People of the Thunder (North America's Forgotten Past) (59 page)

“The Song. It’s so beautiful.”

“I hear nothing.”

“Oh, you will. In just a moment. I am coming into myself. Time is coming together.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked irritably.

“The future. I will finally know it.”

She opened her eyes, hearing Trader’s voice from shore. He was calling for her, desperate for her safety. Poor Trader. She thought back, remembering his panic the night she had led Old White to his hidden camp. She smiled at the recollection of his interest as he watched her body, and then shared the Dream of their coupling. He had prepared her, taught her the arts she needed to bind Smoke Shield to her.

She smiled across the water at Old White, seeing the desperation in his eyes. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “When you are ready, Seeker, we shall come!”

“What? Two Petals! Stop this nonsense!” He was gesturing frantically for her to return.

Thank you, for all that you have done.
She touched her breast as if to imprint the memory of him on her souls.

The Song was almost deafening now, her souls swaying as it filled the air around her.

“It is time.” She laughed in reply to Smoke Shield’s anxious questions. She stood carefully, balancing in the canoe.

“What are you doing?” he cried, hands gripping the gunwales in an effort to stabilize them.

In that one wondrous moment, the world stopped. She felt her past and future become now. Her souls merged.
I am whole! I am the One!

She raised her arms, letting the warm sun bathe her. Laughter came bubbling up from within. Around her the world began to swell and recede, pulsing with the Song. She became it.

Her gaze fixed on Old White’s. “Seeker? Time has stopped!”

And then, looking down past the canoe, she could see
him
. Sunlight shot down into the water, outlining his membranous wings. The colors of the rainbow reflected from his body as it rose beneath the canoe. She hadn’t expected him to be so huge. And there, in the reflection of the sun, she could see his great crystalline eye, glinting up at her from beneath the surface.

“I am ready, my husband.”

Smoke Shield was saying something, his words lost, drowned by the Song.

“Come,”
her husband said.

Old White gasped his way to the shore and placed his hand on Trader’s shoulder. Behind them, the chiefs stopped short, staring. Diminutive Night Star rode in Blood Skull’s muscular arms. The warrior lowered her to the ground as they all lined out on the bank. Each was panting from the run, staring in disbelief at Smoke Shield and Two Petals where they floated in the calm waters.

“What are they doing?” Pale Cat asked. “Who is that woman?”

“The Contrary, Two Petals,” Trader said grimly. Then he cupped his hands. “Two Petals? Are you all right?”

Her words carried across the water. “When you are ready, Seeker, we shall come!”

Old White shouted, “What? Two Petals! Stop this nonsense!”

“That copper is ours!” Wooden Cougar bellowed. “Ours, Smoke Shield. Bring it back!”

Old White shook his head. “I think it belongs to Power.”

“I’m taking a canoe,” Trader said. “This has to stop.”

“No.” Old White laid a hand on his arm. “Trust to Power.”

“Seeker you can’t—” Trader stopped short, eyes on the bobbing canoe.

Two Petals rose to her feet, balancing on the slender canoe gunwales. She raised her head to the sunlight, lifting her arms. Then she looked down at the water, seeming to ignore Smoke Shield’s barked questions.

“Two Petals,” Trader cried. “Sit down! You’ll tip over!”

She met his eyes across the water, calling, “Seeker? Time has stopped!”

He drew a breath to call to her, and blinked in disbelief.

In an instant the canoe’s stern sank like a rock, spilling Smoke Shield into the river. The bow rose to point straight up into the sky. Two Petals dove, her hands spearing as her slim body arrowed neatly into the water.

Sunlight flashed on copper, the beam of it almost blinding. Then the boat was sucked down in a swirl.

Smoke Shield screamed, splashing about in the chop, staring this way and that. He bellowed, “No! No! Power is mine!” Then, as he turned toward shore, a terrible shriek tore from his throat. His body lifted on a fountain of foaming water, hung for an instant, and as
Smoke Shield uttered one last scream, he was dragged under.

Old White stared in disbelief.

Something sleek rose in a giant ring, water slipping smoothly from its curved surface. Rainbow colors reflected briefly, and then it was gone, waves splashing as they rose and fell.

“Two Petals!” Trader screamed, charging forward and diving into the river.

“Come back!” Old White shouted.

He stood helplessly, heart hammering, aware that the growing crowd behind him was deathly silent. Time had indeed stopped. The only movement was Trader as he stroked furiously toward the still-swirling water. Then he dove.

“Gods, no!” Heron Wing reached for Old White’s hand, her grip crushing his bones.

“What just happened here?” Pale Cat asked.

“I don’t know,” Old White told him. “But the Kala Hi’ki told us a Horned Serpent lives beneath Split Sky City.”

“Horned Serpent!” Blood Skull repeated in awe. Whispers of “Horned Serpent” went from lip to lip as the people stared.

The canoe shot out of the water like a leaping fish, the bow rising high. It seemed to freeze for a moment, hanging. Slowly tilting, it gained speed, and crashed down on its keel. White spray accompanied the loud slap of wood on water. The canoe bobbed there, swamped.

“Gods,” Old White whispered.

He stood transfixed, waiting. Was it an eternity or a matter of heartbeats before Trader’s head popped up, and he flipped water from his face? Trader gasped for breath, searching this way and that. Then he stroked over to the canoe, grasping its gunwale.

“Someone”—Blood Skull turned—“come with me while I paddle out there and bring Green Snake and the canoe back.”

