by Pam Webber
“What?”
“Worry is choosing to be stuck on what-ifs—what might happen, instead of what is happening. It’s a choice you don’t have to make.” The chief skipped another stone, this time to the other side.
“No disrespect, sir, but you looked worried when you were talking about the blood moon back at the schoolhouse.”
“That wasn’t worry you saw. It was fear.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m not worried about a blood moon. I’m afraid of what it’s signaling. Fear is real, and it’s focused.”
“How’s that a gift?”
“Unlike worry, fear has a cause we can usually identify and do something about.”
“Like isolating the settlement when influenza hit?” Nettie asked.
“That’s right.”
Nettie propped her arms on her knees to stare at the mesmerizing glitter of the water. Her whole summer had been wrapped in worry about things she’d been able to do little about. “We don’t know what the blood moon is signaling, so how can we do anything about it?”
“Act on the information we do have. We know it’s signaling something, which tells us to be alert and watchful. Not worried, watchful. Nibi has some insight into what it is, and she may know more the closer the blood moon gets. She’s preparing you. Do what she tells you, and do it well. Then deal with the fear as it comes. You’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish when you choose not to worry about being afraid.” The chief skipped a third stone, this time upstream. “Choice can be a powerful ally when you realize you have it.”
“Yes, sir.”
He nudged Nettie and pointed to a sharp edge sticking out of the creek bottom near her foot. Pushing the dirt away, she pulled out a long gray arrowhead, perfectly shaped.
Win joined Nettie and the chief on the bank, the leather drawstring at her hip hanging heavy.
“You girls learn quickly. I’m going to head back. Take a lunch break, then work your way downstream. It will lead you back to the settlement. Meet me at the schoolhouse by dusk, and I’ll give you a ride home. If you need more arrowheads, come back tomorrow after church. We’ll go to the other side of the mountain. There was another large camp over there. Most of the bad storms come from that direction. You’re likely to find more arrowheads than you need.”
By midafternoon, Nettie and Win had worked their way downstream to a wide turn and a long stretch of rapids.
Nettie headed for a toppled tree. “C’mon, let’s take a break.”
Win joined her on the wobbly trunk and started counting arrowheads. “I have seven. You have eight. Eleven more to go. That’s a hell of a sight better than I thought we’d do.”
“We’d still be looking for the first one if Chief Brannon hadn’t helped us.”
Win put the arrowheads back in the pouches. “You two talked for a long time.”
“I asked him about the blood moon.”
“And?”
“He said worrying about it was a waste of time.”
Win nodded. “He told me the same thing. Nibi must have said something.”
“His way is worth a try. Lord knows worrying hasn’t helped anything.”
Win hesitated. “The chief said something else.”
“What?”
“He asked me to consider working at his clinic after school. He wants me to teach him things Nibi taught me. In return, he’ll teach me about modern medicine. He thinks we can blend the two.”
“That’s so cool. Do you want to do it?”
“I think so. It feels right.”
“Wonder what Nibi will say.”
“The chief said she suggested it.”
“Strange she didn’t say something to you first. Are you going to talk with her about it?”
“I’m not sure. You know Nibi. There’s a reason for what she does and what she doesn’t do.”
“What about college?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I can do both. There’s a lot to think about.”
Nettie’s heart dropped at the thought of going to college without Win. Ready or not, like it or not, they were heading for big changes.
“Uh-oh,” Win said.
“What?”
“Lift your feet. High.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
Nettie’s sneakers came off the ground at the same time a baby water snake slithered out of a knot hole in the tree trunk. It wiggled past Nettie’s leg and down toward the grass as two more banded heads popped out of the hole.
“Damnation!” Nettie high-stepped away from the tree trunk. Win followed, albeit more slowly.
“Dammit, Win!”
“You knew when I knew. You also know better than to run.”
“I could stay put for one, but three, maybe more? Not going to happen.” She secured her bag of arrowheads to a belt loop and headed for the creek. “C’mon, let’s get going.”
“Nettie, wait.”
“Now what?” As Nettie turned, the ground beneath her went spongy and quickly gave way, dropping her right foot and ankle into a hole. The stings started registering immediately. “Oh, crap.” Her left foot sank into another part of the nest as she worked to get her right foot free. The harder she struggled, the deeper she sank.
Win headed for her at a dead run. “Grab my hands!”
With Win’s help, Nettie scrambled out of the nest. They bolted for the creek, followed by a hard-charging swarm of yellow jackets. Diving in, they crawled to deep water, periodically coming up for air until the menacing insects retreated.
Nettie sat up and pushed strands of dripping hair out of her eyes. “You okay?”
Win rubbed the welts on her arm; a drowned yellow jacket clung to her tangled hair. “Yeah. That was frightening.”
Nettie lifted her right foot out of the water, then her left. Both ankles were sprinkled with bites and already swelling. “Frightening and painful.”
Win gasped and sat up straight. “I just realized something. My visions seem to come right before fear, danger. The bears, the snakes, the bees—visions came before all of them.”
“Jeez, you’re right.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t make the connection before.”
“I wonder what it means.”
