People of the Thunder (North America's Forgotten Past) (42 page)

“She is of no consequence,” Lotus Root said. “It’s the men I worry about. What if they take what they
know to the Chikosi? They could gain a great deal of wealth by exposing us.”

Paunch laughed.

“What do you find so funny?” Lotus Root demanded.

“Wealth? I traveled with them for nearly a moon on the river. Sometimes, when they weren’t looking, I got a peek into their packs. Furs, gorgets, copper, carved boxes, medicine plants—the wealth is staggering. They could buy a town. You should have seen the piece they Traded for Whippoorwill and me: a copper gorget the size of my palm.” He shook his head. “Whatever they seek, it is not more wealth.”

“Are you sure they did no harm to Whippoorwill?” Amber Bead asked.

Paunch sighed, taking a seat beside the fire. “Very sure. She just took the first opportunity to run. I’ve been worried about her for days.”

Amber Bead snorted. “She’s the
last
person you need to worry about. She’s so thick with Power my skin crawls when I’m around her.”

Paunch narrowed his eyes. “She knows things, Elder. She knew when the Chahta were closing around us. She knew the Traders were coming. While I was shivering with fear, she was smiling, fully aware that we were going to be saved from the squares. She knew it all.”

“Then what happened to her?” Lotus Root asked. “If she knew it all, she would have realized that she need only ride home in a canoe.”

Paunch spread his hands. “I cannot tell you.”

Lotus Root frowned at the fire. “The Traders said to wait for them to send for us.” She kept knotting her fists, working her fingers as though kneading clay. “Why would they care for the fortunes of the Albaamaha?” Her hard eyes fixed on Paunch. “Did they ever tell you that?”

“They never beat me, kicked me, or worked me like a slave. They—”

“I didn’t ask if they were nice!” Lotus Root barked. “I asked, what do they care about the needs of the Albaamaha?”

“They serve Power,” Paunch replied irritably.

“And I serve
my people!
” she said fiercely. “Not some foreigners.”

“Power serves us all,” Paunch insisted.

“It serves the Chikosi, it seems to me.” She was watching him as if he were a bug.

“Enough,” Amber Bead said softly. “We need not squabble among ourselves. The mikkos are coming. They should be here within the week. We will have time to present all of this to them, thanks to the high minko’s desperate need for labor.”

Lotus Root pointed a finger. “Hear me, Elder. My advice is to sneak into the Traders’ house in the night, and kill them both.”

“The Contrary will see it,” Paunch insisted.

“You believe that?”

“Oh, yes.” He nodded.

“Then perhaps you should go back to them. You are a slave in more than body.”

“Enough!” Amber Bead barked. “I know Paunch. He serves our people just as much as you do, Lotus Root.”

“But he hasn’t paid as much for the privilege as I have,” she added fiercely.

Late-afternoon sun cast long shadows across Split Sky City. Golden light bathed the peaked thatch roofs, gleamed from the plastered walls, and gave the smoke-laden air an orange glow. Trader had pursued a roundabout path in his search for Two Petals. He had started at the south gate, winding around the Crawfish Clan grounds, awed at how the city had grown. For the most part the local dogs had allowed Swimmer to pass without too much growling and sniffing.

Trader stopped short as he walked out to the plaza. He had just finished searching the Panther Clan grounds. He took a moment, seeing his city again, as with new eyes. Every muscle in his body was charged, his souls practically flying inside him. Over and over, he replayed each moment of his meeting with Heron Wing, savoring each word they had spoken, hearing her voice as she said she had never stopped loving him.

The sunlight seemed brighter, the air—laden with the odors of the city as it was—smelled fresher in his nose. He marveled at the open plaza, seeing children running, playing at stickball. Two young men practiced chunkey on the nearest court. In the north, the great mound thrust up, the roof of the palace designed to add to the illusion of a wedge splitting the sky.

“Quite a place, isn’t it?” he asked Swimmer. The
dog was sniffing at something on the ground, his tail wagging.

