* * *
The women met them at the beach. What meat could not be packed on the horses they carried in their large conical baskets and carrying nets.
Upon arriving in camp, Clint retreated to his hut and, tired from the long days of fighting the sun, wind, waves, and massive black whales, was quickly asleep. He awoke to the pounding of drums, the rattling of turtle shells, and the chanting of the tribe.
He joined the tribe at the fire, where a dance led by the paxa was already under way and the men were gorging themselves with roasted whale meat. They danced well into the night, celebrating the successful hunt, Clint presumed.
After the dance, the men gathered around the fire and began passing a pipe. Other than an occasional pipe on a quiet night at sea, Clint seldom smoked, but he felt it would be impolite to refuse. He drew deeply on the pipe and winced at the bitterness of the tobacco. By the time the pipe had made the rounds of the men, he reached for it, saw two of it, and tried again to grasp it, but it kept going in and out of focus. The brave next to him helped him find his mouth, and he drew deeply.
It was morning when he came to. The others had retired to their huts, but he had slept where he sat, next to the now-dead fire. The boy who had befriended him sat near, waiting for Clint to awake.
“It is the pestibaba you smoked” José said with a knowing smile. “It is very strong. I should have told you to take very small puffs. I will take tolache when I take the vow, and it is much stronger. You call it jimson weed. It takes you to the spirit world and, if you are devout, brings you back.”
“And if not?’ Clint managed.
“If not, you go blind, or join the spirit world.”
“No vow for me, thanks anyway,” Clint said, managing a slight smile. Then his stomach cramped, and he doubled over. When it lessened, he was able to sit up. “I’m a little sick at my stomach.” Clint rose to his feet unsteadily.
“Come, we will go into the woods and I will find the herb that will help you.”
“Not this tolache?”
“No,” The boy smiled. ‘This herb is only for the stomach.”
Clint followed José deep into the scrub oak. Feeling dizzy, he called ahead to the boy, “I’m going to sit awhile and wait till this stuff wears off.”
“You sit, I will return when I’ve found the toknota—fennel, I think the Spanish call it.”
Clint reclined near a trickle of water so small it could barely be called a creek, and scooted back into the shade of the thick scrub of sandpaper oak under a heavier canopy of tall pepperwood laurel that seemed to favor the moist flat. He closed his eyes and waited for the dizziness to go away.
He must have dozed, he figured, for when he awoke, he heard voices and the low moaning of someone in pain. Another pestibaba victim? His eyes searched the direction of the moaning, downstream from where he sat in the shade.
He moved a little to the side and spotted three women. One, a young girl, sat leaning against a tree, her belly swollen with child. She moaned quietly and clasped her belly with both hands. Her two companions were older women, probably midwives or the girl’s relatives.
He watched self-consciously as the old women pulled the girl to her feet and helped her squat over a small depression they had scraped out in the sand. Moving would only call attention to him, so he remained in the shadows and watched. He wondered if it was proper his observing this, but he was fascinated. What he was seeing was the most basic and exciting of life’s processes.
From the corner of his eye he spotted a movement in the brush, then slunk back as the paxa with a stone ax in one hand and a long spear in the other, stepped out from the shadows. Shaking the ax at the women in a threatening manner, he spoke in harsh tones. Then he turned and faded back into the shadows of the thick forest.
Clint sensed that the conflict between him and the paxa would come to a head if we were discovered watching this pagan spectacle, and the paxa was well armed. Even so, Clint could neither turn away nor leave.
The girl swayed back and forth, keening quietly, sitting on her haunches. The old women encouraged her and rubbed her back. Each midwife supported one arm. The girl moaned loudly, her face contorted. The women encouraged. She cried, and strained, and the old women still encouraged her with low tunes and rubbed her back.
After this process was repeated several times, one of the old women spoke sharply, and the girl bore down, her face a mask of pain. Sweat beads glimmered on her forehead, and her hair clung with perspiration to the back of her neck.
