People of the Thunder (North America's Forgotten Past) (22 page)

Morning Dew looked around owlishly as she stepped inside. A central fire illuminated the room. The usual carved relief of the Seeing Hand covered the back wall. A tripod sat in the north; numerous boxes, packs, jars, baskets, and other vessels had been stowed beneath the wall benches. Unique for the room, carved wooden statues of panthers, bears, falcons, woodpeckers, raccoons, and rattlesnakes were spaced evenly between the benches. Many had a polished look, as if people had leaned on them for support.

Pale Cat and the diminutive Night Star were seated before the tripod. A ceramic pot hung over the fire, steam rising from the surface. Just to Pale Cat’s left sat the Raccoon Clan warrior Blood Skull, a fabric pack by his side.
Blood Skull, the man who captured me out of my own house.
For an instant she was back in White Arrow Town. Then came the memory of her husband’s body slamming into the hard ground. She remembered stepping out the door, seeing Screaming Falcon’s body on the ground. And then she flinched at the memory of Blood Skull’s muscular arms clamping around her body.

She forced herself back to the present, stifling the urge to fly at the man.

Pale Cat stood, his smile at Heron Wing’s entrance fading. “You brought Morning Dew?”

Blood Skull asked, “Heron Wing, why? We have serious things to discuss here tonight. This isn’t a social visit.”

When Morning Dew planted a foot to turn back, Heron Wing reached for her hand, pulling her forward. At the same time she said, “No, this isn’t a social visit.
We’re here to discuss the Chahta. If we’re going to know their will and aims we are best served hearing them straight from the Chahta themselves. Having only one White Arrow matron available for that purpose, I brought her along.”

“She’s a slave!” Blood Skull protested. “A captive!”

Morning Dew fought the building urge to spit at him.
Stop it! Heron Wing’s right. You are a matron. Act like one.

Heron Wing seated herself to Night Star’s right, dragging a resisting Morning Dew down beside her. “Very good, warrior. Your sharp wits—having just been demonstrated—can now be put to good use helping us form some plan of action.”

Night Star gave Morning Dew a distasteful scowl before she turned her squinty eyes on Heron Wing. “I hope you aren’t joking, Niece.”

Morning Dew forced her heart to cease its pounding. A smart woman might learn something from this. She did her best to relax.

“Far from it, Aunt. I’m deadly serious here. We are discussing the future of our people. Specifically we are trying to figure out what the Chahta raid means.” She glanced at Blood Skull. “If it really is a raid.”

“Precisely,” Pale Cat agreed, thoughtful eyes on his sister. “Do you trust her that much?”

“I do.” Heron Wing turned to Morning Dew. “Tell them what you want most.”

Morning Dew read the firm look in Heron Wing’s eyes.
Yes, yes. I’m a matron. Gods, you could be my mother.
And then she stiffened her resolve. “I want to go home to my people. No matter what my present status, I am still Chief Clan, the matron of the White Arrow Moiety of the Chahta.”

“So,” Night Star asked, “that being the case, why should we trust you?”

Morning Dew was aware of Heron Wing’s evaluative
expression.
She wants to see what I’m made of.
“I’m not sure you should.” She indicated Blood Skull. “Acting as second to Smoke Shield, Blood Skull and his warriors killed many of my relatives, including my mother. As I was his captive, he was the one who gave me to Smoke Shield. He was the man who tied my brother, High Minko Biloxi, to the square, tortured him, and would have killed him.” Her heart skipped.
Gods, get over it. Be the woman Heron Wing thinks you are.

“In fact, it was my brother”—she swallowed hard—“and his war chief who started this thing with the Alligator Town raid. You did to us what we did to you.”
Think! Don’t let your heart rule your souls.
“The fact that Heron Wing brought me here tells me that you need to know the hearts of the Chahta. So I will tell you.” She paused, looking from face to face. “Assuming, that is, that we are working to bring this problem between our peoples to a sane conclusion.”

Heron Wing was smiling like a fox who had just caught a bobwhite.

Night Star watched her with midnight eyes.

Blood Skull lifted a skeptical eyebrow.

Pale Cat had an amused look on his face as he nodded to his sister.

Night Star clasped her small hands in her lap. “You could be a potent enemy.”

“I could also be just as potent an ally.” Morning Dew met the woman’s stare. “. . . With the right persuasion. Why don’t you tell me what you need to know about the Chahta, and why? After that we can iron out the details about why we should or should not trust each other.”

Night Star glanced at Blood Skull. “Objections?”

