Star Path--People of Cahokia Read online

  Among them were the foreign Traders bearing shells from the Gulf, yaupon tea, dyes, southern fabrics, northern copper, furs, and exotic foods and spices. Obsidian was imported from the far mountains in the west as were large sheets of mica from the highlands in the distant east. Stone for carving came from the four corners of the Cahokian world.

  From all directions came parched corn, saplings for construction, blanks of milky gray chert for flaking, hardwood planks, quarters of venison, split cane for construction, and just about every other resource.

  Cahokia flourished on sacred Trade.

  Fire Cat rubbed the back of his neck, shivered as the first of the chill ate through his sweaty skin and reminded him that it was still early in the year and winter was just running the end of its course.

  He looked east, down the long Avenue of the Sun toward River Mounds City, the river, and the canoe landing. Under orders from Morning Star, eight large canoes were resting on the dirty sand just above the river’s lapping water. Provisions were being collected and stored in a warehouse on the levee.

  We have only days before we’re supposed to leave.

  Fire Cat shivered again, noticed that the crowd was still staring up at him. Many of them pointing. He made a face, went back, collected his armor, and started for the veranda.

  Of course people stared at him. He’d wrested the city back from Thirteen Sacred Jaguar, saved it for the Morning Star when he fought Itza warriors on this very mound. He’d won a fortune when he played the Natchez lord, Swirling Cloud, in a game of chunkey. More recently he was known for having gone to the Underworld to rescue Morning Star’s soul.

  All of which he’d Trade at a moment’s notice for the chance to slip away to a forest farmstead with Night Shadow Star and live like a regular human being.

  He climbed up on the veranda, surprised to see Night Shadow Star, her form partially obscured by shadow where she leaned in the doorway, a straight-handled cup in her hand. She watched him with her large, otherworldly eyes, lips pursed, long black hair tumbling down her back like a wave.

  “That was no friendly match,” she noted.

  “You saw? He was trying to kill me.”

  “Curious, isn’t it?” Her gaze had gone distant, as if she were hearing Piasa’s Spirit voice whisper in her ear.

  What was it about her? Not just her eerie possession by the Powers of the Underworld, but the whole of her. Beautiful, frightening, somehow fragile, and so terribly profound and knowing. She’d told him on occasion that Piasa allowed her glimpses of the future, that some terrible challenge awaited her on their journey to Cofitachequi. As if facing Walking Smoke wasn’t frightening enough.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d let him live,” she noted as she made way for his entry. “I heard his boasts. He served Spotted Wrist at Red Wing Town.”

  “Blood Talon is one of Spotted Wrist’s most cherished squadron leaders and friends. Killing him might complicate your relationship with your future husband.” He laid his armor and club down.

  “It was an attempt to break me.” She shot him a knowing look. “The hope was that your death would leave me bereft. That in my pain and grief I’d agree to anything. They think my feeling for you fuels my refusal to marry Spotted Wrist.”

  He accepted the cup of tea from her. For a moment he stared into her eyes, then said, “Power plays us as it will, Lady. We both know that its uses for us change with the moment. For now it needs us to travel to Cofitachequi. Should that change?” He shrugged. “The Powers of the Underworld might discover a need to put you in that man’s bed.”

  He noted the tightening behind her eyes, the recognition of the truth behind his words.

  “For everything there is a price. If there were a way that you and I…”

  She chuckled at her foolishness. “I might as well wish the sky were orange and that fish could fly.”

  He sipped the tea she had given him, letting the smoky taste run over his dry tongue. This was black drink, brewed from the yaupon holly leaf and imported from the distant south along the Gulf’s coastal plain. The leaves were roasted until slightly charred, boiled to a froth, and allowed to steep for several hands of time. That she shared it with him was a sign of their bond.

  I would do anything to make the sky orange and fish fly.

  He smiled wistfully and handed the cup back to her. Hard to believe that he had killed her husband, that she had hated him enough once to have Spotted Wrist promise to capture him alive so that she could torture him to death.

  “Spotted Wrist is getting desperate. He’s running out of time. He wants that marriage before we leave for Cofitachequi.”

