“Tell it that we’re all waiting for it. Tell it. Something Good.” Something Good’s drawn, beautiful face softened, the angles melting back into curves. Her eyes closed and peace settled in, the first she’d known in the six months since Eagle’s death. Medicine Woman, Blocks The Sun, and Silver Rain were silent as Something Good communed with her unborn child. A contraction seized her, then another. They were coming close together now, but she seemed oblivious to the pain.
Finally the tiny, furry head pushed through the narrow opening, ripping the tender edge of its tunnel. The head was covered with wet, downy, black hair, almost like a fledgling bird. As more of the baby pushed into the light, Medicine Woman reached out and tugged gently, helping it into the dim, quiet world of the lodge. She lowered it onto the soft bed of furs and bit the umbilical. She tied the ends off and massaged the baby until it gave a small cry. She held the child up so Something Good could see it was a girl.
While the mother lay back panting, Medicine Woman wrapped the infant in a rabbit-fur robe and took her down to the nearby stream. Breaking the thin crust of ice at the edge of it, she scooped water up and washed the child as she squalled and kicked in protest. Half an hour later, she threw the afterbirth into the running water in the middle of the stream and watched it whirl away on the current. She sent her prayers after it, and turned and climbed back up the bank.
Silver Rain wrapped the umbilical cord in a piece of soft doeskin and hung it on the hackberry tree outside the lodge. The tent had been set up there on purpose. If the cord hung undisturbed in a hackberry tree, the child would have a long life. Naduah resolved to guard it to make sure nothing happened to it. That a child’s fate should depend on the whimsical appetite of crows seemed no stranger to her than what she’d heard the women of Parker’s Fort talk about: a knife under the pillow will cut the pain, an ax under the bed will stop bleeding, mother’s milk spurted on a hot rock will dry up a breast.
Since it was the grandfather’s job to ask the sex of the child, Old Owl hovered near the doorway. If he had had a hat he would have been holding it in front of him, fidgeting and twirling it with nervous fingers.
“E samopma, it’s a girl.” Blocks The Sun pushed her massive shoulders through the small opening, making the lodge itself appear to be giving birth. Old Owl’s face fell a little. He shrugged philosophically, hitched up his leggings, which always sagged on his thin, bowed legs, and went off to discuss the newest arrival with friends around a pipe. He knew the rumor that was flying around camp like a shinny ball in a fast game. He knew that the whole tribe would be curious about whom this baby resembled.
Gossip was the main pastime at any season of the year, but in winter it practically took precedence over eating and sleeping. As crowded as the camp was, and as freely as everyone entered each other’s lodges, secrets were harder to keep than fresh meat in the summertime. Already women were streaming toward the birth lodge, to pay their respects, to offer suggestions for names and care, and to gawk. Mainly to gawk. Under his bland expression, Old Owl was worried.
CHAPTER 23
The buds on the trees were taut and shiny. The hills were covered with a fur of green from the recent rains. The world looked washed, and the ponies were cavorting in the pasture, neighing and kicking their heels like colts. They were beginning to lose the lumpy look they had when they grazed all winter on bark and twigs. The air was cool but not chilly, and the birds were out of their minds with joy. They kept up a constant cacophony in the cotton woods overhead.
The huge winter camp was beginning to stir. White Robe’s band had left a week earlier for the north, and Spirit Talker’s people had gone the day before, dwindling into their own cloud of dust as though swallowed up by it. Old Owl and Pahayuca’s bands had stayed together a while longer, reluctant to say good-bye for another season. They might run across each other, but it wasn’t likely. The People’s land was vast. There was enough room in it for everyone to hunt.
Spring seemed to be bursting out of everything. Especially Bear Cub and Upstream. They led the gang of small boys that came galloping on their ponies down the narrow path between the lodges. They were whooping and whistling and flapping buffalo hides. They sent dogs and women and children tumbling in all directions. They scattered the cooking fires, sending up great gouts of choking smoke with their flapping hides. The war ponies reared and neighed at their tethers.
