Forty-eight

Lightning burned brilliant white, twisted. Bunched and throbbing like an old man’s veins, it seared the purple-bruised heavens. Thunder boomed and crashed; rain slashed down out of the storm-torn sky. Bits of low-scudding cloud seemed to have been ripped loose from their brooding black brethren, and like errant feathers were cast to the angry winds.

The storm had come upon them like vengeance—as if the Powers of the Sky World had declared war upon the earth. It seemed to hurl itself down on the valley of the Tenasee with a special fury.

“It’s just a little farther,” Winder declared from the bow where he paddled into the relentless downfall. The water around them was lashed and pelted, tiny bits of hail mixing with sheets of angry rain.

“We should make for shore! This isn’t going to let up,” Fire Cat shouted over the hissing of rain on tormented water.

“Can’t,” Winder called back over his shoulder. “River’s already high, and it’s going to rise. Low as these floodplains are on either side, once it’s over the banks we’ll be underwater within a hand’s time. The only choice is to head back downstream to that island or make the next bend where the channel cuts up next to a terrace where we can be above any flood.”

“How far?” Night Shadow Star’s voice carried that familiar note of desperation. She was paddling, hunched, a mist of water bouncing off the top of her head where the big raindrops and small hail battered her. Like the rest of them, she’d been instantly soaked and made miserable when the heavens opened.

“Should have stayed in camp.” Fire Cat winced as little balls of hail bounced off his bark rain hat. Cold streaks of water were running down the side of his face, along his neck, and into his shirt.

But had they, they wouldn’t have made the couple of hands of progress up the Tenasee. And every measure of river traveled was that much closer to the goal. Besides, as Winder had just pointed out, the camp had been on a narrow sandbar, and behind it had been a low-lying swamp thick with bald cypress and water oak. Had the river risen just a couple of hands, their camp would have been inundated. Nothing to it but to forge ahead.

“You want to get out of this?” Winder bellowed over his shoulder as lightning illuminated his silhouette. “Paddle like you’ve never paddled before. The harder we work, the sooner we’re off the river and safe.”

How could the man read the thread of the current in such a downfall?

“Pus and blood,” Night Shadow Star swore between chattering teeth, “I’m cold and totally miserable.”

“Welcome to life on the river.” Fire Cat gave her a smile as he fought his own shivers. “We get to that high ground, at least you and I have each other to wrap up together. And maybe there’s going to be enough shelter that we’ll be out of the worst of it.”

“There’s a village,” Winder called back. “Black Clay Bank is what it’s called. Bunch of fishermen and clam divers. Not my preferred place to put in. The brothers tell me they’ve had trouble with them before. But they probably won’t mess with us since you’re a warrior, and they know my reputation.”

Winder paused. “But it’s another hand of time to reach it beyond the first opportunity to land.”

“We’ll take it,” Fire Cat growled, ignoring Night Shadow Star’s look of incredulous dismay. From her expression she really wanted to get off the river and under some kind of shelter.

To Fire Cat’s way of thinking, a roof and a fire would more than make up for the additional misery.

Through it all, the Albaamaha kept their heads down, paddling in unison, looking wet and dejected, breath fogging as they drove their slim craft across the rain-lashed backwater.

Fire Cat hadn’t quite been sure what to make of them. Their language was incomprehensible to him, their religious observances oddly quaint and mystifying. In camp they kept to themselves, and while they built the cook fire and prepared the meals, they established a separate fire and sleeping area for themselves a stone’s throw away.

Night Shadow Star they ignored completely. For all the notice they gave her, she might have been invisible.

Winder, they treated with particular regard and respect.

“Makes you really miss White Mat and the Yuchi, doesn’t it?” Night Shadow Star had remarked the second night. “Odd how we became part of their group.”

And miss them he did.

At the thought, Fire Cat shot a look over his shoulder. The patterns of rain on the river stood out, the surface savaged by bands of harder downpour. A white mist seemed to hover a couple of hands above the rain-pocked waves. A thousand rings and ripples interlocked, expanded, and died on the churning background.

