People of the Thunder (North America's Forgotten Past) (29 page)

After an active Trade, in which they divested most of their Chahta goods and several prized northern pieces for quality shell, yaupon, stingray spines, sharks’ teeth, and several packs of pelican feathers, they started up the Black Warrior River.

At first travel was easy, the broad current lazy, but as they entered the hills, the current that had helped them on the descent of the Horned Serpent fought against them. The route consisted of crisscrossing the channel, forever searching for the slower backwaters and shallows. Progress dropped to a snail’s pace.

Good camping spots, however, were abundant. They had pulled up on one such—a low terrace covered with sweet gum, bitter acorn, and cottonwoods.

Paunch, who could at least cook, had made them an excellent meal of catfish and freshwater mussels he had harvested from shallows along the river. Old White had carefully laid his wooden pack and the fabric bag with its hidden contents by his side. He now kept them close, ready at hand for reasons of his own.

At the fire that night, Trader spoke in Trade Tongue so the Albaamo couldn’t understand. “Something doesn’t make sense.” He glanced at Old Woman Fox’s ornate box where it rested among the Trade.

“A great many things don’t make sense,” Old White
agreed, packing his pipe and lighting it. “Like trying to have a normal conversation with Two Petals.” He puffed reflectively, blowing the blue smoke up to annoy the hovering cloud of mosquitoes. For the most part, the little beasts were discouraged by an unguent rubbed on their skin. A few brave insects, however, were foolish enough to land, bite, and then be slapped flat.

“Let’s lay this all out in sequence.” Trader filled his own pipe. “First, we land at Feathered Snake Town, and Great Cougar, though skeptical, makes us welcome. He acts as the perfect host, even urges us to stay longer. Then, as we travel downriver, people are nice, but firm in keeping us away from the towns.”

“And why do you think that is?”

Trader smiled warily as he reached down and ran his fingers through Swimmer’s long black hair. “He was giving his messengers time to alert the other chiefs, to assemble their Trade, and then get us back on the river as soon as possible.”

“All but at White Arrow.”

“Correct.” Trader glanced at Two Petals, who listened and smiled, as if amused. Curse it all, life would be so much easier if she’d just come out and tell them what her visions had shown her.

Old White arched an eyebrow. “And we are allowed into White Arrow Town to Trade because Old Woman Fox wants to have some private time with us. She does this to ask us to get her granddaughter back.”

“She is obsessed by that,” Trader agreed. “Meanwhile, we learn that Great Cougar was supposedly raiding the Sky Hand at the same time he was feasting us and being a good host.”

Swimmer flopped over on his side, stretching so that Trader could scratch his belly.

“All the while, he’s letting us believe he’s making defensive preparations for a Sky Hand attack.”

Trader sucked at his pipe. “Which we both agree is
the smartest way to handle any Sky Hand retaliation. With warning, he can fortify his villages, position his warriors, and hopefully break up the raiding party before destroying it piecemeal.”

“But the men were missing at White Arrow Town,” Old White mused. “Sure, they might have been out hunting and fishing, but during the whole day we were there, did you see any men coming in with game? Did you see loads of fish being carried up from the river?”

“I saw some women unload a basket of fish from a canoe as we were leaving,” Trader said. “But no, you’d think with that many people, some man would have come in with a deer, opossum, turkeys, or what have you.”

“So, where are the men?” Old White blew another cloud of smoke up at the mosquitoes.

“And why is Old Woman Fox so insistent that we get her granddaughter out of Split Sky City before the first new moon after the equinox?” Trader shot him a clever look, answering his own question. “Because Great Cougar did his cunning best to mislead us. But the Sky Hand have scouts everywhere, enough so that they are exchanging jabs with the Chahta scouts. Each side knows the other is watching vigilantly.”

“My guess,” Old White mused, “is that Great Cougar is somehow counting on that.”

