People of the Thunder (North America's Forgotten Past) (23 page)

Morning Dew said, “The current problem isn’t Flying Hawk. He finally made peace with my people. We didn’t like him, but he finally came around to the idea of leaving us alone.” She met their eyes, one by one. “Flying Hawk is old and he’s tired. I’ve been in the palace. I’ve seen the look in Smoke Shield’s eyes when Flying Hawk lectures him.”

“So?” Pale Cat asked. “That’s what uncles do.”

“Smoke Shield is chafing, angry, and the White Arrow raid has given him a sense of invincibility.”

“Right up to the solstice games when he lost everything,” Blood Skull countered.

Morning Dew shot a look of thanks at Heron Wing. “But that wasn’t his fault. He made five of the goals.” She straightened. “Here’s what I think: Flying Hawk hears of something wrong upriver. He tells Smoke Shield to fix it. So Smoke Shield takes matters into his own hands again. By deceiving us into believing it’s a Chahta raid, he throws the Albaamaha off-balance, dampens their ardor for revolt. The raid also affects the Council—distracts them from Smoke Shield’s misdeeds and focuses them on the Chahta threat. Suddenly attention is shifted from the missing Red Awl to outside enemies.
When the Council thinks of the Chahta, they think of Smoke Shield’s raid again.” She shook her head. “How brilliant.”

Pale Cat mused, “And if something happens to Flying Hawk, the Council
will
confirm him to be high minko. What then?”

Night Star said, “He will plunge us into war. He will do it as a means to increase his prestige and authority. He will lead us to destruction with his plotting.”

“The problem is,” Heron Wing noted, “who—with the exception of those present—is going to believe any of this?”

At the suggestion of some Chahta who had accompanied them partway downstream, Trader made camp on an old levee of the Horned Serpent. Behind them a shallow swampy backwater was full of bald cypress, tupelo, and sweet gum. Hanging moss drooped from the branches, and white herons waded in the shallows. In summer it would have been riotous with fish and swarms of insects. The mosquitoes were already humming in loathsome columns, kept at bay only by the grease-based lotion Old White had concocted of spruce, larkspur, and red root. A fire not only gave them warmth, but cast its cheery light over the camp. Trader sat with his back propped against a tree and listened to the last of Paunch’s story. He kept noticing that young Whippoorwill continued to give him her large-eyed attention.

Why is she so obsessed with me?
Not that he minded an attractive woman’s intimate stare, but gods, the woman had just met him.

In his mind he couldn’t help but compare her with Two Petals. Where the Contrary had a fuller body, wider in the hips with more pronounced breasts, Whippoorwill carried herself with a slender grace. When she moved it was almost as though she were ethereal. Whippoorwill had washed her hair, allowing it to flow around her in soft black waves. The effect was to make her face
even more delicate and feminine. For the moment she watched him with a curious attention that missed no detail. Her large dark eyes seemed to drink of his very soul.

Trader muttered to himself, turning his attention back to the conversation.

“And then the Chahta captured us,” Paunch finished. “You know the rest of the story.”

Old White tapped the dottle from his pipe, expression lined. “It wasn’t wise to try and warn the White Arrow.”

Paunch lowered his head. “I know. It was my fault. Our mikkos had decided against it. I have no one to blame but myself.”

Trader had translated most of the story to Two Petals, but near the end, she had finally looked at him, saying, “I’m hanging on each of your words, each one echoing in the Spirit world. Is it because the world’s hollow? What do you think of the Chahta arrows sticking in the dead? It’s all a mystery.”

He’d glanced uneasily at her, chalking it off as one of her peculiar moments.

Old White sighed, slapped at a mosquito, and studied his pipe in the firelight. “Lucky for you that the Contrary chose you, Paunch.”

Paunch shook his head. “My Power is bad. It has led me to poor choices.” He glanced at Whippoorwill. “It has plugged my ears when they could have listened to wiser counsel.” He paused. “How has this happened to me? I have gone from a happy man to a prisoner and slave.”

Old White shrugged. “Your fate belongs to the Contrary.”

“But it was you who Traded such a precious gorget to save us.” Paunch looked confused.

Old White replied, “I did it for her, for Power. So,
Paunch, I wouldn’t be too quick to think Power had turned against me, were I you.”

He nodded. “I am not the same man who once plotted against the Chikosi. Looking back, it wasn’t so bad, having a full belly and never having to worry about being hung in a square.”

Two Petals said, “Everything in its place, threads woven.”

In Albaamaha, Whippoorwill added, “The weave must now be pulled tight.”

Trader and Old White crossed knowing glances, wondering if Two Petals was referring to Paunch’s declaration, which—not speaking Mos’kogee—she couldn’t understand, or if she was talking to one of her Spirits. The way Whippoorwill followed the Contrary’s speech was a puzzle to both of them.

Trader shifted to a different position on the tree, blowing smoke up at the mosquitoes. “How did relations grow so strained between the Albaamaha and the Sky Hand?”

“They are arrogant conquerors.” Paunch spread his hands. “Look, I realize you are foreign Traders, but you must understand: This land was ours once. We came here just after our emergence from under the World Tree. The Chikosi took our heritage from us. How can resentment not fester? They just sit there, behind their walls, imposing their will through their mighty warriors. We are the ones who sweat in the sun, raising their food, building and repairing their towns.”

