Star Path--People of Cahokia

by W. Michael Gear

  “Yes, Keeper!” Splinter Branch took the staff of office, a look of wonder in his eyes as if the thing were a magical talisman.

  Blue Heron watched him disappear through the door and into the night.

  “So much for sleep,” Smooth Pebble announced as she crossed to the fire. From a basket she took a handful of toasted yaupon and tossed it into a pot of water. This she placed on the now-snapping flames. “It’ll take a hand of time to boil.”

  “Made it a bit strong, don’t you think?” Blue Heron muttered, rubbing the meaty part of her palm into her weary eyes.

  “I think you’re going to need all your wits, Lady.”

  “White Rain? I need you to get dressed, take word of this to Wind. The sooner she knows, the better prepared she’ll be. Soft Moon?”

  “Yes, Lady?” The young woman was already dressing.

  “Go find my porters. Have them carry you to Evening Star Town. Alert Columella.”

  “Yes, Lady.”

  “Dancing Sky?”

  “Lady?”

  “Grab a cloak, I’m counting on you to get word to Five Fists. Tell him that Spotted Wrist is moving his army. I doubt Spotted Wrist would move on the living god, but Five Fists needs to be ready for any eventuality.”

  Dancing Sky took no longer than needed, an amused look on her face as she prepared. At the door she turned, looking back. “So, Old Enemy, it has come to this?”

  With that she inclined her head and touched her forehead, then vanished into the darkness.

  Blue Heron considered the woman’s departure, surprised by the irony of it. How odd that Cahokia’s fate once again rested in the hands of the Red Wing heretics. Once her most despised of enemies, those women—who still considered Morning Star a hoax—were now off to serve the best interests of the city. She tried to recall the exact moment when she had won their loyalty.

  Couldn’t.

  “What next?” Smooth Pebble asked as she bustled about the fire, tossing cornmeal, squash blossoms, mint, and dried cubes of venison into the stewpot. The black drink was boiling now, starting to foam, the rich scent filling the room.

  “It will all hinge on how Wind reacts. She’s the tonka’tzi. I need to be there, to back her up. She’ll need to coordinate with Five Fists, decide whether to take it straight to Morning Star, or whether to call up the Morning Star squadron. If she does that, it puts her in direct conflict with Rising Flame. In essence, she’s overriding the clan matron’s authority.”

  “That would be a bitter and burning stone for the clan matron to swallow.”

  “If Wind does call up the Morning Star squadron, and if she can sustain the authority to do so over Rising Flame’s objection, what does she do with them? It’s one thing to order War Claw to maintain order and security around the great mound, another if she asks them to march on Spotted Wrist’s squadrons. One is a police action, the other is civil war.”

  “Morning Star has to intervene.”

  “Does he?”

  “If he doesn’t, what’s he going to do? Just sit up there atop his high mound and watch the city burn itself down to ashes?”

  Blue Heron pulled at the wattle under her chin. “He might. Morning Star always plays a deep game. Layers within layers. And lest we forget, he’s a Spirit Being. A living god. What’s important to us mere humans, to the Houses, the Earth Clans, and the dirt farmers, isn’t always what’s important to him. For all I know, he’s seeing some mystical future where Cahokia no longer fulfills his or Power’s purpose.”

  She paused. “And if that’s the case, well, who knows?”

  Where she stirred the pot, the berdache frowned. “He’s acted before. When Walking Smoke was wreaking havoc, when his souls returned from the Underworld.”

  “Those times it was about Power. And don’t forget, he let the Itza run roughshod over the city when Horn Lance brought that despicable Thirteen Sacred Jaguar and his warriors here to unleash chaos.” She pointed a hard finger. “Don’t ever try and second-guess the living god. His priorities are usually different than ours. Pus in a bucket, he was actually looking forward to being dead when that Chickosi girl poisoned him.”

  The sound of something thumping out on the veranda distracted her from her dire thoughts. By Piasa’s swinging balls, what was Big Right doing out there? Dancing?

  “There’s got to be a way out of this. It’s probably right under my nose.”

