Star Path--People of Cahokia

by W. Michael Gear

  “What news, thief?” she asked as she stepped to her litter where it rested atop the dais behind the fire.

  Seven Skull Shield snagged a cup, barely missed his stride as he scooped it full of hominy from Smooth Pebble’s pot, and seated himself at the foot of Blue Heron’s dais. “Just got back from the canoe landing. There’s a whole string of hulls being paddled down from the north. Slender Fox didn’t cancel the order. She’s delivering. As to how much or for how long? That remains to be seen.”

  Blue Heron, looking tired, took a deep breath. “Well, at least there’s that. How did you know? About Slender Fox and Sliding Ice, I mean?”

  “I think her name was See-Through-Leaf. She was a Snapping Turtle Clan woman. Married to that Go Throw. She was—”

  “Down in Horned Serpent Town. Go Throw. I remember him. He’s a cousin to Green Chunkey. Banished him for making trouble about six, seven years back. But what does See-Through-Leaf have to do with … Oh, don’t tell me. You didn’t. Not a woman married to a Four Winds Clansman.”

  “She was lonely. Go Throw was carried away with some sort of nonsense involving a couple of the Earth Clans chiefs who served his House. Figured they were going to get rid of Green Chunkey. Man really shouldn’t leave a ripe young woman like that alone for such a long—”

  “Would you get to the point?”

  “One of the slaves started to get suspicious, went to Go Throw, so, of course, I got as far away as I could.”

  “Which meant Serpent Woman Town.”

  “My real interest was the Men’s House. They had this wooden box they were keeping scalps in. Would have been worth a fortune at the canoe landing. A Pacaha Trader would have—”

  “The point?”

  “It was the middle of the night. I’m keeping watch, waiting for the right opportunity, and I see this girl come sneaking out of the palace. You know, Many Bows was still high chief up there then. And it’s not but a hundred heartbeats later, this boy comes sneaking out with a blanket. They slip over to the shadows behind Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies’ temple, shuck off their clothes, and he’s between her legs faster than spit.

  “I sneak close and listen in, hearing, ‘Try this. No, move like this.’ And, ‘That’s really good, brother.’

  “This goes on for maybe a hand of time, and he says, ‘We’ve got to get back. If Father finds our beds empty, we’re dead.’ And they dress, and one by one, sneak back to the palace.”

  “And you’ve been sitting on this for all these years?”

  “Me? Sitting? It’s common knowledge among the house slaves and the, um, lower sorts that frequent Serpent Woman Town.”

  He made a tsking sound with his lips. “And you, with all your fancy spies, have to learn this from me?”

  “Guess I don’t know everything.”

  “Not nearly as much as the people who empty the chamber pots, that’s for sure. But, getting back to it, I heard that Wolverine was bringing the entire household to Cahokia. Thought we might get lucky. We did.”

  “Let’s hope they don’t figure out who it was caught them in the act. They do? It’ll mean blood. Me, I’ve got to be up at the Council House. The last bird to fall is Horned Serpent Town. Robin Wing is supposed to be there. If I can shame her into it, belittle her in front of the others, I think she’ll cave and make the order.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  “Columella could still lose everything.”

  Thirty-one

  Red Reed may not have made its best time ever up the Tenasee that day, but the pace was definitely easier on the paddlers. Instead of a race, their progress was now a matter of stealth.

  Each sinuous curve of the river had to be scouted out to ensure that Blood Talon’s war canoe wasn’t lying in wait just out of sight around the bend.

  They queried each passing canoe, asking the locals if they’d seen the Cahokian warriors. In the beginning, most everyone had. As the day wore on, fewer people reported a sighting, and those who did claimed it had been several hands of time since the big canoe had raced south, headed upstream.

  Not that such reports could be taken for granted. Before approaching each village, they had to ascertain if the war canoe lurked at the landing. If, perhaps, Blood Talon had somehow determined his quarry was now behind him and was lying in ambush.

