by Alan Smale
“I am thinking…” Kimimela stepped forward and bowed. “I am thinking that if you are willing to be my father for a while, Gaius, then I would be honored.”
“For a while?”
“Well,” she said playfully, “you might not like it.” And now she smiled, a deep and happy smile.
Marcellinus had often seen Cahokian men hug their daughters. Yet in the three years he had known Kimimela he had never touched her except to guide her when she was making finger-talk on bark with charcoal. The moment called for some kind of emotional resolution, but how to bring it about was quite beyond him. He blinked, and finally Kimimela took pity on him and reached out her hands, palms down.
As he took them, a great weight sloughed off his shoulders. He felt almost light-headed. “You never know. I might like it a great deal.”
Kimimela nodded. “Then welcome home, Father.”
“Thank you. Daughter.”
All at once her face straightened and became stern again. “But.”
He resisted the urge to step away. “But what?”
“You left without telling me. You stole a Sky Lantern that was Cahokia’s more than it was yours, and you ran off. I am very angry with you.”
“I had to,” he said. “And I did not run.”
“You did not trust me. You should have trusted me.”
“So Sisika says.” He flinched at the look in her eye. “Perhaps I should have. Yes.”
“I am glad you made peace with the Iroqua. But if you ever go away again without telling me? And more than that, you went without telling my mother, and that hurt her more than she will say. And if that happens again, then you are not my father, and I will not speak to you again until I die or until you do.”
Marcellinus nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
“But at least you came back alive.”
“Yes,” he said, and then belatedly: “I’m sorry.”
Kimimela bowed again. “And so, what would you like me to do now, Father?”
Her face was demure, an expression Marcellinus had never before seen on Kimimela, though the mischievous twinkle in her eye spoiled the effect. “I don’t know.”
She squeezed his hands and then released them. “I think you should talk to Great Sun Man. And after that, come home, and I will make you tea.”
—
In the early evening Marcellinus stood outside Sintikala’s house atop the Mound of the Hawk Chief. Sintikala was firing a pot, and her kiln radiated heat in the already warm and muggy evening. Kimimela sat cross-legged at the mound’s northern edge, adjusting the tension in the sinews that held her Hawk wing taut. From time to time she donned the wing and ran off the mound, glided down to ground level, then climbed up again and worked on the wing some more. She wore a look of utter concentration, and well she might since her life and limbs depended on her handiwork.
Marcellinus and Sintikala had spent most of the day on the Great Mound. Great Sun Man had wanted to know all about their journey, everything they could tell him about the geography of the lakes and the natural arena where the powwow had taken place, the nuances of the Council of the Haudenosaunee and their speeches to the Iroqua nations, and every last detail about the Tadodaho. Later on, Sintikala had left to talk to her clan and Anapetu had arrived. Kanuna, Matoshka, Howahkan, and other high-ranking Cahokians had come to ask questions of their own, and so Marcellinus often had to repeat himself. Once they had dismissed him in the late afternoon, he had found Enopay waiting for him on the first plateau of the Great Mound and had told the story once more. He was hoarse and tired and just as happy to be ignored by his new family for a while as the sun set behind the Great Mound. After all, soon enough he would have to go to the Mound of the Smoke and repeat it all yet again.
“The city is stormy,” Sintikala said. “It is not only the Wolf Warriors of Wahchintonka who do not like the peace. Even some of your First Cahokian and my Hawks. They ask where their glory is if they cannot fight. How they measure themselves as warriors if they cannot revenge their dead, bring home scalps, even count coup. Are they men at all?”
Marcellinus thought of Hanska, and of Hurit’s lightning-fast gladius work. “Some of them aren’t men.”
“Most are.” Sintikala shook her head. “Most in Cahokia believe the Romans will never come again. The speech you gave to the Haudenosaunee would not work here.”
“Really? And what do you think?”
She met his eye. “I think that Roma cannot come quickly enough.”
He snorted in disbelief. “You must be joking.”
“I think you have used Roma as a threat for long enough. Sometimes when you know a bear is there, it is good to see the bear. People do not believe in what they cannot see.”
