Authors: W. Michael Gear
Copper Falcon
W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear
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To the remarkable Theresa Hulongbayan and her Spectacular Fan Club
Tor and Forge titles by Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear
AD 1050, on the river that would one day be called the Mississippi …
The way he stood tall in the war canoe’s bow, he might have been a conquering hero. The world knew him as Red Mask, high chief of Copper Falcon Town, a lineage elder of the Four Winds Clan. I called him Father.
His cardinal-feather cloak was thrown back over his shoulders and ruffled in the breeze. Sunlight glinted on the copper pin that held his gray-streaked hair in a tight warrior’s bun atop his head. The flat planes of his tattooed face accented his hawkish nose. His wide mouth now fixed itself in anticipation as the canoe raced across the wide Father Water.
My father was beloved by our people and feared by our enemies. His mere entry into the Council House back home brought smiles to lips, a sparkle to the eyes of those in attendance.
To me, however, my father remained a perplexing enigma full of contradictions: a man of well-kept secrets, anger, festering resentment, indomitable courage, and that rarest of traits: a charisma that brought men and women flocking to his various causes.
Not even our recent military defeats at the hands of the T’so barbarians had dimmed that luster. Just the opposite. The council had voted to send Father back to Cahokia after all these years. His mission? To persuade his cousin, High Chief Green Chunkey of the Horned Serpent House, to send a squadron of warriors to bolster the defense of Copper Falcon Town against continued T’so depredations. Just a quick in-and-out, all done without alerting the rulers of Cahokia that we were there.
I was a bit hazy about why the last was so important. It had been many years since my father’s banishment. He had left Cahokia having barely turned twenty, my age, and was now into his fifties. After so many years, the Morning Star—the reincarnated god who ruled Cahokia—shouldn’t have cared. We sent tribute to the living god every year. Nor did we care what went on among Cahokia’s ruling Houses. Our concern was finding a way to deal with the T’so.
For me, despite the risks, the trip was a dream turned real. All of my life I had listened to talk of magical Cahokia. The center of the world, Cahokia was fabled to be the greatest city on earth. I’d seen the wistful look in Father’s eyes, heard the longing in his voice when he spoke of it.
He never discussed why he’d been exiled, or why he’d been given the task of establishing Copper Falcon Town in the distant and hostile lands of the T’so barbarians. Those were some of his most perplexing secrets. On the few occasions when I’d twisted up the courage to ask, his eyes had narrowed to slits, and the muscles in his wide jaw had knotted: Father’s signs that further discussion was forbidden.
Closed-mouthed my father might have been. But I knew leaving Cahokia had cost him something terrible in dreams, pain, and soul. The staggering sense of loss was always there, hidden just far enough below the surface that its faint reflection lay in his dark eyes, in the shadow of his wistful smile.
Possessed by anticipation and worry, I bent my back to the paddle, calling cadence to our twenty warriors. Pointed paddles drove deep into the murky river, propelling us forward with water slapping at the bow.
Nothing had prepared me for Cahokia’s packed canoe landing. Behind us, the high western bluffs were dominated by Evening Star City, a sprawling conglomeration of tall temples, spirit poles, and palaces like I’d never dreamed of. Before us on the river’s eastern bank were hundreds of beached vessels and countless ramadas and stands thronging with busy people. Rising from the levee behind them—dense with high-peaked thatch-roofed buildings for as far as the eye could see—lay River Mounds City. Our warriors muttered in disbelief. I just gaped in foolish amazement.
But not Father. He maintained his stance, his cardinal-feather cloak billowing, his old, scarred war club hung crossways in his hands as the canoe raced across sun-sparkling water.
Back home, the arrival of a canoe from any distant place would have occurred amidst fanfare and excitement. In Cahokia, no one gave us a second look as the canoe drove up onto the charcoal-stained sand.
I watched Father leap ashore. He took a couple of paces, then dropped to one knee, his head lowered. As our warriors bore our craft up on the beach, I stopped beside him, dismayed by the expression on his face: torn, with a couple of tears leaking down his hard, tattooed cheeks.
“Father?”
He choked out, “After all these years …”
I glanced around at the bustling people, caught the damp odors of rot, urine, smoke, and cooking food. “How do they know who has arrived in this chaos?”
I felt suddenly small. Unsure of my place in the world, of who I really was. For days’ travel up or down the Tenasee River from Copper Falcon Town, if anyone didn’t recognize my distinctive facial tattoos, I only had to say, “I am Flint Knife Mankiller, son of High Chief Red Mask Tenkiller, of the Four Winds Clan.” Eyes would widen, and people bowed and respectfully touched their foreheads.
As I struggled with the fact that I was suddenly no one, Father stood. Knowing him as I did, I could see an unaccustomed worry behind his dark eyes.
I had imagined our arrival at Cahokia: people rushing toward us, a bubble of excitement rising at the arrival of a canoe from distant lands. We were, after all, the warriors who fought for the Morning Star’s southern frontier.
“My chief, does no one know who we are?”
His lips thinned as he stared at the bustling men and women loading and unloading canoes around us; then he took in the stalls and ramadas displaying food, ceramic pots, statuary, and every other conceivable good.
