People of the Thunder(130)

“Bones.”

“Red Awl’s?”

“So it would seem.”

“Do you think we solved anything back there?”

“That, my young friend, is going to depend on the future.” He sighed. “All we have to do is discredit Smoke Shield and Flying Hawk, manage to stay alive, and figure out a way to keep Great Cougar and his warriors from killing any Chikosi. Or the other way around.”

“Right. Overthow a high minko and his tricky war chief, and stop a war. Shouldn’t be any trouble at all. If Heron Wing, Swimmer, my canoe, and I are missing in the morning, you carry on without us.”

“And then there’s Two Petals.”

“She can carry on, too.”

“Your confidence is so reassuring.”

It was then that the first stiff gust of wind came howling down from the north.



The equinox celebration barely had a chance. The rituals, of course, were attended to, offerings made at sunrise to thank Mother Sun for her journey north and the promise of the planting season that would begin with the first new moon.

The games were poorly attended, stickball matches more battles against the blowing wind than the opposing teams. Most people spent the day struggling to keep the thatch from peeling off their roofs and their possessions from tumbling away. The celebratory feasts were held inside buildings that swayed and rocked as gusts savaged them, whistling and hissing around gaps in the eaves.

Anything that wasn’t tied down went twirling away, including baskets, latrine screens, ramada roofs, and occasional bits of fabric. Little whirlwinds, spawned in the gaps between houses, sucked up bits of debris, charcoal, and ash, and batted them this way and that. Fine grit filtered down into stew pots and coated bedding, food, and matting.

People passed with their arms up, trying to shield their eyes and mouths from the grit, bits of thatch, and matting that pattered against them.

Trader and Old White had slept late, hardly bothered by the shuddering house around them. The poles creaked and groaned while the wind sang a rasping sound through the thatch. Particles of soot filtered down, shaken loose from above, only to scurry this way and that as they rode the draft. Trader had tied the door hanging by its corners to keep it from flapping, but it batted back and forth with crisp snaps.

The draft carried away the fire’s heat, wicking it in all directions. Trader grumbled to himself, poking at the embers that boiled their smilax, lotus, and hominy corn stew.

“We could have done without this,” Old White muttered, his buffalohide cape pulled tight around his shoulders.

“Thankfully, we’re not out on the river.” Trader studied Swimmer where he lay beside one of the pole beds. His normally black hair was tinged gray with fine soot and dust.

“Put a lid over that,” Old White suggested as a beetle fell from the weakened thatch, just missing the stew pot.

“You worried about eating a beetle?”

“Food’s food,” Old White told him. “Among the Yamparika I ate crickets, grasshoppers, and other things. In dry years they make nets and drive the hoppers like we do deer. Then they smack them with flails. They grind them up on stones, make a kind of bread out of them, and bake it on flat rocks. But here, who knows? Some beetles can be poison. Among the Azteca I heard of people mashing them to make poison for their arrows.”

Trader hurriedly placed a flat piece of bark over the rim. “Poison beetles?”

Old White shrugged. “My guess is that beetles don’t like being eaten any more than any other creature.”

Outside they could hear someone shouting. Voices—barely audible over the din—called back and forth, then faded. Then more people ran past, their words carried away with the wind.

“What do you suppose that’s about?” Trader glanced at the door.

Old White looked up at the roof, then cocked his head to listen. He sniffed the angry air. “I don’t see our house falling apart, can’t hear anything collapsing, and I can’t smell smoke, so nothing upwind is burning. Whatever it is, someone else can handle it.”

Trader made a face. If fire broke out on a day like this, everything downwind would go up. “I saw a town like that. Over among the Caddo. They had a big wind, and one of the houses caught fire. Burned the whole place down. Killed ten, maybe twenty people.”

Old White extended his hands to the coals. “Can’t think of a better reason to build a roof from earth. Now, down in the southwest, you’ve got to work to burn one of the towns. All the walls are made of dried mud bricks or stone. They put dirt over the roof. To burn those towns you have to set a hot fire inside, something that will catch the inside poles on fire.”