Bad Herb Day

“It WHAT”, He shrieked, slamming down animal skin parchment and stone tablets. The tablets clatter and the one made from delicate sandstone crumbles half into red dust.

The young person below him flinched. The Chief was no abuser and usually was a gentle giant, but the waves of pure fury that rolled off him terrified the person crouching under his throne.

The chief rose to his feet, a great heave from his stone crushing hands and his heavy legs took his globular body. Veins in his muscled arm pumped blood rapidly, almost as if they were shivering with fear from his anger as well. His eyes, usually brown as the wood their huts were made from, burned like the smoke of a hunting fire. The long eagle feathers were like the ruff of a black and white coyote or the mighty hump of a bear growing larger for a fight.

His feet, stepped forward towards the young person’s head and each step was like a balanced stone from a mesa finally falling to wreak vengeance upon the earth.

The young person moved out of the way and scrambled to his feet. His bare, sunscorched back brushed against the itchy tapestries of a giant red goat that hung from the wall. The storm that was the chief nearly tore the buffalo skin right off the doorframe and the wood squeaked with the force.

The young person looked to the other person in the room, a young woman with several vulture feathers hastily tangled in her long black hair. She had the same expression of terror and worry as he had. She clutched her basket of water to her chest behind the seat of the chief. 

Their eyes caught and though the young person knew nothing of this woman, an instant connection formed between them. The connection that only traumatized victims of a hurricane or bear attacks could have. An understanding for cowardice.

She set the basket of water down, letting some slosh over the side and dampen the rabbit skins below the throne. She then padded across the hut and slinked through the door.

Fear stops no curious woman, their mind contributed, only to sound condescending as their feet moved to follow her. 

The young person pushed aside the skins and into the wrathful sunshine. His eyes immediately adjusted since he had been only out in this, minutes before. The world was a little blue for a moment, after the darkness of the hut, but all of it cleared in mere moments and all the huts and people came into view, including the fuming chief.

Someone’s pet bobcat snarled and skittered away from his path and three chattering young girls silenced for the first time the whole day, watching in curious awe. The gangly traders with their wide grins and jutting teeth frown and duck into the shade behind their trading wagons. Warriors training for battle lowered their weapons and watched fearfully as the chief strode across the dry earth and over the trampled weeds.

He arrived to a hall with giant totems that stood menacingly tall with animals with giant intelligent eyes and smug grins. They were the only things that didn’t seem to fear his wrath, but embrace it like a sibling that snitched to an adult, except for the bear who wore an expression of anger as well, like it was saying, “You dare to outscare me, I will show you”.

The tribe swarmed around every seeable entrance. Adults leaned over each other to poke their head through the open door of the building. Children stood on their tiptoes to the windows and searched for holes in the sun dried logs. No one dared to make no sound over a whisper, but with all of their whispers accumulating together, it would have been less obvious that everyone was watching if there was right up chatter.

The young person found a spot, a good window too high for the children and too out of the way for the lazy adults. With their height the young person was able to see the disaster they had only been to moments ago.

Wood splintered everywhere and painted shapes spilled all over the ground and into a large collection of rocks where ashes ominously sat with unknown shapes hiding in the white dust. A beam of sunlight trickles through the building and illuminates all the disturbed floating pieces in the air. Sharp edges line the sunshine entrance in a formation so disorganized a person could not remember what it used to look like. Beams sagged, roof material dangled like fresh animal hides and whatever used to be there was now on the ground along with broken pots and spilled smoking material.

That was brand new, the young person thought, It took months for the traders to bring that pot, now what will the village men do in their free time. A memory of the young person’s father yelling and wrestling random men in the streets came to mind. Their father had died of a nasty cough and the healer dared him not to smoke, which helped his mood none and his health none. 

What if all the village had to be in that state, would there be a giant pit dug for the overly aggressive men?

The people on the roof that were supposed to be repairing it from the last summer storm had hidden their faces and dared not move on the roof in case it would give away their position. They must have known about their chief’s talent of hunting.

Suddenly the young person feels a heavy weight run into their leg.

They yelp, but a little voice demands them to “sssshhhh”!

“Runningwind”, they protest as small dirty feet scramble around the back of their shins and giant crow’s talons grapple with their shoulders. The small being with short black hair and a round face reached over their shoulder and her arms swung around their neck. Little feet stand on their hips and dig into their sides like attacks from blunt weapons.

“Silence your Caw Hole, I want to see”.

“Language, Runningwind. Why not find somewhere else for someone more your height like under the logs or in snake burrows”, they scoff.

“This is better”, she snorts and doesn’t let go, sticking half of her face in the small round opening.

“I’m telling Mama when we get home”, they grumped dejectedly.

The young person had to lose half of their view because of their little sister, but there is plenty of view of the drama around their sister’s curls.

The chief started a tirade and entangled his hands in his hair, his stentorian voice filling the whole hall.

“Who is responsible for this? Who? I need a name so they can work to make up for this shipment and the next shipment. Who was lazy enough to step on a spot obviously too weak to stand on. Who do I need to punish”.

The supervisor and one of the workers, his brother dared to argue with him, despite being much less of a warrior than he and with a lack of reputation.

