Moon Hunt

by Kathleen O'Neal Gear

  The big man dropped into a squat, muscular arms resting on the knotted cords of his thighs. He cocked his head. “You’re really no longer the Keeper?”

  “Matron Rising Flame—you’ve heard of her, right? She summarily dismissed me. Finished. Done. Can’t make it more clear than that.”

  “So, I’m to believe that you can’t help me. That I should just let you go?”

  “That’s pretty much it. I’d suggest you kidnap Five Fists or War Claw. They’d have a much better chance of slipping in and lifting the Four Winds War Medicine for you. Like I said—”

  He reached out and slapped her hard on the face.

  The sting of it brought tears to her eyes.

  “I said, don’t play coy.”

  Blue Heron worked her jaws, wishing for a drink of water as the sting faded. “Either you are an idiot, or you’ve got a huge hole in your understanding of how things are done in Cahokia. I can’t get into the Men’s House! I’m a woman. I’m not allowed.”

  “Do you take me for a fool?”

  “I’m starting to.” She flinched as he raised his hand again, but didn’t strike.

  “You know which War Medicine I’m talking about.”

  She slowly shook her head. “Now you’ve lost me. Whose War Medicine do you want me to get for you? And if not the Four Winds War Medicine, why come after me?”

  He had his head cocked, eyes thoughtful. “I’m talking about the Quiz Quiz War Medicine. The wooden chest, the Bundle containing the Quiz Quiz war Power. They won’t leave without it.”

  She struggled to understand. “You’re working for the Quiz Quiz?”

  “It’s worth a fortune in Trade to me if I can get their war Bundle back. So far it’s pretty much been a disaster for them. Sky Star’s lucky to still be alive, but his days as a warrior are over. Though most of the scars and burns will heal, he’ll never use his right arm again.”

  “So … you’re telling me that the Quiz Quiz brought their War Medicine along to help them steal the Surveyors’ Bundle?” She slowly put the pieces together. “Let me guess. After Seven Skull Shield captured the war leader, the Bundle disappeared?”

  “It wasn’t there when the warriors finally got back to the Council House. They thought perhaps Sky Star had taken it, but it wasn’t with him when he was seen being carried to Crazy Frog’s.”

  “Did you check with Crazy Frog?”

  “After a roundabout fashion. We let him know that a reward was being offered for a box from down south. Since he had the Quiz Quiz war leader, it wouldn’t have taken much to make the connection if he also had the War Medicine box and its contents.”

  “So Sky Star might not have had it with him when my people caught him?” she mused, enjoying the challenge of figuring it out even if her stomach was empty and her bladder too full. “Which means it was unattended for a time.”

  “Maybe.”

  “For how long?”

  “Perhaps a half a hand of time? Maybe less.”

  She chuckled dryly. “If I know anything about War Medicine boxes, they’re pretty things. All carved and decorated and inlaid with shell, copper, and precious stones. Anyone stumbling upon that kind of wealth, unattended, would have thought that all the Powers of Sky and Underworld had smiled upon them.”

  “What about your people? The ones who grabbed the war leader in the first place? This ‘howling warrior’ as the war leader calls him.” He paused thoughtfully, his scarred brow scrunched, as if in thought. “Now, that wouldn’t be Seven Skull Shield, would it?”

  And the final piece fell into place. She pursed her lips, frowning. That night in her palace, he had been hiding something. Phlegm and snot!

  She made a face. “Who?”

  The river Trader studied her thoughtfully, his square face with its mashed nose oddly out of character for such cunning eyes. “Skull claimed responsibility for putting Sky Star in that square. He had a dog with him the day I saw him. A big dog. The kind whose jaws could have maimed a man’s shoulder the way Sky Star’s is now maimed.” A pause. “He work for you?”

  “We talking about that foot-loose thief that hangs around down at the waterfront?”

  “The one who offered me a shell columella as a bribe to spend the day watching stickball games on the Grand Plaza? That’s a lot of wealth. The sort he’d have if he’d been rewarded by the Keeper for having apprehended a Quiz Quiz war leader.”

