full circle in the air. Then he recited the names of the chiefs present who had come from afar, who honoured them with their presence. It was a long list, especially as each affiliation was named, of family, clan, village. He spoke of why the summons had gone out and that important business must be discussed that day in the council. He concluded by saying that before they could discuss any of this, there was another matter that had to be dealt with. He moved forward again toward Anne. It was only when he stopped a few paces away that she saw what he’d held, till then, behind his back.

Tangled stooped and placed the skeletal hand on the ground before her.

‘There it is,’ he said, and there was a touch of sadness in his voice as he spoke now. ‘Do not touch it, or you will die.’ Anne was aware of two men raising bows behind the chief. ‘Prove to us that this Oki was not brought here to do us great harm.’

As she finally forced her legs to obey her and raised herself to her feet, there was an immediate clamour. From her right, Black Snake burst out of the circle and ran towards them. He covered half the distance and then fell, but in a way Anne thought immediately was false. He crawled along for a few paces then stood again and staggered forward, groaning all the while. When he was the same distance to the side of her that Tangled was in front, he dropped to his knees, spread his arms wide and cried out, ‘Do not hurt me any more, White Cedar. Free me from your curse.’

The False Face ran toward the warrior, shoving Anne to the side, his deep voice coming from beneath the mask.

‘Tell us how she curses you, Tawane. How did she trap you in her snare?’

The tattooed man swayed, seemed about to fall, then straightened again. Raising one arm, he pointed along the ground.

‘She came to me where I slept in my lodge. I felt her tongue touching me and I woke. She was in the form of a snake that slithered along the ground and into my ear. She said, “You could be like me, Black Snake of the Wolf clan, all powerful. Tangled is old and no longer a warrior. We need you to fight off the People of the Great Hill. Only you, who were born among the Tattooed Ones, can defeat them.” So she spoke!’

‘This was a dream, Tawane.’ Gaka had stepped forward, her voice carrying to all despite her frailty. ‘Some warriors grumbled that Tangled was old and they needed a warrior to lead them. You were dreaming their grumbles.’

There was some muttering of assent at this. Many had heard the fighting men complain that Tangled had restrained them from attack.

‘No! For she came to me again the next night. She was in her own face but her body was not ugly and pale and scrawny like she is now – she took on the same beautiful shape as my wife, Gasoowano. She took off her bead dress and said, “My Oki will help us to get a son to lead the Tahontaenrat. Come, here, here!” she said, and her hand was cold like bones. But I ran away from her and her Oki.’

A woman stepped from the crowd. ‘It is true. Ever since she came to the village my husband Tawane has been tormented with dreams of her. We have daughters only and she promised him a son.’ She began to weep and threw herself back into the arms of her family near her in the circle.

Gaka said, ‘It is another dream you have had. Let me and the Awataerohi cure you of this. It is not White Cedar’s Oki that torments you, but your own.’

Black Snake spoke again. ‘It was her, old woman. I know because she came a third time, not at night, and it could not have been a dream. It was the day we set off for the hunt. She led me down to the stream, and she was ugly like you see her now and she pulled up her bead dress and went on arms and knees before me and turned and said, “If you do not take me, Black Snake, and give me a son, my Oki will curse the hunt you go on. You will be the deer and all of you will die.” And I said, “Not Tagay, my brother, who brought you to us?” And she said, “He will die first.”’ Black Snake let out a cry filled with pain. ‘And my brother Tagay was the first to die and then all the others, one by one, and I only escaped because I am a strong warrior and because I did not lie with her as she asked me to do.’

There were more screams. Two of the women who had lost husbands on the hunt had to be restrained from running forward. When the uproar calmed, Gaka spoke again.

‘Tagay was my nephew, the last of the Hunters of the Sunrise and he spoke to me of how White Cedar fell from the sky to help him …’

‘She bewitched him too!’ False Face had leapt before Gaka. ‘Her Oki is evil, it comes from a powerful she-devil across the Great Water who has been driven out of her land and seeks to rule us here.’