  If he had, at least he and his warriors could rest in the process. They’d be fresh when they sprang their trap, capable of running Red Reed’s tired paddlers to ground.

  Fire Cat felt his own fatigue, could see it in the eyes and posture of his companions. They looked haggard, their eyes swollen, backs sagging. Solid folk, these Yuchi. They’d been pushed as hard as the toughest warriors, and never muttered a complaint. Part of that, he suspected, was because of Night Shadow Star. If a highborn noble like her could take it, day in and day out, they must have figured that they, seasoned river Traders, had to prove themselves even tougher.

  Looking at Night Shadow Star, he could see her exhaustion; it lay in the flat-eyed and hollow stare, her slumped shoulders, and the clumsy strokes she now made with the paddle. How long before she just plain collapsed? And worse, she’d spent half the day mumbling, answering the voices she heard in her head. She’d start, glancing uneasily, obviously seeing things the rest of them didn’t.

  The Yuchi were on the verge of bolting. Fire Cat himself was getting antsy.

  “You really think this is necessary?” Half Root asked as they paused in a backwater and peered through a screen of arrowwood and haw before attempting to pass a small village set back from the river.

  “No,” Fire Cat told her, “but we can only be wrong once. Want to take that chance?”

  She’d given him a quizzical smile, arched an eyebrow. When they determined no war canoe was beached among the local dugouts, they broke cover to resume their progress. Took them right by the village as they skirted the current’s pull.

  No one was complaining about the slow pace. Maybe they were all close to folding.

  “How long do you think it’s going to take Blood Talon to figure out that we’re behind him?” Night Shadow Star asked as they slipped across the shallows inside a loop of the current.

  The river here was straighter, its banks restricted by elevated bluffs that had closed in and entrenched the Tenasee’s channel. The thick forest that covered the highlands displayed the first fuzz of light green while the darker cones of cedar and the occasional pine could be seen scattered among the oaks, maples, elms, and hickory trees.

  “Couple of days would be my guess,” Fire Cat decided. “He knows his warriors can make better time upriver. And he’s going to be asking every canoe he passes if they’ve seen us. He might even spend the time to send someone ashore at the likely villages where we might stop. Check to see if we’d been there. But eventually it’s going to be clear to him that we’ve slipped behind him or taken off overland.”

  “And then what?” White Mat asked from the bow. He’d been carefully plotting their course along the shallows.

  “He has several possible choices. He can stop, wait, and lay a trap for us. Probably at one of the narrows where the bluffs close in to create a choke point. The chances of that working will depend on how well we play the game. Our advantage is that you know the river, know the likely places he would lay an ambush. If we’re clever, we’ll discover it and figure out a way to get past him. Maybe in the middle of the night. Maybe a portage around the choke point.”

  “Here, on the lower Tenasee, there are only a couple of places. If he’s waiting in ambush for any length of time, it will be the talk of the river among the locals. We should have lots of warning.” White Mat slapped at a persistent fly that was enjoying the warm day.

  “The real choke point,” Shedding Bird added, “is up at the Mussel Shallows, but that’s still days ahead of us around the Great Bend. That’s a tough passage, depending on the water. In flood it’s possible to tow the canoe up without much difficulty. If the river’s low, running fast over the rock
s and rapids, we can help you hire local Yuchi to portage the Trade and canoe. You’ll have to walk around. Or you can make camp in our town and wait in hopes the river rises.”

  “Worry about that when we get there,” Made Man muttered. “If we get there.”

  Fire Cat kept a wary eye on the river ahead as he paddled. “Another option is that Blood Talon will turn around, head back downriver in the hopes that he’ll catch us out in the open before we spot him and can hide Red Reed. If he can just get eyes on us, it will all be over. But his decision to charge back downriver comes with its own risk: We might have decided the smart move is to camp up some tributary, wait him out.”

  “In which case he’ll shoot right past our hiding place and travel who knows how far back downriver before he figures out that he’s lost us for good,” Made Man said.

