People of the Weeping Eye (North America's Forgotten Past) (18 page)

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

BOOK: People of the Weeping Eye (North America's Forgotten Past)
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“The ghosts yawn,” Two Petals said wearily. Her gaze had fixed on the palace. “He’s watching us.”
“I saw. Probably the guard. Our business isn’t with the chief.”
“No, not him. The old man with white hair. He’s worried about spiders.”
Old White shot her a sidelong glance. “What old man?”
“He’s there.” She pointed at the palace. “Just like he’s always been.”
A scratchy voice behind him said, “I see him often.” Old White turned. The crone stood in the doorway of the two-room house. The dwelling fit the woman. Its thatch had weathered beyond gray to a dirty white, as had her hair. Reminiscent of the woman’s skin, chunks of plaster sagged or had fallen from the walls to expose the poles beneath. Once-bright paintings of birds, people, and deer had faded into faint patterns on the remaining plaster. The old woman, too, had been beautiful. Her skin was tattooed with a series of dots that ran down from her chin. She wore a long dress of threadbare fabric, and a ragged blue-feathered shawl hung from her shoulders. Now the wind tugged at the feathers, threatening to tear them away.
“It’s been a long time, Silver Loon.” Old White stepped forward.
She squinted. “A great many winters have passed since I have gone by that name. Do I know you?”
“Perhaps. But that was long ago. I was a different man then, and went by another name.”
She watched him approach, curiosity in her dark gaze. “Refresh my memory.”
“You took me in, called my wounded souls back to my body. You called me your ‘broken pot.’ Not the most flattering of the names I’ve had over the years.”
“Runner,” she said flatly, eyes narrowing. “After all these years. Should I throw my arms around you, or poison you the first chance I get?”
“If you decide on the poison, please, use something other than water hemlock. I’m not sure I have the energy for the thrashing and convulsions. The twisted facial expressions, along with the bugging eyeballs and foaming at the mouth, would be unseemly for a man of my age.”
She watched him in silence, her expression pinched, then looked past him to Two Petals. “And who is this?”
“A companion.”
A bitter smile died on her lips. “You always had a way of attracting beautiful women.” She hesitated. “A bit young for you, isn’t she?”
“Way too young,” he agreed.
She gave a slight shrug of the shoulders. “Come inside. This wind is drilling through me like sharp chert. I don’t take the cold the way I did once.”
“None of us do.”
She turned, ducking through the low doorway.
Old White glanced at Two Petals, only to find her frozen in place, her eyes like gleaming lakes. Her lips had parted, an expression of indecision on her young face. Wind whipped loose strands of her black hair this way and that.
“Are you coming?”
She stood mutely, and he reached out, taking her by the arm and dragging her forward. Her legs worked woodenly, and she shot him a frightened glance. “Not here,” she whispered. “Brittle bones. Flying ash. It’s all about.”
“What?”
“Like sleeping in the air,” came her disjointed response.
“Worried about poison?”
“Don’t eat. Bad squash.”
Old White managed to drag Two Petals through the doorway. He blinked once inside, his eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light. Silver Loon was adding wood to the central fire. She had quite a stack piled by the doorway, and he could be pretty sure that she hadn’t packed it in.
Reading his interest, she shrugged. “The locals bring it. For the most part they take care of me. Fix the roof, patch the plaster, bring food. In return I cure their ills, deliver their babies, and provide charms for lovers, hunters, and anyone else who needs a little help believing in himself.”
“You’ve quite a reputation.”
The crackling fire shot yellow fingers through the wood, illuminating the interior. The place was crowded with large ceramic jars, decorative baskets, ornate wooden boxes, and sacks of this and that stowed along the walls. Net bags filled with leaves, dried roots, and various plants and animal parts hung from pegs. A large clay statue of Corn Mother sat in one corner and portrayed her hoeing industriously as corn looped about her body. In the other corner, a waist-high statue of a pregnant woman stared at him with shell eyes that gleamed in the firelight. The statue’s pointed breasts and round belly had been polished to a glossy sheen.
In the rear, a beautiful fabric hung over a doorway. The weaver had woven intricate patterns that depicted herons, deer, raccoons, and panthers into the fine material. From the ceiling, human and animal skulls, long bones, and other fetishes hung. All had a fine patina of soot coating them.
Silver Loon reached to one side, then settled a pot beside the fire. “It’s squash seasoned with mint, raspberry, and grape. It will take awhile to cook.” No humor filled
her eyes as she said, “Don’t worry. I won’t poison you until after I hear your story.”
“Not true,” Two Petals whispered as she wrung her hands and stared wide-eyed at the statues, bones, and pots. “She’ll never do as she says.”
