People of the Thunder (North America's Forgotten Past) (31 page)

“You have two problems,” Flying Hawk noted.

“And that is?”

“Gaining the Council’s support is your first problem.”

Smoke Shield snorted. “For the moment they are incensed by the Alligator Town and Albaamaha raids. There is no love for the Chahta. Why would they turn down the chance to obtain the Horned Serpent Valley? We will lose some warriors, obviously. If I plan this right, it will be from among our enemies here. For example,
I think the Chahta will take their wrath out on Blood Skull and his white arrow. But the others will be thinking of establishing new chiefdoms in the Horned Serpent farmlands.”

“Then there is only the second to worry about.”

Smoke Shield gave him a sloe-eyed look. “And what would that be?”

“Power.”

“Power?” Smoke Shield laughed, tossing his stick into the air. “I
am
the Power! It hovers around me, red and beautiful. Watch me. I’m going to carry it with me and let it wash all over the Chahta!”

“You will be sending a white arrow to Great Cougar.”

“A white arrow? That’s what you are worried about? What threat could white Power have for me? In all my life, it’s never hindered me. Not once.”

Yes, I know.

But then, when had it ever hindered him, either?

“Masters, I have to tell you, this is a bad idea.” Paunch looked back and forth from Trader to Old White.

To Old White’s way of thinking, the old Albaamo had just reason to worry. Outside of a definite talent at cooking, he wasn’t good for much else. The man was an old farmer. He knew beans, corn, and the turning of the soil. That he had dabbled in politics had been to his misfortune. The old man would have required more than just a dislike of the Sky Hand to have defeated them.

They had bypassed Alligator Town, accepting Paunch’s word that the rebuilding center had nothing of value that hadn’t already been carried off by the Chahta. Instead they had called greetings to both Albaamaha and Sky Hand who passed or shared their course. Some had Traded across the canoe gunwales, offering food or pottery for small things. During those visits, Paunch had fidgeted studiously, rubbed his hands, and tried to keep his face hidden.

“Cut your hair,” Old White said.

“Cut my hair?” Paunch reached up, fingering his gray-white locks.

“Who will know you?” Trader asked. “You’re dressed in a Chahta-style hunting shirt, and if you keep your mouth shut, act like a mute, no one will look twice at a Trader’s slave.”

“But . . . cut my hair?”

“That or you could hang from a Sky Hand square.”

Old White read the man’s expression, dashing his hopes when he said, “Running off didn’t get you much last time, either.”

Paunch made a face.

“I can only wonder how your granddaughter is doing.”

“She will be fine.” He sighed. “She lives in the shadow of Power. I’ve never understood that girl, I swear, master.”

“She seemed to know what she was doing,” Trader mused, his eyes lost in thought. Then he glanced at Two Petals, who sat by the fire, whispering softly and listening to the air. Her hands were fluttering like butterflies.

“I just hope that no man has found her.” Paunch shook his head. “Oh, the young men watched her, admired her; but then she would turn those odd eyes on them, seeing down to their souls, and they’d find other interests. And right fast at that.”

“So she never married?” Trader asked, suddenly curious.

“No. My clan even tried a couple of times. She always broke it off, usually before she could even meet the young man.”

“The child was more important to her,” Two Petals said absently. “It was worth waiting for. That boy’s a strong one. She knows how important he is.”

Paunch, of course, missed it, not having the language, but Old White could see Trader suddenly turn pale.

Gods, had he lain with her, too?

“Trader?” he asked in Natchez, knowing that neither Paunch nor Two Petals had any fluency in it.

“She came to my bed that first night, Seeker.” He knotted his hands together. “I swear, I made no gesture,
hadn’t even thought of it. Then there she was, leaning over me in the moonlight. It seemed like a Dream then, and it still does.”

“You have the worst luck when it comes to getting a good night’s sleep.” He glanced at Two Petals. “You think she’s right? That you planted a child in her?”

“How could I know? Maybe. It depends on where she was between her moons.”

Power again.
Flowing around them, using them.

Old White fingered his fabric sack, feeling the outline of the object within.

“Master?” Paunch asked. “I hate to keep bringing this up, but do you know what they will do to me?”

Old White growled, “Shut up! Gods, don’t you know who I am?”

“A very Powerful Trader, yes, but the wrath of the—”

“Will be
nothing
compared to what I will do to them if they bother you!” Old White ground what few teeth he had left, glaring at the man.

Trader fought a smile.

“Listen,
farmer,
” Old White snapped. “I have sat in the company of high chiefs. I have stood on the heights of Cahokia. I have climbed the steps of the Azteca sun temples. I have Danced with the
Katsinas
in high Oraibi. The Great Serpent Chief of the Natchez calls me friend. Sorcerers and Dreamers listen with respect when I speak. No petty Sky Hand high minko is going to cross me.”

He watched Paunch shrink down before him. Gods, he hoped that his words would be prophetic.

In the silence, he asked, “Now, Albaamo, you once mentioned Amber Bead. When we arrive at Sky Hand City, I think it would be best if we meet with the man.”

Paunch blinked, taking to fingering his hair again, as if wary of having it cut. “You would see the councilor?”

“I would. We will need to know things when we arrive at Split Sky City. Some we can learn at the canoe landing; for other things we must have additional sources.”

“Only a few threads remain,” Two Petals said softly. “All is coming together. What a curious weave it is.”