The boys’ object was the large meat rack outside Old Owl’s tent. As they raced by, each boy leaned out and grabbed a handful, stripping the rack as bare as a bleached buffalo carcass. Cub hung by one foot from the loop braided into his pony’s mane, his yellow curls cascading around his head. He scooped up the gray fire horn that his grandfather always kept by his door, in case friends dropped by for a smoke. He bounced back on his pony and, to add injury to insult, swatted his sister on the shoulder as he rode by, counting coup.
“A-he, I claim her!” They all laughed as they disappeared to enjoy their stolen feast, somewhere on a sunny ledge by the water, or high on a ridge overlooking the countryside. They left Naduah and Star Name and the women to clear up the wreckage.
“I didn’t think it was possible,” Star Name shook her head, “but your brother is worse than mine.”
“You’re right. Old Owl indulges him too much. He should never have been given a pony so young.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered.” Star Name stooped, picking up the litter of thongs and awls. “He would just have stolen one. Most of those boys borrowed their ponies.”
“Neither his father nor his grandfather punishes him for anything. He can do whatever he likes.” Naduah felt aggrieved, but she had never been punished either. In fact, she couldn’t remember seeing anyone punished. Adults told erring children that the People didn’t behave that way. And that sufficed.
As Takes Down rearranged the huge mosaic of hides they were piecing into a lodge cover, she interrupted.
“They’re learning to be warriors. What they do today will be good practice for what they must do on raids.”
“I pity the Osage,” said Owl.
“Or the Cheyenne,” added Something Good.
“Or anyone else who gets in the way,” Deer grumbled.
“They’ll be fine warriors as long as they don’t have to depend on stealth,” said She Laughs.
“He’s a nuisance, that’s what he is.” Naduah was jealous. Just because he was cute and brash and brave to the brink of insanity, he charmed everyone. Sometimes Naduah hated being a girl.
Takes Down went quietly back to her work, directing the women who were making a lodge cover for Deep Water, Owl’s brother. She knew why Cub was so audacious, but she said nothing. Captive children almost always tried harder to prove themselves. She would rather be captured by one of another tribe than by a white who had adopted the red man’s ways. Such men were more ferocious, much more inclined to torture their prisoners. Cub would be a terror, although not as bad as Cruelest One. Under his swagger and bluster, Cub was an affectionate child.
As Naduah shaved and sharpened skewers from the pile of sticks next to her, she watched the women work on the huge patchwork of hides. Takes Down was trimming it into a semicircle, cutting along the line she had made by pressing a pointed willow stick into the leather. The lodge was a large investment for Owl’s family. It had taken them a long time to accumulate the ten hides for this small one. The hides Deep Water had been given by Wanderer as his share of the raid on the Tonkawa village, plus those from the fall hunt and the ones his grandfather had taken in payment for his arrow-making, had finally amounted to enough.
“Why does Deep Water get his own lodge? He’s only fifteen, even if he did bring in a scalp.” Naduah’s sense of equity was injured.
She Laughs looked up from the hides she was sewing. Her legs were stretched out in front of her and the cover drawn up over them. Her voice was strangely musical, coming from her rough face.
“I wish we could have made him one sooner. Deep Water has to have
his own lodge so he won’t have to sleep near Owl.”
“Why shouldn’t he sleep near Owl?” Naduah and her whys.
“It’s taboo for him to sit near me. Or for me to touch him. He could kill me if I did.”
“Why?”
Takes Down spoke again. “Deep Water is a warrior. He has to have a place to make the medicine he needs to protect his family. He can’t be close to his sister. He might adopt some of her womanish ways and fail in battle or on the hunt.”
“Besides,” added Medicine Woman, “cooking grease is contaminating, and so is menstrual blood. He has to sleep where there is none.”
“Are you bleeding already, Owl?” It was something all the girls looked for. Their rite of passage to adulthood. “No. But I might someday soon.”