  “That he does.” She turned, leading the way across the intricately woven floor mat to the main fire. A pot of hominy bubbled there, as did a thick stew of duck and turtle meat seasoned with dried squash blossoms.

  On the sleeping benches to the rear, Green Stick, Winter Leaf, and Clay String were working on Night Shadow Star’s clothing, making sure it was ready to be packed in a long wooden box that would fit between the gunwales of one of the large Trade canoes. She was, after all, a Cahokian Lady of the first family of the Morning Star lineage. From formal ceremonial feasts with high chiefs along the river to hunkering in the canoe during snowstorms, she needed to be dressed accordingly.

  The manner in which the Cofitachequi expedition was being planned left Fire Cat longing for the days when he was in charge of organizing war parties. Provisioning and supply were so simple in comparison to this major expedition. Not to mention the ritual aspects.

  Across the Great Plaza, the old Earth Clans shaman, Rides-the-Lightning, had been conducting rituals for the last two weeks to ensure success.

  And now, Blood Talon—who would be in charge of the expedition’s military escort—had just tried to kill him?

  “Worse than that, Fire Cat,” Night Shadow Star whispered, “now that he knows you can best him in combat, he’ll come at you sideways, when you least expect it.”

  Five

  Seven Skull Shield leaned his head back as he filled his lungs and sang, “A woman so fine, I couldn’t believe she was mine. When I grasped her nipples, they turned hard as stones. Just the touch alone was enough to shake me to my bones.”

  “Pus and mud,” Elder Crawfish, the old shell carver, moaned as he made a face. “I liked it better when he was running for his life.”

  Elder Crawfish was a Deer Clan man, one of the finest shell carvers in the city. His work was Traded and owned by the wealthiest chiefs on the river. Even the Morning Star wore his pieces. The small shop was packed in among the warehouses a little north of the River House palace mounds and plaza. Years back, Elder Crawfish had chosen that location for its proximity both to the canoe landing and the constant flow of Traders bearing freshwater clam and mussel shell from the rivers as well as saltwater specimens from the distant Gulf down south. Not to mention that Elder Crawfish’s reputation and artistry brought premium profits for his family’s beads, engraving, and finely shaped shell for inlay and decoration.

  Seven Skull Shield often came here just to sit and pass the time. Well, and because the shell carvers were some of the few people graced with an appreciation for not only his unique singing voice, but also his dazzling lyrics. Not everybody could sing like Seven Skull Shield.

  “I couldn’t believe my eyes as she parted her thighs. My shaft, it hardened and rose, and a tingle ran clear to my toes!” Seven Skull Shield belted out the verses, eyes closed as he crooned to the split-cane roof overhead.

  A loud sigh came from where Meander worked a bow drill to perforate a whelk-shell bead. Then the man said, “I think I’ve finally figured out what he sounds like. That must be the kind of noise a buffalo bull makes when it’s eaten too much prickly pear cactus and has a violent belly-ache.”

  Seven Skull Shield interrupted his song just long enough to shoot a sidelong look and say, “As if you’ve ever seen a bull buffalo. They’ve been hunted out everywhere within ten days’ hard travel o
f Cahokia.”

  “Saw a calf a couple of times,” Bent Cane, the youngest son, said. “Traders bring them through on occasion. Trade them off for the novelty of it.”

  “They get paid handsomely for them, too,” Right Fist replied. “High Chief War Duck Traded a sheet of fine copper for a buffalo calf last fall.” He shook his head sadly. “That was just before River House had its Power broken. You remember that night? When someone tried to assassinate Matron Round Pot? When the sacred fire got put out?”

  “Bad doings, that,” Meander agreed.

  Seven Skull Shield glanced warily at his dog, Farts, who lay by the door. The big-boned beast was ugly, its coat brindle brown with black accent. Word was it was descended of pack dogs from the far Shining Mountains in the west. It looked like it, having a blocklike head, heavily muscled jaws, and odd eyes—one blue, the other brown. The beast was chewing on a clamshell. The scratching and grinding of the dog’s teeth on the shell sent a quiver up Seven Skull Shield’s backbone.

