People of the Mist (12 page)

 
          
And
you wanted to be a warrior? Sun Conch straightened. The irregular inlet
stretched about ten tens of body lengths across. Trees whiskered the dark
banks. Her gaze followed the moonlit waves rolling in to lap softly at the
shore, and she wondered about High Fox. Had he and Red Knot escaped? Were they
even now on their way to the Father Water and the legendary cities of the
Serpent Chiefs? For many Comings of the Leaves Sun Conch had listened to the
Traders’ stories of the Father Water country. They described glorious man-made
mountains, and houses the size of her entire village. She had smiled at them at
first, but she’d heard so many Traders tell the same stories that she’d started
to half-believe them. And they’d brought things back. Copper ornaments, and
magnificent shell gorgets etched with the frightening and wondrous image of a
Bird Man, his wings spread, his man’s eyes staring out at her as if to melt her
soul. She remembered High Fox turning one particularly intricate gorget over and
over in his hands, his mouth open in awe.

 
          
“Blessed
gods, I miss him. If only I had …”

 
          
Movement
caught her eye. She whirled in time to see someone rise up from the belly of a
canoe. Like a silhouette cut from windblown shadows, it wavered; then she saw a
hand grab unsteadily for the hull.

 
          
“Sun
Conch?” a wavering voice called. “Is that you?”

 
          
Stunned,
she stood like a wooden statue. It could not be … She took a step toward him,
and her pulse pounded in her ears. “High Fox?”

 
          
“Oh,
thank Okeus.” He scrambled from the canoe and started toward her. “Sun Conch,
the dark god himself must have sent you here. I’ve been hiding since late
afternoon, waiting for Night Woman to smother the light. I was coming to you.
You were the only one I could think of. The only one I could trust.”

 
          
He
threw his arms around her and drew her against him in a grip that drove the air
from her lungs. He had seen eight and ten Comings of the Leaves, and stood two
heads taller than Sun Conch. Her face rested in the middle of his greased
chest. She could smell the musty tang of his sweat, and something else,
something fetid, like the stench of old blood.

 
          
She
pushed back to look up at him. His perfect oval face, with its pointed nose,
bore streaks of dirt. Confused, she stammered, “Wh-what are you doing here? I
thought—”

 
          
“I
know, but…” His voice went tight. “She’s dead.”

 
          
Sun
Conch stared openmouthed. “Who? Who is?”

 
          
He
dropped to his knees, grabbed Sun Conch around the waist, and buried his face
in her feathered cape. The desperate choking sound he made terrified her.
“Blessed Okeus,” he said, “my pretty girl. My Red Knot. She’s dead! Murdered.”
For a long moment Sun Conch couldn’t speak. Elation mixed obscenely with
sadness—sadness that the young, beautiful Red Knot had been killed, and elation
that High Fox had come running home to her. The emotions fused so completely
they seemed one. Then High Fox looked up and she saw tears glimmering on his
cheeks. She swiftly knelt in front of him. “What happened?”

 
          
“It—it
started at the dance. Copper Thunder, he—he watched Red Knot like a wolf on a
blood trail. I couldn’t stand it, Sun Conch. I waited until I could get Red
Knot alone, then I—I…” He fell into broken sobs, and clutched at Sun Conch’s
cape as though it were a rope thrown to a drowning man.

 
          
“I’m
here, High Fox,” she soothed. “I’m right here. Now, tell me. All of it. What
did you do?”

 
          
“I
convinced her to run away with me!” he cried, his eyes swimming. Words poured
out, rapid, often broken. “But someone must have overheard. We… I—I don’t know
who. I saw no one, but he must have decided to stop her, and he—oh, gods.” High
Fox leaned forward and braced his forehead against hers. “It’s my fault. I
killed her, Sun Conch! I did it.”

 
          
Sun
Conch went white and her eyes widened in horror. “You … you killed her? You—”

 
          
“No!”
He stared down at her and a driving fear invaded his voice. “Don’t you accuse
me! I didn’t do it! I—1 tell you, I didn’t. She was dead when I found her. Just
sprawled there. Blood… her blood was everywhere.” He looked down at his right
hand, and shivered.

 
          
His
fingers dug into Sun Conch’s shoulders like eagle’s talons, and Sun Conch had
to grit her teeth to keep from crying out. She said, “Of course you didn’t kill
her. You could never do such a thing to … to someone you loved, High Fox. I
know that. Now, let me go. You’re hurting me.”

 
          
As
if realizing his strength for the first time, he released her and took a step
back, his dark eyes huge. “Oh, Sun Conch, forgive me. I didn’t mean to harm
you. Never you. You are the only one I trust.” He shook his clenched fists.
“Help me, Sun Conch. You must help me. Please. I beg you!”

 
          
She
forced a calm into her voice that she did not feel.

 
          
“I
will do anything you ask me to. You know I will. But you must explain to me exactly
what happened. I don’t understand any of this.”

 
          
He
threw up his hands. “I don’t either, I …” He blinked and abruptly frowned at
her mouth. “You-you’re bleeding. Your mouth. What—”

 
          
“It’s
nothing,” she answered. “Forget about it.”

 
          
“What
happened? It looks like—”

 
          
“I
fell, High Fox. I was running through the forest to get here. It was dark. It
was a stupid thing.”

