People of the Morning Star (4 page)

Prologue

Like a knife blade, the Trade canoe’s bow splits the sandy shore. Driven by the vessel’s weight and the speed at which my men drive it ashore, it cuts a great gouge, piling furrows to either side of the polished hull. So quickly does it finally stop that I am almost thrown from my feet.

I smile at that, and clambering over the raised cypress-wood bow, I leap down and drop to my knees. For the moment I am oblivious of the hundreds of curious observers who have watched our arrival at Cahokia’s crowded landing.

Heedless of the audience, my right knee planted, I reach down and rake my fingers through the damp sand. Knotting a ball of it in my fist, I raise it to my nose and draw deeply of its scent. The smell is of river, the musk of mud, and the stale odor of decomposition. I press it to my breast, closing my eyes, savoring the moment. Then I rub the charcoal-flecked grit into my breastbone, over my heart.

The voices, mostly quiet today, begin whispering, “Yes! Yes!”

Cahokia! I am home! By the Tie Snakes, I will drive a great bloody wedge through your very soul!

Only when I finally stand does my crew hop out of the great canoe, and together we begin wrestling the freight-packed vessel farther up on the beach.

From the crowd of onlookers come volunteers—some Traders, others simply curious—to help drag the boat and its cargo up on the Saud.

“Where are you from?” a man asks as he glances speculatively at the tarped packs snugged within the gunwales. He is in his midtwenties; his sun-browned skin is tattooed in designs I do not recognize. His hair is piled atop his head in a bun.

“South,” I reply. “Spent a couple of years with the Mos’kogee. Trade was good.”

He glances at the packs again and starts to nod, only to hesitate as he takes in my companions. They are dressed as common fishermen or farmers and mostly naked but for the breechcloths and deerhide capes on their shoulders. Only now, noticing how they contrast to the locals do I realize that a cougar may dress like a dog, but the essence of his movements, the predatory glint in his eyes, cannot be disguised.

“Give them no mind,” I say easily. “I have them on loan from the high minko himself. Part of the Trade I carry belongs to the chief. He was worried that someone might have tried to stop us on the river and take it.”

“He shouldn’t have,” the local tells me, nodding warily at the closest of my picked Tula warriors. “If you travel under the Power of Trade, no one will bother you. And the Morning Star has even put a stop to the old practice of local chiefs insisting that a Trader stop and pay tribute before passing. The river is open like it has never been.”

“He’s Mos’kogee,” I reply. “You can’t expect ignorant southerners to accept everything.”

Struggling—our feet digging into the sacred sand of Cahokia—we have dragged the great boat two thirds of the way up the bank. I smack my hands together and take stock. The crowd is growing around us. People in all styles of colorful dress are calling greetings and questions. The food sellers, of course, are pressing forward with spicy, roasted meats on skewers. Others offer Cahokian trinkets including clay chunkey stones, carved pendants of Morning Star, wooden plates engraved in the Four Winds Clan design, necklaces of wooden beads dyed red, black, and white.

In their native Caddo tongue, I order my Tula, “Don’t just stand there looking dangerous. Smile. You’re Traders. Act like it and Trade for something.”

I watch the transition as their predatory souls struggle to behave like tame and friendly dogs instead of the vicious and wild wolves they are. It amuses me as little does in life.

To the nearest local—surely one of the agents scouting new prospects—I say, “I need to rent a storehouse for my Trade.” I look up the bank at the rows of thatch- and cane-roofed buildings crowding the levee heights. Most are Trade houses or craft workshops.

The local studies me, seeing only an inoffensive muscular man in his twenties. I have my long black hair braided, and brown face paint obscures my telltale tattoos. Then he follows my gaze to the warehouses, saying, “Those are mostly taken. But there are others farther back from the river. For a token, I can take you to a man who has a nice warehouse, clean, with a tight roof.”

Having anticipated this, I reach over the gunwale and remove a small bag of clamshell beads. As I hand it to the man, I ask, “Will this be sufficient to engage your services?”

He nods and smiles. The gift isn’t exorbitant, nothing that would draw attention to me.

“This way,” he calls. “I am Cord Knot, a man of the Bear Clan.”

“Act smartly,” I whisper to Half Bobcat. He has Traded some trifle for a roasted squirrel. As he sinks his teeth into the thick back meat, grease dribbles down his chin. He nods his understanding, but I can see awe and amazement in his dark eyes as he stares around at the impossibly crowded and busy canoe landing. My wild Tula have been told what to expect. But actually being here will challenge them down to their very bones.

Before I leave, I hire a guide for Bleeding Hawk. Then I place a textile-wrapped bundle in my willing Tula’s hands. “You must deliver this to Right Hand. He is a chief of the Deer Clan. The guide will take you to his palace atop the eastern bluffs. Once you place this in his hand, return here immediately.”

“Yes, my chief.”

I turn then and follow the local; as I do I introduce myself: “I am White Finger, of the Deer Clan.”

I glance around as we wind our way through the endless ranks of beached canoes, many inverted to keep the rain from pooling inside. Most are decorated with clan symbols and individual designs to mark ownership. Here the sand is almost black with charcoal from old fires. All up and down the landing, canoes are being unloaded or loaded. Firewood, matting, coils of rope, baskets of corn, squash, sunflowers, ceramic jars of goosefoot seed, bales of thatch, whole deer, turkeys, buffalo hides, and, well, you name it. I had forgotten the river of goods that constantly flow through, and maintain, Cahokia.