Where the river lapped at the low and muddy banks, it gave way to thick forest, grape, smilax, and thorny walking-stick vines laced through the brush and into the low-hanging branches of bald cypress, tupelo, water oak, cottonwood, and shagbark. Streams of water poured off the leaves.

The river was rising. A twirling raft of driftwood set free by the rising water floated past. Fire Cat took a moment to glance back at it.

Lightning picked that instant to flash—burning and white—the aftereffect searing Fire Cat’s vision. A second later the blast almost deafened him, making the others jump.

But in that instant, he saw it. Blinked. Tried to clear the spots from his vision.

He was sure the lightning had illuminated a canoe. Back behind them. Maybe three or four bowshots back.

As he peered, all he could see was falling rain, the misty haze rising from the impact of countless cold drops hammering the surface. Nothing but curtains of falling water.

He turned forward again, putting his back into paddling.

Couldn’t fight the impulse, kept throwing glances back over his shoulder.

Was that just his imagination? It wasn’t like he didn’t dwell on the fact that Blood Talon was back there, somewhere. Only in his wildest dreams did he delude himself into believing the squadron first might have given up and headed back to Cahokia. This was Spotted Wrist’s man, after all. Not the sort to give up—even when the odds were against him.

Fire Cat turned, just as another bolt of lightning flashed. And, yes. He saw it. Like an apparition in the storm. A canoe. A big one. High prow, like a Cahokian war canoe.

The lightning had flashed on the paddles. Two rows of them, stroking in unison.

“Raft!” Winder’s call intruded on Fire Cat’s sudden sensation of sick inevitability.

He jerked his head around, saw the dim mat of swirling wood. Bigger this time. A huge and sprawling tangle of interlocked branches and entire trees. A mass of timber floated loose from whatever shoal it had been grounded on. Now it came spiraling down upon them. Given the size of it, it covered half the river.

Another look over his shoulder, and Fire Cat could make out the closing canoe. In the bow, defiant to rain and wind, stood a single figure. Wind whipped at the man’s cloak. Gave him the appearance of flying.

What to do?

Drenched, cold as they were, the Albaamaha weren’t up for a spirited flight. Put to shore? Trust themselves to the swampy floodplain? And have twenty desperate warriors tracking them through the swamp?

In an instant, Fire Cat saw it. How it would have to happen.

He glanced again at the floating raft of driftwood, the sleek wood gleaming in the eerie storm light.

“Winder! Blood Talon is behind us! Get Night Shadow Star to Cofitachequi. I’ll catch up.”

As he called, Night Shadow Star whirled, first to stare at him with wide and disbelieving eyes, and then to glance fearfully behind them.

“Paddle,” Fire Cat ordered. “Paddle hard. I’m going to slow them down. I’ll catch up. I promise. That, or meet you in Cofitachequi.”

“What are you—”

“Can’t take the time to explain. It’s going to work. Now, paddle! I can’t do this if you don’t give them a hard chase. Do you promise?”

“I … Yes.”

“Give me your word.”

“I do.”

He laid his paddle down, seeing that she’d ceased to stroke. “Hurry! Paddle. Now. You’ve got to outrun them!”

To Winder he called, “Don’t let her come after me. I’ll catch up.”

Then he grabbed up his war bag from the sloshing water at his feet.

Night Shadow Star was staring at him, then glanced back over her shoulder at the now clearly visible canoe. A shout could be heard as the pursuers realized that it was only a matter of time.

“I love you! Make it to Cofitachequi. Do it for me. I’ll meet you there!”

As the Albaamaha paddled just clear of the floating raft of timber, Fire Cat slipped over the side. Towing his heavy bag, he struck out for the floating tangle of wood.

To his surprise, the water felt warm. Night Shadow Star was screaming something at him from the canoe, but bobbing and ducking as he was, he couldn’t make out the words.

His sack, loaded with his chunkey stone, copper-bitted war club, bow, quiver, and armor, kept trying to drag him down.

Everything depended on Winder now. Could he keep Night Shadow Star in the canoe? Could he stay far enough ahead of Blood Talon?

Would the Cahokians see the low-floating raft of wood in time, or would their attention be riveted to the fleeing canoe?

