Half the Shawnees were gone away to a strange land, and this place seemed to be dying. The sun seemed farther away every day; the very fire of life was ebbing.
One night in the depth of the Hunger Moon, Star Watcher lay in a nest of hides and blankets with Tecumseh and the triplets and watched a star in the cold sky wink and waver above the smokehole of the wigewa. They all slept crowded together now, to get warmth from each other, like a covey of quail. Before they had begun nesting together like this, Kumskaka, Cat Follower, had awakened one morning with three toes frozen and a leg so badly cramped that he could not walk for several days. Except for Tecumseh, the brothers seemed to want only to hibernate. Loud Noise was so reluctant to leave the bed that he would lie trembling with bladder full, and then sometimes in the dim margin of sleep he would dream that he was urinating in a rain puddle or on tree roots, and when the others woke they would find themselves chilled, their wet bedding frozen under them. And there would be all the trouble of that.
This night Star Watcher lay awake thinking of two things: of her faraway mother and of the fire in the fire-ring. She yearned for her mother, whose strong presence she now imagined had been the source of the warmth that was gone from this wigewa. Though it had been her mother’s choice to leave this land, Star Watcher now felt that she herself should have kept her from going, or gone with her. It seemed to Star Watcher now that if she had agreed to go with her mother, the rest of the children would have gone, too, and the family would be together someplace where it could not be this cold. Of course, Chiksika would not have gone. And if he had not gone, probably Tecumseh would not have gone, either. But she and the triplets would now be with their mother, and it would be a warmer place, there where the white man’s evil medicine had not yet killed the sun.
But then Star Watcher remembered that most important thing. She was Watcher of the Shooting Star, and Tecumseh was the Shooting Star. It was meant that she would be where Tecumseh was.
Still, it seemed to her that a great wrong had been done when the family divided itself, and that this slow killing cold was the punishment. She had put Stands Firm, a Chalagawtha Shawnee, above her own family, by choosing to stay where he was. Surely this was a great wrong, though she had meant to do no wrong. She lay wondering whether her mother blamed her for this wrong, which she was only now beginning to perceive.
And Star Watcher was afraid to go to sleep now because the fire in the wigewa might go out. One other night it had burned out while she slept, and in trying to start it the next morning with flint and steel, she had become so shaky and numb with cold, and her hands so stiff, that she could not make an ember, and she had cried, and finally Tecumseh had gone out into the blizzard to borrow coals from another house.
If I go to sleep and this burns out, she told herself, we can get coals from someone nearby to start it again in the morning.
But, she began worrying then, if everyone thought that way, all the fires in all the houses might burn out while everyone sleeps. And we could all be dead in our beds as hard as ice like those we find. Or we could all be too cold in our hands to start another fire.
She lay thinking this, and the thought grew larger in the night, and it seemed now that she might be the only guardian of the life fire of the Shawnees on this silent, bitter, frozen night. She was very tired. She watched the star through the smokehole, wondering if the sun would eventually shrink to that size and let the earth freeze.
The flames flickered out while she was not thinking of them. Cat Follower moved in his sleep and put his face against Star Watcher’s shoulder. With his warm breath comforting her, she went to sleep.
And while she was asleep Tecumseh slipped out from the robes into the frigid air and laid more sticks and chunks of wood on the shimmering coals, and with a slab he scraped up ashes to bank a core of coals alongside the blaze, a core of coals that would still be alive in the morning even if the flames went out. Then he slid back into the body warmth of his family under the robes, and held his pa-waw-ka stone, and thought what his father Hard Striker had so often said about life being a fire inside.
12
CHILLICOTHE TOWN
Spring 1780
LOUD NOISE PEERED OUT OF THE DARK WIGEWA TOWARD the fireglow of the stomp ground, hearing the music of the Singer, the drum, and the rattle shaker, and he giggled. He had been mad at his sister at first, but then he had started thinking of how to get even and now was delighted with the idea that had grown in his head. They might make children stay away from the nighttime stomp dances, but he would make them sorry. He would just have to stay awake until the time came.
Oh, it was so funny what he was going to do! Every time he thought of it, he giggled again. Finally his brothers had asked him what he was thinking, and he had brought them in on it.
He had wanted to watch his sister Star Watcher do the frolic dance, because he knew that tonight she intended to get Stands Firm for good. It would have been something to watch her do that. Besides, Loud Noise, like most children, liked to get in on the grown-ups’ dances and caper around with them, imitating them. He thought it was unfair that he was not allowed to. When the adults danced and celebrated the return of life in the world, they were happy, happy as children were supposed to be, and he felt it was his right to be happy then, too. But the Mask Spirit Man would come around dressed in his deer suit, wearing a carved mask with bulging eyes and carrying his bag of snakes, and he would scare all the children away from the stomp ground and tell them they had better go home or he would put their hands in the bag with the snakes.
