El Lazo - The Clint Ryan Series
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Clint and the Indians followed a small freshwater stream, its banks lined with cattails, then sandbar willows, fresh with new green, as they rose higher. Dragonflies competed with mayflies for space, creating little concentric waves as they teased the water where it slowed enough to pond. A snake, a black yellow-striped racer, slithered with the speed for which it was named, staying ahead of two of the Indian boys, then cut a wake through the creek and disappeared into the thick willow stand. It flushed a pair of western meadowlarks, their bellies as yellow as the snake’s stripes, who broke their repertoire of song with sharp clucking insults as they winged away.
Clint managed a few more swallows of water as they moved up the creek and though he was still nauseous, felt his strength ebbing back.
Soon the canyon deepened, and willows gave way to sandpaper oaks and laurel, then a few huge canyon oaks and twisting sycamores with hand-size leaves. Clint’s legs ached with exhaustion, and his face and shoulders burned from the sun, but the earth was solid under him, he had all the water he needed, and even the pain felt good.
They paused among a grove of red-barked, wax-leaved trees—madrones, Clint remembered hearing them called in Santa Barbara—and the Indians paused to gather clusters of bright red fruit filling their carrying nets and baskets.
Clint needed to relieve himself and walked into the nearby brush. Almost immediately, he was flanked by the two horseback braves. They watched him closely until he finished. He was becoming a little irritated at their constant vigil, but still he said nothing. It wouldn’t do to have his tongue wager what a tired body couldn’t back up. He kept quiet and bided his time.
The canyon widened, and tangled scrub oaks opened onto a broad flat. Two dozen huts of bent willow, woven grass, and mud lined the creek. Some of the huts were small, no more than three paces across, but most looked to be as much as six paces. Other Indians, men, women and children, stood along the path, watching Clint. Some of the younger women, bare-breasted under rabbit-skin or woven reed vests, observed him with obvious interest.
He realized his boots were salt-stained and cracked, his duck pants torn and ragged, his long sandy hair filthy and matted, and his shirt in tatters. His leather belt, cracked boots, sheathed knife, and ragged clothes were all he had in the world.
Ahead of him, grinding stones lay near piles of acorns, and mussel and abalone shells formed deep piles beyond. Women stood near hooped willow stretchers, scraping hides with shells and the sharpened scapula of the very deer whose skins they dressed. Others worked over stone mortars, grinding wild buckwheat or other seeds and acorns.
“These heathens eat well,” Clint thought. He dropped to the creek and took one more long drink, then followed on into the center of the village. A few children, naked and playing with tubular bird-bone whistles, followed along behind him.
One larger round hut in the middle was sturdily framed with timber and a dozen paces from side to side. A baked-clay deity hung from a tree-trunk doorjamb, gracing the entrance with a scowl.
On the other side of the opening, his arms folded and feet widely placed, stood the feather-cloaked Indian, his stone ax swinging casually at his side. Though shorter than the man called Hawk, he was powerfully thick-chested. His flint-hard expression outdid the deity’s.
A feeling of dread gnawed at Clint’s already nauseous gut, but his gaze never left Feathercloak’s hard eyes. Clint passed by without hesitation, entering the large hut, followed closely by Hawk.
As his eyes adjusted, Clint could see that the hut was dug into the ground. After descending a two-foot ladder, the leader motioned Clint to a dark corner of the hut. There, on the far side of a fire pit that fed a trail of smoke to a single opening in the reed roof above, a pile of deerskins lay scattered haphazardly.
Hawk pointed around him at the structure. ‘Temescal,” he said, and Clint nodded. Smoke hung in the hut and burned Clint’s tired eyes. Hawk pointed to the pile of hides, indicating that Clint should rest there. Collapsing on the hides, he let his lids lower but opened them quickly when the resentful Indian entered behind Hawk and again they argued. Eventually they sat around the fire and were joined by a half-dozen others, Clint’s presence apparently forgotten or at least ignored.
It’s rest I need, Clint told himself. With old Feathercloak and his followers, I need all the strength I can muster. Until then, whatever these people want to do with me, they will.
It was a feeling he did not relish, He closed his eyes, but tried only to rest, not sleep.
