People of the Weeping Eye(80)

Long before dawn, Trader had slipped from his bedding, rolled it, and packed it to his canoe. Then he had taken his packs, one by one, walking on tiptoes as Swimmer followed him curiously. Finally he had lifted his heavy copper and turned to leave.

The voice from the shadows had startled him. Two Petals—eerie creature that she was—said softly, “Never see you again.”

And he had left, picking his way, had loaded his copper, and after gesturing Swimmer into the canoe, had pushed off into the creek.

Now, a day later, the words burrowed like beetles through his souls. “No matter who you’ve killed, that piece of copper will buy you forgiveness.”

“No, you don’t want to go back. Not Trader. He’s happy traveling alone, with no name, and no place to call home.”

But the words that stung like cactus thorns were, “She never thinks of you. You are gone from her memory. The wistful smiles she has in the quiet moments are for someone else.”

“She can’t know that. Contrary, or not, no one could know what an unknown woman, half a world away, thinks and feels.” He knotted his fist, watching the tendons in the back of his hand. After all these winters, her memory still clung to him. How could any man love a woman that much?

“That piece of copper will buy you forgiveness.”

Could it? How could his uncle ever forgive? Sure, the clan would forgive him, happy to make a place for a murderer who handed over so much wealth to pay for redemption. How did she forgive what he’d done? He could see her eyes. They’d pin him like a bug on a bone awl. You killed your brother. That fact could never be burned away, not even by the reflected glare of sunlight off copper.

How do I forgive myself?

He stared numbly at the water. Sticks and bits of flotsam bobbed on the waves. Overhead a bald eagle wheeled, searching for fish. Filling his nostrils, Trader took in the smells of the river: water, mud, the vegetation. If he did return home, would this ever be far from his blood?

Oh, yes, there were the dangers. Old White hadn’t lied when he talked about the snags, driftwood rafts, and bobbing trees that could capsize a canoe and drown a man.

Nor had he lied about the chieftains up and down the river. The Power of Trade was waning. Stories trickled up and down the river about how some chiefs had seized loads, killed Traders, and quietly set their canoes adrift on the current.

For the most part, he’d dismissed them. But the fact was, he had never carried such goods as the ones in his canoe now. And the lesson taught by Snow Otter remained fresh in his mind. Sometimes he tried to talk himself into believing that Snow Otter hadn’t meant him harm, but the man’s entire nature had changed after seeing that copper. And just why would a fellow who had guarded his daughter’s virginity with a war ax insist on sticking her in a stranger’s bed? Nor had the expression on Snow Otter’s wife’s face given him any cause to think otherwise. She had been clearly alarmed that night, shooting uneasy glances at her too-jovial husband.

No, the old world was breaking down. The lords of Cahokia, with their insistence on the safe passage of Traders, were long vanished, like smoke on the wind.

He considered the route downriver. South of the Mother River’s mouth, the Michigamea had built several fortified towns in the west-bank lowlands as well as a high city on the east bank where they could watch all travel. He had been stopped every time he made the trip, offered food and drink in return for Trade. While he had always complied, the demands had been ever greater, sometimes to the point of being uncomfortable.

“The plan,” he told Swimmer, “was to pass in the darkness. To time it so that I would be downriver by sunrise.”

Swimmer thumped his tail.

“But what if I run into a group of warriors traveling on the river?” More than once just such a party had insisted that he return with them to their town. And there were so many towns. Most, of necessity, were built on high ground, back from the floodwaters. But even those sent out fishing, war, and Trading parties. Figuring that on average he passed three towns a day headed downriver, even if he eluded the surly Michigamea, somewhere the odds would overtake him.

“So what was I thinking?”

Unbidden, he could imagine Old White saying, “You were living in the Dream of wealth.”

That bothered him. He liked to believe he was the canniest Trader on the river. For the most part, he got away with it. Discretion being the smartest way of living, there were times he lost a nice shell or bag of medicine herbs in return for a nondescript pot that nobody would want. But other Trades made up for it. Part of the art was knowing who desired what along the river.