“Traders? We’re Cahokians, warriors. No, even more, you were a war chief, I was a squadron first. I can no more be a Trader than I can be a fish.”
Fire Cat, firelight reflecting in his face, asked, “Have you learned so little, Blood Talon? If Power wanted you to remain a squadron first, would it have taken your warriors, lost you your weapons, and cast you alone on the river?”
He frowned, lines etching deeply into his forehead. “Do you find it so easy, Red Wing? Giving up who and what you are? Or are you so lost and without a heart and strong souls that you no longer know?”
Fire Cat had smiled wearily. “Just the opposite, Squadron First. I know who I am in ways I could never have comprehended back in Red Wing Town. It is you who is stumbling, blindly clinging to the man you used to be. Terrified to find out just who you really are.”
Blood Talon’s first response was anger, but somehow he stifled that. “What makes you think you know all this?”
“Because to fully find yourself, you must first completely lose yourself.” The man arched an eyebrow in question. “The tricky part is, not everyone can survive the transition. Sometimes, Squadron First, the souls inside are just too fragile or too frightened to take the chance. If that’s the case, you are condemned to fail. If you do fail, you will never completely recover but will be a half person, forever incomplete, for the rest of your life.”
“You seem to know a lot for a slave.” He hated the bitterness of his retort the moment he said it.
“How do you think I learned it in the first place? Now, get some sleep. Tomorrow, we’re Traders.”
As he rolled into his blanket beneath the ramada where they were staying, the thought kept echoing through Blood Talon’s head: What if I don’t know how to be a Trader?
Which wasn’t nearly as frightening as the notion that he might ultimately be one of those fragile ones. The ones who broke and spent the rest of their lives incomplete.
Seventy
The scream of a cougar brought Night Shadow Star wide awake in her blankets. She’d heard it before on this trip, but at a distance, far back in the forest. That it was so close—her thought was that it had been at the foot of her bed—had her heart pounding in her throat, her every muscle tense.
She stared around the dark camp, seeing the porters and their dogs outlined by the glow of their fire not five paces from the one she and Winder shared. As the dogs barked their warnings, the porters, too, were sitting up, staring out at the inky forest that rose above their camp.
“She-cat,” Winder told her from his blankets. “Probably with kittens. My guess? She was leading the young ones on a hunt. Some trick of the wind hid our scent until the last instant. That we were so close and so many, not to mention the smell of the fire and dogs, must have given her a real start.”
“What do we do? How do we defend ourselves in the dark?”
“She’s long gone, Lady.”
“I didn’t hear her leave. Remember those elk we spooked yesterday? You could hear them crash and bash all the way up the mountain.”
“Those were elk, these are cougars. Nothing is as silent in the forest as a cougar. Well, maybe an owl. I’ve had them glide past my ear and not a sound. Nothing but silence.”
“How do you know all this?”
“How do you not?”
At the other fire, the porters were talking and laughing, quieting their dogs and lying back down in their blankets, obviously relieved.
“I lived all my life in Cahokia.” She felt like she was physically forcing her heart back down into her chest. “This whole trip has been a learning experience. The rivers, the forest, the camps and creatures. I almost got lost once back downriver where we camped at Maygrass Town. Went for a walk in the forest. Got turned around. Started to panic. And I remembered something one of the Traders said: ‘Follow the water. It will always lead you to the river.’”
“Good advice.”
“But I’ll never forget that sense of panic, of being lost. Terrible feeling, suddenly having no idea where you are, which way to go. That you might lose everything, flounder about and starve alone.”
“It is.”
“What about you? You were raised in Cahokia. You came from the city. Where did you learn about cougars and owls?”
“That was part of becoming an ‘influential’ man. I was already rich, but being a big man? Depending upon which people you’re living among out here that can mean a lot of things. For many it involves having some kind of skills in the forest. The forest, you see, is in their blood. Real men are hunters, warriors, people who can survive in the backcountry. Either I learned, or I would have been the subject of ridicule and derision.”