 
          
His
brows lowered as if he knew she was lying. “Did someone strike you?” Anger
tinged his voice. “Who? Why? Is this part of your punishment for daring to say
you loved me, for—”

 
          
“Let
it go!” she ordered. “Please, High Fox. We have more important things to
discuss. Do you think Greenstone Clan killed her for trying to run away with
you? For ruining their alliance with the great Copper Thunder?”

 
          
“I
do not know. Truly. They might have, but I told no one except Red Knot what I
had planned. I–”

 
          
“You
told me.”

 
          
“Of
course,” he whispered, and a small smile turned his lips. “You are my best
friend.”

 
          
All
the misery she’d been holding inside for two days suddenly flooded to the
surface. “And you are mine, High Fox. I missed you so much, I thought I would
die.”

 
          
He
took her hands in a crushing grip. “It’s all right. Everything is going to be
fine. You just need to help me think this through. I’m lost, Sun Conch. They—”
His voice dropped to a whisper. “Sun Conch, they will think I did it.”

 
          
“How
could they, High Fox? Everyone knows you loved her.”

 
          
He
shook his head. “No, Sun Conch. They don’t know that I loved her the way I
really did. People … they thought we were friends. They don’t know that I… we
Someone saw me. Running away from her dead body. It was Flat Willow.”

 
          
A
well of cold grew in Sun Conch’s belly. Flat
Willow
had the soul of a stalking cat. If he’d
seen High Fox running away, he would surely tell it. She pushed back from him.
“Then you must go to your clan elders. Explain. Tell them you didn’t do it. You
are the Weroance’s son. They will believe you.”

 
          
He
smoothed his fingers over her hand. “My poor innocent girl. What our people
think does not matter. Flat
Pearl
will hunt me down. They—”

 
          
“But
you didn’t kill her!”

 
          
“No,
but everyone saw my face that night. I looked like a rabid dog. Blessed gods, I
could not watch her leave with that filthy old man. The thought of them together
was like a swarm of biting flies in my belly. I had to do something! But no one
will understand my actions. Don’t you see? They will think I convinced her to
run away with me so that I could kill her. That if I could not have her, I
would allow no other man to.”

 
          
“Even
if the people at Flat Pearl believe you guilty, your Sun Shell Clan will not.
They will protect you.”

 
          
He
laughed, but the mirth quickly turned to choking whimpers. “Old Hunting Hawk
has always hated me. She will demand that I be turned over.”

 
          
“Your
clan … and your father … will refuse.”

 
          
“Yes,”
he said. “I know. Black Spike will refuse and so will the Sun Shell Clan
elders—it will shatter the alliance. Don’t you see, Sun Conch? This murder
means war. And I—I don’t know what to do. I can’t think straight.”

 
          
Moonlight
streamed down, silvering his exposed skin, and Sun Conch saw what looked like
speckles of blood on his fingers. Without realizing it, she recoiled, her heart
thundering.

 
          
High
Fox seemed to know what she was thinking. He pulled his hands away. “What is
it?”

 
          
“Nothing,
I just… I—I don’t feel very well. I haven’t eaten in days.”

 
          
His
fists flexed open and closed. “I should not have come home. There is nothing
for me here. I’ve no right to ask you for anything. Especially not after what
happened two days ago. I should have stood up to my father that day in the
plaza. I—”

 
          
“No,
you shouldn’t have!” Cheeks blazing, she said, “I do love you, High Fox, but I
was wrong to say it before the people. It shamed your father to have a potter’s
daughter from Star Crab Clan make such a declaration about his son. You are the
son of a great Weroance, whereas I—I am nothing. If you’d defended me, it would
have only made things worse.”

 
          
High
Fox lifted his hand, and gently touched her cheek. “You may be the daughter of
a potter, but you are the only true friend I’ve ever had. And I do love you,
Sun Conch. Until I met Red Knot, I—I always thought we …” He took his hand away
and clenched it into a hard fist. “That’s what I should have told my father.
That you were not to blame. I was.”

 
          
Hope
leapt in her veins. She laid a hand, feverish and urgent, on his arm. “We could
run away, High Fox. You and I. This instant! I would go with you to the Serpent
Chiefs. Please. Take me away with you!”

 
          
Tears
glistened in his eyes. “My poor sweet girl. Do you think I can forget how young
you are? Your clansmen would kill me, Sun Conch, and have every right to.”

 
          
“Not
if we leave! I—I can be your wife, High Fox. Truly, I can. If you will only let
me, I promise I—”

 
          
“Please!”
He squeezed his eyes closed as if in pain, and stepped backward, away from her.
In the moonlight he resembled a tortured warrior. “I can’t make another mistake
on top of the one I’ve just made. Somehow, I’ve got to prove that I didn’t do
this thing.”

 
          
A
gust of cold wind swept across the water and fluttered long strands of her
black hair before Sun Conch’s eyes. She did not have the strength to brush them
away. As long as she remained a child, he would not touch her. The cold truth
left her feeling sick and empty.

 
          
To
hide the tremor in her hands, she tucked them beneath her arms. “You are right,
of—of course. You can’t have our village against you at the same time that Flat
Pearl is accusing you of murder. One enemy is enough.” She managed to draw a
breath into her lungs, and held it for a time. As she slowly let it out, she
asked, “But how can we prove that you didn’t murder her?”