Tonight when the Mask Spirit Man had pranced toward the triplets with his bag of snakes, Loud Noise had done what seemed to be a bold thing. He reached toward the bag and cried, “Give me a snake, then!” While the Mask Spirit Man was standing there surprised with his bugging eyes and trying to figure out what to do about this, Star Watcher came running over, dressed in her lightest, softest dress for the dance, her eyes full of anger, and scolded:
“You three go home and get in bed where you belong, or I’ll get a berry switch and scratch your legs!”
Although Loud Noise had learned the interesting secret that the Mask Spirit Man really carried only tobacco in his bag, not snakes, he was afraid of the berry switch, because his mother and sister had used it on him in past times when he was really bad, and Loud Noise feared pain. So he left the stomp ground with his brothers, but not without a defiant parting gesture.
Lalawethika, He-Makes-a-Loud-Noise, had become good at making a very loud noise indeed with his bottom-hole. In fact, he had become a master at it. He was the only boy ever known who could blow sound from his bottom-hole whenever he wanted to. Other boys could make the funny sounds when, by chance, their bowels were full of wind. But Loud Noise’s bowels, it seemed, were always ready. Something in his little round distended belly was always at work, some kind of fermentation that produced the smelly winds all day and all night. He loved to eat corn and hominy and beans and breadwater. His belly was always audible, gurgling and burbling and growling and stuttering. Star Watcher once had said that everything he ate turned to beans. He could save up this smelly wind and let it go when there was a proper occasion. It had become like another language. He could modulate it, make it whisper, make it sputter, make it whistle, even make it speak in syllables. He could imitate a dog shaking itself. A grouse drumming. A quail flying away. A baby bird in a nest. Water boiling. A slow woodpecker on a hollow log or a fast woodpecker on a solid log. A horse blowing its lips. Sometimes he would squeeze his Thunder-Sucker while doing it and say he was letting loose some captured thunder. Of course all this was not a language for expressing goodwill or noble or tender sentiments.
So he used it this night at the stomp ground when Star Watcher scolded him. He turned with his brothers to leave, and when his back was turned to Star Watcher and the Mask Spirit Man, he arched his back, squinted tight his empty eyesocket, and blasted her with a raucous, malodorous retort that could be heard by everyone with
in fifty feet. It made many of the dance spectators laugh, and it embarrassed Star Watcher, which was of course what the boy had meant it to do.
At midnight, unaware of her little brother’s plotting, Star Watcher was hurrying around the line of warriors to take her place behind her chosen man. For so long it had been understood by almost everyone who knew them that Stands Firm would be the one for the beautiful Star Watcher. They probably would have been married by now, but he had always been away at war. Now he was here, and she was in the greatest state of excitement she had ever known. This was the first happiness she had felt since her mother had gone. It seemed as if new life were starting.
The lines of paired couples shuffled to the drumbeats, heel and toe of the left foot, then heel and toe of the right, both lines facing away from the bonfire and a woman behind each man. Not all the dancers would be selecting mates this night; most were dancing just for frolic. Most of the people in the lines were already married.
The shell-shaker girl, with little terrapin shells full of pebbles tied to the calves of her legs, danced at the head of the line, and her chattering sounds were in time with the drumbeats, while the old man with the drum was also singing his chant.
E a le lo we
He e yo he ya
Then the dancers chanted.
E a le lo we
He e yo he ya
Then he chanted.
O we a we a o e o
The dancers’ bodies grew warm and moist, and the rhythms moved their blood. Star Watcher admired the smooth, splendid brown muscles of Stands Firm’s strong back and shoulders, buttocks and thighs and calves agleam with sweat and oil in the dancing firelight, and she imagined her hands moving on those hard, shapely muscles. The heavy silver ornaments in his slit earlobes bobbed and glittered with every step. Stands Firm was wearing only a short, narrow, bead-ornamented loincloth, beaded moccasins, and a feather in his scalplock. Every line of every beautiful muscle was delineated under his fatless skin; she could almost see the muscle fibers themselves stretch and contract with such graceful power as he moved, and in her loins a delicious tingle of desire was building. She moved in a way to make the insides of her thighs slide together at each step, and this hurried and enhanced the excitement. All her skin was wide awake to every feeling. When her loose, light doeskin dress swayed around her, it caressed her hips and the tips of her breasts. The desire in her loins was coming in waves now, seeming to flow down with every footstep and drumbeat.
Each woman and girl in the line danced with a cloth scarf in her hand. This scarf was the most important accessory in the dance, and the time had almost come to use it. They had been dancing for a long while, so long that each woman was aware of only the man in front of her and each man of the woman behind him.
And now came the Singer’s whoop that meant for all the couples of dancers to touch hands.
Stands Firm reached behind him. Star Watcher put her scarf in the collar of her dress, and when she took his hands, her hands were bare, with no scarf between the skin of her hands and his.
This was the sign of acceptance. It meant that their bodies should soon be touching like this, naked.
