I’m coming, my love. It won’t be long now.
Assuming he could figure out how to get a canoe with the little Trade he had from the sale of the dugout he’d taken at Black Clay Bank village.
Glancing back at the man in the square, hearing the shouts of the crowd, it wouldn’t do to be caught crosswise with the locals. So how did an ex–Red Wing war chief, freed bound servant, and owner of weapons, armor, and chunkey gear manage to accumulate enough Trade to barter for a quality canoe when …
His gaze went once again to the crude chunkey court, and a slow smile bent his lips.
They Don’t Understand
It amazes me. One would think they would learn. Especially after all the times they’ve tried before. But they don’t. It is a particularly baffling aspect of how their thoughts and souls work.
I come awake in darkness. I am in my bed, the fire burned down to low coals. I know it is the middle of the night, and we’re in the dark of the moon. The only sound is the harmonic of a thousand crickets, then the plaintive call of an owl out in the forest.
I rise, my hand going instinctively to my war club. I can sense his presence. Call it an awareness of the proximity of a living being. It’s the beating of his heart, the pulsing of blood in the veins. If I close my eyes I can almost hear the breath sucking in and pushing out of his lungs. Feel his building fear and desperation.
Turning, I stretch my senses, let them drift out and … yes, there. He’s just on the other side of the wall, slipping along. I follow as he reaches the front corner, hesitates.
I imagine him peeking around the corner, searching the pitch-black veranda, afraid that I am hiding there. The image fills my souls of an insect who knows a wolf spider is lurking nearby, hidden in its den.
Oh, yes, come closer, my prey.
He rounds the corner, and cocking my head, I can hear his slow and fumbling approach as he feels his way along the veranda. Reaches the door.
I smile as I consider his problem. The door is closed. What does he do? Try to lift it out of the way? Is it latched from the inside? Will it make noise? And if it does, will it bring me fully awake and cognizant of his stealthy approach?
I am aware of a fast, rhythmic thumping and am surprised to realize I’m hearing the sound of his frantic heart. He is scared half to death. Nevertheless, he demonstrates courage. His fingers give off the slightest rasp as they trace the planks, and he fastidiously lifts my door, swinging it to one side.
I see the faintest outline of his shape against the darkness beyond. He is a big man, thick-shouldered, and I just make out his hair style: Muskogean.
The faint movement of his arm is that of a man pulling a war club from its thong. Despite the darkness, I know he’s got it raised, a bony fist gripping the handle.
He feels his way forward with a hesitant foot, the pounding of his heart ever more rapid, his breath loud now. I can almost feel the electric tingle of fear as it traces patterns across his skin. I can smell him, his odor thick with terror.
One step, two, and he’s craning his neck, searching frantically in the faint glow from the hearth to discover which bunk I might be asleep in.
I let him take another step, then ghost up behind him.
As boys, my brother and I were trained in the war club by the best warriors in Cahokia. Being the sons of Red Warrior Mankiller, we had the benefit of learning where to strike by practicing on prisoners. Mostly those captured in war.
I position myself, get my feet just so. And swing with all my might.
My club makes a sodden and meaty sound as it thuds into the back of the man’s spine just at the base of the neck. One heartbeat he’s standing, the next he’s on the ground with no feeling in the rest of his body.
Pulling his limp legs around, I quickly bind them, shove him onto his belly, and tie his hands behind his back. Only then do I throw wood on the fire. I study him as the flames rise around the knots of oak and hickory.
As the light flickers on my face, he gasps, and a whimper dies in his throat. I see tears begin to leak from his eyes. They trickle down around his nose like pearls of light and drip onto the matting beneath his head.
“I see by your tattoos that you are local,” I tell him. “What possessed you to try to kill me? Let alone in the middle of the night?”
“My two little girls,” he manages through sobs.
But how would he know that they ended up…? Well, doesn’t matter.
