Five

Seven Skull Shield leaned his head back as he filled his lungs and sang, “A woman so fine, I couldn’t believe she was mine. When I grasped her nipples, they turned hard as stones. Just the touch alone was enough to shake me to my bones.”

“Pus and mud,” Elder Crawfish, the old shell carver, moaned as he made a face. “I liked it better when he was running for his life.”

Elder Crawfish was a Deer Clan man, one of the finest shell carvers in the city. His work was Traded and owned by the wealthiest chiefs on the river. Even the Morning Star wore his pieces. The small shop was packed in among the warehouses a little north of the River House palace mounds and plaza. Years back, Elder Crawfish had chosen that location for its proximity both to the canoe landing and the constant flow of Traders bearing freshwater clam and mussel shell from the rivers as well as saltwater specimens from the distant Gulf down south. Not to mention that Elder Crawfish’s reputation and artistry brought premium profits for his family’s beads, engraving, and finely shaped shell for inlay and decoration.

Seven Skull Shield often came here just to sit and pass the time. Well, and because the shell carvers were some of the few people graced with an appreciation for not only his unique singing voice, but also his dazzling lyrics. Not everybody could sing like Seven Skull Shield.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes as she parted her thighs. My shaft, it hardened and rose, and a tingle ran clear to my toes!” Seven Skull Shield belted out the verses, eyes closed as he crooned to the split-cane roof overhead.

A loud sigh came from where Meander worked a bow drill to perforate a whelk-shell bead. Then the man said, “I think I’ve finally figured out what he sounds like. That must be the kind of noise a buffalo bull makes when it’s eaten too much prickly pear cactus and has a violent belly-ache.”

Seven Skull Shield interrupted his song just long enough to shoot a sidelong look and say, “As if you’ve ever seen a bull buffalo. They’ve been hunted out everywhere within ten days’ hard travel of Cahokia.”

“Saw a calf a couple of times,” Bent Cane, the youngest son, said. “Traders bring them through on occasion. Trade them off for the novelty of it.”

“They get paid handsomely for them, too,” Right Fist replied. “High Chief War Duck Traded a sheet of fine copper for a buffalo calf last fall.” He shook his head sadly. “That was just before River House had its Power broken. You remember that night? When someone tried to assassinate Matron Round Pot? When the sacred fire got put out?”

“Bad doings, that,” Meander agreed.

Seven Skull Shield glanced warily at his dog, Farts, who lay by the door. The big-boned beast was ugly, its coat brindle brown with black accent. Word was it was descended of pack dogs from the far Shining Mountains in the west. It looked like it, having a blocklike head, heavily muscled jaws, and odd eyes—one blue, the other brown. The beast was chewing on a clamshell. The scratching and grinding of the dog’s teeth on the shell sent a quiver up Seven Skull Shield’s backbone.

Yes, he remembered the night the fire had been extinguished in River House’s palace. And he was thankful that dogs couldn’t talk. Farts had been right in the middle of it.

To change the subject, he drew breath and sang, “My shaft hard as wood, and feeling so good, I dropped ’tween her knees, lest she think me a tease.”

“Was there a reason, specifically, that you chose to come torture us today?” Elder Crawfish illustrated his point by waving an abrading stone. “I mean, couldn’t you have wandered up to the Morning Star’s palace? Driven them half mad with your bellowing?”

“See, we’re back to sick buffalo again,” Right Fist reminded as he used a finely flaked chert burin to carefully incise the interior of a large clamshell. When finished it would be a gorget. He was in the process of outlining the legs of Cosmic Spider: a Spirit Being from the Beginning Times. She had not only brought fire from the sun to earth, but also carried souls across the sky to the Land of Dead in the Sky World.

“Actually, I’m here in celebration,” Seven Skull Shield told them. “I had a rather busy night.”

Images of Willow Blossom’s body writhing beneath his remained as clear as if but mere moments had passed. To enjoy a woman like that … Ah, the pure ecstasy of it.

“Lying low again, huh?” Meander asked dryly. He wet his drill tip in the pot of water beside him, then dipped it in the finely screened sand. He rotated it until the tip was covered with grit. Replacing it in the hole he was drilling, he began sawing the bow drill back and forth.

“Let’s just say it took a while for my charm to work its magic.” Seven Skull Shield polished the backs of his nails on his shirt and studied them in the half-light shining through the door. “You see, that’s the thing about most husbands. They don’t care for their wives. Take the poor women for granted. I mean, what would you think was more important? A basket full of basswood rope or a nubile, hot-blooded young woman whose loins were bursting with the need to be filled?”