  While Blue Heron bit her lip and tried to keep her face blank, the Trader rocked back, whispering, “My, my, Skull, you have gone up in the world.”

  “I haven’t a clue as to what you’re talking about.”

  He took a deep breath. “Well, Keeper, you’d better figure it out. And right quick. Which leaves me with an interesting dilemma.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “If Skull’s got the Quiz Quiz War Medicine, and that’s the most likely supposition we can make, he’s sitting on a potential fortune. He could trade it off to the Pacaha, the Quigualtam, the Casqui, or any of the southern Nations for a high chief’s ransom.”

  The calculating eyes fixed on hers as he asked, “So, when I take the matter to Skull, what’s he going to do? Surrender more wealth than he’s ever seen in exchange for your sorry, worn-out carcass, or insist he’s never heard of you?”

  Blue Heron felt a tingle of fear lace its way through her. She’d always known the chances of dying in her bed of old age were slim, but she’d never figured it would be on the filthy floor of a dirt farmer’s lunar temple.

  Seven Skull Shield—if he really had the War Medicine—would Trade for her, wouldn’t he?

  Anticipation

  I am a high minko’s daughter born of the Chief Clan. My mother is the Raccoon Clan matron. The blood of rulers runs in my veins. Why, therefore, do I feel like a foolish girl?

  It has been but days.

  It has been an eternity.

  I have fretted and paced, made three baskets, and fought a continual battle with myself to maintain calm. A ruler should instinctively possess an internal calm—that patience and quality of soul to wait for things to come to fruition once a plan is in place.

  Why am I bunched up on the inside, wanting nothing more than to bounce on my toes, throw my head back, and scream my pent-up anxiety to the palace ceiling?

  “All things in their time,” my father used to say.

  Piss in a pot! I can’t sit still for a finger of time, let alone compose my thoughts.

  And worse, the Morning Star is watching me. He has been involved in discussions with some Four Winds war leader for most of the morning—a man who captured some city up in the north. I sat by the Morning Star’s side during the welcoming feast, and then disengaged myself when the talk got down to business.

  Sometimes it irks me not to understand their language. I could tell, however, that whatever the military venture entailed, it has all worked out successfully for the Cahokians. The great war leader was feasted, blessed, fawned over, and gifted with a remarkable parakeet-feather cloak before being dismissed with extra fanfare.

  As I sit and fret, the Morning Star has just finished a ritual session with the new Four Winds Clan matron. She looked as uneasy as I feel. Something about the tension in her eyes, the way she sat, dressed in all of her finery. I’d say she acted like an imposter hiding inside a rainbow of feathers, shell, and exquisite fabric.

  I have known the Morning Star for such a short time, but I could tell that he was somehow displeased with her, and slightly uneasy. Nor do I think that bodes well for the new matron. Displeasing the living god doesn’t sound like a formula for a long and happy life.

  Which sets my souls to quivering. I myself have seen the change in the Morning Star’s eyes when he looks at me. Deeper, more intent. He cannot know that my husband is in Cahokia. That is impossible. And while I know that Five Fists was suspicious of my meeting in the Council House, he has to think it stems from the political situation back home. Why else would a Sky Hand chief’s daughter brook
a meeting with Albaamaha? The notion that I am on their side should be unthinkable.

  Why, then, is the Morning Star giving me that look?

  I could feel something different in the way he made love to me last night. A subtle coldness to the act, almost as if our joining were a sort of ritual. The impression I had—though the Spirits alone know where the notion came from—was of distance and inevitability. Was it because he knew that down in my souls I was making love to Straight Corn?

  As I think this, a messenger bearing a stick is led into the palace to speak to Five Fists. I am vaguely aware of the tension as I anxiously rebraid my hair for the fifth time that morning.

