She let the conversation drop.
Fought the urge to burst into tears.
Turned her thoughts to the beauty of the land instead. She would have never imagined that such country existed. As they’d traveled upriver from the Great Bend, the long valley of the Tenasee had turned to the northeast.
Even the smells had changed, filling her nose with a growing fragrance, a perfumed mix. Call it sweet pungency: the odor of forest, grass-rich fields, the damp soils, and smells of the river itself. All of it pulsed with a Spirit she’d never felt before. This land was possessed of a different Power than her native environs. Wilder, more vibrant.
The exact place where the transition lay between hill country and mountains eluded her. But on this section of river she was in mountain country. She could see it in the high, almost vertical inclines, in the nature of the stone that outcropped atop the soaring peaks, gray, rounded, and devoid of vegetation. That such thick forest could cling to such steep and dizzying slopes filled her with awe.
Though she’d been told stories all her life, nothing had prepared her for the vista as she stared up at the remarkably blue sky, the vivid greens, and the occasional fluffy white clouds. She’d once thought the Morning Star’s mound to be the highest place on earth. Now, looking at mountains, she found the notion ludicrous.
The earth had always been a presence in her soul; it imparted an almost serene sense of nurture and permanence. But this land? It filled her with wonder as she gazed up at the heights.
“That’s our goal for the day,” Winder told her, using his paddle to point.
Ahead, on the river’s southern bank, she could see a settlement located on a terrace. Smoke rose in thin fingers from the town’s fires, though hickory and mulberry trees screened most of the structures from view. Behind it the ground sloped, rising in benches that surrendered to rounded heights on the far southern horizon.
From the town a trail descended to the canoe landing. Maybe fifteen or twenty craft had been pulled up on the shore. A smattering of ramadas and what looked like warehouses were set above the high-water line.
“The town is called Haktimikko in Muskogee. It means White Chief. The legend is that a terrible chief once ruled here. He had his body tattooed entirely in black, and he stole all the Trade coming up or down the river. That in order to pass his lands, he demanded terrible sacrifices in payment for passage. One story tells of how he made a Trader sacrifice his only daughter, and that the terrible chief then cooked her body and fed it to the Trader at a feast in the man’s honor.
“Then came a White Chief, who, through Powerful magic, destroyed the Black Chief by lifting him with a whirlwind and dropping him in the narrows. When the whirlwind hit the river, it pulled him down, creating the great whirlpool in the middle of the canyon called the Suck.”
“Are the people here friendly to Cahokians?”
Winder shrugged. “Lady, everyone is tolerated here as long as they don’t behave unreasonably. White Chief Town survives on Trade, prides itself on keeping with the old traditions of the Power of Trade. Anyone who enters its grounds is supposed to maintain the peace. As a result, even bitter enemies come here to negotiate the return of captives, solve grievances, and sometimes broker alliances.”
“White Chief Town has a large military force to ensure the peace?”
“No, Lady. The various nations hereabouts, they just respect the tradition. Mostly I guess because it serves everyone’s purposes. And anyone who broke the peace? They’d pay for it in the end. No one would deal with them. Not even Traders. It would cost them any allies they had.”
Night Shadow Star studied the place as the canoe glided in and slid onto the beach.
Winder climbed out, laughing, slapping the Albaamaha paddlers on the back. Then he reached into one of his packs, handing each of the men a string of shell beads. Upon receiving their payment, the men bowed, grinning. Then, calling happily to each other, they muscled the canoe up on the sand, ignoring Night Shadow Star in the process. Without a backward glance they started up the trail, headed for the town.
“What just happened?” Night Shadow Star asked.
“They’re looking to find a meal, spend the night, do a little Trading, find a woman to share the blankets with, and in the morning, they’ll head back for home.”
“But I thought they were going to take us all the way to Cofitachequi?”
Winder gave her a crooked grin, jerking his thumb in the direction of the canyon. “You and I are walking. We’ll take the river trail. Hire porters to carry our packs and your box up past the Suck and Rage to Ikansofke, or Canyon Town, at the head of the narrows. From there we can hire another canoe to take us the rest of the way to the mouth of the Wide Fast River.”
