The Secret of the Swamp King
Page 12
Aunt Seku watched eagerly for Aidan’s pleased reaction. When his eyes watered from the pain of having a live grub attached to his tonsil, Seku mistook his tears for tears of joy. The grub went down at last, and to Aidan’s relief and gratitude, Tombro took more than his share of the grubs. Aidan was able to make it through the rest of the interview with Aunt Seku without further incident.
“Sorry I was jubulous of you when you first come up, Pantherbane,” said Seku. “It’s just that I been seeing some peculiar things around here.” She pushed the grub bowl toward Aidan, who patted his stomach to signal that he couldn’t eat another bite. “The other day, little Berdo come in here telling about a man in the trees, wearing a shirt made outta cold-shiny circles. I figured it was just a wee-feechie tale. But then Hendo come into my hut yesterday with a cold-shiny arrowhead he found in the woods.
“When the young’uns set up such a calaberment today about a civilizer on Scoggin Mound, it made me feel a little tetchy.” She pointed at Aidan’s gleaming hunting knife. “I seen that shiny thing, and I figured the civilizers was here to get us sure.”
“I’m sorry I scared you, Aunt Seku, and the weefeechies too,” said Aidan. “I’m just glad you fired a warning shot.”
“That weren’t a warning shot,” answered Seku. “That was a shaky shot from an old she-feechie what’s about wore out.” She laughed a jolly, cackling laugh. “I was aiming to shoot you dead.”
As he had promised, Tombro provided Aidan with a tortoiseshell helmet, a short feechie bow and stone-tipped arrows, and a stone knife. They couldn’t do anything about Aidan’s unfortunate haircut, and Tombro let him keep his civilizer boots. They left his cold-shiny knife with Aunt Seku for safekeeping.
Throughout the rest of the day, feechies from all over the northern end of the Feechiefen arrived at Scoggin Mound for the next night’s swamp council. They came throughout the night, too, and all the next day. Most of them bore stories similar to the ones Aunt Seku had told. A dying deer, escaped from the hunter who shot it, was found to have been wounded with a steel-tipped arrow. A scout had seen what he believed to be the glint of cold-shiny armor in the treetops at Bug Neck. A hunter had heard the unfamiliar clank of metal in the bay forest of Long Strand.
Feechies from the bands that roamed the deepest interior of the swamp reported seeing a near-constant billow of smoke rising from Bearhouse Island—not the smoke of cooking fires but the thicker, blacker smoke of a more intense fire. And feechies from every band told stories of their meanest, most difficult bandmates switching over to Chief Larbo’s band.
Throughout the day, Aidan kept hoping Dobro would show up. Feechies came by the dozen, but none of Chief Gergo’s band appeared. The little island buzzed with talk of cold-shiny spears, cold-shiny knives, slaughtered plume birds, and falling trees on Bearhouse Island. Aidan wondered what they would have left to talk about at that night’s swamp council.
Fifty feechies or more came up to butt heads and introduce themselves to the great Pantherbane who, they had heard, had skinned a panther alive, eaten an alligator whole, and grabbled three catfish on one dive at Bayberry Creek. They all wanted to tell the great Pantherbane where they were and what they were doing the day the feechies and the civilizers together routed the Pyrthens in the Eechihoolee Forest. Fifty times Aidan explained how it was his quest for the frog orchid, and not a desire to fight Chief Larbo, that had brought him to the swamp. But no one seemed to know anything about the frog orchid.
With every introduction, every friendly head-butt, Aidan kept one eye out for Dobro. Then, around midafternoon, Dobro, Doyno, Branko, Odo, and Rabbo—the delegation from Chief Gergo’s band—arrived at last from Bug Neck. “I heard old Pantherbane was here,” Dobro whooped, slapping Aidan on the back. “Come to fetch him a flower!”
After a warm reunion with Aidan, Doyno, Branko, Odo, and Rabbo melted into the crowd to repeat their own stories about the day Pantherbane first fell in with Chief Gergo’s band. Meanwhile, Dobro and Aidan sought out a quiet slough away from the hubbub of the settlement, where they would have privacy to catch up on events. Along the way, Aidan told how he came to be in the Feechiefen. He told of King Darrow’s jealous rage and his sending Aidan on a quest for the frog orchid, the only cure for his melancholy.
Dobro shook his head at the underhanded, convoluted dealings of the civilizers. “That ain’t the feechie way,” he said. “If I want your nose busted, I ball up my fist and I bust it; then I take whatever might be coming to me. I don’t tell you to walk into a tree and hope you bust it yourself.”
“That makes for a lot of nose busting, doesn’t it?” asked Aidan.