And so now it was known what her intentions were, and Stands Firm would have to let her know if he intended the same. At another whoop the line of men dancers turned around and faced the women who had been behind them, and the music and dancing continued. Most of the women held the men’s hands with the scarves between them. Only a few couples along the line held each other’s bare hands.
Stands Firm was most impressive as he faced her now. His chin was firm, his jaws were square, his skull was a beautiful shape, and his eyes were bright. All the muscles of his chest and belly were firm and agleam. He shuffled close to Star Watcher, so close the front of their bodies touched, and she felt an almost overpowering surge of passion as they pressed together their moving bodies. The region of her massih was growing very moist. The Singer chanted his syllables, and now, when the dancers were to chant, they spoke words to each other instead of the meaningless syllables. The impassioned couple spoke to each other of their bright eyes and beautiful faces. They took turns complimenting each other on the strength and symmetry of their bodies. Then Stands Firm said:
“I like how your breasts feel against my stomach.”
And she replied, laughing:
“Something stands firm against my belly.” He laughed, too.
Then they began caressing with their hands. Her palms slid over his hard shoulders and down his chest and belly muscles, and they felt as good as they had looked.
The two of them might as well have been dancing alone now; they were aware of nobody else. The skin between her thighs was slick. The women in the menstrual hut often talked of this. If enough moisture came from your massih to drip or trickle down your legs, you could have no doubt that you were really in love with the man who made it happen. Sometimes men understood what this was or could tell by the smell of it that it meant yes. But there were always a few men who were so stupid about women that when they touched you between the thighs and felt it, they thought you had wet yourself with urine. Some men in fact were so stupid about all this, said the women in the menstrual hut, that their mothers had to come into the nuptial lodge the first night and help their sons get an erection and then help them guide it into the proper hole of the bride. For that eventuality there was even a passage in the Shawnee laws that told in detail about how a mother should help her son if he was naive like that.
It was quite plain that Stands Firm was not naive like that. He touched her in all the places where she told him she would like to be touched, and sometimes he knew where to touch even before she told him. They moved against each other, and it seemed that most of their power had flowed into their loins; here they pressed each other hardest, almost frantically, as they danced, and everywhere else they felt weak, especially in their legs.
And finally, near the end of the dance, very skillfully and at a time when they were shadowed and no one could see him do it, he slipped his hand in under her dress and between her thighs, and when his hand came out slick and wet he said in a voice almost choked:
“Neewa, my wife. Come to my house.”
And she replied, her heart pounding, her face hot, her knees getting limber:
“Niwy sheena, you are my husband. I come.”
WHEN THE MUSIC ENDED, THE LINES OF MEN AND WOMEN stood facing each other in the firelight, breathing hard. Most, who had danced with a cloth between their hands, said politely to each other, “That was a good dance. Ni-a-we, thank you,” and parted. But the ones who had danced with their bare hands touching went away in the dark. This was not the old way of marrying. But it was more exciting than the old way.
Star Watcher hurried to her family’s lodge, and while her warrior stood in the moonlit street outside, his blood rushing with desire, she slipped inside and gathered up a few of her personal belongings. She could see very dimly the beds of the triplets and stepped carefully, not to awaken them. When her arms were full, she went outside, murmured to Stands Firm, and followed him through the moonlit village. Her soul was singing with joy, and her body was aquiver with desire. She did not notice that three stealthy little figures had come out of the wigewa door and were slipping along, following her in the darkness.
She went in the door of Stands Firm’s lodge, which would now become her own home. He did not waste time building a fire or even lighting an oil wick. The night was warm, and the couple were already burning. Enough moonlight was coming in through the doorway and the smokehole to see each other by. Star Watcher took the silver circlet off the end of her braid, ran her fingers down the braid to loosen it, and shook her hair free while he, almost moaning with each breath, shucked off his breechcloth and slipped out of his moccasins. She drew her dress over her head and laid it on the ground and shook her long black hair again and stood panting, naked, the moonlight gleaming on her forehead and shoulders and breasts, the musky smell of desire rising all ar
ound her. She reached toward him, and her hand found his passah-tih jutting up at an angle toward her, stiff as hickory and hot. A woman in the menstrual hut once had boasted that she could hang a shirt on her husband’s passah-tih. Now Star Watcher could believe that. She flung her arms around him, and he held her for a moment like this, almost fainting with his want, almost ejaculating at the touch of her belly flesh on his member. Then with frantic whisperings he eased her down, and they sank in the shadows onto the blanket of his bough-cushioned bed. He got over her on his hands and knees and sniffed her body from her neck to her ankles. Finally in the half-light he touched her in the musky place and, having found it, crawled tense-muscled upon her and pressed the end of his passah-tih into her, past the point of pain. Both were moaning now and pulling at each other’s hips as if by sheer passionate strength to forge their loins together forever, and they were blind with the inrushing of their passions, making two halves of the world become one, beginning with unspoken hope to rebuild the diminished People, too blind to notice three little figures creeping like lizards in through the doorway from the moonlight outside.
Panther in the Sky Page 20