THE BITTER FIGHTING ESCALATED. DE SOTO CONTINUED TO BURN screaming human beings in his bonfires and to maim the occasional unfortunate warrior. And by doing so, he fed the rage burning red in Apalachee hearts.
The stories of courage and resourcefulness are many and compelling. I was born Chicaza, taught to believe that no people on earth share our bravery or commitment to war. Of that, I am no longer sure. I watched individual Apalachee take the fight to the Kristianos at every level. Warriors beyond hope used whatever they had at hand, even broken arrows, to attack the monster.
We helped in any way we could, offering labor to construct elaborate traps for cabayos, digging pitfalls along trails, planting sharpened posts in deep grass, and then taking turns inciting cabayeros to chase us into the ambushes. In each case we might kill one or two, and perhaps maim a cabayo. Then, when the Kristiano horns called for reinforcements, like mist after a rain, we would filter away through the brush.
Fire Falcon used every trick he knew and then created more. He learned, changed his tactics, adapted.
But so did the Kristianos; rarely did they fall for the same trap twice. Pearl Hand once had warned me that eventually their arrogance would be replaced by caution. That day had come.
I remember the morning—three weeks before the spring equinox—when de Soto finally had enough.
Pearl Hand and I were cooking breakfast as dawn grayed the east. Someone had given us a pot full of dried corn. We’d let the kernels soak overnight and had them boiling. Blood Thorn crouched opposite us, inspecting a batch of the stubby little crossbow arrows he’d taken from a wounded Kristiano.
Wide Antler sat down at the creek, head back, palms up to the sky as he offered his prayers to Power. Corn Thrower returned from his morning bath. Walking Thunder still lay in his blankets.
The dogs—looking lean—were wondering the same thing I was: How much of the corn were they going to get? Rations were scarce all the way around. With the forested sections infested with warriors, the game had fled. Every small lake in the area had been fished to exhaustion with nets. Nor did hunting migratory waterfowl provide much in the way of meat. It took time and exposed warriors to Kristiano patrols. Most food came from the surrounding areas, borne in on human backs and distributed by Fire Falcon. Not that there was much of that, either. Most people had lost their winter food stores to Kristiano raiding parties and been forced into the woods to hunt, dig roots, and collect nuts.
I was contemplating this state of affairs when Fire Falcon’s youthful runner appeared. The dogs were immediately on their feet, barking to greet the newcomer.
The youth touched his forehead, saying, “Greetings, Peliqua. The tastanaki asks that you and Pearl Hand join him at the lookout tree. Something is happening in Anhaica.”
I stood, asking, “Blood Thorn? Can you keep an eye on breakfast?”
“What little there is is way too precious to let scorch,” he said, waving us off.
The youth was already headed up the trail as I took Pearl Hand’s hand in mine and started after him. “What do you think?”
She gave me a sidelong glance. “Wouldn’t it be nice if de Soto is packing up to take his accursed army to the coast and sail away on the floating palaces?”
We’d seen a large party take off for the coast days before. Scouts reported that they were headed to the ships waiting there and that cargo was being carried by boat and loaded. To the watching Apalachee, it appeared that the Kristianos were making preparations to leave.
We knew they were up to something. The number of patrols had dropped. Woodcutting parties had ceased foraging. Scouts sneaking in close at night noticed that packs and boxes were being prepared.
At the base of the beech tree, I climbed the ladder—a much more substantial thing than the wobbly pole that had preceded it. Throughout the winter, endless climbers had worn the bark off the old tree’s branches, and every Y had a platform tied to it for observers to rest on.
We made our way as close to the top as the number of people would allow. The great tree had to have half of the tastanaki’s warriors in it, as if they were a weird fruit.
I helped Pearl Hand up next to me, feeling the branch sway with our weight. Then we turned our eyes toward Anhaica. The sight was reassuring. Instead of armored riders, the cabayos were being loaded with packs. Even the cabayeros were carrying burdens on their backs. The line of remaining slaves were chained, packs on their backs, and already moving. We could see the soldados, too, bent under heavy burdens.
“They’re leaving!” someone above us called.
“Which way?” a nicoquadca called up from the ground below. “South? Please, let it be south!”
I shook my head. “It’s north, maybe northeast.”
We watched, speculation running rampant, as the long line formed up, seeming to march at a snail’s pace down the trail that led toward Many Oaks town. But why they went that way was anyone’s guess since they’d looted Many Oaks long ago.
Fire Falcon called down from his high perch. “Black Shell? What do you think? Is it a trap?”
“Tastanaki, if it’s a trap, it’s a poor one. They’re leaving Anhaica and its fortifications. The cabayos are being used as pack animals, led by their riders. I’d say they’re leaving for good.”
