Star Path--People of Cahokia

by W. Michael Gear

  She turned, sauntered back in her saucy walk, aware that Old Scar and Whistle Hand were still watching.

  “Well?” Fire Cat asked, his fingers playing just out of sight within reach of his war club.

  “They’re headed upriver in the morning. Offered that big canoe in Trade for you and me. That’s a lot of incentive, provided it wasn’t a trick.”

  “But they didn’t know you?”

  “Didn’t have a clue.” She frowned. “But I learned what I wanted to know. Piasa could have turned me over to them, but he didn’t. That was the test. I think, Fire Cat, for the moment, you and I have dodged the arrow of fate.”

  “Let’s just hope we keep dodging it.”

  Piasa laughed from so closely behind her left ear that she couldn’t help but spin, expecting to see the Spirit Beast. She only found empty air.

  Forty-two

  Blood Talon studied the throngs of people. Many were packed around the plaza immediately west of the Rainbow Town palisade. Must have been quite the celebration. While many of the participants were drifting away, the town and its surroundings remained crowded. The grass had been trampled, the thick ash lens left in the wake of a bonfire smoked in the middle of the stickball field.

  Despite that, a pickup stickball game was in progress, the teams avoiding the hot spot as if it were but another hazard in the play.

  Surely, here, among all these people, he would find some kind of word about Night Shadow Star. The woman couldn’t have just up and disappeared. Red Reed, and the Traders who accompanied her, had to be somewhere on the river.

  Despite the number of searchers he had lured, threatened, and wheedled out of the chief at Red Bluff Town, no hint had come as to his quarry’s location.

  So, had Night Shadow Star given up? Headed back to Cahokia? Perhaps slipped over to the Southern Shawnee River? Or had she just gone to ground, hiding somewhere along some backwater where she hoped she wouldn’t be spotted?

  Given the manpower he’d turned loose on the sprawling waterway, he should have heard.

  Beside him, Nutcracker chuckled.

  “Something funny?”

  “Just thinking of that sassy Tenasee Trader. I think I’ll dream of her tonight. Nice one, that. You should have felt her rear. Solid, muscular. Just the thought of wiggling my shaft inside her makes me so hard a dog couldn’t chew it.”

  “You could find out,” Split Limb told him. “She said she’d warm your shaft in return for the war canoe. Suits the rest of us. We can always find another canoe to get our sorry hides back to Cahokia.”

  Blood Talon shot them an irritated glance. “No one is going anywhere unless it’s after Night Shadow Star. We’ve been given a task to complete, we’re going to finish it. Even if we have to go all the way to Cofitachequi to hunt her down.”

  “Long way,” Nutcracker said as he watched three young Yuchi women pass. They were all giggling, sharing something either humorous or salacious, given the way they shot dark-eyed sidelong glances at Blood Talon and the rest of the warriors.

  His men were back to uttering ribald comments, which, fortunately, the young women found as incomprehensible as he and his warriors found Yuchi.

  “All right, let’s get about it. The best source of information is going to be in the palisade. This place has to have a chief, and he has to have an interpreter. Time to see what we can pry out of these barbarians.”

  He turned, leading the way past a camp of Yuchi who were seated around a large stewpot. Apparently it was their last meal because they were ladling out the dregs of what had been a feast of hominy.

  Even as he did, he couldn’t help but remember the expression on that river Trader’s face as Nutcracker grabbed her nicely rounded rear. That look of absolute shock and disbelief. Woman like her, as worldly as she’d sounded, she should have been used to being groped. So why the stunned expression?

  He just couldn’t get it out of his mind.

  Forty-three

  There was nothing like being face-to-face with one’s enemy to spur an increase in pace. At Night Shadow Star’s first telling of the encounter, the Traders had been incredulous. Needless to say, all it took to convince them was a casual head nod toward the two Cahokian warriors who guarded the big war canoe. It remained beached just down from Red Reed on Rainbow Town’s busy landing.

