Sixty-two

This time the Traders were Chalakee. The four tall, muscular men with long streaming black hair they wore roached and tied with red and white cloth were the first of their nation Night Shadow Star had ever known. The eldest was Slinking Cat, an affable man in his early forties. Blue Wolf was his dry-witted friend. Cuts Hominy came across as sardonic and worldly for his late twenties. The youngest, Thorn, was in his teens, quiet, and still learning the river. The one woman, Pestle, was of medium stature with broad shoulders and had a round and pleasant face. She carried a war club hung from her belt, an accoutrement entirely in contrast to her good-natured and sunny personality.

In all her years, Night Shadow Star had never known a Chalakee, or Cherokee as they were sometimes called. Seemed that the rest of the world had trouble with the preferred pronunciation.

Like all good Trade canoes, the one Night Shadow Star now found herself in was thin-hulled, wide of beam, and carefully crafted. To build such a craft took just the right kind of wood: cypress or red cedar was preferred. It needed a straight grain that wouldn’t warp as it seasoned, and as few knots as possible since they would loosen and leak. The process of burning out the interior required a master’s skill and patience. The hull couldn’t be too thin, or the wood would crack. Too thick and the craft would be sluggish; every bit of unnecessary wood not only took up space that could be filled with Trade but made the canoe ride lower in the water. All of it extra weight that had to be propelled by the paddlers.

As the Chalakee drove their canoe along the Tenasee’s flower-speckled bank, Night Shadow Star tried to ignore her splitting headache and carefully probed her swollen and bruised lips. Her jaws ached, and nasty bruises had darkened on the side of her head. She was grateful that her cheek hadn’t shattered under that last ringing blow.

Spit and blood, she wished she had some red willow bark tea.

Her shoulder felt as if it had been pulled out of its socket. She winced as she probed the swelling on the side of her head and stared out at the river, its waters taking on a silvered look in the morning light. Mist hung in the emerald-green growth along the banks, rising in thin streamers through the thick band of forest that grew down to the bank.

The morning smelled of the Tenasee’s earthy musk, the rich odors of leaves and vegetation. Birdcall, in a riotous cacophony, echoed down from the high canopy and mixed with the chirring, whizzing, and clicking of myriad insects. Some sort of hatch was in progress, the air alive with the shimmering of diaphanous wings as insects by the thousands rose from the water and into the sunlight.

“I think the Casqui and his friends got the worst of it,” Winder remarked from where he paddled behind her. He’d been watching her gentle probing of her wounds.

“Why did you wait so long?”

“Needed to have them out beyond anyone’s hearing before I laid into them. Lady, you’ve got to understand, they take the Power of Trade and keeping the peace very seriously at Canyon Town. Doesn’t matter that you were the victim. If you’d made a scene back there, people would have wanted to know why. It’s better all the way around that we just slipped away. Especially if I killed either of the two I smacked in the head.”

“It makes no sense,” she cried. “I’d never seen that Casqui before in my life. How did he know who I was? How did you, for that matter?”

“As for me, you might have saved yourself the effort and shouted it out. A Four Winds lady possessed of Underworld Power, accompanied by a battle-scarred Red Wing? Who could they possibly be? The only question being why they might have hired White Mat and be traveling up the Tenasee.

“Beyond that, you know too much about the river, the country, the people. Tell me, how many minor Four Winds nobles know who the Timucua are? Let alone that they live down south in the peninsula? But Night Shadow Star was being trained for the Matron’s chair. She would know. And after Fire Cat went back to take down those Cahokian warriors? You slipped, called him Fire Cat a couple of times when you weren’t paying attention.”

She turned far enough to give him a hard look. “So why play along?”

“It’s the smartest way to travel. But that brings us back to the Casqui. You’re right to ask how he’d know to be looking for you. That, in turn, leads me to ask, what’s this all about? What’s in Cofitachequi? And why are you, of all people, headed there? Last I heard, you and the Red Wing were the darling heroes of Cahokia. Or did the Morning Star turn on you after you saved his souls from the Underworld?”

“You think I should trust you?”

“Seven Skull Shield is really a friend of yours?”

“Why bring him into this?”

“Answer the question.”

Her chuckle was filled with dry humor. “There are only two men alive whom I would trust with my life. Seven Skull Shield is one.”

“It must be some story. By that I mean whatever absurd scheme he was involved in that brought him to your attention without getting his sorry carcass hanged in a square.”

“It was Piasa who whispered his name into my ear. Seven Skull Shield has done me great service. Been there when I needed him. I owe him.”

Winder was silent for a moment. “Three.”

“What?”

“There are now three men whom you can trust with your life.”

“That’s a bit brazen, don’t you think?” But Piasa was flitting through the corner of her vision, almost dancing with each throbbing of her headache. She barely caught the satisfied gleam in the creature’s yellow eyes as they turned into a flare of sunlight on water. The effect was like a hot lance driven through her skull.

“Beautiful woman like you, I can guess how Skull looks at you. And a Four Winds noble? Sister to the Morning Star? Niece to that Keeper he’s so fond of? You must be like nectar to a bee.”

“If you think that, you don’t know Seven Skull Shield. Or at least, you don’t know the man he has become.”

“You really mean that. Unbelievable.”

“Then, like I say, you don’t know him.”

“Oh, I do. And yes, he cut me down from that square. I’m not sure how he avoided taking the blame for that.”

“He bought your freedom with the Quiz Quiz War Medicine.”

Winder almost missed a stroke with his paddle, then laughed bitterly. “Figures. He had it all the time, did he?”

“That’s my understanding.”

“Blue Heron knew?”

“Fire Cat told me that she was as surprised as anyone when Seven Skull Shield pulled the war medicine out of some canoe and slipped it over his shoulder after freeing you.”

Winder shook his head. “Bet he hid it at Wooden Doll’s. That it was right there, probably in the same room. I can be such a fool sometimes.”

“Hiring yourself to the Quiz Quiz wasn’t one of your brightest moments.”

“It should have been simple.”

“Nothing ever is.”

“I guess not. Take the way he talked about the Keeper and you. I thought he’d been hit in the head too many times. That his souls were scrambled beyond any good sense. And then I watch you, traveling as a common Trader, paddling like an honest woman. I see the love you have for that Red Wing, watch him sacrifice himself for you. Watch you talking to the Spirits in your head. I begin to see what Skull sees in you. Why he trusts you.”

“I’m just me.”

“So why are you going to Cofitachequi, Lady?”

“To kill my brother, Walking Smoke.”

“Haven’t heard of Walking Smoke being in Cofitachequi. If your brother was there, I’d suspect that some word would have come down the river.”

“He’ll be calling himself something different. You’ve heard of some new chief? Perhaps a sorcerer or shaman? Someone using Power for selfish purposes, offering sinister services, probably involving human sacrifices?”

At Winder’s silence, she turned, found him watching her with intent and dark eyes.

“If I had known that was who you were after, I would have turned you down back at Big Cane Town and stayed with my wife.”

“So, still want to be that third man?”

“I’m having second thoughts, Lady. But I’ve had second thoughts before and never been smart enough to quit when I’ve been ahead.” He gave her a humor-free smile. “I just hope I’m not being as stone-headed stupid as I was with the Quiz Quiz.”

“Oh, you’re not.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’m telling you right up front, this will not only be dangerous, but difficult. Anything but simple. In fact, I suspect that killing Walking Smoke is going to end with my death.”