People of the Weeping Eye and People of the Thunder

Dear Readers:

Welcome to excerpts from People of the Weeping Eye and People of the Thunder. The first book is due out in the Spring of 2008, so this is an advance look at the front material and the first chapter of the book. We hope you like it.

People of the Weeping Eye

and

People of the Thunder

W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear

A NOTE TO THE READER

Writing People of the Weeping Eye has been a labor of years. Depicting the rich variability of Mississippian archaeology in all of its complexity was a daunting challenge. As the epic of Trader, Old White, and Morning Dew played out, the manuscript grew ever larger. As a result the publisher made the decision to break the story into two books: People of the Weeping Eye and People of the Thunder.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to acknowledge John Blitz, Matt Gage, and Katherine Michelson of the University of Alabama for their kind assistance during our visits at the Moundville archaeological site. Mary T. Newman was kind enough to share her in depth knowledge of Southeastern ceramic manufacture. Our special appreciation is extended to Dan and Vicki Townsend for their love of shell carving, and for keeping the tradition alive.

Bob Pickering, Ph.D., long-time Midwestern archaeologist, and current curator of collections at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, kindly read the manuscript and provided salient and perceptive comments. We are most grateful for all of your input, Bob.

Once again, Traci, B.J., and the rest of the staff at the Hot Springs County Library performed their magic by obtaining rare and out of print archaeological source material, including Frank G. Speckʼs Ethnology of the Yuchi Indians. Their help was instrumental in the writing of this novel.

Gerald and Joann Gerber, of the Storyteller Bookstore in Thermopolis, Wyoming, also worked diligently to obtain out of print source material, including the Bureau of American Ethnologyʼs Volume 42 on the Creek Indians, and the BAEʼs 44^th annual report on the Chickasaw. Should you ever be in Thermopolis, drop in for a cup of their wonderful coffee, fine hospitality, and good cheer.

As always, the Thermopolis Holiday Inn of the Waters provided us with a place to decompress, warm Guiness, fine buffalo burgers, and a soul-filling view of the Big Horn River. We offer a special thanks to Jim, Tuck, Mary, Chris, Jake, Dawn, Jimmie, Kenny, Dusty, Karla, Pete, and the rest of the staff.

NONFICTION FOREWARD

People of the Weeping Eye and its sequel, People of the Thunder, are largely based on Alabamaʼs Moundville archaeological site. Today it is an open park dominated by grassy mounds and tree-shaded ravines above the Black Warrior River. The site has a small museum and interpretive center, the University of Alabama archaeological laboratory, picnic facilities, a conference center, and camp ground. A visitor coming from busy Tuscaloosa or Birmingham is struck by the expanse of grass, open space, and expansive vista. He sees quiet countryside, but for the passing of an occasional train. Moundville deceives.

Archaeologists tend to be a politically correct lot, and they donʼt like to use the word Imperial—but thatʼs what early Mississippian culture is beginning to look like. From the huge urban center at Cahokia, just across from St. Louis on the Illinois shore, expeditions were sent up and down the rivers, including the Tennessee. We see the spread of Mississippian culture, their square earthen mounds, pottery, trench-wall houses, and artistic styles. Cahokiaʼs influence spread north into Minnesota, westward up the Missouri, as far as Oklahoma in the southwest, and to Florida in the southeast. Descendants of its hegemony would speak Souian, Muskogean, Iroquoisan, and Caddoan languages.

Readers of our novel, People of the River, are familiar with Cahokia. After its decline around A.D. 1150, a political vacuum formed. Settlements vied for influence and control, warring with their neighbors. Muskogean peoples migrated eastward across the Mississippi to fill the Southeast. In the end, several centers, including Moundville, Ocmulgee, Spiro, and the Lower Mississippi Valley sites like Emerald Mound, flourished until the 1400s then faded. Of them all, Moundville was the most spectacular.

In archaeological terms, the huge earthworks of Moundville went up in an incredibly short period of time, as did a twenty-foot-tall perimeter wall with platform-topped bastions for archers. Such fortifications indicate that all was not peaceful in the Mississippian Southeast. Over the next 150 years, the walls would be replaced several times, and finally abandoned as Moundvilleʼs military and political leaders pacified the Alabama, Black Warrior, and Tombigbee River basins. The cityʼs population moved out into the fertile bottomlands, building towns around smaller mound centers up and down the Black Warrior valley.

In writing People of the Weeping Eye we have drawn heavily on Chickasaw, Alabama, Choctaw, and Yuchi ethnography. The Chickasaw—the most likely descendents of Moundville—are Muskogean speakers. Both Koasati and Alabama are the probable descendents of the West Jefferson culture. Alabama language, though structurally different, contains a great many Chickasaw words—expected if they had been in physical contact, but separated by strict social divisions. Despite extended contact the Alabama remained a separate and distinct culture until their absorption into the Creek confederacy.

Between A.D. 1200 and 1380, Moundville was the largest urban center in North America. What today is quiet countryside was the capital for thousands of people who inhabited central Alabama and western Mississippi.

Think not of Moundville as quiet and dead, but alive with multitudes dressed in their best, faces painted in bright colors. Hear thousands of voices, shrieking children, barking dogs, and the distant sound of drums and flutes. Smell the musky wood smoke, the scent of cooking corn, fish, and venison.

Only then will Moundville live.

MAKATOK

“Makatok.” In the Mosʼkogee language it means, “It was said long ago.” Makatok is the word that starts all of our stories of Power, of prophecy, and legend. When a story is begun with Makatok, the audience knows that they must listen intently, that what is being told to them is not frivolous, but contains great lessons, truths, and portents for the conduct of their lives.

Makatok is not a word that is used casually. It implies obligations from both the orator and the listener. You must understand: A story is more than just words; it has an existence of its own—a soul and presence that must be experienced and felt. A story lives, breathes, and has its own heartbeat. This must be respected.

When an orator begins his story with “Makatok” he places his audience on notice that what they are about to hear must be carefully considered, for it concerns the way they live, how they perceive their world, and relate to the people, places, and things in it. It tells them that what they are about to hear has implications from the past, value for the present, and ramifications for the future.

Ah, I see the look of confusion in your eyes. Have you never considered that time is alive? Do you think the past dead? Is the present only the breath in your lungs? Are the rhythms of the future but fantasy to you?

Extend your senses; see through the eyes of the spiral. Time is relationships. The past spinning itself into the present, weaving events that will form and color the textile of our future.

What? You need an example? Very well. In the eye of your souls, visualize an arrow in flight. Imagine it, shining in the sun, the keen point slicing the air. Hear the feathers hissing in the wind.

