Star Path--People of Cahokia

by W. Michael Gear

  Piasa hissed a subtle warning from the darkness behind the sassafras tree.

  If only I dared.

  The Casqui

  There are three of them. A Casqui, who is the leader, a Yuchi, and a mixed-breed fellow who’s half Hiawasee and part Muskogee and a bit Shawnee.

  I have to hand it to Fire Light. He still has no clue about who I am. I scare the man down to his bones, but through my goodwill, he really thinks he’s going to go home. That once he’s there, back in the graces of his clan—his sister being Four Winds Clan matron—he will finally rise to his proper place in the hierarchy that governs Cahokia.

  He has brought me the Casqui and his two companions. I’ve enjoyed their arrival. The three of them came trooping in, looking dangerous. Or trying to. I’ve seen the kind so many times. They think they’re bad. The sort who aren’t frightened by any comeuppance short of the square. Especially when it’s anything Spiritual.

  They don’t know who they really are. Not the deep cracks and crevasses between their souls. Down in those dark shadows is where the stories they were told—and believed as children—still live. Sometimes it just takes the right lever to pry them free.

  I find that lever when I let them see me staring into the well pot I’ve made out of one of the little girls’ skulls. The blood is dried and blackened, of course, and the surface is no longer smooth and reflective as it had been.

  “There is a woman coming,” I tell them. “She comes with a single man, transported by canoe up the Tenasee. She is a Cahokian noble. A woman by the name of Night Shadow Star, though she will be traveling under another name. Passing herself off as just an ordinary traveler. You will know her by the tattoos on her cheeks. The Four Winds, two spirals on each side of her mouth. She is young, early twenties. She will come bearing Trade packs.

  “You know the Tenasee, the points through which all must pass. Go, watch. And when you find her, bring her to me. Unharmed. Unmolested. That latter will be a difficult challenge for you, I’m sure. If you deliver her here, your semen dripping from her sheath, I will give you each a single shell and send you on your way. Within a moon, your shafts will burn and begin to rot from the inside out.

  “Bring her to me fit, unused, and I shall give you Joara.”

  “What about the orata that lives here?” the older Casqui asks.

  “He is no longer here,” I reply. “He has, as he says, ‘relocated’ to Cofitachequi to build a new palace and, as he says, ‘wants to help his brother better govern’ the nation. But even if he were, he would accede to my request. Declare you each an orata, and the town would be yours to rule and govern as you saw fit. Placed as it is, on the route to the sea and the crossroads of major Trading trails, you could live quite comfortably for the rest of your lives.”

  “What makes you think we’d want that?” the second asks.

  I lift my ruined eyebrow—well, as much as it would lift given the scar tissue. Doing so does absolutely wonderful things to my expression. Makes it almost monstrous instead of simply hideous. “What do you want? Why are you slipping up and down the rivers? I think it’s because you have nowhere to go. Here I can make you oratas, and you will never have to suffer privation again.”

  “We just take your word for that?”

  “Just bring me the woman, in the condition I ask. I’ll give you Joara as well as all the Trade she carries. You will be both rich and landed.”

  “That’s all there is to it? Take her away from one man? Bring her here with her sheath unused?”

  “Must be a pretty important woman,” the mixed breed finally chimes in, his hard black eyes on mine. Of them all, he seems the least intimidated.

  “I’ll warn you now. She reeks of Power. In fact, you might want to carry her with a sack over her head. And when she talks to the Underworld, you really don’t want to be listening in.”

  Thirty-eight

  The Yuchi settlement called Rainbow Town consisted of a palisaded central plaza that served the people’s two moieties. The Chief Moiety was in charge of the northern half of the town, the Warrior Moiety of the southern. Their Council Houses stood on opposite sides of the plaza from each other. An open-roofed temple perched atop a platform of earth on the plaza’s west, and the high chief’s residence on the east. The rest of the space was occupied by various society houses and granaries.

  Each moiety conducted its own affairs, moderated by the clans. Children were born into one of four clans, the Wolf, Bear, Panther, or Deer Clan that their mother belonged to, but also into the same moiety as their father.

