People of the Morning Star (44 page)

Before Seven Skull Shield could speak, she added, “And why are you, yet another nondescript man, so interested?”

He laughed at that. “Very good, Grandmother. Yes, I’m hunting him. And I’d really like to find him before he kills someone else.”

“Beware, hunter.” She tugged impulsively at one of the remaining locks of brittle white hair. “I knew Badgertail, Tharon, and the great Nightshade. Powerful and dangerous people, they were. But this one? Hunting for him will be like reaching your hand into dark places in search of a scorpion. You will not like it when you finally find him.”

As if to finish, she pointed. “He went right between those two corn granaries and turned east, mingling with the traffic on the road.”

Like a scorpion in the dark
. The phrase stayed with Seven Skull Shield as he touched his chin respectfully, and walked out to the Avenue of the Sun.

The scorpion had turned east? Obviously to watch the results of his handiwork from the crowd, to assess his success, and monitor Blue Heron’s response. He could have gone anywhere after that. Seven Skull Shield turned his feet toward River Mounds, thinking,
It’s just a hunch. That tingle at the base of the spine, but I’ve got that feeling …

The Falcon

The lesson surprised me. I’d been in a clearing in the deep forest, the old growth. There the black oaks, the various hickory trees, maple, sycamores, and chestnuts grow to giant heights. Towering beech and mighty sweet gum fill the low spots. Walking through deep forest is a journey down from the shadows with only an occasional shaft of sunlight filtering through the green heaven high above. The leaf mat beneath one’s feet is a soft and spongy layer of hollows transected by circuitous patterns of giant roots. Vines of all sizes, the largest as thick as a man’s thigh suspend themselves like ropes from the branches above.

Instead of what should be haunting silence, the noise almost hurts the ears as the endless chirring of insects, the musical songs of birds, and the chatter of squirrels create a cacophony.

That day I’d been occupying myself by stalking a huge flock of passenger pigeons where they fluttered and chuckled through the high canopy. As they plucked apart seeds, bits of detritus rained down like a perverted snow. I clutched my long cane blowgun with its slender dart, and stared up at the heights in despair.

The chances that any of the birds would drop down to my distant earthly level were slight.

And then I broke out into the clearing. Here a tornado had blasted a narrow path through the forest giants, snapping branches, toppling trees this way and that, splintering the mighty trunks and littering the landscape with broken forest.

I stopped short after I climbed onto a broken arch of branch and squinted in the bright sunlight. Awed by the devastation, my attention was nonetheless drawn to the thousands of passenger pigeons as they swarmed out of the surrounding trees to hunt the recently made clearing.

Still half blinded by the dazzling sunlight, I fumbled in my pack for more darts, and tried to pick a target from the fluttering columns of descending birds. I’d no more than target one, than two or five or twenty would fly between me and my prey. I stood paralyzed, the blowgun to my lips, lungs filled with the breath that would propel my dart, and I could do nothing.

The surprise was complete. I’d just come to the conclusion that I needed to wait, to shoot one on the ground, when the streak flashed down from the sky.

The pigeon never knew what hit it. One moment the bird was following its fellows, intent only on the feast below. The next it had been smacked senseless from above and behind, feathers trailing in its wake.

I stared in stunned amazement as the falcon’s wings rasped in the air, braking its descent. Feathers still trailed from the hammered pigeon where it dangled from the falcon’s taloned feet.

Time seemed to stop for an instant. A heartbeat later, the vast flock of passenger pigeons exploded in a roar of fluttering wings. In mad confusion thousands of birds thundered into the safety of the forest, some fouling others in the process.

My own response was to duck, tossing away my blowgun to wrap my vulnerable head in my arms.

As quick as a snap of a twig, it was over. I peered through my fingers to see the clearing empty but for a sprinkling of falling feathers.

And high in the sky, the falcon was climbing, the dangling body of his pigeon firmly clasped in his talons.

And what might the lesson be? It was that the most dangerous of predators strike from nowhere, when least expected.

Today, I am the falcon. My sky is the crowd of vendors carrying packs of dried corn, ceramic bowls, skeins of cord, and other necessities. On my back is a large bundle of firewood.

I have taken a station at Lady Lace’s palace, for I know that soon someone will step out and come down the stairway.

As I wait, I glance off to the west. If I am going to succeed I can take nothing for granted. I’ve had too many setbacks as it is. They are my fault. I was overconfident, arrogant. I underestimated the talents and Power of the opposition.

The game has grown more complicated, and I must adapt. Traps must now be laid within traps. The threat posed by that fool Frantic Lightning has been eliminated. What began in panic has now become an opportunity. If I am correct, I may be able to use Frantic Lightning’s murder to eliminate yet an even greater threat. Assuming, that is, that anyone is smart enough to follow in my tracks. If nothing happens by tomorrow, I will be relieved, but slightly disappointed that Blue Heron isn’t as smart as I’d come to believe.

I am interrupted by the arrival of a runner, a young man of maybe fifteen summers. He wears a buckskin breechcloth, his brown skin sleek with sweat. Panting as he trots, he carries a black-and-yellow painted staff of office that identifies him as a messenger.

