CHAPTER 21
Smoke
The moment Jesse and Ahtlee returned to their village, they were ushered toward the council house with some ceremony. There they would be expected to go over the story again and again, slowly and painstakingly inspecting every statement, which Jesse prayed he’d translated right. Before they even stepped through the entryway, the council house had been what Adelaide called “smudged.” The People had burned sage and sweetgrass, letting the smoke clear evil and anger from the room, as well as from the men’s hearts. Jesse was stopped at the door and had to wait while one of the elders held the bowl of smoking herbs before him, then used a feather to fan the stuff over his face, head, and body. He was starting to get used to this kind of thing, though he still found it strange. Adelaide had tried to explain how all of this worked, how the earth and the sky and the spirit world were all connected or something. Jesse had no idea what she was talking about, but he’d given up fighting it.
After the smudging was complete, all the men sat in complete silence, and the head priest came in. He said prayers, turning to the four walls of the council house as he did so: east was first, then south, west, and north, praying to the four symbols of air, water, fire, and earth. When the prayers were done, the sacred pipe was offered around.
Jesse’d heard about this pipe from Adelaide. She’d never smoked it—claimed she never wanted to—but had tried to explain to him what it was all about. A mixture of trumpet flower, sumac, and tobacco was packed into the pipe, along with dried leaves of another plant. After a man inhaled the traditional mix of herbs, he was expected to speak, to share his innermost thoughts. Those thoughts were supposed to come out with brilliant clarity, embracing facts and possibilities with intelligence and intuition. Adelaide had called the stuff Indian Truth Serum, saying a man couldn’t lie at that point. Jesse was very curious.
The building was comfortably quiet, though almost suffocating with the heat and stink of so many bodies sitting close together on this sweltering day. Jesse could only hope the whole thing wouldn’t take too long. Soquili, sitting on his left, jabbed him with his elbow to get his attention. When Jesse lifted an eyebrow in question, Soquili explained how, when the pipe was offered, it would be his turn to speak. Jesse should let the smoke come into him gently, let it mingle with the air in his lungs, then let it drift out. It all sounded pretty easy.
“Little smoke, Jesse. Little smoke. No big smoke,” he said, watching Jesse closely to make sure he paid attention.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving Soquili off.
Jesse studied the men as they smoked. They looked relaxed, puffing at the long clay pipe, letting smoke drift out of their mouths and noses. When a man exhaled that sweet smoke, no one looked away, and no one else spoke. Jesse wondered if it was his imagination, but it seemed to him the words seemed to come slower upon the man’s exhalation, his thoughts calm as the ponderous tendrils of rising smoke. When the pipe was handed to him, he reached for it, turned his hand over, as he’d seen the others do, and inhaled, trying to assume the expression of a man who knew what he was doing.
The smoke was harsh in his throat, but he controlled the reflexive coughing. He closed his eyes, filled his lungs, then waited. He’d seen the other men take their time before blowing the curls of gray through their lips, so he forced his lungs to freeze, take in whatever they were supposed to take in, before he slowly exhaled.
Clarity of thoughts. Intelligent insight into possibilities. That’s what the pipe was supposed to bring.
Well, he’d obviously done something wrong. When he opened his mouth, Jesse couldn’t even speak. Just the idea of using his voice seemed impossible. Words? Any words he’d planned before had snuck out and left him completely empty. His gaze floated lazily over the sea of eyes and he noticed there seemed to be more of them all of a sudden. Every dark brown iris was completely focused on him.
Jesse blinked, then marvelled at the simple action, at how his eyes had simply known to do that without any prompting from him. Fascinating. He blinked again, on purpose, noticing for the first time in his life the slick sensation of his lids passing over his eyes. The feeling struck him as funny, and he adopted a wide, blank grin. Soquili was quiet beside him, but when Jesse turned his head, ever so slowly, toward this “brother” of his, Soquili smiled back.