“But northeast?” Pearl Hand mused.
“And his boats are leaving, too,” I said thoughtfully, trying to make sense of it.
For a hand’s time we clung to our perch until the long column wound out of sight. Then, one by one, we climbed down.
A knot of us gathered at the bottom of the tree as Fire Falcon made his way down. His feet touched the ground and he stopped, his face a mask of indecision.
“What,” he asked, “is in the northeast?”
As we all thought about it, silence stretched.
I felt Horned Serpent’s brow tine warm, and then a thought came to me. “Remember how the monster captured a trader, White Mat? With him was a boy, Periko, who told de Soto that gold could be found in Cofitachequi.”
Fire Falcon gave me an incredulous look. “And de Soto believed him?”
I shrugged. “If you told a Kristiano that gold could be found on the moon, they’d start building a ladder to reach it.”
“What are your orders, Tastanaki?” one of the nicoquadca asked.
Fire Falcon arched an eyebrow. “Detail scouts. The rest of us will follow . . . shall we say, urging them along? What we don’t want to do is scare them into returning to Anhaica. Meanwhile, as soon as the capital is clearly abandoned, I want it burned, flattened. Not a structure or wall standing that they could return to.”
“Yes, Tastanaki.” Warriors immediately ran for their weapons.
I sighed, looking at Pearl Hand. “Let’s go eat and pack. We’re going to have a long march, and the dogs aren’t up to covering long distances.”
She gave me a smile, saying, “I know that country up there. I think de Soto is in for a tough time.”
“As long as the Hichiti Nations aren’t more interested in trying to kill each other, de Soto will find them a formidable foe.”
When we left our camp later that morning, I looked at our small group. Apalachee had cost us a lot. De Soto, however, was heading into the interior. After all the death and fighting, what had we actually cost him?
As we walked out into the open—feeling oddly vulnerable—the first columns of smoke were rising over Anhaica. Throughout the day the plume would mark its location, a somber reminder of what the monster left in his wake.
De Soto didn’t get out of Apalachee unscathed. He lost six men—a seventh was badly wounded—when the soldados wandered out to see the sights. Otherwise his column received the occasional long-distance arrow, just enough to keep them awake.
For our part, we barely traveled as fast, spending most of our time hunting, searching for food, anything to keep five humans and four dogs fed. We ate a lot of roots: cattail, thorny walking stick, arrow-leaf root, and so on. They take time to clean, peel, pound, and boil. Farmsteads had been picked clean, mostly by their owners, who were hiding in the forest. We picked up a lot of last year’s nuts, but most had gone bad or were wormy. Spring shoots, however, especially goosefoot, were coming up, so that helped.
Even Wide Antler remarked that a stint in Cane Place town didn’t seem so bad now.
Rain came with a passion, and we lost a day searching up and down the Bald Duck River, until we stumbled upon a local who dug out his hidden canoe. He’d been watching from the trees the day before as the Kristianos crossed the same flood-swollen waters. He delighted us with the knowledge that one of the armored Kristianos had fallen in and drowned.
There are advantages to being a trader: I knew the trails. De Soto, following his guides—most of whom were captives, prodded on at the point of a sword—headed straight into the swamps.
The people who lived there—called the Capacheeki—were an offshoot of the Apalachee. Years past they had broken away after a nasty little civil war to find security in the mosquito-infested swamps. There they fished, hunted alligators, and grew a little corn. While the Capacheeki occasionally traded with the Apalachee, they certainly weren’t interested in establishing relations with anyone. Even the traders avoided them. And of course they’d undoubtedly heard the stories of what was happening around Anhaica, so I welcomed the thought of de Soto’s men being used for Capacheeki target practice.
Rather than wade through the muck, I led the way around, sticking to the highland trails. As we proceeded, I kept noticing Walking Thunder. The man kept casting longing glances to the south, unease in his manner. Nor was he the only one. Corn Thrower, too, had lost his usual easygoing ways. And anxiety had come to rest in Wide Antler’s normally crazed eyes. In camp at night, the three Orphans tended to isolate themselves, praying, making offerings to the ancestors.
One night I asked Blood Thorn about it.
“They worry, Peliqua. Until the arrival of de Soto, they had never even considered going as far away as Apalachee, let alone to a land this distant.”
“I fear we are going farther.”
Blood Thorn gave me a reassuring smile. “They will be fine. It’s just an adjustment.”
After six days’ travel we entered the thicket-like no-man’s-land that marked the northern border of the Hichiti Nation called Toa.
The Toa were Mos’kogeans speaking the Hichiti dialect. When not battling with other Hichiti—the Ochisi and Ocute, who occupied contiguous river valleys—they periodically raided the Apalachee, the Timucuan peoples to the south, and the mighty Coosa to the north.
