People of the Thunder (North America's Forgotten Past) (62 page)

He and Old White had paddled a canoe out to the middle of the river—one last shared journey. Old White had dressed in his best: a white, beaded shirt, belted at the waist; his pouch of herbs, his pipe, and some tobacco at his side. He’d pulled what remained of his stringy white hair tightly behind his head and pinned it with a copper turkey-tail pin. A wealth of shell bead necklaces had hung around his spindly neck. The old fabric pack slung over his shoulder was once again weighted with the stone war ax.

The old man had been failing, frail, little more than a walking skeleton. Food either wouldn’t stay down or passed straight through. He could barely hold the paddle.

“Do not do this thing!” Green Snake had pleaded.

“I am the Seeker,” Old White had said with a knowing but toothless smile.

Trader had watched, tears in his eyes, as Old White had laid his paddle to the side. Then he had risen, clutched the sack of copper, and emptied it into the river. Copper gleamed as it floated down into the sunlit depths. “Fair Trade for passage to the Underworld.”

The old man had struggled to lift the large round stone he had chosen for the purpose. He had glanced back, meeting Trader’s eyes—that one long look more expressive than any words. Then Old White had said, “Power keep you, Trader.”

With that he had grinned happily . . . and stepped over the side.

In that instant, Trader would have sworn he heard a musical Song, the melody rising and falling as the waters closed over Old White’s body. The canoe seemed to rise, water sloughing around a huge sinuous body. Was it a trick of the sun, or had the river suffused with rainbow colors?

And then the musical Song faded, and there was only silence, and Trader’s empty canoe bobbing on the water.

Readers who are interested in the actual archaeological sites mentioned in
People of the Weeping Eye
and
People of the Thunder
should know that Split Sky City is, of course, the Moundville Archaeological Park outside Moundville, Alabama. It can be reached by traveling fifteen miles south from Tuscaloosa on Highway 69. The Red Wing mounds lie just south of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Cahokia—the crown jewel of North American prehistory—rises just east of St. Louis, in Illinois. Signs on I-70/55 west of Collinsville will direct the traveler. We chose the Shiloh Mounds, located in the Shiloh National Battlefield, Tennessee, for the Yuchi’s Rainbow City. White Arrow Town is based on the Lubbub archaeological site near Aliceville, Alabama. The site lies on private property, and is accessible only through John Blitz’s excellent monograph,
Ancient Chiefdoms of the Tombigbee.
All of the towns referred to along the Black Warrior River are real, and are on private land. You must read the archaeological literature to learn more about them. Feathered Serpent Town represents the Kellog and Yarborough sites northwest of Columbus, Mississippi. These sites, too, are on private property. The Forest Witch lived atop the great Mound A at the Poverty Point site in northeastern Louisiana. Readers of our
People of the Owl
should be more than passingly familiar with
the place. The Mississippian component we refer to just south of Poverty Point did exist, but was bulldozed by the landowner.

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