“Haka-Miska-ka, let me apologize for the way my uncle Ekkatsay greeted you.”
“Apologize,” Miska said. He noted the tattoos like snakeskin mottling the man’s arms and the elaborate beadwork necklace hanging on his chest and wondered if he were Ekkatsay’s heir; he remembered the challenge shouted out of the crowd at Ekkatsay, the day before, and thought it was the same man.
“There are those here who know how to greet the greatest of sachems,” said the young man in front of him, and made a little gesture with his hand. “Who would have met you with celebrations and given you gifts and honor, instead of ugly words and a harsh face.”
Miska smiled at him. “Taksa,” he said, “from some men ugly words and a harsh face are signs of honor. But thank you, anyway.”
The youth straightened bolt upright, his eyes shining. “You know my name. Let me say then only that I am at your order, whatever you wish—only speak and I will obey you.”
Miska nodded to him. “Thank you, I will remember that.”
Taksa waited a moment, but Miska only stared at him, and finally the young man backed away, murmuring ridiculous words. Miska rubbed his hands together, thinking this funny. Bear ways sometimes looked different from Wolf ways but underneath they were all the same. Looking back into the trees, where the men were raising shelters, he tried to pick Ekkatsay out in the crowd.
“Haka-Miska!”
The shout came from out on the grass, and he shaded his eyes and saw Hasei coming, with his brother, a deer slung on a pole between them. He waited for them to catch up to him and went along beside them.
“How is the hunting?”
Yoto laughed. Hasei said, “These are fat meadowlands, the deer are everywhere.” Slyly: “Nobody’s been hunting them very much, O Haka-Miska-ka-ba-ta-ta.”
“Don’t say so to the Bears,” Miska said. He cuffed Hasei on the shoulder, a little rough, letting him know he didn’t like the gibe. Hasei quailed down, his hands up like a woman, but he was laughing, and Yoto laughed. They strode off with their pole, headed for the camp, and Miska followed, slower, thinking how to use what he knew about Ekkatsay and Taksa.
Ekkatsay waited until after dark, and then got his nephew alone, on the other side of the trees from the camp. Taksa saw him coming and tried to get out of the way but Ekkatsay got him and slapped him.
“You worthless featherhead.” He whacked Taksa again, hard on the side of the head. “Who are you to talk over me to Miska? To a Wolf!”
Taksa shuddered off the blows. He said, between his teeth, “I did nothing. Accuse me before the others, if I did anything.”
“You dirt-eating woman’s man.” Ekkatsay struck at him again.
Taksa eeled back out of the way, out of his uncle’s grip. His gaze flickered toward the camp, and Ekkatsay lunged for him. Taksa bounded away.
“You are old,” he said, under his breath, his eyes burning. “You are old and stupid, we will lose everything, with you.”
Ekkatsay roared, and rushed at him, got him by the shoulders, and flung him down, but the young man came up furious, his arms milling Then abruptly he broke it off, stepped back, and looked away, toward the camp: someone was coming.
The headman’s chest was heaving, his breath burning in his throat. He fought down the will to leap on his nephew and kick his skull in. But here through the trees was one of Miska’s Wolves, the short, broad-faced man Ekkatsay had spoken to first, Hasei.
This man gave him a casual wave of his hand, and made no proper greeting, no effort to avert his eyes in respect, but stared boldly at him and Taksa, and went on by past the edge of the trees.
“Wolves have no propriety,” Ekkatsay said. “They have no idea of order.”
Taksa laughed, startled, and then was moving off, taking the moment to vanish quickly into the dark. Ekkatsay waited a moment, settling himself. He wished he had used a knife on Taksa but that would have been hard to explain. He wondered how much the Wolf had seen. Grimly he went back into the camp.
In the morning the Bears were slow and late again to get ready. Hasei wanted to move on, to get into the cool of the forest before the sun got much higher, but Miska held him up, would not let any of them leave, until finally the Bears had gotten themselves together.
Then Miska with a great show, in front of everybody, sent Ekkatsay’s sister-son Taksa out to take the lead. Hasei was amazed; he saw how Ekkatsay stiffened and jerked his head up, and under his breath he muttered, “This is not good, Miska.”