At the top of the rise, we enter the maze of warehouses and workshops. I smell smoke as we skirt a potter’s workshop and see brownware ceramics firing in a pit. Green vessels are drying on racks in the sunlight; two women, both of them old, toothless, and gray-haired are splotched with clay as they dip their fingers in a bowl of river water and continue the endless chore of manufacturing pots, jars, and bowls.

We pass warehouses—clay-walled squares topped with thatch or split-cane roofs. They are marked with both clan images and the owner’s personal designs. Paths between them are deeply rutted, and here and there we have to step across pools of vile-smelling water. I wave away the cloud of flies that rise in response. The odor from the latrines periodically burns my nose.

People, so many people! A pack of dogs waits just outside a tanner’s workshop. The three men inside who are fleshing hides with long, bone scrapers periodically toss bits of dried meat and sinew to the snarling, snapping curs.

“You’ve been away long?” Cord Knot asks as we pass a wood carver’s shop. Not only is the ground around the workshop littered with chips and the fine wood dust produced by sandstone abraders, but I can hear the
tap-tap
of mallets on stone chisels.

“Four years,” I lie again. “It’s good to be back.”

“At least you didn’t lose your accent. Sometimes that happens.”

“I was lucky.”

We wind our way past a clustered jumble of houses, each with a small garden. They are poorly kept, but just beyond is a peak-roofed, white-plastered building. I stop short when I see the Four Winds Clan design above the heavy-plank door. I do not recognize the spiral with a crosshatch image below it.

“This is the place I was thinking of,” Cord Knot says. He points to the roof of a high palace just to the south. Most of the building is obscured by intervening houses. “It belongs to the River Mounds. War Duck is the high chief, but his sister, Round Pot, pretty much runs things. How long do you think you might need the building?”

“A moon, but I would be willing to pay for two just in case it proves necessary.”

Cord Knot lifts the heavy door, swinging it on thick leather hinges, and I step inside. The only light comes from the gap where the roof overhangs the walls. The floor is packed clay, well swept. I can see only one place where water has dripped from a leak in the thatch.

I can hear the voices whispering among themselves, the words just below the threshold of my understanding. I can tell they are pleased.

“This will do. I have a bale of dried yaupon. Would that cover the rental?”

He watches as my hands form the dimension of the yaupon leaves. I can see the calculations behind his eyes. That much yaupon would brew enough black drink to last an elite household for a year.

“I’ll throw in a shell columella for your effort if you can talk them into it.”

He nods and touches his chin, a sign of respect, though a bit overdone given the nature of our bargain.

“Let me see,” he tells me.

“I’ll meet you back at the canoe.” Stepping outside, I lift my hand to the sun, adding, “Perhaps in two-finger’s time.”

“If I’m just a little late,” he says, “don’t take another’s offer.”

“Not until a full hand of time passes,” I reply, and watch him hurry off between the buildings.

As soon as he’s out of sight, I grin. Then, calling upon old memories, I wind my way between the close-packed houses and back toward the canoe landing. Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, or First Woman, as she is often known, has a temple right where I remember it being. The mound upon which it sits has been added to, and the temple atop it is new. I resist the impulse to spit upon the guardian post before it: a carved rendition of Morning Star. The image looks nothing like the man I remember. A curious twisting, almost like the urge to vomit, stirs in my gut.

Then I am up the stairs; I pause on the flat before the temple. To the west I can look down on the landing, swarming with activity. The river is dotted with canoes, and Evening Star City dominates the high bluff across the river on the west bank.

Then I turn and look east. As I do, my heart leaps with sudden anxiety. The temple’s elevation above the warehouse roofs, and its location at the highest point on the levee, allows me a faint glimpse of the high palace in the eastern distance.

The voices hiss with excitement. Images flicker in my memory: Love and desire swell in my breast as I lower myself onto her exquisite body. For that one sweet moment I am in bliss as my seed explodes. Broken memories of shouts … screams … hard hands clamping on my body from behind and jerking me off of her.
His
face as he orders me bound. A coarse-fabric wrapped around me. My body, bouncing in blackness … The sounds of water.

I tell the voices: “He is there. They all are.”

So is she. The woman my flesh aches to possess. Love for her burns in my veins. Memories of her body, her smile, the lithesome way she moves, twine through me like a sweet liquid.

“Soon, my beloved. Soon.”

They wouldn’t expect me to return in the manner I have, nameless, without fanfare. The man they knew would come at the head of an army: proud, belligerent, and boastful.

“
That man is dead
,”
I whisper regretfully.

They, however, are still alive. And I have chosen a way to bring them down. Even him. The
living
god! And to do it, I will unleash Powers not even the Morning Star himself would dare to attempt.

“Hear me, Powers of the Sky, the Earth, and Underworld. The Wild One has come. And before I leave, the three worlds will be rent and broken as I unleash my passion!” I find a certain irony in announcing my challenge before Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies’ temple. Hopefully she is still slumbering in her cave in the lowest depths of the Underworld. May she and her minions remain oblivious until it is too late.

I am different now, hardened, and trained in a subtle manner of killing. They shall learn this lesson over the next couple of moons. Soon, all Cahokia shall feel my wrath. If the Powers of Sky, Earth, and Underworld permit, I shall tear sacred Cahokia right down the middle, and fill its avenues with blood.

The voices chortle in delight.

One

The acclaimed high chief of the Deer Clan, Right Hand, fingered his prominent and scarred chin as he looked westward across the sprawl of Cahokia. The Whisperer was coming. Right Hand had received word but two days past.