“Yes,” the Raccoon Clan warrior muttered, “but for the moment I’ll keep them to myself.”

“Very well,” Night Star relented. “You just returned from hunting the Chahta raiders, Blood Skull.
What did your warriors find, and why are you concerned?”

He glanced suspiciously at Morning Dew, then withdrew a bloodstained arrow from the sack beside him. “The raiders moved from south to north, starting their sweep just west of us and ending outside of Bowl Town. They attacked only small farmsteads, killing Albaamaha. As best we know at this early date, twenty-three were killed. Two survivors, both Albaamaha, claimed that the raiders were under War Chief Great Cougar. They heard him called by name. The trackers found four parties of five warriors apiece.”

“And what is the problem with that?” Pale Cat asked.

Blood Skull twirled the bloody arrow in his fingers. “Our scouts saw nothing on the ridgeline, no trail, no evidence of passage. We can’t backtrack the raiders, nor could Sun Falcon’s trackers find where they turned back west.”

“So they were very skilled.”

“Were they?” Blood Skull handed the arrow to Morning Dew. “Look at it. Can you say for sure that this is a Chahta arrow?”

Morning Dew took the light shaft. About the length of her forearm, it had been broken, as if snapped from the body it entered. “The colors are right. The white band indicates it comes from our Deer Clan of the White Arrow Moiety.”

Blood Skull nodded.

Morning Dew frowned at it. “Honestly, I’m no expert on arrows. Men don’t like women around their weapons.”

Blood Skull took it back, asking, “How many Chahta Deer Clan warriors live at Feathered Serpent Town?”

Morning Dew frowned, trying to think. “Some, I’m sure. Probably men . . .” She shook her head. “No, that doesn’t make sense. It’s a Red Arrow Town. But that’s
not to say Great Cougar couldn’t have had volunteers from some other place.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Blood Skull stared at the arrow. “I wouldn’t have given it any thought. But I broke this shaft off from where it was sticking out of a woman’s back. I was about to throw it away, angry, enraged at the Chahta. Then something caught my eye. The problem is with the notches cut here in the fletching.” He pointed to two small nicks. Each was repeated on the three split feathers tied to the shaft. “Bear Paw notches his arrows in this fashion.”

“Bear Paw?” Night Star asked. “He’s one of your kinsmen.”

“I know. I hunt with him. All Raccoon Clan hunters leave a distinctive notch, or perhaps a zigzag line scratched in the shaft, something, to tell whose arrow actually killed the game. Normally we paint a blue ring on our shafts, the sign of our clan. This arrow, if you’ll notice, has been rubbed with fine sand right around the white ring. The wood is pale, as if the old color had been sanded off.”

“That’s hardly conclusive,” Pale Cat said.

Blood Skull looked up. “Four parties of five apiece. But just before the Chahta raid, Smoke Shield left with twenty warriors on some errand for Flying Hawk. The thing is: Bear Paw was with them.”

Heron Wing asked, “You think Smoke Shield’s warriors did this?”

Blood Skull turned his eyes on Morning Dew. “Tell me,
Matron
, you know Great Cougar. Does this raid sound like something he’d lead?”

Did it?
She frowned at the arrow. “No,” she said softly, feeling the oddness of it. “Great Cougar isn’t a man of half measures. Nor is he impulsive. The Red Arrow war chief I know will bide his time, build his strength, and come at you in force. He believes in war,
and he believes in winning. He told me once that a good war chief goes to war with the intent to smash a pot with an ax.”

Blood Skull nodded, the first thawing of his reservation. “That is the man I know, too.”

“This is madness,” Pale Cat whispered. “Are we seriously considering the notion that a band of our warriors—led by our war chief—is running amok, killing innocent Albaamaha?”

“He is after something,” Heron Wing said thoughtfully. “I’ve seen it in his eyes.” She glanced up. “You know I have ears among the Albaamaha. Most of you have at least heard the rumors that Red Awl is missing. Among the Albaamaha the story is passed that Smoke Shield and Fast Legs waylaid him, that Smoke Shield tortured Red Awl and raped his wife, Lotus Root, up at the sandstone quarry above Clay Bank Crossing. According to the Albaamaha story, Lotus Root escaped with Smoke Shield’s weapons, and bit him on the lip in the process. At the solstice games, Fast Legs, one of Hickory Moiety’s best players, was missing.”

Blood Skull nodded, looking at Pale Cat. “At the Council he was adamant that the Albaamaha were betraying us. He accused them not only of sending Crabapple to warn White Arrow Town, but also of killing the captives.”

