People of the Thunder (North America's Forgotten Past) (13 page)

Smoke Shield looked at the score of warriors who crouched around the fire. Each and every one had been part of the White Arrow Town raid. He could see the admiration in their eyes as they watched him. It vied with the worry and disquiet that had accompanied their rapid departure from Split Sky City. He had allowed them to speak to no one—not even wives or family.

Some feral instinct had led Smoke Shield to order
his warriors out by ones and twos, each with the story that they were headed out in different directions to hunt. Each had been told to wear hunting clothes, to carry their war clubs and shields sacked, so as to elicit no undue comment.

The rendezvous was here, at Tie Snake Spring. Little more than a seep, the spring lay under a ridge in a recessed bowl eroded out of the exposed sandstone. The trickle of water was home to a stand of tall oak, hickory, and beech. In the sheltered bottom, he had built a great fire and waited for his warriors to assemble. As they listened, he outlined the plan that had come to him as he had trotted, fuming, up the trail.

No, this wasn’t a punishment as Flying Hawk had intended, but an opportunity. Power had practically breathed the plan into his souls.

He paced before the flames, studying each man. They waited, fully aware that something big was happening.

“Do you trust me?” he asked, worried that he might have shaken any faith they had in him during the solstice stickball game.

One by one, they nodded.

“Good,” he told them. “Because I am the man who led you to victory at White Arrow Town. I am the man who planned and executed the attack.”

“War Chief?” Bear Paw asked.

Smoke Shield turned to the wide-faced burly warrior. “Yes?”

“Is it true that the Albaamaha have taken Fast Legs?”

“It is. He was on the trail of the man who killed the captives.” He added, “
Your
captives, taken at White Arrow Town.” Now, to lay the seeds of his plan. “These are dangerous times, my friends. The Albaamaha are cunning. You all witnessed their perfidy when we captured the traitor, Crabapple, and made him divulge how he would have led us into disaster. You have felt the burn
of Albaamaha treachery when you looked upon the dead captives, robbed away from us by a sneaking Albaamaha plot. In you, and you alone, I can confide what Fast Legs and I discovered.”

He measured their response, seeing frowns and uncertainty coupled with curiosity. “What we are about to do must be done with great care and caution.” He pressed his palms together, as if in stern deliberation. “What would happen if we attacked the Albaamaha outright?”

“They would rise in revolt,” Three Scalps said softly.

“Correct.” Smoke Shield smiled. “So here is what the high minko has ordered us to do. We are to sweep north as if in a game drive. In the process, we are to find and free Fast Legs. Now, if we do this as Sky Hand warriors, it will inflame the Albaamaha even more. We will play into the hands of the malcontents, drive them to irrational action, and have a major uprising on our hands.”

“So, what do we do?” Bear Paw looked perplexed.

“You all have seen Chahta arrows? You have seen how they dress?”

All around the fire, warriors nodded.

“For this action we shall become Chahta. We shall paint our arrows in their colors. Wear our hair in their style, and paint our faces in their triangular designs. When we leave a corpse behind, it shall be under their sign, carved into a tree. A few survivors will be allowed to escape, and they will carry the word that it was Great Cougar, the Chahta war chief, who has made this raid.” He looked around. “When we attack, each man is to affect the Chahta accent. Slur your words the way they do. Speak disparagingly of the Sky Hand.”

He noted the surprise, unease building behind their expressions. “Oh, yes, I see your hesitation. You think that by doing this, you will spurn the Power of our ways, anger your Ancestors. But think about this: In the end, we strengthen ourselves! Do you believe that
Power is so simple it does not recognize the ruse? Do you think for a moment that our souls are not shining and pure in our motives? I tell you, yes, they are! By the cunning of our plan, we shall stand out, attract Power to our cause with the results we achieve!”

Some were nodding to themselves.

“Think of it! We will deal the Albaamaha a blow! Shake their confidence in themselves, remind them who keeps the wolves from their doors! At the same time, we eliminate the discontents, behead their leadership, and clear the way for war against the Chahta in the Council. Once the Albaamaha are cowed, desperately seeking our protection, we can strike with our full might against the Chahta. Once we have broken them, they, too, shall be as the Albaamaha.” He thumped his chest. “Servants! Yes, I say servants. They shall toil in their fields and pay us tribute! We shall rule the Horned Serpent River Valley. And you, my fine champions, shall see your relatives sitting atop their mounds.”

He could see the gleam that had come to their eyes as they imagined it. Each and every one had lost a relative at some time in the past to Chahta warriors. If he could lead them to believe that retribution could be had for all past slights, and offer them the hope of greater prestige, they would be his.

“That is the future . . . if we can pull off this charade. But it will be difficult. When we strike the Albaamaha we will only attack isolated farmsteads and ambush individuals out away from their villages. You must show no mercy, remembering instead Crabapple and his treason. The lives you take in the next couple of days will save hundreds of others. You are forestalling a revolt. You must keep that in mind. By killing a few Albaamaha, you are removing the risk to your families, your kin, and clans.”

He turned slowly, meeting their eyes, one by one. “Are you brave enough? Do you have the hearts to
make this come true? Can you, great Sky Hand warriors, act like Chahta for just two days? Can you convince yourselves enough to convince the Albaamaha that they are being killed by Chahta warriors?”

One by one, they nodded, expressions set with resolve.