Can you imagine it? Good. Now, what does it mean, this arrow arcing through the sky?

To know, you must relive the intent of the archer who nocked this fletched shaft in a taut bowstring. You must sense the urgency in his heart when he drew the nock back to his ear. Were his souls possessed with fear of an untimely death? Anger at betrayal? Hatred for a despised enemy…or perhaps just the desperation of an empty belly? Only when you understand the archer can you either admire or fear the arrowʼs flight. In this moment you can anticipate or rue its eventual impact as it finds or misses its intended target.

Ah, now you begin to see. The present began in the past. Everything, from the patterns of clouds in the sky, the path of a beetle across the dirt, the love in a fatherʼs eyes, to the wails of a dying captive, was spun from decisions made in the past. Each will extend beyond this moment to the future where they will be played out. Close your eyes, sense the movement of time around you. It is inexorable, flowing like a great river through and around us. Can you not comprehend the majesty of it? Is it not one of the miracles of creation?

Nevertheless most of us muddle along, mired only in the present, involved with our mundane tasks. With each step we stare at the clinging mud beneath our feet instead of the glorious path ahead.

For that reason, the great stories begin with Makatok. The word tells you to open your souls and pay attention, to realize the marvel of what you are about to hear. Drop your preoccupations of the moment. Expand your understanding of the universe around you.

The momentous surrounds us. Stop and listen, learn, think, and see how decisions in the past fill the present and will forever change your future.

Such is the story I will now tell.

Makatok . . . .

Moon of the Angry Winds

A harsh winter wind blew out of a midnight sky. It roared out of the frigid north and thrashed the brooding forest. The force of it bent trees, whipping their bare branches like angry lashes. Shrieking across the river, it drove a stiff chop against the shore. Curling waves sawed at the sandy beach, and spray whisked in gleaming droplets to soak the long dugout canoes pulled up on the bank. Racing up the bluff, the wind crested the heights and savaged the city.

Gust after gust worried thatch-roofing, shook the corn cribs and drying racks, and hammered relentlessly at the intricately carved clan poles. Fingers of wind rolled baskets, whirled away matting, and flung streamers of ash and bits of detritus into the air. The high palisade with its square bastions and archerʼs platforms trembled under the gale; bits of clay cracked and fell from the weft of dried vines woven between the vertical logs.

Perched atop its dominating mound, the High Minkoʼs palace bore the worst of the stormʼs brunt. Wind pulled at the tall building and ripped angrily at the tightly bundled thatch roof. It whistled against the ornate wooden statues of Eagle, Woodpecker, and Falcon that protruded from the peaked ridgepole.

Despite being built of deeply set logs, the great building shook and creaked. Gusts slipped through gaps and doorways. Eddies and currents ghosted along dark hallways and danced around cane-mat walls. The draft teased fabric doorways and shivered the sacred masks hanging from their strings. It touched bare flesh with a chill kiss.

The boysʼ room opened off a central hallway. Embers cast a faint red glow from the puddled clay hearth. As the draft fluctuated, patterns shifted among the coals, gleaming and fading—like eyes staring from the Underworld.

The twins huddled on their pole-frame bed, arms around each other, eyes on the capricious patterns traced in the hearth. For the moment the mighty wind was forgotten. Fatherʼs angry shout carried down the hallway.

Motherʼs piteous “No” was followed by the meaty sound of a slap.

The boys flinched, eyes widening as they glanced fearfully at the doorway. In the reflected hearth light they watched the dark door hanging. The fabric swayed ever so slightly, teased by the icy breeze.

“Will he come?” one whispered.

“Hush, Acorn,” the other barely mouthed. “Donʼt even think about him. Your thoughts might touch one of his souls. Might bring him here.”

Their twin faces made reddish disks in the dim light, eyes wide, dark, and liquid. Button noses over soft lips gave their expressions an impish quality added to by the tousled mats of their unkempt black hair. The blanket that hid their small bodies was intricately woven, covered with images of artistically rendered ducks and turtles. The bare poles beneath their bed frame gleamed like freshly skinned bone. Two toy bows, small quivers of arrows, and piles of rumpled clothing had been laid by the foot of the bed. On the wall behind them hung a magnificent wooden carving of Eagle Man. Each feather radiating from his wide-spread arms was intricately rendered. His nose became a curved beak, and twin rattlesnakes coiled in his hands. The gorget pendant on his breast was copper, as was the bi-lobbed hair piece with its distinctive arrow. The image wore a Chiefʼs kilt, the long tail of it falling suggestively between his spread legs.

“Foul camp bitch!” The words carried down the hallway. “Iʼll make you spread your legs for me!”

The boys cowered deeper into their blanket, Acorn closing his eyes as Mother screamed in response to a slapping blow.

“Please, Breath Maker, make him stop,” Acorn pleaded, a tear escaping the corner of his eye.

“Shhh!” Grape hissed. “If he comes, close your eyes. Play asleep.”

Acorn swallowed hard, hearing faint weeping from the room down the hall. “Whereʼs Hickory?”

“Sneaked out of here if he knows whatʼs good for him.” Grape tightened his arm around his brother. “Last time Father beat him half to death.”

“I thought Uncle was going to kill father.”

“Uncleʼs a coward,” Grape said hollowly.

“Is not.”

“Is.”

“Is not.”

“If he wasnʼt a coward, heʼd have driven Father off by now.”

Acorn didnʼt respond as motherʼs half-choked scream was overwhelmed by a roaring gust of winter wind. After it passed, the twins could hear the familiar grunting as Father coupled with Mother. When it happened this way, her face would be bruised in the morning. Often she walked with an awkward, wide-legged gait, and they could see finger marks on her neck that she tried to hide with strings of beads. A brittleness would lay behind her eyes, like an old pot sherd: fragile and easy to snap.

“I wonʼt share you with a dead man! Move for me, bitch!” Father cried angrily. “I said, move!”

Then, as if the world held its breath, the night went silent.

“Enough!” The voice wasnʼt Motherʼs, but higher, a squeal strained with rage, terror, and disbelief. Acorn could barely recognize Hickoryʼs voice. Was his older brother mad to challenge Father when he was in this kind of mood?

“You little whelp!” Father bellowed. “Donʼt you dare to—”

A snapping impact, carried on the chill air.

Father screamed: the sound of it bloodcurdling.

Then the winter wind hammered the building with renewed fury.

For long moments the boys waited, arms about each other.

The hanging swayed as a dark form eased into the room. Grape gasped, clamping his eyes closed, his breathing too fast for a boy feigning sleep.

