People of the Mist (74 page)

 
          
“What
do you know?”

 
          
“Enough.”
Panther pulled at his chin, sensing that Okeus was grinning evilly at him. “You
were never a one-man woman. Black Spike knew that, but as long as you came to
him every so often, he could overlook your many faults. Love blinds a man.”

 
          
“Love
can blind a woman, too.”

 
          
Panther
looked up at Red Knot’s body. “Indeed it can.” He considered his next words.
“When Hunting Hawk dies, you will step aside and name Nine Killer Weroance.”

 
          
She
started, then stared at him incredulously. “You’re crazy, if you think I’m
going—”

 
          
“You’will,”
Panther insisted. “If you don’t, I’ll ruin you, Shell Comb. I can do it, and.
you know that I will. I know everything, right down to the reason you were
coughing when you stepped out of the House of the Dead that morning. Your
throat hurt from running, didn’t it?”

 
          
She
stared at him with that same glassy look of disbelief.

 
          
“Shell
Comb, I don’t mind if Black Spike offered his life in place of yours—I honor
him for it—but I will never forgive you for hurting Sun Conch.”

 
          
“Sun
Conch!”

 
          
“You
weren’t in the Women’s House the night before last, were you? Rosebud saw you
slip out early, just after sunset. You thought she was asleep. In less than
fifteen paces you reached Flat Willow’s weapons just inside the door of. his
cousin’s house. You knew he was considered a possible killer, and you just
assumed he’d catch all of the blame for my death.”

 
          
“You’re
insane!”

 
          
“Maybe,
but you’ll never be Weroansqua.”

 
          
“It
will be your word against mine.”

 
          
“You
will promise me, Shell Comb. Right here. If you assume the mantle, I will hound
you to ruin.”

 
          
She
frowned, as if baffled by his words. “I paid for my mistakes.”

 
          
“No,
Red Knot and Black Spike paid. High Fox will continue to pay with what little
life remains for him. You got away with it, again.” He shook his head. “You
disgust me.” She seemed to come back to herself. “I don’t know what you’re
talking about. Mother will die soon. She can’t hold out much longer. When she’s
up there”—she pointed to the bodies—“I’ll be Weroansqua. And then, I’ll do as I
please. Maybe even have you burned, witch!”

 
          
Panther
shook his head. “Look at me. In the eyes. You will name Nine Killer as
Weroance. Yellow Net will fight it, but you have the right. You will use that
right to name Nine Killer.”

 
          
She
met his determined gaze. The crazed look lingered there, on the rim of her
soul, held back by the barest of restraint. Even as he watched, her “Soul began
to cave in. The reality of what she’d done ate through, and her resolve wilted
into nothingness. Her shoulders slumped and she began to cry.

 
          
He’d
won. But what sort of victory?

 
          
Through
sobs, she asked, “What are you going to do?”

 
          
“Nothing.
Unless I have to.” Panther stood up, his soul numb and empty. “What will you
do? Your lover is dead. So is your daughter. You don’t know it, but your future
is just as much a corpse as Red Knot up there.”

 
          
“Black
Spike did that! He said so!”

 
          
“He
did, didn’t he? I came here to punish you for hurting Sun Conch.” He stepped
back to the passageway. “But I think your punishment is just beginning. The
moment you crushed your daughter’s skull with that war club, you killed
yourself.”

 
          
“Even
I draw the line at incest! I paid for Monster Bone, for Black Spike’s wife! I
paid for my mistakes!” She looked down at her right hand, opening and closing
the fingers, as if gripping a war club.

 
          
“No,
as I said, Red Knot, High Fox, and Black Spike paid. You knew that Hunting Hawk
couldn’t allow them to run off. She’d drag them back, and it would all come
out. The murders, the incest between High Fox and Red Knot. You’d be
destroyed—and Greenstone Clan with you.”

 
          
“I
protected the clan!” Her voice had turned brittle.

 
          
“Green
Serpent said he saw Red Knot’s ghost that morning, but in the dim light he
mistook you for her when you were replacing the war club.”