“I’m sorry brother, but no one was on that spot. I talked to a man who witnessed the whole thing and said that no one was responsible. The jostling from the storm or a leak in the mud and hay must have weakened the wood. That must have done it. While the workers were repairing the roof on the other end, the spot just collapsed”.

“It has to be someone’s fault because it can’t just be the wind or a crow who caused such a mess. This roof has stood since our father and our great grandfather when the place was first built, how can it be falling now after all these years of power”.

The brother continued his rational argument, but the young person noticed something different in the Chief. Not only was he yelling, he chose to say “years of power”. That is not something one would use to describe this building. 

As the Chief fought with his brother, a bickering match where both are talking at the same time to drown each other out, a shape appears in the doorway. I turn my head and can barely see her past my sister’s chin and she grunts, trying to stick her head in further to get past my face. A woman walks in.

Her beautiful face, the most beautiful in the whole village is scrunched in disgust and exhaustion, with dark bruises under her perfect almond eyes and slightly messy hair adorned with eagle feathers, similar to the chief’s. Her breasts swell under her giant necklace of beautiful clay beads that shimmer with rare colors like blue and purple and sunset yellow. Her dress of the newest deer pelt stands far from the ground so her swollen ankles can be in full view. Under the dress, a bulge swells out like a hill among a stretch of fertile farmland and she holds the hill with her elegant hand that has always looked free of any callous or common abrasion.

The chief turns to her and his face melts into that of concern peace, something a little more normal on the man.

“What is the meaning of this”, the Chief’s wife demands, looking as angry as he did just a moment ago, replacing his fury with a greater force. A force that men all fear. The wrath of a tired, pregnant wife. This was worse though because she looked like she was about to explode with her abdomen stretched far beyond any pregnant woman.

“Hey, Howling Coyote”, Runningwind whispered, “How many babies does she have in there”.

“Two? Three? One big one? How should I know”, the young person growls at Runningwind ignoring their pet name.

No one really knew how many children were in that elegant woman. The healers said more than one, but rumors went from twins to “more than the whole village” to “a new god that will bring an end to the world”. Runningwind and everyone else would have to wait and see.

“Well you see. The roof caved in on the smoking material and it was a brand new arrival and it is very expensive and takes a long time. A lot of the elders and council need it ”.

The Chief’s wife turns her head to the mess and the broken pot and smoking herbs all over the floor. Her eyes narrow and she marches over to the disaster. Carefully she lowers herself from a lunge to her knees and with her tiny back bent over and her bump almost touching the dust beneath her she scooped up the herbs and weeds that made up the smoking material and pooling into the fabric of her dress.

“My love, what are you doing”.

“Are these dried leaves worth all of this”, she snarls, “If they are worth getting wrathful and scaring the whole village over then they must be worth my attention”.

“No, an issue like this isn’t worth our children’s lives. Let me get someone else to do this. You must go back to rest”.

“Then why all of this fuss”? She demands, “Why must you shout at your brother, scare the water girl half to death and make a big problem over spilled plants. You are going to smoke them anyway so who cares if they have a little bit of dust on them”.

The chief looked down at the spilled smoking material and his wife who was grumpily putting the smelly weeds into the dip in her dress, right above her unusually large bulge. He bent down and hugged her from behind, stopping her with a handful of weeds in her hands.

“I am so sorry you had to come out here and save me from this fury”, he whispered to her, but the sound echoed around the room so everyone could hear it, “This day has just been the worst. I am so confused on what to do now. It’s just one thing after another and I feel so lost”.

“It’s just a bad day my love”, she says and brushes her hand over his heavily tattooed arm, “Just remember what you have, a thriving village, plenty of food and water, and you have me and our children. I feel it my dear, it is almost time”.

“She doesn’t need to feel it, has she seen how fat she is”, Runningwind scoffed.

“Runningwind, that is rude”, the young person hissed at her and shoved their shoulder into her ribcage. She dared not peep any complaints.

The drama was over now, and all of the village was leaving for their own business. Runningwind jumped ungracefully off of the young person and ran off with a group of other children much older than her. The young person still watched, confused about something.

The maids that were supposed to be watching the Chief’s wife rushed in and helped her up with both arms. She slouched out, each of them holding some of her weight and padding beside her. The Chief watched her go and then bent down himself to pick up the mess of herbs.

He was reading something when I walked in. He was talking about power like something was going to threaten his place as the chief. Is one of his brothers planning a coup? Or is another tribe wanting to attack? That can’t be, we are peaceful with the other tribes in the area. 

If the young person was caught, this could be treasonous, but their plan was just too irresistible. They pulled their head free from the window and sauntered back to the chief’s hut no one was guarding it, and no one was lined around it with a problem, they were too busy talking with the rest of the village about the Chief’s great freak out. 

The young person peeked inside to find the tent just as he left it. The girl’s water basket on the floor, the rugs a little wrinkled from all of the excitement, and the message plates sitting there quietly among the disintegrating sandstone tablet.

The young person ducked inside and went straight for them, taking them from where they were and sitting at the foot of the Chief’s chair.

The young person could not read very well. He knew a few words at least. The plates seemed to be a warning from tribes nearby translated from the ones by the sea. They could not read all of what the writing said, but something at the end, something that they didn’t understand.

“White men are coming”.