Moon Hunt

by Kathleen O'Neal Gear

  As Night Shadow Star led the way, a murmur rippled through the crowd, all eyes going to her and Fire Cat. As if on order, the people dropped to their knees, bowing and touching their foreheads as she and Fire Cat passed.

  As Tonka’tzi Red Warrior’s daughter, she’d grown up with the honors of rank, but with the defeat of the Itza had come a subtle change. What had been a grudging respect was now an awed reverence that left her discomfited.

  Nor was it just her. They treated Fire Cat with the same zeal. His status as her oath-bound servant just added to his allure as a hero.

  The warriors guarding the palace doors bowed low before stepping to the side. Out of whimsy, she reached out and ran her fingers across the masterful relief carved into the doors. The images depicted the Morning Star—eagle wings spreading from his arms, face displaying the two-forked eye design, a stunning copper headdress atop his skull. A turkey-tail mace was raised in one hand. The other held a broken chunkey lance.

  Inside, the great room was illuminated by a large central fire. Once a year, during the Busk, it was extinguished and rekindled by the Morning Star, from whence embers were carried to reignite the fires of Cahokia.

  The opulence and décor had lost their luster for her. The sleeping benches were indeed carved masterpieces; the copper, wood, textile, and effigy hangings gracing the walls had been so well rendered as to be alive. A wealth of copper, lace, fur, shell, and precious stones and statuary lurked in every cranny.

  Along the west wall were the recorders, messengers, and advisors from the various societies. A handful of warriors in full battle dress stood opposite them along the east wall, no more than a step behind Five Fists. The gnarled old warrior stiffened at the sight of Fire Cat, irked as she knew he’d be that the armed Red Wing heretic was once again in proximity to the living god. No love was lost between the two.

  In the place of honor behind the fire rose a dais. Atop the clay and wooden construction rested the Morning Star’s stunning litter. Cougar hides draped the carved wooden frame. And there the living god sat, leaned forward, chin propped on a knee. As always, he was dressed immaculately in a white apron; a stunning turkey winter-feather cloak was thrown over his shoulders. Face painted white, his eyes were surrounded by black-forked designs. A polished split-cloud-design copper headpiece held his tightly wound hair bun in place.

  Night Shadow Star didn’t hesitate but walked past the fire and into his forbidden and inviolate personal space.

  A gasp went up, as it always did. She had violated sacred ground where no one was allowed to pass without the Morning Star’s express invitation. Night Shadow Star, however, strode forward as his equal—an affront only she had ever been allowed to get away with.

  She kept her expression composed as Five Fists doggedly started forward, his broken-jawed expression more grim than ever. Behind her, Fire Cat had pivoted and dropped into a defensive posture, war ax at the ready.

  With a wave of his hand, Morning Star gestured the fuming Five Fists back.

  Night Shadow Star stopped a pace short of his dais. Looking into his painted face, she smiled and inclined her head. “Great Lord, what did you wish to discuss?”

  She might have detected ferment behind his eyes, a tightening of the jaws, but then his placid calm returned. “I was surprised to learn that you were not involved in the choice of the new matron.”

  “I am sure the Houses will make every effort to choose the right person to replace Matron Wind.”

  “After recent events, I assume you know that none would oppose you?” He paused, as if considering. “Though, perhaps, as the voting comes to an impasse, you might appear at the last moment as a means of solving what seems a deadlock?”

  She chuckled softly. “The Four Winds Clan is a Sky clan. As you well know, I serve a different master these days. One steeped in Underworld Power. To most in the Four Winds Clan I am unsettling at best, an unnerving disappointment to many, and for some, a pariah.”

  “Then you will not offer yourself? No matter what?”

  “No.”

  At that juncture, a woman stepped out of his personal quarters in the rear, and keeping her distance, walked wide around the eastern perimeter along the wall benches.

  Morning Star glanced her way as the woman slowed, a questioning tilt to her head. She was immaculately dressed, the fine features of her face painted in black and white. Thick raven hair tumbled down her back.