  “Finding a place to hide? I’m not sure that’s a bad idea,” Night Shadow Star told him. “The longer he goes without word of us, the more uncertain he’s going to be. If it’s a quarter moon or more, what’s he going to think? If we’re lucky, he’ll decide that we turned around and fled back downriver to avoid capture.”

  Fire Cat took another stroke with his paddle, eyes still on the water ahead, afraid that the war canoe was going to pop into sight at any moment.

  “You’re right. The longer we’re missing, the more he’s going to fret and start second-guessing himself. The more his warriors are going to grouse as they give up ground they worked hard to paddle up. And he’s still going to be asking about us as he heads back downstream. Someone’s going to tell him they’ve seen us. The river’s just too busy, too many villages, all these people drifting around fishing, diving for clams, checking fish traps and weirs.”

  “So, do you think we should go to ground?” Shedding Bird asked from his position up front beside his brother.

  “Do you know of someplace where we could just disappear?” Fire Cat asked. “Some camp up one of the rivers? Maybe a small village where we could hide Red Reed? Stay out of sight for a while?”

  “I do, but not right along this section. We’re entering Casquinampo lands. They’re still irritated and thorny over Cahokia establishing Canebrake Town at the mouth of the Sand River. That Cahokia has placed a colony on the northern boundaries of their territory, and another down south at Red Bluff Town, festers and is a source of resentment.”

  Night Shadow Star paddled thoughtfully. “It would be in their best interest to just accept it and get on with their lives.”

  “It’s having to accept it that really chafes in their gullets, Lady. They know they could call up their squadrons and drive the Cahokians out any time they wished, but if they did, the massed might of Cahokia would come crashing down on their heads like a hail of boulders.”

  “Maybe we could be lucky enough that the Casquinampo will take their frustration out on Blood Talon.” Fire Cat kept the rhythm as White Mat steered them just out from a screen of waterlogged brush.

  “River’s rising,” the Trader said as he indicated a clutter of driftwood that broke loose from the haw and willows. “That works in our benefit. Easier to duck out of sight in the brush. Low water means we’re exposed on the bank with nowhere to go unless there’s a creek mouth handy.”

  “So, you’re telling me that Blood Talon only has two options?” Half Root asked. “He can either stop and wait for us to catch up, or come looking.”

  “He also knows where we’re going,” Fire Cat told her. “That’s his third choice. If he assumes he’s lost us on the Tenasee, his only hope is to try and relocate us either on the way to Cofitachequi—maybe at these Mussel Shallows you talk about—or, as a last resort, try to intercept us in Cofitachequi. He knows we’re after Walking Smoke.”

  “Long way to go just to catch the lady.” Shedding Bird shook his head as he paddled. “Think he’d travel all that way?”

  “He would,” Night Shadow Star replied.

  “That’s crazy. Chase a woman halfway across the world? Especially when he’s got no proof she’s really going to go that far.” Mixed Shell shook his head in disbelief.

  “I am going that far, because I gave my word,” Night Shadow Star told him. “And Blood Talon will because Spotted Wrist ordered him to.”

  “Duty, honor, strength,” Fire Cat repeated. “Those are the tenets of Cahokia’s Four Winds squadrons. They could add obedience to the list. Once they’ve been given an order they don’t back off.” He smiled wryly. “That’s a weakness they have if you know how to exploit it.”

  Night Shadow Star gave him a sidelong knowing glance. She, of course, knew that he’d used it against Makes Three when he thought he was attacking massed warriors outside the walls of Red Wing Town. In reality Fire Cat had hidden his squadrons in the cornfields on either side of the broad trail leading out of the forest. His first objective when he sprang the jaws of his trap had been to take out the leadership. With Makes Three mortally wounded and the squadron leaders cut down, the Cahokians had stood and fought, caught in a crossfire of arrows. Then Red Wing warriors hit them from both sides until the crushed remnants had fled in disarray, running like rabbits all the way back to Cahokia.

  “That tenacity, Red Wing,” she reminded, “is why Cahokia will eventually conquer the whole world.”