The Hichiti Nations were strung in parallel strands along the major river drainages running down from the mountains, each having a capital city where a high mikko held sway. Smaller towns were ruled in the high mikko’s name by a relative who served as the local mikko. Villages and farmsteads filled out the valleys. Matrilineal clans owned different farm plots and hunting, collecting, and fishing grounds. From the lowliest forest farmer, tribute flowed up, eventually ending in the high mikko’s elevated granaries. In return, the high mikko and his councilors redistributed the stores in times of famine, provided military protection against raids, and ensured that the people were on good terms with the supernatural.
When a high mikko died, his palace was burned, the locals summoned, and a new layer of earth added atop the ashes. Then the people pitched in, building a new palace, furnishing it with benches, boxes, and carvings. Each leader wanted a more imposing palace than his predecessors, so the new building had to be taller, with more rooms and increasingly opulent furnishings.
I removed my trader’s staff from its quiver, carrying it before me. Walking in the presence of three Timucua, I wanted no mistakes as to our identity or purpose, and we had no idea of de Soto’s whereabouts. Hopefully he was dreadfully lost in the swamps or the hilly forest that separated Toa from the reclusive Capacheeki.
Then—of course—we took a wrong trail, finally stumbling out three days later at a farmstead. The people were reserved, wary of the Orphans, and happy to provide us with directions to the nearest town in exchange for a couple of pieces of shell.
“Do these people practice witchery, Peliqua?” Walking Thunder asked.
“No more than any other,” I answered. “They’re Mos’kogean, believing much the same as the Apalachee.”
Heading south on the trail, we began encountering locals. They in turn sent us to a mikko who held sway at Black Stone town, the northern Toa outpost.
The word for “town” is talwa and to the Mos’kogean peoples, it means more than just a collection of buildings. The talwa is a social entity—another of the fibers woven through the fabric of society. First comes the individual, then his family. The family belongs to a clan, and the clan to a moiety. Those are the vertical, or warp, threads. The weft—or horizontal connections—can be thought of as linkages across kin lines, such as village affiliation, membership in the talwa, and finally membership in the Nation itself. Even people in villages and dispersed farmsteads thought of their first political affiliation as belonging to the talwa. A small talwa might have an oreta, or village elder. A larger talwa had a mikko in charge.
We walked through farmsteads where people worked to prepare their fields for spring planting. And as we emerged from the last band of timber, there lay Black Stone town. We entered the outskirts just in time to see people loading baskets of corn into canoes down at the landing.
The town itself sat just back from the river, dominated by a low mound with the mikko’s palace. The building rose above a cluster of daub-walled houses roofed with split cane. Granaries poked up here and there on tall posts.
The arrival of unexpected visitors slowed but didn’t entirely stop the proceedings. As we made our way to the plaza, people flocked around; I held my trader’s staff high, ordering the dogs to behave as the local mutts came swarming to see.
The mikko descended wooden stairs from his steep-roofed palace, its ridgepole adorned with sculptures of ivory-billed woodpeckers. He was a middle-aged man with some gray in his roached hair. The falcon motif of the ruling moiety was tattooed on his face. A well-rounded belly demonstrated that he’d taken to a lifestyle filled with food and leisure.
Wearing a black apron, his shoulders covered with a raven-feather cloak, he walked stately forward, an old chipped stone mace in his hands. I could see the question in his eyes. Foreign traders were rare enough in this day and age, those arriving at a lesser town even more so.
“Greetings, Mikko,” I called, raising the trader’s staff high. “I am Black Shell, of the Chicaza. With me are my wife, Pearl Hand; Blood Thorn, iniha of the Uzachile; and Walking Thunder, Wide Antler, and Corn Thrower—known as the Orphans. We come under the Power of trade and bind ourselves by its laws.”
He looked us over one by one, nodding. I could see a barely disguised disappointment in his expression, something about the set of his lips. “You are welcome, Black Shell, by the Power of trade. I am Egret, of the Chief Clan, of the White Arrow Moiety, and mikko of Black Stone town.”
He went on, listing his various ancestors, war honors, and finally his relationship to the high mikko in Toa, the capital a half day’s travel downriver.
Then his eyes narrowed as he asked, “What is your purpose here?”
I gestured with my trader’s staff, wary as more and more Toa came to surround us. Some were muttering uncomfortably behind their hands. I didn’t like the curious hostility in their eyes. The fact that we’d interrupted their emptying of the granaries meant de Soto was close.
I announced for all to hear, “We come under the Power of trade and would engage in that, assuming it pleases Mikko Egret. We are also interested in news of the Kristianos.” I gestured again with the staff, pointing at the baskets being loaded with food. “It would appear that you are wisely removing your valuables prior to their raiding parties arriving here.”