“You’re not so bad,” Jesse managed to say, tripping through the words. His tongue had gained weight. It felt thick and foreign. He frowned, considering. The only other time he’d had so much trouble speaking was when he’d gotten into Thomas’s whisky that time, and how funny—actually, he couldn’t remember what had been funny, but he was sure it had been. He chuckled, and Soquili joined in.
Soquili said something quick to the others and a unanimous snicker simmered through them. It was the kind of sound that might have set Jesse off at other times, but at this particular moment he found the very concept of laughter hilarious. Mirth rolled out of him, turning his muscles to jelly, sending his empty thoughts to float among the smoke. Eventually, he realized he was the only one laughing, and dedicated a lot of effort to keeping his face neutral. He wiped his hands over his eyes, looking around the room and trying to fit himself back into the goings-on. The pipe had moved on. It was three men down now, which meant he’d missed three speeches. Huh. No one had waited to find out what the amazing Jesse Black had to say. He frowned. They couldn’t just keep going, could they? Weren’t there rules?
“Hey,” he said, reaching for the pipe.
Soquili put his hand on Jesse’s arm and gently pressed it down to his side. He shook his head. “You don’t need talk,” he said.
Jesse wanted to object, wanted to contribute something. He pictured the scene at the powwow, the smug look on Thomas’s face. He knew that expression, knew it meant nothing good could be in it for the Cherokee. He searched his mind for the right way to say these things, but thanks to the pipe, the words got garbled and lost in the thick space between his ears. Truth serum. Ha! Jesse rested his elbows on his knees, let his head slump into his hands, and fell asleep.
He had no idea how long the meeting went on before he was shaken awake and shoved into the cool night. The air felt brisk against his hot skin, and his head suddenly seemed as clear as the starry night. Soquili walked beside him as usual, but he wasn’t speaking. He didn’t look angry, only thoughtful.
“What’d I miss?” Jesse asked.
Soquili looked at him, at a loss.
“Big talk?” Jesse tried, jabbing his thumb back at the council house.
Soquili shrugged and tried to speak English. “We talk more in morning.”
“Did Ahtlee tell them—”
“My father talk, other men think.”
Not much he could do then. Not that there ever had been. “Damn, I’m hungry,” he muttered.
Soquili lifted an eyebrow, inquiring.
“Hungry,” Jesse said, a little louder. Soquili grinned and nodded, then took him home and gave him the most delicious snack of dried venison he’d ever had.
It all started again in the morning: the smudging, the sitting, the prayers . . . and the pipe. Soquili and he headed inside the council house, then went through the routine. As they sat, Soquili glanced at him, his expression giving nothing away.
“What?” Jesse asked, already on the defensive, regardless of Soquili’s frame of mind.
“Smoke not so much today,” Soquili suggested, the corner of his mouth twitching.
Jesse scowled. “Okay.”
The pipe did the rounds, and Jesse watched closely when Ahtlee stretched out his hand for it. Everyone was quiet, waiting. Ahtlee spoke slowly, outlining what had happened at the powwow. His deep voice rumbled, every word heavy with meaning.
One by one, the men took their turns voicing questions and opinions. It was obvious from the start that the elders, for the most part, were going to side with Standing Trees and Runs Q
uickly, if only for duty’s sake. The younger men, the warriors, argued emphatically, pointing out the weak points that Jesse had shown Ahtlee. Their youthful gestures became more urgent, more frustrated, and the elders grew louder as well, demanding more attention on the basis of their status.
Ahtlee gazed around through narrowed eyes, studying each man and his reaction. He was leaving it up to them, Jesse saw. Why would he do that? Ahtlee was usually so smart. Why wouldn’t Ahtlee step in and show them the answer?