“I didn’t know it would be so difficult.”
“Most people don’t.”
Winder called out in some local tongue. A band of boys, in their early teens, swarmed down from one of the ramadas, picked up the box and remaining packs in the canoe and, laughing and chattering, started up the trail with them.
“Let’s go find a bed, get some food,” Winder told her, and spinning on his heel, the big man set out up the trail.
In the steeper spots, squared logs had been set as stairs in the trail, making the climb easier. Topping onto the flat it was to encounter a moderate-size town of perhaps two or three hundred people. The houses were mostly the traditional bent-pole construction, though to Night Shadow Star’s surprise, here and there newer trench-wall houses of Cahokian design could be seen.
The layout followed the usual southern habit of building around a central square plaza that served as the stickball and Dance grounds, though this one had a large, round, earthen structure smack in its middle.
“That’s called the Tchkofa, or Council House.” Winder pointed. “And over there, that big square open-sided building? That’s the summer house where most business is transacted and Trading takes place. You and I, we’ll be trying to secure a bed in the Trade House. That’s the log-sided building just the other side of the White Chief’s palace atop that low mound.”
“Why are these towns all so alike?”
“It’s the talwa, means town. It’s the way the Muskogeans tend to organize their politics. Goes back to the old days. Reflects the origin stories of the people. Each of the clans has their place on the square. A family can move clear down to the Gulf. Whatever talwa they arrive at, they know where their place is in that community.”
“As long as they’re Muskogee.”
“That’s right. Timucua are different.”
“Are we going that far south? I thought they were down in the peninsula.”
Winder studied her thoughtfully, that clever glint in his quick black eyes. “No. It’s mostly Muskogeans we’re going to be dealing with. And when we get to the eastern mountains, we’ll find the Chalakee. They’re a mountain people, high-country Traders.”
She followed him as he wound through the houses, each with a garden. The granaries here were all elevated on tall posts. Ladders allowed access, and the cone-shaped roofs were thatched.
People, working at milling corn, pounding smilax root, and minding boiling pots, watched her pass with curious but hospitable glances. The occasional dog approached, tail wagging, but lost interest when it became apparent they had no food.
Ahead of them, the boys led the way, packs bobbing as they crossed the plaza to the Trade House.
At the door Winder reached into his belt pouch and produced a handful of small reed whistles. Each boy dropped his burden and received his, then joyously went running back the way they’d come; their progress was marked by the shrill hollow tones of tooting.
“I thought it was curious that you spent most of the night carving them.”
Winder gave her a wink. “Pays to know what people want, Lady. Figure that out and you have the world in your hand.”
She felt a sense of wariness, Piasa’s uneasy hiss seeming to warble in the air around her.
/> Winder, missing nothing, just chuckled and turned to an old man seated on a stump next to the door. In rapid-fire Muskogean, a bargain was struck. Winder produced a small packet of some organic substance and handed it across.
“And what was that?” Night Shadow Star asked as Winder led the way into the gable-roofed structure.
“Old man Seven Root, back there, has a weakness for a certain forest mushroom that, when mixed with tobacco, allows his souls to fly from his body.”
“Your knowledge amazes me.”
He gave her a knowing smile as he tossed one of their packs onto the lower of two bunk beds built into the back wall and separated from the other beds by a cane-wall divider. “I’ll give you the bottom,” he told her. “Trust me, it’s a little more private.”
From the packs, she took her and Fire Cat’s blankets and laid them out. Hesitating as she did, she lifted his blanket, smelling, trying to find his scent in the woven buffalo wool.
How was he doing? Out there. Somewhere on the river. She knew he was alive, could feel it in her souls. But he had nothing but his weapons, not his blanket, not his fire starter, sewing kit, his knife, abrader, knapping tools, or cord.
Be well, my love. Come find me.
Piasa’s laughter seemed to echo from the split-cane roof overhead.