Behind him, Yoto said, “What’s he doing? Taksa’s barely got his feathers yet.” He was eating a piece of meat from the night before; his mouth was full and he chewed as he talked.
“Shhh.” Hasei shook his head at his brother. Miska was coming toward them, as Taksa loudly and with wavings of his arms got his followers together and started away across the meadow. Miska caught Hasei’s attention with a look.
“Go with them, Hasei,” he said. “Keep them out of trouble.”
“I’ll go too,” Yoto said. He swallowed first, before he spoke to Miska.
Miska’s lips stretched into a smile; his eyes glittered. “No, you stay with me. Keep me out of trouble.”
Yoto gave a derisive yelp. He tossed the last of the meat over his shoulder. Hasei left him strutting around and went off after Taksa. He knew what trouble Miska had been talking about; there were a lot more Bears than Wolves, even with Taksa’s band gone on ahead.
The land rolled on to the east, in deep meadows between stands of old oaks. The Bear people burned off the meadows every now and then, so the grass grew deep and lush. The dew was heavy on the flowering stems; with every step Hasei sent a shower of water in front of him. He went along just after Taksa’s band and a little to one side, out of their tracks. There were ten of them, all young, green boys, and they were Bears, they lumbered along as if anything they met would run away from them, they grumbled to each other, dragging their spears and bows along behind them, they stopped often, to pick at berries, to talk and argue.
Toward the end of the morning they came into the broken, heavily wooded hills, and there Hasei caught up with Taksa.
“Are you going to send somebody out ahead?” Hasei said. The Bears had stopped again, this time by a stream, where they were jostling each other for space to drink. Tall maple trees grew up here, and the wind got them to swaying suddenly, as if they were waving their arms.
Taksa snorted at him. He had a spear, with a thin long tip of earth’s blood, and he leaned on it as he stood there, like some wise old man propping himself on the earth. “There are so many of us—who would attack us?”
Hasei didn’t bother to explain. He drifted off by himself. The Bears followed the stream backward up the crease between the folded hills, but Hasei climbed to the ridgeline, and went along the rise of the hill, watching around him
The wind had died, and the heat of the day thickened in the dusty air under the trees. The oaks and maples gave way to pines, the crunchy leaves and mast to mats of needles under his feet. He found some good mushrooms, what the women called baby’s thumbs, and the men woods pricks, and gathered them up in his hand. A little while later he came out on the brow of the hill, looking out over the narrow valley to the east, and sat down and ate the mushrooms.
The hill was higher than anything around. Sitting on its brim he looked down eastward over a sweep of trees stretching toward the next hills. Somewhat to the south a pond glistened in among the trees; nearer, more easterly, the dark green flow of the forest opened out into two narrow stretches of meadow, one alongside the other. The second meadow lay at the foot of a distant hill, rising steep through green trees to a gray rocky crag. Just below the bare rock, the lightning-blasted tree like a big wooden feather poked up from the brush. The air above the meadow and the tree looked smoky. Everywhere else the sky was clear.
Hasei sat comfortably in the sun, watching the valley. From the rock where he was sitting, littered with owl pellets and broken twigs and bones, he could see out o
ver the top of the forest. The wind tossed everything into constant motion. Above the seething heads of the trees three little sparrows were chasing a raven as big as a hawk. Off in the nearer of the two meadows a doe and a fawn grazed. He could tell where Taksa was by the way the birds veered and boiled up above them, screeching. The great stirring and swaying of the forest held his eyes. He tried to find words to describe it, not merely to say what he saw, but words that would sound like the forest churning in the wind. He did this often, and had many little strings of words, which in his mind felt like the belts of power that hung in Miska’s lodge. He never told anybody any of his words; he was afraid of what the other men would say if they knew what he did.
He watched the big raven dodge and dive, trying to escape from the furious sparrows, its black feathers splayed. Ragged winged raven, he thought, and waited for more words to come. He was still waiting when in the nearer meadow the mother deer abruptly lifted her head and stared away into the trees.
