People of the Thunder (North America's Forgotten Past) (48 page)

Straightening, he turned to the stunned mikkos, looks of consternation on their faces. “I am Old White, called the Seeker. As Amber Bead knows, Power has brought us here.”

“I have heard of you,” one of the old men said. “But this is Albaamaha business. Why are you here?”

“To bring Power back into balance,” Old White said with authority. “Chaos is about to be let loose.”

“I have seen,” Whippoorwill said, walking to Old White’s side. “Grandfather was my witness that day. He was there. Together we watched Screaming Falcon retreat from Alligator Town. If you will save our people, you will listen to what I saw in my vision.”

One of the guards came stumbling in, his face wet with tears, eyes red and welling. Amber Bead waved him back. The man—his expression that of misery—blinked and sank to his knees.

Old White nodded, saying, “First, let us hear Whippoorwill’s vision. And then, my friends, let us consider how to bring this trouble with the Chikosi to an end.”

Whippoorwill began to speak.

Great Cougar stood on the high bluff overlooking the Horned Serpent River. He wondered if this was how a hawk felt, staring down at the world below. The last of
his long line of warriors had made the Horned Serpent River crossing and were climbing out of canoes. The water near the bank had been churned muddy, like a bloom of brown rolling out into the current to be borne downriver. His warriors scrambled up the slope. From his high vantage they looked like miniatures, their roached hair pinned, shields, bows, and arrows clacking, war clubs hanging from their belted loincloths. Their moccasined feet added to the beaten stipple on the bank as they filed into the woods. The last of them pulled the canoes up, other willing hands dragging the dugouts into the trees, flipping them over to drain, and stacking them like cordwood.

The effort had been massive, the largest such undertaking he had ever directed. For most of the day he had stood, watching canoe load after canoe load of warriors with their weapons and supplies ferried from one bank to the other.

Earlier that day, he had also watched the shocked and chastened Chikosi scouts, their arms and legs bound, be ferried the other way. Under guard, they would be marched to Feathered Serpent Town and held until he and his warriors returned. Then, along with any additional captives that had been taken, they could spend their time in the squares.

Five! We only captured five along this entire stretch of river!
So where had the others gone? His few scouts, the ones he had slipped back, deeper into the forest, had reported seeing Chikosi trotting happily back toward the Black Warrior Valley. They had looked carefree, relieved. Why would Smoke Shield pull off his scouts? It didn’t make sense.

The five they had captured—the friendly ones who had taken to talking with his scouts—had seemed shocked, almost stunned. They had looked at their sheepish Chahta counterparts as if they’d been rudely betrayed.

“We know nothing!” they had cried. “The rest were told to return home! To prepare to head north to fight the Yuchi!”

The Yuchi?
Great Cougar watched the mud slowly drifting along the bank, headed off toward the gulf.

Could the Chikosi really have been called away?

He glanced up at the sun. All of his warriors had made the crossing by midday. Now, even if they were spotted, it would be a race. Any Chikosi scout he might have missed could travel no faster than his fleetest of runners, and they were already on the trails.

Tomorrow was equinox. All he had to do was push his fast-moving force to Split Sky City. And who knew? Perhaps the rumors of war with the Yuchi were true?

“By Breath Giver’s grace, let it be.”

Split Sky City would be in flames before the Chikosi could even think of turning back from the north. He turned, heading into the trees at a dogtrot.

Flying Hawk panted as he reached the top of the Sun Stairs and braced one hand on the gate to look back at Split Sky City where it spread below him. The city was packed. Two towns played a game of stickball in the southern plaza beyond the tchkofa. From here, he could see the Men’s House, where even now, Smoke Shield was enjoying the company of his picked band of warriors.

He shook his head, reaching down to massage his nagging knee. The long climb was becoming ever more difficult. But the pain in his knee was nothing compared to the worry chewing away at his souls.

Turning, Flying Hawk entered the palace grounds and touched the guardian posts reverently as he passed. He nodded to the guards, entered the great room, and
walked to the hallway. There, he stopped in the dim light and called, “Prophet? Are you there?”

“Come, Great Chief,” the woman said in Trade Tongue.

Flying Hawk pulled the hanging to the side and stepped into Smoke Shield’s room. The woman wore a beautiful white dress decorated with chevron quill work. She sat on one of the benches, knees pulled up to the side. Her long black hair hung loosely about her shoulders, freshly washed and combed so that it caught glints in the firelight.

When her large dark eyes met his, his souls swam, as through drawn inexorably into the timeless depths. He swallowed, struggling to get a grip on himself.

“My nephew tells me—”

“I do not speak your language, Great Chief. You must talk in the Trade Tongue.”

He frowned, trying to place her accent, but couldn’t. In Trade Tongue, he said, “My nephew tells me that you predict the future.”

“I predict nothing. I am the rock, letting time flow past, watching it part and head backward. It won’t be long now. At the head of the stream I can look down the river . . . see the swirls and eddies I have traveled.” She smiled. “My husband will encircle me. I can count the courses of the sun until that moment. Together, we will Dance as we exchange worlds.”

Flying Hawk cocked his head, trying to make sense of it. Time? Her husband? Exchanging worlds? Gods, she was spouting nonsense!

He demanded, “Why are you here?”