  In their own language the Yuchi called themselves the Tsoyaha, or the Children of the Sun, believing they were sprung from drops of Mother Sun’s menstrual blood that had fallen to earth as she crossed the heavens in the Beginning Times.

  In their cosmology, the sky had the three great lights, the sun, moon, and stars, each of which they depicted as circling the heavens. From them, the rainbow served as a bridge to the earth. In the Beginning Times, a mysterious stranger had descended from the rainbow. Called the Kala Hi’ki, the mysterious stranger had taught the Yuchi all the ways in which to deport themselves as brave, honorable, wise, and respectful people.

  Rainbow Town was their westernmost settlement just below the Great Bend of the Tenasee. Surrounded by Muskogean peoples to the north, west, and south, the Yuchi had been in a state of constant war until the coming of the Cahokians. As the first colonial expeditions pushed downriver, the Yuchi had quickly allied themselves, accepting priests, Traders, and even allowing a colony on their southern boundary. They had rightly figured that it was smart to have a Cahokian colony situated between them and the bellicose Sky Hand Muskogeans who had recently conquered the Albaamaha and Koasati nations on the southern side of the divide.

  It was toward this western Yuchi city that Red Reed now traveled. This was familiar country for the Traders. And they put their backs into the paddling, for this was a holy day that marked the lunar maximum.

  “It’s like a homecoming,” White Mat called over his shoulder as Red Reed was driven up the Tenasee’s eastern shore toward Rainbow Town. He and the others cried out greetings in their native Yuchi tongue to locals who were on the river checking their weirs, fish traps, and crawfish pots.

  Night Shadow Star enjoyed the rising sense of anticipation as they passed the first Yuchi villages. Most were either empty or vacating as people left for the lunar celebration in Rainbow Town. Red Reed joined a growing flotilla of dugouts paralleling the bank as they paddled their way upstream.

  “It’s the moon ceremony,” Half Root told Night Shadow Star. “Tonight, the moon will set at the northernmost point in its cycle.”

  Of course. Cahokia, too, would be awash in celebration. Not with as grand and sacred a pageant as the southern lunar maximum, but still a major marking of the eighteen-and-a-half-year lunar cycle.

  Have we been on the river that long?

  A canoe landing lay on the river’s west bank, below a wide and shallow slope created by a long-ago slumping of the high bluff that overlooked the Tenasee. The lowland was bordered by a stream that ran down from the uplands; and a moderate incline allowed easy access to the high bluff.

  The landing itself was packed with canoes, many of them pulled up and crammed together so tightly a person could barely squeeze his way between them. On the slope above, campsites had been established with slapped-together ramadas, tents, and simple collections of packs and bedrolls. Late arrivals were climbing the trail that led up to the town.

  A festive mood filled the air; drums, flutes, and rhythm sticks zizzing could be heard in the late afternoon. A thousand fires had to be burning atop the bluff, given the pall of smoke that rose and trailed off to the east like a plume. The roar of the crowd rose and fell as something monumental occurred beyond view on the bluff.

  “Auspicious, don’t you think?” White Mat called as they drove in for the shore. “Coming here on this of all days.”

  “It is indeed, brother,” Shed
ding Bird agreed. “We have kin here. Chief Moiety, Wolf Clan. I wonder if they’ll have room for another bed in their house?”

  Half Root called, “If not, Made Man has a brother here. You can come camp with him.”

  “Hey, woman, that’s my brother’s house you’re giving away,” Made Man chided his wife.

  “He’ll be happy to see us. More so when he hears what we’re about on this trip. Who we carry.”

  “No!” Fire Cat said sharply. “Think, my friends. They may be family, people you trust. They may only tell people they trust, who will tell people they trust. But do you want the news that you carry a lady from Cahokia passing from lip to lip? Somewhere along the line of ‘trusted people’ telling each other, the word will spread like wildfire through the entire celebration. Everyone will come to look, to see the lady. And then the word will be carried to Blood Talon. He will know not only where we are, but who you all are, and when we were here.”