“Then let’s get about it. You all have your paints; it is time we become Chahta. Then, when this is all finished, we will share our people’s rage over this terrible incursion into our territory.” He gave them a grim smile. “Do this thing, prepare the hearts and minds of our people, and I shall lead you all to the greatest glory. In the end, we shall rule as did the great lords of Cahokia.”

They were nodding to each other. Yes, they believed him.

The Albaamaha shall rue this day!

Paunch was asleep, Dreaming of steaming dishes of pumpkin and sweet squash. He was sitting at home, in his tight little house, a fire crackling before him. To one side, a freshly roasted turkey had been browned in the fire; the aroma of the meat carried to his nostrils.

“They are coming,” Whippoorwill’s voice intruded.

Paunch stared down at the feast, but each time he tried to reach out, his arms might have been made of stone. Try as he might, it took all of his effort just to lift his arm, and when he did, it rose ever so slowly, as if stuck in thick pitch.

“You had better wake up. It’s time,” Whippoorwill’s voice intruded again.

Paunch blinked, his mouth awash in saliva.

The cold leached back into his body, masked by the pleasure of the Dream. He could sense the pangs in his
belly, as insistent now as they’d been when he struggled to reach those tantalizing dishes.

He groaned, rolled over in his filthy cape, and stared out at the morning. Their camp lay on a rise, just below the crest of a low ridge. They had moved here, closer to the Horned Serpent River, figuring on robbing isolated Chahta fish traps. Morning sun lanced through the high branches, indicating the time was just after sunrise. Somewhere an ivory-billed woodpecker hammered a staccato against resistant wood.

“Did you say something?” He glanced at Whippoorwill. She sat, back straight, hands neatly in her lap. Her long hair hung down to frame her oval face. She had a faint smile on her lips, a Dreamy look in her large eyes.

“They are coming,” she replied simply. “It is time.”

“They who? Time for what?” When she went eerie on him like this, it set his nerves on edge.

“What we’ve been waiting for.”

He stared at her. “Waiting for? I’ve been waiting to go home! I’m cold to the bone, hungry like I’ve never been, and my joints hurt. I’m starting to believe the Chikosi square would come as a relief. It would be painful, sure, but they’d feed me until it came time to die.”

“You will eat soon enough.”

He growled to himself and sat up. His hair was full of sticks and bits of leaves. Their fire had burned down to white ash. He mumbled to himself and reached for the small gourd they kept water in.

After gulping the cold liquid, he stood, shivered, and stretched. “I don’t see how you can sit there so calmly after all we’ve been through.” Then her words sank in. “Who’s coming?”

“Sitting calmly is the best way to wait,” she told him simply. “They are already here. All around us.”

“Yes, right.” He walked over to the edge of their small camp, pulled up his shirt, and reached behind his
breechcloth. He sighed as he urinated behind a fallen log. “All around us.” What could that mean? He stared out at the forest, surprised to catch movement out of the corner of his eye.

He squinted, rubbed his eyes, and stared harder. His sharpening vision was enough to make out a partial face, one eye peering past the bole of a tree.

“Someone’s out there,” he said nervously, refastening his clothing and ducking down. “We’ve got to go.”

“That is correct,” she told him in a knowing voice. “They’re here. If you run, they’ll kill you.”

“Who?” He peeked over the log to find a Chahta warrior peering back at him. “By Abba Mikko! They’ve found us.”

“Just surrender. It will be all right.” She was perfectly composed as she said, “They smelled the fire.”

“Gods, do you know what they’ll
do
to us?”

She nodded serenely. “Of course. I’ve seen it all.”

“What? When?”

“When this all started. Come, gather your things and let’s walk out to meet them. Do not resist.”

“Blood and muck!” He felt something sink down in his empty gut. As he stared this way and that, he could see other warriors, each creeping forward, wary, arrows nocked in their bows.

“We give up!” he cried, raising his hands high. “We’re not armed. We’re just . . . just out hunting!” With no weapons? How did he explain that?

He stood, scared like he had never been. Watching as the warriors closed in around them. To his dismay, Whippoorwill just smiled, as if nothing in the whole world was going terribly wrong.

Smoke Shield looked back at the soft soil. His tracks stood out perfectly as he left the collapsed remains of the Albaamaha farmstead. He could see the woman’s body, sprawled half out of the doorway, her dead arms reaching for the corpse of her little girl. The child lay where he’d struck her down, the back of her head caved in from the blow of his war club.

On either side, one of his warriors trotted, eyes searching the forest for additional prey. They did look like Chahta, their hair up in the side-sitting bun affected by the enemy. Their painted faces were done up in the Chahta pattern of red and black. Painting the arrows to resemble the Chahta’s had been easy. Restitching their moccasins was a little more time-consuming, but the tracks looked right, and would have fooled him had he found them on a forest trail.

Smoke Shield’s advantage—as he’d laid it out to his warriors—was that they knew the lay of the land, and how to approach the isolated farmsteads. That knowledge allowed him and his warriors to avoid the commonly traveled trails, to sneak through the thick patches of forest, and to remain unseen.

He’d seen the resistance in Bear Paw’s eyes the first time they’d chanced upon a lone Albaamo man. Killing him had gone against the grain, but once that first one fell and they took his scalp, the subsequent killings
had been easier. The added advantage lay in the Albaamaha’s belief that Sky Hand scouts would have given a warning had a raid been imminent. None of their victims was suspecting a thing.