Help me, Breath Maker! The silent prayer repeated in Acornʼs frightened souls.

The dark apparition stepped forward, short, slight of build, something heavy hanging from its right hand.

“Are you awake?” came the hesitant call.

“Hickory?” Acorn almost cried with relief. “Whatʼs happened?”

Hickory stepped up to the bed, his form silhouetted by the glow from the firepit. He looked like a gangly bird, thin of limbs, his hair mussed. “I want you to run to Kosi Fighting Hawkʼs. Go now. Hurry.”

“What about Father?”

“Thatʼs why youʼve got to go now.”

“But if we—”

“Go now!” Hickory ordered in a voice strained beyond violence. They flung the blanket aside, feet slapping the packed clay floor of their room.

“Go!” Hickory cried. “Here he comes!”

Acorn led the way, bolting into the hallway, turning left, and running across the fabric rugs underfoot. He jetted into the main room, barely aware of the intricate copper-covered reliefs of Horned Serpent, Cougar, and Woodpecker gleaming on the walls. The great stool where Father held sway was draped in cougar hides. Lines of human skulls hung in the rear where a war shield looked ruddy in the firelight. The central fire leaped and bent with the breeze that filtered through the plank door.

Acorn hit the door, throwing his weight against it. Grape was smart enough to reach up and throw the thong off its hook. They crashed through, flinging the door wide and charging out into the windswept night.

Powered by fear like heʼd never known, Acorn raced to the gate in the high palisade and struggled with the heavy wooden door. With Grapeʼs help, he managed to pull it aside far enough that he could wiggle through, Grape on his heels.

At the edge of the high stairs he paused to throw a look over his shoulder. A fierce gust of wind blew the gate wide. Through the portal, Acorn could see Hickory standing in the doorway, his shape outlined by the flickering fire. The object he held pulled his shoulder down with its weight.

“Hurry!” Grape cried, and began descending the wooden steps. Below them, Split Sky City was hidden in the night.

Acorn fixed the image of Hickory between his souls, identifying the thing that hung so heavily from his right hand. Then, Hickory turned, disappearing back inside. Acorn fixed his attention on the steps. The way down the high earthen mound was long and steep. In the darkness, battered by the chill wind, it was even more ominous.

Grape beat him to the plaza, and together they ran, bare feet hammering the trampled winter grass. Several bow-shots to the east, Kosi Fighting Hawkʼs palace stood like a shadow. Its earthen mound rose from the ground like a small mountain. Acorn made a face against the chill wind shooting ice into his naked body. He ran around the head of the steep ravine, breath tearing in his throat, straining his young legs. Grapeʼs body was a lighter blur in the darkness. Grape was always faster.

Acorn was winded; tears spurred by worry and fear trickled down his cheeks. He rounded the square base of the earthen temple and staggered past the guardian posts—sculpted figures of Falcon, Hawk, and Turkey—that stood beside the stairs.

“Wait!” Acorn cried. “Iʼve got to rest.”

Grape turned on the steps, his breath coming in gasps. “What if Fatherʼs right behind us?”

“Heʼs not.”

“Whereʼs Hickory?”

Acorn jerked a nod back the way theyʼd come, forcing his trembling legs upwards as he began the climb. “Hickory didnʼt follow us. “ He managed between breaths. “I saw him go back inside.”

“Fatherʼs really…going to hurt us.” Grape managed. “Heʼs going to be so mad.”

“Hickory stayed behind.”

“Breath Maker save him…and us.”

“Please.”

“Father wonʼt forget we ran away.”

“I know.” Gods, could Kosi Fighting Hawk really protect them?

Acorn burst into tears as images played across his imagination. He could see the expression on Fatherʼs face: implacable rage behind his dark eyes; cold fury in the set of his mouth; the way his jaw muscles would bunch under his tattooed cheeks as he used cane slats to whip them.

“Stop it!” Grape pleaded, as if the same visions were blazing in his little souls. He, too, was sobbing as they clambered slowly up the worn wooden steps. Shivering from cold, scared like theyʼd never been, the boys finally reached the wooden gate in the palisade that surrounded the flat top of the Raccoon Clanʼs high mound. To their surprise, the wind had pushed the heavy door ajar leaving a gap wide enough for two skinny little boys to wriggle through.

Grape led the way past tall guardian posts to the dark building. The door was latched from the inside. Acorn first stumbled over a wooden mallet laid to one side, then used it to pound on the door.

“Coming!” a faint voice could be heard over the wind.

Moments later the door slid back to reveal Kosi Fighting Hawk, a breechcloth hastily wrapped around his thick waist. It took him a moment of searching the darkness before he looked down far enough to spot the boys.

“Acorn? Grape? Whatʼs the matter?”

“I donʼt know,” Grape muttered, suddenly abashed.

“Itʼs Father,” Acorn whispered under his breath. “Hickory. . .”

“He stayed behind,” Grape added. “Iʼm scared.”

“Come in. Come in,” Kosi said wearily, reaching down to grasp Acorn by the shoulder. “You are both like ice.” He pushed the heavy door closed behind them and led the way to the fire, now a series of coals that peeked from under layers of ash.

Fighting Hawk bent, used a stick to fish out the largest coals, and added kindling. He blew with the practiced ease of a man who had made many fires in his life. Within moments the flames were casting a strengthening yellow light across the room. From the walls, masks stared down, their empty black eyes surrounded by shell and copper. They were painted, carved with intricate detail to represent Bird Man, Long Nosed God, Horned Serpents, Man-Eating Bird, Tie Snakes, and Water Cougar. Between them, hung from hooks, were gorgeous feather cloaks, colorfully dyed and embroidered fabric capes, shirts, and blankets that winked with a wealth of copper, shell, and mica sequins.

The Tishu Minkoʼs stool stood just behind the fire, its form covered with a blanket made of white heron feathers. Behind it, on the wall, hung a giant carving of the human hand, and within its palm, a single wide staring eye: the Seeing Hand. Guardian of the Sky Road to the Land of the Dead. The insignia of their people.

“Heʼs going to kill him,” Grape whispered miserably.

“Kill who?” Kosi Fighting Hawk asked. The fire lit his round face, tattooed as it was with the forked-eye design; a red bar across his cheek bones delineated his status as a chief. Kosi was the Tishu Minko, head chief of the Raccoon Clan who had married Motherʼs sister, Warm Fern. As such, Fighting Hawk wasnʼt their true uncle, or “mosi” but rather they referred to him by the term “kosi” which included any man married into their motherʼs lineage.

“Hickory.” Acorn gulped and shivered from the cold. “He told us to run. He stayed behind. He…he had Fatherʼs ax.”