“Tell that to Youtin.”
“You know what I mean. In some ways the Iroqua saw more of Roman power than Cahokia did.”
Marcellinus shook his head.
“Anyway. Everything is different again. You cannot live now in the hut we gave you before. You must live here.”
Marcellinus glanced behind him at Sintikala’s house, his mouth suddenly dry. He almost stammered. “Here?”
“I do not mean always in our house. I mean close by, on one of these high mounds where we can guard you.”
Sintikala lived on the northernmost of a line of three platform mounds. They were intended for the senior clan chiefs, but the heads of Thunderbird and Deer were too frail to make the climb and the other clan chiefs chose to live with their families, and so two of the elders lived on them instead.
“Tonight, yes, you must sleep here. But tomorrow Howahkan will move down from his mound, and then you will live there, next to us.” Sintikala pointed to the house on the next mound.
“And what does Howahkan think of that?”
“Howahkan has already agreed. Better for his pride to grant a favor for your sake than admit that he wheezes and gasps for an hour after he climbs up to his own house. And that way your mound is flanked by mine and Kanuna’s and overlooked by the Great Mound.” She looked at him sideways, eyes twinkling. “You can bring Wachiwi there if you like.”
“We are not lovers. You know that.”
“Very well. But someone must be with you to watch and guard. Another pair of eyes on you.”
Marcellinus’s face was hot. All day long he had chafed at the almost constant presence of Hanska, Mahkah, and Akecheta in his peripheral vision, and even now he knew that several members of the First Cahokian were skulking around the bottom of Sintikala’s mound, keeping watch. “I’ll take my chances.”
She shook her head. “What does that mean?”
“I want no guards. If any of these hotheads want to kill me, let them try. My friends already hover around me like…dragonflies.”
Sintikala’s mouth quirked at the image. “I am not the one who decides. You are the man who made the peace. If the Iroqua come and we have killed you, what will they say? If Great Sun Man lets you die, what does it say of his leadership? So it is for Cahokia and for Great Sun Man that we must keep you safe on a mound.”
She broke the seal on the kiln. Taking up a wooden ladle, she reached inside. The pot glowed a baleful orange as she slid it out and scrutinized it.
Marcellinus had to admit that her logic was unassailable. He was no longer his own man. He had responsibilities. Preparations to make. A daughter, even. He squatted to admire the pot even as it radiated the kiln heat up at him. “All right. But—”
“So this is the Wanageeska, mighty warrior of Roma?”
The new voice was loud and haughty. An even deeper baritone than Great Sun Man’s but with an edge of arrogance and derision Marcellinus had never heard from the war chief.
Sintikala had risen to her feet immediately, and Kimimela hurried to her side. But the voice had come from some twenty feet away, probably at the edge of the mound, and so Marcellinus took his time about finishing his examination of the bowl before he looked up.
Striding toward them was
a tall muscular brave, his skin covered in battle tattoos and brutally etched in scarifications of whorls and lightning. His braids glistened with fat and clinked with the animal teeth he had woven into them, and around his neck he wore a necklace of bear claws. Marcellinus got to his feet, his hands hanging loosely by his sides.
Mahkah and Yahto flanked the brave warily as he approached. Behind them at the edge of the mound stood the Raven warrior Ohanzee and the young shaman Kiche.
“And who are you?” said Marcellinus.
The warrior ignored the question and instead addressed Sintikala. “This is the outlander you walked with to the snakes of the Iroqua to make Mapiya’s secret peace?”
“Avenaka,” Sintikala said icily. She picked up the wooden ladle again and held it out before her.
Avenaka laughed. “You think I am here to fight you? I am not. Not today. Nor do you need to protect your old Roman from me.” Again he appraised Marcellinus and repeated, “Not today.”
“Then why do you approach my house uninvited? If you oppose Great Sun Man, you oppose me. You will leave.”
“In good time.” Avenaka eyed Marcellinus from top to toe. Stalked around him, making a big show of studying him.