She lay back in her blankets, listening to the crickets, heard the plaintive call of a nightjar. And in the far distance, high up the mountain, the eerie howl of a wolf carried over the rushing sounds of the river down below them.
I am, once again, becoming someone else.
Did it never stop? Was the woman called Night Shadow Star as shifting and impermanent as a sandbar on the river? Here one season, then washed away and re-formed somewhere else downstream in the river of life.
“How many peoples have you lived with?”
“A great many,” he told her.
“How many women do you have?”
“A great many.”
She laughed at that. “And you would still add me to your list?”
“Faster than a heartbeat.”
“You’re more of a scoundrel than Seven Skull Shield.”
“Less, actually. The difference between us is that I try to keep mine.”
“It would never work.”
“Because you’re a lady and I was an orphan? You never know. I might have been one of Black Tail’s sons, stolen from birth by Spirit Raven to grow up as an orphan in the city, only to become a wealthy Trader who would be there for you to fall in love with. The ending of the story is that together we remake the world and unite Power. Or at least, that’s how it will be told on down through the ages.”
“Nice try.”
“Stories have to begin somewhere. Come, slip over here to my blankets. It’s a cool night, let me share my warmth. Two people, alone like this on a long journey, it might just be comfort, or perhaps, if we give it a try, we really can spin that magical story.”
“Just like that?”
“It’s only coupling, Lady. A man and a woman doing what men and women have done from the Beginning Times. And, just because we share moments of pleasure and delight, I’ll make no claim on you.”
“Indeed. Just a passing comfort?”
“A moment for the souls to enjoy the reassuring sensation of another caring body against yours. Just a hard shaft and a willing sheath. That burst of delight down in your hips, and then the security of being held close, warm, and safe.”
“And if you plant a child?”
“I assume you know your body well enough to know when a man’s seed might take root. I have no problem avoiding that quarter moon when your loins are fertile. Nor am I squeamish, given that you neglected to inform us of your flux a couple of days ago. By the way, that was admirably done. The porters hadn’t a clue. Must have been a light discharge.”
“Seems that way ever since I’ve been working as hard as I have paddling and packing. But that’s beside the point. It really wouldn’t work.”
“How so?”
“Even if Fire Cat wasn’t the one I will love forever, you’re not the kind of man who can spend the rest of his life balancing precariously on the edge of darkness. You’re the type who plots and plans for the future—the kind of future that’s filled with smiles and hearty slaps on the back for a job well done. You see good times ahead, feasts, laughing, and frolicking with your women. Being honored and adored. Being—how did you put it? ‘A big man.’”
“Is that so impossible for you?”
“No. But it is for Piasa and Power.” She smiled wearily. “Your future is festive. Mine is
tortured and dark. Suppose Fire Cat and I survive my confrontation with Walking Smoke, it will just be the beginning of another trial. Eventually, Piasa is going to pull me under for the last time. When he does, you don’t want to be around.”
“Maybe there’s a way you can change that. Maybe I could change it for you.”
She shifted in her blankets. “Don’t even try. I mean it. Get that notion out of your head. I don’t want to be the one to go back and tell Seven Skull Shield, ‘I’m sorry, but when we were in Cofitachequi, I got your best friend killed.”
“Bah, I’m hard to kill.”
“Not when it comes to Walking Smoke. The last time he and I faced each other, he didn’t understand who I’d become. This time he does, and you can bet he’s planned for it.”
Seventy-one
The knock came in the middle of the night. Insistent tapping at Wooden Doll’s door.
Seven Skull Shield came immediately awake. Beside him, Wooden Doll shifted beneath the blankets, calling, “Dawn? See who that is.”
“Yes, Lady.”
“… And tell them it’s the middle of the night. I’ll see them in the morning.”
“Yes, Lady.”
Seven Skull Shield rubbed his eyes and stared up at the dark roof overhead. Charred with soot as it was, it might have been an eternal blackness. Fact was, he’d been cursed lucky to get out of Spotted Wrist’s cage with both of his eyes intact.