“The ceremonial one?”

Acorn jerked a nod, aware of his uncleʼs growing unease.

Fighting Hawk rubbed his face. Then he looked absently up at the masks, murmuring, “If he catches Hickory so much as touching that ax, heʼll whip the boy to within a hair of his very life.”

“Kosi?” Grape asked, “Canʼt you do something?”

Fighting Hawk smiled warily. “Was he beating your mother?”

Both boys nodded in unison.

“Why she puts up with him defies any sense of logic or reason. It goes back to losing the war medicine. Power was broken when the Yuchi took it…and Hickoryʼs father.” With that he clapped his hands on his knees and stood up. “Here, let me find you a blanket. Warm up by the fire. Iʼll go see to Hickory. See if thereʼs anything I can do short of getting myself killed.”

“Are you a coward?” Acorn blurted, then clapped a hand to his mouth in horror.

Kosi Fighting Hawk turned. Not finding a blanket, he took down one of the feathered capes and fingered the warm garment thoughtfully. “A coward? No. Itʼs just that this thing with your father…itʼs complicated. Partly political, partly your motherʼs curious guilt. She blames herself for the death of Hickoryʼs father…for the loss of the war medicine.”

He walked over, settling the warm cloak over the boysʼ shoulders. “As much as we need your fatherʼs talent in war, your clansmen would have killed him but for your motherʼs pleas.” Uncle bent down to look into their eyes. “Remember this: No matter how tough and dangerous a man might be, there are always ways to eliminate him.”

“Is Father wrong?” Acorn asked.

“Wrong in the head, wrong in the souls. As wrong as a man can get.” Their uncle rose and walked to the far wall where he picked up a slender war ax. It was beautiful thing, the supple handle carved in the shape of a rattlesnake. The war head consisted of a double-bitted billet of beaten copper sharpened to a fine edge.

Fighting Hawk paused at the door, adding, “His souls are out of harmony, filled with chaos, pain, and rage.” His eyes narrowed. “Heʼs a dark man.” Then he stepped out into the wind-ravaged night.

Acorn stared at the fire and pressed closer to his brother. Grapeʼs shudders were as violent as his.

“Chaos!” They heard their uncleʼs faint call.

Grape met Acornʼs eyes. In one motion they flung off the feathered cape and raced out the door. A yellow gleam could be seen over the top of the palisade, but they ran to where Kosi Fighting Hawkʼs thick body was outlined in the portal. Crowding around his legs, they stared in disbelief at the sight.

Atop the High Minkoʼs mound from which they had just fled, the great palace burned like a monstrous torch. Wind-blown flames fed on the roof thatch; tongues of yellow ate at the heavy log framework that supported the building. Across the distance, Acorn could hear jars of hickory and bear oil exploding and adding to the inferno. Even as he watched the raging fire consume his only home, he could imagine his bow and arrows, all of his clothes, everything he had ever known, devoured by the intense heat.

The fireʼs gaudy yellow light illuminated the whole of Split Sky City; shadows leapt and wavered behind the mounds and buildings. They could see across the square—chunkey and stickball grounds flat and barren. The Tchkofa, the great Council House, looked like an odd, two-headed turtle behind its palisade. Houses, like little wedges, were scattered in a haphazard fashion under the far palisade. Distant people were already stepping out, braced against the wind, watching with horror.

And Mother and Father? Where they still in there?

Hickory? What of Hickory? As he watched, he longed desperately to see his older bother fleeing the flames, even if he had to roll down the sides of the high mound like a chunkey stone.

Another violent gust of wind ripped away part of the thatch roof. The flaming mass spiraled through the air to fall near the base of the Tchkofaʼs oval shaped mound. At that instant the remaining roof with its sculpted guardians dropped into the interior. A vomit of sparks and flame jetted up to twirl out over the city, dance, and die.

“May the Sky Beings save us,” Kosi whispered.

Another gust of wind hurled his words away as if theyʼd never been.

AUTHORʼS NOTE

People of the Weeping Eye and People of the Thunder are an anomaly in the “People” series. When the original manuscript for People of the Weeping Eye grew large, our publisher requested that we break the story into two. People of the Thunder continues the story of Old White, Trader, Morning Dew, and Two Petals. We have done our best to keep the tales independent, but recommend that the novels be read in sequence.

PEOPLE OF THE THUNDER

CHAPTER ONE

The Contrary—the woman once known as Two Petals—walked through the quiet night. Her moccasin-clad feet scuffed the plazaʼs trampled surface, the sound of leather on clay like the whisper of distant ghosts. Her straight body moved purposefully, rounded hips swaying. Black flowing hair swung even with her buttocks, and she clutched a beaverhide blanket closely about her shoulders. With each exhalation, she watched her breath fog and rise toward the black, star-encrusted sky. Overhead, the constellations seemed to shimmer and wink against the winter sky.

Around her, the great Yuchi capital known as Rainbow City slumbered. Even now the size of the city with its tall, building-topped mounds, thousands of homes, temples, society houses, and granaries amazed her. The cityʼs sleeping soul surrounded her like the low hum of insect wings. She could feel the immensity of it: all those thousands of souls breathing, mired in Dreams, their passions muted by sleep.

This was the western capital of the Yuchi—called the Tsoyaha in their own language. The city had been built on a high bluff overlooking the Tenasee River. The location had been chosen not only because it was well above the worst of the great riverʼs periodic floods, but it was strategically placed just below the riverʼs bend. Sheer heights on the east and north provided a natural defense, while the western and southern approaches were protected by a tall palisade bolstered by archersʼ platforms every twenty paces. Rainbow City controlled passage up and down the Tenasee,—the trade route carrying goods between the southeastern and northern river systems.

Though Two Petals had walked in the ghostly ruins of Cahokia and climbed its great mound, Rainbow City left her feeling humbled. Cahokia was a place of dried bones; Rainbow City flexed warm nerve and healthy muscle. It lived, thrived, and bristled with energy.

High temples, palaces, and society houses perched atop square earthen mounds capped by colored clays sacred to the Yuchi. The buildings reminded Two Petals of brooding guardians overlooking the empty plaza. The image was strengthened by steeply pitched thatch roofs that jutted arrogantly toward the heavens. Beyond them lay a packed maze of circular houses—their thickly plastered walls and roofs a uniquely Yuchi architectural form. The dark dwellings hunched in the night, as though weighted by the countless sleeping souls they sheltered.

