Star Path--People of Cahokia

by W. Michael Gear

  “Notice the water?” White Mat asked, using his paddle to point out the clearer water running closer to the shore.

  “I do,” Fire Cat said, his reverie broken.

  “Sand River,” White Mat told him. “It just occurred to me. We could take it, travel a short distance up its channel. There’s a Casquinampo town, old fields that were abandoned when the Cahokians built Canebrake Town just above the Sand River’s mouth. Assuming that no one from Canebrake Town observes our passage or finds it remarkable, that might be a place we could stay out of sight for a couple of days.”

  Fire Cat glanced at Night Shadow Star. “What do you think?”

  She nodded, a vacancy behind her eyes as Piasa whispered something for her hearing alone. That or she was just so tired she didn’t care.

  “Let’s do it.” She smiled absently. “We’re all exhausted, Red Wing. We’ve been pushing ourselves for days. If nothing else, Blood Talon can capture us rested and refreshed.”

  It would mean that for the time being, like Blood Talon, he was gambling. That he could guess when the squadron first would reach the limits of his patience. Unlike Fire Cat and Night Shadow Star’s situation, time wasn’t on Blood Talon’s side.

  We’re in the same quandary he is: guessing.

  But who knew, maybe for once on this trip, Piasa would finally decide to give Night Shadow Star some clue as to when and how to move.

  Which was just as frightening as the alternative.

  Joara

  The town sits on the banks of Joara Creek—a small stream that runs down from the high mountain pass that leads across the Blue Mountains. It’s a major Trading trail, a route that leads to one of the major tributaries of the Tenasee River.

  The surrounding terrain is mixed, low ridges rise above fertile alluvial valleys, an area just east of the mountains where several creeks flow into the headwaters of the Cofitachequi River. It’s rich country, forested with mature chestnut, mulberry, hickory, walnut, several varieties of acorn, hazelnut, pawpaw, chinquapin, grapes, berries of all kinds, maygrass, little barley, and soil that will grow just about anything a family might want to plant.

  It was here that Moon Blade established his headquarters when he first invaded Cofitachequi. Strategically located, the site itself has ample agricultural land, doesn’t flood like the lower areas, but still allows control of the Trade route leading to the divide and across to the Wide Fast River.

  The day I arrive is sunny and hot—that sapping muggy summer heat that slicks the skin with sweat, and where, if a person makes a fist, he almost squeezes water from the very air. Even the birds had gone quiet for the most part, and the squirrels had retreated to the high shadows to pant in misery. Only the idiot insects seemed to be thriving, chirring, buzzing, and flitting about in the heavy and baking air.

  My sweating, staggering porters flounder their way across the Joara ford, labor their way up the bank, past a line of crude dugout canoes, past the wilted-looking ramadas where people fan themselves in the shade and barely wave a greeting.

  The town itself stretches east-west along the terrace on the south side of the creek. A low mound has been raised on the eastern end atop which Moon Blade built the peak-pitched palace overlooking the feeble excuse of a plaza. The palace is now occupied by his second son, Sharp Path, who was born of a Muskogee woman called Mica. The small plaza, with chunkey courts, World Tree pole of red cedar, and remarkably confined stickball ground, was surrounded by a Men’s House, Women’s House, a couple of Clan Houses, and on the other end, a temple dedicated to Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies.

  Behind them I can see a haphazard collection of both bent-pole and trench-wall houses, mud-daubed, their peaked roofs either grass-thatched, cattail-thatched, or made from split cane.

  Given the heat, people are outside, living in the attached ramadas, or what they call summer houses. Granaries in Joara are the southern type, elevated high off the ground on four tall poles, the floors and sides made of interlaced branches that allow air to circulate and roofed with thatch or bark to shed rain.

  In the background, beyond the forest, I can see the high, flat-topped mountain, and know that beyond that rises the bulk of the Blue Mountains. Not that they really are blue, mind you; the thick forests that cover them are all shades of green, but when seen from any kind of distance they appear shrouded in blue misty air.