  White Mat and the rest wasted no time, tossing their belongings, a couple of packs of food, and some gear into the Red Reed’s waiting hull.

  As Old Scar and Whistle Hand watched suspiciously from the war canoe, Red Reed had been shoved into the backwater, turned, and vigorously paddled around the confluence. Night Shadow Star had tossed one last look over her shoulder an instant before the steep bluff hid them from view.

  “You went over and talked to them?” Shedding Bird asked incredulously. “What if they’d recognized you?”

  “Then it would have been all over,” Night Shadow Star told him. “But they didn’t. They thought I was a Trader, and if I can fool them, I can fool anyone.”

  “What did they try and Trade?” Made Man called from where he paddled behind Fire Cat.

  “Me. For a half hand of time in the bushes. I told them they had a deal, but it would cost them that war canoe. I think Nutcracker might have considered it.”

  “I’d have Traded,” Fire Cat told her in Cahokian. “But after last night, I know what you’re worth.”

  She shot him a flirtatious smile.

  “Uh-huh,” Half Root muttered under her breath. “I thought something was different between you two.”

  “Blame it on the moon.” Made Man wore a lascivious grin.

  “About time,” Mixed Shell offered from his seat. “The rest of us weren’t going to say anything. Wasn’t our place. But watching you two up until today? There’s times we just wanted to say, ‘Just go do it! Stop the pain.’”

  “The pain’s definitely stopped,” Fire Cat said. “Now we just have to figure out what it means in the grand scheme of things.”

  Piasa hissed his rage from just behind her head.

  Night Shadow Star bit her lip, concentrating on her paddle as they passed beneath the sheer bluff, dominated by Rainbow Town where it perched on the heights above.

  With nothing to do but paddle and listen to the voices in her head, she finally had time to face the fact that her future had changed. Her relationship with Fire Cat had been forever altered. Somehow, being in love with the man who had killed Makes Three had been one thing. Platonic love didn’t reek of betrayal. Having taken Fire Cat into her bed, however, left her uneasy. She had loved her first husband, had centered her life around him, especially after having been taken by Morning Star after his reincarnation and then her subsequent rape by Walking Smoke.

  Both events had traumatized her. That Morning Star had taken her to his bed the morning after his reincarnation was unsettling enough; she’d ultimately been able to convince herself that it wasn’t her brother who drove himself into her. That she was the first woman the living god had wanted upon his rebirth in Chunkey Boy’s body, uncomfortable as that had been.

  But Walking Smoke? That he had beaten her, choked her, and savagely raped her had been so repellent she’d blocked the memory. Locked it away in some dark place between her souls. A place so deep it had taken Piasa and Horned Serpent to dig it out while she lay dying in the Underworld.

  Looking back, perhaps that was why she’d placed so much dependency on Makes Three. He had been a kind, compassionate, and loving man. The kind of decent human being she’d clung to desperately as a reminder that not all men were sordid, vile, and heartless.

  “Thinking something?” Fire Cat asked, his paddle stroking rhythmically in time with the others as they paralleled the bank.

  “About my first husband. About you. About what it all means.”

  “We can always go back to the way—”

  “No. Not only is it impossible, but I don’t want to. Do you?”

  “Not a chance. I just thought—”
/>   “It’s appreciated, but stop it. I loved Makes Three. We were young. Our lives were built on passion. You know first love? That initial hot burn in a person’s life? A consuming ache for each other? That was what I felt. And I needed him. Clung to him. Made him the center of my life because I had no center of my own. Which was why, when he died, I sent my souls to the Underworld to find him. I wanted to die there so I never had to come back and face the world without him.”

  “If I could go back…”

  “Don’t be silly. When Piasa ordered me to cut you down from the square that night, I loathed you with all my soul, hoped you would spit out some vile curse in defiance. Free me to cut you apart piece by piece.”

  “I would have, if I’d known who you were.”

  They paddled for a time, her thoughts going back to that night, wondering how, in his pain and delirium, he could have mistaken her for First Woman.