“He plans to use the large number of Chikosi scouts against the Sky Hand?” Trader looked up at the sky, now clouded over. Around them, the forest was dark. Somewhere in the river, a fish splashed, and an owl hooted in the trees behind them. “He could make a feint. Display a mass of warriors in the south, draw the Sky Hand strength in that direction.”

“Possible.”

“Or he could send a large band through the forest, looping around the rough country to the north, bypassing most of the scouts.”

“Also possible.”

Trader looked at Two Petals. “What is our future, Contrary? Are we the deciding factor? What does Power want us to do?”

Her hands were fluttering in that odd way of hers. “The current is strong, isn’t it? Traveling like this, paddle, paddle. This is your river, Trader; only you can ascend it.” She paused before adding, “She knows you’re coming. Her heart is torn.”

“Who knows? She who?” Trader asked. Gods, you ask her one question, only to receive a different answer.

“Why, both of them, of course,” Two Petals stated positively, as if only a fool wouldn’t understand what she was talking about.

“Well,” Old White mused as he knocked his pipe out and pulled his fabric bag close, “we’ve time to think about it.” He glanced at Paunch. “I just wish he was younger. It would be nice if he could paddle like a youth instead of just splashing water about.”

Trader knocked out his own pipe. “Maybe that’s all any of us are doing, Seeker. Just splashing aimlessly toward something we can’t even imagine.”

“Finally,” Two Petals said with relief. “I wondered why it was taking you so long.”

Trader rolled out his bedding, climbing beneath the thick blanket into relative protection from the swarm of mosquitoes. He lay there, aware of the dying fire and the night sounds in the forest. A fox yipped and squealed somewhere. He could hear a beaver gnawing on one of the cottonwoods at the water’s edge.

Ever since nosing into the Black Warrior’s waters, he’d been on edge, his nerves pulled tight.
I am going home.
For the first time it was real.

He tried to imagine what it would be like to land below the city. A disturbing mixture of anticipation mixed with dread in his breast. Images replayed of that last night, of running from the Men’s House in a blind
panic, how he’d stolen a canoe, pushing it off into the waters of this same river. That time he’d gone north; now he returned from the south: full circle. Headed back to the place his Dreams had died.

I am not the youth who fled. I return a different man.
But was he? Had all those years on the rivers made him into someone he hadn’t been that night when he struck down his brother?

He swallowed hard, clamping his eyes shut at the wheeling images. After losing everything, what kind of fool ever believed he could get any of it back? Would he have to look into Flying Hawk’s eyes, see the censure for becoming what his uncle had insisted that he not be?

And Heron Wing? What would her reaction be? How did he tell her what he had gone through? How did he tell another man’s wife that he was sorry?

He heard the rustle of fabric and looked up. Two Petals stood over his bed, her face turned down, hair spilling around her. She dropped to her knees, pulling her dress up over her head.

“What are you doing?” Trader whispered, uncomfortably aware of her naked body as she reached for his blanket.

“I don’t understand,” she said, sliding in beside him and tugging on his shirt. “This would feel better sleeping by itself tonight.”

He grudgingly pulled his shirt off, feeling her cool skin next to his. “Two Petals, are you sure this is a good idea?”

She ran her hands over his chest, tracing the lines of rib and muscle. One by one, she rolled his nipples under her fingers. The effect was electric. “There is no such thing as a good idea. They fly like birds, lighting here and there.” Her fingers slipped down across the ripple of his belly, twining in his pubic hair before
tracing around his tightening scrotum. He drew a deep breath, tensing.

“Two Petals, you don’t have to—”

“We’ve Dreamed this. Both of us. Over and over. This time we don’t have to. You can help me learn what I need to know.” She gripped his hard shaft, tightening her hold until he gasped. “Is this distracting?”

“Gods,
yes!
”

“I have to learn.”

“Learn . . . what?” His concentration was shredding.

“What they know.”

“Who?”

“All those distracting women.” She bent down, taking his nipple in her teeth, teasing it gently.