  Five Fists nods his head and walks toward me in that loose-limbed gait of his. He touches his forehead, saying, “Lady, the Albaamaha embassy requests your presence for a meeting to discuss the possibilities of a peace treaty between your peoples. I have been instructed by the Morning Star to provide an escort. He has granted you a hand of time with the Albaamaha, and a messenger to carry any instructions to your war leader, Strong Mussel. After which, your escort will deliver you safely back to the palace.”

  I somehow manage to act like a matron, nodding my head and keeping my voice level as I say, “Thank you, War Leader. I shall go and prepare myself.”

  Back in his personal quarters, I help myself to the Morning Star’s collection of offerings, and it takes but moments to dress accordingly. Next I ask one of the Morning Star’s servants to paint my face. I tell him to make my cheeks yellow with blue lines, and my forehead white.

  When I am ready, and check out my finery, I walk imperiously to the great double doors. As I do I shoot a sidelong glance at the Morning Star. He is on his dais behind the fire, painted, primped, and resplendent. But even through the forked-eye design on his face, I can see how grim his expression is as he watches me. The sensation is almost electric as he meets my eyes.

  He can’t know. He just can’t.

  Twenty-eight

  Night Shadow Star should have felt better, having had several nights of dreamless sleep. Instead of rested, her souls were oddly unsettled, her muscles heavy with fatigue. The voices had been plaguing her, hints of whispers in the air around her. She kept catching glimpses of Piasa, or sometimes odd flashes of light that danced across the darker corners of the room.

  Phantoms. Visions that none of the others saw. Reflections of her personal Power. All reminders of the curse that kept her apart from normal people.

  She wondered if it was madness—or just that she could hear past the boundaries that separated the world of people from the realm of Spirits.

  At times the knowledge of how different she was drove her into fits of despair that turned so grim she toyed with the idea of just ending it all, freeing her souls to whatever fate the Powers of the Underworld decreed. Then, in contrast, she was possessed of such a lightness of soul that it seemed as if she could Dance the entirety of Creation. As if with each whirl of her body, the sun, moon, and stars spun in unison. Each beat of her feet upon the soil triggered the very heartbeat of existence. The blinding brilliance in her chest was the illumination of life itself.

  And on days like today, where she balanced precariously between the extremes, the knowledge that those alternate conditions hovered just over the future’s horizon both amused and terrified her.

  If I could have any one wish, I would ask to be normal. Even if meant being a wife on a farmstead somewhere.

  She pictured the life she would have: A nice trench-wall house with dirt-packed walls for insulation in winter, a stout ramada, and large storage cists full of corn, acorns, and hickory nuts would be hers. The house would be on well-drained and sandy soil. And it would have a view of the distant river. She would have three children: two boys and a girl. And at night, Fire Cat would return from the field …

  Fire Cat?

  She could see him so clearly: a satisfied glint in his eyes, that now-familiar smile molding his lips. Instead of a war ax, he’d have a long-handled hoe over his shoulder, its stone blade polished smooth by the soil.

  The notion made her blink back to her senses. She sat in the rear of her palace atop the clay dais. On her lap, half forgotten, was one of her long-toothed combs. She’d been working the tangles from her hair preparatory to winding it into a bun and pinning it with a copper headpiece.

  Around her, the household ran itself. Green Stick and Winter Leaf were talking quietly as they peeled pearl-sized onions for the stew. Clay String was gone for water. Sun Wing sat in the back next to Night Shadow Star’s door, eyes vacant as she reflexively tied knots in a cord someone had given her. Once completely knotted, she picked them apart one by one, only to start reknotting it over again.

  All of which was good. It beat Sun Wing’s rocking, singing, and soft ranting about serpents, ice, and war.

  The rest of the palace remained cluttered with every kind of pot, box, weapon, and container, not to mention stacks of fabrics, blankets, and robes—all winnings from Fire Cat’s epic chunkey game with the Natchez Little Sun.

  She had given away most of the largess, gifting it in grand ceremony to whomever walked by on the avenue below. Sacks of corn, little barley, maygrass, acorns, walnuts, and hickory nuts had been gifted to various communities of dirt farmers, and in a matter of a day, most of Cahokia’s wealth was redistributed. An act for which people continued to sing her praises.