  Night Shadow Star recognized her cousin, Rising Flame. The woman regarded her thoughtfully, something smoldering and triumphant behind her eyes.

  The Morning Star’s slight inclination of the head—as if a nod of assent—brought a smile to Rising Flame’s quick features. She grinned to herself as she continued on her way. Something about her walk, the sensual sway of the hips, the manner in which she flipped her thick hair back, reeked of sexuality.

  It wouldn’t be the first time Morning Star had been bedding one of the elite women in the Four Winds Clan. Night Shadow Star fought back the unsavory memory of another time. Of convincing herself that her brother was dead. That it was the living god who—

  “You serve your master well.” The Morning Star’s sibilant words interrupted her thoughts. “Your refusal is the Four Winds Clan’s great loss.”

  She heard Piasa hiss in delight as she reordered her priorities, then asked, “Who do you suppose they will choose?”

  “I wonder?” He studied her carefully, as if searching for some betrayal of expression.

  Then, as if disappointed, he said, “Are you familiar with Split Sky City?”

  “Muskogean. On the Black Warrior River. Down south of the bend of the Tenasee River. The ones who call themselves the Sky Hand moved into Albaamaha territory and are building their city. The Albaamaha resent the fact that their homelands have been seized, and Sky Hand warriors are there to insist the Albaamaha chiefs supply the men and women conscripted to do the hard work.”

  “Has your lord mentioned any of this? Any word from Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies and the Underworld?”

  She crossed her arms under her breasts, cocking her head. “No. What do you hear from the Sky World?”

  He hesitated, which immediately caused her concern. The Morning Star always played a deep game. No question, no matter how seemingly innocent, was as facile as it seemed.

  “Just once, Lord, you might tell me right out what concerns you,” she added, “instead of the layers of subterfuge which always seem to cloak our relations. I might better anticipate and deal with the threat if I understood its nature.”

  A flicker of smile crossed his lips. “Moths are creatures of the night. One normally thinks of them as beings of the Sky World. Inoffensive for the most part. But some serve a more sinister Power, one that feeds on darkness and deadly nectar.

  “In the Dream, I felt the moths, almost silent as they whirred through the air around me. Giant moths. Terrible things. You know the kind. Those that feast on nightshade, datura, and tobacco flowers. But these were so much bigger. When I reached out, they landed on my hand, clinging to my fingers. When their tongues lashed out, they began sucking the life out of my flesh. I could feel it draining away with each pulse of their abdomens.”

  He seemed to lose his train of thought, eyes fixed vacantly on her breasts, emphasized as they were by her crossed arms.

  He’s the living god, not my brother, she reminded herself. Nevertheless, uncomfortable images flickered to life. Again her memories went back to that day after the Morning Star’s resurrection into Chunkey Boy’s body. Of how he’d called her to the palace, how he had declared himself to be the living god and said that her brother was dead as he led her to his bed.

  It wasn’t incest!

  It had been sex with a living god. Not her brother.

  The incest had come later, at Walking Smoke’s hands.

  A terrible day.

  One so traumatic she’d forced it from her souls.

  Refused to believe.

  … Until Piasa and Horne
d Serpent dragged it out from the hidden recesses down between her souls. Made her remember as she hovered on the verge of death in the Underworld’s watery labyrinths.

  The faintest quiver of his lips made her wonder if he was reading her mind.

  “So you called me here to discuss a Dream where giant humming moths were drinking your blood?” she asked coldly, a shiver of unease running down her spine.

  “Something is coming,” he told her, having once again shifted his attention from her breasts to her eyes. “Ask your lord if it comes from the Underworld.”

  “Most interesting,” Piasa whispered in her ear. “Darkness, flowers, and nectar—all deadly—brought together.”

  “Yours?” she asked softly.

  “Someone else’s. An ancient Power rekindled to no purpose you would call good.”

  “Witchcraft, then?” she asked warily, searching for Piasa at the edge of her vision. But her lord gave no hint of his whereabouts.

  Morning Star had watched her interchange, the faintest hint of distaste on his lips.

  She took a deep breath. “My lord suggests that it is old Power. As he says, ‘rekindled to no good purpose.’”