  I am carried summarily to the flat in front of the Mikko’s palace and carefully lowered to the ground. My porters step back as if a water moccasin is riding on the litter with me. Now they watch me, wide-eyed, as I stand, stretch, and take my bearings.

  “Master,” one asks. “If it wouldn’t be taken wrong. Might we have our talismans?”

  I consider, narrow an eye, which, if anything, makes the poor fool sweat even more. After just enough hesitation to rattle him to the bones, I toss him the sack in which I’d kept their personal items.

  He snatches it out of the air, opens the drawstring with shaking fingers, and peers inside. “It’s here.”

  They don’t even take the time to divvy up their bits and pieces, but leave at a run. I watch them pelt past the ramadas. Don’t even look back as they splash across the ford and disappear into the forest.

  I would have thought they’d at least have found a meal, perhaps rested for a day or two. But then, who knows? Maybe there is something about the food in Joara?

  “Who comes?” a voice asks behind me in rudely accented Muskogee.

  I turn, see a young man dressed as a Cahokian lord. I place him as being close to thirty, and he moves with that athletic grace of a stickball player—complete with the scars to prove it marking his tanned and sweat-gleaming skin. He has that arrogant look to go along with his Four Winds Clan tattoos.

  Something about that square face, the set of the jaw … Oh yes, now I recognize him: my cousin Fire Light. Out of Slick Rock’s lineage. Takes Blood and Eel Woman’s oldest son. As boys we used to practice chunkey and stickball.

  I should wonder why he is here in Joara, but I’m sure I know the story. He was always a bitter young man, chafed at the fact that he wasn’t part of the privileged side of the family. As if, being a parallel cousin, he wasn’t one of the most important young men in the city. My bet? He made a play for the tonka’tzi’s chair, or involved himself in some other disruptive political shenanigans, and got himself exiled.

  I study him thoughtfully.

  Of course, he doesn’t recognize me. Not with the left side of my face ruined and scarred. His gaze is locked first on the damage, and then he takes in my light cloak, more of a net fabric woven from hanging moss, and the wrap of airy fabric at my waist.

  Beyond lies the litter, my box and basket. He glances around, as if in search of the porters, and then, puzzled, back at my twisted smile.

  I can see it as he places who I am. The frost of recognition cools behind his eyes, but I give him credit. He doesn’t slowly back up the low stairway to the safety of the palace mound.

  “Greetings, Lord,” I tell him in Cahokian. “Have you a place where I can stay? I’d suggest the Clan House, such as it is. Don’t worry about moving the others out. For reasons that elude me, people seem to shun my presence. Not sure why, I wash with great regularity.”

  “Lightning Shell. What are you doing here, witch?”

  “I have business. Power is afoot in the land. Trouble comes this way.”

  “Do I know you? Something about…?”

  “Does anyone really know anyone else? Well, except for when you can slip your soul into another person’s body. Listen to their deepest, most secret thoughts?”

  This time he does take a step back, heel striking the bottom stair. I can see the worry growing behind his eyes.

  “Oh, relax, Fire Light. I’m not here for you. I’m laying my trap for another. And there’s plenty of time. Even for you. I can help you, you know.”

  “Help? Me? How?”

  “I can give you what you want more than anything else.”

 
“What’s that?”

  “A way out of this desolate end of the world. A way back to Cahokia, back to the warm embrace of the Four Winds Clan.”

  “How did you know I was Fire Light?”

  “I know a great many things. Especially the hidden and secret ways of the heart. For instance, you’ve known for a moon now that your sister, Rising Flame, is the Four Winds Clan matron. And why are you here, in Joara? Because you’ve been waiting for a messenger who has never come. Irritated, tortured, you twist in your blankets at night, wondering why she hasn’t lifted your ban, sent for you to come paddling back to Cahokia as fast as the rivers can carry you.”

  Center strike! I can see the truth of my words in the familiar tightening of his eyes, that pinching at the corner of his mouth.

  Oh yes, I know you, cousin.

  “You, a witch, can get me home?”

