Then an eagle soared up from the base of the cliff, dark and magnificent against the blazing sky. His heart soared with it as it sailed and wheeled. Then, with a dip and a flutter of wings, the eagle came to land on a ledge a mere yards below the precipice on which he stood.
She had built her nest on a narrow outcropping between the rocks. Three eaglets nestled inside.
As often as he had come here, he had never seen the bird before, never noticed the nest, never realized that new life was beginning in a place that seemed to him so steeped in sadness.
As he watched, the eaglets' mother offered each of her babies the fruits of her hunting. They each wriggled and flapped their thin, half-feathered wings. Their eagerness to fly kindled a warmth in his heart, a pleasure he had never expected to feel again.
While the mother winged away in search of more to feed her brood, the three small birds jostled for room in the nest. They were more than hatchlings now, quickly outgrowing the ring of sticks and grass that kept them safe.
As he watched, one of the birds—the smallest, he thought—hopped to the rim of the nest. It perched there, stretching and fluttering its bony wings, half-tufted with feathers. Then, as if driven by an instinct stronger than sense, it launched itself into the sky.
Horror stole his breath as he watched it fall. Grief blossomed through him as the eaglet plummeted toward the rocks.
Without taking time to think, he spread his arms and leaped after it. He was Ravens Flight. He could save the tiny bird. The wind seemed to catch and rise beneath him, lifting him high. He soared out and away from the cliff and dipped to rescue the fledgling.
Then the wind that had carried him died. He felt only the sun on his back and baking heat. He saw only his shadow on the boulders below. He flailed his arms like the birds that winged so gracefully. But he could not fly.
His heart contracted as he plunged toward the rocks. He hurtled downward, knowing he had failed the tiny eaglet. Knowing he could not fight forces so much stronger than he was, knowing he could not change nature no matter how just his cause.
The world rushed up to meet him as he fell...
Reid awoke with a jerk, his throat raw, his chest heaving. He lay pooled in sweat. His muscles trembled and his heart battered around inside him.
The images of the cliff and the eagles lingered at the backs of his eyes, woven through every level of consciousness. His head pounded and muscles twitched. His body rippled with heat, though his skin was cold. He sat up, shivering and disoriented.
"It was only a dream," he said aloud, as if hearing the words could convince him. But it was more than a dream. It was a vision.
A vision—something he had courted with fasting and chanting and purgatives when he was a much younger man. He'd needed a vision to prove to his tribe—and himself—that despite the white man's blood that coursed in his veins, he was a Creek. The images he'd seen back then were every bit as vivid as these, and they'd held the sting of prophecy.
But this time Reid didn't need Blue Feather to interpret the signs. He knew what this meant: if he tried to save Little David, he would die.
Few men received a warning of their own death, and Reid sat gripping the side of the bed, his head reeling with that knowledge and the decision he must make.
He'd been given this premonition and—if he wanted to make it—a choice. He could approach the Council today and offer the sacred disks for Livi's child, or he could breathe a few years longer, face a few more dawns, explore those vast horizons.
He could live his life or save the child born squalling in his two hands. A wondrous child, a precious child. David's child.
The vision had given him had no sign that if he offered up his life he would succeed. He'd had no assurance that if he went before the Council today, Little David would be returned to his mother's arms.
Instead the dream had warned him of his own death.
Still, Reid knew he had to try to save Little David. If anything he did could ensure that Livi and the baby return to the cabin safe and whole, he would welcome oblivion. He would embrace it.
As long as they were safe.
As his head began to clear, Reid became aware that he was alone in the dark, smoky cavern of the town house. Blue Feather was gone. The old men were gone.
Reid couldn't help wondering where. To their homes? To their beds? Or were they at the square ground, even now?
At the square ground where his destiny, and Little David's, would play out today.
Reid sought the entrance to the town house and made his way outside. A cool, early-spring dawn greeted him, a morning with a pearly sky and the scent of the earth in the air.
Surely it promised to be a better day than most for a man to breathe his last.
But if a man knew he was going to die, he should prepare himself. He should prepare the people he loved. He should have a chance to say good-bye.
Reid reached the courtyard of She Who Heals' lodge only a few minutes later. Bright Bird was already stirring when he arrived and seemed surprised to see him. She did not ask why he'd come; she merely went into the house and brought Livi Talbot back to him.
"You must not touch him," he heard Bright Bird admonish her in a whisper that hissed with disapproval. "He has purified himself to address the Council. It isn't right that he is here."
Livi came to where Reid stood. She was pale, dressed in only her shift. Her shorn hair was wild and rumpled with sleep.
"What is it?" she whispered. "Has something happened to Little David?"
"I've had no news of him," Reid assured her. "If all goes as it should, he will be brought to the meeting of the Council this afternoon."
"Bright Bird told me that. She said that is where the exchange will be made."
Reid nodded, stealing one more moment to drink her in. "I want you to promise me, Livi, that no matter what happens today, you will do as Bright Bird says."
Livi straightened. "What do you mean, no matter what happens?"
