People of the Thunder (North America's Forgotten Past) (30 page)

“Me either.” He flinched. “Well, I mean until Two Petals showed up.” He shook his head. “Setting foot in Split Sky City is going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I was lost in that, all knotted up.” He glanced again at Two Petals. “You think that’s why she came to me?”

“Perhaps. Contrary ways have their own logic. She knows things we don’t.” He paused. “Thinking about turning back, were you?”

“The notion of going down to Bottle Town and spending this spring with the Pensacola has a certain appeal.” He hesitated. “Like staying as far away from the Sky Hand as possible.”

“And never having to face ourselves,” Old White agreed. “But that’s what Power is insisting on.”

“Why?” Trader asked the familiar old question.

“We’ll find out when we reach home.” His lips curled evilly. “Assuming anyone but me has the energy left to paddle a canoe against the current.”

Smoke Shield stared at the map he’d drawn on the palace great room floor. He had pulled back all the mats, then used a pointed stick to draw in the rivers. Each Chahta town was represented by a bowl, cup, or jar.

Flying Hawk perched on his cougar-hide stool, staring down thoughtfully. The firelight cast a golden glow across the floor, and dark shadows wavered behind the bowls. He looked up thoughtfully at the carving that
hung on the wall across from him, of a warrior bearing a head. It had been taken from the Yuchi years before he was born and incorporated into the legends of his people. The story his people had started to tell was that in the beginning times, Morning Star had killed his own father and finally carried the head up to the stars where it now rested, a constellation.

But the Yuchi, from whom we obtained it, don’t believe a word of it.
So how many other stories that people now believed had been born just that way, adopted as an explanation? Just like Smoke Shield’s imaginary Chahta raid?

What surprised him was that the Council had swallowed the whole thing. All but Blood Skull, Pale Cat, and Night Star, who had just listened, skepticism easy to read on their faces. Not that that surprised him; if he or Smoke Shield claimed the sun rose in the east, they would insist on believing it was a Chief Clan plot.

And now I am part of it.
That knowledge bothered him. Why it should was no mystery: Smoke Shield had plotted it. The man had always had a facile way with the truth, and that it seemed to work for him made Flying Hawk wonder.

Power has always favored him.
But perhaps that was part of the problem. All of his life, Flying Hawk, too, had leaned toward the red, the tumultuous and creative side of life. His violent rage had led him to kill his brother. Subduing that passion had taken most of his life.

When he looked at Smoke Shield—still scowling down at his map—he wondered if the man ever would, or even should, for that matter.

“The problem is the number of warriors we must use,” Smoke Shield said absently. “By my best figures, we can take nearly a thousand. With a force that size, moving rapidly, we can overwhelm their eastern villages.”

“But you have to feed them, keep them together.”

“Food is the problem,” Smoke Shield agreed. “Unless we can rope the Albaamaha into a caravan to pack food for us.”

“Too risky. They’ll melt away into the forest unless you have nearly as large a force to guard them.”

Smoke Shield nodded absently. “How did the lords of Cahokia do it?”

“They didn’t have to travel cross-country. They could use the rivers, especially when traveling south. They could load large Trade canoes to carry their provisions. In our country, war must be conducted across ridges, mountains, and valleys. East to west. Warriors can only carry so much on their backs. An army’s movement is curtailed by the food supply each man can carry. If you add an additional slave per warrior, you can extend the range, but only by another couple of days’ travel. The slaves have to eat, too.”

Smoke Shield traced the route of the rivers with his stick. “It would take too long to send canoes down the Black Warrior and then back up the Horned Serpent. The Chahta would have fair warning of our movement.” He shook his head. “No, it’s too easy to ambush canoes on the rivers. Down in the narrows, where travel upriver is slow, they’d be spread out, easy to pick off one by one.”

“So we are restricted to striking overland.” Flying Hawk pointed with his stone mace. “Your only chance is to take the first town by surprise and raid its food supplies. In early spring, there will be little extra available in the countryside. Even the isolated farmsteads will have emptied their granaries.”