 
          
“I
set aside my feelings! I did it! I hardened my heart like Mother always said.”
She was shaking now. “For good of the clan, I am worthy!” “Okeus help you now,
Shell Comb, you’re the one who has to live with it. At night, when the dreams
come, and you see your lover and your daughter staring at you, how will you
explain it to them? When you hear of High Fox, living in the forest like a hunted
animal, what will your soul feel? Each passing moment, you will know that your
boy is a loathsome pariah, despised and wretched because of you. And, when he
finally kills himself, or is killed by some uneasy warrior, his ghost, too,
will come and stare from the shadows of your soul.”

 
          
She
whispered, “Black Spike? Where is Black Spike? Please? I need to see him.”

 
          
“He
can’t come, Shell Comb. Not ever again.” “Black Spike …” she mewed, then
collapsed onto the matting, rolling herself into a fetal ball. Sobs racked her,
and tears slipped down her soft cheeks in silver threads. Panther turned,
walking slowly up the passageway toward the exit, and the clarity of the cold
afternoon light.

 
          
Abler,
Thomas S.” and Elizabeth Tooker

 
          
1990
“Seneca.” In Handbook of North American Indians, Bruce G. Triggered.
Washington
,
D.C.
: Smithsonian Institution. Amos, William H.” and Stephen H. Amos

 
          
1985
Atlantic
and
Gulf
Coasts
. Audubon Society Nature Guides.
New York
: Alfred A. Knopf.

 
          
Boyce,
Douglas W. 1990 “Iroquoian Tribes of the Virginia-North Carolina Coastal
Plain.” In Handbook of North American Indians, Bruce G. Triggered.
Washington
,
D.C.
: Smithsonian Institution.

 
          
Coffey,
Timothy

 
          
1993
The History and Folklore of North American Wildflowers.
New York
: Facts on File.

 
          
Custer,
Jay F. 1984
Delaware
Prehistoric Archaeology.
Newark
,
New Jersey
:
University
of
Delaware
Press.

 
          
Custer,
J. L. 1989 Prehistoric Cultures of the Delmarva Peninsula: An Archaeological
Study. Newark, New Jersey: University of Delaware Press. Dent, Richard J. 1995
Chesapeake Prehistory: Old Traditions, New Directions. New York: Plenum Press.

 
          
Dogget,
Rachel, ed.

 
          
1992
New World
of Wonders: European Images of the

 
          
Americas
.
Seattle
:
University
of
Washington
Press.

 
          
Feest,
Christian F. 1990a “
Nanticoke
and Neighboring Tribes.” In Handbook of North American Indians, Bruce
G. Triggered.
Washington
,
D.C.
: Smithsonian Institution.

 
          
1990b
“
North
Carolina
Algonquians.” In Handbook of North American Indians, Bruce G.
Triggered.
Washington
,
D.C.
: Smithsonian Institution. 1990c “
Virginia
Algonquians.” In Handbook of North American
Indians, Bruce G. Triggered.
Washington
,
D.C.
: Smithsonian Institution.

 
          
Ferguson
, Alice L.” and T. Dale Stewart

 
          
1984
An Ossuary Near Piscataway Creek with a Report on the Skeletal Remains.
La Plata
,
Maryland
: Alice Ferguson Foundation; Dick Wiles Printing Co.

 
          
Foster,
Steven, and James A. Duke

 
          
1990
A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants: Eastern and Central
North America
. The Peterson Field Guide Series.
Boston
: Houghton Mifflin-Company.

 
          
Goddard,
Ives

 
          
1978
“
Delaware
.” In Handbook of North American Indians.
Bruce G. Triggered. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. <

 
          
Harriot,
Thomas

 
          
1590
A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia. Reprint. New York:
Dover Publications,

 
          
1972.
Hudson, Charles M.” ed.

 
          
1979
Black Drink: A Native American Tea.
Athens
,
Georgia
:
University
of
Georgia Press
.

 
          
Hurley,
Linda M. 1990 Field Guide to the Submerged Aquatic Vegetation of
Chesapeake Bay
.
Annapolis
,
Maryland
:
U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service,
Chesapeake Bay
Estuary Program.