Egret’s thick lips curled into a pouting smile. “Then it would appear that you are wrong, Trader.” He saw my surprise and continued. “The Kristianos arrived at Toa yesterday. While the elders had wisely evacuated the town, several remained and had conversations with the Kristianos.”
“Are they already in chains?” Pearl Hand asked.
“No, lady, they are not. The Kristiano mikko, this de Soto, has treated them equitably, offering metal goods and glass beads in exchange for food and labor to transport his baggage and equipment. High Mikko Toa—after ensuring the Kristianos’ peaceful intentions—is happy to accommodate them.”
My heart sank. “I have followed the monster all the way from Uzita, a country far down in the peninsula. His path has been marked by rotting corpses and ruination. Tell me that your high mikko doesn’t trust him.”
Egret had that superior smirk on his lips. “Things are different here, Trader. Unlike the Timucua”—he glanced at the Orphans—“we are not savages. In contrast to the Apalachee, we are not wedded to the red Power of war. When dealing with strangers, we cling to the white Power and seek to understand those not familiar with our ways.”
“I have yet to see the monster give a rotten acorn for anyone’s ways.” But that old trader’s sense was tickling me, the warning to back off. “But perhaps you are right. We come only under the Power of trade.”
He fingered his chipped stone mace, suspicion in his eyes. He gave the Timucua another narrow-eyed stare, then sighed, as if in resignation. “If that is truly the case, let me make you welcome”—he stressed the following—“under the Power of trade.”
I inclined my head. “We thank you.”
Pointing with the mace, he said, “You may store your belongings there, under the ramada. Please, take your ease and feed your dogs. Then, tonight, you shall be my guest. I will hear your story and inspect your trade.” He hesitated. “I have questions.”
“Thank you for your kindness. Your questions shall be answered.”
“You are welcome, Trader, under the Power of trade. Now if you will excuse me, I must see to the packing of our tribute.”
With that he stalked away, issuing orders that we were to be left alone.
I glanced at Pearl Hand, who had been translating for the others. I’m sure they got most of it, even though the Hichiti dialect posed problems after living with Apalachee.
“What’s happening here?” Blood Thorn asked as we walked to the ramada and began unloading the dogs.
“I’m not sure.” I unlaced Gnaw’s pack and placed it beside Skipper’s. The dogs were shaking, scratching, and sniffing the town smells. They insisted on trying to stare down the local dogs who circled just out of range. Several children had been appointed to keep the local mutts off.
Walking Thunder was visibly nervous, his eyes darting this way and that. He seated himself close to Wide Antler, whispering into the man’s ear. I noticed that all the Orphans kept their weapons close at hand.
“He kept emphasizing the Power of trade,” Corn Thrower noted. “As if it were somehow foremost.”
“We’re here to kill Kristianos,” Wide Antler muttered, but he, too, looked ready to bolt.
I gave him a warning stare. “We’re here under the Power of trade. Even when we arrived in Apalachee, we received Cafakke’s permission before killing Kristianos.”
“I don’t understand, Peliqua.”
“Wide Antler, be patient. We are guests in Toa territory. Wait, mind your manners, and do nothing without my prior agreement. Do I have your word?”
He nodded, the crazy gleam in his eyes oddly unsettled. “Yes, Peliqua.”
“Good. The same goes for the rest of you. And, by the Piasa’s teeth, put your weapons away. Out of sight. Now, let’s go through the trade, see what we’ve got left. After months of war, I can’t even remember the inventory.”
As we laid out the packs, we watched the local Toa finish emptying their high granaries. These are elevated cane-sided structures, perched atop smooth poles. Up in the air like that, the contents stay ventilated; the support poles are usually greased to keep raccoons and mice from climbing them. Wide roofs made of overlapping halves of split cane keep the rain off, and access is by ladders.
“They are just giving their corn away?” Blood Thorn mused. “Just like that . . . and without a fight?”
“Doesn’t make sense, does it?” I said, going through my skeins of buffalo wool.
“Be sure there’s a sense to it,” Pearl Hand murmured. “We just have to figure out how it affects us.”
The locals continued to swing basket loads onto their shoulders; we watched them disappear through the houses as they tramped down to fill waiting canoes.
I struggled to figure out the Toa’s angle. And what was that hesitation on Mikko Egret’s part? I couldn’t help but get the feeling that he wasn’t at all happy to see us. There was something more to it, as if only the Power of trade stood between peace and a darker reception.
With nothing better to do, I flopped back on the packs and rubbed Squirm’s ears while I tried to figure out de Soto’s evil intentions and why the Toa were being so complicitous. The sepaya had turned stone-cold on my chest.