Silver Loon cocked her head, eyes narrowing as she studied Two Petals. The old woman rose stiffly, and Old White was gratified to hear the crackle of her bones. Silver Loon inspected Two Petals with wary eyes, taking one careful step at a time. She seemed to take in the girl’s posture, the way her eyes slipped this way and that. The oddly fluttering hands caught her attention.
“Do you hear the voices?” Silver Loon asked gently. “Are they speaking to you?”
“Silence,” Two Petals insisted frantically. “Deafening silence. Can’t … hear … a thing.”
For the first time, Silver Loon’s expression eased. “Relax, girl. Listen. Listen harder. Once they know you can hear, they’ll stop shouting at you. Your fear has them worried. Tell them you won’t hurt them. They’re just afraid, that’s all.”
“Afraid of what?” Old White asked.
“Of her Power, old fool.” Silver Loon shot him a glance. “Where did you find her?”
“I think she found me.”
“Of course she did.” Silver Loon shook her head as if to rid herself of something uncomfortable before retreating to the fire. “Gods, you haven’t changed. You turned my life upside down the first time I saw you. Now, here you are, with all the grace of a buffalo in a cornfield, turning everything upside down again.”
“I seem to have that gift.”
She squatted by the fire, pressing her reed-thin hands to her ears, as if blocking out the noise that only Two Petals seemed to hear. “Power has always crackled around you like lighting on a summer night. What are you calling yourself these days?”
“Old White.”
She lifted a suspicious eyebrow. “The Seeker?”
“Some have called me that.”
For the first time, a faint smile bent her lips. “I should have kept you. Together, you and I would have remade the world.”
“As I recall, it was my decision to leave.”
She grunted under her breath. “You have no idea how well I recall that morning. I woke up to find you missing from my bed. I had no idea what you’d done. Not until later that morning when I found the goose you’d drawn in the dirt outside my door.” She closed her eyes, expression pained. “I
loved
you. Loved you as no man I have ever known.” She swallowed hard. “And you didn’t even have the guts to tell me you were leaving.”
“I was younger then. Once, long ago, I set fire to my souls. It was consuming them, burning me from the inside out.”
“Is that what drove you from my bed? A fire in your souls?”
“It would seem that it has driven me to the ends of the earth.”
“And what did you find, Seeker, that I could not have given you?”
He frowned, meeting her hot glare. “The telling of it would take a lifetime.”
“And are you still burning?”
“For a while yet, yes.”
She snorted derisively, jerking her head toward Two Petals, who seemed frozen, her head tilted, eyes squinted as if against pain. “And what of her? Do you expect her to douse your flames?”
“I do not yet understand the role that she will play. I suspect, however, that it will be most interesting.”
Silver Loon took a deep breath. “Well, come. Sit here and share the fire while the meal cooks. If I couldn’t understand you as a young man, why should I expect to now, after all these years?”
He turned, placing a hand on Two Petals’ shoulder.
“Come, girl. You’re chilled to the bone. Warm yourself. Then, later, you can tell Silver Loon about the voices you hear.”
He pressed her down, and she sank like a green plant whose stems resisted bending. Old White then shrugged out of his cedar-wood pack and lowered his stone-weighted bag to the floor.
Silver Loon indicated the latter. “I see that you still carry that. I would have thought by now you’d have Traded it off, or buried it somewhere.”
“I am bound to it by blood.”
“You carry more burdens than most, Lost Man.”
He extended his hands to the warmth. “It has been a long time since I’ve gone by that name.”
“Then perhaps we aren’t so different, you and I.”
W
ith the coming of the storm, Trader fought the current to nose his canoe into a small creek that fed the Father Water. Swimmer perched at the bow, sniffing and switching his tail in lazy expectation. The narrow stream was deeply incised, exposing yellow silt, the trees almost touching overhead. At a trail crossing, he paused long enough to land, walk into the trees, and bury his copper. Thus reassured, he and Swimmer had paddled another half-hand’s journey up the creek to a village euphemistically called Sun Pearl. Though, in all of his previous stays, he had never understood what could have fostered such an optimistic title for such a pitiful bunch of thatch and bark houses behind a flimsy palisade.
What Sun Pearl Village did have, however, was a hot fire, a dry bed, and a warm woman by the name of Fox Squirrel. For a trinket, she would take a lonely Trader in for the night, feed him a cooked meal of pumpkin, boiled sunflower seeds, corn cakes, and whatever sweets she had on hand.
While the villagers were Dehegiha—allegedly descended from one of the towns north of Cahokia Creek—they now lived as mere shadows of the high chiefs who had sat at the Great Sun’s court high atop Cahokia.