Naduah finished the last skewer she was whittling. The pointed sticks would be woven through lines of holes punched into the front of the lodge to hold it together. She Blushes was measuring and punching the holes for them. Medicine Woman, She Laughs, Black Bird, Deer, and Something Good sat back on their heels while Takes Down checked their work and did some last-minute trimming. The whole cover should fit together perfectly when it was raised. Takes Down didn’t want to have to lower it to make adjustments.
The huge semicircle was twelve feet at its widest and twenty-four feet across its straight edge, with two flaps at the center of that edge to close the smoke hole. There were two smaller half-circles cut from the lower part of the same edge. When the edge was brought together the half-circles would meet to form the door opening.
It was a small lodge cover, but there were still many seams to pull to test for weak places. The lodge would have to withstand the stress of howling gales and hard travel, sun and rain and snow and hail that stripped trees and knocked down flocks of birds. Also, it was a point of honor with Takes Down never to have to take down a lodge to refit it. That was why everyone came to her when they needed a new one.
“Toquet, all right,” she grunted. “On your feet.” The women got up, rubbing their knees and groaning about the pain of it all, and about how hard Takes Down The Lodge made them work. Takes Down ignored them and bustled around putting everyone in position for the lodge raising. It never occurred to them to ask a man for help. No one needed their interference.
The four main cedar poles, fifteen feet long, lay nearby. They had been freshly peeled and they smelled wonderful. Their large ends had been sharpened to stick into the ground. She Laughs tied them near the top, and four of the women set them upright. They pulled the butt ends out until they seemed evenly spaced then planted them firmly. Takes Down paced across inside, starting at the east and walking from one pole to the other, measuring the distance with her feet. She made Deer pull her pole out a little, then had the women stack the other eighteen poles around the four main ones.
Something Good, the tallest and slenderest one there, stood on Deer’s soft, meaty shoulders, her feet sinking into the flesh as she lashed the poles in place. Deer supported Something Good’s slender ankles with her hands, and kept up a steady stream of harassment.
“Something Good, just because you’re a chief’s wife doesn’t mean you never have to wash you feet. Whew! When did those moccasins die? Did you forget to tan them before you sewed them? Are you carrying a dead skunk inside them as medicine? If so, it’s powerful.” Something Good laughed and almost fell, clinging to the poles for support.
“Be careful, Deer.” Naduah circled Deer, craning her head upward and ready to break her friend’s fall if she slipped.
“Child, we’ve been doing this since long before you were born.” Deer beamed down at her, her eyes disappearing into the folds of her smile like currants into whole-wheat dough. “You’re putting on meat, Something Good,” she called up, squeezing the girl’s calves. “Soon there’ll be enough of you to make a whole woman. And you’ll be able to wear Blocks The Sun’s dresses.”
“She could wear them now. She and three or four others together,” put in She Laughs. “Did you hear that Pahayuca is saving all his old lodge covers now. He says if Takes Down will let them out a little they’ll be fine for Blocks The Sun to wear.”
And so it went. And no one seemed to mind. In fact, Naduah was grateful to Deer. There was often a strain when Something Good was around. The girl’s nose was perfect. Pahayuca hadn’t slit it, although whether it was from his love of her, his friendship with her father, or his own good nature, no one could say. And there was a great deal of speculation on the subject.
Something Good still carried her head high, but she didn’t talk freely to many. Nor was she included as often in the things the women did. Takes Down and Black Bird had asked for her help, and Deer had accepted her, which made it difficult for the others in the special circle of friends not to. She had joined them at first because she was fond of Naduah and Star Name, but now she felt comfortable with all of them. Takes Down understood her pain and would have gone out of her way to befriend her anyway, but Wanderer had also spoken to her of it, as a favor to him and to his dead blood brother.
The women picked up the edges of the cover and carried it around the frame. Takes Down and She Laughs went inside with two long poles. Reaching out with them, they snagged the center of the cover between the two smokehole flaps and dragged it, flesh side out, up the outside of the frame. They held its eighty-five pounds, their arms straining, while the others climbed on each other’s shoulders, and fastened it at the top. Then they pinned it in place along the front seam, down to the door opening, and pegged its hem down. They all stood back to admire it while Takes Down walked slowly around it. None of the seams puckered or buckled or was pulling apart with the strain. Other women gathered until there was a crowd, clucking and cooing and running their hands along the seams to check the workmanship.