‘It is not true.’ The argument had been building in speed, in intensity, and Anne was finding it harder to understand the sing-song voices. But she heard, clearly, the pronouncement of the queen as evil. So she said, ‘This woman was powerful, yes, and a ruler. But she was a woman of honour. And men tried to take her … Oki to do evil. My father died to save it. I thought I could bring it to the land Tagay told me of, to bury it where it might be safe.’

Her last words were drowned in the surge of noise. ‘Why should we believe her words?’ False Face’s deep voice and shaken rattle gradually quieted the crowd. ‘We have the evidence of her Oki, which she hid from us till Black Snake found it. This is the Black Snake whose lodge poles are lined with the scalps of our enemy, who used to be his people. We need no further proof of his loyalty than that he will kill his old brothers and uncles for his new brothers and uncles. But her …?’ He paused, and turned around the entire circle, taking his time, so all could see his painted eyes. ‘Tagay who brought her here is dead. Black Snake who fights for us is bewitched. We need no more proof. We must smash her head, scatter her bones, burn her hair. Leave no trace of her and her witch’s Oki on our land. That is my thought on the subject. Is there anyone who can disagree?’

The silence returned. Gaka opened her mouth but no words came. She looked around, shook her head, looked down, away from the young woman who stood there with the remains of a queen before her and the certainty of death in her heart.

Then a voice came, ending the silence.

‘I can.’

The words seemed to float away on the wind. When they returned, they returned stronger.

‘I can disagree. For this woman is innocent. And Black Snake is a lying traitor.’

Everyone in the circle looked up and down it to see who had spoken. Anne looked at Gaka who looked back. False Face stepped toward the nearest of the crowd, as did Black Snake, daring the speaker to speak again. It was Do-ne, through the tears that had come when Anne’s death looked certain, who raised his eyes above them all now.

‘Tagay!’ he cried, pointing to a branch of the huge oak tree. And there, just where the Tahontaenrat had seen him for the first time, stood the Hunter of the Sunrise.

He had run throughout the day. He had stopped only to drink from streams and, once, to eat the dried fruit bread the Englishman had given him. There were times when his legs became like stone, others when they felt hollow, like reeds. At these times he would fix his eyes on the ground ahead of his feet and chant the name that had become one – Ote-Anne. Soon the feelings in his legs would pass and he’d feel he could run till the last sunrise.

Sometimes the path drove deep through the heart of the forest, at others he would be running along clifftops with a view of the great river. He recognized the island where the hunt had met its doom, other landmarks as he got closer. He resisted the desire to increase his pace. He could not allow that he would be too late, it would turn his legs again to reed. He had to believe he would arrive in time.

Ote-Anne
.

The moment he ran into the deserted village was one of near despair. Then he remembered arriving here –
could it only be nine days ago?
The village deserted like this, his tribe gathered above for the Game.

The cliff trail hurt, his legs now feeling the leagues he had run. Voices carried by the wind drove him on and when he glimpsed human backs at the end of the forest path he thought he would burst straight into the middle of the gathering. Then a word came to him and the word slowed him to a walk. It was Ontatekiahta. Witch. He stopped, heard the distinctive throaty accent of Black Snake speaking lies. Heard Gaka’s voice, then Anne’s, quavering, yet determined.

He had climbed into the tree to hear more. When he had heard enough, he spoke.

Anne saw Tagay and her legs, which had kept her upright to face her accusers, collapsed again. She was on her knees, staring up, the tears that she’d held off streaming down her cheeks. Gaka was beside her but sitting, slumped down in wonder. Others were on the ground too but in terror – for most had believed that Tagay now lived in the Village of the Dead. So it had to be an unhappy soul standing in the tree, returned to seek vengeance.

