Red Wing Town was a large urban center that served some five thousand souls both within the town walls and from the outlying villages and farmsteads. It stood on a rise just back from the eastern bank of the Father Water. Surrounded by villages and cornfields, its high clay-coated palisade protected several platform mounds topped with grand buildings. There the High Oneota chiefs held sway, seeing to the comings and goings of the seasons, governing their subjects, attending to their wars, Trade, and ceremonials. Generations past, they had traveled north from Cahokia—refugees fleeing the Great Sun after losing a particularly bitter civil war. Rather than face eventual capture, humiliation, and death, they had paddled upriver, outrun the Great Sun’s pursuit, and established themselves in the rich bottomlands.
As exiles, they had lived quietly at first, battling the local A’khota peoples and hacking a chiefdom out of what was essentially wilderness. They had built their great city above flood stage at the confluence of the Wild Rice River with the Father Water. Two mounds supported large palaces in which the rulers lived. Charnel houses, temples, and multiroomed society houses choked the space between the plaza and the high walls that surrounded the city.
Trader thoughtfully studied those distant walls as the last rays of sunset bathed them in a mellow golden light that contrasted with the purpling of the eastern sky. His canoe was pulled up on the packed landing below the city. Around him, tens of other canoes rested on the stained sand. Most belonged to the Red Wing People, and had been inverted atop sections of driftwood so that rain wouldn’t pool inside the hulls. Other boats, like his, belonged to Traders and visiting A’khota who had come to Trade, deliver tribute, seek redress for injustices, or barter goods among the locals.
Trader used a long stick to prod at the small fire he’d kindled. He fed it from a stack of driftwood he’d picked up from the riverbank during his travels earlier that day. Being familiar with Red Wing Town, he’d known that wood was scarce for a distance in any direction from the big city.
But what did he do about his dilemma? Here he was comfortably seated, smoking a bowl of red willow bark mixed with tobacco, his warm feather cloak about his shoulders and a cheery fire at his feet. He shared the company of Fox Down, a Trader from the Ockmulgee, way off to the southeast. They had just finished a dinner of fire-roasted fish and corn cakes. That was fine, but just up the bank was Red Wing Town. He was a Trader, hang it all, and that town up there was just bulging with goods to inspect.
“You wish to go up there? Go,” Fox Down said amiably. “I’ll keep an eye on your packs.” He was a thickset man with bulging shoulders from years of paddling up and down the great rivers. Tattoos covered his wide face; the designs included starbursts, geometric lines, and two shapes that looked like faded wings on his cheeks. A buffalo robe hung over his shoulders and he smoked a tubular stone pipe, its sides stained from years of use. On his chest hung a gleaming pendant; a highly stylized rattlesnake had been carved on the polished whelk shell.
Trader smiled. “I’m in a hurry. I just thought I’d spend the night here. That’s all.”
“You want to go up there. I can see it in your eyes,” Fox Down said gently. “You’re a Trader. Of course you want to go.” He gestured with his pipe. “What have you got in that canoe, anyway? You’ve spent the summer up north? From the look of your packs, I’d say you’ve got bales of fine furs, maybe some spruce needles, copper if you’re lucky, tool stone, and some other odds and ends.”
Trader nodded, a prickling of worry gnawing at his spine. He tried to look unconcerned as he puffed at his pipe. “As a guesser, you’re pretty good. Have you thought about spending your life as a Trader? I’d say you have a natural aptitude for this sort of thing.”
Fox Down threw his head back and laughed. “For thirty-five winters I have been a Trader. I rotted well should have some idea how this works.” The smile faded. “The gods alone know what I’d do if I couldn’t do this. I can think of no fate more terrible than being stuck in one town, one valley, one river for the rest of my life.”
“You’re headed back now?” Trader was happy to change the subject. He pointedly avoided looking up at the town gates, though his souls ached to know what was happening up there. He could imagine the locals bartering colorful fabrics, finely wrought stone hoes, perhaps some great bargain like an Osage wood bow or a remarkably decorated buffalo hide. The desire to see was like an itch stuck between his souls.
“I’ll keep an eye on your stuff,” Fox Down reminded lightly. “I hate to see a man torturing himself so.”