Until now, Trader had avoided entering the Hickory Moiety’s half of the city. The notion of coming here had been similar to the anticipation of peeling a scab from a wound. Heron Wing had changed that. Somehow she had healed something that had bled inside him for winters.

Now he took his bearings, turning, walking north along the rows of dwellings, workshops, and society houses that lined the eastern half of the plaza. He glanced this way and that, searching. Swimmer searched, too. But Trader wasn’t sure it was for Two Petals.

He saw none of the signs that a lost Contrary was anywhere about. No crowds of curious people hovered at the house doors; none of the passersby chattered on about the odd woman who said things backward.

I should be worried sick!
But, oddly, he wasn’t. And that bothered him even more than the Contrary’s sudden and complete absence.

It’s not as if she’s helpless.
But the lingering memory of carrying her into Rainbow City remained. He could still feel how rigid her body had been. Like a piece of wood. The memory of it amazed him. Had he tried to hold himself stiff like that, the muscles would have trembled, lost their energy. But she’d been locked up tight the whole way. Frozen, but warm. By Breath Giver, the ways of Power were surprising.

Swimmer, it appeared, had found what he was looking for. He grabbed up a stick and dropped it at Trader’s feet. They continued, Trader tossing the stick, and Swimmer charging after it with a happy yip.

A woman stepped out in front of him. He caught the barest glimpse of her face: young, attractive, with a frown marring her brow. She had her long hair pulled back in a bun held in place with a bone pin. The rest of her was obscured by an ungainly load of firewood.
That she could carry such, and move as easily as she did, left him with no doubt of her strength. He could see smooth muscles working in her calves as she plodded forward.

Nice, he thought. He’d never minded looking at beautiful women. Which led him to think about Two Petals, which in turn led him to think about Heron Wing.

The clatter startled him, almost made him jump. Swimmer dropped his stick, darting away.

Before him, the entire load of wood had crashed to the ground, the woman staggering to recover her balance.

“Blood and dung!” she hissed, holding up the carry strap. It had broken neatly in two. She glared down at the pile and then angrily kicked one of the pieces of wood.

“That’s the wrong way,” Trader told her. “You’re headed north. Kick it that way.”

She looked up with fiery eyes. “Easy for you to say. That’s three trips without the thong.”

“One trip,” he insisted. “Provided I help you. I know a trick. Something I learned among the Cree.”

“Who?”

“A people way up north of the Freshwater Seas.” He bent down, pulling out the longest pieces of wood. “We’ll build a litter. Make a square, if you will. Hand me what’s left of the strap.”

She did, her eyes narrowing as she studied his face. “It’s almost like I know you. It seems like it was something unpleasant.”

“Like losing a load of firewood?” He fished a sharp chert flake from his pouch, cutting the remaining pieces of strap into equal lengths. Swimmer looked raptly at the pile of wood. It contained enough sticks to keep him happy for a moon.

“No. Are you a warrior? From the White Arrow raid?”

“Sorry.” He grinned. “But it’s curious the kind of a talent I have—being remembered for something unpleasant.”

She looked confused as she met his eyes, then shook her head, frowning. “It’s probably nothing.”

He lashed the framework together, leaving the handles extending. “The trick is to pile the lengths of wood as closely as possible. Without another cord, they’ll shift, try to roll off.”

She flushed. “I should be thanking you instead of trying to figure out why I don’t like you. You don’t really have to do this. I have no desire to keep you from whatever you were doing.”

“It’s all right. I’m looking for a friend. She’s missing. Probably got lost.” He was quickly and efficiently laying the wood in parallel rows. The bent pieces he placed on the ends, trying to keep the next layer from rolling.

A slim brow arched. “How do you get lost in the city? She could see the high minko’s palace, the plaza, everything’s just . . . well, here.”

“For most of us, yes.” He clapped his hands as he placed the last of the wood in the pile. “Okay, let’s see if this works.”