The Contrary needed but close her eyes in order to sense the occupants. She experienced their Dreams the way an anchored rock knew the riverʼs current. The weight of their loves, hatreds, lusts, hungers, triumphs and fears flowed around her. Were she to surrender her control, all of those demanding souls would filter past her skin, slip through her ears, nostrils, and mouth. Like permeable soil her body and souls would absorb them. Then, in the manner of a saturated earthen dam, she would slowly give way, carried off in bits, pieces, and streamers by the flood.

“But I am not earth.” No, I am a great stone. I stand resolute, lapped only by the waves of their Dreams. Feel them, washing up against me, seeking a grasp, only to drain away before the next. Two Petals clasped her arms around her chest, hugging herself for reassurance.

She had come from a small Oneota village in the north, rescued from a charge of witchcraft by Old White. He was the legendary Seeker: the man who had traveled to the four corners of the world. Old White had chosen her to accompany him on this quest to the south. Sheʼd heard of the great cities—places like Red Wing Town—and even seen the abandoned sprawl that had been Cahokia. Nothing had prepared her for this concentration of humanity. On the night of her arrival, the mass of Rainbow Townʼs humanity had overwhelmed her. The impact had left her comatose, deafened, and paralyzed. Now, but dint of will alone, she barely kept panic at bay.

“You must learn to deal with what you have become,” Two Petals told herself. “Trouble is coming.”

She sighed, sensing the perpetual isolation of a person touched by Power. Forget the Dreams of others, her own were frightening enough. Not so many moons past, while in Cahokia, she had been carried away on Sister Daturaʼs arms—borne off to the Spirit World. The visions she had had of the future remained just behind her eyes, as clear as when sheʼd first seen them. Were she to beckon, they would come flowing forward. She would again see the terrible black-souled chief, his hand trembling as it reached out to caress her naked skin. Or know the guilt-stricken eyes of a woman whose bloody hands dripped red spatters onto hard ground while she trembled beneath the twists of fate. In other scenes an angry war chief led a thousand warriors through a deadly and silent forest. And finally, swirling water washed over a great scaled hide that shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow.

She fixed on that final image, staring into the serpentʼs great crystalline eye, as though looking through time and worlds into another reality. As she did, a faint Song began to fill her souls with a tremolo that echoed from her very bones. The melody rose and fell, lifting her spirits like a leaf on the breeze. Two Petals could feel herself rising, spinning, carried aloft on the vibrant notes. She began to Dance across the hard-packed plaza, arms undulating to the beat, souls swaying in time to her skipping feet. The Song played within her.

“Soon,” she promised, her body spinning in time to the melody.

As quickly as it had come, the Song faded, leaving her to stand alone and motionless in Rainbow Townʼs great plaza—but one more of the many shadows that mingled in the night. In that instant she felt utterly destitute.

“You are never truly alone,” a familiar voice remarked. Over the years, she had grown used to the voices that spoke in her head. Sometimes they told convincingly of things she knew were untrue. Other times, they offered a startling insight into the confused reality around her.

This voice, though, she knew. Two Petals turned, seeing the eerie outline of Deer Man. He stood off to the side, watching her through large liquid-brown eyes. In the beginning, it had bothered her that only she could see him. That he could be so apparent to her, but not to Trader or Old White had perplexed her. In the end, she simply accepted Deer Manʼs presence as a manifestation of her Contrary Power. Half man, half deer, he had a human face; deer antlers and ears sprouted from his head, and the sleek hair that covered his body could have graced a buckʼs winter hide.

Frowning, she studied him, wondering how he managed to balance on those slender deer legs that ended in delicately hoofed feet, or why he never left tracks in the soft dust or silty mud. Why the oddity of it continued to puzzle her was elusive. He was after all a Spirit being. She often had seen him standing on water, waves washing through his feet, and other times with his nether regions passing through some object like a pestle and mortar, cane wall, or fallen log. Like so many of the voices that spoke to her, or the Spirits, ghosts, and other oddities she saw, she had wondered if Deer Man were real.

“Real?” Deer Man asked, hearing her thoughts. “Are any of them real? Old White? Trader? The Kala Hiʼki?” He paused. “Are you real, Contrary?”

She tightened her arms around her, feeling the warm beaverhide cape, aware of the soft swell of her breasts, of the skin, muscle, and ribs beneath. The rise and fall of her chest with each breath she took reassured her.

“I am. At least for this moment.” She frowned. “Canʼt say for sure about tomorrow…or yesterday. Sometimes the world slips and shifts around me. It just up and moves, and I loose track of whatʼs what. Whoʼs whom. Things become muddled and rushed. Then, when it all stops, Iʼm not sure where I am, or how I got there.”

“Come. Let me show you something.” Deer Man turned, walking off toward the south.

Two Petals followed, head cocked as she watched his hoofed feet. Though Deer Man took long steps, his hooves never seemed to make actual contact with the earth; and though he moved at her speed, his feet seemed to be making faster progress than he was.

“How do you do that?”

“The same way every other creature does,” he answered. “It is no different than the way you move backward in time.”

Two Petals didnʼt answer. So many things were riddles. That the world ran backward around her was just one more.

“Still bothers you, doesnʼt it?”

“What?”

“That youʼre Contrary. That you can never be normal like Trader, Old White, or anyone else.”

She nodded. “A part of me, way deep down inside, still wants to be like normal people. But it is growing smaller and smaller. Soon, as we get closer to the end, it will shrink away completely. All that will be left is the Contrary. Two Petals will have been like a raindrop in the sunlight.”

“The Kala Hiʼki has helped. I can see it in you: a strength that you didnʼt know you possessed.”

She remembered the night when she, Trader, and Old White had first landed at Rainbow City. She had been frightened, overwhelmed by the images of a future that soon would be her past. The flood of souls around her had washed over and through her, drowning and suffocating. She wasnʼt sure exactly what had happened, but Trader had told her later that sheʼd cried out and fallen over. He said that sheʼd turned as stiff as wood, her muscles and joints locked and immovable. Heʼd carried her to the Kala Hiʼkiʼs temple like some sort of oddly shaped log. All she remembered was a thick blackness until sheʼd awakened in the Kala Hiʼkiʼs room. The terror of it was still too close.

Power had brought her here. Well, Power and the Kala Hiʼkiʼs not-too-friendly and well-armed warriors. During her long trip southward from her native Oneota lands, sheʼd caught glimpses of Kala Hiʼki. Even as far away as Cahokia, she had seen him in her visions: a terrible man, covered with burn scars, his nose slashed away to leave two gaping nostrils. He wore a cloth wrapped over the empty sockets of his eyes, and his maimed hand had reached out for her.

“He brought you here to destroy you,” Deer Man reminded.

“Instead he Healed me.”