  “What is the control of Power good for if you can’t use it?” I give him a lopsided grin, which is all I’m allowed given the scar tissue around my mouth. Then I add, “What would you give to go home? Take your place at the side of Morning Star’s high chair?”

  I’ll say this for Fire Light. He’s a lot more careful than he was in his youth. Maybe the exile has been good for him, taught him to think things through.

  “Anything!”

  On the other hand, maybe it hasn’t.

  “I need someone to carry these things to the Clan House. After that, I need food, some sassafras tea, water to wash with.”

  “I will have to get the orata’s approval. He is currently—”

  “Sharp Path is a smart man. He will have no objection. And if he does … Well, that’s silly. Like I said, he’s a smart man.”

  With that, I turn on my heel, take two steps toward the Clan House where it sits diagonally across the plaza. Then I turn back.

  Fire Light hasn’t moved.

  I tell him, “Come tonight. After dark. There are some things I will need. If you can procure them, I would be most grateful.”

  “Things? Like what?”

  “A little girl. Two would be better.”

  I see the color drain from his face.

  Thirty-two

  I’m getting too old for this. The notion kept rolling around in Blue Heron’s head as she climbed the stairs to the Council House Gate. The wind whipped at her cloak. Tried to topple her off the squared-log steps set into the ramp. Above her, Morning Star’s great mound, topped with its steep-roofed palace, soared against the sky.

  She stopped at the top. Nodded to the guards who monitored the Council House Gate, then turned her attention to the Great Plaza where men were practicing on the chunkey courts, flinging lances after the rolling stones. A pickup game of stickball was being played on the other side of the tall World Tree pole in the plaza’s center. Around it, vendors had set up stalls, booths, or spread blankets to hawk their wares. At this time of year there weren’t as many of them. Gaps could be seen between the various potters, weavers, meat vendors, and Traders.

  She sighed, rubbed her hip, and entered the gate. A scattering of people stood around in knots before the Council House door: lesser nobility, personal servants, and the like. Partially sheltered from the wind by the palisade wall and the bulk of the Council House, they were trying to reap whatever benefit could be had of the post-equinox sun where it peeked through the clouds.

  Blue Heron made her way to the doorway, nodded at the warrior who stood guard there, and entered.

  Immediately the warmth bathed her cold face, made her grin with relief. People nodded, called greetings, and stepped aside as she crossed the matting, passed the fire, and made her way to the rear of the room where Wind, seated on her litter, was talking to one of the recorders. Matron Robin Wing stood behind her. Arms crossed, face stiff and flinty, as if in distaste.

  The recorder, a man in his early forties, had a long string of variously sized, colored, and shaped beads. These he was running through his fingers, reading off, “… seven hundred and fifty-seven standard baskets of corn, one hundred and ninety-five standard baskets of goosefoot seed, one hundred and fifty-three standard baskets of dried lotus root, two hundred and ten standard baskets of dried acorns, three hundred and twelve standard baskets of hickory nuts…” on and on until he reached the last of the beads.

  “Quite a haul,” Wind remarked, turning her piercing gaze Robin Wing’s way.

  The Matron’s long face reflected nothing. She’d always been able to adopt the gambler’s expression: impassive, her dark eyes inscrutable. Now she ran a long-boned hand over her graying hair, pulled her thin frame to full height. “That was the fall inventory. We’ve just passed the spring equinox celebration. All that feasting and dancing, our stores are depleted.”

  “So are the stores for Morning Star House, River Mounds, and North Star House.” Wind arched a suggestive eyebrow as she resettled herself to glance Blue Heron’s way.

  “Then you might ask North Star House to open their storehouses as well.”

  “We have,” Wind told her, then glanced again at Blue Heron, the question hanging there between them.

  “The first canoe-loads have already landed. Slender Fox and Wolverine began shipment yesterday.” Blue Heron kept her expression neutral, as if she was having a conversation about the strength of a cup of tea. “And it’s not like we’re asking you to strip your warehouse down to nothing, though Slender Fox ordered exactly that. We only need to replace what Columella offered and some additional as reward for her loan.”