“I thought you had a voice in their Council,” Trader remarked.

Paunch looked at him. “You have only passed through. Seen only what a Trader would see. Yes, once we did have a voice. But that was long ago, back before the great fire, when Makes War was high minko. In my lifetime I have seen things turn against us. We have become
even more meaningless than ever. Flying Hawk worked to silence our voices. The Ancestors alone know what our fate will be when Smoke Shield is made high minko.”

“Smoke Shield,” Trader muttered. “I keep hearing his name.”

Paunch declared, “He’s Chief Clan. They’re all sired of weasels mated with foul-tempered badgers.”

Chief Clan?
Trader and Old White glanced at each other, expressions amused. Paunch missed it. Whippoorwill didn’t, a curious smile gracing her lips.

“It’s a large clan,” Trader noted. “There are many lineages.”

“I hope Horned Serpent crawls out of the river and devours them all,” Paunch growled. “I remember my uncle telling me how things were better in the old days. Before Flying Hawk. We might have been two peoples, but at least we were granted a little respect.”

“Back before the great fire,” Old White mused.

Paunch nodded. “People always bemoaned the fact that Flying Hawk and his dead brother were the only ones who survived that night. But even before that, so the stories say, things were turning against us. It started with the loss of the war medicine and the death of High Minko Makes War. Then Midnight Woman, the Chief Clan matron, married that War Chief Bear Tooth, and things went bad.” Paunch made a face. “I think Power wanted to be rid of them all. That’s why the Great Palace was burned that night. Power tried to kill them off, but somehow, it missed Flying Hawk and Acorn.” He grunted. “Although Flying Hawk finished half of Power’s work later. Too bad he didn’t kill himself after he drove a rock into his brother’s head.”

Trader swallowed hard, having stiffened, his ears burning as the man talked. It all brought back memories—that look in his dead brother’s eyes that he had fled from so long ago.

About to speak, Trader happened to glance at Old White, and the words stopped in his throat. The expression on the Seeker’s face was like a lightning-riven mask.

“Time to turn in,” Old White said with odd defeat.

“The currents eddy and flow,” Two Petals added ominously. “No one can stop the river.”

“It lives, and a flood is coming,” Whippoorwill added in Albaamaha.

Trader blinked, shook himself, and knocked out his pipe bowl. He gestured to Swimmer and took his bedroll before heading off into the darkness. After the talk of dead brothers, the nightmares were sure to come. This night, he wanted to be by himself.

I
walk under the trees, moonlight playing through the branches. I can feel them as they come alive. The first of the sap is waking, beginning to flow toward the branch tips. Soon, they will bud. The flowers, so delicate and fine, will enlarge inside the buds, swelling until they burst the shell. Soon they will unfurl and send their sweetness into the air. Pollen will spread with the sweet aroma, finding new homes. The seeds will be fertile.

I look down at the patterns of moonlight crisscrossed with branches. I am a being of the forest. I, too, feel the call. It Dances with me, swaying with each careful step I take. I let myself flow with the forest, feeling the dormant world around me beginning to stir.

For the first time, I am stirring with it. Coming alive in a way I never have before. What will it be like to take the seed, to begin the process of new life?

I stop, seeing the dog, his white-tipped tail arcing in the pale light like some curious creature.

I kneel down, hearing the man groan in his sleep. Moonlight caresses his smooth face, reveals the movements of his eyes. His Dreams are tortured, set free to plague him by careless words.

Straightening, I pull the dress over my head, letting it settle onto the ground. I throw my head back, and the moonlight casts its magic over my naked body. I trace the shadow patterns of branches over my skin, running the tips of my fingers along the designs cast by new life. I shift slightly so that the shadows lay across my breasts, and center over my womb. The warm rush in my loins quickens.

As I lift the edge of his blanket, he stirs, still half locked in the Dream. He blinks, struggling to wake. My cool fingers find his lips, stilling the question that rises in his throat. With my other hand I reach down, feeling him already hard under his shirt and breech-cloth. Perhaps that is why I must act now, to counter the Power of his Dream with my own.

He watches me, mystified, as I untie his breechcloth, letting it fall away from his slim hips. Freed of restraint, his shaft is bathed in the soft light. I let my fingers slip down its firm length. At my touch, his body stiffens, growing as hard as his member.

My hair falls around us as I straddle him. I have seen this moment, waited for it. Brother Moon has timed my body for him. My blood rushes, heart beating with anticipation as I place the point of his shaft into my moist sheath. As I settle, the length of him fills me. The sensation is new, urgent, and wonderfully uncomfortable. I stare down into his moon-filled eyes, savoring the miracle.

His mouth opens as I begin to rotate my hips. His hands rise, closing on my breasts, rolling them with each motion my desperate loins crave.

For the moment, we are eternal, playing our part in the endless ritual of life.

When he finally arches against me, I tighten, awed by the Power of his release jetting inside me. The rising tingle is my only warning before a pulsating rush of pleasure shoots lightning through my hips, up my back, and down my legs.

When it is finished, when I can breathe again, I roll to the side, trapping his fluids inside.

Why?
The question fills his eyes.

“Because you are the future,” I tell him softly.