 
          
People
of the Mist 551

 
          
Israel,
Stephen

 
          
1985
“Archaeological Investigation of the Bradley Site, 18CV219, Mears Creek,
Calvert County
,
Maryland
.”
Maryland
Archaeology 21:1, pp.

 
          
10-34.

 
          
Kent
, Barry C. 1989 Susquehanna ‘s Indians.
Anthropological Series No. 6.
Harrisburg
:
Commonwealth
of
Pennsylvania
, The
Pennsylvania
Historical and Museum Commission.

 
          
Kent,
Bretton W. 1994 Fossil Sharks of the
Chesapeake Bay
Region.
Columbia
,
Maryland
: Egan Rees & Boyer, Inc.

 
          
Kraft,
Hebert C. 1986 The Lenape: Archaeology, History, and Ethnography. Newark, New
Jersey: New Jersey Historical Society.

 
          
Kurath,
Gertrude P. 1964 Iroquois Music and Dance: Ceremonial Arts of Two Seneca Longhouses.
Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 187. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution.

 
          
Lippson,
Alice Jane

 
          
1973
The Chesapeake Bay in Maryland: An Atlas of Natural Resources. Baltimore,
Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press.

 
          
Lippson,
Alice Jane, and Robert L. Lippson

 
          
1984
Life in the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University
Press.

 
          
Morgan,
Lewis Henry

 
          
1851
League of the Iroquois. Reprint. New York: Citadel Press, Carol Communications,
1962.

 
          
Papenfuse,
Edward C.” and M. Mercer Neale

 
          
1993
Close Encounters of the First Kind, 1585-1767. Maryland State Archives:
Documents for the Classroom. Publication no. 4198; Maryland State Archives;
Baltimore.

 
          
Porter,
III, Charles W. 1972 Adventurers to a
New World
:
The Roanoake Colony. Office of Publications, National Park Service; United
States Department of the Interior;
Washington
,

 
          
D.C.

 
          
Potter,
Stephen R. 1993 Commoners, Tribute, and Chiefs: The Development of Algonquian
Culture in the
Potomac
Valley
.
Charlottesville
,
Virginia
: University Press of
Virginia
.

 
          
Rights,
Douglas L. 1947 The American Indian in
North Carolina
.
Durham
,

 
          
North Carolina
: Duke University Press. Rhode, Fred C, and
Rudolf G. Arndt, David G. Lindquist, & James F. Parnell

 
          
1994
Freshwater Fishes of the
Carolinas
,
Virginia
,
Maryland
, &
Delaware
.
Chapel Hill
,
North Carolina
:
University
of
North
Carolina
Press.

 
          
Roundtree,
Helen C. 1989 The Powhatan Indians of
Virginia
.
Norman
,
Oklahoma
:
University
of
Oklahoma
Press.

 
          
1990
Pocahontas’s People: The Powhatan Indians of Virginia Through Four Centuries.
Norman
,
Oklahoma
:
University
of
Oklahoma
Press.

 
          
1993
Powhatan Foreign Relations: 1500-1722. Helen C. Roundtree, ed.
Norman
,
Oklahoma
:
University
of
Oklahoma
Press.

 
          
Schmidt,
Martin F. 1993 Maryland’s Geology, Centreville, Maryland: Tidewater Publishers.
Silberhorn, Gene M. 1982 Common Plants of the Mid-Atlantic Coast. Baltimore,
Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press.

 
          
Stephenson,
Robert L. 1984 The Prehistoric People of Accokeek Creek. Accokeek, Maryland:
Alice Ferguson Foundation. Dick Wildes Printing Co.

 
          
Sutton,
Ann, and Myron Sutton

 
          
1985
Easten Forests. Audubon Society Nature Guides.
New York
: Alfred A. Knopf.

 
          
Tantaquidgeon,
Gladys

 
          
1972
Folk Medicine of the
Delaware
and Related Algonkian Indians.
Harrisburg
:
Commonwealth
of
Pennsylvania
, The
Pennsylvania
Historical and Museum Commission.

 
          
Williams,
Jr.” John Page

 
          
1993
Chesapeake
Almanac: Following the Bay through the
Seasons.
Centreville
,
Maryland
: Tidewater Publishers.