He put the word belt away in his mind; he watched carefully where the doe was looking. After a moment, far off in the trees, he saw something moving, and although he caught only a glimpse and far away, he saw that it ran upright and knew it was a human being. Someone was going along through the forest on a path that matched Taksa’s, slightly somewhat off to the north. Not many people, he thought, only one, perhaps, but somebody was watching them.
He thought he knew who this was, but he wasn’t sure, and so he went with some urgency down the slope and off through the woods to catch up with Taksa again.
He found the Bears again at the foot of the ridge, working their way along the creek through dense woods. Ahead of them beyond the dark lacing of the trees lay the first of the bright green sunlit meadows, and even through the trees Hasei could hear the chattering of birds up there. He went to Taksa, who was walking along at the front of everybody.
“You should send someone out ahead,” Hasei said. “Don’t you hear those birds? Something’s bothering them out there.”
“They’re birds,” Taksa said, irritated. “Birds are like women, they are always chattering. Haka-Miska gave me this to lead, and I will lead, not you.”
Hasei shrugged; but he let all the rest of the Bears go ahead of him into the meadow.
They walked out onto the lush bending grass. The birds had stopped their uproar entirely. Under the clear blue sky the meadow stretched away toward the trees at the far edge. Beyond them the pale rocks of the hilltop lifted up into the sky. Hasei looked widely all around him, and trotted up to Taksa again.
“You should get your weapons ready, we are walking into an ambush.”
Taksa barked out a startled laugh, his eyes wide. He swung his hand out toward the meadow. “What are you talking about? We can see everything around us, who can ambush us here?”
Hasei gave him a single hard look. The other Bears were looking around them, and one or two muttered, “Get him out of here. Who is he to tell Bears what to do?” Hasei cleared his throat. He turned, and went out past Taksa, into the grass, shouting.
“Come up, come up, I can see you, get up.”
For a moment his voice rang hollow in the silence, and he felt a sudden horrible doubt. Then up out of the grass the Wolves stood, the untopped boys, all around the Bears, some only a few steps away, their bows and spears and war clubs in their hands.
A great yell went up from all the Bears. They bunched up, putting their backs to each other, their spears bristling. “What is this?” Their voices rose in shouts. “Stay back—there’s more of us than you—”
Lopi was directly in front of Hasei. He gave the older man a glare, and came up stiff-legged toward Taksa, fumbling for something to say. “Unh—We greet you, unh—” He shot another angry look at Hasei.
Taksa was backing away from him, his spear gripped in both hands. “Get back! Who are you? Stand where you are or I’ll gut you like a fish!”
Hasei gritted his teeth together. This was getting out of hand fast. He kept his eye on Taksa’s spear, with its sleek black tip of earth’s blood; if it came to a fight, he wanted that spear. Then, off behind them on the meadow, someone shouted.
He stepped back, looking out across the trampled grass, and his voice went slippery with relief. “Here comes Miska, and Ekkatsay, too.”
Lopi and Taksa were still staring at each other, Taksa with his spear before him, and Lopi gripping his war club. Hasei went up to the younger Wolf and grabbed him by the arm and shook him, backing him away from the other man. Into his ear, he said, “This is Taksa, the sister-son of the Bear headman. Miska has already made something of him.”
Lopi cast him off. “I was just—Haka-Miska!” He swung toward the men coming up through their midst, and his face shone.
Miska and Ekkatsay walked up among them, with the rest of the band coming along behind them. Ekkatsay said, loud, “What is this, now?” He strode up to Taksa and bellowed at him, and Hasei could see he wanted to hit him. “This is how you lead fighters?”
Miska moved up past him, the other Wolves pressing after. Lopi went up to him, bubbling like a brook with words.
“Haka-Miska-ka! I have been here now many days, waiting. Up in the pass, someone is there. I have kept watch. You must let us go fight them.”
“Who were you fighting here?” Miska said, and shoved him in the chest. “Many days. You lie, boy, you have been here one day. Now you embarrass me in front of this other great headman. Take us to your camp, which had better be ready for us.” He shoved Lopi again, but Hasei could see he was pleased. Lopi’s face fell, not understanding.