Marcellinus did not turn his head to keep the warrior in his sight. Avenaka was testing his mettle, and Marcellinus had no intention of showing fear. If the tall brave made a move against him, his friends would react, and then Avenaka might find that Marcellinus was not as old as he thought. It would not be the first time someone had fatally misjudged him.
Avenaka came back around and stood contemptuously almost nose to nose with him. Now Marcellinus could smell his sweat and the rancid bear fat that streaked his hair. Like the elder Matoshka, Avenaka was a warrior of the Bear clan. The brave was perhaps two inches taller than he was. Marcellinus held Avenaka’s gaze but did not tilt his head back.
“And so, soon the snakes of the longhouse will come and tread Cahokian soil, invited by this creature of Roma.”
“To bury the hatchet with Great Sun Man and to smoke the pipe of peace with your elders,” said Marcellinus.
“To accept our surrender. To gloat upon our cowardice.”
“Cahokia has not surrendered,” Marcellinus said. “Cahokia has made a treaty.”
Still addressing Sintikala, Avenaka said, “This man reeks of lies. He is an outlander and a coward, and he does not speak for me.”
“And now that you have satisfied your curiosity,” Marcellinus said, “you will leave the Hawk chief’s mound. Immediately.”
Avenaka put his head to one side. “The Roman challenges me?”
Marcellinus stared into his eyes. “Go away, verpa, as the Hawk chief commanded.”
Sintikala said, “Avenaka, you will not make trouble when the chiefs of the Haudenosaunee come. Do you hear my words?”
“Trouble?” Avenaka spread his arms. “I, make trouble? Stoop to kill lazy old Iroqua sachems? That is not where honor lies. Let them bring their long pipe and their tabaco. And let Mapiya shower them with his gifts and abase himself before the men who burned his city, just as he smiled upon this Roman enemy who would also have burned it had we not burned his soldiers first. Let the people of Cahokia watch Mapiya kiss his enemy’s feet. Again. And then we will see.”
“What will we see, Avenaka?” Marcellinus demanded. “Tell us.”
Once again the warrior looked down his nose at Marcellinus and did not deign to reply. Turning his back, he stalked away. Kiche made the usual whisking motion that shamans made whenever they saw Marcellinus, as if they were trying to flick away dirt or a bad smell, and he and Ohanzee followed Avenaka off the mound top.
“Merda.” Kimimela blew out a breath.
“They grow bolder,” Sintikala said.
Marcellinus raised his eyebrows. “And who is Avenaka?”
“Brother to Huyana. Once a friend and lieutenant to Great Sun Man. No more, it seems.”
“Avenaka owns western Cahokia,” Kimimela said grimly.
Sintikala frowned. “He does not. But yes, many who oppose Great Sun Man live there.”
Shaking his head, Marcellinus sat and studied the pot again. “Don’t worry about him, Kimi. He was just posturing.”
“Posturing?”
“Measuring himself against me. Men like Avenaka like to shout and bluster, to show their strength and courage. It’s mostly an act. Truly strong men don’t need to boast.”
It was the quiet ones Marcellinus worried about, the men who faded into the background but who might stab you in the back or poison your food.
Somehow he doubted Kimimela would find this reassuring. He smiled. “Well, so much for that. And now the sun is sinking, and I must go and smoke with the elders.”
“There, too, tread carefully,” Sintikala said, still dour.
“Have they gone?” Kimimela called, and from the mound’s edge Mahkah and Yahto nodded. “And must you go?” she said to Marcellinus.
“Of course he must,” said Sintikala.
“You’d have me hide from a man like that? Never.” Marcellinus reached out a hand, and Kimimela grasped it, a moment later leaning back to pull him up onto his feet.
He took a deep breath. More talking. Would the day ever end?
“Be careful,” Kimimela said.
Marcellinus forced another smile. “Always.”
—
“And so Cahokia gets no revenge on the Iroqua for all those who died,” Tahtay said the next afternoon.
“We get peace,” Marcellinus said patiently.