As the heavy bag pulled him down again, his fingers slipped off wet wood.

Fire Cat gave a last desperate kick, got an arm around a slippery log, and pulled his head above water.

All he could see was rain splashing down around him. He pulled himself up, higher, could just make out the war canoe, and—as if Piasa himself were helping—the raft was spinning its way toward it, bearing almost straight for the war canoe.

Please. Let this work.

Shooting a quick glance back at the fleeing Albaamaha canoe, he could see nothing as the rain hammered down harder, enveloping the river in a hissing roar of back-splashing water.

Lightning seared the sky, blasted the top of a towering oak just back from the shore. The cracking bang left Fire Cat’s ears ringing.

In that instant, the raft of driftwood spun. The Cahokians, aware now, were staring at the interlocked tangle that bobbed in their direction. Fire Cat saw the confusion, could see the expressions on the warriors’ faces as they lost the rhythm of their paddling. Some tried to back water with their paddles. One reached out to block a wicked-looking spear of wood.

Fire Cat hung the carry strap on his war bag to a broken snag of a branch, dove, and stroked.

A paddle slashed down beside his head.

Grasping it, he pulled, broke water. Jerking down with all his weight, he tore the paddle free from the surprised warrior’s grip. Caught the gunwale with one hand and let the paddle go with the other.

He felt the big canoe shiver as it collided with floating wood.

Warriors were shouting, moving to Fire Cat’s side, staring down at the impossibility of someone rising like magic from the river. The rest were prodding with their paddles to keep the driftwood raft at bay.

As the warriors crowded his way the canoe tipped. The gunwale to which Fire Cat clung dropped low. Enough so that he could grasp it, brace his feet on the hull, and throwing his weight back and out, capsize it into the water.

In an instant Fire Cat was surrounded by clawing, splashing warriors.

He dove, stroking down, caught a thigh, and jerked the man under. Then he was in the tangle of wood. Used a snag to pin his victim’s cloak so the warrior couldn’t resurface. The Cahokian was jerking, kicking violently. A burst of bubbles, like silver vomit, gushed from the warrior’s mouth. For an instant the man’s dark eyes fixed on Fire Cat’s.

Fire Cat swam free, clawed his way up the wood, and broke the surface. Gasping for air, he searched around. Men were flailing in panic, trying to climb over each other, screaming and choking as they went under. A couple were clinging to bits of driftwood. The war canoe, swamped, spun in the current to one side.

Lightning strobed, coiled, and blasted the sky overhead, as if the Thunderbirds were unleashing all the rage in the universe.

One of the warriors splashed his way toward Fire Cat, only to have one of the trees in the raft ground and roll, then a falling branch trapped the man before it dragged him into the depths.

Another was thrashing about a pebble’s toss away, screaming, coughing, his head going under. Within moments, the man’s struggles ebbed. The last time his head broke the surface, he coughed out a great gout of water. He was trying to suck a desperate breath, his lungs expanding as he went under one last time. The man’s body spasmed, slowed, and relaxed to spin away with the current.

As Fire Cat clung to the wood, he took note. Counted only three or four heads. The tangle of driftwood had begun to break up as the ripples and eddies of current slowly pulled it apart.

Fire Cat noticed his original log, now in a separate mat of wood, perhaps a stone’s throw away.

Striking out, he dodged a spinning branch and swam for his tree. The thing seemed remarkably stable, and he realized when he got to it that his weapons bag had acted like a drag, impeding the dead tree’s spin.

Clinging to his tree, he shot another look back toward the Cahokian canoe. He saw no heads now. Only the rain-battered hull where it had somehow become entangled with one of the bobbing rafts of driftwood.

How could he be the only one? It hit him like a thrown stone: Most of these were Cahokians. City people. Men raised on corn farms and in the uplands. Cahokians weren’t raised on the river; they had others to do their swimming, fishing, clamming, and mussel diving.

They didn’t know how to swim.

The storm gathered its fury, lightning savaging the sky, thunder booming down on the hills to either side.

As the rain picked up in intensity, Fire Cat came face-to-face with the realization that it was just him, a floating log, and the real chance that he was going to wind up just as dead as the Cahokians.