People of the River(25)

He searched for his voice, saying reverently, "Forgive us if we disturbed your sacred journey, Priestess. The Sun Chief, Tharon, sent us to—"

She took another step, moving so close to Badgertail that he could feel the warmth of her body. Wisps of her hair touched his face. A strange, pungent scent radiated from her, part sweat, part the tang of dry grass, and part something else, something old and bitter, like mold that has been growing beneath a log for a thousand cycles.

"I know why you came, and I know what you did to River Mounds." A flame of sorrow animated her words. She suddenly turned to her left again, peering thoughtfully at nothing. "Yes," she said softly. "I am aware of that, but it is his fault! Badgertail obeyed those conunands, didn't he?*'

Locust stuttered, "Wh-what's happening?" She drew her club, holding it at the ready, and started circling Nightshade and Badgertail with the wary movements of a cat stalking prey. Nightshade appeared totally unconcerned as her eyes came back to Badgertail, wide and accusing.

Badgertail frowned out over the shining ribbon of river. Fish jumped here and there, sending widening rings across the surface. "You are bom to send your soul swimming with Spirits, Priestess. I am bom to fight. Not out of hatred or vengeance, but because it's the nature of my soul and my duty. A swan is a swan. A bear is a bear."

He could feel her stare boring into his face, but when he tumed back to face her, he discovered that she was examining the blood on his warshirt in minute detail. She touched each spatter that marred Falcon's image with such aching gentleness in her fingers that it set Badgertail's heart to pounding.

"When you did your duty, Badgertail," she asked, "which of my friends did you mutilate? Which ..." The fierceness in her voice dwindled as she cocked her head, seemingly listening to her unseen companion again. Her mouth puckered. "Yes, I know. Bobcat. He could have run away. I'm not a monster. If he still wants to, I won't stop him, but I doubt that he has the courage. A bear is a bear."

Badgertail stood rooted to the ground, not breathing. He stared at the empty space she had spoken to, unable to take his eyes away as Nightshade swept around him to glide down the slope toward the river.



Green Ash, a woman of the Blue Blanket Clan, tugged her rabbit-fiir cape more closely around her throat while she studied the smoke rising from River Mounds. The chill breath of the Six Sacred Persons flitted gently over the icy water of Cahokia Creek and moaned through the few green plants along the banks.

People around her muttered and shielded their eyes against Father Sun's glare. Green Ash's brother, Primrose, anxiously surveyed the stringers of gray that curled upward, spiking the lavender gloss of dawn. Primrose's husband, Locust, would be in the battle. Worry lined his forehead as he lowered his eyes and stared at the fishing net they had dropped into the water. A medium-sized man with a delicate bone structure, he had well-developed muscles that bulged where the fabric of his green dress touched his calves and arms.

"Badgertail had no choice," Nettle said ominously. "He had to go after our tribute."

Green Ash glanced at her husband-to-be. Though he had the gentle soul of a puppy. Nettle loomed over almost everyone in the village. He stood eleven hands tall and had the face of Sister Cougar, round, with a flat nose and piercing eyes. He had twisted his black hair into a bun at the base of his skull and pinned it with a rabbit-bone skewer. The cloth fringes on his brown sleeves fluttered when he folded his arms to hug himself.

People stared at the smoke with hope in their gaunt faces. Especially old Checkerberry, whose cheeks had gone so hollow that the bones stuck out like a skeleton's. Winter had been unusually hard. The meager amount of com, sunflower seeds, and dried squash that they had managed to stockpile last autumn had been gone early on. Hunger had been tramping tirelessly through Cahokia for three moons.

Only Badgertail's incursions for tribute had fended off catastrophe.

But for how long?

Green Ash put a hand tenderly on her child-heavy belly and offered a silent prayer to First Woman. My baby will need food. Let the rains come. First Woman.

A soft voice echoed from the nether regions of her soul, and she closed her eyes to listen. The baby spoke to her frequently, sometimes in a deep, ominous voice, other times

in a voice so sweet and high that it made the hair on Green Ash's arms stand on end. Occasionally she thought she could grasp words, like now: Petaga comes . . . south . . . south we must go . . . find an end to the blowing snow . . .

Tendrils of fear wriggled through her stomach. Petaga? The Moon Chief's son? The Moon Chief. Poor Jenos. How would he feed his own people?

Harvests had been bad everywhere in the last cycle. The ears of com had been stubby, no longer than a woman's finger. Green Ash did not enjoy taking food from the mouths of her relatives, but what else could they do?