He wiggled onto his side, enduring the painful stitch from his barely healed ribs. Pus and blood, it took forever for ribs to heal. His deeper cuts and burns had barely started to mend.
Truth be told? He should have been on his feet days ago. He suspected that Wooden Doll knew it. Knew for a fact that Dawn did. He could see it in the Chickosi girl’s suspicious dark eyes.
Didn’t matter that he’d saved her, brought her here. If the young woman ever trusted a man again, it would take years, and most definitely the right kind of man.
He elevated his head enough to see her waddle to the door and ask, “Who comes?”
“Open the door. I need to see Wooden Doll and her, um, rich Trader. Now! It’s an emergency. Tell them it’s the little man.”
Dawn turned, head cocked quizzically. “You know any little man?”
“Let him in,” Skull said, feeling his hide pull as he sat up.
Dawn unlatched the door, lifting it to the side, peering out into the night and almost missing the dwarf who slipped in below her line of sight.
“Flat Stone Pipe,” Seven Skull Shield greeted.
Wooden Doll forced herself upright, clawing back the thick tangle of her hair and turning her eyes on the dwarf.
“Sorry, but there’s no time,” Flat Stone Pipe said as he strolled over to the fire in his rollicking round-legged gait. “Spotted Wrist is calling up his squadrons. Quietly. Not even Rising Flame knows. He says it’s for drills. But he’s replaced several of his commanders with new people. His people. Cousins from North Star House. They’ve been meeting in his palace for the past two days. My call? They’re moving on us.”
“You sent word to Columella?” Seven Skull Shield asked.
Figuring this was more than a quick call, Dawn tossed wood onto the fire from the pile near the door. Flames began to lick at the pieces.
“Does the sun rise in the east? Of course my lady knows. If Spotted Wrist tries to cross the river, he’ll be in for a surprise.”
“Thanks for the warning, I’ll—”
“If he’s willing to move on Evening Star House, he’s willing to move on Morning Star House as well. That’s Blue Heron and Wind. Maybe he’s doing it with Rising Flame’s approval, or he’s figuring that with Horned Serpent House in his pocket, and War Duck and Round Pot … What are you doing?”
Seven Skull Shield threw off the covers, sliding his legs around Wooden Doll.
“Skull? You’re still hurt. What do you think—”
“I’ve got to get Blue Heron out.”
Wooden Doll protested, “She’s been playing this game since before you were born.”
“Yeah, well, she’s not as tough as she thinks she is.”
“Neither are you,” Wooden Doll snapped as she stepped up to stop him from yanking his breechcloth over his hips. “You’re barely out of Spotted Wrist’s cage, and you’re headed right back to it? He won’t leave you to linger if he catches you again. You understand that, don’t you? You will die. Fast and hard.”
Seven Skull Shield smiled into her eyes. “He has to catch me first.”
He watched her facial muscles work as she sought to control her expression. Her voice dropped. “Don’t. Please. Stay here. With me.”
“She’s my friend.”
“So help me, if you leave here, don’t come back.”
He bent close, ran a finger down the gentle curve of her cheek, saw the panic in her eyes. “You know I love you. See you when I’m sure Blue Heron’s safe.”
He left her standing, looking desolate.
Dawn was giving him the same kind of look she’d give a lunatic, and Flat Stone Pipe had a wizened expression on his face, as if he’d known all along how this would turn out.
“Spit and piss,” Seven Skull Shield muttered as he stepped out into the hot and muggy night. “Where’s Farts when I need him?”
But as he wound his way through the dark workshops and warehouses to reach the Avenue of the Sun, it hit him that maybe Farts was the smarter of the two of them. Maybe the big brindle dog had found a new home, one where he was fed, played with by children, and could live to a great old age.
At least he hoped so, because Seven Skull Shield was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he had just walked away from the woman he longed for … and was headed toward a short and nasty end.