  Yes, he remembered the night the fire had been extinguished in River House’s palace. And he was thankful that dogs couldn’t talk. Farts had been right in the middle of it.

  To change the subject, he drew breath and sang, “My shaft hard as wood, and feeling so good, I dropped ’tween her knees, lest she think me a tease.”

  “Was there a reason, specifically, that you chose to come torture us today?” Elder Crawfish illustrated his point by waving an abrading stone. “I mean, couldn’t you have wandered up to the Morning Star’s palace? Driven them half mad with your bellowing?”

  “See, we’re back to sick buffalo again,” Right Fist reminded as he used a finely flaked chert burin to carefully incise the interior of a large clamshell. When finished it would be a gorget. He was in the process of outlining the legs of Cosmic Spider: a Spirit Being from the Beginning Times. She had not only brought fire from the sun to earth, but also carried souls across the sky to the Land of Dead in the Sky World.

  “Actually, I’m here in celebration,” Seven Skull Shield told them. “I had a rather busy night.”

  Images of Willow Blossom’s body writhing beneath his remained as clear as if but mere moments had passed. To enjoy a woman like that … Ah, the pure ecstasy of it.

  “Lying low again, huh?” Meander asked dryly. He wet his drill tip in the pot of water beside him, then dipped it in the finely screened sand. He rotated it until the tip was covered with grit. Replacing it in the hole he was drilling, he began sawing the bow drill back and forth.

  “Let’s just say it took a while for my charm to work its magic.” Seven Skull Shield polished the backs of his nails on his shirt and studied them in the half-light shining through the door. “You see, that’s the thing about most husbands. They don’t care for their wives. Take the poor women for granted. I mean, what would you think was more important? A basket full of basswood rope or a nubile, hot-blooded young woman whose loins were bursting with the need to be filled?”

  He smiled. “Not to mention those large dark eyes. Depthless. Like pools. The sort that just melt a man.”

  “Basswood rope?” Two Fish, the cousin, asked as he entered with a sumac basket full of olivella shells Traded up from the Gulf. “You don’t mean surly old Robin Feather, do you? He specializes in rope and cord. Basswood’s the best. He’s married to that young Panther Clan woman that every man in the neighborhood…”

  Two Fish stopped short, as if slapped. “Oh, spit and piss! Willow Blossom? Her? You got her?”

  “Blood and thunder, man,” Elder Crawfish sputtered. “Robin Feather killed his last wife for philandering with that Natchez Trader a couple of years ago. If he figures out that you’ve been sticking that oversized pole of yours in that sassy young wife of his? He’ll gut you for it.”

  “Who’s Robin Feather? Never heard of him,” Seven Skull Shield lied mildly, assuming an expression of absolute innocence.

  Meander, always the canniest of the lot, wasn’t buying it. In awe he whispered, “She’s beautiful. What man in River City hasn’t wondered … you know. What it would be like.”

  Two Fish placed his basket on the ground before the central fire. “Not that I’d ever fall prey to such a sad state myself, but half the men I know, when they’re lying with their wives, they’re making believe they’re with Willow Blossom.”

  Every eye in the place was on Seven Skull Shield as he sighed wearily and shook his head. “Now I have to go see this woman. Just so I know who you’re talking about. But no, it wasn’t her that I was with last night. I was in Evening Star Town. Across the river. Dallied with a cute young thing from Hawk Clan whose husband was out hunting in the forests off to the west.”

  “Liar,” Two Fish growled. Pointing to the basket of olivella shells, he added, “I was down at the landing at dawn to barter for these with a Tunica Trader. Cross-river traffic was slow. I didn’t see you getting out of any canoe.”

  “This is a common problem with you shell workers.” Seven Skull Shield waved a dismissive hand. “You spend all your time squinting down at what’s a hand’s width in front of your nose while you’re doing all that fine carving. Makes your eyes bad for seeing long distance, like to where I was paying off old Rag Hand for paddling me across the river at first light.”