“Hunting during travel is out.” Smoke Shield stated the obvious. “It’s much too time-consuming, and with that many men combing the landscape, someone will see them. The alarm will be raised.”

“So you are back to striking fast and quickly to take
a town. But realistically, you can only do that once. Someone will escape and raise the alarm.”

Smoke Shield twirled his stick in his fingers. “What if the Chahta were already weakened and looking the other way?”

“Meaning?”

“We let the Yuchi strike first.”

“I see,” Flying Hawk added dryly. “Of course. You’ll send a runner to Born-of-Sun asking him to kindly raid the Chahta in order to further your war plans?”

“Don’t be flippant, Uncle.” Smoke Shield grinned. “You know how cunning Great Cougar is. He’s just killed a bunch of Albaamaha and escaped our pursuit. What would happen if he attacked a Yuchi town? How would Born-of-Sun react to an unprovoked Chahta raid? Especially if a couple of captives managed to overhear Great Cougar planning to make even more attacks, then ‘escaped’ to bear the news to Born-of-Sun?”

“He’d immediately mass his warriors and attack Feathered Serpent Town.” Flying Hawk felt a cold rush along his spine. “But it wouldn’t be the Chahta. It would be your picked warriors, the ones who faked the Chahta raid on the Albaamaha.”

“You begin to understand.” Smoke Shield gave him an oily smile. “Great Cougar, knowing nothing of the raid, would still have the majority of his scouts watching us. His north will be relatively unprotected. He won’t be expecting a blow to come from the Yuchi. There is a good chance that Born-of-Sun will achieve success and break Great Cougar’s back. The Yuchi will go home feeling vindicated, having restored the balance of Power. The Chahta will feel obliged to strike back as soon as possible to avenge their dead, their honor, and to restore the balance of Power. If they do, that many more warriors will be sent north.”

“And what does this gain us?”

“The Chahta will be reeling.” Smoke Shield smiled.
“What if I sent a warrior to Great Cougar, someone—perhaps Blood Skull—with a white arrow. It could be a secret mission to tell the Chahta that we will not attack. That we have only recently learned the Albaamaha raid was done by the Yuchi. The Chahta will believe that, knowing full well that they didn’t raid us; and they will have just been struck by the Yuchi. Reassured, Great Cougar will recall all but a handful of his scouts on our border. A few of those remaining can be eliminated, just enough to make a hole. Then a thousand of our warriors pour through and descend on Feathered Serpent Town.”

“Using a white arrow to mislead an enemy—”

“Forget the white Power, Uncle. I serve the red.”

Uneasy with that, Flying Hawk fingered his chin. “How do you feed these thousand warriors? Any grain stores the Yuchi don’t burn will be stripped to feed the Chahta warriors heading north in a counterstrike. You can only carry enough food to reach Feathered Serpent Town. Your warriors will be running on empty bellies.”

“Not if we pre-position food,” Smoke Shield replied. He pointed to a place on his map. “This is three days’ travel northwest. There’s a large meadow where a fire cleared a ridgetop. A good spring lies just below. I’ve hunted there; the place draws buffalo as well as elk and deer. Two hundred Albaamaha could leave Bowl Town, travel three days to the meadow, drop their packs to be left under guard, and hurry back to Bowl Town. We can tell them that we’re building a town up there, or some such lie. Clear Water Creek Crossing lies just below the ridge, and the channel down to the Horned Serpent is almost passable by a small dugout canoe. The Albaamaha might even believe it.” He shrugged. “If their bellies are empty by the time they make it back to Bowl Town, what do we care?”

Flying Hawk nodded. The plan was brilliant. Why
hadn’t he thought of it years ago? Because he would never have thought of dressing Sky Hand warriors up as Chahta. Even now the notion bothered him. It reeked of abusing Power and angering the Ancestors.

Flying Hawk asked, “So, you arrive on Great Cougar’s doorstep and take the town. What next?”