  Morning Star’s eyes thinned in his painted face, and he nodded slightly as he thought. “The purpose of the Dream becomes clear. We are warned.”

  “Should I care if terrible oversized fluttering insects suck your blood and devour your flesh? You are not my master.”

  Another gasp went up around the room.

  His smile was a fleeting thing. “You and I share an understanding, Night Shadow Star. Twice now, we have aligned to save our city and world. In the night, something dangerous comes.”

  “Yes,” Piasa whispered from behind her ear. “And it frightens him.”

  A Swirling of Chance

  Two Sticks proved as good as his word. The Duck Clan Council House where he put us up is an earth-covered dome perhaps eight paces across and twice a man’s height under the smoke hole in the center. Kind of tight quarters for twenty warriors and me, as well as the packs. They put me clear in the back, farthest from the door. To have escaped in the night I would have had to pick my way across all those sleeping warriors. And, once again, I have that cured-leather leash tied to my ankle.

  The knot isn’t as tight, but if I sit up and start picking at it, Cloud Tassel or Strong Mussel will feel it.

  Not that I am so sure about running away anymore. I mean, I have to, don’t I? The man I love is waiting for me somewhere back in the forests east of Split Sky City. And the last thing I want is to be married off to whatever kind of “thing” the Morning Star is.

  A living god?

  A mythological Spirit from the Beginning Times?

  One that changed bodies every time he wore one out?

  How does that work?

  And the last thing I want is for him to jam himself inside me after some “wedding” ceremony.

  The only man I’ve ever shared my body with is Straight Corn. I want to keep it that way. Part of that comes from my Sky Hand upbringing. Unlike so many Moskogee people, the Sky Hand—like the Four Winds Clan—are patrilineal. That means descent is traced through the father’s line. A man wants to know that he truly sired his heir. Our women are noted for being chaste and circumspect in our dealings with men, unlike those saucy Chah’taw who’ll slip off to the bushes with anyone. But then, they’re matrilineal. Doesn’t matter who the father is. Any child conceived belongs to the mother’s clan. Makes them a great deal more reckless about who they’ll lift their skirts for.

  But I’m losing my point. After what we’ve seen of Cahokia, I’m not sure that running off is such a good idea. This place is huge! We traveled for half a day from the canoe landing, and it’s been through solid city! Constant buildings, temples, charnel houses, closely packed dwellings with crowded garden plots, and people everywhere. We still haven’t arrived at the Morning Star’s palace—though we’ve at least seen it in the distance.

  It was right at dusk. The sun shining red in the west bathed the great black mound in orange light. Where they stuck up above the clay-coated palisade, the high-peaked roof with its statues and the soaring Spirit pole were visible. The place was ablaze in the sunset.

  We stood in awe.

  It looked worthy of a god’s house, all right, but I don’t want to be one of his wives. And I sure don’t want to be any part of Cahokia, with its smell of garbage, rotting feces, urine, and clouds of flies and mosquitoes.

  This place stinks. I mean really stinks. Filled with as many people as Cahokia is, how could it not? Throngs of human beings, foreign and strange, not all of whom wash each day, and every dwelling and Council House has a latrine—usually an old pit screened by a wicker partition. In addition we passed a lot of gaping borrow pits where they’ve excavated earth for mounds. Water has seeped in to create scummy ponds that people use to discard basket-loads of trash. At times the smell, and the flies and the clouds of mosquitoes, really are overpowering.

  Everything about this place scares me—right down to the way people look at me as if I’m nothing more than a mild curiosity, surrounded as I am by my garishly dressed warriors.

  I’ve been a lot of things in my life—exalted, pampered, hunted, despised, and shunned—but never inconsequential. It’s a sobering experience.

  These thoughts are in my head as the first voices carry from outside the Council House. Looking up through the smoke hole, I see that the stars are fading. Dawn is here.

  I use my foot to kick Strong Mussel. “Hey! War Leader. It’s morning. Why don’t you prove your worth by leading me to the latrine.”

  He comes awake like a warrior should: crisp and alert.

