Star Path--People of Cahokia

by W. Michael Gear

  “Bah! That was the idea. I needed him alive. Want you to see me smack him in the head before I throw him in the stewpot. As refreshing as it would have been to pay you back by eating him first thing, it will be so much better if you’re watching while I do it.”

  “Maybe I’ll take those ropes with me when I go.”

  “You’re not going anywhere.”

  Seven Skull Shield’s grin had an evil twist, a gleaming promise in his eyes as he stepped close. “You want to take a try with that hammer? Now, me, I’ve been beat up, burned, poked, kept in a cage, watched a lot of bad things happen to people I like. So, I come here. Figure I’m going to make amends. Tell you I’m sorry. Let you know that the woman you took into your bed is a spider. One of them kind that eats the men she lets into her sheath. She’s trouble, Robin Feather. For whoever is in her bed at the moment.”

  “She was mine!” He thumped his chest.

  “She would have eaten you alive! She played you like a fine eagle-bone flute. She played me. Now she’s playing Spotted Wrist.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “Not that I mind her milking him for everything he’s got. But for once, she might have bit off more than a mouthful.”

  “She’s with him?”

  Seven Skull Shield nodded, lips pursed. “You were a stepping stone to get her away from Moon Mounds. I was another stone to get her from you to Night Shadow Star’s, and she gave me up to get into Spotted Wrist’s bed. If she talks the war leader into getting her into Morning Star’s blankets … well, that will be a whole new angle of impossible.”

  Robin Feather took a deep breath. “I should still beat the spit out of you. Just on principle.”

  Seven Skull Shield grinned. “How about we let that be our secret. There’s your rope. Tell people you and I got even. That you’re no longer after my scarred and bruised hide.”

  “You do look a bit beat up.”

  “Thanks to Willow Blossom. Do we have a Trade? Me for the ropes?”

  “Where’d you get them?”

  “Do you know how hard it is to steal one of your ropes? Took all my skill. People really value them.”

  “You’re giving me stolen ropes?”

  “Are you telling me you can’t Trade them for just as much as you got the first time? Oh, but don’t tell anybody where you got them. That’s got to be part of the deal.”

  “I must be out of my head.”

  “Come on, Farts. We’ve got work to do. And, at least for a while, we don’t need to be looking over our shoulder all the time while we’re doing it.”

  Robin Feather shook his head, watched the big man amble out of his doorway, the brindle flop-eared dog leaping and cavorting at his side.

  Seven Skull Shield threw his head back, singing, “She gives lots of hugs, her breasts big as jugs. I up and laughed as she grabbed at my shaft.”

  And then he was gone.

  Eighty-five

  Fire Cat led the way into Joara as the first light of dawn spread across the eastern sky and left the tops of the trees a black silhouette against the sky.

  He, Winder, and Blood Talon looked like they’d spent the night falling down the side of a mountain. Off and on during the dark hours, they had. Somehow, feeling their way, they’d managed to retrace the tortuous path back to the main trail, stumbled onto the occasional farmstead where they evaded dogs, pounded on doors to get people out of bed, and got directions to Joara. Several of the worried locals had repeatedly told them to go elsewhere, anywhere, away from the witch.

  “Hope it doesn’t come down to a fight,” Blood Talon said through a yawn. “I can barely walk.”

  Fire Cat saw the leaves and twigs in Blood Talon’s hair, the smudges on his face.

  Not that he or Winder looked any better. The big Trader’s head was matted with dried blood, a streak of it now visible in the growing light.

  “Not sure I like that smell of smoke,” the Trader said as they walked through abandoned houses, the doorways dark, the ramadas curiously empty.

  The palace was plain to see, a high peak-roofed building atop a low mound. “On your toes, my friends. That should be where Fire Light and his warriors are.”

  “Circle around,” Blood Talon said. “Come in from the side so we can see what’s what before we blunder into something.”

  “Having already been tricked like fools, I can agree to that, Squadron First. Let’s hide Night Shadow Star’s box. There, in that field shed.”