Fox Squirrel, however, came from a different background. She called herself Dené, and claimed to be from a people in the far northwest. Stolen as a child, she had passed from people to people, working her way down the western rivers to end up here. Rumor had it
that more than one Trader had offered to take her away, but for reasons of her own, she stayed in Sun Pearl Village. There, over the years, she had amassed quite a bit of wealth, everything from pots of yaupon, sharks’ teeth, conch and whelk shell, strings of beads, jars full of olivella shells, flats of copper, and a luxurious supply of finely tanned furs.
For the moment, Trader was thoroughly enjoying one of those selfsame furs—in this instance, a softly tanned cougar hide on which he lay, naked, while cracking hazelnuts between a stone pestle and mortar. Every other one, he shared with Fox Squirrel, who lay just as naked, her warm skin pressed against his.
She lay on her belly, propped up on her elbows, the nipples of her pointed breasts hard as they rubbed the soft cougar fur. Her long black hair fell around her shoulders in a tangle and spilled down her back almost to the twin moons of her buttocks. She kept raising one sleek calf before letting it fall rhythmically back to the bedding.
A fire crackled and spit, occasional sparks rising toward the soot-blackened roof. Outside the rain had turned to sleet.
Swimmer lay at the door, occasional drafts of cold air ruffling his long black fur. Beside him, safe and warm as Trader himself, the packs were stacked.
“You say he’s supposed to be a demon dog?” Fox Squirrel asked in her thickly accented voice. Over the years she’d become quite fluent in Trade Tongue, but the accent would always be there.
Trader laughed. “You know how some of these backwoods farmers are.”
“Dumb like Traders. Huh, don’t I know?”
“I think he’s just a dog. Smart, too. I just have to tell him things once. I think he’d do anything, so long as I keep his belly full.”
She glanced sidelong at him. “You, Trader, are demon, too.”
He cracked another nut, handed her the meat, and tossed the collection of shells into the fire. “How is that?”
“I know you for what? Four summers? You young. Always travel alone. Always have that look in your eyes.”
“What look is that?”
“Haunted.”
He snorted derisively.
“True,” she insisted. “You always apart. Even when around other Traders. Everyone talks of home. Of wives and children. Of where they grow up. But not you. Always it is about Trade, about where you go, where you been. Never about home.” She gave him a sidelong look with knowing brown eyes. “So, tell me about home.”
“It’s long gone. Far away from here.” He reached another nut from the sack. “It doesn’t exist anymore.”
“People talk about you.”
“I’m sure.”
“One of stories is that you did something terrible. Maybe pee on sacred fire?”
He gave an amused smile. “I never had that urge.”
“Some say you stole something from the temple.”
“Believe me, if I wanted something from the temple, someone would have given it to me. No, I’ve never been a thief.”
“Some say it was woman.”
He gritted his teeth, then muttered, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Another say it was forbidden love. A mother-in-law.”
“No.”
“A sister.”
His laughter was like a harsh bark. “I never had a sister.”
“What then?”
He shook his head. “That life doesn’t exist.”
She reached out. “What about in here? You keep memories, no?”
As her finger touched the side of his head, he recalled
the smells of hominy cooking in the morning. He could hear the ritual singing as the
Hopaye
greeted the morning, calling on the gods and Spirits to bless the day. He could feel the soft red leather of his long-gone quiver, its outside decorated with white shell beads.
As quickly, the memory changed to the tight grip on his war club, the anger that broke loose inside him as he stepped into the Men’s House doorway. The charge in his muscles had been like lightning broken loose in his body as he drew back with his war club. He could remember the club’s impact; it had run from the handle, through his hands, up his arms, and shocked his very souls.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “The most terrible nightmares are the ones you lived before they came to stalk you in the night.”
“So why you run away from home?”
“What about you? Are you ever going back to your people?”
Straight white teeth backlit her smile. “Why should I? Leave this?” She indicated the piles of wealth surrounding her. “And go back to blowing snow and drafty tent? Just to feel back pain as I flesh hide after hide? Why would I want to lay with smelly hunter who wears same parka all winter? Then pack meat, and pop one child after another from my sheath?” She shook her head.
“Some Traders are smelly, too.”
“But I can say no. Or tell them to take bath.” She shrugged. “Tell me, does my sheath care if it takes the same man’s shaft over and over, or different shafts each time? What happens in the end is always pretty much same, no?”
“But what if someone plants a child in you?”
“Here, I have ways. Medicines. Back home, no way.”
“I see.”
She gave him an impish smile. “Now, enough eating
nuts. Talking of sheaths makes me want to use mine.” She pulled him on top of her as she rolled over and wrapped her brown legs around his thighs. “Time to make this shaft hard. Not take long.”