“Looks like Power just isn’t on your side, but it does run in your blood. At least, as much as can be attributed to the father. Your little girls granted me the Power to see across a great distance. Though I would much rather have the girls’ mother—more Power is transferred through the womb than from a drop of semen, you know—it will be an experiment. I’ll be fascinated to discover how far your blood and entrails will allow me to see.”
The fire is now leaping high enough to fill the room with light. More than enough to allow me to be about my work.
Following me with his panicked eyes, he throws his head back, a terrible scream almost ripping his vocal cords from his throat.
Yes, he’s figured out what I’m going to do with my long, intricately flaked chert knife.
He screams again when I sever the thong that holds his breechcloth in place. Got to hand it to the man, I would have thought his vocal cords would have given out long before I finally got around to slicing the thin muscle of the diaphragm loose from his rib cage to expose his heart. The thing was beating so fast you’d have thought it was a terrified rodent huddling between those deflating lungs.
But that was at the end, after I’d studied the patterns in his living intestines as I lifted them from the man’s gut cavity and spilled them on the matting.
Raising a burning brand from the fire, I then studied the blood pooling on either side of his spine, seeing the image they reflected in the dancing light.
I can see Night Shadow Star there. She is on the river. Coming closer by the day. The Casqui, the storm, both have failed me.
I consider the problem as I peel the Muskogee man’s skin from his limbs; the firelight flickers on his still-twitching muscles. Remarkable things, muscles. Half of the duality of movement. The other being bone. Bones do no good without muscles, and muscles are worthless unless attached to bone.
There should be a lesson in that when it comes to my problem with Night Shadow Star, assuming I can figure it out.
I finish with my work as the first streaks of dawn find their way across the treetops and into Joara. The framework I have made of sticks isn’t the best workmanship I am capable of, but it will do until I can craft something better.
I am out digging a hole as the full force of the sun finally illuminates the plaza and casts a long shadow from the mikko’s pitch-roofed palace. That done, I lift my framework and set it in the hole. My Muskogee would-be assailant’s skin hangs wet and loose, but it will tighten with the sunlight and breeze to dry it.
I look around, take in the town, hoping to share my sense of satisfaction. But for the small knot of warriors at the palace where Fire Light now dwells, I see no one. It strikes me that Joara is oddly quiet. I hear no calling children, no smacking of stone axes on wood or the thumping of pestles in log mortars. People should be out and about, calling greetings to each other.
Nor is the priest in his usual place down at the temple on the west side of town.
Only that one old woman without relations, who lives at the far end, too crippled to hardly move, is standing at the edge of the plaza, watching me with worried brown eyes.
She shouldn’t. True Power lies in the blood of the young.
Have I missed something? Perhaps a holiday? Is it summer solstice? Surely it can’t be the Green Corn Ceremony. And the lunar maximum was long ago.
So, where is everyone?
“Well, no matter,” I tell myself. “I have plenty of firewood, the fields outside of town are full of growing corn, beans, and squash, and as of last night, there’s
plenty of fresh meat for breakfast.”
I shall spend the rest of the day smoking my Muskogean friend for future meals. And who knows, perhaps his wife will come along, and I can see if her blood and body have more Power for clearer visions than her husband’s did.
That would be most helpful as I plan my trap for Night Shadow Star.
“You just keep right on coming, sister,” I whisper.
But next, I must talk with Fire Light.
Poor man.
Sixty-five
For a full quarter moon—seven unending and painful days—Seven Skull Shield had lain in bed. For most of that time, he’d had trouble with his souls—wandering in and out of his body. When they were out, he floated in a world of Dreams: times spent with Winder; golden days with Wooden Doll; or hearing amusement in the Keeper’s voice as she berated him. Sometimes it was laughing and joking with the shell carvers or the cord spinners.
Once he was even in Mother Otter’s bed, staring down at her as they shared the most wondrous coupling, her body undulating under his. That one, when he awakened, he knew to have only been a Dream. Some things, thank the Spirits, stretched credulity beyond the farthest reaches.