Seventy-two
The man’s name was Splinter Branch. He had arrived in the middle of the night, just the latest in a constant stream of Blue Heron’s spies. She had been getting reports for the last two days. Stories of runners arriving at all hours of the day as they shuttled between Spotted Wrist or Slender Fox’s palaces, of their being secluded in private meetings in Horned Serpent House.
That something was being brokered between North Star House and Horned Serpent House was evident. An example of the rapidly shifting alliances given that the two Houses had been exchanging the vilest of insults and on the verge of war barely nine moons past.
Not all the messengers were streaming between the north and south. Others were beating feet from Spotted Wrist’s palace to a Council House in River Mounds City. There, Blue Heron’s spies reported, they were meeting with Three Fingers, Broken Stone, and Waving Reed. And from the Council House, so the spies reported, other runners were slipping back and forth among allied relatives who opposed War Duck and Round Pot, and most saliently, among the prominent Earth Clans chiefs under River House’s governance.
In the midst of all this had come news that Spotted Wrist had removed some of his squadron firsts and seconds, replacing them with either trusted subordinates or, worse, relatives.
And for what possible reason would the Hero of the North be reorganizing his veteran squadrons, helping North Star House to broker alliances, and talking to rebels in River House?
She’d been brooding on that through most of the night, unable to sleep, when Big Right, one of her guards, had answered a call at her door.
She was up and dressed, almost muzzy-headed from fatigue, as Splinter Branch was ushered into her great room. Blue Heron herself threw a couple faggots of wood onto the coals, watched them bloom into flame, and settled herself on her dais to ask, “What news?”
Splinter Branch bent low, touching his forehead to her mat, then straightened. “I thought you should know, Lady. Just at dusk most of a squadron moved out of Serpent Woman Town. It’s like all those warriors just appeared out of nowhere. No one saw them assemble. They came marching into Serpent Woman Town a couple of hands of time before sunset. Ate a big meal that Slender Fox had had prepared in the Men’s Hou
se, and then marched out again. They were on the river trail, headed south. My guess would be that they’ll be in River Mounds City by morning.”
At that she’d straightened, seeing it all in her mind.
“What do you think?” Smooth Pebble asked, having risen from her bed.
“You can bet that’s not the only squadron on the move,” Dancing Sky said from where she’d sat up in her blankets. “The change in command structure? The secret call-up of the squadrons? This is Spotted Wrist. He learned his lesson in the north when he surprised Red Wing Town. This is all about surprise.”
Blue Heron closed her eyes, felt that sick sensation in her gut. “He’s going to take River Mounds City,” she said. “Depose War Duck and Round Pot. With Three Fingers either controlling Broken Stone or taking the high chair himself, River House will back him in a move against Columella. There’s old animosity between River House and Evening Star House. Spotted Wrist and Three Fingers? It’s a natural fit.”
“What can you do about it?” Smooth Pebble asked. “Alert Morning Star? Get him to intervene?”
She rubbed her face, trying to sort it through. “Might be too late. And there’s no telling where Rising Flame is in all this. Spotted Wrist is her chosen. Wouldn’t put it past her that she’s egging the Keeper on, hoping to remake Cahokia in her image.”
Dancing Sky added, “If the squadron left Serpent Woman Town at sunset, they’re making a night march. Along the river, that’s tough travel given the swamps, the marshes.”
“They’re moving along the levee. It will be slow going, especially in the dark,” Blue Heron agreed. “There still might be time. Splinter Branch, I know you’re tired. I need you to get word to War Duck and Round Pot. Fast. I’d hire you a litter, but it’s the middle of the night. You’ll have to run. Can you do that?”
“Yes, Keeper!” The young man stood, a grim set to his wide mouth. He tapped a fist to his forehead and turned, headed for the door.
“Wait.” Blue Heron reached down and plucked up her staff of office. “You’ll need this. It will get you right in to War Duck and Round Pot. Tell them what you just told me. Then tell them I think their lives are on the line. That I don’t think it would be beyond Three Fingers and Spotted Wrist to have them and their supporters murdered on the spot.”
Star Path--People of Cahokia Page 42