Five
Startled, Clint awoke to the deep-throated chanting of a dozen naked sweaty men who surrounded the small blazing fire in the center of the room.
The room lay dark and hot, and the men, swayed and sweated as they sang, their shadows on the wall dancing in hypnotic unison. Hawk glanced at Clint, motioned him over then shifted aside to make room for him in the circle, patting the earth beside him. Clint moved to the spot and sat, crossing his legs like the others.
He could not understand the chant, but was soon caught up in the rhythm and the swaying, and, to his surprise, found himself joining in. He removed his shirt to resemble the nakedness of most of the men. Accepting a shell, he scraped the sweat away as the others did. Hawk seemed pleased. Clint, still weak and at their mercy, was damned glad he was.
The chant increased in tempo, and the hostile Indian rose. He donned an ankle-length cloak of black raven feathers, trimmed at the neck in brilliant red-woodpecker head patches. This was topped by a five-strand necklace of limpet shells that hung to his waist. He began a stomping dance around the outside of the circle. With small turtle shells filled with pebbles tied to each ankle, he made his own rhythm.
“Truhud,” Hawk said, motioning to the dancer, and Clint presumed that was the man’s name.
Dancing and chanting, Truhud seemed to be acting out a one-man play of strife and turmoil. He must be a holy man or the chief, Clint thought, but as he thought back on the day, realized that the group seemed to obey Hawk’s commands. He decided Truhud must be the holy man, the shaman, and Hawk the chief. The holy man was a bad enemy to have in any society, and probably the worst to have in a heathen one. He hoped Hawk was a powerful chief.
Clint’s stomach grumbled. He had not eaten in more than two days. Eventually the chanting ended, and Truhud hung his brilliant cloak aside and returned to his place in the circle. After a few more scrapes with the shells, they all rose and filed out of the stifling sweat-house.
Outside the Temescal, Clint breathed deeply, and the cool night air refreshed him. While Truhud, followed by three warriors, stalked away into the darkness, the others made their way to the deep creek and plunged in. The only ones who remained out of the creek were the two who had been dogging his steps all day. They remained behind, flanking him at a distance. Clint followed the bathers in and emerged feeling better than he had in days. His fatigue had lifted, at least for the moment,
He eyed the distance to the shadowed forest and wondered if now that his strength was beginning to return, he could outdistance the guards. He had always been fleet of foot and had legs like a ship’s pump pistons from years in the rigging, but he knew he was far from his best.
He would bide his time, he decided. He was uncomfortable in the strange surroundings, worried about his shipmates, and his gut was flapping inside him with emptiness. Leaving for Santa Barbara was topmost in his mind, if only he weren’t so damned weak... He knew he should take advantage of the Indians’ hospitality, however tenuous, until he was ready. Then he could take matters into his own hands.
Clint followed the men back to the center of the village where they sat around a large rock covered with grinding holes, and to Clint’s relief, the women served them cakes of baked unleavened acorn bread, mussels, madrone fruit, berries, and roasted insects. The food arrived in finely fashioned soapstone bowls and intricate baskets, Fresh water, in baskets lined with asphaltum, accompanied the meal.
Hawk studied him
with quiet amusement as Clint turned the grasshopper over and over, eyeing it uncertainly. The first many-legged morsel was a chore to put in his mouth, but to Clint’s surprise, he found the fire-browned grasshopper which he disguised among a handful of berries, pleasantly nutty. He ate his fill of the varied fare and, that necessity satisfied, admired the full-breasted girls who served him, particularly the one who had applied the salve to his lips and forehead. She continued to pamper him, keeping his bowl full. When they had finished, the tall Indian led him to a willow hut, and the girl followed. She spread a bed of deer hides for Clint.
With a nod of approval, Hawk excused himself, but the girl remained.
Hospitality at its finest, Clint decided. Shedding his shirt and boots, he watched the girl, who, to his delight, shed all—dropping her rabbit-skin vest and reed skirt in a pile. She turned and adjusted a hanging skin over the opening. Then she joined him on the mat.
He knew the guards were close by. “To hell with them,” he thought encircling her in his arms. Then the thought struck him that maybe she was meant to be the sexual equivalent of his last meal.
If so, he decided, he was going to make the most of it.