“Don’t worry about your packs,” Winder told her. “No one will bother them here. That’s another of the understood rules.”
“Not even if it’s a fortune in copper, shell, and carvings in an ornately carved Cahokian wooden box?”
“Not even then, Lady. Old Seven Root might like to send his souls flying, but not while he’s on guard at the Trade House. Come, let me show you the town. And then I’ll treat you to one of the finest roast catfish suppers you’ve ever eaten.”
She gave him a suspicious sidelong glance. The man was just too smooth, too at ease, as if he possessed some special advantage she couldn’t quite comprehend.
Nevertheless, as the sun sank behind the distant ridges and cast the most spectacular blue shadows over the valleys beneath, Night Shadow Star savored one of the most delicious meals she’d ever eaten. Given that she’d been raised in the tonka’tzi’s palace, that was saying a lot.
Winder explained, “Old Woman White Egret roasts the fish in a special pit. Uses salt she Trades up from the peninsula. She places sassafras root in the gut hollow, then wraps the fish in grape leaves interlaid with rose petals.”
From where they sat on a log bench on the east end of the plaza, Night Shadow Star was able to watch a practice stickball match. She desperately missed the game.
Missed having Fire Cat at her side even more.
“What are you after?” she asked.
Winder took another bite of fish, chewed, and swallowed before washing it down with a cup of mint tea. “After?”
“Fire Cat’s not dead. He’s following us.”
Winder’s gaze remained fixed on the sunset. “You sure?”
“Piasa would tell me.”
“Now, that notion that the Underwater Panther—”
“Answer me. What are you after? Clever man like you, you’re playing the perfect host. So genial. Everything seen to. Not a single misstep. Not a single hint of dishonesty. Always the smile in place, best side forward, and never a slip. Never an unmanaged moment when you’re not playing the part.”
The flicker of a smile teased the corners of his mouth, his eyes still guarded. “What if I told you I was just being myself? That this is who I really am. Just Winder, the River Fox, a successful Trader who is adept at his craft.”
“And you lie so facilely and with such simple sincerity. I have to admire how good you are in the practice. If I didn’t know the depth of your involvement in the Surveyors’ Bundle theft, in the way Blue Heron was treated by the Quiz Quiz, and the fact you almost got a lot of people killed, I might even believe you. Though how a clanless thief, orphan, and ne’er-do-well child like you could grow into such an accomplished pretender is a story worth hearing. You almost pull it off, you know. The genteel nobility act.”
He shot her a hard look, no amusement now in his square and hard-used face. “I spent years learning. Studying the chiefs, from the Chitimacha down in their swamps by the Gulf, to the Tunica, Pasqui, the Quiz Quiz, Casquinampo, and Sky Hand. Learned how to posture my body, the movements of the hands, how they smiled, and how they scowled. Did the same with the House chiefs in Cahokia. Oh, not the Morning Star by any means. Not even I could weasel my way up into that sacred height. But Green Chunkey? War Duck? Those were chiefs who’d deal for my goods.”
A pause. “Then there’s the fine ladies. Bored with their noble husbands. Looking for something different, something a bit dangerous and forbidden. Looking to dally with a man who has made a study of the ways to coax every bit of delight from a woman’s body.”
“Why play the game with me? I don’t have the slightest interest in being ‘happy’ with you. So, I repeat, what are you after?”
He stared off into the distance again, gaze fixed on the purpling sky and soft shadows of evening. Finally, he said, “I’m not the only one playing a game, Lady White Willow. Remarkable choice of a name, don’t you think? Especially for a minor cousin several steps removed from the central authority vested in Morning Star House. But I must admit, you’ve surprised me. Actually, earned my respect. Never thought you’d be capable of work, and hard work at that. I begin to understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Your Power, Lady. And why so many fear it.”
She took another bite of fish. It really was marvelous. She wondered if she could explain how to make it well enough that Clay String could cook the like. Assuming, that is, that she ever got home.
“I have no Power.”
“And I’m a simple river Trader,” Winder asserted. “One good game deserves another.”