Old White released Heron Wing’s hand as she hurried to find a place in the canoe Seven Dead and Blood Skull launched.

His feet rooted to the shore, Old White shivered, his souls in turmoil. Two Petals could not have held her breath this long.
Gods, she is gone!

He turned, grief tugging at the bottom of his heart. As he pushed through the crowd, images of the Contrary filled his souls. He remembered that first moment she’d been carried out like a deer, bound to a pole, her mouth gagged. Again he saw her naked that day in Cahokia, watched her lean forward to blow the souls from Black Tooth’s body. She laughed inside him, enchanting his memory.

“She now Sings with her husband,” a soft Albaamo voice said from the side. “She has found peace and joy.”

He turned to see Whippoorwill, her dark eyes shining. She placed a slim hand on his shoulder, saying, “The Kala Hi’ki saw it all. It is finished—justice is done. He will tell Born-of-Sun.”

“What was that? Horned Serpent?”

She gave him a wistful smile. “What did
you
see, Seeker?” And then she turned, walking up the slope. Was it his imagination, or did the shadow of a huge wolf accompany her?

Old White sighed. Gods, he was tired.

Glancing back, he saw that Trader had been pulled into Blood Skull’s canoe. They were towing the swamped craft back to shore. Old White watched them land, saw Trader step out to drag Two Petals’ boat onto the sand and tip it so the water ran out. Then Trader froze, frowning. Finally he reached down into the hull. When he straightened, it was to hold two large crystals up to the
sun. The light played through them, shooting beams in every direction.

Old White placed a hand over his heart. He’d seen the like before . . . in the Kala Hi’ki’s empty eye sockets.

As Flying Hawk walked aimlessly toward his palace, a sense of loss and stunned dismay overwhelmed him. He rounded the head of the ravine that separated the high minko’s grounds from Skunk Clan’s. People rushed past—everyone headed toward the canoe landing, desperate to learn more about the startling events that had occurred there.

I don’t understand!

He had followed anxiously behind the chiefs as they stormed after Smoke Shield. In their wake, he had heard their amazement, listened to Wooden Cougar’s shouts demanding that Smoke Shield return the copper.

Flying Hawk had stopped at the crest of the slope, watched Smoke Shield paddle out with the witch, and seen the canoe pulled down by something large and shining in the depths. He had seen the flash of copper and watched Smoke Shield’s body partially rise, heard that last hideous scream as he was dragged beneath the waves.

Horned Serpent!
The witch must have called the creature up from the depths.

Why?
The question consumed Flying Hawk as he stopped, looking back at the people flocking toward the landing. He blinked, shook his head, and resumed his weary pace. He walked like a man in a Dream—as if the events he had just witnessed were fantasies.
Could he really have seen Green Snake and Hickory in the tchkofa, or was that illusion? Had he watched a real piece of copper tipped out of the old war medicine box? Or a Dream creation: something resurrected from a restless nightmare and replayed among his reeling souls?

Smoke Shield! Gods, what happened to you?

Flying Hawk remembered his nephew’s gleaming eyes, the awe on his face as the copper thumped onto the tchkofa floor and literally blazed in the sunlight. The instant his nephew had laid his hands on the copper, a pain stabbed deep through Flying Hawk’s chest. Even now he could feel it aching like a splinter between his souls.

He was confused, overwhelmed by the bits of conversations, images of Green Snake, and, finally, Hickory—returned from the dead to brandish Bear Tooth’s ceremonial war ax. He could still see it, sleek in the shaft of light shining through the tchkofa smoke hole.

Gods, how he remembered that ax!

Hickory lives!

After all those long hard winters, why had the man picked this moment to return? And how had he found Green Snake, let alone the long-vanished war medicine?

This is the work of Power, come to punish Smoke Shield for his abuses!

“And me. It has come to punish me.” He stopped again, looking back, a sense of futility draining his energy. He walked on—a man bereft. His life had been looted clean of accomplishments, struggles, and sacrifices.

It was for nothing!

In that instant, he saw his brother’s face. Acorn lay on that long-ago clearing, his bleeding head on the grass. But instead of the blood-smeared, sightless eyes, Acorn was staring at him. The slack mouth no longer
gaped in a death rictus, but curled with a profound satisfaction. Laughter burst from Acorn’s lungs, a fine spray of blood misting the air.

Flying Hawk clapped hands to his ears as he rounded the base of the great mound, walked to the high Sun Stairs, and began the long climb to the top. His knee burned and grated with each step.

Under his breath, he muttered, “One thing they cannot take from me: I am still the
high minko
!”

He winced at the pain in his knee, climbing resolutely. His breath began to labor, and he stopped, halfway up. Looking south, he could see the whole of Split Sky City. The plaza grass was greening, verdant in the sunlight. Smoke still rose from the tchkofa fire to trail away on the lazy air. The multitude of houses peppered the grounds, and beyond the southern chief mounds, he could see the long section of flattened palisade.

“Should have seen to that,” he muttered to himself, remembering that somewhere out to the west—if the reports could be believed—a Chahta war party was closing on Split Sky City, a determined Great Cougar at its head.

He clamped his eyes shut, imagining his own war parties. He could visualize them, spread out, searching the forest trails to the north for a Yuchi war party that would never come.

How did I make such a mess of things?

Resuming his climb, he advanced a step at a time.

The stairs were uneven. Somehow, he’d forgotten to order the slaves to replace and reset them. So many things had occupied his thoughts—most of them grim premonitions of disaster at Smoke Shield’s hands.