“I’m not sure, but just knowing there’s a connection between the two should help.”
“I hope so. Maybe you’ll get a vision about the blood moon. It has fear written all over it.”
Making sure the yellow jackets were nowhere in sight, Nettie and Win waded out of the creek. Win found some plantain leaves and made a poultice to ease the pain and swelling of the stings. Heading downstream, they walked along the water’s edge and managed to find another intact arrowhead. They reached the schoolhouse as the chief pulled up in a navy-blue Wagoneer.
“Chief, do you have something we can sit on so we don’t mess up your car?”
He opened the back door. His black bag and a stethoscope lay on the seat, along with a couple of little green towels and large bottle of Betadine. “Compared to the injured people and animals that are usually back there, a little water and sand won’t hurt a thing.”
Nettie scanned the faces of the congregation as she followed Win and the other altos into the choir loft. “Andy’s not here,” she whispered. “I wish I knew where he was.”
“Anne’s here. Right side, halfway back,” Win whispered.
“I know. If looks could kill, I would’ve been pushing up daisies a long time ago.”
“She might know where Andy is.”
“Maybe, but I’m not going to ask her.” Nettie abruptly stopped talking as Pastor Williams rose from his chair and glanced in her direction, before walking to the pulpit. She’d forgotten how close his chair sat to their side of the loft. She grimaced at Win. If the sessions with Mr. Danes were ever going to end, she couldn’t risk antagonizing either of them more than she already had. She wrote a note to Win on the top of her church bulletin. “As soon as the serv
ice is over, we need to get out of here, fast.”
Pastor Williams must have known the morning would be unusually hot and humid. The hymns he’d selected were only two or three stanzas, and he cut his sermon mercifully short. At the end of the benediction, Nettie and Win scampered down the loft stairs, hung up their robes, and were hurrying toward the exit when Pastor Williams stepped into the hall. “Nettie, a moment, please.”
She skidded to a stop at the door. Damn. Turning around, she gave Win a look of surrender. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Nothing had changed in Pastor Williams’s office. Stacks of books and papers and a thick layer of dust still covered everything except the open, dog-eared Bible on his desk.
“I understand your study sessions with Mr. Danes have been going quite well.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you getting the understanding you were looking for?”
“I think so. At least, most of the time.”
“You and Mr. Danes are, uh, getting along?”
Nettie’s heart pounded. Pastor Williams hadn’t asked about the sessions with Mr. Danes since they’d started. Why did he want to know now? Had he heard she’d walked out of the last session? Did he know why? She decided not to deal with the consequences of a wrong answer. “Yes, sir. We’re getting along just fine. He’s a good teacher. He explains things in a way I understand.”
“You’re sure.”
“Yes, sir.”
Pastor Williams seemed relieved. “I’m glad to hear that.” He leaned back. “I’m hoping you’ll be able to finish up soon and we can baptize you before school starts.”
“Me too, sir.”
“Let’s talk again next week.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nettie almost skipped down the hall toward Win.
“What are you so happy about?”
“Let’s get out of here first.”
Scurrying down the church steps, they crossed to the shady side of the street and headed toward town, returning waves to passersby.
“Tell me. What did Pastor Williams want?”
“He wanted to know if I was getting my baptism questions answered.”
“That’s it?”
“And he wanted to know how Mr. Danes and I were getting along.”
“Finally,” Win said, coming to a dead stop. “Did you tell him? About the drinking and sex talk, I mean?”
“Are you nuts? I want these sessions to be over with, not have more added on.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell him.” Win seldom raised her voice.
“And I can’t believe you don’t understand why.”
“Dammit, Nettie, this has gone on long enough. Pastor Williams needs to know.”
“What makes you think he’d believe me? He hasn’t taken my side on anything all summer. Besides, I may have only one more session to get through.”
“For a smart girl, that’s a dumb move.”
Nettie shook her head. “Not dumb, desperate. I want it over with, and the quickest way for that to happen is to not make waves.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Me, too.”
As they rounded the corner to Main Street, Anne Johnson rose from a bench in front of the bank.
Nettie turned away, pulling Win with her.
“Nettie, wait. Please. Can we talk?”
“I don’t have time.”
“It won’t take but a minute.”
Win nudged Nettie toward the bench. “Go on. I’ll wait for you at the corner.”
Nettie crossed her arms but didn’t move any closer to Anne. “What do you want?”
“Would you like to sit?” The mean part of Anne didn’t seem so mean at the moment.
Nettie shook her head. “What do you want?”
“Do you love Andy?”
Nettie froze for a split second. “What business is that of yours?”
“He quit dating me because of you.”
“Andy would never say that.”
“But it’s true.”
The sandy grit on the sidewalk crunched as Nettie spun to leave.
“If you don’t want him, tell him.”
Nettie stopped short. Ethan had said the same thing. She turned to face Anne. “Why? So he’ll come running back to you?”
“At least I’d have a chance.”
Years of dislike for Anne melted into pity. “No. I don’t think you would.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re mean, just because you can be. Andy doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.”
Anne slumped onto the bench. “You’re the one being mean. You always have been.”
