Chapter 3

A/N: Remember, ITALICS are characters speaking in Quedeyona and if you need help remembering which character is which, refer to the "Cast of Characters" discussion page. Also, the DISCLAIMER from the previous chapters still applies here...



Chapter 3

White Swan sat on the pile of furs that was her bed with her legs tucked under her, listening to the raised voices just beyond the flap that divided the slave’s room from the children’s room. She could clearly distinguish whose voice was speaking each time, even though she couldn’t always understand exactly what they were saying.

All she knew was that Badger Snaps was being berated by not only his father, but by his older brother too. In fact, it sounded a lot like Crow Flies and Blue Raven were not even giving Badger Snaps a chance to say anything any more. Apparently his excuses were lame even to them.

As soon as Black Wolf had left, White Swan had gone inside and set the laundry down. Glad that Crow Flies was there, she immediately went to him and told him what had happened. His eyes had narrowed in thought before he had turned a worried gaze on her to ask if she was all right. She had told him that Black Wolf had come and stopped Badger Snaps before he could do any serious harm.

Just as Crow Flies was convinced that she was all right, Blue Raven had shown up and Crow Flies had sent him to fetch his younger brother. White Swan had been in the slave’s room folding clothes when Blue Raven returned with Badger Snaps and not long after that, Dragonfly Takes Flight had returned to hear what her youngest son had done.

Now White Swan simply sat on the furs with the folded clothes next to her, waiting for them to finish so she could put the clothes where they belonged.

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"But father..."


"Don't!" Interrupted Crow Flies with his hand in the air to prevent his son from speaking any more. "Do not open your mouth to spew yet another excuse that even a five year old would not use!"

Blue Raven glared at his younger brother. "What is wrong with you? Have you no sense at all? Our parents both taught us better than that!"

Badger Snaps looked sullenly at the ground.

Crow Flies had heard enough. "How dare you disrespect not only her, but your family!" He seethed. "I don't care if she is a slave, she is worth more than what you think! If not for her, we wouldn't have clothes to wear. They wouldn't be cleaned or mended!"

Blue Raven and Dragonfly Takes Flight both nodded their heads in agreement.

"If not for slaves like her, we wouldn't have the time to hunt for the food to sate our hunger. Nor would we have the time to make weapons and train with them so that we may be able to defend our homes!" continued Crow Flies.

Blue Raven added, "She is not here for your amusement! None of them are! Regardless of the fact that she's a slave, she is also a woman and in this tribe we treat all women with the same respect! Without them we would never be able to have the life we all live!"

Crow Flies growled. "You are lucky there was no serious harm done to her. As it is, you will be punished for mistreating her!" He glanced at his wife as he issued the punishment. "Until the new moon he is to replace White Swan whenever she is supposed to work in the tribal garden. He will work along side the other slaves in her place until the moon is new again. Is that understood?"

Both Blue Raven and Dragonfly Takes Flight nodded their assent. All eyes turned to Badger Snaps to see if he understood.

"Well?" growled Crow Flies.

"I understand," mumbled Badger Snaps.

"Good. Now I want you to go in there and apologize to her for what you did and you had better mean it!"

As Badger Snaps began to do as his father ordered, Crow Flies had one more warning.

"Remember this, boy. What you do reflects on all of us. If you lay another hand on her and harm her or any other woman for that matter, don't think that I won't hesitate to banish you from this home. One more mistake and you can consider yourself without a family!"

Badger Snaps nodded again although he never looked up at them. Still sullenly looking at the ground, he made his way into the slave’s rooms with his father, brother, and mother behind him.

White Swan looked up as they all entered the room and Crow Flies came to stand next to her.

"White Swan, Badger Snaps has something he wants to say to you."

White Swan nodded as she looked at the youngest son.

He began to mumble. "I'm sor..."

Blue Raven cleared his throat and nudged his brother on the shoulder.

A ghost of a scowl came and went on Badger Snaps’ face before he looked up at White Swan.

