Seventy-three

Herosihachi—in Muskogean, it meant Beautiful River. It flowed into the Wide Fast from the north, following a long valley hemmed by the Blue Mountains on the west and a rounded line of thickly forested hills on the east. While some of the Herosihachi’s course was navigable, enough shallows, shoals, and fast water made the long-distance travel by canoe unfeasible.

“We’re better off to walk,” Winder had said, gesturing to the remaining porters and their big-boned pack dogs.

Night Shadow Star had always been athletic. First there was her passion for stickball. As a girl she’d spent her life running, wrestling, shooting bows, throwing stones, and even—to the horror of her parents and clan—playing the occasional men’s game of chunkey.

After all these moons of paddling, packing, hiking, and hard work, her body was solid with muscle, thews like rock. Now she stepped out on the trail, the final one. This was the route east, the ancient trail followed by Traders, war parties, and people moving across the divide that separated the interior from the plain leading down to the eastern ocean. A couple of days of travel and she could cross through that gap, follow the headwaters down to Joara, the westernmost town in the Cofitachequi colony. There, she would, hopefully, hear word of her brother’s whereabouts.

And then it’s only a matter of running him down.

The question was: Did he have any idea how close she was?

Or would Power warn him?

She was, after all, the hunter. The moment to strike was hers to decide.

At her request, Winder had said nothing about the Lightning Shell witch in the towns and villages they had passed through on the Wide Fast, and now on the Herosihachi.

But as they’d traveled, they’d heard plenty. It had started with the occasional mention of a witch in Joara. As they’d progressed, the assertions became more frequent, more dire. In the beginning the Lightning Shell witch had been referenced with an amused awe that had given way to more serious assertions, and by the time they’d left Cane Town at the confluence of the Herosihachi and the Wide Fast, the name was barely whispered, its utterance accompanied by averted eyes and warding signs made by nervous fingers.

“Makes you suspect that we’re getting close, doesn’t it?” Winder had asked.

It did. Night Shadow Star could feel it. As she looked east up the valley toward the low hills that formed the gap, she sensed her brother. Like a dark and threatening cloud that hung just past those innocent-looking slopes.

They followed a path along the south bank, there being fewer, and smaller, creeks for the trail to ford. The way was forested, the trail meandering around the great hickory, oak, sweet gum, and maple trees. She had grown used to the forest, feeling at home, almost embraced by its shadowy depths, by the chatter of the squirrels, the trilling of the hundreds of birds in the canopy above.

And her feet were quicker, used to picking their way where webs of roots twisted their way across the beaten path. The musty smell of the leaf mat was now a familiar perfume, a comforting pungency.

Her pack on her back, she was following the porters and their dogs, only slightly aware as a bachelor flock of turkeys called to one another somewhere just out of sight on the slope to her right.

At the front, the lead pack dog, called Hawk, slowed. His ears were pricked forward, a low growl sounding in his chest. The other dogs followed suit.

“Someone comes,” the lead Chalakee called back in soft pidgin. Then he said something to the dogs. They immediately quieted.

Night Shadow Star craned her head. “We’re Traders, right?”

Winder, following behind, said, “They should recognize the Power of Trade. We’re on the main trail. But it wouldn’t hurt to have that war club you keep hidden in your pack handy. Don’t brandish it but have it available.”

“We are deep in the forest. Unlike the river, there’s no one to see.”

“That’s why you keep that club within reach.” He paused, stepping up beside her as the Chalakee stopped short, shifting their own packs, untying weapons. “I assume you know how to use it?”

“Odd that you should ask. The last time I used it was in a fight against Walking Smoke’s Tula warriors. Haft got burned up. I had to have it rebuilt after I recovered the pieces from what was left of Columella’s palace.”

“Good,” Winder muttered, pulling his hafted stone ax from his pack and slipping the thong onto his belt. “Me? I’m not much for clubs and such. I’m a lot happier in a knock-down brawl. You know, eye gouging, kicking them in the stones, whacking them in the head with a rock, that sort of thing.”

“You and Seven Skull Shield.”