“Maybe so,” answered Dobro. “But you bust a feller’s nose, he busts yours, and the whole thing’s over. Things don’t boil and bubble till you decide you want to kill a feller instead of just busting his nose.” He swished a stick in the water, watching the trail of tan bubbles swirl on the black surface. “I’ve got my nose busted many times, but I ain’t never had nobody try to kill me.” A joree bird trilled in the bushes: “Tow-heeeeee! Tow-heeeee!” Aidan pondered whether Dobro was exceptionally wise or just a regular feechie scrapper.
“Pantherbane,” said Dobro slowly, as if trying the name out. “If it’s all right with you, I’m just going to call you Aidan of the Tam. That’s who you were when I met you.”
“That’s who I still am,” protested Aidan.
“‘Aidan of the Tam I am,’” began Dobro, repeating the song Aidan sang in the bottom pasture the first day they met. “‘A liege man true of Darrow.’”
Aidan finished the stanza:
The kingdom’s foes I will oppose
With sword and spear and arrow.
“You a liege man true, all right,” said Dobro. “Ain’t no doubt about that. But I got a question. What if the kingdom’s foe turns out to be the king hisself? Who you gonna oppose then?”
Aidan didn’t answer. “I’m just saying,” continued Dobro, “a king sends the kingdom’s best men out to die for no good reason, maybe he ain’t much a friend to his own kingdom.”
“I’ll never oppose my king,” Aidan said firmly, in a tone that made it clear he wasn’t going to discuss the matter any further.
“That’s fine,” answered Dobro. “But it looks to me like your king is opposing you. Ain’t no cause to get angrified at me.”
Aidan’s anger subsided. It had been his choice to come to Feechiefen. He had no illusions about King Darrow. Sure, the king believed he was sending Aidan to his death. But it was the king’s melancholy, not the true king, that made that decision. Things would be different when he returned to Tambluff Castle with the frog orchid. The king’s melancholy would melt away, and things would be as they should be.
Aidan changed the subject. “I’ve heard stories about he-feechies leaving their family bands to join Chief Larbo’s band at Bearhouse. Has anybody from Gergo’s band gone over?”
Dobro nodded slowly, his eyes cast down. “Yeah,” he said. “Remember Benno Frogger?”
“Yeah,” answered Aidan. “Sort of a show-off, if I remember right.”
“That’s the one,” said Dobro. “He picked up and left one day. Said folks in Gergo’s band didn’t ’preciate him. Since when I was supposed to ’preciate tomfoolery and show-offiness, I don’t know, but that’s what he said. Said he was going to Bearhouse where a man’s free spirit was ’preciated.
“I don’t believe poor Benno knew what he was flapping his jaws about. Some strange feechies had been showing up around Bug Neck. I believe he got all that palaver about free spirits and ’preciation from them strangers.
“Benno’s mama asked me to run him down, to tell him he was a thick-headed jaybird and drag him home if I had to. I caught up with him and tried to talk sense to him. He just looked at me kind of blank, the way a possum does.
“Then he pulled a knife on me. Not a stone feechie knife, neither, but a cold-shiny knife. I asked him where he got such a thing, and the answer he gave me was mig
hty peculiar. He said it was a present from the Wilderking.”
Chapter Seventeen
Feechiesing
It was well past nightfall when the swamp council convened. A large group of the participants had gone fishing and didn’t come back until it was too dark to see what they were doing. Others had spent the late afternoon napping in the island’s big oak trees and had to be rousted out.
A cold but satisfying supper of duckweed and duck potatoes was served, and the seventy or so swamp councilors lolled around the smoking village fire for awhile, not saying much. Aidan wondered when they would get down to business.
Hyko stood at last. “We got a lot to talk about tonight,” he said, “so I reckon we ought to get this here swamp council started.”
“Awww,” complained a voice in the crowd. “We just got here!”
“We ain’t even had no entertainment yet.”
“I just figured,” said Hyko, “that we might skip the entertainment tonight and get straight to the confabulation.”
A loud and growing grumble arose, and Hyko could see he would have an uprising on his hands if he didn’t give in. “All right, all right, all right!” he shouted. “What do you want to do? Fistfights? Contests?”
“How ’bout a feechiesing?” came the voice of Orlo.
A chant rose up from the crowd: “Fee-chie-sing! Fee-chie-sing! Fee-chie-sing!” They stomped in time with the chant. Three sweet gum logs were dragged in and laid side by side to form a small stage called a singstump. Chief Gergo’s band, the Bug Neck boys, had a reputation throughout the swamp for putting on the best feechiesings, and the other feechies urged them toward the front.
Branko was the first to mount the singstump. “If it don’t make you boys too lonesome for your sweethearts,” he began, “I thought I’d sing a little love song.” With nods and hoots the audience encouraged him to proceed.
“Sing on,” called one of the Coonhouse feechies. “If I can’t have my little love-turtle by my side, a love song is the next best thing.”
“Sing on!” echoed the rest of the assembly.
Branko clasped his hands over his heart and sang the lilting tones of a feechie love song:
My sweet feechie girl is the swamp’s finest pearl—
A treasure, and man, don’t I know it.