“Didn’t used to be this busy.” Then he added in an unsure whisper, “It’s still a hard run to reach our kin at Horned Serpent Town. Our cousins will need time to prepare. They’ll remember us.”
Was this the stone-cold man who cowed the T’so barbarians with his very glance? Was that fear I heard in his voice?
“Father? Are you sure this is the right course?”
He steeled himself, calling to our warriors, “Collect your weapons and packs.”
He lifted his pack from the hull and withdrew a white-painted stick decorated with red lines and woodpecker feathers. This he handed to young Five Wings, ordering, “Bear this to my cousin, Lord Green Chunkey. He’ll be in his palace in Horned Serpent Town. Inform him of our arrival and our need of lodging in the clan house. If you lose your way, just ask. You’re Four Winds Clan. No one can refuse you.”
“Yes, my chief.” Five Wings took the stick as if it were sun-blessed rather than a messenger’s staff. He turned on his heels and sprinted up the long beach, weaving between people, stalls, and canoes.
I retrieved my own pack, heavy with a rolled blanket, my chunkey stone and lance, food, and personal kit. Next came my shield, bow, quiver of arrows, and war club.
Father ordered, “Sixkills and Cut Hand, you will stay and guard the canoe. The rest of you, come. We have a fair run to reach Horned Serpent Town.”
“Where you from?” A big, bluff man paused to inspect us. His wide grin almost split his face; a crafty look barely hid behind his eyes. I couldn’t quite decipher the amorphous design of his facial tattoos. He wore a common brown hunting shirt that fell to the knees; a rope belt with pouches was tied at his waist. I couldn’t place his accent.
“Copper Falcon Town,” I told him with great solemnity.
“And where is that?”
“
Copper … Falcon … Town,”
I repeated as if he were a dolt. “On the Tenasee. At the upper rapids.”
His eyes remained vague, but he said, “Ah, good Four Winds,
that
Copper Falcon Town.” As if anyone could think there were others. “I’m Seven Skull Shield, a man well known in Cahokia. Seeing that you lords are visiting, I would be most happy to offer my services should you, or your warriors, need
any
kind of special consideration.”
At that, Father turned his attention the man’s way, a wary smile on his face. “And let me guess? Such services would include women with warm beds? The finest of Cahokian artifacts to take back to Trade with our bucolic and rude townsmen at home? Statuettes of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies crafted in the one true temple? Or chunkey stones used by the Morning Star himself in his ritual morning game?”
Seven Skull Shield bowed his head, touching fingers to his forehead. “The very same, good Four Winds lord. If I might ask, how many years has it been since—?”
“Not so long that I’ve forgotten the tricks played by weasels like you and your sort.” Father gave a dismissive toss of his hand. “Be away with you.”
“As you command, great lord. But should you find need, just send word through the fish-seller in yonder—”
“I said,
Go
.”
Seven Skull Shield touched his forehead again and vanished into the crowd.
“Cahokia draws his sort the way a dead elk draws flies and maggots. They get away with things they’d never be able to anywhere else: thievery, abduction, smuggling.”
“And the Morning Star doesn’t strike them dead?” I asked.
Father gave me his familiar condescending squint. “Seriously? Do you think gods care about what goes on in the world of humans?”
“But, I—”
“Come on.” He motioned me and our following warriors forward. Then I heard him growl under his breath, “Whose war are we fighting, anyway?”
Unless you’ve been to River City, seen what I have, my description will border on fantasy. The levee is packed with a throng of warehouses, specialized craft workshops, and manufactories. You’ll find potters and their wares, rope makers, stone and shell carvers, coppersmiths, woodworkers, arrow makers, weavers, and tanners. Temples dedicated to every god and spirit helper stand atop mounds or are guarded by spirit poles. Here, too, are Traders who deal in shell, stone, copper, thatch, building poles, firewood, fish, meat, corn, exotics from distant lands, and every other good. Palaces rise above tightly packed houses.
The run from the canoe landing to Horned Serpent Town takes half a day—and all of it through unending city. The high ground along the River Road is marked by clusters of mound-top temples, society houses, storerooms, and granaries. Surrounding those are concentrations of houses with ramadas and cramped gardens. Small farm plots are squeezed in between plaster-walled buildings. As you continue south, the road crosses marshy bottoms denuded of reeds and riparian grasses where the raised track streams with people, many of them plodding under cumbersome loads. Porters carry litters bearing seated nobles, priests, and high-born; immigrants bear burdens of stone, timbers, quarters of meat, or the carcasses of turkey, ducks, or other fowl. Some pack tall bundles of cane or thatch, or tightly folded bolts of colored cloth. If it can be eaten, worn, or used for any purpose, you will see it on the roads of Cahokia.
Used to the scents of Copper Falcon Town—of our fields, river, and forests—my nose quivered at the medley of odors ranging from fly-filled-and-sour latrines, to the onion acridity of fired shell, to the marvelous odors of baking spiced breads. Never far from the nose, smoke hung low in the sky, giving the city a constant brownish haze.