I can see the change in his expression as he glances up at Lace’s palace, a slight smile of relief on his lips. He slows to that loose-jointed walk of a runner crossing the finish line. I step away from my firewood stack, and offer him my water bottle.

“You look like you could use a drink,” I tell him. “How far did they send you today?”

“From up north,” he tells me, taking the water bottle. “Heavy Cane has finished his business. They’ll need to make preparations.”

“I heard that he’s been gone for a half moon’s time.”

The runner nodded and slugged down water from my gourd bottle. “He’s heard the stories.”

“I’ve brought wood, but no one has so much as stepped out of the house. If the Lady’s husband is returning, they’ll want to make a feast.”

The runner wiped his lips. “The Lady Lace should be in council.” He glanced at the wood. “Come on. I’ll tell Fine Silt the news, and that you’ve brought the wood.”

I touch my chin respectfully, pick up my bundle of firewood, and follow the runner up the forbidden steps to the palace veranda.

The falcon taught me well.

Thirty-eight

Bleeding Hawk had taken his warrior’s name after his Spirit quest and trial of the flesh. That was the Tula ceremony that marked a boy’s passage into manhood. The rock-studded hilltop on which he’d fasted and prayed for five days had been hit by lightning, and in the stunned aftermath, he’d seen a giant black hawk descending from the sky. The terrible bird had been ripped and torn, feathers peeling away as drops of blood were whipped free by the wind.

Not everyone received such a powerful vision, and Bleeding Hawk had known from that moment that he was special.

In war, he’d been blessed by the Sun, and once managed to steal three women from the Grass-Lodge People who lived in the open plains to the north. Bleeding Hawk understood the two realities of existence: war and Power. When the Sorcerer had arrived in his village, speaking of magical worlds and the chance to gain great honor, Bleeding Hawk had immediately fallen under his spell.

And yet again, the Sorcerer has seen the future.
The thought filled his head as he watched the Cahokian from his hiding place. The man was talking to the old woman where she sat in the sun, shielding her eyes.

“Secret yourself in the corn granary, Bleeding Hawk. I spoke to the old woman specifically to see who, if anyone, hunts for me. If, by the time a day passes, no one has come, you may return to the warehouse. Should, however, anyone search out the old woman and question her? Ah, then he or she is yours to hunt and kill.”

Bleeding Hawk shifted, his souls growing calm and sure. Through the slats of the granary wall, he watched the big man pass, recognizing him as the slovenly thief who attended the Clan Keeper.

The one who killed Bobcat!

The Sorcerer had overheard one of the Keeper’s household slaves remark how the “rootless thief” had fortuitously sneaked up behind Bobcat and brained him.

Coward!
But then, two could play at that game.

Bleeding Hawk had dedicated himself to the stalk. While his skills had been learned in the wilds surrounding Tula, the principles were the same here in this magical and revolting city.

He waited until the thief had stepped out onto the Avenue of the Sun. He watched as the man hesitated, and then headed west.

Bleeding Hawk shouldered his hide-cased bow and quiver, then unlatched the granary door. On agile feet he clambered down the notched pole that led to the ground, made his way to the great avenue, and joined the flow of other pedestrians on their way west.

Like a good hunter, Bleeding Hawk kept enough distance that he could occasionally glimpse his prey. The man remained heedless as he passed the Traders’ stands, houses, workshops, and garden plots.

A bare hint of smile bent Bleeding Hawk’s lips as he witnessed the big man deftly steal an ear of boiled corn from one of the roadside vendors. Unconcerned, the thief mindlessly gnawed kernels from the cob before pitching it to one of the begging dogs who’d been drawn to follow him. The pesky beasts followed anyone with food.

His quarry turned off at the outskirts of the River Mounds, and here the hunt grew more difficult. Had the city been built in any kind of order, the stalk would have been easier. Bleeding Hawk could have anticipated his prey’s direction. Instead, Bleeding Hawk had to proceed in leaps, waiting until the thief had walked behind a building or latrine screen before he could hurry forward and sneak a peek.

Adding to the problem, the thief seemed to know everyone, stopping to chat at workshops and stalls, calling people by name, laughing and joking. At one he’d pick up a piece of pottery, holding it up to the light as the maker pointed out decorations. At the next he’d be handed a piece of fabric by some weaver who winked at him and was in turn slapped on the back.

Through it all, Bleeding Hawk had to circle, portraying to the other locals as if he were not stalking someone, but was simply lost, or bemused. Often, when he’d try to circle around a building for another vantage point to watch his prey, he’d find the way blocked and have to hurry back. More than once he barely caught a glimpse of his vanishing target as the thief’s broad back disappeared down some narrow way.

Then the process would begin again as some passerby called out a greeting and stopped the thief for a brief chat. There would be more laughing, stories or jokes, and then a drawn out parting with some kind of incomprehensible promises called back and forth.

Bleeding Hawk didn’t need to speak the language to understand the gist of the conversations. But how did a thief amass so many obvious friends? Among the Tula, the moment a man’s dishonesty was discovered, he would be staked out in the sun naked, a slit cut in his belly, and a length of intestine pulled out for the camp dogs to fight over. Here, among these people, the miscreant appeared to be celebrated!