The other boys were already running back across the meadow; some of them were dancing as they went, making up a loud song about hunting bears. Hasei looked all around him, at the other men, Ekkatsay’s people amassed behind him, and the Wolves scattered around the edge. He thought altogether they still were fewer than the Bears but he liked the look of it anyway, if they got the jump, especially after what had just happened.
Miska was walking right in front of him, side by side with Ekkatsay. The war club swung from his hand, trailing the two swaths of hair. Hasei’s gaze kept straying back to that hair. He had thought at first they would be going after the Bears. Then it had been Turtles. Now, from what Lopi had babbled out, they were likely going to fight both Turtles and Bears. His brother Yoto stood just beyond the sachem; behind Miska’s back, he caught Hasei’s eye and made a face, puffing up his cheeks and sticking his tongue out, and Hasei nodded. Then Miska set off again, and he moved to keep close to Miska, following Lopi’s band back to their camp.
C H A P T E R S E V E N
“It was just a game,” Lopi said. “We wouldn’t have hurt them.”
“You sound like a baby,” Miska said. “Why threaten somebody unless you mean to hurt them? You made a good camp here, though.” Lopi had put his camp by the creek at the edge of the meadow, where he could watch the pass and the approach to it at once, and no one could sneak up on him easily. Most of the other men were settling around the little blackened circle of the fire, although it was still daylight. The hunters had not come in yet and so there was nothing to eat. Because even the topped Wolves had fallen into the habit of wearing their hair down and long, like Miska, it was easy to pick them out, scattered in among the Bears with their topknots. Miska looked up at the pass, a dent in the hill below the upjerk of the rock, where the sun’s light still blazed. “How many people are up there now?”
Hasei and Yoto drifted toward him and Lopi. The boy cast a white-rimmed look at them and cleared his throat, suddenly even more nervous. “I’m not sure, Haka-Miska—I think two handfuls maybe.” His voice squeaked.
Hasei, coming up to them, elbowed the boy in the side. “Why aren’t you sure? Did you go up yourself to look?”
Lopi twitched his head around. “I did. But—”
“But he can’t count,” Yoto said. As usual, he was eating something. “Haka-Miska, let me scout the camp.”
Miska folded his arms ove
r his chest. “Lopi’s already done that. What I need to know is how Tisconum is watching us.”
“Unh,” Hasei and Yoto said, together.
“I want you and Yoto and the rest of the two lodges all to go out and get between him and this camp. Go up on the way toward the pass, spread out, and make sure nobody from up there ever gets close to us. Lopi, where is their camp up there?”
Lopi said, “At the foot of the broken tree. There’s a spring, I think.”
“I think there is. Good. The turtle doesn’t leave its shell but still he’s clever and he may have put some scouts out, make his shell bigger that way.” He nodded at the two older Wolves. “Don’t use any Bears. Get the rest of the lodges up with you, and go up onto the slope below the pass and if he has put anybody around there to watch us, drive them back toward his camp. Go carefully, I think he has more than Lopi counted, maybe. Wait until you see Lopi and the boys coming to attack the camp.”
Hasei said, “I don’t like fighting at night,” and Yoto spoke with him. “You said the last time—”
“I think you won’t have to fight until day comes,” Miska said. “And I know what I said the last time but every time is different. Go do as I say. Take bows. Hasei—”
Hasei looked up. Miska saw the fear in him and nudged him with his arm, impatient, crowding him into shape. “You think too much sometimes. Just listen to me. Keep watch on everybody. In the morning, see if you can get above the pass, somehow.”
Hasei grunted at him, out of words for once. He went away after Yoto, back to get the two lodges of Wolves; as he walked along Miska saw his head turn, aiming his gaze not toward the pass but into the trees across the creek, which would cover him. Miska swung around toward the camp again, where there were many more Bears now than Wolves, and they were already jostling each other.
Lopi said, “I did scout the pass.”
The Serpent Dreamer Page 6