  Smooth Pebble handed her a cup of the stew. “Here, eat this. Food helps you think.”

  As Blue Heron used her horn to spoon the hot stew from her bowl, she said, “You’d think that Spotted Wrist would have learned his lesson that night at the tonka’tzi’s. Columella and I completely outflanked him. Even Rising Flame was taken by surprise. Doesn’t the man ever learn? She ordered him to make peace. And here he’s moving a squadron on River House?”

  “So, what happens if he succeeds?” Smooth Pebble asked. “Backed by his warriors, Three Fingers deposes War Duck and Round Pot. Maybe he puts Broken Stone on the dais, maybe he caves his head in and takes the high chair for his own. Let’s say that they consolidate Three Fingers’ authority, and he calls up the River House squadrons. All the Earth Clans supply their warriors. Then what? Does he think he can march on Evening Star Town? Columella will have her squadrons watching and waiting on the other side of the river. Not to mention the dwarf’s spy network keeping tabs. Any element of surprise is gone.”

  “That means…” Blue Heron glanced up at the movement at her door. Two warriors stood there, dressed in battle armor, bows strung and hanging over their backs, war clubs protruding from behind the shields they held.

  A terrible sense of foreboding ran through her as she asked, “Who are you?”

  “New security, Lady,” the first said. He might have been in his forties, Deer Clan tattoos on his cheeks. “Compliments of the Hero of the North, we’re here to ensure your safety.”

  Blue Heron’s heart stuttered in her chest, her stomach going tight. She set her bowl to the side and stood. “The last thing I need is Spotted Wrist’s protection. Where’s Big Right?”

  “I think he’s taking a nap.” The warrior gestured with his war club. “Now, we’re going to close the door, make sure that no one else bothers you tonight. So, you be a good lady, eat your stew there, and get a good night’s rest, yes?”

  She gaped as they pulled her plank door closed.

  “Lady?” Smooth Pebble asked, rising to stand by Blue Heron’s side. “They can’t do this!”

  That sensation of falling kept expanding through her gut. “I think they just did.”

  “This is … is unthinkable! You’re Red Warrior Mankiller’s daughter! Descended from Black Tail! Sister to the tonka’tzi!”

  Blue Heron staggered back, sank onto her dais, blinking in disbelief. “He must think that doesn’t matter anymore. And that means he’s moving on the Morning Star House as well as River House. The stupid fool! Doesn’t he understand that this will split the city in two? He’s gone too far. There’s nothing left now. Wind, Five Fists, Columella, and I have to fight. We have no choice.”

  “You’re locked in here,” Smooth Pebble reminded. “Held prisoner by his warriors.”

  “I’m not the thief. He can’t take me prisoner. Not for long. I’m too high in the…”

  She and Smooth Pebble stared at the door, hearing the sound of something liquid splashing against the planks.

  “Someone empty a chamber pot?” Blue Heron muttered. “Do they seriously think that I’m going to worry about a little insult when I’m faced with the potential destruction of the city?”

  Smooth Pebble crossed to the door. Fingered some of the liquid that seeped through the cracks in the planks. “Hickory oil.”

  She tried the door, finding it tied off and blocked from outside. “Hey! Open this!”

  The warrior outside called back, “We learned this from you. Remember how you got us away from the Keeper’s so you could get what was left of that thief?”

&
nbsp; “What’s he talking about?” Smooth Pebble asked, still pushing with all her might against the door.

  “Piss in a pot!” Blue Heron cried, leaping to her feet and racing to the door. “You open this! That’s an order. I’m Lady Blue Heron. Daughter of—”

  “We know,” came the harsh answer. “Too bad it’s the middle of the night. Wonder how long it will take before someone notices? Huh, too bad. Maybe if you lived in a place with fewer society houses and more neighbors, you’d have a chance of being heard, but yell all you like.”

  Pushing on the door, she found it tightly secured. Didn’t matter that she and Smooth Pebble both were straining as hard as they could. However the warriors had secured them, the planks didn’t budge.

  She heard the crackle of the flames heartbeats before she smelled the first of the smoke.

