A November Sky

Chapter Ten

After melding the initial terms of the alliance, a line snapped tight within Kocoum. He would not let me in on any of the talks with Johnsmith, wanting me nowhere near the newworlder men. Free from spying, Ahanu had taken up the position of my permanent guard, herding me away from the Great Long House anytime Johnsmith was in residence, his eyes still going dark anything the newworlder alliance was mentioned. Though he followed the orders of his mamanatowick, it was obvious he still wished to call upon the thirty tribes and wipe the Eldur from our lands before more could come.

End of summer, the cranberries put out a few red buds. Everything else turned orange and yellow, glowing gold in the evening light—like Johnsmith's coveted lines of decoration on the handle of my metal knife, like his hair backlit by the sun. A kind of symmetry between what was dying and what was just coming to bloom.

Aiyana grew to the point of breaking, where the women would follow her around day by day, their baskets stocked with clean linens and water skins. Even her werowance watched her with anxious eyes, training his newest recruits around the village heart fire so he could remain close.

Toma trailed me through the village, always between Ahanu and me. Though she denied it, I knew Kocoum had put her up to it. The great chief's wife couldn't be seen alone with any man, even one of her husband's. Not according to the village elders, who whispered and gossiped behind their wrinkled hands, quieting when I walked by. Because when a woman was pregnant, everyone knew who the mother was, but a man did not have the same comfort. To keep the clans united, he could not allow there to be any doubt of the purity of the Powhatan line. Kocoum would not allow me to keep any company but his, so the tribe could be sure my children were his children. Or, at least, that I wasn't out trying with other men.

Beginning of fall, the leaves began to fall, always the sick trees going first, their leaves a brilliant yellow against the mossy forest floor. The rest turned brown on their tree limbs, shrunken and crumbly by the time they tottered to the ground.

The newworlders set metal traps in the forest, hiding them beneath heaps of brown leaves. They didn't check them regularly, especially the ones deep into our forest, leaving the animals to suffer until a tribesman took pity on them or the animal in question became desperate enough to chew itself free. Once, on my way to the waterfall, I saw a red fox hopping on three legs, its back leg shredded at the knee. After that, I freed any animal I found caught in their traps, pulling the pin that held the two rows of teeth together. I left the traps in pieces, spread open on the leaves.

It wasn't the only sign of newworlder waste. While the Powhatan used every part of the deer, these newworlders scooped the meat from the ribs but left the bones and hide for the vultures. From high on the cliffside, listening to the falls roar by, I could see the vultures circling and diving, marking each carcass.

Mid-fall, the winds picked up. Leaves skittered across the forest floor, and bare branches waved from their trees. Late at night, huddled by the fire in our furs, Kocoum tried to talk. I shrugged his hand from my shoulder and curled into our furs. "Can we not, right now? I'm just so tired."

That week, Kocoum called Ahanu away to help with the pre-winter hunts. Kocoum could easily have assigned another man to take Ahanu's place, but he didn't, leaving Toma as my only escort. "Doesn't father miss you?" I asked her one day as we sat sorting chestnuts, the shiny red spheres smooth against my palms.

Toma scoffed. "He gets me every night. You need me more."

We spoke no more, picking through the chestnuts in silence, choosing large, firm nuts whose outer shells appeared intact. There was some strange comfort in the silence, understanding someone so well that we did not need to speak, to question every feeling or emotion. The bond between chief's wives was like no other. The few nuts we would steam for supper, we dropped into a clay pot of lukewarm water. My stomach rumbled to think of the raw meat of the roasted chestnuts baked into chewy cakes. I plucked a red nut from the bowl of water and bit, gently, until the thin shell gave way. I peeled off the outer shell and then the inner skin, popping it into my mouth. As we worked, I savored its bitter earthiness and grainy texture.