"I mean that sometimes things don't turn out the way we want. You must be ready to leave the encampment when either Bright Bird or She Who Heals tells you to."
He could see the flutter of panic in the pulse at her throat.
"Stop it, Reid. You're frightening me."
"It means that I may not be with you when you go." He drew a shaky breath, wondering how she could have become so dear to him, wondering what else he could do to keep her safe. "And if I'm not with you when you go, Livi, I want you to know how much I love you."
"Oh, Reid!"
"I love you," he repeated. "You and the children have brought such joy into my life—joy I never dreamed I could feel. You gave me happiness, a place to call home, the feeling that I belonged."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"You gave back the meaning in life that I'd lost," he went on, saying what needed to be said. "And whatever I do today, I do because of that."
They stood a mere handsbreadth apart. Livi trembling as if she understood far more than she wanted to acknowledge, Reid wanting so much more than what he knew he could have.
He yearned to touch her, to hold her one last time. To breathe the scent of her skin, to bind her to him with all the love and passion inside him.
Instead he backed away. "I need to go. I need to prepare myself to meet with the Council."
"Reid, please!"
She reached for him, and he put a few more steps between them. She looked so lovely standing there with the rising sun warm on her face, with the rising sun setting off shimmers of gold in her ravaged hair. He would carry this image of her with him into whatever world came after this.
"I love you, Livi," he whispered and turned to go.
He crossed the Bird clan compound with long, quick strides and never looked back.
As he bathed and continued to prepare himself to address the Council, a sense of fatalism stole through him. With it came determination, a kind of peace. If he was to die defending Livi's child, he could hold noth
ing back. He would not spare himself in arguing his case before the Council. Having no future meant that there could be no consequences, no regrets. And in that moment Reid felt free.
The men of the tribe were gathering when he reached the wide central plaza with its four open-fronted sheds. The members of the white clans sought seats in the shed on the west. The warriors of the red clans claimed the shed on the north. The Second Men, advisors to the Miko, sat to the south. All the others occupied the shed to the east. Just as Reid was finding his place in the shed on the west where members of the Bird clan sat, he caught a glimpse of Blue Feather at the opposite end. The old man nodded and glanced away.
As silence fell, the Creek men settled themselves and lit their pipes. The Miko, the chief's Interpreter, and the War Speaker filed in and took their respective places—the Miko and the Interpreter in the white clans' shed, the War Speaker in the shed that belonged to the red clans.
The Second Men rose to prepare the purifying drink from the leaves and twigs of certain holy plants. The English called it black drink because of its color. The Creek called it white drink because it cleansed both mind and soul.
When the white drink was ready, the ceremony that preceded every meeting of the Council began. Three servers approached the Miko and offered a cup of the inky brew. The chief took it in his hands, and while the men sang a long, droning note, he put the cup to his lips and drank.
When the chief finished, the men moved to the Interpreter, on the right, then to the War Speaker and each of the Miko's advisors. So the ceremony went on, the servers pouring more of the drink from a hollow gourd and passing the cup from hand to hand. They moved from the highest-ranking members of the chiefdom to the lowest, replenishing the supply of brew when it ran low, waiting while each man swallowed down the contents of the cup.
When Reid's turn came, he took the vessel with trembling hands. He knew this was the start of it. The end was just beginning.
* * *
Livi watched Reid leave carrying himself like the warrior he was, his back straight, his shoulders squared, his stride determined. A man setting off to take on the world. She sensed the challenge in him, the recklessness, the desperation.
And it frightened her. A man who took on the world rarely won. That was what he'd come to tell her—that though he meant to fight, he thought he'd lose. That though they were returning the disks, the Council might sacrifice her baby anyway.
Reid had come to let her know he was willing to offer up his life to save her child. He had come to say good-bye.
The realization battered Livi to her knees. She crouched there trembling, panting with fury and weeping with fear. How dared he be so brave? How dared he be so careless with his life when he knew she loved him?
Bright Bird knelt beside her. "You must accept what the Council decides," she offered sagely. "You must allow Ravens Flight do what he will."
"He means to give his life to save my child."
"Then that is his choice. It is what the Master of Breath intends for him."
"You may believe that and he may believe it." Her voice quavered as she spoke. "But I can't accept it."
Livi looked up at the other woman through tear-glazed eyes. "You must help me find my baby. Now, before it's too late."
Bright Bird shook her head. "I cannot."
"You're a mother. You know how much you love your child, how much you'd give keep him safe. If it was your child in danger, could you stand aside and watch him die? Could you let the man you love sacrifice himself to save him?"
"It is not a choice for me to make."
Livi tightened her grip on the younger woman's wrist. "Do you know where Little David is?"
Bright Bird shook her head.
"Do you know who does?"
"She Who Heals knows, but she will never tell."
Livi nodded, knowing the older woman would never reveal where they were keeping her son.
She has to think of another way to find him. "Will they bring Little David to the Council?"
Bright Bird recoiled. "You cannot go!"
"I won't wait here while they decide my baby's fate!" Or Reid's.
"Ravens Flight would be angry if you were there."
Livi knew he would be far more than angry. "I will take his anger upon myself."