One of the women ran a hand between the girl’s legs and urged her to greater effort. The girl strained, and Clint stared in wonder as the wet dark head of the child appeared. The girl shifted her weight from side to side, holding her breath, straining so hard the vessels stood out in her sweat-soaked face and neck. She emitted a low moan, and the child slid from her.
Clint smiled, for under the coating of blood and mucus, the child appeared perfect. The birth, from what little he knew, had gone well.
The young girl sank to the ground and tried to reach for the child. One of the old women chastised her, shaking her head, and snatched the child up while the other cut the umbilical cord with an obsidian knife. They must want the girl to rid herself of the afterbirth first, Clint decided, as he had seen many a horse and cow do.
The girl cried out, a keening, penetrating scream that sent chills down Clint’s backbone. “My God,” he thought, and pitied her. “Even with the miracle she had performed what pain she must feel.”
One of the old women grasped the girl’s shoulders tightly, pinning her to the ground while the other picked up the child and moved upstream, nearer to Clint. He sank deeper into the shadows. “She’s going to wash the child in the stream,” he thought, watching closely.
Again Truhud entered the clearing. He snapped at the girl and yelled something to the old woman. The woman paused, looking down at the child for a second, her eyes filled with compassion. The paxa yelled a guttural command, and the old woman’s look hardened with resolve. Before a shocked Clint could react, she grasped both the child’s ankles in one hand and swung it up over her head, bringing it down hard, bashing its tiny head on a flat rock. At the same instant, an echoing animal scream from the girl shattered the stony silence.
Clint clamped his jaw shut to quell his angry yell and choked on his rising bile. His stomach roiled, and a rush of anger flooded him, but he did not move. He knew it was too late—far too late. The child was dead. Only the mother’s whimpering wafted to Clint’s stunned ears, but the sickening splatting sound still echoed in his mind.
Across the slight clearing, the old woman left the still child and returned to the other midwife and the girl. The paxa muttered something, then faded into the shadows. The old woman recovered a reed mat and returned to the child, rolling it up tightly in the mat. She glanced up from her work, and her gaze locked with Clint’s. She had seen him, but she continued as if she had not. She paused and to Clint’s surprise crossed herself muttering something in what sounded like Latin. She left the other women and moved off into the brush, carrying the bundle under one arm as if it were a bundle of wood or laundry.
With a shudder, the girl uttered a final choking sobbing cry. Her arm extended toward the departing woman who carried her dead child, her fingers curled, clawlike, grasping. But neither it nor her whimpering did any good. The old woman disappeared into the underbrush. The girl sobbed quietly while the remaining old woman cleaned her with dry grass, then sat back patiently to await the afterbirth.
Clint sank back into the brush and tried to make some sense out of what he had seen. Somehow, he knew that Truhud was the cause of what had happened. Hatred filled him, consuming him until he wanted to run after the man and smash his head to pulp like the child’s. Instead, he collected himself. He closed his eyes and stayed quiet until at least an hour had passed. When he opened them again, the girl and the old woman had gone.
He heard rattling in the brush and looked up to se
e José returning, his hands full of a gray-green herb. He handed it to Clint and started back toward the camp.
“Wait,” Clint said. “While you were gone, some women came to that spot—he pointed—and one of them gave birth to a child… a beautiful, perfect child.”
“It is good.” José smiled.
“No, it was terrible. One of the old women killed the child … bashed its head against one of the rocks…” He pointed.
‘”That is good also,” the boy said unconcerned.
Clint stared at him in horror.
“It was a firstborn,” the boy explained.
“So? I am a firstborn,” Clint stammered.
“Among the Chumash... the Chumash of the old way… the firstborn are killed. The rest of the children will be strong and tall if the firstborn is killed. It carries away the poison of the womb.”
“That’s crazy.”
“It may be, señor, but it is our way.”
“You didn’t learn that ‘way’ at the mission?”
“No. The padres do not approve of many of our customs. But they have served us well. We do not approve of many of the mission ways. So we go back to the old way.”