"I'm sorry for mistreating you."

White Swan nodded. "Thank you."

As Badger Snaps returned to staring sullenly at the ground, Crow Flies spoke to White Swan.

"Dragonfly Takes Flight will tell you what he is to do as punishment for his wrong doings." He motioned to his sons to follow him out of the home, but turned back to White Swan one last time. "I am sorry for my son's behavior, White Swan. It is my hope that he will learn from this and become a better man."

White Swan nodded. "Thank you. It is my hope too."

As the men left, Dragonfly Takes Flight moved to her side and placed a light hand on her arm. "Are you really okay?"

White Swan gave her a smile. "Yes, I am fine."

Dragonfly Takes Flight patted her arm. "I am glad. Go ahead and put the clothes away. I will start preparing the evening meal. When you join me, I will tell you what Crow Flies said to our son."

White Swan nodded before gathering up the clothes to put them away. As she put clothes up in the children’s room and in the adult’s room, Dragonfly Takes Flight went to the front of the home to begin preparing the evening meal.

This was the only time White Swan, as a slave would be allowed into the sleeping rooms of the family. All the homes of the Quedeyona were rectangular in shape with the least important rooms at the front. Since the homes were stationary, they were designed with a type of defense in mind, although they were not made of entirely solid materials.

The entire tribal village was built in a circular pattern with all the buildings on the outskirts being places for meetings, trading, training, or extra storage rooms. As one walked towards the center of the village the buildings turned into homes and finally near the center were the homes of the tribal leader and the council members.

The first two rings of buildings on the outskirts were built so that the rectangular buildings were end to end. Those buildings tended to be made completely of stones from one of the nearby rivers, thick logs from the surrounding forest, and it was all held together with a special clay found at the bottom of one of the rivers. When this clay was packed around the stones and logs, it hardened into something almost as solid as the stones themselves, yet they formed a natural adhesive to keep the stones and logs in place.

After that, the rectangular homes were turned perpendicular to the first two rings so that the least important rooms of the homes faced the outskirts of the village and the most important rooms faced the center of the village. All homes followed a similar pattern of four basic rooms and only the walls and roof were made of dried mud and thick logs. Because the clay used in the buildings on the outskirts of the village was found in a river that was quite a trip from the tribe and it was the only place where it could be found, it wasn’t used on the homes that constantly changed within the tribal village.

As families grew and changed, so did the homes. The children grew up and moved out or the family left their home by an act of nature or otherwise. Empty homes were usually torn down and a new one was built in its place by whoever the tribal council allowed to move there.

Inside the homes, each of the four rooms were divided by thick curtains made from the hides of animals. In fact, most of the clothes and other necessities like blankets and towels were made of animal hides.

Like most other tribes, the Quedeyona made use of almost every part of any animal they hunted. Bones, horns, and other hardened material were used for weapons, utensils, and the like. Blubber, sinews, ligaments, and other more elastic material were used as thread, rope, covers or containers. Then meat was used as food and some other organs were also delicacies to the tribe.

The meat and other food was cooked on the fire pit that sat right outside next to the entrance of each home. This worked well since the first room of all homes was the place were the family came together to eat, meet or lounge with guests. It was the biggest room in the home.

Behind that room was the slave’s room. Even though the family could have up to one slave per family member, this room was still the smallest room in the home. Because of that, slaves often had very little personal possessions and tended only to be in the room to sleep, spending the rest of their time either outside in the village doing their chores or in the family room doing whatever was necessary.

The next room behind the slave’s was the children’s room. All children, regardless of their ages or gender slept in this room until they moved out to their own home. While this room was larger than the slave’s room, it could still get rather cramped if there were several children of various ages in there.