Distracting women? What women?

Then his thoughts fluttered off—as lost as Two Petals’ rhetorical birds.

In the dim morning light, Old White looked into his fabric sack. He let his gaze rest on the smooth lines of the object inside; then he laced the sack tightly closed again.
Soon,
he thought. And what would the reaction be when he removed it for the final time? He turned his gaze to the war medicine box, hidden in its bag. So many things were coming together, a convergence of Power that he could but imperfectly comprehend.

He laid his bag aside and stirred the fire, having coaxed some of last night’s coals to life, and added kindling. As the flames leapt up and snapped at him, he caught movement from Trader’s bed, and saw him slip naked from the covers. Swimmer rose from where he’d bedded down on Trader’s shirt, stretched, and waved
his tail. Trader shooed the dog off and pulled the wadded shirt over his broad shoulders. Two Petals’ face was obscured by the dark swirl of her black hair where it spilled over the blanket.

Trader turned, saw Old White watching, and stiffened. Mortification filled the man’s face as he fled down the slope to relieve himself. Moments later, he walked uncertainly up the slope; Swimmer, taking time to pee on grass stems, followed behind. Trader glanced at the sleeping Paunch, and continued awkwardly to squat on the other side of the fire.

“Two Petals came to my bed last night.”

Old White cocked his head, using his stick to stir the fire again. He reached out and gave Swimmer his customary morning petting. “I wonder, when a Contrary cries, ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ does it mean ‘No, no, no’?”

“She did?” Trader looked like he’d just swallowed a live frog.

“Um-hum.”

“Oh.”

“She wasn’t the only one.”

“Sorry.”

Old White gave him a curious look. “Then you are a lesser man than I would have been.”

“Look, she came to me. Talking some nonsense about learning about distraction.”

“Don’t be so defensive. She’s a woman. You’re a man. I’ve seen the way you look at each other; I’m just surprised it has taken this long.”

“It was her choice,” Trader said lamely.

“Could I give you a word of advice?”

“Of course.”

“She’s not a normal woman.”

“I discovered that last night.”

“Believe me, I’m well aware,” Old White said dryly. “But I’m not referring to repeated athletics.”

“What then?”

Old White met Trader’s nervous eyes. “I would warn you not to expect any change between the two of you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well”—he prodded the fire—“generally when a man and woman couple, it changes the way they regard each other. The act serves to alter their relationship . . . a shared intimacy that comes across in looks, in how they behave toward each other.”

“I am fully aware of that.” He shot a sidelong look at Two Petals. “You think she’ll be different?”

“She’s already
different.
What I’m saying is that I wouldn’t be upset if she acts like she always has. Last night may have changed the way you feel about her, but don’t expect her to reciprocate. Do you see where my canoe floats? I’m betting she won’t have the same emotional reaction you do. Last night wasn’t about love, or a bonding between a husband and wife. It was something else, something Power led her to.”

“Oh.”

Old White watched Swimmer scratch after a flea. “In short, don’t expect her to wake up beaming with affection for you, ready to hold hands and smile into your eyes. Expect her to wake up as a Contrary, that same distance in her eyes, uttering the same confounding statements.” He paused. “That’s a guess, of course, but I’m willing to bet it’s a good one.”

Trader frowned down at the fire, nodding. “Yes. I think I already knew that.”

“But you hadn’t really thought it all through?”

“No.” He glanced up, a shy smile on his lips. “Thank you, Seeker. I would have ended up there eventually, but you probably saved me some discomfort.”

Old White nodded, thinking about the times he’d dealt with Power, how it had affected his relationships with the women it haunted.

Trader glanced out at the river, the water silvered
with the dawn. “What about when we arrive at Split Sky City? Have you given that thought as well?”

“We land, act like Traders, and see what the situation is.” He smiled. “I must confess, the noise wasn’t the only reason I didn’t sleep last night.”