Then there were the other places to which his souls fled: dark, filled with death, terror, and angry men who pounded down narrow passageways blocked on either side by buildings—fire, pain, and agony shooting like lightning out of their fingers.
And through it all, fear filled him. The knowledge that he was about to be locked in a small cage, his body pierced with sharp sticks, burned, and beaten … and then would come the final agony of the square.
Other times he was awake, fully conscious of the ache in his body, the pained muscles and joints. It seemed that every inch of his hide hurt, either burned or punctured, bruised or battered. Knots covered his head.
But he knew where he was: Wooden Doll’s. Not only was her fine bed with all its pillows and soft blankets reassuring, but the familiar setting proved a tonic for his soul.
He’d barely been conscious the first time she’d taken a damp cloth to sponge his wounds. Remembered the lines of worry in her fine brow as she’d lifted his leg to the side, stifled a gasp, and tenderly cleaned his abused genitals.
Given her reaction, he wasn’t sure he wanted to look.
Helped upright by Whispering Dawn and Wooden Doll, his first urination into the pot they held had been dark with blood.
“Skull, so help me.” Wooden Doll had shaken her head. “I always knew you’d come to grief.”
“Not dead yet, girl,” he’d told her. “Call it a success, huh?”
“A success? You can’t even stand, every inch of you is hurt, and half the time you’re out of your head.”
“Got me back into your bed, didn’t it?”
She’d thumped him playfully on the shoulder, which shot pain. At his wince, she’d winked and said, “You might have wiggled your way into my bed, but you’re not worth much now that you’re here.”
“He never was much for planning,” Whispering Dawn replied from the side where she bent awkwardly over her pregnant belly and stirred the stew.
On the seventh morning, he awakened with clarity he hadn’t possessed since his rescue. He blinked up at Wooden Doll’s ceiling. Shifted, which triggered the dull ache in his shoulders. His kidneys burned, but didn’t throb, and the headache was gone.
Beside him, Wooden Doll rolled onto her side, pulled her hair back over her shoulder, and propped herself on an elbow, thoughtful eyes taking in his condition.
He tried to smile. Winced at the scabs on his lips. “I thought I was Dreaming that I was here.”
“Oh, you did plenty of Dreaming. Some of it silent, some just mutterings, and some was loud and apparently most unpleasant. At those times either I or Whispering Dawn would usually lean close to your ear, tell you it was all right, and you’d drop back into deep sleep again.”
“How did I get here?”
“On my litter.”
“You got me out of there?”
“It was a combined effort.” She arched an eyebrow in disbelief. “Had you asked me a couple of years back, I’d have said the chances that you, of all people, could have friends the likes of which you have would have been a head-struck delusion. Now, I wonder what I have missed in the seeing of you.”
“Now you lost me.”
“Have I just been blind? Or did I purposefully mislead myself about the kind of man you are?”
“I’m just me.”
“That’s my point. Maybe I’ve been so close to you, I’ve missed it.”
“Missed what? Don’t make me think. My head is still too beat up for it.”
“A bunch of us planned and conducted your rescue. Blue Heron and I, along with Flat Stone Pipe and Matron Columella. We had to wait until the time was right and Spotted Wrist was in Serpent Woman Town, then we had to lure Sun Wing and the Tortoise Bundle away so we could set fire to her palace, clear out the guards. Flat Stone Pipe sneaked in early, got to work cutting the bindings that held your cage together. But it took Columella’s warriors to break the last of the poles loose so we could get you out. Then they carried you to my litter. I had my porters bring you here.”
“A quarter moon ago.”
“That’s right.”
Seven Skull Shield reached up with a scabbed hand and rubbed his eyes. “I have to go.”
“No, you don’t.”
“That pus-licking new Keeper will have people out looking for—”
“His warriors are all over. Had one loitering around here for a couple of days. Flat Stone Pipe anticipated that. He’s had a series of his people show up one by one, be ushered inside for a hand of time or two, and then leave grinning. I had Whispering Dawn walk over to proposition the watcher. She asked him point-blank: How much Trade did he have, and that if he didn’t have the copper, shell, or textile that it took to lock hips with me to move his silly carcass out of here because he was pathetic.”