“To live the Dream.” She stared off to the side, saying, “He doesn’t understand. Odd, isn’t it, that the simplest things elude people?” She turned her eyes back to Flying Hawk. “You are a butterfly, fluttering about in the sunlight, but winter comes. Where will your colors be then? Your wings are already faded, Great Chief.”

“Your souls are unhinged!”

“Oh, no. They are right here.” She tapped her chest. “They Dance within me, circling around and around, awaiting the caress of my husband.”

“Smoke Shield? Is that what you seek here? To marry him?” He chuckled. “You poor deluded fool. I don’t know what stories they tell in your foreign land, but here, among the Sky Hand, you will only be a third wife. More like a paid woman, actually, since you have no clan or family.” He shook his head. “You have tricked yourself, as well as Smoke Shield.” He made a casual gesture. “Not that I mind so much. It’s something of a delight to see him fall for your deceit after all the others he has misled.”

She studied him as though he were some odd discovery, but refused to rise to his bait.

Flying Hawk sighed then, a sinking feeling in his breast. “What would I have to give you to entice you to leave? Copper? Pearls? Perhaps some sacred object? Something that would make you a rich woman wherever it is that you came from?”

“I am only here for a moment, but much will happen before I join my husband.” She smiled. “Your brother has come back from the dead. Even now, that fateful piece of stone hangs from his side. The blood of murder still lingers, hidden in the crevices.”

“Stop that!” he cried, his chest tightening. Then his eyes narrowed. “Ah, so that is your game? You think my brother is back from the dead?” He thumped his breast. “Since the day I killed him, I have carried his memory here, struggled to be what he would want me to be. But I’ll have you know this: I’ll never fall for your lies.”

“You only delude yourself, Great Chief. But Power wills it so. You can save yourself, but you won’t. You could rally to Green Snake and—”

“Green Snake!” He burst out laughing. “I fear that
slip of the tongue has revealed you,
Prophet
! Now I know you for what you are: a Yuchi spy.”

Her eyes widened, and she smiled wistfully, as if at a silly child who amused her. “You know the truth about the Yuchi. Blood still stains the white arrow and haunts your Dreams. The wound in your chest heals poorly, your souls reluctant to renew flesh mutilated in deceit.”

Flying Hawk slapped his hand angrily against the door frame.
This time, Smoke Shield, you have gone too far. Gods, how do I rid our people of your folly?

“You cannot,” she said, as if hearing his thoughts. “Your fear of Smoke Shield is greater than your fear for your people. You have lost so much of yourself, nothing will bring it back. Your brother will destroy you, and that you will not be able to bear.”

“My
dead
brother?” He stared at her in sudden hatred. “I should kill you.”

“But you won’t,” she said simply. “Smoke Shield hovers over you like a great black cloud. His lightning is flickering in the depths. In the end, he will belong to my husband. Power will have its due.”

“Do not toy with me, woman!”

Her dark eyes seemed to expand, drawing him in. He braced a hand on the door frame as the room seemed to waver.

“When all is gone, High Minko, black raven wings will enfold you.” Her voice sent an eerie chill through his souls. Images of the Spirit Being from his Dreams flickered in his memory.

Shaken, Flying Hawk turned, hastening from the room. His souls were churning, thoughts a jumble. The image of his brother sprawled beside a dead buffalo washed through him like a flood. He felt the stone in his trembling hand—saw again the bright red blood. It oozed from his brother’s ruined face and broken skull.
Brilliant scarlet mixed with vibrant green grass beneath his brother’s crushed head.

Oh, yes. If I could bring you back, I would. You were my strength, and I need you now in a way I never have before.

But the dead were dead. He might be able to call upon his dead brother’s souls—to plead as he so often had for forgiveness—but in the end, it all fell to him.

Think! She has purposely tried to mislead you!

The woman was a Yuchi spy! And this whole nonsense about Great Cougar attacking the south side of the city? What lunacy! But his nephew had taken her bait like a hungry bass did a small frog. She had convinced him to hold his warriors to the south, awaiting an attack that any logical thought precluded. Why?

Green Snake! She mentioned Green Snake!
And then it hit him. Green Snake was coming at the head of a Yuchi army. By now they would have heard of Bullfrog Pipe’s murder under the protection of the white arrow. They would be enraged and—with Green Snake as a guide—would be slipping down from the highlands, avoiding the main trails, taking the back routes.

Gods, we’re like ducks floating over a submerged alligator!

How did he counter this latest madness? How did he rid himself of the cottonmouth in their midst?

Flying Hawk stumbled out into the great room, his eyes on the smoldering fire pit. Faint wisps of smoke rose from the hearth. The palace was silent, most everyone at the stickball game. He shot a quick look back at the hallway and then at the war clubs hanging on the wall. He could walk back and smack the woman’s brains out. She couldn’t defend herself, even against his old muscles.

But how do I hide her body?
The memory of his brother’s blood, so vividly red in the sunlight, remained to haunt him.

No, even if he succeeded in removing the body, the matting would have to be replaced. Smoke Shield, cunning as he was, would search for sign of what had become of her. He’d see the new matting first thing and put it all together.

If the “Prophet” remained, however, and led Smoke Shield even further into her mad schemes, then perhaps there would be a way.

He pursed his lips, nodding, seeing how it might be done.

“Blood Skull,” he murmured. “I need Blood Skull. He hates Smoke Shield enough as it is.”

Was it his imagination, or did he hear wings rasping in the air as he hurried for the stairs?