“You were a mystery to him. Trader was merely a temptation. And Old White? Ah, in the end he would have been Kala Hiʼkiʼs destruction. Mystery, temptation, destruction. Such a curious combination Power weaves.”

“Old White is dangerous?”

“The Seeker is the most dangerous man alive. Not even the Kala Hiʼki fully understands the Seekerʼs obsession…or the dark secret he carries hidden between his souls.”

“Where are you taking me?” Two Petals asked as they passed the base of the Warrior Moietyʼs large temple. The structure had been built atop a square mound, the high building having a commanding view of the plaza. Protruding from the thatch roofʼs peak were carvings of Falcon, Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and Snapping Turtle, their dark eyes glaring down at her as though the very Spirit beasts themselves watched her.

“Weʼre going there.” Deer Man pointed past several houses to a large, square-sided structure that rose above a low mound. The walls beneath the overhanging thatch roof had been plastered black at the bottom with a red band just below the eaves. The spirit poles standing outside the west-facing doorway had been carved into the shape of vultures.

At that moment a shift in the night breeze carried the pungent odor of decay. “Itʼs a charnel house.”

“Oh, yes.” Deer Man inclined his antlered head, the pointed tines gleaming in the night. “Come, let me show you something.”

Two Petals glanced warily around at the darkened houses, corn cribs, and ramadas as she followed Deer Man to the entrance. Nothing stirred, the silence oddly discomforting.

Deer Man ducked into the low doorway, his wide antlers passing through the thick- plastered wall as if it were smoke.

Two Petals placed her hand on the unforgiving plaster, feeling its dense resistance. She shook her head, ducked past the door hanging, and emerged into a large room. Benches lined each wall, and raised platforms had been placed in rows throughout the center of the room. Most of these supported corpses in varying states of decomposition. The intense odor hung at the back of her nose and cloyed in her throat. She couldnʼt help but make a face.

“Why do you wince?” Deer Man asked. “You are a Contrary. The smell of death is just the odor of life turned backward.”

“I… Iʼm just not used to it.” She stepped forward, staring down at the closest of the bodies. This one had been a young man. His flesh sagged loosely on the bones, dry eyes recessed into the orbits of his skull. White teeth were bared behind hardened lips frozen in a rictus. Each of the manʼs ribs pressed out through the skin. His belly was a hollow, and the bones of the young manʼs hips seemed to jut up uncomfortably. His penis looked like a dried tuber, testicles like stones in the stretched scrotum. Flesh sagged on his thin thighs, the knees like knotted roots.

“He was young,” Deer Man told her. “They called him ‘Chiggar.ʼ Said he was a bit of a nuisance. He didnʼt pay attention to the curious black mold that was growing on old acorns. Anyone with sense would have thrown them out.”

Two Petals stared down at the wasted corpse. “Where are his souls?” She looked around, curious now as she cataloged the various bodies supine on the pole racks. Some were swollen with gas, others barely more than skeletons.

“Thatʼs what I brought you here to see. The souls are all around you, waiting. If you clear yourself of the noise made by the living, you will be able to recognize them.”

She gestured to the bodies. “What will the Yuchi do with them?”

“When the time is right, the High Priest will slice what little flesh remains from the bones. He will pick away the loose tendons, strip off the scalp and any clinging tissue. Once the bones are cleaned, they will be Blessed, tied together, and given to the family for final burial in one of their mounds. Or maybe laid to rest in a place where the souls of the dead will remain close by and can help protect the living from the dangers in the Spirit world.”

She tried to quiet her revulsion. As she did, she could make out the faintest yellow-orange objects, like dim lights glowing along the walls. Others hovered near the ceiling.

“Yes, you begin to see. Those are the souls of the Dead.”

“Why did you bring me here? I am not of these people. Why would my souls wish to lurk about watching my body rot? Who would I want to protect?”

“Exactly.” Deer Man smiled. “I wanted you to see how your body would end up should you fail to fulfill your Visions.”

“You mean if I donʼt find my husband?”

Deer Man smiled. “He will find you when the time is right. It is, however, your decision whether to go to him, or not. People fear him for a reason, and it will take an extraordinary woman to go willingly into his lair. I wanted you to understand what would happen if you surrendered yourself to fear, temptation, or desire. You dare not love, Contrary. You can only surrender yourself to the future.”

She reached down, placing a finger on the sunken flesh inside the bowl of Chiggarʼs hip. It gave, soft but leathery. When she withdrew her finger, the depression remained. She wondered what his souls thought of her poking him like that. Looking up, she saw two of the glowing lights drop, as though in concern. “Oh, I understand just fine, Deer Man.”

“Are you sure?”

“I just have to take the most terrible man alive into my bed. And keep him from discovering what is happening right beneath his nose.” And if I fail. We will all die, and end up in a charnel house just like this one.

* * *

From Rainbow Town, one could paddle up the Tenasee until it made its great eastern bend. By ascending one of the several tributaries that drained from the south, travelers could canoe their way up to the headwaters, then portage across the densely forested hills to the headwaters of the Black Warrior River. Tumbling through the hills, the Black Warrior flowed south until it reached the fall line. There, after the last rapids, the river settled into a broad floodplain. The broken, forested uplands gave way to rolling country. The current grew lazy as the Black Warrior pursued its sinuous path toward the gulf. Backswamps, thick with baldcypress and tupelo, were dotted with canebrakes; and yellow lotus, cattails, and duckweed thrived. Hanging moss draped from low branches. Higher ground—on the terraces below the hills—with sandy, better drained soils had long been home to the Albaamaha People.

It was said that the Albaamaha had come from deep in the earth, following the roots of the great World Tree to reach the earthʼs surface. There, half the people emerged from one side of the root to become the Albaamaha, the other half—separated from their brethren—called themselves the Koasati.

From the time of the emergence, the Albaamaha had farmed the Black Warrior terraces. In the dark forests of the surrounding uplands they hunted deer, wild turkey, and other forest game. The woodlands, rich in hickory, oak, and persimmons, had provided bountiful nut harvests from which the Albaamaha rendered food and oil. From the swamps they had taken roots, cane, waterfowl, and other game. The river provided fish, freshwater mussels, and clams. Up and down the river, the Albaamaha had built their bent-pole houses, thatched them with shocks of local grasses, and warred and squabbled among themselves for generations.