  Fire Cat let Blood Talon take the lead as he snaked his way through the houses lining the square, though this one was more elongated than the usual talwa style. And, as they finally got a look at it from between dwellings, it had a World Tree pole in its center. Definitely felt more Cahokian.

  “That would have been the Clan House.” Blood Talon pointed to the smoking ruin on the opposite side of the plaza.

  “That’s Walking Smoke’s, all right,” Fire Cat agreed, his heart beginning to hammer in his chest. “That’s a skinned human hanging out front.”

  Grinding his teeth, fighting sudden tears, he started forward.

  “Get back here!” Blood Talon gritted through his teeth. “They’ll shoot you dead!”

  Heedless, Fire Cat broke into a run, pulled up, stared at the smoking wreckage. Not only the roof, but the walls had burned through, the clay daub on the outside apparently not thick enough to stop the flames. The fallen roof poles were still burning. What was left of the thatch was now just hot powdery ash. Some sort of altar could be made out in the back.

  As the first rays of sunlight cleared the forest to the east, a golden light spread across the plaza. Turned the rising smoke a curious orange and pink. The smell was of incinerated wood.

  Fire Cat closed his eyes, inhaled, moderately relieved to realize that he wasn’t catching a scent of cooked human.

  Winder had appeared at his side, staring at the wreckage.

  “I don’t see a body. There’s bones, but they’re burned white and cracked in those checked patterns the way old dry bone burns.”

  “She could still be under one of the thicker piles of ash.”

  But he didn’t think so.

  Blood Talon approached at a trot, his war club held ready. “Palace is empty. Packed up. You ask me? They’re gone.”

  “When?” Fire Cat asked, his souls reeling and tumbling.

  “Not long. Last night. Fires are down to coals, but they’re still hot enough to cook on.”

  Fire Cat turned, saw the gleam of copper. Stooped and picked Night Shadow Star’s war club from the beaten grass.

  That welling sense of emptiness and impotence rose in his gut like vomit, sucking away any thought, any strength.

  Something terrible has happened to her.

  “War Leader?” Blood Talon said cautiously. “Look.”

  Fire Cat turned, saw an old woman appear from the west end of the plaza, plodding out into the open past the temple.

  Back bent, she hobbled along, each step supported by a cane.

  Fire Cat turned, ran, willing … anything into his tortured souls.

  “Hello! Do you speak Cahokian?”

  The old woman waved a weary hand, stopped short. She cocked her head at him, dark eyes like pits sunk into the wrinkly folds of her face. Her nose stuck out, a fleshy hook. The lips were sucked in around toothless gums.

  “Who’re you?”

  “Friends. Looking for a woman. Young. Would have carried this war club.” Fire Cat lifted it.

  The old woman stared at it, nodded.

  “The witch got her.”

  Fire Cat swallowed hard. Ground his teeth to keep his jaw from trembling.

  “Oh, she gave him a good whack with it first. Would have killed the witch if that chief hadn’t sent his warriors in to grab her.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Gone.” The old woman waved in a circle. “All of them. Wish I was, too. This place is ruined now. Would have been gone, but I got no family. Can barely make it to the creek for water. How can I get a
ll the way to Cofitachequi?”

  “When did they leave?” Winder asked kindly.

  “Middle of the night. That nasty kid warrior came stumbling in just after all the excitement. Said a Cahokian army was coming. That they killed four of Chief Fire Light’s warriors. Were coming for the witch.”

  “Which way did they go?” Blood Talon asked.

  The old woman gave the ghost of a shrug. “Away. Cofitachequi … maybe. That’s the closest big town. That’s where the mikko went. Don’t know. There was something about the witch getting a pardon for that snotty chief. A pardon in Cahokia. He hated it here. Heard his sister was some important person now.”

  “Middle of the night?” Fire Cat wondered. “Surely we’d have passed them on the trail.”

  “If they went that way,” Winder reminded. “There’s a reason Joara is where it is. It’s a crossroads. Trails run east, north, west, and south.”