“Instead of all this weaving,” Trader muttered, “have you ever thought about taking up pottery?”

“Just so it isn’t squares that she’s filling in,” Old White added in Natchez. He had the beginnings of a plan coming together, but it would necessitate their being able to move unfettered through Split Sky City.

It was one thing to have a wish come true, but quite another to know what to do with it. That notion perplexed Amber Bead. He sat beside the river and looked up at the sky as a rain shower passed to the west. Around him, several Albaamaha women used discarded pieces of cloth to make salt pans. Salt was one of the prized Trade commodities, and Albaamaha women specialized in making the pans used to evaporate seawater. This was a fortuitous arrangement. The right kind of clay was available along the lower Black Warrior Valley to produce the pans. The Pensacola, down to the south, didn’t have much in the way of clay. Most of their soils were sandy silts washed down from the great rivers, and the few hills around them were made of crumbling sandstones.

The Chikosi and Albaamaha needed salt; the Pensacola needed drying pans. It worked out neatly. To make the pans, Albaamaha women hollowed out a shallow bowl shape in the river sand to the dimensions needed for the salt evaporators. When the basin was shaped just so, old fabric was laid smoothly inside the basin.
This provided the mold. Wet, tempered clay, mixed to just the right consistency with river water, was carefully pressed into shape, making a bowl as thick as a woman’s little finger. The interior was smoothed with a round pebble to create a slick, burnished surface impermeable to water. Then the whole was allowed to sun dry.

After the bowl was sufficiently dry, two women stood on either side, lifting the fabric carefully, using it to free the shallow pan from its mold. The fabric was then peeled off, leaving its impression in the bottom of the clay. The wide shallow bowl was left to dry further, and finally fired.

Amber Bead watched the process—enjoyed the sun peering through the partly cloudy sky—and pondered his problem. He had come here because no one looking for sage advice or demanding definitive answers was likely to think of this place. They would be looking in the seats of authority, around the tchkofa, near the chiefly palaces in Split Sky City, or around his abode just outside the walls. The last place anyone would think of searching for him would be down near the river where women were making salt pans.

He had Lotus Root hidden just outside of Bird Town, close enough to be handy should he need to call on her, far enough away that no one looking specifically for her would stumble upon the woman while she was out using the latrine.

All he had told his cousins was that she was a recent widow, up from the south, and could she stay with them for several days? The story that he and Lotus Root had concocted was that her husband had been killed in the Alligator Town raid. Her house had been burned, her family killed. Having no house to mourn in, she was here. When her mourning period was over, she would look over the local supply of husbands, and perhaps make a new start in the Bird Town locality.

Amber Bead’s cousins knew enough not to pry. They
had already been inspected once by Chikosi warriors just after Paunch disappeared.

Paunch? Now there was a problem he hadn’t had time to ponder much recently. He looked off to the west, wondering just where his over eager friend and pretty young Whippoorwill had vanished to. The forest was crawling with warriors. Chahta scouts were watching the trails, and Chikosi were keeping track of them. At least they were when they weren’t dressing up as Chahta and killing Albaamaha.

He sat on the log, his butt growing sore, his back bent, chin propped as he watched the women chatting and forming their clay.

Chikosi dressed as Chahta. And Smoke Shield right in the middle of it. Now that was a thick knot to pick apart. As Lotus Root had told her story, he hadn’t even been amazed, though the sight of those twenty-three Albaamaha scalps had sent eerie shivers up his spine. Blessed Ancestors, didn’t the woman fear for the safety of his aged souls, even if she didn’t fear for her own? Scalps were Powerful things, often carrying the essence of their previous owners’ souls. And here she came, traipsing around with them, heedless of the screaming and angry ghosts that followed after, howling for revenge for their untimely deaths.

The very thought of it made his souls cringe.

We have the proof to act against them.
But how? Only that morning he had heard that within weeks, the high minko would be calling warriors to Split Sky City. They would come in the company of the chiefs from up and down the river to discuss the proper action to be taken against the Chahta for their supposed raid.

“That part, at least, makes sense.” So, too, did the sudden reluctance among the Albaamaha to antagonize the Chikosi further. Both peoples seemed to accept that Great Cougar had magically penetrated the Chikosi defenses, cut a swath along the western hills, and then
vanished just as mysteriously into the thin air, leaving tracks only where he wanted them seen.

“It’s easier to believe that,” he mused. Great Cougar had every reason to raid in response to the White Arrow Town massacre. “But a few people are uneasy with it.” He’d seen that at the Council meeting. One of the advantages to being present but rarely called upon to comment was that he had spent years studying his enemies. Each Chikosi chief had his own particular habits. Vinegaroon chewed his thumb when he was frustrated. Blood Skull’s nose flared when he thought someone was lying to him. When Black Tail disagreed, he wiggled his right foot. Two Poisons began rocking his head when he was unimpressed.

Amber Bead had seen outright hostility in Night Star’s eyes as she listened to Flying Hawk’s report, and Blood Skull’s nostrils had gone so wide they looked like round eyes. Pale Cat, too, had averted his eyes, a habit he had when displeased with what he heard.

The rest of the Council, however, had accepted the entire story.

As did a great many of the mikkos he had communicated with.

“So, what do we do?” he mused, watching a great white heron wing silently north over the river. The bird flew so effortlessly, its wings barely flapping, its neck bent double.