It didn’t. She sighed as he slid into her and she tightened around him. He closed his eyes, imagining another woman, how it might have been. Long, long ago …
 
 
A
loud shriek brought Two Petals awake. She sat up in the darkness, peering around anxiously. Through the panic, she realized she was in a dark room. The hard patter of rain on thatch and the cadence of water dripping onto hard ground alternated with gusts of wind. A reddish glow reminded her of the place: Silver Loon’s house.
She trembled as whispers of assent came from the boxes, jars, and bones. She could feel the Spirits backing away.
“Heard that, did you?” a calm voice asked.
Two Petals peered across the fire, seeing the old woman where she sat braced against a willow backrest. Images from her Dreams began to fragment, slipping from her souls. “I heard a scream. I thought, well …”
“That it was in the room.” The old woman nodded. She pointed with a ghostly arm to the skulls hanging above. “It was Takes-His-Head. As unhappy as he was in life, his Spirit is just as miserable in death.”
Two Petals raised her gaze to the dark ceiling, now a maze of black shadow. “Why don’t you make him go away?”
“Make him? Hah, I’ve driven him out more than once. He keeps coming back. He tortured himself when he was alive. I thought he’d get over it when he died. Some people are odd that way. I finally came to the conclusion
that when rage and misery are all they have, they’re afraid that if they let it go, they’ll have nothing at all. So they cling, too frightened of the alternatives.”
Two Petals swallowed hard, working her hands, struggling to keep from falling over the precipice. “I know.” It was so hard to hang onto herself, to this world. Now she wasn’t sure if the voices she heard belonged to Silver Loon’s Spirits, or her own.
“Why do you fight it?”
“Fight what?”
“Power has touched you, girl.”
“My father said I was crazy. He thought some malevolent Spirit had taken control of my souls. He tried to beat it out of me.”
“And what do you think?”
“If some Spirit did take me, I can’t feel it. Not like something wrong inside me.”
“Ignorant farmers.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t suppose you do.” The old woman hesitated. “It’s hard work to hang onto this world, isn’t it?”
Two Petals nodded, dropping her chin to her knees. “It makes more sense if the world is backward. But no one can see it but me.”
“Let go, Two Petals. Become one with the Power. Dance with it.”
“I’m afraid.”
“Of course you are. You have no training. You must not fight Power, but accept it.”
“But if I do … I don’t want to …”
“What? Lose yourself?”
She jerked her head in quick nods.
“Surrender yourself, Two Petals.”
“If I do I’ll never be right. Never be like everyone else.”
Silver Loon’s soft voice told her, “It’s too late, girl. Far too late.”
Two Petals blinked at the tears welling hot in her eyes.
 
 
A
warm wind blew up from the gulf. Fluffy white clouds marched northward in patterns across the light blue sky. Solstice lay but a scant moon away.
Morning Dew checked the large brown pot and used a stick to stir the hominy. Its pungent tang filled her nostrils. She worked under a ramada, warmed by the rays of low sunlight that found their way through the clouds. Around her White Arrow Town seemed to pulse with life and excitement. The people were still swollen with excitement at the success of the raid on Alligator Town.
And well they should be. We are on a new path now. Gone are the days of deferring to the wishes of the Sky Hand People.
“Thinking of something?”
Morning Dew turned to see her mother, Sweet Smoke, where she had emerged from their house. As befitted her rank of Chief Clan matron among the White Arrow Chahta, the dwelling was imposing, containing no less than four rooms. With a high roof and carved woodpecker heads rising above the center pole, it rivaled the palace atop its platform mound a stone’s toss to the north. The walls were plastered with white clay overlaying the posts set in the trench foundation. Two carefully carved and painted ivory-billed woodpeckers topped poles that stood on either side of the door. Mother looked regal as she stood between them, dressed in a short black-and-yellow fabric skirt; an otterhide cape hung over her shoulders.
In her youth, Mother had been tattooed with a series of dots that circled her mouth, curled around her cheeks, and then joined under her chin. She wore her long black hair pulled up and pinned with a copper skewer that
caught the light. She remained a handsome woman, her breasts still firm, though her hips had widened from the bearing of four children. Only Morning Dew and her brother, Biloxi Mankiller, had made it to adulthood.
“I was thinking of the future,” Morning Dew replied happily. Like water running downhill, her eyes were drawn to the Men’s House, barely visible beyond the palace mound. She could also see the plaza. There, before the stair-clad ramp that led to the mound top, several wooden squares had been erected side by side. Within each hung one of the miserable bodies of the rulers of Alligator Town. They might have been dead the way their heads lolled over their chests. They had been tied with wrists and ankles bound to the four corners of the square. Though none of the captives moved, she knew they still clung to life. Several townsfolk stood, inspecting them and talking.

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