  And Fire Cat’s of course. He was the real hero.

  The subject of her thoughts sat just outside the door in the afternoon light. He was sewing, repairing his armor, stitching the edge of his cuirass where the leather was separating. For the moment, she watched the muscles play in his arms, how his head was canted, the concentration in what she could see of his angled face, and how the light played on his tightly bound hair.

  How odd that she’d imagined him as a farmer. A husband.

  She found herself unsettled enough on those occasions when he slipped into her most erotic of dreams. His hard body would trigger a physical ecstasy so intense it would pop her awake in the night, gasping, her arms reaching up from her blankets to encircle him. Only to find lonely air.

  She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and fingered her comb. How much more impossible could her life be? Cursed by Power, hounded by visions and voices, and in love with a man she was forbidden to have, but who was bound to share her life.

  “What did I do to deserve this?” she whispered under her breath.

  Piasa didn’t answer.

  Then, in an attempt to stave off the descent into despair, she told herself, “Things are not that bad. I could still be married to Thirteen Sacred Jaguar, drugged, with his warriors sneaking in to rape me. Fire Cat could be dead on the chunkey field. My sister could have been sacrificed rather than just insanely mumbling to Spirits and knotting cords all day long while her souls roam. Or I could be Walking Smoke’s captive.”

  Indeed, there were a lot of worse fates to contemplate than a full stomach, security, the wealthiest hoard of goods in Cahokia, an orderly palace, and Fire Cat, who at least offered companionship—even if he didn’t share her bed.

  She smiled to herself, resumed her combing, and set her hair in order. If balancing between Piasa and the Tortoise Bundle was the worst she’d have to deal with from this point forward, she’d be eternally grateful.

  Even as she was entertaining this thought, a voice called, “Greetings! I come in search of Lady Night Shadow Star!”

  She got to her feet as Fire Cat, out on her veranda, stood outlined against the light. Flipping her long hair back, she strode to the door, stepped out, and took a position beside the Red Wing.

  Her souls froze. It had been a year since she’d seen the man last. As if but a moment past—rather than the long year—she remembered the charge she’d laid upon him: “Kill them. Kill them all … and bring me their rotting heads!”

  A tremble ran through her as she heard Piasa laughing from somewhere behind her.

  Steeling herself, she
stepped forward, offering her hands to the big man. The first hint of gray now shaded his temples. The Four Winds tattoos on his cheeks were almost obscured by years of relentless sun, wind, and weather. The cunning glint in his dark eyes remained the same—as did the hard angle of both wide cheeks and strong jaw. Now a smile bent his thin lips as he grasped her hands in his.

  Nothing had bowed his wide shoulders; the muscles in his arms and chest remained firm and hard, his belly rippled and flat. Paler skin contrasted with the tan and outlined where his armor usually conformed to his torso.

  His hair was in a tight warrior’s bun, pinned with simple wooden skewers. A bright red cloak of cardinal feathers draped his back, and at his waist an apron hung down from his breechcloth.

  “Lady,” he told her with a smile. “I am honored to see you again. You are as beautiful as ever. And word of your exploits has traveled far and wide, even to our distant ears.”

  She couldn’t help but glance sidelong at Fire Cat, noting that he’d automatically tensed, expression wooden, back stiff as he took in the visitor’s frame and bearing.

  Spit and dung, what do I say?

  Finally, she managed to stutter, “N-No more so than your exploits have been spoken of in Cahokia, War Leader.”

  “Just War Leader? I used to be a friend,” he noted mildly, cuing to her unease. Then he glanced at Fire Cat, that old familiar quirk of amusement playing at his lips. “So, it is true. He stands at your side? A slave, they say.”

  Fire Cat had started to bristle, asking, “Lady? Who is this?”

  “And so familiar!” The warrior released her hands, cocking his head as he inspected Fire Cat.

  Night Shadow Star’s heart had begun to race. “Fire Cat, this man is—”