  Blood Talon laid a hand on Fire Cat’s arm. “We’ll get her back. We know she’s alive. First we have to eat something. Rest. And then we’ll go get her.”

  Fire Cat blinked, wanting to drop to his knees and cry.

  Yes, we’ll get her back.

  In his head, stuffed full of fatigued fog as it was, he could hear Night Shadow Star’s words: “But you know there will be a price.”

  Of course. Nothing he wouldn’t pay.

  As soon as they’d eaten, caught a little sleep.

  Just a matter of time.

  Eighty-six

  The crickets were making a racket, as loud in the hot and muggy night as Willow Blossom had ever heard them. She rode in splendor on her litter, lounging as her porters trotted up the avenue that ran along the base of Morning Star’s mound. She wore an intricate lace veil—the delicate crochet made from finely combed cottonwood fluff. The thing was a masterwork, had taken years of detailed craftsmanship and could have been Traded for a fortune at the canoe landing.

  Fortunately, it had been a gift from Spotted Wrist. One she particularly valued because from here on, appearance was everything. “And it keeps me from being pestered by these hideous mosquitoes.”

  That was the thing about traveling at night. The nasty little bloodsuckers weren’t as bad in the heat of the day—then it was the flies that were the nuisance—but at night? When it was cool, they came in swarming clouds.

  Knowing the way, her porters veered off, passing between the Panther Clan Council House and a copper workshop, winding their way back through a section of smaller Four Winds palaces belonging to a not-so-well-to-do lineage—distant cousins to the tonka’tzi—and finally to her own modest dwelling.

  She was carefully lowered to the ground, rose on her own, and said, “That will be all.”

  “Thank you, lady,” her head porter replied, touching his chin. She reveled in the gesture, usually reserved only for nobility.

  As they vanished into the night, she stepped up onto her veranda: a sign of her newfound fortune, constructed as it was with split planks. She undid her door and entered the dark house, stepping down to the subterranean floor.

  It wasn’t much, just a single room, earth-banked trench-wall construction with wall-bench beds and a split-cane roof. But it was hers. And it would do for the time being.

  Some things, however, still had to be dealt with personally. She wasn’t wealthy enough to Trade for a good slave. That, like all things, would come.

  She bent down, fished for the stick she kept by the hearth, and used it to dig around in the ash until she found a glowing coal. Then another.

  Using shredded juniper bark as tinder, she blew, watched it catch, and added kindling until the fire was a leaping tongue of flame. Adding a bundle of twigs ensured it would ignite the two short sections of oak branch she placed on top.

  Clapping her hands to clean them of ash, she straightened, and froze. Her heart skipped, breath caught with sudden fear.

  “Who are you?”

  “A visitor,” the woman said.

  She was seated in the dark corner, back to the wall. In the growing light, Willow Blossom could make out that she was tall, very well formed, her hair up in a bun and pinned with polished copper skewers in the form of feathers. The fire barely did justice to the colored lines of feathers that ran down the back of her exquisite cape. The woman’s skirt was a gauzy thing, intricately embroidered, and worth a fortune in Trade.

  “You’re in my house.”

  “So, you’re observant as well as talented.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m a businesswoman, as are you. I work in the same profession. Men pay me for my body’s talents. They pay me very well.”

  “I am not a paid woman!” She felt the hot flush of anger overcome her fear.

  “Indeed? Your litter just dropped you off from an evening of servicing the Keeper. I’ve been through your little jar, found the herbs you use to keep from conceiving, the menstrual blood–covered knot you sleep over. You don’t have much, but what you do is quality. The bedding—for those instances should he ever come here—is kept separate from what you normally sleep in, the oversized sleeping bench, even the fact that he gave you this house for your service is pretty much a dead giveaway.”

  “If you think Spotted Wrist would give a woman a house just for milking his shaft, you don’t know a thing about him.”

  “Ah, that was for turning the thief over to him, wasn’t it?”

  “Who are you? What do you want?”