Then the Sky Hand had come—a Mosʼkogean People from the great Father Water to the west. The Sky Hand had made their way down the Black Warrior River, following an advance of warriors. At a high bluff that dominated a bend in the river, they made their new home. Immediately they began the construction of Split Sky City. Many Albaamaha welcomed the Sky Hand, brokering alliances with the newcomers as a means of settling age-old vendettas against surrounding villages. Cunning, and skilled in political manipulations, the Sky Hand pitted one Albaamaha village against another. Too late, the Albaamaha realized that their new benefactors had come, not to share the land, but to rule it. Some Albaamaha resisted. The poorly organized farmers and hunters were no match for trained and disciplined Sky Hand warriors. Within a generation, any Albaamaha resistance had been crushed, and the Sky Hand moved quickly to take advantage of Albaamaha labor in the construction of their great new city overlooking the Black Warrior River. Within twenty years land had been cleared, surveyed, earthworks erected, and the first palaces and temples built.

Nor did they stop there, but expanded up and down the river, building new settlements and installing chiefs to oversee the Albaamaha lands. The Albaamaha had no where to go. To the west lay the intimidating Chahta, another invading Mosʼkogee nation. To the south, the Pensacola brooked no intrusion into their territory. Though cousins, the Koasati resisted the temptation to accept refugees, worried enough about holding their own lands. In the east, the Ockmulgee and Talapoosie peoples were just as dangerous as the Sky Hand. Going north into the Yuchi lands was unthinkable. The Yuchi had raided the Albaamaha for generations, taking spoils, scalps, and slaves.

Resigned but resentful, the Albaamaha had no choice but to accept their new overlords. The Sky Hand, for their part, provided protection from raids, enforced peace between the Albaamaha villages, and ensured order and security. In return the Albaamaha were required to expand their farms—the majority of the produce to be delivered as tribute to the high minko, or supreme ruler, of the Sky Hand. All the backbreaking work—building, logging, carrying, and earth moving—was done by Albaamaha labor.

The greatest accomplishment of Albaamaha sweat and tears was the construction of Split Sky City, a complex of high palaces, council houses, and temples built atop large earthen mounds and laid out according to moiety and clan, each in its place. Hickory Moiety and its clans lay to the east, Old Camp Moiety to the west. A great central plaza was dominated by the tchkofa, or Council House. The entire city was surrounded on three sides by a defensive wall of pitch-pine logs, four times the height of a man. On the north, where Split Sky City overlooked the river, the slopes below the bluff were cut sheer to prohibit any kind of organized assault. Gangs of Albaamaha had logged the surrounding countryside, clearing forests for fields, and delivering wood, cane, and thatch to teams who constructed Split Sky Cityʼs edifices.

Once built, a city consumes like a voracious beast. A steady stream of Albaamaha bore food, water, firewood, clay, stone, thatch, and wood into the city. Each fall, at harvest, lines of Albaamaha carried basket after basket of corn, beans, squash, sunflower seeds, lotus root, goosefoot, and forest nuts to the elevated granaries. So, too, came fish, clams, wildfowl, and meat. Any surplus such as tanned hides, matting, cordage, shell, feathers, or other things the Sky Hand might fancy were brought to Sky Hand City to be traded for brightly dyed fabrics, ceremonial ceramics, talismans, or special services such as Healing or divination that the Sky Hand had mastered.

The Sky Hand specialized in higher pursuits such as sculpting, ceramics, the arts of religion and Healing, politics, games, and most of all, war. Among all the peoples in the southeast, Sky Hand warriors were the most highly trained, disciplined, and deadly. Neighboring peoples, even the irascible Yuchi, quickly came to the conclusion that maintaining peaceful relations with the Sky Hand tended to be the sanest course of action. At least most of the time. Power, after all, had to be kept in balance. Insults of any kind required immediate and violent response. Failure to do so affected Spiritual health of the people. Any sign of weakness invited exploitation by the chaotic forces of the red Power.

The notion of Power preoccupied the Mosʼkogee Peoples. While Creation was separated into the Sky World, Earth, and Underworld, the Power that flowed through it consisted of the white Power of order, peace, serenity, contemplation, happiness, and security. Itʼs equal and opposite was red: the Power of chaos, war, creativity, procreation, lust, ambition, and desire. While the great Priests—called Hopaye by the Sky Hand—taught that all Power had to be kept in balance, many utilized a specific Power for their own ends.

One such man was the Sky Hand war chief. His full name was Smoke Shield Mankiller, of the Chief Clan of the Hickory Moiety. As the high minkoʼs nephew, War Chief Smoke Shield was next in line to assume the high minkoʼs position. Smoke Shield needed two things: The first was for his uncle, High Minko Flying Hawk, to die, or step aside. That it would happen was but a matter of time. Second, but of even greater importance, Smoke Shield needed confirmation by the Sky Hand Council. That was key. The high minko might rule, but only with the assent of the Council. This was made up of the clan chiefs from both the Hickory and Old Camp moieties.

Nothing a man did was accomplished without the Blessing of Power, let alone being confirmed as high minko. Smoke Shield had long ago made his bargain with the red Power. In return for his devotion, it had granted him each and every one of his desires.

Smoke Shield had little use for the prattling teachings of the Hopaye. The current one was a Panther Clan man called Pale Cat. Dedicated to tranquility, order, and reason, Pale Cat served the white Power. He and Smoke Shield had despised each other since they were boys. Things had grown worse in the years since Smoke Shield had married Heron Wing, Pale Catʼs sister. Smoke Shield had used red Power to win the woman. Lies and manipulation had allowed him to prevail over his long-gone brother Green Snake, but in the end, Smoke Shield emerged victorious, having caused his brotherʼs exile, claimed the woman Green Snake loved, and secured succession to the high minkoʼs panther-hide chair. Smoke Shield had an ugly scar that marred his head as proof that Power never gave its gifts freely.

As he considered that, Smoke Shield fingered the deep scar, remembering the blow his brother had given him. But for it, he would have been a handsome man. Then again, what did a man need beauty for when he was muscular, and quick of mind and body. Smoke Shield was in the process of living through his twenty-sixth winter. Despite the ugly scar, his face was tattooed with a Chief Clan bar across his cheeks. Forked-eye designs had been tattooed around each eye—the one on the left a little distorted by his long-healed wound. This day he wore his hair in a tight bun at the back of his head, three little white arrows, the highest honor bestowed upon a warrior, had been stuck through his hair. A single warriorʼs forelock hung down over his forehead and was decorated with three gleaming white beads. He wore an eagle-feather cape over his bare shoulders, and a white warriorʼs apron had been tied at his waist, its long tail hanging suggestively down between his knees.

