People of the Thunder (North America's Forgotten Past) (5 page)

He clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering.

At least he knew she was still inside that house. During those two days the local forest had swarmed with Albaamaha, his greatest fear had been that Lotus Root had slipped away, escaped to another village. But then, after he had sneaked back, he’d seen her. The cursed woman had been walking around the houses as if she hadn’t a care in the world. She’d almost been too unconcerned, but perhaps that was the ultimate purpose of the firewood collection, to give him the impression that she had run. Anything to give him reason to give up the chase.

But you don’t know me. I am a Sky Hand warrior.
And in the end, that knowledge alone would see him through.

He balled his fists, jamming them under his armpits. More than once, he had considered walking in just before dawn, ignoring the dogs, and leaping through the door. He could kill everyone inside and still get away, but it would be messy. Someone would see him. Such a blatant act would give the woman’s story credibility. No, she had to disappear without a trace. Reasons could be manufactured for the why of it. The best explanation was that she could no longer live with her lies about the war chief. Guilt had driven her to leave, as it had that miserable Paunch.

Fast Legs made a face. He remembered the Albaamo traitor, Crabapple. The man had been captured trying to reach the White Arrow Chahta. Under torture, Crabapple had screamed out that the Albaamo elder known as Paunch was behind the betrayal. But when the returning warriors had gone to question the man, his house had been empty. Not only had the old man been missing, but so had most of his family, including his Spirit-touched granddaughter, Whippoorwill.

“But we’ll find you eventually, traitor,” Fast Legs promised. No old Albaamo man could hide out in the forest for long. Albaamaha didn’t have the strength of character and purpose a Sky Hand warrior did.

He shot another glance at Lotus Root’s house and froze. The woman had stepped out into the freezing rain. The objects she carried looked like the war chief’s bow and his quiver of arrows, although he couldn’t be sure over this distance. She glanced this way and that, furtively, as if making sure that no one saw her. In a sprint, Lotus Root darted to the side of the granary, easing around it, hidden from the forest.

Fast Legs was on his feet, almost wobbling on his wooden legs. He took one last glance at the houses, saw no one, and ducked back into the trees. There he sprinted as best he could across the ice-coated leaf mat, his feet slipping and sliding.

Finally!
She was taking the western trail. He now knew this bit of forest like he did the plan of his house back in Split Sky City. Why would she be headed west into the forest? There was nothing out there but trees. Perhaps on the way to some secret meeting? Maybe she was going out to hide the war chief’s weapons, ensuring that when all was set, she could produce them as proof of her claims?

He didn’t care.

Fast Legs circled, cut the trail, and could see scuffed leaves. Like a hunting cougar, he hurried along, careful
eyes noting the kicked leaves here and there. Yes, this was fresh, the icy sides facedown where the leaves had been turned by a careless moccasin.

He chuckled to himself, running as fast as footing would permit. There! He caught a glimpse of her ahead of him. She was moving smartly, walking fast. She kept casting nervous glances at the forest around her, but hadn’t looked back yet.

As he closed, he fit an arrow in his bow. The wide smile of success bent his lips. She was far enough away that no one would hear her cries. By the time anyone realized she was missing, he’d have her body packed to his canoe, and by this evening, she’d be resting on the bottom of a swamp.

Lotus Root had slowed her pace, staring around uncertainly, as though worried about what might await her in the forest. He closed the distance. Then she turned, seeing him. The woman vented a loud shriek, and ran.

Too late! Fast Legs pounded after her, his thick moccasins slipping on the leaves. She ran as fast as she could, scrambling across the icy ground. The trail went between two gum trees, partially blocked by a fallen log. She clambered over it, slipped on the icy crust, and almost fell, veering wide as she clawed for balance, then raced on up the trail.

When Fast Legs reached the log, he jumped it, landing on his left leg. He barely had time to throw his arms up as the leaves and sticks collapsed under his weight. Momentum threw him forward and down, smacking him face-first into the trail. His bow went flying, the arrow snapped in two. Dazed, he blinked. Shock and disbelief surrendered to a sudden sharp pain.

