People of the Thunder(158)

Old White placed a hand over his heart. He’d seen the like before . . . in the Kala Hi’ki’s empty eye sockets.





Thirty-two


As Flying Hawk walked aimlessly toward his palace, a sense of loss and stunned dismay overwhelmed him. He rounded the head of the ravine that separated the high minko’s grounds from Skunk Clan’s. People rushed past—everyone headed toward the canoe landing, desperate to learn more about the startling events that had occurred there.

I don’t understand!

He had followed anxiously behind the chiefs as they stormed after Smoke Shield. In their wake, he had heard their amazement, listened to Wooden Cougar’s shouts demanding that Smoke Shield return the copper.

Flying Hawk had stopped at the crest of the slope, watched Smoke Shield paddle out with the witch, and seen the canoe pulled down by something large and shining in the depths. He had seen the flash of copper and watched Smoke Shield’s body partially rise, heard that last hideous scream as he was dragged beneath the waves.

Horned Serpent! The witch must have called the creature up from the depths.

Why? The question consumed Flying Hawk as he stopped, looking back at the people flocking toward the landing. He blinked, shook his head, and resumed his weary pace. He walked like a man in a Dream—as if the events he had just witnessed were fantasies. Could he really have seen Green Snake and Hickory in the tchkofa, or was that illusion? Had he watched a real piece of copper tipped out of the old war medicine box? Or a Dream creation: something resurrected from a restless nightmare and replayed among his reeling souls?

Smoke Shield! Gods, what happened to you?

Flying Hawk remembered his nephew’s gleaming eyes, the awe on his face as the copper thumped onto the tchkofa floor and literally blazed in the sunlight. The instant his nephew had laid his hands on the copper, a pain stabbed deep through Flying Hawk’s chest. Even now he could feel it aching like a splinter between his souls.

He was confused, overwhelmed by the bits of conversations, images of Green Snake, and, finally, Hickory—returned from the dead to brandish Bear Tooth’s ceremonial war ax. He could still see it, sleek in the shaft of light shining through the tchkofa smoke hole.

Gods, how he remembered that ax!

Hickory lives!

After all those long hard winters, why had the man picked this moment to return? And how had he found Green Snake, let alone the long-vanished war medicine?

This is the work of Power, come to punish Smoke Shield for his abuses!

“And me. It has come to punish me.” He stopped again, looking back, a sense of futility draining his energy. He walked on—a man bereft. His life had been looted clean of accomplishments, struggles, and sacrifices.

It was for nothing!

In that instant, he saw his brother’s face. Acorn lay on that long-ago clearing, his bleeding head on the grass. But instead of the blood-smeared, sightless eyes, Acorn was staring at him. The slack mouth no longer gaped in a death rictus, but curled with a profound satisfaction. Laughter burst from Acorn’s lungs, a fine spray of blood misting the air.

Flying Hawk clapped hands to his ears as he rounded the base of the great mound, walked to the high Sun Stairs, and began the long climb to the top. His knee burned and grated with each step.

Under his breath, he muttered, “One thing they cannot take from me: I am still the high minko!”

He winced at the pain in his knee, climbing resolutely. His breath began to labor, and he stopped, halfway up. Looking south, he could see the whole of Split Sky City. The plaza grass was greening, verdant in the sunlight. Smoke still rose from the tchkofa fire to trail away on the lazy air. The multitude of houses peppered the grounds, and beyond the southern chief mounds, he could see the long section of flattened palisade.

“Should have seen to that,” he muttered to himself, remembering that somewhere out to the west—if the reports could be believed—a Chahta war party was closing on Split Sky City, a determined Great Cougar at its head.

He clamped his eyes shut, imagining his own war parties. He could visualize them, spread out, searching the forest trails to the north for a Yuchi war party that would never come.

How did I make such a mess of things?

Resuming his climb, he advanced a step at a time.

The stairs were uneven. Somehow, he’d forgotten to order the slaves to replace and reset them. So many things had occupied his thoughts—most of them grim premonitions of disaster at Smoke Shield’s hands.

As he neared the top, he looked back at his city one last time. People still threaded their way toward the huge crowd at the landing. He couldn’t see that from here; the bulk of the mound and palace blocked the view. It was better that way.