  “Why a reward? What’s that all about?” Matron Robin Wing crossed her thin arms.

  “Because she came through at a desperate moment,” Wind snapped. “Because she took a gamble that the rest of us would do what she was willing to do. Replace those burned food stocks.”

  “I still don’t think that warehouse catching fire was an accident.” Robin Wing narrowed an eye.

  “No one does,” Blue Heron replied. Then added, “Well, but for Spotted Wrist and Rising Flame. Probably because they have their reasons for believing as they do.”

  “What a surprise, eh?” A sour smile bent Robin Wing’s lips. “Slender Fox and Wolverine really opened their storehouses?”

  “They did,” Blue Heron said.

  Robin Wing closed her eyes, took a deep breath. For a time she held it, no doubt considering her options and trying to calculate the ramifications of refusing. Hard to do when Horned Serpent House would be the only one to hold out.

  “The Earth Clans are contributing?” Robin Wing asked hopefully.

  “Everyone is,” Wind told her. “We all share the pain. If bellies end up ganted by the time the first greens are imported, it will be all the way around. And it is spring. The migrations are starting. It won’t completely fill the gap, but a lot of people are going to be spending a lot more time hunting ducks, geese, herons, swans, cranes, and pigeons. I think we can organize a mass netting in the river. Get enough canoes together, tie enough nets together, and trawl it upstream and we should be able to make a substantial catch. Working together we can manage.”

  “Slender Fox really agreed to this?” Robin Wing’s desperation was almost palpable.

  “She did,” Blue Heron said mildly. “And with remarkable alacrity. She barely hesitated … considering that her attention was on her brother. She’s such a sharing woman and so open to family needs.”

  Robin Wing lifted a skeptical eyebrow.

  “You could always say no, but we could really use your help,” Wind added. “Might stir a little resentment, being the only House to refuse to help out.”

  “We shouldn’t be in this mess to start with.”

  “No. Too bad, really. Makes you wonder what kind of man could possibly have so much trouble snaring himself a wife.” Blue Heron shrugged. “But then he and Rising Flame have made such a difference. Things run so much more smoothly now. Like getting all the Houses but one to pitch in and fix the problem created by the burning of the expedition supplies.”

  Robin
Wing grunted under her breath. “Green Chunkey will be livid.”

  “He will,” Wind agreed. “But I suspect he will be more livid when North Star House comes out looking selfless, interested in the good of all, and Horned Serpent House looks like stingy misers interested only in their own bellies.”

  Blue Heron gave a sagacious nod. “I can just hear Wolverine and Slender Fox in the next full Council meeting: ‘And where was Horned Serpent House when bellies were empty? Were they sharing? Did they place the good of Cahokia before their own?’”

  Robin Wing bit off a curse, jaw muscles bunched. “You know we hate those people.”

  True, not that many moons past they’d been fit to open combat against each other, and Piasa take the hindmost—even if it meant the destruction of both their Houses and Cahokia as well. Slender Fox had called Green Chunkey a walking piece of shit to his face.

  Wind said, “I think that come the Green Corn Ceremony, we shall have a feast for the Houses who pitched in. In fact, as tonka’tzi I hereby order it. I wonder who will be left out, most noticeable by their absence? People will talk.”

  “All right! I will send the order.” Robin Wing shook her head. “My brother will scream.”

  “His voice will be drowned by the cries of thanks,” Wind said amiably. She turned. “Messenger.”

  One of the young men along the back wall sprang forward, his staff of office in hand.

  Robin Wing made a face. Seemed to flinch, then said, “Tell my stewards that the storehouses are to be opened, and all but a third part of what’s left is to be sent to replace Evening Star House’s stores.” She glanced at the recorder, who stood still holding his string of beads and looking uncomfortable. “Will that be enough?”

  “Yes, Lady. Just about perfect.”

  With that, Robin Wing growled something unpleasant under her breath. Then she stalked off, crossing the room and calling, “Have my litter made ready. I need to return, now!”

  Wind chuckled. “That went well, unless, of course, it turns out that North Star House really didn’t send their share.”