  The fire was leaping now, filling the room with light. Willow Blossom watched the woman rise, the action stately, somehow reminiscent of smoke lifting, so fluid was she.

  She stepped over, head cocked.

  Willow Blossom drew herself up to her full height, still having to look up into the woman’s midnight eyes. “I said, what do you want?”

  “Yes, I see,” the woman mused. “You are very beautiful, good breasts, that narrow waist. Given your background, I’ll bet you’re still learning the arts your sheath is capable of. But the thief would have taught you a lot about that.”

  “Why do you keep going back to that thief? What do you want from me?”

  “I have a professional question. When you work them, do you feel anything for them? Any fondness, any delight in their company?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He’s just a means to an end, isn’t he? A job. Like shucking corn. I’ll bet you even consider it something that has to be endured. An unpleasant reality. No love, no hate, no human connection. Men are just objects to be manipulated.”

  “Oh, I get it. Is that a paid woman thing? Listen, it’s the only way to the finer things in life.”

  “Along with the occasional betrayal of someone who makes the mistake of caring for you.” She gestured at the surrounding walls. “Especially if it will get you a house. I should have been so lucky.”

  “Maybe I’m just better at this than you are.”

  “Maybe you are. Tell me, would you assassinate the Keeper? For the right price, of course.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “I’ll give you a stack of copper plate as high as your knee.”

  Willow Blossom hesitated, tried to understand if the woman was serious, sensing some trap. Pus and blood, Spotted Wrist hadn’t sent her, had he? Best to be safe. “No.”

  “Is it because you care for the Keeper?”

  At that she laughed. “He’s old enough to be my grandfather. Did he send you?”

  “He would be most upset to know that I, of all people, was talking to you.”

  And then it made sense. She had been in his bed, too. “Oh, jealous, huh? Afraid I’ll take your precious Keeper? Well, you’d better be very good with that sheath of yours, because I’m going to be the perfect woman. Wind him up tight and make him think I’m the end of his Dreams.”

  She enlarged her eyes, adopted her adoring expression, parted her lips in anticipation, and expanded her chest so her breasts rose as she took small breaths to make them rise and fall. />
  The woman’s smile was knowing, somehow sad. “A stack of copper plate, and I’ll even throw in an Itza blanket. You do know who the Itza are, right? All you have to do is drop a potion into the Keeper’s tea.”

  “Get out of here. You don’t have anything I’d want. But something tells me Spotted Wrist is going to be very interested in knowing you’re trying to kill him.”

  “Seriously? You don’t care about the man. All you want him for is what you can use him to get. And I’ll make you rich.”

  “Not as rich as he will.” Willow Blossom walked to the door. “You want to give me your name so it’s easy for the Keeper’s warriors to run you down, or do you want to make it hard for them?”

  “I’m all for easy,” the woman said, starting to step past her for the door.

  The movement was low, quick, barely caught from the corner of Willow Blossom’s eye. The sting, lancing deep and up just under her ribs, could be felt right through her lungs, excruciating. She could feel the thing as it speared her heart, felt her chest quiver as each heartbeat wiggled it in her flesh.

  She tried to scream, her mouth agape. Pain filled her chest, heavy, pulsing. Breath wouldn’t come.

  She was staring into the woman’s eyes. Practiced, the woman caught Willow Blossom’s weight, turned her, eased her onto the closest bench.

  “You could have made a fortune,” the woman told her. “You had the body, the raw talent. You even had the heartless part right, but to be a success in this business, you have to be smart enough to know when a better offer comes along. Had you, I might have forgiven what you did to Skull.”

  The smile was back, somewhat wistful this time, and then she said, “Or perhaps not.”

  Willow Blossom’s body twitched and shivered as the long deer-bone stiletto was pulled out of her chest. The eeriest feeling she’d ever known, that bone sliding out.

  She blinked.

  The woman had disappeared.

  She ran a hand to the wound, felt the hot blood bubbling out as she struggled to catch her breath.

  The room kept growing darker and darker, her fire now dim, fading. A final spot of light in an encompassing …