  “Take her,” he tells Cloud Tassel.

  The squadron second pulls himself into a sitting position, blinks—not as quick to his senses—and yawns. Grabbing up my leash, he gestures. “After you, Lady.”

  I get to kick my way across the floor, rudely waking warriors as I make my way to the door. Call me petty. It’s a tiny bit of payback given what they’ve put me through.

  Two Sticks has slept just outside, back to the wall, his cloak pulled tightly around his shoulders. Given the morning chill as we step outside, it had to have been uncomfortable. Inside, with a smoldering fire and packed with bodies, the temperature had been quite nice.

  I lead the way, my leash flopping, to the latrine out back. It consists of an odiferous hole in the ground. Inside the cool air has left the swarms of flies dormant, so I can squat with my backside unmolested by the beasts.

  When I am escorted back to the doorway, Two Sticks is in conference with Strong Mussel. The war leader is nodding his head to something the Albaamaha is telling him.

  “Let’s eat!” Strong Mussel declares. “And get packed.”

  The warriors leap to their tasks, and within a finger’s time last night’s corn gruel is reheated and venison jerky is passed around.

  Before the sun peeks above the crowded rooftops bordering the Avenue of the Sun, we are on the way again. This early in the morning the great thoroughfare isn’t nearly as crowded, and we join a scattered procession of people headed east. They carry packs on their backs, or litters piled with bread, pottery, textiles, or other goods.

  “They are all headed to the Great Plaza,” Two Sticks explains. “Some have been walking most of the night. They hope to arrive early enough to get a good location near the plaza. They want to have their wares displayed long before the first chunkey game.”

  “Is there a special ceremony today? Some celebration that brings them all in?”

  Two Sticks gives me a condescending look. “No, Lady. It’s like this every day. On ceremonial days like equinox? They come a week early, and it’s all a person can do to get within a bow-shot of the plaza. Tens of thousands flock to see the Morning Star and the ceremonies. And there are games. Stickball. Chunkey. Races. You should have seen it when the Red Wing played the Natchez Little Sun a couple of moons back.” He makes a face. “Who wo
uld have thought a slave could play like that? Cost me a fortune.”

  “What happened?” Cloud Tassel asks.

  “You’ve heard about the Mayan lord? The one who traveled here from distant Chichen Itza?”

  “Yes, something,” Strong Mussel responds.

  “The Natchez came here as escorts for the Itza lord. The Natchez leader, a man they call the Little Sun, had beaten the Red Wing at chunkey before. Sent him home naked and humiliated. I’m not sure what happened after that. I know the Red Wing was sent away, that he played some games in River City. Then, as if spit out of the empty sky, he’s back at the Great Plaza, challenging the Little Sun to play for his life.

  “The Little Sun was very, very good. People were speculating that he might even be able to beat the Morning Star. That’s how good he was.”

  “But the Red Wing won?”

  “Can you imagine? A disgraced slave!” Two Sticks waves his hands with passion. “The whole city bet against him. I bet against him. You should have seen the pile of wealth. And then he wins! Cuts the head right off the Little Sun’s body.”

  “He’s the same slave who beat the Itza warriors in single combat?” Cloud Tassel asks.

  “And captured their snake god,” Two Sticks agrees. “The whole city went wild. And within a day, the Itza hangs himself. Nothing has been the same since.”

  As we walk, I keep watching the Morning Star’s palace as it looms ever higher in the sky before us. The great black pyramid mound upon which it sits is inky in shadow; atop the highest level, the palace’s high roof seems to cut the sky. The towering Spirit pole is like a spear thrust into the morning. A lower level extends out on the south like a terrace, facing the plaza. This is the walled Council House—the place where Cahokia’s ruling class meet and entertain foreign embassies and conduct the city’s business.

  Two Sticks informs us that to finally be received up there, we have to go see some lower functionary for approval. This really has Strong Mussel fuming and muttering under his breath about “ignorant, arrogant, over-stuffed foreigners.” As he does he fingers the White Arrow and glares sidelong at Two Sticks, wondering if he is being played for a fool.