“How are you doing?” Seven Skull Shield asked.
It was a fair question, and it caught Fire Cat off guard as he spooned baked squash from a gourd container. He was just finishing it after having demolished a freshwater clam stew made on a goosefoot-seed stock, spiced with wild onions, greens, and hominy. That had been preceded by fire-roasted fingers of swan breast wrapped in steamed grape leaves.
“I couldn’t eat another bite. The food is magnificent.” He looked around Crazy Frog’s yard and at the other chunkey players who sat in ranks around the great fire where Mother Otter handed out bowls of the most savory treats. The yard fronted an imposing two-story house more suited to a lord than a common gambler. Two wooden mortars stood to the side, and a spacious ramada filled the space where normal people would have had their garden.
Fire Cat had been introduced to Crazy Frog’s five wives, and to his flock of children aged eleven on down. The extent of Crazy Frog’s wealth was just sinking in. Five wives? The resources necessary to support them and their children? Not to mention that all of the furnishings, ceramics, the clothes Crazy Frog’s family wore, the jewelry, and imposing house would have challenged a chief’s resources. Yet Crazy Frog was nothing more than a footloose ruffian akin to the thief and his ilk?
“You come here often to eat?”
Seven Skull Shield’s sigh was the sort he’d waste on an idiot. “I never eat here. We’re here because I paid for us to be. That sack I picked up at the Keeper’s? It bought you an afternoon of playing chunkey. The fact that we’re invited to eat? That’s because Crazy Frog is no one’s fool. He knows that you’re close to the heart of Morning Star House politics, tied to Lady Night Shadow Star. The story of her cutting you down from the square at Piasa’s insistence, the fact that you saved her life? That she went out of her way to retrieve your clothes?”
Fire Cat felt his ears burn as he watched two of Crazy Frog’s younger wives picking up wooden bowls from the fancy-dressed chunkey players. He hadn’t caught their names, just Mother Otter’s. Nor was he surprised that the other players, including Skull Pinner and Lightning Lance, both of whom he’d played that afternoon, barely wasted a glance in his direction. Not only was he dressed like a common man, but he’d lost every match he’d played.
If anything, they were no doubt wondering what had possessed Crazy Frog to stoop to inviting “Wounded Dog” to join the winners at his evening gathering.
As Seven Skull Shield rubbed his ugly dog’s ears, Mother Otter stopped before them. She crossed her arms under her full breasts and glared down at the thief with obvious distaste. That earned her special points in Fire Cat’s opinion.
Then she turned her attention to him, saying, “Wounded Dog? My husband would like to see you. Thief? If you value your sweat-stinking hide, you’ll stay right where you are.”
“But Mother Otter”—Seven Skull Shield spread his arms wide—“I’ve never been a nuisance, let alone been allowed to wander around to admire all of your wonderful things.”
“Which is why all of our possessions are still ours. When you’re around, not even a red-hot hearth stone is safe from your fast fingers.”
“You just can’t resist my charm, can you? That’s why you say these things. As if you’re trying to talk yourself out of feelings you can’t deny.”
“A steaming pile of fresh feces behind a charnel house has more charm than you do, thief. Now stay put. And keep that dog out of trouble.” She made a disgusted humph. “Figures. He’s the only man alive could find a dog uglier and more unsavory than he is.”
Fire Cat climbed warily to his feet as Mother Otter studied him suspiciously.
“You’re a friend of his?” She hooked a thumb at the grinning thief.
“Usually, when I think about Seven Skull Shield, I’m imagining how it would feel to split his head with an ax.”
Her faint smile didn’t extend to her eyes. “You, I might like.”
She led him toward the house, arriving at the door just as Crazy Frog emerged surrounded by five children. They were laughing, pulling at his apron, and hanging onto his legs.
“Go on!” He waved them off, shaking a particularly persistent five-year-old from his right leg. “I’ve got business with Wounded Dog.”
He grinned as the children ran giggling and shrieking toward the fire. Then he turned his attention to Fire Cat. “You got enough to eat?”