She took a deep breath. “You are hired to take me to Cofitachequi. That is all you are expected to do. I don’t need any special coddling. I’m far from bored with the man I already have, so you can cease wasting your time trying to seduce me. Beyond that, if I have secrets, they are my own. For my own purposes. Do we have an understanding?”
The mocking hint of a smile began to play at the corners of his mouth again. “I think, Lady, that you and I understand each other perfectly. Now, enjoy your fish. You won’t taste the like until you come back this way again.”
She caught a flicker of Piasa at the edge of her vision, as though her Spirit Master had been listening from the deepening shadows behind them.
Fifty-six
Screwing up all the courage Blood Talon could manage, he kept his expression stoic. Tried not to flinch. And prayed that tears would not come to his eyes as Fire Cat daubed a grease-based unguent onto the hideous burns that peeled and bled on Blood Talon’s ribs, under his arms, and on the inside of his thighs.
The old man who’d been torturing him hadn’t gotten to his penis and testicles, or to the point that they’d set his hair on fire. Nor, thankfully, had they pulled his eyeballs out of their sockets, cut out his tongue, or severed his fingers, one by one. Generally, the practice was to wait for that. Build up to the final indignity that left a sightless husk hanging from broken bones where the arms and legs had been smashed.
As to whether the barbarians would have chosen to either pluck his eyes from the sockets, or just burn them out on the end of a fiery stick would remain speculative, and a subject that would return to haunt Blood Talon’s dreams for the rest of his life.
Not that Fire Cat’s miraculous appearance out of the night wasn’t without problems of its own. Blood Talon owed the man his life. This man. The one who had murdered his men and now daubed medicine he’d traded a catfish for at the last village they’d passed.
Looking back at their now-entwined histories, Blood Talon found himself more than a little troubled. In the beginning, Red Wing Town had incited its destruction by remaining a hive of heresy. Then, partly because of Fi
re Cat’s military brilliance, the Red Wing Clan had destroyed several Cahokian armies, not the least of which was Makes Three’s.
Blood Talon himself had led the raid on Fire Cat’s palace, had helped to subdue the man and saw him safely shipped off for Cahokia aboard a canoe. Then he had helped himself to the spoils, including the degradation and abuse of Fire Cat’s wives, relatives, and children. While he hadn’t sexually violated the young ones, he hadn’t forbidden it, had casually ordered their execution, and had their bodies disposed of in the river.
By the time he and his squadron had returned to Cahokia, the Red Wing—now Night Shadow Star’s slave—had saved the city, not once, but twice, and supposedly had helped to bring the Morning Star’s souls back from the Underworld.
And he could have killed me that day I challenged him on Night Shadow Star’s mound.
But Fire Cat hadn’t retaliated, even though he understood the stakes. The gentle feel of that blade against Blood Talon’s neck remained as clear as yesterday.
But it hadn’t stopped there. The man had precipitated the deaths of so many of Blood Talon’s warriors when he capsized the war canoe: Nutcracker, Three Bow, Wild Owl, Old Scar, and Whistle Hand among them. Comrades from countless war trails. Men whose laughter, smiles, and privations Blood Talon had shared over the years. In a bond stronger than that shared by brothers, they’d trained, fought, shivered, and sweated. The notion that his erstwhile savior had murdered them? It left him confused and wanting to scream at the injustice of it.
“You killed my men.”
“You destroyed my town and family. Sent me into slavery. Would have killed me and taken Night Shadow Star back to that foul master of yours.”
“I was following orders,” Blood Talon whispered past his gritted teeth as Fire Cat used a finger to smear more of the grease onto the underside of Blood Talon’s right arm.
“Funny thing, your orders,” Fire Cat answered. “Who were they to benefit? The Morning Star? The people of Cahokia? Certainly, they didn’t benefit Night Shadow Star, or, I’m sure, the Four Winds Clan. I’m not sure they actually benefited Rising Flame, either. Not in the long view of things.”
Star Path--People of Cahokia Page 34