Livi could sense the younger woman's struggle, how she was weighing her duty to her tribe against Livi's plea.
"She Who Heals would bind you to the house post before she would consent to this," she warned, and glanced toward the lodge where her own baby slept.
"You would have to pledge that once we reach the council square you will not speak," she hedged. "You must promise that you will not show yourself. "
Livi would have sold her soul—and lost it gladly—to be so near her son, to have a chance to rescue him if the Council decided he must be sacrificed.
"You must do exactly as I say," Bright Bird warned her.
Livi inclined her head. "I pledge on my woman's honor."
Livi waited, her heart like a rock inside her chest as she waited for confirmation. When Bright Bird nodded, Livi clasped both her hands by way of thanks.
While the others in the lodge slept, the two of them collected what they'd need and went to the creek to bathe.
It unnerved Livi to have to disrobe in front of so many strangers, and her uneasiness grew when the women began to titter among themselves.
"Are they shocked that my skin's so white?" she whispered.
Bright Bird's dark eyes twinkled. "They are laughing because you have hair on your body in places we Creek women pluck ours out."
Livi cast a glanced toward the others, then sank even deeper into the frigid water. That was where she stayed until all the women were gone.
As they dressed in their deerskin skirts and trade-cloth shirts Bright Bird began to ask questions. "Is Ravens Flight your husband?"
"In a way," she answered as she laced up her calf-high moccasins.
"I was a small girl when his grandfather brought him here," Bright Bird volunteered. "But I remember Ravens Flight was always kind to me."
* * *
Reid only spoken once about his time with the Creeks, and Livi was still curious. "Tell me about him coming here."
"They say that the trader McTavish brought Ravens Flight to the Bird clan because he could not live among the whites."
"And was McTavish accepted as a friend?"
"Always." The younger woman nodded. "McTavish had saved the Miko's life years before, and they swore that made them brothers of the same blood. When McTavish asked for Light of Dawn, the Miko's eldest daughter as his bride, the Creeks believed their union would bring peace and prosperity. But it did not."
"Was Reid accepted when his grandfather brought him to the camp?" Livi wanted to know.
"Blue Feather, Light of Dawn's brother, took his part. He made Soaring Eagle pawa to Ravens Flight," Bright Bird explained. "It is the duty of the pawa to take a young man into his home and teach him to be a warrior."
"And it was when Soaring Eagle, Reid's pawa, was killed that Reid left."
"Soaring Eagle was killed by Red Hand's clan," she continued. "There has long been conflict between the Bird and Panther clans."
Livi sensed there were things about Soaring Eagle's death that Bright Bird wasn't telling her. "Why did the Panther clan kill Soaring Eagle instead of Reid?"
Bright Bird hesitated. "It was when they were practicing for war that Ravens Flight killed Red Hand's teuci, his younger brother. Heart of the Wolf fell to his death when they were fighting. Ravens Flight was only defending himself, but it is our way for a clan to claim a life for a life when one of the men is killed.
"But instead of them taking Ravens Flight, the Panther clan chose to kill Soaring Eagle."
"But why?"
"They killed him because of his great power in the Council. And once Heart of the Wolf's death had been avenged, the clans could fight no more."
But Reid hadn't been able
to accept that. It was why he'd left the only place he'd ever been accepted. He left because Soaring Eagle had died for Reid's mistake. He'd exiled himself because of his guilt, because he had never been able to accept this was the Creek way.
Once Bright Bird finished winding her braids around her head and fastening them with a brooch, she took out her knife and began to trim the straggle of Livi's hair.
"You must understand," Bright Bird went on, "what returning here requires of Ravens Flight."
"What does it require?"
"It means he must admit he was wrong to leave. It means that he must acknowledge that Soaring Eagle's death was justified. It means that he will accept whatever other judgments the Council makes."
Livi wondered what Bright bird was trying to tell her. Would Reid have to accept the sacrifice of Livi's son to be accepted here?
It made her reconsider why Reid had come to the compound this morning. Had it been to let her know he would fight for Little David's life? Or to help her understand why he'd have to accept the Council's decision, no matter what?
Had Reid told her he loved her because he meant to sacrifice himself, or because he knew she would despise him if he acceded to the council's decision about her son?
Livi's hands shook as she and Bright Bird gathered their belongings and returned to the round house. With her heart in her throat, she waited out the long hours of the morning. And when it was time to leave for the ceremonial plaza, Livi couldn't say if Reid was going to champion or betray her.
Chapter 25
Livi struggled to maintain some semblance of calm as she and Bright Bird sought seats in the council square. The place was crowded, the air thick with conversations and pipe smoke. People turned as they passed, their eyes avid, curious. They put their heads together and spoke in whispers.
That is Ravens Flight's woman, they must be saying. She has come here to learn if her son will die.
Livi hated that the entire village seemed to have turned out—to see if the sacred disks would be returned, to see if Ravens Flight's child would be sacrificed. She hated that she didn't understand the language or the customs. She hated that she must sit silent while these men deliberated the fate of her child.
A Place Called Home Page 37