  Because he did, he bound himself to me. Was there to save my life, to save my city from the Itza, to rescue Morning Star, and ultimately to accompany me here.

  “Now you begin to understand what you are throwing away,” Piasa’s voice sounded off to the side where water roiled and swirled.

  “Lord, maybe you are more than just a vicious beast,” she replied. Piasa’s essence slipped along just beneath the river’s surface. She could feel the Spirit creature, smoldering, uneasy, and not a little curious.

  “The mysterious ways of Power, Lady,” Fire Cat whispered. “It played us both. Not sure what it means now that we’ve shared the robes.”

  “Me, either. Nor is Piasa. Not that his demands ever made sense. I can understand throwing us together. We defeated Walking Smoke, defeated the Itza, saved the balance of Power, and retrieved Morning Star from the Underworld. But surely, by sending us on this journey, Piasa had to know that once we were out of Cahokia, it was only a matter of time. The beast lives within me, it knows the ache I have for you. Place a smoldering coal in a pile of leaves, Red Wing, and it’s only a matter of time before it burns free.”

  He pursed his lips, frowned, the muscles in his arms tensing and flowing as he helped drive Red Reed across the green-tinted water.

  Finally, he said, “I think you’re right. Piasa knew it would happen. Knows what we mean to each other. As dedicated as I was to you before, my life and yours are now inseparable. Consuming. What does that gain the beast in our current endeavor?”

  Piasa laughed inside her head.

  “Clever man. He is indeed worthy.”

  “Oh, go drown a crawfish,” she told it.

  “What’s the creature say?”

  “Nothing reassuring.”

  Which turned her stomach. She glanced sidelong at Fire Cat; her heart and chest burned with her love for him. How many ways could Power use that? Manipulate her? Drive her to act, even against her own interests?

  Too many.

  Forty-four

  Four major cataracts impeded the Tenasee River’s flow along its central section. The first was located in the lower half of the river’s Great Bend where the channel changed to a northerly route and headed for its confluence with the Mother Water. A Cahokian colony called Reed Bottom Town had displaced—or rather conquered and enslaved—a village of Koasati who had once lived there. The location was strategically located astride the great war path and Trading trail. The route—used for generations—ran from the lower Father Water, northeast to the ford at the Tenasee at the lower cataract. From there the trail continued northeast to the crossing of the Southern Shawnee River, and hence to the headwaters of the Mother River in the Algonquian lands. Anyone now traveling that route found it squarely blocked by the Cahokian presence at Reed Bottom Town on the Tenasee, and the newly established White Swan Town on the Southern Shawnee.

  In addition, Reed Bottom Town controlled the river. When the water ran low, the cataract prevented all upstream travel. At those times the rushing water had to be portaged around, or men had to be hired to physically tow canoes up the fast water—a feat filled with danger and potential disaster for the canoe and to whomever was trying to steer the vessel and keep it from capsizing.

  On Fire Cat’s advice, they passed Reed Bottom Town at night. Not only did it buy them time—for the squadron first was sure to stop there—but if no one saw them pass, no one could report the same to Blood Talon when he demanded information from the Fox Clan chief in charge of the colony.

  Red Reed, by luck, arrived at the first cataract after a heavy rain, and with the river up, they were able to tow the slim canoe through the areas where the current ran swiftly. As a result, they made the passage in a single long day.

  Advancing up the river they came to the Koasati Shallows, where again they were able to both pole and tow Red Reed through the fast water. From there the river ran east to the Mussel Shallows cataract and the settlement established at its lower reaches: Big Cane Town.

  This final stretch had the Yuchi Traders in a rare good mood. This was their home river, the section of the Tenasee where they’d grown up.

  “If it wasn’t for that bunch of unruly warriors following us, Lady,” White Mat told her, “we’d stay every night in a warm and snug house. Be fed the finest of boiled mussels, fresh venison, and roast turtle.”