And I really do think that she loves me, too,
Though she don’t always know how to show it.
Her brown eyes are dark like a loblolly’s bark.
Her skin is as smooth as a gator.
The one time I kissed her, she knocked me cold, mister.
But nothing could cause me to trade her.
She smells just as sweet as a mud turtle’s feet.
Her hair is as soft as a possum.
Once I walked by her side,
but she knocked me cross-eyed.
It took me a week to uncross ’em.
Her voice is as pleasin’ as swamp lily season
She talks kind of froggy and crickety.
Once I give her a rose, and she busted my nose.
My sweetie can be right persnickety.
I’ll give you this warning: You mess with my darling,
I’ll whop you a right, then a left.
And if that ain’t enough, or if you’re extra tough,
I might let her whup you herself.
Cheers and applause echoed in the trees. “That was beautiful,” called Jerdo. “Gets better every time I hear it.”
“If that song don’t describe my little Hudu all over …” began a member of the Scoggin Mound delegation, but he broke off and dabbed at one eye and then the other with the back of a fist.
“Quick, somebody,” called Orlo, “sing something merry, like a hunting song. This feller’s done got lonesome for his sweetheart.”
“Where’s Doyno?” somebody asked. “Doyno, sing the one about your cousin Mungo.”
“Yeah, ‘Mungo and the Bear,’” shouted another feechie voice. “We ain’t heard that one since day before yesterday!”
Doyno, happy to oblige, climbed onto the makeshift singstump and without further ceremony launched into his signature song, a ballad about his relative’s epic struggle with a great black bear. Every feechie in the camp knew all the words by heart, but they joined in only on the refrain:
The scrape was fresh upon the tree,
The musk was on the air.
Mungo said, “Boys, follow me—
Let’s get ourselves a bear.”
We tracked him through the bottomland,
We knowed he wasn’t long.
We heard him racketing through the cane
And Mungo egged us on.
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
Don’t let Bruin win the race.
Through the thickets, through the brakes,
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
He led us where the bamboo spears
Grow dense then denser, densest.
We caught up where the canebrake clears
And where the creek commences.
Old Bruin rared and slashed around
And give a roar like thunder.
We was all ready to lay it down,
But Mungo was a wonder.
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
Don’t let Bruin win the race.
Through the thickets, through the brakes,
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
There weren’t no fear in Mungo’s eye.
That feechie was a bold’un.
He only stood about waist-high
To the bear, and yet he told him:
“I want your hide, you ugly bear,
And a necklace from your claws,
A pot of your grease to slick my hair
And steaks for one and all.”
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
Don’t let Bruin win the race.
Through the thickets, through the brakes,
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
He raised his spear behind his ear,
And hollered out, “Let fly!”
Our points rained thick upon the bear
Like hailstones from the sky.
But don’t you cry for that old bear.
Spears can’t break his stride.
Half he swatted from the air.
The rest bounced off his hide.
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
Don’t let Bruin win the race.
Through the thickets, through the brakes,
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
So Mungo charged; they did collide,
And here commenced the drama.
Old Bruin stretched his big arms wide
And hugged him like a mama.
The bear mashed Mungo good and thin
And rearranged his stuffin’.
His eyes bulged out, his chest caved in.
(This hug was none too lovin’.)
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
Don’t let Bruin win the race.
Through the thickets, through the brakes,
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
Mungo managed to free a thumb.
He poked old Bruin’s eye.
The bear let go to rub it some,
And Mungo slipped on by.
He clumb up Bruin’s brawny rear
And hugged his hairy neck.
Bru bucked and rared and spun and veered,
But Mungo wouldn’t shake.
The bear tore out across the swamp
With Mungo in a clench.
The last we saw was Bruin’s rump,
And they ain’t been back since.
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
Don’t let Bruin win the race.
Through the thickets, through the brakes,
Give him chase, boys, give him chase.
The feechies whooped and cheered and stomped like thunder. Aidan was spellbound. When D
oyno dismounted the singstump, Aidan caught him by the arm. “Was that story true?” he asked.
“’Course it’s true,” answered Doyno. He seemed surprised anyone would question the truth of a feechie ballad. “Happened about five winters ago. I seen the whole thing myself.”
“And your cousin Mungo”—Aidan tried to put it as delicately as possible—“what became of him?”
“Can’t say I know,” answered Doyno in a very matter-of-fact tone. “Somebody said they thought he’d took up with the bear and his family. Said they saw somebody looked a lot like Mungo raiding a bee tree with some bears.”
Aidan gave Doyno a doubtful look, but Doyno didn’t appear to notice. “I don’t believe it though,” continued Doyno. “Mungo’s so mean and aggravating, I don’t reckon any bears would put up with him. Besides,” he added, by way of emphasis, “Mungo always stunk something terrible.”