Howahkan’s house—now Marcellinus’s house—had a low brick wall around its yard rather than the wooden palisade that surrounded Sintikala’s. Kimimela sat on the wall swinging her legs, staring wistfully at the Great Mound that overshadowed them. A few minutes earlier Sintikala and Demothi had been hurled off it along the giant steel rail, and now they were sparring in the air above. Kimimela’s flying had improved markedly in Marcellinus’s absence, but she hadn’t yet been catapulted off the mound top herself. It might be a long time before Sintikala gave her blessing for that.
Now Kimimela looked over at the three of them: Marcellinus, Tahtay, and Enopay. “And how many more of us would die taking our revenge? How many of them could we kill? How many of us would they then kill later to take their revenge? And revenge and revenge and revenge? It’s stupid.”
Tahtay stood, leaning on his left leg. The bend in his right leg was still visible. “And so they get away with this?”
Kimimela shook her head. “Tahtay, we killed and injured their boys, too.”
“Fine words for you to say,” Tahtay said. “Where were you in the battle? Hiding away on that mound.”
Marcellinus frowned. “Tahtay…”
The leg swinging stopped. Kimimela’s voice frosted. “Only because I was too young.”
“And who would ever let you fight in battle? Sintikala? Him? No.”
At “him,” Tahtay had jerked his thumb at Marcellinus. Kimimela slid off the wall onto her feet. “Gaius is only my father. He does not tell me who I can fight and who I cannot fight.”
“He tells everyone else who they can fight.”
“Futete,” said Kimimela. “If I fight you, he will not stop me.”
“No, he would stop me. Stop me smacking your head till you beg for mercy.”
Marcellinus, who had been on the verge of breaking this up and telling Tahtay to apologize, saw the trap looming before him and closed his mouth.
“Listen again, verpa,” Kimimela said, advancing on Tahtay, and for the first time Marcellinus heard the chill tone of Sintikala in her voice. “The Mourning War has gone on forever. People die and die. And it’s stupid. I lost one father already. Do I have to lose another? And a mother? And how many more of my friends have to die or, or be…hurt, like you? Well, I’ll tell you. None. Because now Cahokia has peace. But if you call me a coward, you basket of shit, you and I will fight. Right now.”
Tahtay was a full head taller than Kimimela.
Yet he did not smile but eyed her balefully. “You say so?”
“Stop!” said Enopay. “Please, just stop. Or a hundred hundred winters from now your many-times-great-grandchildren will be sending armies to burn one another’s cities.”
Everyone’s head swiveled to look at him.
“Huh,” said Tahtay.
Now Marcellinus spoke. “Are we enemies over this, Tahtay? Enemies over peace? You and I?”
“If you’re the Wanageeska’s enemy, you’re my enemy, too,” Kimimela said to Tahtay, still angry.
“You’re not helping, Kimi,” Enopay said. “Look, the reason you are angry and Tahtay is angry is the same reason I am angry, which is not because Eyanosa made peace with the Iroqua but because he ran away and did not tell us where he was going, and we did not know where he was for months.”
“Shut up, shrimp,” Kimimela said in exasperation.
“Don’t call him—” Tahtay sighed. “Kimimela, this is stupid. I am nobody’s enemy, and we should not be shouting at each other.”
“At last!” Enopay said.
Kimimela breathed out and looked up into the sky, where Sintikala and Demothi were still flying past each other in the summer-white sky, back and forth in their odd drill.
Eventually she nodded. “All right, then. What should we be doing?”
“We should be talking about how to keep Eyanosa alive,” Enopay said.
They all stared at him again.
Tahtay cleared his throat. “Well, I am going to walk and run. I am going to practice with the sword and the bow, for Cahokia, so I am ready to fight the Iroqua when they break the treaty and the Romans when they come to our land again.”
Kimimela snorted. Marcellinus glared, afraid she was about to mock Tahtay further, but she said: “Then I am going to fly. For Cahokia.” She jumped to her feet and jogged to the mound’s edge and down the stairs.
Tahtay shook his head. “Watch your back, Hotah.”
Enopay looked quizzical. It had sounded almost like a threat, but Marcellinus understood. “I will, Tahtay.”
Tahtay left. He did not walk to the cedar steps but headed directly south, over the edge of the Mound of the Roman and down its grassy bank.
