Biloxi was pleading again, begging for mercy and freedom. “I’ll give you anything! Don’t you know who I am?”
Blinking, she wondered, Is that really my brother? Could the grand Biloxi Mankiller, high minko of the White Arrow, have become this groveling lump of a man? She barely recognized the naked man as her brother—not the Biloxi she knew. He wouldn’t be whimpering, seeking to curry favor from the guards, promising them women, wealth, lands, anything to let him loose. Then, later, his begging was for a drink, for food, or a wrap of cloth to warm himself in.
Better that Mother was dead. It would wound her souls to learn that Biloxi had become this broken creature. His three wives, including Water Lily with her broken arm, bore up with more grace and resolve.
“What’s going to happen to us?” she finally asked as they descended a slope. They passed through the last of the forest to enter a cornfield.
Screaming Falcon turned his head, a hard certainty in his eyes. “Blood Skull captured us. He will decide.” The words were slurred. She knew it hurt him to talk.
“He will give us away, won’t he?”
“It is … custom.” Screaming Falcon turned his eyes back to the path they followed around one of the cornfields.
The implications settled coldly around her heart. A warrior who captured an enemy traditionally made a gift of the prisoner to another clan, thereby incurring that clan’s favor and obligation. No higher honor could be bestowed.
She closed her eyes, heart pounding. Prayed that Blood Skull offered her to any clan but Smoke Shield’s Chief Clan. The way the man looked at her sent a chill through her souls that was colder than the night rain.
“We may be all right,” she insisted, forcing herself to watch the trail. When one captive fell, he jerked the others down, choking them. Then came the warriors, wielding their clubs to get everyone up. It was an awkward process with bound arms.
The rope jerked, biting into her throat, causing her to stumble. She coughed, fought to keep her balance, and managed.
“Sorry,” Juggler managed hoarsely. “It was the Alikchi Hopaii. He tripped but didn’t fall.”
Still coughing, Morning Dew cast a glance behind her. Down the line she could see Dancing Star, the Alikchi Hopaii, the Spirit Healer, the greatest of their Priests, wobbling on his feet. His nephew, Daytime Owl, had rushed forward to steady the man.
“Keep the line,” one of the warriors barked from the side. The man pointed his war club.
“My uncle is weakening,” the young man explained.
“He doesn’t have far to go.” The warrior seemed to relent. “The way is flatter now.”
They took us all. The lonely thought echoed between Morning Dew’s souls. In one daring blow, Smoke Shield had captured the high minko and his wives, taken her and Screaming Falcon, killed the Chief Clan matron, and captured the Alikchi Hopaii. Screaming Falcon’s young brother, a boy who would never see manhood, walked last in line. He claimed to have seen the tishu minko’s body outside his house. With Bow Mankiller’s death, White Arrow Town’s leadership was either dead or captive.
A shout caused her to raise her head. An Albaamo farmer and his family stood beside their thatch-covered house. The man was waving, smiling. As the warriors passed, he ran out, offering each of them ears of corn. These the warriors accepted, but without the enthusiasm she would have expected.
The words of the Albaamo spy are ringing in their ears. She swallowed hard, remembering the man’s unearthly shrieks as Smoke Shield alternately cut him apart and pressed burning branches to his naked, bound body.
She had tried to close her ears, but his screams had pierced the very bones in her head. “Paunch!” the man had cried. “Paunch sent me!”
Every time Smoke Shield had asked who else was involved, the young man had pleaded, sometimes in Albaamaha, sometimes in Mos’kogee, that he didn’t know. It always came back to the man called Paunch.
She had tried not to look as they passed the young man’s remains the following morning. But a quick glance had etched itself in her memory. Could that piece of charred and butchered meat have once been human?
The final leg of the journey passed in misery, more people crowding around, watching them pass. She flinched the first time someone threw wet garbage at her. After that, the periodic pelting of feces, urine, and turkey intestines became commonplace. So, too, did the Dancing Albaamaha. Several shouted, “This is for our kin, butchered at Alligator Town!”
They skirted the last cornfield, winding down to the Black Warrior River. There, for the first time, she glanced up, seeing the high palaces atop the bluff opposite them. She stared for a moment, openly amazed. “Mother, you never told me.”