Fire Cat shot a glance at Mother Otter, who’d again crossed her arms, concerned dark eyes taking his measure. “The meal was the match to the finest I’ve ever eaten.” He touched his forehead as he bowed to Mother Otter. “Superb.”
For the first time her expression thawed.
“Come.” Crazy Frog led him around the seated chunkey players. They called greetings and praises to which Crazy Frog replied with a good-natured banter. Stepping under the ramada he gestured to the blankets and seated himself.
Fire Cat dropped, propping his arms on his knees, unsure of what was coming next.
“I live for chunkey,” Crazy Frog told him with a smile. “Most of this”—he gestured around at his grounds—“comes from my winnings. I have other interests, of course, but the game is my passion. Perhaps because myself, I have no talent for it. I can’t roll a stone in a straight line or throw a lance well enough to keep it in the court. Couldn’t do it if it meant saving the lives of my children. But I’ve spent my life watching, learning how to evaluate a player and what his chances of winning are.”
He gave Fire Cat a distasteful wince. “The smart ones now wait to see who my agents bet on before placing their own bets. I have ways of dealing with that. Playing them against themselves. Otherwise they ruin the odds.”
“The thief says you can help me.”
“That’s up to you.”
“What’s wrong with my game? Have I been witched? Perhaps by the Natchez? Or by foreign Itza magic? I used to play better than this.”
Crazy Frog steepled his fingers and studied Fire Cat in the dying afternoon light. Squeals from the playing children mixed with laughter as the chunkey players shared a joke. Hopefully it wasn’t at his expense.
“When it comes to chunkey, Power gifts some men over others.” Crazy Frog hesitated, and Fire Cat’s breath caught. It was insane. What did a commoner, a gambler who didn’t even play the game, know?
Crazy Frog then added, “You are such a gifted man.”
“But I keep—”
“Losing. Yes. I’ve heard Seven Skull Shield’s version of the story. About Piasa and the lady you serve. Now you tell me. And if you expect me to help you, you must open your very souls. So, just what exactly is at stake?”
“Everything,” Fire Cat whispered.
Nevertheless, he hesitated. How did he tell this stranger, this parasite on the underbelly of Cahokia, how much hung in the balance? Open his heart? To Crazy Frog?
“I am the last of the Red Wing,” he began, figuring to skirt the sensitive parts, but once the words started, they just seemed to keep coming, flowing out of his soul as he tried to explain his worry, his failure, and ultimate humiliation.
“I can’t see how beating the Natchez that day would have made a difference,” Fire Cat finally admitted. “How winning his lance and stone would have stopped the marriage and defeated the Itza. But I lost. Saving our world now falls on Night Shadow Star’s shoulders. She married a man who will destroy her and Cahokia. And I am here, wondering at the depths of my own desperation.”
Crazy Frog nodded, as if some critical bit of information had fallen into place.
“The problem isn’t magic or foreign Power. It’s you, Red Wing. Down deep in your souls.”
“What?”
Crazy Frog smiled grimly. “Confront your greatest fear.”
“That the Itza will win?”
“You delude yourself. The thing that terrifies you is that you will not live up to the expectations of others. I don’t know the ways of Power, but I do know chunkey and chunkey players.” He waved at the players seated in a ring around the fire. “Why do you think I spend so much time with them? I want to know them, what they think, how their souls work. Why one wins and another loses. Perhaps you had to lose to the Natchez. Perhaps you had to be forced into what you call the depths of your own desperation as a means of bringing you here. I’ll leave that up to the priests.”
“You think I can beat the Natchez?”
“First, you have to beat yourself.”
“Beat myself? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Of course it does. Tomorrow morning. At false dawn. Meet me at the courts. We’ll start with the basics. How you hold the stone. Timing your release. Shifting the lance.”
“But I know all those things.”
“No, you don’t. Otherwise you would have won today’s matches.”
“And if you can fix my game, what do you get out of it?”
Crazy Frog smiled, eyes narrowing. “If you can reach the potential I think you have, I’ll make a small fortune betting against the Natchez. If you don’t measure up to what I know is within you, I won’t even bother to wager against you.”