  “But he’s still back there,” Fire Cat reminded them. Then he gestured to a passing dugout filled with waving locals. It was headed downstream bearing a family on some business. “Too many people know we’re on the river. Sure, we’re not the only red canoe on the Tenasee carrying five men and two women, but Blood Talon is going to get enough reports to suspect we’re ahead of him. In his position, he can’t allow any rumor to go uninvestigated.”

  “We can only hope the river has dropped by the time he hits the lower cataracts,” Shedding Bird said as he shot a look back downriver. “It would make his passage that much more difficult. Hold him up. Or, better yet, maybe he’d be so desperate he’ll try the rapids and capsize.”

  “He could also command the chief at Reed Bottom Town to portage his boat and equipment around the cataract,” Night Shadow Star said. “With the whole town at his disposal to help portage the canoe, it might not take him any longer than it would take his warriors to walk the distance.”

  “And that means he could be even closer behind us than we think,” Half Root added. “Wish we knew where they were.”

  “They’re wishing the same thing.”

  Big Cane Town lay on the south bank of the Tenasee, just above a long island that split the river, and below constricting bluffs that forced the channel through a narrow canyon.

  The cataract—called Mussel Shallows for the shellfish that thrived in its rapid waters—created a barrier to further progress. Here the river’s course was broken, interrupted by more than sixty flood-scoured islands and outcrops of hard chert that jutted up like craggy teeth during low water. The river itself dropped in a series of low falls and rapids that tumbled over ledges of resistant rock. Nor did the steep sandstone canyon walls above allow much purchase around the drops where whitewater thrashed and thundered.

  All Trade and travel came to a temporary halt at Big Cane Town; from there trailheads had been established south to the various nations, or help had to be procured to portage around the wicked channels, shoals, rapids, and falls.

  The big stands of cane for which the town had been named had long ago been cut, used for various constructions, and split in half—the over- and under-sides overlapping for roofing.

  Forested bluffs rose behind Big Cane Town, and several small creeks led back into the hills. A well-defined trail paralleled the river’s southern uplands. This was the portage route.

  As Red Reed arrived at the landing below Big Cane Town, Night Shadow Star handed over the agreed Trade, adding the copper plate she’d promised for their extra hard work. Here was a goal reached. Literally half the distance covered to Cofitachequi. But thinking back to that woman who had left Cahokia in a snowstorm, both the woman and the world had changed into someth
ing different, almost unrecognizable.

  Knowing the landing would be a flurry of questions, they made their farewells early. She was saying good-bye to close friends, companions she had come to value as equals, whose skill and courage she cherished. And whose acceptance and respect she was honored to have earned. The experience proved surprisingly painful. Hugs. Tears. Promises to get together again.

  The feeling was bittersweet in a way she’d never known before.

  I have lived my life in a cocoon. The sensation might be likened to stepping out from a cold cave into glorious hot sunshine.

  The jubilant mood among the Red Reed Traders filled Night Shadow Star with both joy and worry. She need only look downriver, along that murky and roiling surface they’d just crossed to imagine Blood Talon’s canoe as it sliced water, driven by strong warriors paddling in unison.

  “How long do I have, Lord?”

  “Soon now. They come. Everything will be different.”

  Forty-five

  From the moment of Red Reed’s arrival, the greeting the Traders received had been anything but subdued. As the canoe grounded on the sandy, charcoal-stained landing, a young man carrying fish traps on his back had called out, “It’s White Mat and Shedding Bird! The Red Reed is back!”

  Up at the head of the landing, a man stepped out from a cane-roofed ramada and blew a long note on a conch-shell horn. As the hollow sound carried up through the trees, people appeared from all directions. They called out in Yuchi, swarming the landing, grabbing packs out of the canoe, slapping White Mat and the rest on the back, laughing, crying out greetings.

  To Fire Cat and Night Shadow Star—who stood back and remained mostly ignored—the few people who found themselves face to face had been most polite, asking in Trade pidgin, “And who are you? How did you get to travel with Red Reed?”