People of the Weeping Eye(15)

“Alligator Town,” the old man said thoughtfully.

“Can you feel the flames?” She raised a hand, palm outward, as if to savor the sensation.

“No. But then, Whippoorwill, my powers were never like yours.” He glanced down at the two bowls resting by his feet. “You saw the fighting in your vision. The smoke comes from the right place.”

Whippoorwill’s long black hair shone as she nodded. “Surprise was complete. Many are dead. The Auntie People chiefs may succeed in feeding the survivors at Alligator Village, but bellies will be pinched this winter.”

“Only among our people,” the old man muttered sourly. “If there’s starvation, the Chikosi won’t feel it.”

Whippoorwill turned to study him. Her delicate and triangular face made her eyes look large. They glistened, dark and liquid, like midnight pools. Smudges of gray could be seen on her temples where bits of paste had flaked. She pursed her full lips. “What are you willing to sacrifice, Grandfather?”

“To be rid of them?” Paunch ran callused hands down his thin shins. “Anything.”

“How many would you starve?”

“Of my own people? None! I’d take it out of those filthy Chikosi mouths. I want to see their bellies gaunted up, their ribs sticking out like basket staves.”

“In order to win, our people must lose.” Whippoorwill’s gaze wavered as if unable to find its focus. She seemed to look through him, to see something beyond his world. “How long has it been, Grandfather? Are you sure that our people even care to be freed of the invader?”

Paunch narrowed his eyes as he struggled to see through the haze of branches to the distant smoke’s source. “They came in the time of my grandfather’s grandfather. The Albaamaha were spread up and down the Black Warrior River bottoms, living in villages, hunting, fishing, farming. Clans feuded with clans. Sometimes Pensacola raiders would come up the river and steal away women or children … take them off to the gulf and make slaves of them. But villages protected their own.”

She listened intently, as if hearing the thoughts hidden behind his words.

“Their warriors came first,” he continued. “A large band of twenty canoes, they traveled down from the portage, down past the fall line. Two hundred warriors armed with shields, powerful bows, and deadly arrows—our people just watched them pass. No one would dare to challenge such a force. Especially unsophisticated hunter-farmers like we were.”

Paunch rubbed his lined forehead. “They knew where they were headed, of course. Their Traders had been through this country from top to bottom. They knew everything about us. We had sheltered them in our villages, told them of our petty squabbles, and shown them our best land. Among their Traders were farmers, men who knew corn and soil. They had picked out the bluffs a long time before those canoes came down the river.”

“I’ve seen these things.” Her expanded pupils made black pools. “The memories of my Ancestors cry within me. My eyes look through theirs. I feel their hearts beating within my own.”

“If they are showing you these things, then you know how the Chikosi established a camp on the heights that would become Split Sky City. You’ve seen how they erected their first fortifications and sent out parties of warriors to meet with our headmen. They promised us protection from raiders—an end to our petty feuds, and food for all in return for obedience. Many of our chiefs agreed and asked the bristling Mos’kogee warriors to intimidate their enemies and rivals. Those who refused stood no chance against such trained and disciplined fighters. Their farmsteads were burned, and the lucky ones were killed outright and left to rot in their fields. The unlucky were taken back to the bluffs. The tendons in their heels were severed so they couldn’t run away, and they were put to work raising the high mounds even as more parties of Chikosi came traveling down the river.”

“Some of our people revolted,” she said in a breath-heavy voice.

Paunch shook his head. “We were like children shrieking at adults. They crushed any opposition. Those who obeyed without complaint were made headmen, given gifts and lands, and allowed to live in the shadow of Split Sky City.”

“Split Sky,” she said listlessly. “Even the name reeks of their arrogance.”

Old Paunch picked up the beautiful black pot at his feet and cradled it in his bony hands. He could see the curved image of trees and sky reflected in the polished mirror-black exterior. Water filled a third of it; his reflection mirrored in the dark depths of the bowl. His eyes appeared to be holes in his face, and he could feel tendrils of Power, as though the reflected image was from another world. “It is said that these Well Pots are doorways.”