  “Spit in a bucket,” Elder Crawfish said in wonder. “Willow Blossom? Of all the women in the world? You never cease to amaze us. It’s always something. Like the time Keeper Blue Heron dragged you out of here. Or the time Tula were hunting you, or when the Quiz Quiz wanted you dead. If Robin Feather, of all men, finds out you’ve—”

  “I tell you, it wasn’t her.” Seven Skull Shield gave the man an innocent smile. He could feel a cold sweat breaking out on his lower back. What in the name of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies had possessed him to mention basswood rope? And who’d have thought that lunk-headed Two Fish would be the one to put it together?

  Two Fish looked puzzled. “That Willow Blossom, she could have any man she wanted. Probably even High Chief War Duck if she’d so much as bat an eye at him. Why would she choose to share that magnificent body with some bit of walking vermin like Seven Skull Shield?”

  Because she was lonely, neglected, and wondering if everything exciting in life was now lost to her.

  Seven Skull Shield threw his head back, belting out, “I lowered myself onto her chest, and slipped in my best. Using all of her might, she clamped round it tight. She had such a squeeze it made my heart wheeze.”

  “A heart can’t wheeze. That’s lungs, you fool.”

  “Okay, how about, ‘It made my blood freeze.’”

  “I’ve heard geese with better voices. It would help if you could carry a tune.” Right Fist scooped a pile of scrap shell into a pot and set it on the fire to bake. Within moments the onion-rank smell of cooking shell filled the air. After it cooled, the calcined shell would be ground up and sold to potters for temper to use in their thin-walled ceramics.

  But now Seven Skull Shield had a problem: They knew about Willow Blossom. How in the name of the Underworld Spirits was he going to handle this? Not that the shell carvers were the worst of the gossips along the waterfront, but if this ever got back to Robin Feather?

  Seven Skull Shield wasn’t all that concerned about himself. He’d been dodging jealous husbands for years. And sure, Robin Feather would try to take him from behind, striking from the shadows, but it was Willow Blossom he was worried about.

  He had come to like the young woman over the month it had taken to slowly wear down her resistance. In a lot of ways she reminded him of Wooden Doll when she was younger, more innocent and vulnerable. He hadn’t been this infatuated in years. Willow Blossom’s sense of humor, her quick wit, and the way she looked at him with that sparkle in her large dark eyes just made him happy.

  Though she hadn’t meant to, she’d charmed him last night. Part of it was her surprise at their first joining under the blanket. Old Robin Feather must have put as much enthusiasm into coupling with his wife as he d
id when he was braiding rope. Or maybe less. Any woman who gasped, twitched, wiggled as she had and kept repeating, “I never knew, I never knew,” afterward was speaking volumes about the men in her life.

  She’d been a quick student after that. By the time Seven Skull Shield had slipped away under the cover of first light, she’d pitched herself wholeheartedly and with total abandon into an exciting new exploration of all the ways a man and a woman could conjure lightning in their loins.

  Made him wonder how she was going to react the next time Robin Feather climbed on top of her.

  The Willow Blossom Seven Skull Shield had come to know was probably canny enough to play dumb again.

  “The fair young lass, she grabbed onto my ass. Her nails they dug deep, at the pain I did weep.”

  “We could throw something at him,” Right Fist noted.

  “Naw,” Meander said. “Kind of nice to have him around again. Ever since he got famous and stopped dropping by, we’ve been lacking in entertainment.”

  “Not to mention the reminder of how good our lives are when he’s away in Morning Star Town rubbing elbows with the high and mighty.” Bent Cane stooped and began sorting through the olivella shells.

  “So, what’s the real story?” Elder Crawfish asked. “How did that Spotted Wrist really manage to outfox old Blue Heron and get the Keeper’s position?”

  The change in subject took Seven Skull Shield by surprise. Grateful that they were no longer thinking about Willow Blossom, he told them, “Four Winds Clan politics is like being trapped in a big basket of snakes. It was that new matron.”

  “Rising Flame?”

  “That’s her. And a vicious little sheath she is, too.”

  “Maybe you ought to try and charm that one.”

  “I have standards,” Seven Skull Shield replied. “But don’t count Blue Heron out just yet. Spotted Wrist might be the Hero of the North, and might have everyone’s gratitude and thanks for dealing with the heretics up at Red Wing Town, but he’s in a game he can’t win.”