  “Too bad there’s no way out the back,” the warrior called. “But we checked that day we ransacked your house. One way in, one way out.” A pause. “Oh, my. The thatch on your roof just caught fire. I wonder how that happened?”

  Blue Heron stepped back, staring up. She could hear the characteristic sound of fire in thatch, had heard it too often before. The first wisps of smoke worked their way through the bundles over the door.

  “Let us out!” Smooth Pebble bellowed, pounding on the planks.

  Above the flames, all Blue Heron could hear was the combined laughter of the watching warriors.

  Seventy-three

  Herosihachi—in Muskogean, it meant Beautiful River. It flowed into the Wide Fast from the north, following a long valley hemmed by the Blue Mountains on the west and a rounded line of thickly forested hills on the east. While some of the Herosihachi’s course was navigable, enough shallows, shoals, and fast water made the long-distance travel by canoe unfeasible.

  “We’re better off to walk,” Winder had said, gesturing to the remaining porters and their big-boned pack dogs.

  Night Shadow Star had always been athletic. First there was her passion for stickball. As a girl she’d spent her life running, wrestling, shooting bows, throwing stones, and even—to the horror of her parents and clan—playing the occasional men’s game of chunkey.

  After all these moons of paddling, packing, hiking, and hard work, her body was solid with muscle, thews like rock. Now she stepped out on the trail, the final one. This was the route east, the ancient trail followed by Traders, war parties, and people moving across the divide that separated the interior from the plain leading down to the eastern ocean. A couple of days of travel and she could cross through that gap, follow the headwaters down to Joara, the westernmost town in the Cofitachequi colony. There, she would, hopefully, hear word of her brother’s whereabouts.

  And then it’s only a matter of running him down.

  The question was: Did he have any idea how close she was?

  Or would Power warn him?

  She was, after all, the hunter. The moment to strike was hers to decide.

  At her request, Winder had said nothing about the Lightning Shell witch in the towns and villages they had passed through on the Wide Fast, and now on the Herosihachi.

  But as they’d traveled, they’d heard plenty. It had started with the occasional mention of a witch in Joara. As they’d progressed, the assertions became more frequent, more dire. In the beginning the Lightning Shell witch had been referenced with an amused awe that had given way to more serious assertions, and by the time they’d left Cane Town at the confluence of the Herosihachi and the Wide Fast, the name was barely whispered, its utterance accompanied by averted eyes and warding signs made by nervous fingers.

  “Makes you suspect that we’re getting close, doesn’t it?” Winder had asked.

  It did. Night Shadow Star could feel it. As she looked east up the valley toward the low hills that formed the gap, she sensed her brother. Like a dark and threatening cloud that hung just past those innocent-looking slopes.

  They followed a path along the south bank, there being fewer, and smaller, creeks for the trail to ford. The way was forested, the trail meandering around the great hickory, oak, sweet gum, and maple trees. She had grown used to the forest, feeling at home, almost embraced by its shadowy depths, by the chatter of the squirrels, the trilling of the hundreds of birds in the canopy above.

  And her feet were quicker, used to picking their way where webs of roots twisted their way across the beaten path. The musty smell of the leaf mat was now a familiar perfume, a comforting pungency.

  Her pack on her back, she was following the porters and their dogs, only slightly aware as a bachelor flock of turkeys called to one another somewhere just out of sight on the slope to her right.

  At the front, the lead pack dog, called Hawk, slowed. His ears were pricked forward, a low growl sounding in his chest. The other dogs followed suit.

  “Someone comes,” the lead Chalakee called back in soft pidgin. Then he said something to the dogs. They immediately quieted.

  Night Shadow Star craned her head. “We’re Traders, right?”

  Winder, following behind, said, “They should recognize the Power of Trade. We’re on the main trail. But it wouldn’t hurt to have that war club you keep hidden in your pack handy. Don’t brandish it but have it available.”

  “We are deep in the forest. Unlike the river, there’s no one to see.”