“Better than brothers.”

The first of the people appeared out from behind the trees. Within heartbeats he was followed by others.

Night Shadow Star took a breath, her heart slowing from its worried beat.

The man in the lead bore a heavy pack; the wooden poles protruding above his head were tool handles, not weapons. Probably hoes and the like.

Behind him came two women, each bent under a tumpline that ran back to heavy packs balanced on their hips. Then children appeared, one after another until seven, ranging in age from ten or eleven on down. In the end came an old gray-haired woman, and finally a young woman with a cradleboard-bound infant on her back.

The man—hardly a model of forest acumen—finally looked up from the trail, his eyes going wide.

In Cahokian, he cried, “Wait! We’re friendly. Don’t shoot.”

Winder stepped forward, his pack at a jaunty angle. “Do you notice any drawn bows? We’re Traders. Headed to Cofitachequi. Notice the dogs? The packs?”

The man grinned sheepishly, looked back at the women and children who’d come to a stop and crowded around him. They were taking Winder, the Chalakee, the dogs, and finally Night Shadow Star’s measure.

“Me? I mean, us? We’re just farmers. We’re no threat.”

“Where are you headed?” Winder asked.

“Away. Anywhere.” He shot a thumb over his shoulder at the young woman with the infant. “That’s Pretty Root. My third wife. She’s Muskogee. From down at Cane Town. I’m going to go see if her family will take us in. Married-into kin, you see.”

Night Shadow Star stepped forward. “Bit late in the year for farmers to be leaving their fields, isn’t it? You’re just a couple of moons from harvest.”

“He can have it,” the man muttered.

“Who?”

He pursed his lips, seemed to be thinking it through. “The witch.”

“The Lightning Shell witch?” Winder asked casually.

“Don’t use that name!” one of the women, maybe in her midthirties, cried. “You’ll call him. Bring bad luck down on your heads.”

“You’re leaving because of a witch?” Winder said. More of a statement than question.

“You don’t know,” the farmer said, becoming more agitated. “Most of Joara has fled. We didn’t want to. Like you said, the fields are full. It’s a remarkable harvest coming: corn, beans, squash, maygrass, goosefoot. Then he took Cattail Down’s daughters. Stole them in the night from their bed.” He indicated the second woman. “She’s my brother’s wife. Was. The girls were my nieces. The witch, he did … did…”

The farmer swallowed hard, looked away. Face averted, he said, “My brother went to kill him. In the middle of the night. He…”

“Go ahead,” Night Shadow Star urged.

The man took three tries before he said, “The witch hung his skin on a frame out in front of his house. Now, excuse us. We’re leaving. We’re not a threat. Just farmers.”

“You don’t want to go there,” Cattail Down told them in broken Cahokian as she passed. “Turn back. Leave Joara to the witch. There’s nothing but trouble back there. And Death. And … and terror.”

Night Shadow Star stood by Winder’s side as the farmers shuffled past, their feet rustling on the leaf mat.

They never looked back, just kept plodding down the trail.

“Left the brother’s skin hanging on a frame?” Winder wondered.

“Sounds like Walking Smoke.”

“Nice fellow, this brother of yours.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

Winder rubbed the back of his neck before refastening his pack. “Well, at least we know where he is. Joara.”

“And people with a bumper crop in the field are leaving it all behind. Good. Means there are fewer people to get in my way.”

Winder was giving her that now familiar I’m-really-concerned-about-you look. “You sure you want to go through with this?”

“This is why you don’t want anything to do with me. I told you I was headed toward a dark fate.”

His voice was filled with unease as he reshouldered his pack. “I guess I’ll take my chances.”

“Get me to Joara. Then you leave. I told you, I don’t want to have to tell Seven Skull Shield that I got you killed. Especially by Walking Smoke. It would hurt something deep in the thief’s soul if your skin was hung on a frame.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good. How far to Joara?”

“Maybe three days.”

“Let’s get about it, then.” And as they started up the trail again, she mused, “Hung his skin on a frame? Wonder what my charming brother did with the rest of the poor man?”

But she thought she knew.