  White Mat sighed as he shipped his paddle and stepped from the canoe, looked at the rest, read their disappointment. “You all know he’s right, don’t you?”

  One by one, they nodded, slightly crestfallen looks on their faces.

  “All it would take is one slip,” Mixed Shell said. “We could lose everything we’ve worked so hard to accomplish.”

  “As for me,” Shedding Bird added as he stepped out of Red Reed, “when the story is told, I don’t want to be remembered as the one who acted foolishly, bragging, and brought disaster down on everyone’s heads.”

  “Me, either,” Made Man agreed.

  Together they all pulled Red Reed as high as they could on the swampy land just above the creek mouth—the only unoccupied area remaining. White Mat tied the canoe off to a bald cypress sapling, lest the water rise and float the Red Reed away.

  Up to her ankles in mud, Night Shadow Star dabbed some of her red paint onto her cheeks and asked, “How do I look?”

  “Like a red-cheeked Trader,” Fire Cat told her with a smile before smearing white onto his own cheeks to cover the Red Wing tattoos. Then he shouldered a small pack filled with just enough Trade to see them fed and perhaps housed for the night.

  “What about the Trade and our things? Should someone stay to watch Red Reed?”

  “It will be safe, Lady. This isn’t Cahokia. These are Yuchi, on a most revered holiday. Not only would no one so much as think of stealing, they’d be horrified about the repercussions from the Spirit World if anyone did so on such a sacred day.”

  Given the crowding, they had to wade through muck for a half a bowshot to reach solid ground.

  The climb up to the bluff actually felt good, having been too long since they’d used their legs.

  Atop the high bluff, camps had been set up in every direction and against the palisade that surrounded Rainbow Town. The palisade itself served as a reminder that while the Cahokian Peace might be on people’s lips, the Tsoyaha didn’t take it for granted.

  Situated as it was on the edge of the bluff, the town overlooked the Tenasee, with a good view of the river and the thickly forested rolling country off to the east.

  People and dogs were everywhere; the breeze blowing in from the west carried the odors of cooking fish, roasting duck, geese, cranes, venison, turkey, and turtle along with the smells of boiling crawfish, hominy, greens, corn stew, baking smilax, and countie root. The odors of fresh cattail and yellow-lotus-root bread made the mouth water.

  It sounded like chaos: drumming, flutes, laughter, shouts, clapping hands, the roar of the crowd surrounding the stickball field. Children raced by, half of them laughing, the others blowing on willow-stem whistles. Dogs were barking, running around in packs that people alternately chided, chased off with thrown sticks, or called to.

  Everyone was dressed in colorful clothing, and in places Wolf, Deer, Bear, and Panther Clan standards marked hastily contrived clan grounds. Outside the palisade gates, Traders had set up pavilions, stands, or just bowed to expediency and spread a blanket on the ground to display their wares.

  “Should we join them?” Fire Cat asked. “Consider it part of our disguise?”

  “If you’d like,” White Mat told him. “Me, I’m off to see kin. Everyone, meet at the canoe tomorrow, midday. Tonight, feast, dance, sing, and find someone to share your blanket with.”

  With that, he whooped, slapped his brother on the back, and the two of them marched off toward the stickball field and chunkey court along the town’s western wall.

  “Find someone to share a blanket with?” Night Shadow Star asked.

  “It’s a lunar celebration.” Half Root arched a suggestive eyebrow and gave Made Man an intimate glance. “Fertility. Making the world new. Think red Power: creative, chaotic, and lusty. You follow my path here?” To emphasize her words, she squeezed Made Man’s hand and grinned. “But no coupling until after moonrise. Those are the Yuchi rules.”

  “What about people who aren’t married?”

  “Oh, there will be plenty of partners,” Mixed Shell told her.

  With that, he, too, gave them a ribald wink and set off for the stickball grounds.

  “See you at the canoe. Midday tomorrow,” Half Root reminded. Taking Made Man in tow, she headed off for the town gates.

