People of the Thunder (North America's Forgotten Past) (28 page)

Trader followed Old White into the house, Two Petals coming behind.

The room was barely furnished, the poles for the roof and bed freshly cut. No matting lay on the beaten-dirt floor. A puddle-clay hearth contained a small fire. Blue smoke rose to pool under the roof and leak out the eaves. A single wooden box rested just this side of the hearth, its carved sides decorated with the cross-in-circle emblem of the sacred fire. Pearls had been
inset into the design, and sections of shell gleamed whitely where they had been inlaid into the dark wood.

An old woman sat on one of the benches, her gray hair pulled up and pinned in place with eagle feathers. She had a bearskin cape over her shoulders, and wore nothing but a long skirt that hung down just past her knees. Too many summers had withered her flesh, stooped her shoulders, and left her breasts sagging like empty sacks. Her eyes, however, ensured she wouldn’t be mistaken for an empty husk—they burned with a fevered intensity, as though fiery souls inhabited the used-up flesh.

“Greetings,” Old White said. “I am known as the Seeker.”

“So I have heard.” She gave him a thoughtful scrutiny. “I knew you, once, long ago. You shared the Great Sun’s fire among the Natchez. I was at that feast. Twenty, perhaps twenty-five winters past? You had come from the far southeast, telling tales of Traders from the islands out in the gulf. As I recall you brought a wonderful tobacco that you Traded. You said you were headed west.”

Old White smiled. “I remember that night. People wouldn’t let me sit down. They wanted to hear more. I had to answer question after question.”

Trader gave him a dull look. When was that ever
not
the case?

“And now you are here,” the old woman mused. “I am called Old Woman Fox now.”

“And when I met you among the Natchez, you were called Fast Red Fox. Your husband was a subchief from one of the western Towns. I hate to say it, but that was nearly forty winters past. You were with child, as I recall.”

Trader masked his surprise. Old White had a good memory; the woman was nodding. “My daughter. Odd, isn’t it, the way Power works? You were there before my
daughter was born, and now you are here just after her death. As though to mark both ends of her existence.”

“Power moves us all, Matron.” Old White paused. “The boy, White Cricket, called you the old matron.”

“I surrendered that position to my daughter. Now they have given it back to me. It has fallen to me to see to the supervision of things. Then, when the men return, we can go about the business of confirming a new high minko to replace my grandson.”

“You have my sympathy, Matron,” Old White said gently. “Though things appear grim now, Power will balance. It always does.”

She waved it away. “Please, Seeker, do not trifle with platitudes. Fortunes come and go. I have seen enough to know that Power is like water in a cup. Sometimes the slightest of movements can slosh it from one side to the other. Momentum builds, and with the right timing, a wave is generated well out of proportion to the initial movement.”

“I have often thought so myself.”

She gave the three of them a careful inspection. “You are going to the Sky Hand to Trade?”

Old White spread his hands wide. “We do not know, Matron. There is a certain temptation to visiting the Pensacola. Some of our goods would Trade for their most coveted pieces of shell.”

Her eyes glittered. “Do not play me for a fool, Seeker. I have lived too long, known too much of life. I brought you here for a reason.”

“And what might that be, Matron?”

“I want you to do a little Trading for me.”

“We are at your service.”

“My granddaughter was taken during the raid. She is known as Morning Dew.” She gestured toward the box. “That is all that I have, all the wealth I could muster from my clan. Under the Power of Trade, that is yours if you can get my granddaughter back.”

Trader glanced at the box, worth a fortune by itself. He stepped forward, opening the lid to find copper effigies of Eagle Man, and beautiful pottery jars that were decorated with water panthers; they were filled to the brim with pearls. Gleaming copper ear spools, long chert blades, and copper ax heads composed the rest.

“Matron,” Old White began, “like I said, we may not be heading up the Black Warrior.”

She ignored him, saying, “The other captives the Chikosi took are dead—but for some of my grandson’s wives. They are from other clans who can do what they will to get them back. My concern is Morning Dew. I need you to find her and Trade whatever you must for her freedom.” She whisked her fingers at the box. “If that is not enough, I can find more, later. That was all I could come up with on such short notice.”

Old White shot a casual glance at Trader. “We will do what we can, Matron. On the Power of Trade, I can only give you my word.”

“The word of the Seeker is enough for me,” she said firmly. “You must find my granddaughter, and have her out of Split Sky City by the coming of the equinox moon. That is my only condition. Beyond that, I could care less what you Trade, or how you get her, but have her out of the city by that date.” She smiled, her toothless gums pink. “Do that and I will grant anything you ask of me.”

“A Trade is a Trade,” Two Petals whispered. “The knot is drawn tight.” Her glowing eyes had fixed on Trader’s. “Much more, and you won’t even be able to wiggle.”

“How’s that?” he asked.

“Isn’t it tight in there?”

“Tight in where?”

“In that sack Power is closing around you.”

Little Stone was asleep when Morning Dew checked him. He had his blanket tucked up under his chin. She had sat with him, holding his hand, Singing a lullaby about squirrels and acorns she had heard as a child. Now she disentangled her fingers, folded in the edges of his blanket, and turned to attend the fire.

As she added two pieces of wood, she glanced at Heron Wing, sitting to the side, the raccoon bowl clutched to her breast. For most of the afternoon, she had sat thus, asking Morning Dew to turn away the steady stream of visitors coming to discuss clan business, to ask advice about the suitability of certain marriages, or any of the other problems that Heron Wing was constantly consulted about.