He stared down, trying to determine what had happened. A hole! He had stepped into a deep hole! He twisted, screaming at the pain. Pushing up, he could see his left leg, bent at a hideous angle where it was thrust
down between a series of logs laid sideways in the narrow pit.

Broken! My leg is broken!
He swallowed hard, trying to collect himself, pushing with his arms to get his bent right knee under him.

“Don’t,” a voice called.

Fast Legs looked up to see an Albaamo hunter dressed in brown, an arrow nocked and drawn as he crept forward.

Fast Legs clawed for his bow where it rested an arm’s length beyond his grasp.

“If you are not still,” the Albaamo said, “I will drive this arrow right through your arm.”

“Kill me, you piece of filth!”

“Oh, no,” another voice said from behind. “We want you alive.”

“And you will live,” a third voice called.

Every direction he looked, he could see Albaamaha approaching, each holding a bow, each wary and ready.

Another called, “Lotus Root? We have him!”

The first hunter said, “Drag him out of there. Then fill the trap so that no other poor soul steps in it.”

A trap! That’s what they did during those two days.
They’d known he was there the whole time.

Fast Legs lowered his head, fingers clawing futilely at the frozen leaves in the trail. Across time, space, and through the murky water, Red Awl’s gleaming eyes seemed to drill straight through Fast Legs’ souls.

The man called Trader sat—his dog Swimmer beside him—in Rainbow City’s great temple. For the moment he was barely aware of the crackling fire in the large central hearth. The fire cast yellow light over the spacious
room, illuminating the clay-plastered walls and the hanging reliefs of carved wood and beaten copper. One consisted of a warrior holding a war club in one hand and a sorcerer’s severed head in the other. The hero wore a triangular apron, necklaces of shell beads, and copper ear spools. His hair was pulled back in a bun, pinned with an arrow to mark his victory, and a beaded forelock hung down over the forked-eye tattoos on his face.

Across the room, the three spinning triangles of the Yuchi world—indicative of the three great lights in the sky—were surrounded by the six moons that waxed and waned between solstices, and a final encirclement of clouds. The sky in all of its phases preoccupied the Yuchi, but then they also believed they were descended from Mother Sun, born when drops of her menstrual blood fell to earth.

Trader was young, but twenty-six winters old. He had a smooth face, strong of jaw, with wide cheeks. Two parallel lines had been tattooed across his cheeks and nose; the outline of forked-eye designs surrounded his thoughtful brown eyes. The effect was as if the tattoos were unfinished. Trader wore his long black hair pulled up into a bun and pinned at the back of his head.

Sprung from drops of menstrual blood?

“All people believe something that others consider crazy,” Trader said wearily. Years of paddling a canoe up and down the mighty eastern rivers had left him muscular, thick through the shoulders, with strapping arms. He sat cross-legged and ran his fingers along the intricate carvings that decorated a wooden box resting on the split-cane matting in front of him.

At his words, the dog at his side lifted his head, ears cocked, a question in his curious brown eyes. Long black, white, and brown fur gleamed in the firelight. The nose was pointed, a dot of black on a white blaze, and the animal’s chest sported a gleaming white bib.

Trader turned his attention back to the ornate box
and ran the pad of his index finger along the shape of a human hand that had been carved into the lid. He meticulously traced the outline of the extended fingers and thumb. Fingernails and knuckles were defined, and anatomically correct. What drew attention, however, was the large rendition of a human eye that had been carved in the palm’s center. Faded white paint marked the sclera. The brown iris had been inlaid with shell, the pupil a single staring orb of copper. The carving dominated the top of the box. It was surrounded by the interlacing patterns of lines Mos’kogean peoples used to indicate the boundaries of the sky and home of the four winds.

“Which one of my beliefs do you think is crazy, Swimmer?” Trader glanced down at the dog and raised an eyebrow.

Swimmer’s furry white-tipped tail batted the matting.

From the doorway a voice called in Trade Tongue, “Some would say that any man who talks incessantly to a dog is missing most of the kernels off his corncob.”