She stepped to the front, bending, lifting. Trader admired the view as her fabric dress stretched over delightfully rounded buttocks. Straightening, they took a few tentative steps.

“Just don’t bounce or the whole thing will fall apart.

“So, how could this woman friend get lost here?”

“She, um . . . sees the world differently than the rest of us. She doesn’t speak our language, only Trade Tongue. The bothersome thing is that she often says things that make people uncomfortable. Unless you know her, she can be quite unsettling.”

“A foreigner?”

“Yes.”

“She speaks Trade Tongue, you say? With an accent? Traveling with an old white-haired man?”

“Very likely, but he’s looking on the other side of the city at the moment.”

A shiver racked her spine, shifting the wood on the litter. Her voice was different, cautious. “And you say you are a friend of hers?”

“I’d say, from the tone in your voice, you’ve seen her.”

She exhaled. “No wonder I didn’t think I liked you. That woman sent shivers up and down my souls.”

“That firmly places you in the smart half of humanity.”

“But you travel with her? Willingly?”

“I guess that says a lot about which half I fit in.” He paused. “She’s a Contrary. The real thing, not just someone who follows that path.”

The woman cocked her head. “Is she your woman?”

“She is no one’s woman. She sees this world through Spirit eyes.”

“Why you?” she asked. “Why did you choose to care for her?”

“It’s a long story, very long indeed. How far are we going?”

“Up past the Raccoon Clan palace. Almost to the foot of the Great Mound.”

“That’s Chief Clan territory.”

“Well, she may be lost, but you seem to know where you’re going. And you, warrior, speak with a fine Sky Hand accent.”

“Like I said, I’m no warrior.”

“What then?”

“Trader. That’s my name: Trader.”

“And you Traded for a Contrary somewhere?”

He made a face. “You don’t Trade for a Contrary. It seems they find you.”

“Seriously?”

“It was just below Cahokia.”

“You mean,
the
Cahokia?”

“The very same. There’s a creek there next to an abandoned town. The weather was crummy, and . . . Why am I telling you this?”

“Because I will listen. And you are probably trying to prove to me that no matter what I think about your Contrary friend, you’re actually likeable.”

“Why would I do that?”

“No, I’m not married. And from the look you gave me, neither are you.”

He chuckled, “Sorry, my heart is given to another.”

“The Contrary?”

“Gods, no!”

“Maybe you’re in the smart half after all. But you were telling me about a creek below Cahokia. The weather was bad.”

“She directed Old White right to my camp. Out of pitch-black night, she led him right to me and Swimmer.”

“Who’s Swimmer?”

“He’s the dog who keeps dropping that stick at your feet. Hold it. We’re about to lose some wood here.” He used his hip to brace the load and restack the firewood.

“So, you have a dog, a Contrary, no wife, a companion named Old White, and travel to Cahokia? That sounds like quite a life.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a slave.”

“They treat you all right?”

“You took that well. Not even a moment’s hesitation.”

“It was a distinct possibility.”

“Oh?”

“A woman your age is normally married, especially one doing work like hauling loads of firewood.”

“You’re an odd man for a Sky Hand.”

“As odd as they get.”

“So tell me, Trader, do you have any news of the Chahta?”

“Some.” They passed the Raccoon Clan palace atop its truncated mound, and the woman led the way to a large house just off the plaza.

In a controlled voice, she said, “I would hear it if you have time.”

They wound their way past the ramada and the pestle and mortar.

“I should look for my friend. But yes, I would tell you what I know.”

At that, a strikingly beautiful woman stepped out the door, glanced at Trader, and smiled. “Hello!”

“Hello yourself.” Lowering the wood, he rubbed his hands to clean them of the bark. “I am called Trader. I helped your slave carry her wood home.”

“She’s not my slave. I am Violet Bead, second wife to Smoke Shield.” She inclined her head to the house immediately south. “I live there.”