Would he?
Trader made a face. He was nose to nose with the eternal human problem. Searching for wealth was always difficult. While finding it was hard enough, keeping it was even more perilous.
He shifted uneasily, remembering the kind twinkle in Fox Down’s eyes. He’d known countless men like him during his years on the river, all taken with the Power of Trade, with the adventure of traveling the rivers. But for the copper, Trader wouldn’t have thought twice about leaving his canoe under Fox Down’s watchful eye while he walked up to inspect the goods available in Red Wing Town. Traders watched out for each other. It was part of the Power of Trade.
Or so he’d thought up until he’d seen that obsessive gleam fill Snow Otter’s eyes.
So many years. Have I learned nothing about the twists and turns of men’s souls?
With his free hand he reached up under the buffalo robe and patted the thick lump of stone-encrusted metal. He’d wrapped it in layers of an old Caddo blanket and now used it for a pillow.
Images slipped through his souls: Treasures waited just inside the walls of Red Wing Town. Pretty young women were offering him gorgeously painted buffalo robes, ceramic jars full of Healing herbs, wooden statuary of Morning Star, Birdman, and Long-Nosed God. Strings of pearls were laid out on colorful blankets, and wonderful cloaks of soft beaver hide, muskrat, and wolverine literally begged him to Trade.
Yet there he lay, by himself, captive of a fortune in copper.
Gods, I’m the loneliest man alive.
The island Old White had chosen was little more than a lens of sand tossed up by the current. Along its length, willows had managed to catch a toehold. In their wake, cottonwoods had sprung up: young trees, little more than twice a man’s height. Thick grass had carpeted the narrow strip, and now sagged, waiting for the frost to brown and dry it. A few straggling leaves still fluttered yellow on the cottonwood branches.
Old White had landed on a sandy beach halfway down the island, and had been grateful for Two Petals’ help dragging the heavy canoe partway up the bank. Every muscle in her body ached, and she’d rubbed the rope burns as they had scavenged driftwood for the fire. Now, as night deepened and stars began to spot the sky, a cheerful blaze crackled.
Two Petals crouched by the fire, curious. What was Old White’s purpose with her? Images spun between her souls. Fragments of Dreams and visions crowded her thoughts. Sometimes the voices that spoke to her out of the air left phrases that stuck. “You have a destiny. Dance with the brothers, and make the world right.”
She cocked her head, staring off to the side. Just a moment ago, a huge black wolf had been standing there, watching her with glowing yellow eyes. When she finally blinked, it had vanished. From old experience, she knew that were she to go look, no tracks would be imprinted in the damp sand.
Old White extended his hands to the flames, sighing as if thankful for the heat. He sat with his back to a rotting log: an oak that some long-forgotten flood had deposited crossways on the sandy spit. He had his legs folded, back bent. The ornately carved wooden box he carried lay by his side. When he had placed the heavy fabric sack atop it, the wood had clunked, as if the bag’s contents were stone. That was puzzle enough, but what could such a beautiful box contain? She stared at the carvings visible in the firelight. Some were winged snakes with horned heads, others panthers with circles adorning their bodies and legs. Pearls had been inlaid for eyes, and now they gleamed maliciously in the firelight.
Having warmed his knobby fingers Old White reached into his belt pouch. Squinting in the dancing yellow light, he used a chert flake to carve at a round section of whelk shell about the size of his palm.
Two Petals hunched beside the fire, checking the brownware pot that rested beside the flames. She kept peering in at the contents: cornmeal, sunflower seeds, bits of dried pumpkin, and meat from a small turtle who had lingered too late in the season before diving to the depths.
“Fast Palm was a poor war chief. No way he could have taken our town. Surely you didn’t drive him off. Not an old man like you. Tell me you didn’t use a weapon. Did you?” she asked.
Old White smiled. “An herb. Comes from the far southwest. I came to appreciate it when I lived with the Azteca.”
“Oh, them. Lots of Azteca around, yes?” He used so many names she’d never heard before.
“A people way down in the south.” He paused, looking up from his carving, an expression of amazement on his face. “You wouldn’t believe. They make temples out of stone. Pyramids taller than the highest of our mounds. Well, maybe not Cahokia, but stunning nevertheless. I went there, ventured into their lands in the company of the Pochteca.”