He smiled. “Not to mention those large dark eyes. Depthless. Like pools. The sort that just melt a man.”

“Basswood rope?” Two Fish, the cousin, asked as he entered with a sumac basket full of olivella shells Traded up from the Gulf. “You don’t mean surly old Robin Feather, do you? He specializes in rope and cord. Basswood’s the best. He’s married to that young Panther Clan woman that every man in the neighborhood…”

Two Fish stopped short, as if slapped. “Oh, spit and piss! Willow Blossom? Her? You got her?”

“Blood and thunder, man,” Elder Crawfish sputtered. “Robin Feather killed his last wife for philandering with that Natchez Trader a couple of years ago. If he figures out that you’ve been sticking that oversized pole of yours in that sassy young wife of his? He’ll gut you for it.”

“Who’s Robin Feather? Never heard of him,” Seven Skull Shield lied mildly, assuming an expression of absolute innocence.

Meander, always the canniest of the lot, wasn’t buying it. In awe he whispered, “She’s beautiful. What man in River City hasn’t wondered … you know. What it would be like.”

Two Fish placed his basket on the ground before the central fire. “Not that I’d ever fall prey to such a sad state myself, but half the men I know, when they’re lying with their wives, they’re making believe they’re with Willow Blossom.”

Every eye in the place was on Seven Skull Shield as he sighed wearily and shook his head. “Now I have to go see this woman. Just so I know who you’re talking about. But no, it wasn’t her that I was with last night. I was in Evening Star Town. Across the river. Dallied with a cute young thing from Hawk Clan whose husband was out hunting in the forests off to the west.”

“Liar,” Two Fish growled. Pointing to the basket of olivella shells, he added, “I was down at the landing at dawn to barter for these with a Tunica Trader. Cross-river traffic was slow. I didn’t see you getting out of any canoe.”

“This is a common problem with you shell workers.” Seven Skull Shield waved a dismissive hand. “You spend all your time squinting down at what’s a hand’s width in front of your nose while you’re doing all that fine carving. Makes your eyes bad for seeing long distance, like to where I was paying off old Rag Hand for paddling me across the river at first light.”

“Spit in a bucket,” Elder Crawfish said in wonder. “Willow Blossom? Of all the women in the world? You never cease to amaze us. It’s always something. Like the time Keeper Blue Heron dragged you out of here. Or the time Tula were hunting you, or when the Quiz Quiz wanted you dead. If Robin Feather, of all men, finds out you’ve—”

“I tell you, it wasn’t her.” Seven Skull Shield gave the man an innocent smile. He could feel a cold sweat breaking out on his lower back. What in the name of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies had possessed him to mention basswood rope? And who’d have thought that lunk-headed Two Fish would be the one to put it together?

Two Fish looked puzzled. “That Willow Blossom, she could have any man she wanted. Probably even High Chief War Duck if she’d so much as bat an eye at him. Why would she choose to share that magnificent body with some bit of walking vermin like Seven Skull Shield?”

Because she was lonely, neglected, and wondering if everything exciting in life was now lost to her.

Seven Skull Shield threw his head back, belting out, “I lowered myself onto her chest, and slipped in my best. Using all of her might, she clamped round it tight. She had such a squeeze it made my heart wheeze.”

“A heart can’t wheeze. That’s lungs, you fool.”

“Okay, how about, ‘It made my blood freeze.’”

“I’ve heard geese with better voices. It would help if you could carry a tune.” Right Fist scooped a pile of scrap shell into a pot and set it on the fire to bake. Within moments the onion-rank smell of cooking shell filled the air. After it cooled, the calcined shell would be ground up and sold to potters for temper to use in their thin-walled ceramics.

But now Seven Skull Shield had a problem: They knew about Willow Blossom. How in the name of the Underworld Spirits was he going to handle this? Not that the shell carvers were the worst of the gossips along the waterfront, but if this ever got back to Robin Feather?

Seven Skull Shield wasn’t all that concerned about himself. He’d been dodging jealous husbands for years. And sure, Robin Feather would try to take him from behind, striking from the shadows, but it was Willow Blossom he was worried about.

He had come to like the young woman over the month it had taken to slowly wear down her resistance. In a lot of ways she reminded him of Wooden Doll when she was younger, more innocent and vulnerable. He hadn’t been this infatuated in years. Willow Blossom’s sense of humor, her quick wit, and the way she looked at him with that sparkle in her large dark eyes just made him happy.