Morning Dew drew a breath, stilling herself.

“Yes?” Heron Wing caught her reaction.

In a whisper, she said, “I wouldn’t put vendetta beyond Smoke Shield.” She glanced hesitantly at Blood Skull. “You were there. You know why he really attacked White Arrow Town.”

Blood Skull refused to meet her eyes, focusing instead on the arrow.

“Enlighten us,” Night Star said dryly, her eyes like knives.

“To take me,” Morning Dew told the dwarf woman.
“Because I spurned him last summer. All that planning to make the raid a success was diversion. The attack on Alligator Town was only the excuse.”

“We are to believe that?” Night Star scoffed. “He did all that just to capture you?” She chuckled. “You seem to have a pretty high opinion of yourself,
Matron.
”

Morning Dew stiffened. “Chieftess Night Star, you don’t know the man like I do. He is cunning, deceitful, and very, very clever.”

Night Star continued to chuckle.

“Do not laugh,” Blood Skull said with dark purpose. “It is just as Morning Dew says.” He sat back, somehow chastened. “It was perfectly planned. For all Smoke Shield cared, I could have killed Screaming Falcon—the man who planned and conducted the raid on Alligator Town. He meant nothing to Smoke Shield. My explicit orders were to capture Morning Dew alive. It was all orchestrated, right down to the giving of the captives in Council that night.”

Heron Wing drew a deep breath. “Nothing said here surprises me. I’ve lived with Smoke Shield.” She lowered her eyes. “I know the depths and ramifications of his cunning as none of you do.” Thought lines creased her face; then she added, “I think he is fixing his mistake.”

“What mistake?” Pale Cat asked.

“The one he made with Red Awl. He realized that he picked the wrong man. Then, somehow, it went awry. The woman got away. He sent Fast Legs, his accomplice, to find her. I’ve heard a rumor that Fast Legs was taken by the Albaamaha.”

“What?” Night Star cried. “Are you sure?”

“Of that”—Heron Wing shrugged—“no. But something has been brewing up at Bowl Town.”

“Sun Falcon said as much.” Pale Cat shifted, eyes on the fire. “He said there had been a change among the Albaamaha up there.”

“And that was where the supposed Chahta raid was headed. That was where the killing ended.” Blood Skull slowly shook his head. “What I do not understand is why nineteen of our warriors would participate in this.”

Heron Wing lifted a hand. “Wait, you said Flying Hawk sent them out?”

Blood Skull gave a shrug. “I was playing chunkey some distance away. Flying Hawk spoke to Smoke Shield following a stickball practice. While I wasn’t close enough to hear, I could tell by the way Flying Hawk and Smoke Shield acted that it wasn’t a pleasant conversation. Immediately afterward, Smoke Shield led some of the men out, supposedly to go hunting. They carried large packs with them. Each group headed off in a different direction.”

“The high minko knows,” Night Star said. “Someone brought him word.”

“That is speculation,” Pale Cat countered. “Surely he wouldn’t order our warriors to dress up like Chahta?”

“Maybe.” Blood Skull raised his eyes. “I heard that Sun Falcon made a quick trip down from Bowl Town. The men paddling his canoe didn’t even have time to cage a meal before he had them back in his canoe and paddling north.” Blood Skull rubbed his hands together. “You don’t believe that nineteen of our warriors would murder Albaamaha? I do. Those warriors trust Smoke Shield . . . were with us on the White Arrow Town raid. He led them to a singular victory. They saw Crabapple, heard his confession. They know some Albaamo tried to betray us. They trust him, all right.”

“But you don’t?” Heron Wing noted.

Blood Skull lowered his gaze. “It is no secret that my clan has held Flying Hawk and his nephew in low regard for a long time now.”

“Since Flying Hawk killed his brother.” Night Star jutted her oversized jaw as if to make the point. “People say there’s bad blood there. It goes back to the night of
the great fire when Bear Tooth and the matron burned to death. A lot of people still think it odd that only Flying Hawk and his brother survived that night. Some have even speculated—given all that’s happened—that Flying Hawk himself set that fire. That to keep the secret, he killed Acorn.”

“Who was Acorn?” Morning Dew asked.

“His twin brother,” Blood Skull told her. “Most people still knew him by the name Acorn. He was just becoming a man.”

“Everything went wrong starting that night,” Night Star insisted. “Flying Hawk might look like a ripe persimmon from the outside, but he always had a worm eating out his insides.”