During that time, Morning Dew had finished processing her hickory oil, and now had four jars of the precious liquid sealed and stowed under the sleeping benches. She had cooked supper, fed Stone, and entertained him with stories of how Wind lost his four sons and killed a monster by blowing through a bullfrog pipe.

Now, her chores at end, she replaced the last of the supper plates and made up Heron Wing’s bed. Then she walked over and seated herself next to the woman.

“Do you want to tell me the story?”

“About Green Snake?” Heron Wing asked softly.

“I remember something about Smoke Shield’s brother. You and Wide Leaf were talking about him once. Green Snake is that man, isn’t he?”

Heron Wing nodded. “We never even knew if he was alive or not. The night he struck down Smoke Shield, he ran away. No one ever heard of him again. The name Green Snake might have blown away with the wind. He never came back, never sent word.”

Green Snake. He may have been aptly named. The thin, bright green snake of the forest was a special Spirit helper to both the Sky Hand and the Chahta. The delicate little creature was known to be filled with Power, and to harm one was considered the worst of bad luck. Any act against the little green serpent could ruin a man’s Power for the rest of his life.

“I loved him.” Heron Wing glanced at Stone, sleeping in his bed. “He should have been the father of my children.”

Morning Dew sighed. “And now he is reportedly traveling in the company of the Seeker and a Contrary? Coming here? Why?”

Heron Wing shook her head. “I don’t know. Breath Giver help me, I can’t even imagine it.” She turned frantic eyes toward Morning Dew. “For years, I have told myself that he’s dead to me. I have Dreamed of him, hoped that he was with some far-off people, that he had found peace and happiness. It was better than thinking he was dead.” She paused. “More than one person wondered if he had been killed in the fight with Smoke Shield. Even I have often wondered if Smoke Shield hid his body somewhere.”

“Did you ever ask Smoke Shield?”

“Green Snake’s blow had knocked the souls out of his body for four days. They were going to carry him to the charnel house, but he woke up first.” Heron Wing paused. “Years later, I only asked once. At the mere mention of Green Snake’s name, Smoke Shield flew
into a rage. He gave me a backhanded slap and told me never to mention him again. Said that if I did, he’d kill me. Then he ripped my clothes off and took me, hard. When he came, he looked into my eyes, telling me at the same time that I was his. And his alone.”

“Too bad that blow to the head didn’t finish him off. It would have saved all of us a difficult time.”

“But why, after all these years, would Green Snake come back now?”

“I don’t know.”

Morning Dew sat silently, staring at the fire. What would this new twist mean? She glanced at Heron Wing, seeing her desperate longing. The woman looked as if someone had wound her guts around a stick and was pulling them from her body.

“This isn’t the time to let your concentration falter, Heron Wing. If you’ll recall, something happened among the Albaamaha. Someone is trying to blame the Chahta for this raid. Red Awl’s widow is missing. This whole country is about to erupt, and Smoke Shield is in the middle of it. You need all of your wits about you. The people need you.”

“Yes, yes, I know.” Heron Wing pinched her eyes shut. “That’s how I got into this mess. The people needed me. The clans needed me. So I married Smoke Shield. I have given everything to the people.” She laughed brittlely. “You know, if Green Snake had just come to me, I would have run off with him. All he needed to do was ask.”

“Perhaps that is why he is coming now? What if he has finally learned that his brother lived?”

“A Trader,” she said softly. “All these years. Do you think he Traded here, camped right down there on the landing, telling no one who he was? He would have been so close. But I never knew. Do you think he ever walked up, saw me from a distance?”

“Maybe.”

She stared down at the bowl she caressed. “If he asked about me, people would have said, ‘That’s Smoke Shield’s wife.’ That would have driven a stake into his heart. Nothing would have hurt him more. That’s why he never came to me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Oh, yes, I do.”

“Were I him, believing I’d killed my brother, I would never have come back.”

Heron Wing looked at her. “I would like to believe that.”

“It makes more sense,” Morning Dew said positively, unsure herself.

“If he does come here, what will I say to him? How can I look him in the eyes?”

“You will do it. And you will do it well.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“No, that’s just the way it is, Heron Wing. No matter what might lie between the two of you, you are a clan leader. Your brother is
Hopaye.
Your aunt is the Panther Clan chief. You will be who you must be.”

“Is that my own medicine turned against me?” The faintest smile crossed Heron Wing’s lips.

“What do you think?”

“I think somehow, some way, you have become my finest friend, Morning Dew.” Then she shook her head. “When he left, my souls went with him.”

“Then perhaps it’s time you got them back.”

Heron Wing stared down at the raccoon bowl. “No one must know.” She stiffened. “Do you think that Thunder Town Trader will tell?”

“By morning, he’ll be gone upriver again. I don’t think he had any idea who you were. It wasn’t like you were dressed like a clan leader. Your skirt is stained with hickory oil. To him, it was just a Sky Hand woman and her slave come down to Trade. Nothing more.”

A hard day’s travel had taken Old White’s party to the confluence of the Horned Serpent and Black Warrior Rivers. Most of the route lay through hilly country where the Horned Serpent flowed quickly, allowing them to make good time. At the confluence they had camped with a party of Pensacoloa Traders for the night. The place was a levee that rose above the swampy ground.