Sometimes, it wasn’t just the children in there. Sometimes if a male child was newly married and didn’t have his own home set up yet, he and his spouse would have to live in the children’s room. Just like in most societies, not all newlyweds had the means to provide for a place of their own. Until they could procure what they needed to be able to acquire a home of their own, the newlyweds would have to stay in the home of the father of the husband since this tribe was more of a patriarchal one.

Since the third room was generally the children’s room, the last room at the back of the house was the room that belonged to the heads of the family. The patriarch and matriarch of the family had this room to themselves. Although it usually wasn’t much bigger than the children’s room, it was still usually large enough to be comfortable for at least two people.

It was the room of the heads of the family that faced closest to the center of the village while the family room faced closest to the outskirts. Their thinking was that if their village was attacked, their enemies had to get through the stone buildings on the outskirts, then the common rooms before actually getting to the people. This would hopefully give the families enough time to escape or to defend themselves.

So far, it seemed to work well. As the circular pattern and stone buildings on the outskirts tended to make most enemies think twice about raiding what looked like a huge village full of nearly impenetrable buildings.

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White Swan finished putting up the clothes and went to join Dragonfly Takes Flight in making the meal outside on the fire pit. As she sat down next to the older woman, she began to chop the vegetables and listened as she was told what had been said to Badger Snaps.

White Swan was actually amazed that Crow Flies was that upset with his son. She’d known he was a reasonable man, but she hadn’t really thought he’d be that offended. She was glad that Badger Snaps was being punished and gave Dragonfly Takes Flight the day she was next supposed to work in the tribal garden so that Badger Snaps would be ready to go in her place.

She assured Dragonfly Takes Flight that she would let her know every time she was supposed to be working in the garden until the next new moon. In the end, she was almost feeling sorry for the boy when Dragonfly Takes Flight told her that Crow Flies had warned him what would happen should he do something like that again.

Almost.

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White Swan and Dragonfly Takes Flight were nearly done with the evening meal when the other slave, Jessica, returned with the littlest member of the family. Now known as Squirrel Gathers, she had been the one in charge of watching Turtle Dove as she played with her friends in the area that what was the common playing ground for the village children.

Squirrel Gathers helped White Swan finish the meal as Dragonfly Takes Flight took her daughter inside to clean up before she ate. Once the men returned, the family gathered in the family room and waited as Squirrel Gathers and White Swan served them dinner.

Only when the entire family had been served and were contentedly eating their meal were the slaves allowed to serve themselves. Unlike other tribes or cultures, Quedeyona slaves were not given scraps or leftovers to eat.

However, they were required to wait until the entire family had at least one full serving before they could serve themselves. They were also required to eat their meal outside next to the fire pit, but it was mostly to keep whatever food that was left warm and safe from pests.

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Later that night, after all of the evening meal was cleared away and all of the family had finally settled in for the night, White Swan lay awake beneath her blankets. As the rest of the family, including Squirrel Gathers slept deeply, she lay on her back staring up at the darkened roof.

Now that she was alone, she thought of what had happened earlier that day. Not of what Badger Snaps had done or what his family had done to him because of it. Instead, she thought of what had happened after Badger Snaps had tried to assault her.

She thought of her conversation with Black Wolf. Or rather with the brave who insisted that she call him by the name the white men had given him, Jacob.

Jacob.

She could still hear his deep voice and the way the English words had flowed from his mouth. She admired the way he seemed to easily speak it, with rarely any hesitation at all. Most of all, she was glad he had a sense of humor since he’d laughed off her unkind comment she’d made in English about Indians.

She tried to remember what he was like before he’d left to go to school to learn English. Unfortunately, the most she could remember was how much she’d always liked his eyes and his smile. The same things she liked about his mother, who had always been so kind and warm to her.

She remembered Mountain Lion Guides a lot more than she remembered Black Wolf, but that probably had to do with the fact that Mountain Lion Guides had always been around keeping watch on the troublemakers of the village. Mountain Lion Guides’ stoic demeanor had also seemed to keep the younger boys in line since most of them were either afraid of him or respectful of his presence.

