People of the Morning Star(73)

In contrast, a sack full of corn stolen in River Mounds could be Traded a day later in the Horned Serpent community with impunity. A distinctive shell necklace lifted from an Earth Clan chief in Evening Star City could be Traded for a copper effigy in the eastern uplands without fear of discovery.

It wasn’t even a difficult undertaking. Newcomers who had lived all their lives in communities where everyone knew and trusted everyone else, couldn’t conceive that the smiling local who greeted them at the canoe landing didn’t have the same scruples they had. Even after half their Trade had disappeared, many of the simpletons approached the local high chief with the absolute conviction that somehow a misunderstanding had occurred, and surely the missing goods would be returned as soon as the absconding party was made aware of the mistake. For many of those, even after it was explained to them, the concept of blatant theft remained utterly unfathomable. How could anyone behave in such a soulless manner? And especially in the Morning Star’s Cahokia?

In the city, with its teeming throngs, a man’s ambition was only limited by his lack of imagination or cunning. Crazy Frog was full of both.

On the chunkey court a dazzlingly bedecked player crouched slightly, his polished red-granite stone in his right hand, waxed wooden lance in his left. The breeze batted playfully at the bright blue feathers sticking out of his headdress. He’d painted his face white, with two large black forked-eye designs. Giant copper ear spools gleamed in the sunlight, and his muscular body tensed.

“Badger Cape will make the point if he doesn’t release too high,” Crazy Frog noted. “If he’d ever get that right, just letting the stone kiss the ground instead of dropping it, he’d be a master.”

“He looks the part. He must win enough to afford the copper and paint.” Seven Skull Shield propped his chin, having never developed Crazy Frog’s eye for evaluating a player.

“The important word is ‘enough.’ What he needs to do is win ‘more.’”

Badger Cape stepped off on his left foot, taking four paces before his arm went back. His body bowed, chest dropping as he bowled the stone down the court in one fluid motion. The stone left his hand at least two finger-widths above the smooth clay.

“Too high,” Crazy Frog said. “Did you see that bounce?”

“I did.”

Badger Cape straightened and shifted his lance to his right hand in one poetic movement, ran four more paces and whipped his arm back. He cast, using his body as a spring to fling the lance forward. Then, muscles knotting in his strong legs, he slowed to a stop just shy of the penalty line. All eyes followed Badger Cape’s spinning lance as it arced against the hazy sky. The red stone was slowing, curving to the right as the lance dropped toward it. At the last moment the stone’s curve increased, carrying it away from the lance’s path. The lance impacted the clay a heartbeat before the stone flopped onto its side a good body length to the right.

A groan went up from the crowd.

“It always veers like that when he lets it bounce,” Crazy Frog muttered, bending down to his plank and moving one of the colored beads.

The next player was dressed in yellow and black, his face painted in diagonal lines. He wore his hair in a bun, to the front of which was tied a stuffed oriole, its wings spread wide. Tattoos of interlinked diamonds ran down his bare arms and legs.

“Sun Bird can’t lose now.” Crazy Frog rubbed his chin. “Should have bet a second pot of shell beads on this game.”

“All because Badger Cape bounced his stone?”

“Losing by that much on his first cast?” Crazy Frog gestured futility. “When he starts well, he ends well. Now he thinks Power isn’t with him on this game. It would be a miracle if he recovered, and Badger Cape isn’t in the habit of making miracles.”

Seven Skull Shield watched Sun Bird start his run with a little hop. On the fourth pace he bent, whipped his arm back, and smoothly bowled a white marble stone down the court. Straightening, he sprinted forward, switched his lance, and launched it in a perfect overhand throw. He came to a stop, bouncing on his toes as he watched the lance speed after the fleet stone.

“Good cast,” Crazy Frog admitted as he moved his counter bead even before seeing the lance impact no more than two hand’s distance from the stone as it slowed and toppled onto its side.

“I’m curious about something,” Seven Skull Shield said softly. “When I get curious, I think about who might have the answers to my questions.”

“Is that why you gave me that nicely polished whelk shell and asked to sit with me?”