Resisting temptation, Jesse behaved. When it was his turn to accept the pipe, he took a short puff and blew the smoke out almost immediately. By doing that, he was left in relative control of his thoughts, though he rode a pleasant, dizzy wave as it passed through his mind at first. Despite the attention aimed his direction as a result of the pipe, Jesse wasn’t nervous. It frustrated him that Ahtlee wasn’t saying anything constructive. He wanted to be heard. He knew his Cherokee would sound wrong no matter what he said, but he couldn’t stand to keep quiet any longer, to let all this go without at least saying something. Two dozen pairs of eyes stared through the firelit room, waiting for him to say something more intelligent than he’d attempted the night before.
“I say,” he said in stilted Cherokee, “this is bad. I say Tsalagi no go there. These bad words hurt Tsalagi . . .”
He stopped, immensely frustrated when he couldn’t find the right words. How could he explain Thomas’s nefarious character in a room full of honest men?
Soquili took the pipe and did what he could for Jesse, trying to elaborate. Voices rose and fell again, the old men railed against Jesse’s lack of evidence, and Jesse dropped his forehead back into his hands. In the end, he realized, he could do nothing about any of this. He was a translator. A pawn. The whole thing was damn frustrating. He told himself he didn’t care one way or the other.
Now if only he could believe that.
CHAPTER 22
In the Village
He didn’t see her the next morning, but he wasn’t overly surprised at that. She was probably a bit spooked after their little interlude by the river, though he hoped she’d gotten past that. For a moment, he questioned whether he should have kissed her or not that day, then dismissed the question. She hadn’t objected, as far as he could recall. And it had been something he’d needed to do. But now, since she’d disappeared, he figured he’d have to tread carefully again, let her take the next step.
Soquili took him to a different site along the riverbank in the morning, passing between houses, pausing to speak to women hard at work skinning the recent catch, then stopping where three men worked on a forty-foot canoe. The massive yellow poplar had been felled months before, and small curls of smoke still rose from the fires lit along its top. In places the carefully tended fire had finished its job, leaving cooling grey ashes in its wake. The men used axes to remove the ash, hollowing out the boat as they went.
Taking his cue, Jesse pulled an axe from his belt and chipped away at the burnt wood, trying to ignore the heat from the contained burn as it baked his skin from below. Overhead, the sun seethed from a cloudless sky. Sweat soaked the waistband of his trousers, and he wiped streams of it from his face with the back of his arm. The men worked in silence, none of the Cherokee showing any surprise or concern that this white man was included in the process. Of course not. They weren’t stupid. It was damn hard work. Any help was good help.
Jesse was all right with hard work. He was used to it, and he actually preferred working, because it gave him a chance to stop thinking. He and the others worked a few feet at a time, moving slowly, so everything would be completed perfectly. It had taken months to get to this stage, and when they finished this part, they’d spend just as long sealing off the wood with animal fat and pinesap, making the canoe entirely waterproof. After a half hour, Jesse stood back, one hand on his waist, one scratching his head, and looked at the thing, estimating twelve warriors would eventually row from within its sturdy shape.
After a couple of hours, Soquili’d had his fill of labour, so he and Jesse left and headed to the promise of the river. Hard work might be good for the soul, but cold water had never felt so good as it did in the moment when Jesse dove into the deep pool. He swam without surfacing, keeping his eyes open, running his fingers through meadows of reeds and underwater grass. When he finally burst through, blinking at the suddenness of the sun, he spied Soquili loping along the bank, headed toward a thick oak.
Jesse paddled his feet in place, staying deep enough so he could dip under whenever he wanted, but keeping his head up so he could watch Soquili. The Cherokee scaled a gnarled old tree using the outstretched limbs as a ladder, until he stood twenty feet in the air. Then he called down to Jesse and flung himself into the air, landing with a huge splash in the river. His head popped to the surface, black as an eel except for the flashing white smile that clearly invited Jesse to join in.
Grinning, Jesse followed Soquili, climbing up to the thick branch and hanging on while Soquili sidled out to the edge. Soquili waved, beckoning him, but Jesse shook his head. He looked up, spotting another branch six feet higher. Waving Soquili off, he scrambled up, then stepped carefully toward the thinner branches at the end, his toes clinging to the rough bark to keep from slipping off before he was ready. Soquili, standing almost directly beneath him now, laughed.