Swimmer immediately jumped to his feet, racing off to welcome the man who entered. Born-of-Sun Mankiller—the
bahle gibidane,
or high chief of the western Yuchi, or Tsoyaha, in their own language—was tall, muscular, having seen but twenty-five winters. The man’s eyes were tattooed in the familiar forked-eye design, and he wore a striking white apron, the tip of it hanging suggestively down between his knees. In his right hand was a stone mace, its top ground into the shape of a turkey tail—the age-old symbol of authority. Polished copper ear spools gleamed in his enlarged earlobes. A beaded forelock hung down the center of his forehead.

“High Chief,” Trader called in greeting as he watched the newcomer bend down and ruffle Swimmer’s ears. The dog barked happily, causing Trader to order, “No barks, Swimmer. People are sleeping. It’s late.”

“It’s all right,” Born-of-Sun rejoined. “Who is going to chastise me, of all people?”

“The Kala Hi’ki?” Trader suggested, jerking a nod toward the dark hallway that led to the Yuchi High Priest’s room.

Born-of-Sun warily eyed the passage. “Yes, well, I suppose it is a wise high chief who treads carefully in the presence of a Powerful man like the Kala Hi’ki.” He glanced down. “We’ll have to be quiet, Swimmer. But you and I, we will bark later. Maybe outside where we can annoy half of Rainbow City.”

The dog yawned, stretching out his front legs, tail swishing happily.

Trader chuckled. “Sometimes, High Chief, I think you would rather be a child than the great leader of the Yuchi.”

“How right you are.” Born-of-Sun walked over, eyes on the carved and inlaid box before Trader. “The Sky Hand war medicine box.” He paused, head cocked. “And inside is no doubt the wondrous copper that I have heard tell of.”

Trader gave a faint nod, his fingers still tracing the patterns in the wood. “My people lost this war medicine box long before I was born. I think the Seeker knows more about it than he has told me. I can see it in his eyes, a wistful longing, tinged by a sense of wonder. That it came to me at all is a surprise. Something Power has wagered on.”

Born-of-Sun settled himself on the split-cane matting beside Trader and patted the floor to entice Swimmer to lie beside him. “I would hear that story, Trader. From start to finish. Where did you obtain the copper? And how? A piece like that . . . you must have sneaked it out of some great chief’s palace. And the war medicine? What prompted the Kaskinampo to give you, a passing Trader, such a Powerful object?”

“Give?” Trader asked with a chuckle. “Hardly a gift,
High Chief. I Traded for the war medicine, and for a wealth in . . .” He paused. “But you want the whole story? From the start to the finish?”

“I would hear it.”

Trader fingered the carved ripples in the wood. “And see the copper, too, I suppose?”

“Curiosity is eating at me like a thing alive.”

Trader reached down, untying the thick leather straps that both secured the war medicine box and served as shoulder straps, allowing a man to carry it like a pack. Carefully, he lifted the fitted lid, allowing Born-of-Sun to see the cloth-wrapped square that fit so neatly into the interior.

Trader tilted the box, allowing the heavy slab of copper to thump onto the mat-covered clay floor. Setting the box to one side, his muscles bunched under smooth skin as he upended the heavy slab and slid the cloth sack from the green-streaked metal. In places where he and Old White had used stones to shape the metal, the copper gleamed with a wicked reddish color.

“By Blessed Tso, our Mother, I have never seen such a thing!” Born-of-Sun reached out and ran his hands over the cool metal. “It’s one
solid
slab!” He shook his head. “How did you come by it, Trader? A chief would guard such a thing with a horde of warriors. It would rest in the most sacred center of a temple, surrounded by many watchful—”

“I didn’t
steal
it! I Traded for it . . . or rather, the right to dig for it.” Trader met Born-of-Sun’s disbelieving eyes. “Just because I’m Chikosi Sky Hand by birth doesn’t mean I’m a perpetually clever thief! I was up in the Copper Lands, on the western margins of the Freshwater Seas. A man called Snow Otter has lineage claims to some of the copper pits up there. I traded him a shell gorget for the right to mine some of his pits. The deal was that I would be able to keep anything I found.”