  “That’s why you keep that club within reach.” He paused, stepping up beside her as the Chalakee stopped short, shifting their own packs, untying weapons. “I assume you know how to use it?”

  “Odd that you should ask. The last time I used it was in a fight against Walking Smoke’s Tula warriors. Haft got burned up. I had to have it rebuilt after I recovered the pieces from what was left of Columella’s palace.”

  “Good,” Winder muttered, pulling his hafted stone ax from his pack and slipping the thong onto his belt. “Me? I’m not much for clubs and such. I’m a lot happier in a knock-down brawl. You know, eye gouging, kicking them in the stones, whacking them in the head with a rock, that sort of thing.”

  “You and Seven Skull Shield.”

  “Better than brothers.”

  The first of the people appeared out from behind the trees. Within heartbeats he was followed by others.

  Night Shadow Star took a breath, her heart slowing from its worried beat.

  The man in the lead bore a heavy pack; the wooden poles protruding above his head were tool handles, not weapons. Probably hoes and the like.

  Behind him came two women, each bent under a tumpline that ran back to heavy packs balanced on their hips. Then children appeared, one after another until seven, ranging in age from ten or eleven on down. In the end came an old gray-haired woman, and finally a young woman with a cradleboard-bound infant on her back.

  The man—hardly a model of forest acumen—finally looked up from the trail, his eyes going wide.

  In Cahokian, he cried, “Wait! We’re friendly. Don’t shoot.”

  Winder stepped forward, his pack at a jaunty angle. “Do you notice any drawn bows? We’re Traders. Headed to Cofitachequi. Notice the dogs? The packs?”

  The man grinned sheepishly, looked back at the women and children who’d come to a stop and crowded around him. They were taking Winder, the Chalakee, the dogs, and finally Night Shadow Star’s measure.

  “Me? I mean, us? We’re just farmers. We’re no threat.”

  “Where are you headed?” Winder asked.

  “Away. Anywhere.” He shot a thumb over his shoulder at the young woman with the infant. “That’s Pretty Root. My third wife. She’s Muskogee. From down at Cane Town. I’m going to go see if her family will take us in. Married-into kin, you see.”

  Night Shadow Star stepped forward. “Bit late in the year for farmers to be leaving their fields, isn’t it? You’re just a couple of moons from harvest.”

  “He can have it,” the man muttered.

  “Who?”

  He pursed his lips, seemed to be thinking it through. “The witch.”

>   “The Lightning Shell witch?” Winder asked casually.

  “Don’t use that name!” one of the women, maybe in her midthirties, cried. “You’ll call him. Bring bad luck down on your heads.”

  “You’re leaving because of a witch?” Winder said. More of a statement than question.

  “You don’t know,” the farmer said, becoming more agitated. “Most of Joara has fled. We didn’t want to. Like you said, the fields are full. It’s a remarkable harvest coming: corn, beans, squash, maygrass, goosefoot. Then he took Cattail Down’s daughters. Stole them in the night from their bed.” He indicated the second woman. “She’s my brother’s wife. Was. The girls were my nieces. The witch, he did … did…”

  The farmer swallowed hard, looked away. Face averted, he said, “My brother went to kill him. In the middle of the night. He…”

  “Go ahead,” Night Shadow Star urged.

  The man took three tries before he said, “The witch hung his skin on a frame out in front of his house. Now, excuse us. We’re leaving. We’re not a threat. Just farmers.”

  “You don’t want to go there,” Cattail Down told them in broken Cahokian as she passed. “Turn back. Leave Joara to the witch. There’s nothing but trouble back there. And Death. And … and terror.”

  Night Shadow Star stood by Winder’s side as the farmers shuffled past, their feet rustling on the leaf mat.

  They never looked back, just kept plodding down the trail.

  “Left the brother’s skin hanging on a frame?” Winder wondered.

  “Sounds like Walking Smoke.”

  “Nice fellow, this brother of yours.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Winder rubbed the back of his neck before refastening his pack. “Well, at least we know where he is. Joara.”

  “And people with a bumper crop in the field are leaving it all behind. Good. Means there are fewer people to get in my way.”