“We clean out the local Chahta, kill everyone we find, and burn every farmstead in the area. We are there to destroy, Uncle. To weaken their eastern settlements. The planting season is coming; we want to disrupt it as much as we can.”

“You still have to deal with the fortified towns farther to the west along the Pearl River.”

“No, I don’t. They will only be thinking of defense, and reluctant to act. If you were a chief, and the Yuchi had just raided your neighbor, would you be willing to weaken your defenses by sending warriors off to fight in the west?” He seemed to be seeing the future reflected in his map. “The important thing is to burn Feathered Serpent Town, destroy the farms in every direction, and fight until we have used up the food reserves. Then we withdraw across the Horned Serpent.” He tossed his pointed stick at the bowl representing his objective. “I need to leave that country in ruins. And then we have to look like we’re falling apart, disorganized. Perhaps let the counterattacking Chahta warriors win some small victories.”

Fascinated, Flying Hawk leaned forward. “And just what does that gain you?”

“If I’m lucky, a pursuit that I can ambush and destroy. I want the few terrified survivors running back, telling anyone who will listen that the Chahta are defeated. I want them sowing panic.” He walked over and picked up his stick. “Meanwhile, I need you to continue sending me food, here, at the Clear Water Creek Crossing. As many Albaamaha as you can find, all carrying the heaviest packs they can.”

Flying Hawk shook his head. “But you will already have won.”

Smoke Shield continued to study his map. “We pursue the panicked survivors back west and take the next town to the south. For the most part the country will be defenseless. There we restock and move to the next town. In a matter of days, we can destroy every farm and town in the northeast. Any war parties from the south or west will be coming in disorganized groups. We can destroy them, or choose not to fight. The thing is we will have food and they won’t. When the time is right we retreat across the river, have a cooked meal at Clear Water Creek Crossing, and come home to a triumphant greeting.”

“Just what will this accomplish in the end?”

“Two things. First, we will have dealt the Chahta a terrible blow, killed a great many of their warriors, and burned some of their most important towns. Second, the survivors of the ambushes will flee, beaten, starved, and terrified. They will spread that terror among the other towns off to the west.” He looked up. “Uncle, if we can continue this, support raid after raid, we can drive the Chahta out of the Horned Serpent Valley and take it for our own.”

Flying Hawk nodded. “As long as we don’t pull too many Albaamaha from the land, they can farm while we fight. Assuming, that is, they don’t pick that moment to revolt.”

Smoke Shield tapped his stick. “Would you rise up against a people whose warriors were winning victory after victory?”

“Perhaps not.” But he wasn’t sure.

“We could take some of the Albaamaha mikkos with us. Hostages. The reason given, of course, will be that we wanted to honor them for their people’s support of the war. We could give them enough gifts looted from the Chahta to even make the pretense seem real.”

Flying Hawk considered the plan as Smoke Shield had laid it out. The whole thing was intricate, well thought-out, and workable. He could see flaws, of course—no war party ever functioned according to the plan—but Smoke Shield, if anyone, could make this thing work.

I could be high minko over half the world.
The notion startled him.

Smoke Shield’s half-lidded eyes were fixed on his. “Think of it, Uncle. If we can trick other peoples into destroying each other, we can move in when they are at their weakest. Split Sky City could become the new Cahokia.”

Flying Hawk turned his attention to the map, seeing all that country, imagining the wealth and prestige that would accrue to the Sky Hand, and to himself. Gods, it was tempting. He could imagine his brother—see him staring worriedly at Smoke Shield.

No, you would never have seen through his arrogance to the brilliance.
But if this could be done, if the Chahta could be finally broken, Flying Hawk’s actions that long-ago day would be vindicated. People would speak of him and Smoke Shield in turn as the greatest high minkos to have ever lived. The disaster of that long-ago fire would be forgotten, seen as a blessing instead of a curse.

They will finally understand that there was a reason why I survived and none of the rest did.