  “Not to mention having the living god on their side,” Made Man said with soft reverence. “How can anyone stand against the Power of the Sky World brought to earth?”

  Fire Cat took a breath, studied the forest-covered bluffs that rose beyond the narrow band of floodplain. Spring green was in evidence in the grass, the first buds, and canebrakes. Figured he’d be better off not mentioning his belief that the whole “Morning-Star-the-living-god” thing was just an elaborate hoax that even the Four Winds Clan had talked themselves into believing.

  “The strength of their military is only half of the genius that makes Cahokia great,” White Mat said from up front. “Wherever they put up a colony, they build a temple, bring in priests, build chunkey grounds. Then they start preaching to the local farmers and hunters. My grandfather at Mussel Shallows remembers the first Cahokians who settled at Good Clay Town. They looked like they’d just dropped from the Sky World to earth with their feathered cloaks, masks, and finely dyed clothes. I was a boy when we buried grandfather in the clan mound. He’d been given a wooden Morning Star pendant by the priests when they finished building the first temple. He’d worn the paint off it, rubbed it with his thumb and fingers until the grain stood out. We placed it on his chest when we laid him in his grave so it would help carry his soul to the Sky World.”

  “Things have been good since the Cahokians came,” Half Root agreed. “We still hear about the days before the priests came with stories of the resurrected god. What the Tenasee was like before the Cahokians.”

  “What do they say?” Night Shadow Star blinked, yawned, as if struggling to stay awake.

  “Mostly good,” Half Root told her. “Cahokia brought peace to the river, established the Power of Trade in a way that was only talked about in legend. The elders tell of the constant wars, endless raiding. In those days, they say, every town on the Tenasee was fortified with a palisade, the farms were all close by the town walls. Half the young men were relegated to the forest as scouts to raise the alarm before a raiding party could strike. They needed to buy enough time so the people could grab their weapons and defend themselves.”

  “Since the coming of the Cahokians,” Mixed Shell said, “people have extended their farms, can travel farther afield hunting and collecting. They get a lot more use from their territory if everyone is carrying a bag during the nut harvest instead of a shield and war club.”

  “We’re all richer,” Shedding Bird agreed. “It’s remarkable how much a people can flourish when they’re able to farm, to hunt, and have children instead of bury them. Not being killed by one’s neighbors has a lot to be said for it.”

  “We wouldn’t be able to be Traders like we are now,” Half Root added. “And even if
we were, we’d never have been able to go to all the places we’ve been, let alone gone in safety.”

  “And they said Black Tail was crazy,” Night Shadow Star whispered under her breath.

  Fire Cat rocked his jaw, thinking back to the way he’d grown up. Life had had a very different feel when it was Red Wing Town that stood out as the target of Cahokia’s wrath.

  All those people, my family, my children. All dead now. Butchered and discarded.

  Was that the price that had to be paid for the rest of the world to have peace? Even if it was at the point of a Cahokian lance?

  As with everything else in Fire Cat’s life, it always came back to that cosmic equation. For one people to have good things, another must be crushed and destroyed.

  The white Power and the red, always teetering in the balance.

  He glanced again at Night Shadow Star, remembering the ache in his loins as she’d pressed herself against his back under their shared blankets.

  Yes. I would give the entire world in return for her.

  Not to mention that she’d freed him from his obligation to serve her. That fact had been stuck sideways down between his souls. A sense of exultation on one hand, a curious unease on the other. He was free. He could go where he would, do as he pleased. Find a new life. But to what point? Anything he attempted would be as hollow as a rotted log without Night Shadow Star.

  Somewhere along the line, he had bound himself unequivocally to her. Fallen in love with her despite her possession by Piasa and her scary reliance on the Underworld. That she so often sacrificed herself for her people had left him humbled and amazed. That she could be a stone-hard pillar of strength at the same time she was ultimately fragile and wounded left him in awe.

  She was a woman worthy of any man’s heart and faith. That she chose him filled him with pride. That she had freed him—no doubt to Piasa’s displeasure? For that he would remain indebted to her for the rest of his life.