Smoke Shield stood at the northeastern margin of Split Sky Cityʼs great plaza. Just to his left the high minkoʼs mound rose up in a flat-topped pyramid of earth to support the mighty palace where he and Uncle Flying Hawk held sway. Off to his right, and slightly behind him, the Tishu Minko, a man called Seven Dead, chief of the Raccoon Clan, had his palace. The plaza itself was flat, dominated by the stickball grounds that ran east to west just behind the red-and-white-striped Tree of Life—a pole that represented the great tree at the Spiritual center of their world. To either side of that were clay chunkey courts where stone disks were rolled before men attempted to spear them with lances.

Despite the throngs of passing people, busy with their lives, Smoke Shieldʼs attention was fixed on the line of wooden squares that stood empty along the plaza margin. He stood before one in particular. Made of hickory logs, the uprights set deeply into the earth, it was one of five. The square was composed of two uprights with cross-pieces lashed across the top and bottom. It left a man-sized frame that would support a human body. Captives were tied inside the open square—wrists to each of the upper corners, ankles to the lower—so that their naked, spread-eagle bodies could be beaten, burned, mutilated, and otherwise abused.

On either side, Smoke Shield could see the other empty squares. Not so long ago, men had hung from them. He frowned, thinking of the captive who had died within the empty frame before him. His name had been Screaming Falcon. Heʼd once been the White Arrow Chahtaʼs most promising young war chief.

Until I plucked him right out of his house, along with his high minko and the Chahta priests, and took him prisoner. Smoke Shield had also burned White Arrow Town to the ground and stolen its matron, Screaming Falconʼs young wife Morning Dew. She had become the matron when Since Smoke Shield killed her mother during the raid. Her brother, Biloxi Mankiller—who had also hung from one of the squares—had been the Chahta high minko. In a stroke, Smoke Shield had decapitated the White Arrow leadership, and dealt the Chahta a stinging blow.

He smiled as he remembered the glorious procession his warriors had made as they arrived at Split Sky City, marching their captives up from the canoe landing, past the Old Camp Moiety Mounds, and around the sacred tchkofa, the Council House where the Sky Hand MosʼKogee deliberated and conducted their governmental business. Yes, that had been a glorious day.

And it would only be the beginning!

He reached out, fingering the wood, remembering Screaming Falconʼs misery and horror as he had hung, right here, in this very wooden square. The young manʼs face had looked lopsided from his broken and swollen jaw, and his flesh had been mottled, blistered, brown, and cracked from where split-cane torches had been pressed against his flesh.

“I should have paid better attention to you,” Smoke Shield whispered to the empty wood. “Instead I was too preoccupied with your wife.”

Pus and rot, what a disappointment. Heʼd planned the whole White Arrow Town raid around stealing Morning Dew. Once sheʼd looked at him with the same disdain sheʼd have given a worm in a fruit. After heʼd taken her from Screaming Falcon, burned her town, captured her high minko brother, and wrought every other indignity upon her, sheʼd just surrendered herself to him without a fight.

What was the point of trying to break a woman who was already compliant?

“I expected more of you, Morning Dew.” He cast a glance over his shoulder, across the corner of the plaza to where his first wifeʼs house stood. These days Heron Wing owned Morning Dew. The thought of it rankled. Not so much the loss of his slave, but the way of it.

He turned back, peering closely at the heavy wood square, seeing the dark patterns where blood had stained the wood.

Everything changed that night.

He remembered the fog: thick and clinging, so dense a man could hardly see his hand before his face. All of his irritation had been focused on Morning Dew, on the way she lay under him, as unresponsive to his thrusting manhood as a soggy cloth. And while he was wetting his shaft in Morning Dew, someone was out here in the foggy night, sneaking past the guard to drive a stone sword into Screaming Falconʼs heart and then sever his genitals from his body.

“War Chief, I wanted to cut them off myself, just for the pleasure of watching your wifeʼs horrified expression as I handed them to her.” Perhaps that would have spurred some sort of violent reaction out of her. But someone had beaten him to it.

But who? That single act of murder had robbed the Sky Hand Mosʼkogee of revenge on their victims. No claim had been made by any of the subservient Albaamaha. Not so much as a rumor floated among the Traders. What kind of miscreant would commit such a desperate act and then not utilize it as a means of belittling the Sky Hand?

Smoke Shield ran his finger over the deep pucker of his scar.

It had to be the Albaamaha. They still chafed under the humiliation of serving their Mosʼkogee masters. He already knew they had tried to betray the White Arrow Town raid to the Chahta. They had to be behind the captivesʼ murder. Anyone else would have bragged about it. Such a triumph would be shouted up and down the trails.

In and effort to discover the culprits, Smoke Shield had taken Councilor Red Awl, and his wife, Lotus Root, captive. In a rude shelter, up above Clay Crossing, he and the warrior Fast Legs had tortured the Albaamo mikko, and learned nothing.

Then it had all gone wrong. Red Awl and Lotus Root had escaped. He and Fast Legs, had found the mikko later, dead of his wounds; but the woman…gods, where was she?

He reached out and placed his hand on the wood, feeling the polish of years. So many bodies had been tied here. “Screaming Falcon?” he asked softly. “Who killed you?”

If he could only figure that out, he could retaliate. It had to be the Albaamaha! Theyʼd been stewing with revolt for years. Heʼd caught the Albaamo traitor, Crabapple, who had been sent to warn White Arrow Town. The man had confessed—implicating an old Albaamo named Paunch—as the conspirator. So could the mysterious and missing Paunch be behind the ultimate outrage of killing the captives?

“Where are you, Paunch? Wherever it is, I will find you eventually.”

He narrowed an eye, letting his finger chip some of the caked blood from the square. When he found Paunch, the man would talk. Perhaps he even had something to do with Smoke Shieldʼs Hickory Moiety losing the winter solstice stickball game. He had bet everything on that game—and lost it all. His wealth, clothing, shell and copper…even Morning Dew.

He shot a narrow glance back at his wifeʼs house across the plaza. How had she known to bet against him? In collusion with the Albaamaha? No, that was ridiculous. Heron Wing was much too influential in Panther Clan politics. Sheʼd just bet against him because she knew it would irritate him. Gods, why had he ever married that woman?

“Forget it,” he told himself. “Taking her as a wife was your first great triumph. Your attention now must be on breaking the Albaamaha.”

He took a deep breath, turning from the empty square. He would have his revenge. And somewhere, up in the north, his most trusted warrior, Fast Legs, was even now running the missing Lotus Root to ground. Fast Legs would already have disposed of Red Awlʼs body. When the woman was dead—and the stolen weapons sheʼd taken from Smoke Shield returned—then and only then, would he begin to wreak havoc on the Albaamaha.

Fast Legs, what is taking you so long?