Raising a lodge was routine, but there was a knack to fitting one perfectly, especially this one, since it was smaller than those Takes Down usually made. She had had no old cover to use as a pattern, and had drawn this one freehand on the ground. Then she had to fit the assortment of hides to the correct shape. She had approached the problem as she did most things. She thought about it quietly as she went about her chores. Then, the day the cover was to be pieced, she was up early and had the hides laid out by the time the other women arrived. She worked swiftly and efficiently from some plan in her head, and as usual, it was work well done.
“All it needs now is a dew cloth to hang around the sides,” said Medicine Woman.
“And a woman to sneak under the wall’s edge at night.” Deer laughed, making obscene motions with her hands.
“We’re working on the dew cloth now,” said She Laughs. “He’ll have to take care of the other himself.” Owl grimaced. She spent all winter scraping hides so her brother could have his own lodge to get away from women so he could smuggle one in anyway.
“He’s too ugly for any woman,” grumbled Owl.
“No, he’s not,” Star Name jumped to defend him.
“Were you planning to sneak into his lodge, bright eyes?” It was good to see Something Good laughing and teasing again, even if it was rare.
“Did you hear that Old Owl’s band is moving soon?”
“All of us will be moving soon. I pity those who live on the outskirts of camp. The dung is getting deep there. You have to watch where you walk.”
“There was plenty to eat this winter. It all had to go somewhere.”
“But not outside my lodge.”
“Speaking of eating, what’s for dinner, She Laughs?” Deer always came to the point. She Laughs was expected to feed the workers and give Takes Down a present.
“There’s antelope.”
“Good. I like antelope.” Deer chuckled and began sidling toward She Laughs’ lodge nearby. “You like everything, Deer.”
“That’s true. But I especially like antelope. Young antelope.” She eyed Smoke speculatively, dressing her out in her mind. Naduah ignored her teasing, and Something Good changed the subject.
“Pahayuca sent a bedding robe as a present to Deep Water. I left it near Weasel’s cradle board. Naduah, would you bring it for me?”
Naduah trotted off and Smoke leaped ahead of her. They ran to where Something Good’s baby, Kianceta, Weasel, was laced into her cradle board. The board stood braced against a grape bush and the robe, in a large folded square, lay next to it. On top of the robe, like a pretty, brightly colored bracelet, was a coral snake. It was slithering slowly toward the cradle board, as though to inspect what was there. Little Weasel watched, fascinated.
Naduah froze and looked frantically for a weapon. She kept absolutely still, afraid a cry would startle the snake. What if it crawled up the wrapping and bit Weasel’s lip or nose? Coral snake bites were usually fatal, certainly to a two-month-old child. But while Naduah stood, Smoke acted, so swiftly that she could hardly be seen.
Rearing, she came down with her sharp hoofs on the snake’s head. She reared and pounded again and again, throwing the snake off the robe and into the dirt, where she continued to attack it. It wasn’t until Naduah saw the snake smashed and lifeless that she screamed. She ran to Weasel, kicking the snake’s body as far as she could when she passed it. Dog assumed she was playing fetch and went after it. She arrived with it in her mouth just as the women were running up.
Something Good took Weasel and crooned to calm her, but she was the calmest one there. Naduah knelt in front of Smoke and hugged her, then rubbed her muzzle with her own nose. Smoke licked her cheek.
“I’m going to tell Cub about this. He says I shouldn’t make friends with the food supply. Says it’s hard to eat your friends. As if I’d ever eat you, Smoke.”
Naduah and Cub had been having a footrace with Smoke and Dog. Since Smoke could run sixty miles an hour, it wasn’t much of a contest. But she loved to run with them anyway, bounding around and around them. Now the two children hung by their legs from a low branch in a live oak tree, with Naduah flailing her arms to keep Smoke and Dog from licking her face. It was fun to view the world from upside down.
Robson, Lucia St. Clair Page 27