“You do not speak his name. Which tells me the rumors are true, that he really was murdered somewhere in the Nations down south.”
Rides-the-Lightning grunted, knowing full well the Red Wing had tricked him. “We don’t know that he was murdered. The story was that he drowned in a canoe mishap.”
“How convenient.”
“These things happen, Red Wing.”
“Yes. Of course.” He dribbled another couple of drops into Night Shadow Star’s mouth. “Such an unlucky family. The old Tonka’tzi murdered, attempts on the Keeper and Night Shadow Star, and now Lace is abducted. But only after her husband was flayed like a butchered turkey and tied to the wall with his severed muscles hanging like obscene feathers. Makes you wonder why the abomination is hunting them so hard.”
Fire Cat raised a forestalling hand. “But wait! Perhaps, like me, he has a hatred for the Four Winds Clan.”
“There is another explanation: he seeks to destroy them because they control the Power. Whoever controls the Power, controls Cahokia. And whoever controls Cahokia, controls the world.” Rides-the-Lightning smiled, displaying sunken and toothless pink gums. “And Night Shadow Star controls you, Red Wing. You and this ‘hate’ you are so fond of. I would be afraid, because Power is depending on the way you feel about the lady. For whatever purpose it chose you? I think it is going to be very unpleasant.”
Forty-eight
The flimsy ramada stood just up from the beached canoes that packed the river landing. Across the Father Water, high atop the bluff, Evening Star town could be seen, the high palace jutting from its mound. Sunlight sparkled on the broad river, bobbing as it was with canoes. A float of firewood was being hauled ashore just below where High Dance’s canoe had landed. The laborers called in unison as they struggled with the wet wood.
The ramada consisted of four slim poles, saplings really, that supported a lattice roof covered with old reed matting gone gray with mold. Bead sat in its shade on a gorgeous red-white-and-black-striped blanket, his feet pulled up, knees clasped in his arms. He had his hair up in a bun, pinned with a turkey-bone skewer, and wore only a stained buckskin apron suspended from a plain belt. The muscles in his arms flexed and relaxed, as if in time to his thoughts.
He glanced up as High Dance walked up from the canoe he’d hired to bring him across the busy river crossing. Like Bead, he had dressed like a commoner, pulling his hair into a twist the way some of the western dirt farmers did.
High Dance stepped into the shade, nodded to Bead, and then at the two warriors, or wolves as Bead called them. They stood out in the sun, bronzed skin shining from perspiration, their young, tattoo-free faces indeed reminding High Dance of the hunting prairie beasts.
“I am so glad to see you,” Bead said easily, a lazy smile on his lips. He’d painted his face a pale gray with two light blue streaks down the cheeks, a pattern with which High Dance was unfamiliar. “And even better, it’s good to see that you’ve come alone.”
He gestured at the tens of men and youths loading and unloading canoe contents around them. Older women, dressed in bright colors, offered cooked and raw food from the shade of nearby ramadas, or paraded past with bowls of victuals. Skinny boys lurked in the crowd, each offering a carving, or other memento of Cahokia in return for a shell.
“As though one could actually tell in this confusion,” Bead amended.
“I came alone.” High Dance squinted at the two guards who watched him through suspicious eyes.
“So glad!” Bead popped to his feet, smacking his hands as if to free them of clinging sand. “I hoped that your sister hadn’t completely frightened you away. I really should make some time to have a visit with her. She seems … I don’t know, serious? Wouldn’t you say? You’re her brother. You’d know why she acts like such a nervous and close-minded old forest hen.”
“My sister is none of your concern.”
Bead glanced at him, an eyebrow lifting. “I’ve got it! Could it be? Tell me she isn’t still letting that ugly little dwarf crawl under her blanket. For the life of me, I just can’t get my imagination around a full-grown and handsome woman like your sister finding any kind of satisfaction from that tiny and misshapen little man.”
“You had better restrict your comments to things that are your business.” High Dance felt a cold fury blow through him. That Columella allowed that cunning little imp into her bed was bad enough, but to have the slippery Bead throw it in his face? Absolutely unacceptable!
Bead seemed nonplussed. “Oh, but it is my business, as you shall see. Come on. I’ve got something that will excite you to no end. Hah, I’ll bet you’ll be so overjoyed you even forgive me for that last deplorable comment about your sister.”