“Catholics do not murder children,”
“No, but there was much sickness at the missions. Many of our people died from your pale-eye diseases. The padres often had us whipped—at least did not intervene when the soldados took up the lash.”
“But to kill a child
“It is our way, Clint Ryan.” The boy’s eyes turned cold. “It is not for you to question.”
Clint did not feel well enough to argue. The boy handed him the herb, and he chewed a mouthful slowly. His mind kept churning, thinking of the innocent child being dashed against the rock, its blood on the stone a mute monument to its passing. He wondered if his stomach would ever be at rest again.
But by the time they had reached camp, the herb had done its work. He went to the hut and sank down on the mat. Chahett appeared shortly after and quietly removed her clothes, but he ignored her and feigned sleep.
Then he heard the angry arguing outside the hut. He pulled on his boots and stuck his head out the opening.
Hawk stood with his back to the hut. In front of Hawk, each carrying a lance or war club, stood the paxa and three warriors, and they had blood in their eyes. Clint understood only one word of the heated exchange.
“Anglo.”
Nine
"Hawk!” Clint said, his voice resonating with a deep strength he did not yet feel. Hawk turned to face him, and the paxa stepped up beside him.
“Is this argument over me?” Clint asked.
Hawk started to answer, but caught himself and only nodded. The paxa shook his ax and took a step forward. His men moved to the side, flanking Clint. The guards who reclined on willow backrests nearby rose, and they too took positions hemming Clint in. He guessed that the boy or the old woman must have told the paxa of his witnessing the killing of the baby, causing his rage.
Clint had learned in a hundred ports, and almost as many confrontations aboard ship, that a good offense was the best defense.”If you want me dead, Truhud, maybe you would like to accomplish that feat yourself. Or are you man enough?”
Truhud’s face went blank. Then he realized that he had been challenged. Clint figured he would be better off fighting one man than half the tribe. Clint spat on the ground between them, His lip curled in derision, and he continued. “You think you have the strength of Sup on your side—let’s find out,” he goaded, “Just you and me.”
A slow smile crossed Hawk’s face, and he snapped at Truhud in Chumash. The paxa glanced at his men then his chin rose and his chest expanded. He was a big man, not as tall as Clint but heavily built, with powerful thighs, arms, and shoulders. With quiet deliberation, he spoke, his eyes never leaving Clint’s. Clint did not understand his guttural Chumash, but the acceptance of the challenge was clear enough.
Hawk stepped between them and gave his back to the paxa. With the life of the Anglo endangered, Hawk decided the time had come to break his vow. “He has accepted your challenge,” he said. “You will fight in front of the whole tribe when the sun clips below the horizon.”
“Weapon?”
“The choice of weapons is yours, in the Chumash way.”
“To the death?” Clint asked.
Or until one man kneels in submission and the other accepts. But he does not have to settle for anything but death, and I fear that Truhud will not.”
“Good enough, Clint said.
What weapons do you choose?”
“None,” Clint said.
“None?” Hawk asked, not understanding.
“None. We will fight with our hands, in the New England way.”
Hawk’s look hardened. “Do not be fooled, Clint Ryan. The Chumash learn to wrestle as soon as they learn to walk. Truhud is a strong man and willing opponent. Use care, and remember—you fight for your life.”
Clint looked at him for a long moment before he spoke. “When he kneels, I may spare him.”
“I hope you have the choice,” Hawk said. He laid a hand on Clint’s shoulder then turned away from the hut. “Rest,” he called over his shoulder. “I will have Chahett bring you some food and water,”
Clint lay on his deerskin robe, wondering if he had done the right thing. If he had kept his mouth shut, maybe Hawk might have prevailed again, but if not, he might now be faced with stone-headed axes. As it was, he would have to face only one man; Clint had rarely been bested at wrestling and had dropped many a man with a single punch. No, he decided, he was better off fighting Truhud than fighting many.