dining room.”
“Forget us, Daisy,” Emily said. “Just don’t even tell anyone in the dining room that we’re awake and up.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Walks-With-Spirits makes a lot of sense if a person listens and thinks about what he says,” Emily said defensively. “Jacob wasn’t trying.”
“Well, neither was Walks-With-Spirits,” Cotannah said lightly. “I wonder how his coyote’s doing this morning. When I went out for a walk a while ago, I glanced in that hay shed where he left him during supper, but there was no sign of them.”
“He told me when he left the house that he was going back to the cave for the night,” Emily said. “He only brought Taloa here when he was shot because it was the nearest place to find the herbs he needed. Normally, he eats with us about once a week or so but he has never spent the night here.”
Again the need to move, to do something, hit Cotannah, and she got up to refill their small china cups.
“Where’s his cave?”
The minute she asked the question she held her breath, wanting desperately to know. But why? What did she plan to do with the information—go out there and demand an explanation for all the mysterious remarks he made last night? Go out there and demand that he look at her and see that she was a woman, that he respond to her as a man and not some vague-talking philosopher?
“It’s over there in the east side of Buckthorn Ridge,” Emily said. “Tay says the People have always had summer gatherings and ball plays there because of the cold water springs.”
“All right,” Cotannah said, “I know where it is.”
She returned to the table with the coffee.
“If Walks-With-Spirits is living out there alone and coming in to see you all but once a week, then why was Jacob carrying on so about him causing division and strife in the Nation? I don’t see how that could be so.”
“He does things, and people hear about them,” Emily said. “Like stopping a disease that was making the deer sick by finding some kind of grass for them to eat and planting some seeds he brought from the Old Nation to revitalize some abandoned, worn-out fields.”
“I don’t see why that’d make anybody call him a witch.”
“Mostly that rumor comes from his association with so many wild animals,” Emily said. “When he does go into town—or any other time anyone sees him in the woods—he’s walking around with a coyote and a mountain lion. People have seen eagles and ravens fly down and sit on his shoulder and raccoons bring bright pebbles out of the creeks and drop them at his feet.”
“So then the other half of the People again say he’s a shaman.”
“Right. Especially when he knows ahead of time when a tornado will come and he can predict its path.”
“And again, the other faction cries witch.”
“Yes. And they say he should be run out of the Nation before he does something evil to someone. It’s a growing controversy,” Emily said, wiping Sophia’s plump hands and setting the wiggling child on the floor, “through no fault of his own.”
“Then he isn’t going around preaching a return to the old ways as Jacob claimed?”
“No. Other people are doing that because they see his powers and observe that he lives in the woods as the People did in the Old Nation long before the white men came.”
She sighed and got up to follow Sophia, who ran directly to the pie safe and jerked open its lower doors.
“Olmun is one of Walks-With-Spirits’s greatest admirers. He thinks he’s wise far beyond his age. He’s eager to talk with him every chance he gets, and personally, I think Jacob is jealous because he’s an only child and he has always been the light of his father’s life.”
“Ah,” Cotannah said. “That explains a lot about the tempest at the supper table last night.”
“Yes,” Emily said, laughing a little. “Doting father Olmun has always thought Jacob was wonderful, but even he would never call Jacob
“Forget us, Daisy,” Emily said. “Just don’t even tell anyone in the dining room that we’re awake and up.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Walks-With-Spirits makes a lot of sense if a person listens and thinks about what he says,” Emily said defensively. “Jacob wasn’t trying.”
“Well, neither was Walks-With-Spirits,” Cotannah said lightly. “I wonder how his coyote’s doing this morning. When I went out for a walk a while ago, I glanced in that hay shed where he left him during supper, but there was no sign of them.”
“He told me when he left the house that he was going back to the cave for the night,” Emily said. “He only brought Taloa here when he was shot because it was the nearest place to find the herbs he needed. Normally, he eats with us about once a week or so but he has never spent the night here.”
Again the need to move, to do something, hit Cotannah, and she got up to refill their small china cups.
“Where’s his cave?”
The minute she asked the question she held her breath, wanting desperately to know. But why? What did she plan to do with the information—go out there and demand an explanation for all the mysterious remarks he made last night? Go out there and demand that he look at her and see that she was a woman, that he respond to her as a man and not some vague-talking philosopher?
“It’s over there in the east side of Buckthorn Ridge,” Emily said. “Tay says the People have always had summer gatherings and ball plays there because of the cold water springs.”
“All right,” Cotannah said, “I know where it is.”
She returned to the table with the coffee.
“If Walks-With-Spirits is living out there alone and coming in to see you all but once a week, then why was Jacob carrying on so about him causing division and strife in the Nation? I don’t see how that could be so.”
“He does things, and people hear about them,” Emily said. “Like stopping a disease that was making the deer sick by finding some kind of grass for them to eat and planting some seeds he brought from the Old Nation to revitalize some abandoned, worn-out fields.”
“I don’t see why that’d make anybody call him a witch.”
“Mostly that rumor comes from his association with so many wild animals,” Emily said. “When he does go into town—or any other time anyone sees him in the woods—he’s walking around with a coyote and a mountain lion. People have seen eagles and ravens fly down and sit on his shoulder and raccoons bring bright pebbles out of the creeks and drop them at his feet.”
“So then the other half of the People again say he’s a shaman.”
“Right. Especially when he knows ahead of time when a tornado will come and he can predict its path.”
“And again, the other faction cries witch.”
“Yes. And they say he should be run out of the Nation before he does something evil to someone. It’s a growing controversy,” Emily said, wiping Sophia’s plump hands and setting the wiggling child on the floor, “through no fault of his own.”
“Then he isn’t going around preaching a return to the old ways as Jacob claimed?”
“No. Other people are doing that because they see his powers and observe that he lives in the woods as the People did in the Old Nation long before the white men came.”
She sighed and got up to follow Sophia, who ran directly to the pie safe and jerked open its lower doors.
“Olmun is one of Walks-With-Spirits’s greatest admirers. He thinks he’s wise far beyond his age. He’s eager to talk with him every chance he gets, and personally, I think Jacob is jealous because he’s an only child and he has always been the light of his father’s life.”
“Ah,” Cotannah said. “That explains a lot about the tempest at the supper table last night.”
“Yes,” Emily said, laughing a little. “Doting father Olmun has always thought Jacob was wonderful, but even he would never call Jacob
Similar Books