“He left?”
“Guess he figured I didn’t have the half-dead Seven Skull Shield in my place if I was servicing men and willing to give him a milking.”
“What about your regular clients?”
“Whispering Dawn tells them a Trader from up north dropped a sack of copper and a stack of white-fox hides on my floor to buy me for as long as his Trade will carry him. And that if they want to do the same, start piling up the Trade and I’ll consider how much time I’ll spend with them when I’m done.”
Seven Skull Shield tried to grin, but it pulled the scabs on his face too much. “But you’re still losing a pile of Trade while I’m laid up here.”
“I am.”
“So, I’d better find a place where my presence isn’t—”
“You’ll stay here.”
“But I—”
“No argument. Couple of days back, Spotted Wrist tore Blue Heron’s palace apart looking for you. Almost came to out-and-out war at Columella’s, his warriors and Evening Star House’s, but she let them search her palace anyway, each warrior accompanied the entire time. After you weren’t found, she issued an ultimatum, that if her word as matron wasn’t proven good enough, that from this point on, her cooperation with the Keeper was over. Finished. And that any of his people who were found in Evening Star Town would be captured, tied up, covered in hot pine pitch, and dropped on Spotted Wrist’s doorstep by armed warriors.”
“All of that? For me?”
“Well, partly. Let’s be honest here. There’s a struggle going on for control of the city. North Star House and Horned Serpent House against Evening Star House and Morning Star House, with River House in a sort of weakened and paralyzed neutrality. Rising Flame is on one side, Tonka’tzi Wind and Blue Heron on the other. You’ve become a symbolic pawn in the middle.”
“Pus and muck. Why me?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Blue Heron, Flat Stone Pipe, and Columella, not to mention Night Shadow Star, they all consider you a friend, think
themselves in your debt. That’s the part that amazes me, given how long I’ve known you. These are Four Winds nobility. When Spotted Wrist took you out of Night Shadow Star’s palace? He took one of their own.”
“One of their own?” Seven Skull Shield repeated, trying to fit that into his understanding of the world and how it worked.
“You risked your life for them on several occasions. Blue Heron would have died but for you getting her away from the Quiz Quiz last year.”
“She’s my friend.”
Wooden Doll laughed, shook her head. “It amazes me. That’s your greatest strength, Skull. And in the end, it will kill you.”
“Having friends?”
“You know, you’re not out of this yet. Spotted Wrist won’t rest until he has you dead. Taking you like we did? That just raised the stakes in the game.”
“And now you’re a player. He will find out eventually, you know.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. The only one I even half know is Blue Heron. In fact, she said I could take anything of hers I wanted in compensation for any Trade I might lose because of your stay here.”
“She didn’t stipulate? Set a limit?”
“No.”
He felt a warming of his heart. “I’m not the only one who’s ‘one of them.’ You impressed her somehow, probably over that trouble with Horn Lance, that ex-husband of hers.”
“That was business.”
“Watch yourself, you’re going to end up as deep in this as I am.” He took a moment, really studied her. Let his gaze trace the lines of her face, the perfect nose, high cheekbones, and the angle of her jaw. As he did, the question grew in her eyes, that slight lining of her brow as she tried to read him.
“What?”
“Thank you for bringing me here. That’s all.”
“You’re stalling, trying to change the subject. What was that look?”
“I don’t suppose there’s any way you’d run away with me. Go somewhere where it isn’t a constant fight.”
The old familiar “I’m amused” eyebrow lifted. “We’ve had this conversation. You couldn’t stand being someplace that wasn’t here. Boredom would drive you insane, make you impossible to love, and I’d end up smacking you in the back of the head sometime when you weren’t looking.”
Star Path--People of Cahokia Page 39