“Me? Mean? There’s a difference between being mean and being honest.”
“You could help me.”
“Andy’s a big boy. He makes his own decisions.”
“So, you do love him.”
“As I said, that is none of your business.”
Anne’s face turned dark. “I should have known you’d be a bitch about this.”
“That’s your job description, not mine.”
“I’m not giving up.”
“Suit yourself.”
“You don’t know where he is now, do you?” Anne flounced her skirt and turned away. “I do.”
Nettie bit her tongue and ran to catch up with Win. “Did you hear that?”
“Most of it.”
“She’s such a snake. I wish she’d just go away.”
“That won’t happen. Enemies are harder to lose than friends.”
Nettie shaded her eyes against the midday sun. She stood with Win and Chief Brannon at the mouth of a long, ugly washout that snaked down the back of Bear Mountain into Tyree’s Creek. “Would you look at that?”
The chief picked up a clod of dirt. Still damp from last night’s downpour, it broke into smaller clumps. “We’ve gotten so much rain this summer, I’m surprised we haven’t had more slides. This one is recent. It wasn’t here last week.” He walked to the edge of the creek and pointed to where a peninsula of mud and rock from the slide lay just below the surface of the water. “Big slides can dam up the creek bed and redirect the current. See how the creek has bulged out on the other side?”
Nettie and Win nodded.
“It can be a real problem if the creek dams up completely or if the redirected current alters the downstream path significantly. Folks live down there.”
“Do you want us to warn them?”
“Thanks, but that’s not necessary, at least not yet. Right now, I’m going to get you two started; then I’m going to hike up to the headwaters and make sure there are no more slides coming into the creek.” Squatting, the chief pointed to the jagged sides of the washout. Layered in colors, a wide ribbon of dark sediment sat closer to the surface than what they’d seen the day before. “Slides unearth lower layers of soil and redistribute them along the top. You won’t have any trouble finding arrowheads here.”
Nettie and Win nodded. “We’ve been pretty lucky already.”
The chief winked and headed upstream. “You can never have too much luck.”
Nettie and Win climbed halfway up the washout and began searching their way down, Nettie on one side and Win on the other. By midafternoon, they’d found six more arrowheads and hadn’t yet reached the mouth of the washout.
“Four more to go.” Spotting a point, Nettie tried to pull it out of the dirt, but the mud held fast. She pushed the tip of the spade under the point and worked the soil until a long arrowhead popped out, along with a big clump of mud that stayed stuck to the bottom of the spade. She found a tuft of grass and cleaned the worst of the dirt off the stone, then used her cutoffs to finish the job. “Hey, Win, look at this one. It’s solid white.”
“Looks like milky quartz. It’s beautiful.”
Nettie checked the points and the smoothness of the notches, then put the arrowhead in her pocket. Scraping the mud off the spade and back into the hole, she balked and stumbled
backward, landing on her bottom. “Damnation!”
Win hurried over to help her up. “What is it?”
Nettie pointed at the hole with a trembling finger. “I’m not sure, but I think it’s a face.”
“A what?”
“You heard me. A face.”
They approached the muddy hole timidly and peeked inside. Staring back were two empty eye sockets and a deep nose cavity sunk in a dirty, moon-colored skull.
Nettie sank to her knees. “That’s no animal skull.” She slowly reached into the hole to dab the loose dirt away from the lower half of the face.
Win poked her shoulder. “Boo!”
Nettie jerked back. “Dammit, Win! That’s not funny.”
“It’s not going to bite you.”
“Then you pull it out of there, smart-ass.”
“Maybe we should leave it.”
“It’s too late for that.” The chief came up behind them. Kneeling, he cleaned out the area around the large skull and lifted it from the hole. Turning it one way, then the other, he gently probed the wide-set eye sockets, broad nose opening, and movable jaws, which held a few remaining teeth. He carried the skull to the water’s edge, let the current wash away layers of dirt, and examined it again. “The skull is intact. Based on its size, it was most likely a male. We have to rebury him.”
“Where?” Nettie asked.
The chief studied the trail of the long washout again. “There are burial mounds all over the mountain; one of the largest is near the top of this ridge. The washout must have breached it. Summer rain brought him to us. Now we must take him back to his place, his time.”
“May I go with you? I mean, I know Win can go, but may I?”
“Of course. You found him. You should be the one to take him home.” The chief walked to the wood line. “Win, there’s some sweetgrass growing over there. Break some stalks to take with us. Be careful not to pull the roots. Nettie, just behind the tree line is a downed cedar. Pick up some of the broken branches. We’ll need it for kindling.”
Nettie raised her eyebrows at Win, who shrugged and whispered, “Guess we’ll know soon enough.”
As she approached the top of the washout, Nettie spotted what was left of the burial mound. The tree- and brush-covered bump on the mountain stood ten feet tall and would have been forty feet across if the washout hadn’t taken off one end. At first glance, the gaping wound revealed a maze of roots and rocks. When she stepped closer, she saw layers of bones of different sizes and shapes. Most of the higher ones were whole, while the lower ones were little more than shards or long lines of fine powder.