She did remember that Black Wolf had never been a part of the troublemakers, but he hadn’t really been a friend who hung around Mountain Lion Guides either. However, she remembered that Black Wolf had a younger brother who was friends with Mountain Lion Guides.

It was Fighting Dog who was best friends with Mountain Lion Guides since they both had been trained by Mountain Lion Guides’ father while Black Wolf had been trained by Bright Wolf and several other council members. As White Swan thought about it, she was almost certain that Black Wolf was about one year older than Fighting Dog which in turn made him about two years younger than Mountain Lion Guides. Despite the differences in age, Mountain Lion had become best friends with the younger Fighting Dog instead of his older brother, Black Wolf.

Suddenly she realized why she had almost forgotten that Black Wolf was the older brother of Fighting Dog. Just like Black Wolf and Mountain Lion Guides were so unalike, so were Black Wolf and Fighting Dog.

As different as night and day.

Fighting Dog was a lot like Mountain Lion Guides, rarely smiling and mostly quiet. In fact, he seemed to act a lot like his father, Bright Wolf, if she was not mistaken. At least back then, she remembered Bright Wolf being more stoic and serious looking than he was nowadays. Despite Bright Wolf being more friendly and approachable now, Fighting Dog still seemed to be the quiet type who rarely spoke to anyone outside of his family and close friends.

However, Fighting Dog still took after his father in the looks department. White Swan knew they were both rather handsome men with brown hair and brown eyes. They were even almost the same height and build. Black Wolf actually took after his mother, both in looks and in their sunny disposition. However, Black Wolf was now taller than both his parents and his brother, plus his build was much more muscular than the lanky frames of his father and brother.

Still even as she remembered Black Wolf’s family, she tried to remember what he had done and who he had hung out with when he was younger. No matter how hard she tried though, she was still drawing a blank. With a sigh, she gave up trying to remember him back then and focused on what she knew of him now.

Now he was a grown man in the tribe’s eyes. She knew Fighting Dog was sixteen years old since she’d recently talked to Gentle Otter a time or two, so that made Black Wolf about seventeen years old. And if her calculations were right, that meant he had left to go to the English school when he’d been about thirteen.

Again she frowned trying to remember him at that age. And again she failed, since all she could see in her mind was the image of those obsidian eyes and the sunny smile he always seemed to sport when she saw him now. She loved how when he smiled, it made his dark eyes sparkle even more.

At least that’s what they did every time she saw him these days. When he’d helped her up from the ground and joked about her Indian comment, she’d seen the laughter in his eyes. She’d gone from being alarmed that he’d understood her to feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.

It amazed her that someone like him could be so friendly and nice. After all, with the very short haircut he sported and with all those tattoos on his body, she had no doubt he could cut an imposing, scary figure if he wasn’t smiling. She wondered if anyone had ever found him intimidating.

Then again, Badger Snaps must have found him so since he’d walked away instead of staying and fighting. But White Swan couldn’t in all honesty find Black Wolf intimidating at all. Maybe it was because she associated him with his kind mother and that just ruined the intimidating factor for her.

Or maybe it was something else entirely.

Whatever it was, White Swan knew she’d never view him as mean or unkind. She knew he would never be as quiet and imposing as Mountain Lion Guides was to her. As long as those eyes of his held that special sparkle or as long as he flashed that smile, she’d always think of him as a sweet, funny guy.

A smile spread over her face as she pictured him in her mind. He was a little more than a head taller than her with broad shoulders and a lean, muscular build. He carried himself with confidence, but not with arrogance. And the way he moved, it was as if he were a part of the world around him, as if he were as much a part of nature as the animals he hunted.

Closing her eyes, she held that image of him in her mind. As she began to fall asleep, the image smiled the sunny smile at her. She drank in the smile and the obsidian eyes that sparkled with laughter as he looked at her. It was that image she took with her into her dreams.

A/N: Here's an idea of the shape of the village in my mind....