“Ah, my brother. You always must be better. Some things do not change.”
Jesse grinned maniacally at him, then sprang off the branch, screaming his version of a Cherokee war cry. He could run, climb, crawl, and swim with the best of them, but Jesse had never flown before—other than leaping off a roof, and that hadn’t been anywhere near as high as this. The sensation twisted his belly, sent a bolt of crazy, wonderful fear through him. He whooped with the thrill of it, then plunged into the silence underwater, sinking into the weeds until his toes touched on the silt beneath. Like one of the river frogs, he bunched his legs under him and shot back up, rising weightlessly again.
Waterlogged and glistening under the sunshine, the men climbed and jumped for an hour, as if they were young boys, swimming until neither had the energy to go another step. They dragged themselves to the shore and fell asleep on their backs under a big oak, sharing the first real peaceful moment as brothers they’d ever had. They woke at almost the same instant, both struggling up onto their elbows and saying nothing as they came back to the sunshine and shadows.
“More council today,” Soquili muttered.
Jesse sighed. At least this would be the last one before they headed back to meet with the politicians. He’d had more than enough of these things. Nobody paid any attention to him anyway. What was the point?
“You don’t need me there. I’ll see you after.”
Soquili frowned. “You come. No question.”
“I don’t have a choice?”
Soquili shook his head. “You come.”
“Why? No one wants to hear what I say.”
“You come.”
Stubborn son of a bitch. Jesse plucked a blade of grass from beside him and peeled the outer layer off, slowly enough that the blade stayed whole by the end. Then he tossed it and grabbed another. This one he stuck in his mouth and chewed for a while. Maybe today he could say something that mattered.
Ahtlee silently acknowledged them when they arrived at the crowded council house, then took up his observation post again, braced against the council house wall with his arms crossed, keen eyes reading every expression. Once again, nothing was decided, and the meeting seemed to go on for much longer than three hours. Both Jesse and Soquili came close to nodding off. Jesse felt as if he’d been in there for years, surrounded by pipe smoke and snarling Cherokee. He didn’t know if he contributed to the arguments with his occasional obligatory comment or not—he tried to sound impartial but knew it didn’t come out that way. It’s just that he knew his father, and his father had been smiling. Therefore, the Indian
s were getting cheated.
Jesse was surprised to see Adelaide waiting when he finally came outside. It was after dusk, but the warm summer air was still heavy as it played with her hair. She had tied it behind her, he saw, in one long tail that flicked up with the breeze as a horse might twitch its tail at a bothersome fly. She leaned against the wall at one corner of the building, arms crossed, and gave him a small smile. Such a pretty smile, he couldn’t help thinking.
“Good evening, Miss Adelaide,” he said.
That prompted a wider smile. “Miss Adelaide? Sounds like I’m an old woman or something. I don’t think I’ve been called that since I was a little girl. And only when I’d done something I shouldn’t have done. Miss Adelaide, Miss Margaret, Miss Ruth . . .” Her smile faltered, but she forced it back and stepped away from the house. He walked alongside her, unexpectedly elated by her presence. After all the dark feelings he’d dealt with during the powwow, after the hours of male cussing and posturing within the sweltering confines of the council house, she was like a cool drink of water.
“How was the meeting?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Do you really want to talk about that?”
She glanced up and met his gaze, then chuckled. “No, I’d rather not. I think I can imagine enough without your stories.”
“Good. I’m tired of thinking about it.”
The wind puffed, lifting her blond tail and draping it over one shoulder. She reached for it and silently stroked its length a few times before tossing it back. So this was how Adelaide did her thinking, he realized. She walked. And maybe, since she’d been waiting to bring him along for the walk, well, maybe she wanted his thoughts as well.
Somewhere to Dream (Berkley Sensation) Page 14