  Another frantic cry rose from the crowd around the stickball field. Night Shadow Star stared longingly at it. Back in Cahokia, she’d be playing. Probably at this very moment. There, she’d be leading the Morning Star House women’s team against the other Houses and the Earth Clans as well.

  “Want to go see?” Fire Cat asked amiably. “Just to get an idea of what the competition is like?”

  She couldn’t stop the grin. Together they walked over to join the crowd. That no one realized who she was came as a shock. In Cahokia, she was a renowned stickball player; people recognized her even when she was present only as a spectator. Here, no one gave her so much as a second look. The feeling was … peculiar.

  And then liberating.

  She found it almost impossible, however, to just let herself go. To simply be herself. Not to worry about what people were thinking, seeing.

  This was a grudge match, Bear Clan against Panther Clan, each side fielding more than a hundred players. Amid the screaming and yelling of the thousand or so spectators she could hear the grunting of the players, the clacking as they banged their racquets together and shouted encouragement to each other.

  Down the court, she could see the scoring sticks: sixteen for Bear Clan, fourteen for Panther. If this was like the Cahokian game, the first side to reach twenty would win.

  As the game progressed, she lost her self-conscious feeling, whistling and clapping as the play intensified. Both teams collided down by the Panther goal, tens of bodies slamming together in a melee of confusion as both sides fought over possession of the deer-hide ball. Someone screamed in pain.

  The press of men surged back and forth, seeking by sheer mass to force the others away from the ball.

  And miraculously a young man appeared out of the chaos of straining bodies and charged for the Bear goal on the opposite end of the field. Shouts rose, the whole pack of sweating and gasping men pounding after him.

  Fleet as the young man was, others were closing, and at the last instant, he reached back, used his racquet to catapult the ball toward his teammates. The forward players for Bear Clan knew their game, four blocking the Panther Clan guards while the fifth neatly caught the ball with his racquet, spun, and raced wide around the defenders. With a series of brilliant passes, Bear Clan managed to close with the goal. A forward caught the ball, feinted, ducked around a Panther Clan guard, and used his racquet to whip the ball between the goalposts.

  Bear Clan erupted, shouting, leaping, clapping, and whooping.

  “Did you see that passing? They practiced that,” Night Shadow Star told Fire Cat.

  He gave her a grin, reading her delight. “Wish you were playing?”

  “Of course. I wonder if any of the women’s teams need a volunteer.”r />
  “As good as you are? They’d want to know who the new phenomenon was who made all those goals, which would lead to uncomfortable questions about who you are and where you came from.”

  For the next few fingers of time, she lost herself in the game, joining the crowd as she enthusiastically rooted for the Bear Clan. In the end they won by two, Panther Clan never managing to close the gap.

  Huge amounts of goods had been wagered on the outcome, including blankets, pots, lances, bags of food, articles of clothing, ritual dress, slaves, and even canoes. Half the wealth of the western Yuchi changed hands, the losers dismayed, the winners delighted.

  “Looks like they bet the town,” Fire Cat told her.

  She shot him a smile. “Nothing like what you won when you beat that Natchez war chief.” She paused, heart swelling. “I never told you everything about him. About what he was going to do to me when Thirteen Sacred Jaguar was away. So many things would have been different if you hadn’t won that game.”

  “Swirling Cloud was a vile human being in a lot of ways.”

  “I should have freed you from your oath right then and there. I wanted to. But for Piasa … Pus and rot, I’m tired of being his plaything.”

  He laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder, telling her, “You are who you are, and Power has made you its instrument. My life is dedicated to yours, Lady. Wherever it takes us, I’m yours.”

  She closed her eyes, let herself settle against him, reveled in the sense of safety and security imparted by his muscular body against hers. His arm was around her shoulders, holding her close.

  “Why does it always have to be so difficult?” she whispered.

  “Because you and I can stand it,” he told her reasonably. “Anyone else? Power would have broken them long ago, and they’d be corpses.” A pause. “Now, let’s go find food. I’m starved.”

  They traded a string of Cahokian shell beads for a feast of roast goose, acorn bread filled with sunflower seeds, and boiled crawfish all washed down by strong black drink that sent shivers of energy through her body.