After the boy, Do-ne, had cried his name, no one spoke, no one moved except to sink to the ground. It was Chief Tangled who finally stepped forward. He was the leader both spiritual and earth-bound. If this was a vengeful spirit of the dead, Tangled would seek to return it to darkness. If Tagay was alive, he would confront the different challenge that fact, and his words, presented.

‘Speak again, Tagay, or Tagay’s shade, whichever you are. What is it you have to say of what we discuss here?’

‘I say again – Black Snake is a liar and a traitor. White Cedar is innocent of all she is accused and I …’ Tagay paused. ‘I am no ghost but a man and alive.’

‘Then come down and join our council, Tagaynearguye. Speak to us as a man.’

Tagay bowed and swiftly descended the tree, the crowd opening a wide gap for him to pass through. He walked straight to the centre of the circle, took his place beside Anne, stretching out a hand to her. She reached up and grasped it, rose. Joined, they turned to face their enemy.

Black Snake had watched Tagay’s progress from the tree with the same open-jawed shock as had greeted his appearance. Only now, seeing him linked with the object of his lust and hate, did his voice return. And with it, his cunning.

‘Tagay, brother!’ His face formed into the unaccustomed lines of a smile. ‘I give thanks to the Great Mother, Ataentsic, that you survived. I tried to rescue you when I saw you fall but the enemy were too strong.’ He turned to Tangled, but raised his voice so all could hear. ‘Then I remembered the danger to our tribe and how the tribe must learn of the disaster. It is only for that reason that I left the battle, to bring you the news. And to tell you of this witch’s curse that led us into the trap.’

‘Black Snake lies and crawls like the serpent he is named for.’ Tagay’s words brought all murmurs to silence. He went on. ‘It was he who led the hunters into the snare and he has joined with the people of his birth, the warriors who are painted like him, to lead the Tahontaenrat into a greater snare.’ He raised his arm, pointed straight into the curling snake around the warrior’s eye. ‘I lay hidden and heard him plot our destruction. He will lead the Nundawaono against us the sunrise after the full moon.’

Nothing could stop the uproar that followed. Warriors, women, old and young rushed forward. Black Snake ran at Tagay screaming, ‘Lies!’ but the mob intervened. Clans coalesced around their war chiefs. When Tangled and the other elders had finally restored order, Tagay found Sada beside him, and he and Anne protected by a human wall of the Bear clan. Facing them, surrounding their war chief, was a wall of Wolf. Bone knives appeared in hands, war clubs were snatched from their slings.

Tangled raised his staff of office high and spoke. ‘These are difficult matters. The truth of them is hidden in dark clouds of thunder. The only thing the clouds show us for certain is that a storm is coming. And you’ – he gestured with his stick at both groups of warriors – ‘you are our only protection against this storm. What protection will you be if clan fights clan, brother kills brother? How the Tattooed people would rejoice at that!’

The two clans looked to their leaders. Sada nodded and knives were returned to their hidden places. Black Snake continued to glare but his followers swiftly, and with some relief, also put up their weapons. They may have been members of the Wolf clan but facing them were half-brothers, cousins, friends.

Satisfied, Tangled spoke again. ‘What is clear in these clouds is that two of our people have told different stories. Who are we to believe? One was not born to us but has proved himself a loyal son since he was adopted. The other is born of our flesh, our spirit, but has grown up away from our world, away from our songs and stories. But this is not a disagreement about beaver skins. It is not a dispute over reparations made for a killing. This is the life of the tribe. Are we being led to destruction by an evil spirit?’ He pointed the staff at Anne. ‘Or is White Cedar innocent as Tagay says? Who we choose to believe, Wolf or Bear, could decide if the Tahontaenrat live or die.’ He paused and took the time to sweep his eyes over the whole circle of his people, before he continued. ‘If we had more time we could debate this in council and perhaps wise minds could penetrate the thunderclouds. But the full moon is two days away. Can anyone see a solution to this?’