Though she hadn’t meant to, she’d charmed him last night. Part of it was her surprise at their first joining under the blanket. Old Robin Feather must have put as much enthusiasm into coupling with his wife as he did when he was braiding rope. Or maybe less. Any woman who gasped, twitched, wiggled as she had and kept repeating, “I never knew, I never knew,” afterward was speaking volumes about the men in her life.

She’d been a quick student after that. By the time Seven Skull Shield had slipped away under the cover of first light, she’d pitched herself wholeheartedly and with total abandon into an exciting new exploration of all the ways a man and a woman could conjure lightning in their loins.

Made him wonder how she was going to react the next time Robin Feather climbed on top of her.

The Willow Blossom Seven Skull Shield had come to know was probably canny enough to play dumb again.

“The fair young lass, she grabbed onto my ass. Her nails they dug deep, at the pain I did weep.”

“We could throw something at him,” Right Fist noted.

“Naw,” Meander said. “Kind of nice to have him around again. Ever since he got famous and stopped dropping by, we’ve been lacking in entertainment.”

“Not to mention the reminder of how good our lives are when he’s away in Morning Star Town rubbing elbows with the high and mighty.” Bent Cane stooped and began sorting through the olivella shells.

“So, what’s the real story?” Elder Crawfish asked. “How did that Spotted Wrist really manage to outfox old Blue Heron and get the Keeper’s position?”

The change in subject took Seven Skull Shield by surprise. Grateful that they were no longer thinking about Willow Blossom, he told them, “Four Winds Clan politics is like being trapped in a big basket of snakes. It was that new matron.”

“Rising Flame?”

“That’s her. And a vicious little sheath she is, too.”

“Maybe you ought to try and charm that one.”

“I have standards,” Seven Skull Shield replied. “But don’t count Blue Heron out just yet. Spotted Wrist might be the Hero of the North, and might have everyone’s gratitude and thanks for dealing with the heretics up at Red Wing Town, but he’s in a game he can’t win.”

“How’s that?” Right Fist asked.

“I’ll lay you a wager: A basket full of polished whelk shell says that Blue Heron is Clan Keeper again by next fall.”

Elder Crawfish lifted a graying eyebrow. “And when you lose, where will you come up with enough Trade to barter for a basket of whelk shell?”

“Watch it, Elder,” Meander cautioned. “This is Seven Skull Shield. He didn’t specify what size basket. And people weave some really small baskets, some barely big enough to cover the tip of a little finger.”

Seven Skull Shield laughed hard enough that Farts looked up from the floor, his one-blue-and-one-brown gaze quizzical. “A basket that size.” He pointed at the olivella basket.

“Which brings me back to my initial question. Where would you get that much wealth?” Elder Crawfish used a knobby finger to emphasize his point.

“I won’t need it, my friends.” Seven Skull Shield grinned. “Blue Heron has a secret weapon.”

“A pot full of water hemlock?” Right Fist wondered. “Those Four Winds Houses like poison when it comes to disposing of a rival.”

“She doesn’t need poison. She has me.”

“You?” Meander asked.

“By the time Spotted Wrist figures out he’s been blindsided, Blue Heron will not only be Keeper again, but all of Cahokia will be begging for her to do so.”

“And you think—”

“Seven Skull Shield!” an angry voice bellowed from somewhere the other side of the hemp warehouse next door. “Where is that lying, thieving, two-footed bit of shit!”

“Sounds angry,” Elder Crawfish mused.

Seven Skull Shield cocked his head. Something about the voice was familiar.

Two Fish leaned his head out the door, peered, and glanced back inside. “Robin Feather. I just saw him pass between the hemp warehouse and the potter’s workshop. He’s got a war club. And by spit, he looks really, really mad.”

“Dear friends,” Seven Skull Shield said, already on his feet. “If you will excuse me, it just hit me that I have some pressing business down in Horned Serpent Town.”

On the way out the door he nudged his oversized and ungainly mongrel of a dog. “Come on, Farts. No sense in lingering when there’s opportunity at hand.”

As Seven Skull Shield slipped carefully around the hemp warehouse to get behind Robin Feather’s fury, he heard the man bellow, “When I find that stinking weasel and that cheating woman, I’m gonna knock their brains out and leave them for the maggots to chew!”

Seven Skull Shield sighed. If Robin Feather was searching for Willow Blossom, she must have managed an escape. He figured he knew where she would have hidden. On his way out of River Mounds he’d have to make a quick stop to be sure that she was safely out of the way. If nothing else, he’d have to broker a deal with Crazy Frog to get her out of the city and someplace beyond Robin Feather’s reach.

“You know, Farts,” he told the dog, “that man simply has no sense of humor.”