Trio of Sorcery (24 page)

Well, this certainly was not the Chickasaw girl he had tried to kidnap. And the legend said nothing about
this
young woman.

The young man distributed his game to some of the women, including his “biggest fan,” and went to his own lodge. The look that particular woman gave him as he went inside should have set fire to the bark roof.

Grandmother Spider nodded in her web. “There is much that is commonplace and to watch all of it would take you the same time that it took to happen.” She rapidly unwound the silk, and the scene became night. There was some quiet movement—the young woman. She slipped out of her lodge, made her way to a spot near the river, and—oh, surprise—met the young man. From the way they were all over each other this was hardly the first time they'd met by night. Grandmother Spider made a strange little creaking noise and unwound more silk before it turned into a voyeur session.

It was another day—the young man wore a buckskin shirt in addition to his leggings and breechcloth and stood inside a lodge that must belong to a Little Old Man, for Jennie could see many sacred objects in it, along with a small shrine for the sacred Hawk Bundle. The hunter stood beside an older man—one who was clearly a man of importance—who was probably his father. There were
several other, even older men there—Little Old Men—and they were consulting the sacred Hawk Bundle. She wondered why they were using it, since it was reserved for decisions of war or peace. The Hawk fell with its head in the direction of peace. They all left the lodge; there was a group waiting outside for them. While the young man waited, his father and the Little Old Men spoke at length with several men in a different style of dress than they wore—though the Heavy Eyebrows probably would not have seen the distinction. Their buckskin shirts were cut differently, down to their knees or lower; their leggings were different too. Jennie didn't know much about the pre-Columbian regalia of other tribes, but she suspected that the visitors were Chickasaw—probably the very clan she had been researching.

So this was why the Little Old Men had been pondering peace or war. The Chickasaw must have approached the Osage for a parley. It was possible that they were attempting to join the Osage in a buffalo hunt; the larger the hunting party, the greater the success. That would account for why they were so close to Osage lands, when both the Osage and the Chickasaw had quite a warlike reputation.

She tried to remember her history; usually it was the Choctaw that warred with the Chickasaw, simply because their territories were closer. Maybe the Chickasaw felt it was better to ally for a hunt with someone they hadn't recently been fighting with. She knew there was
some
intersection of territory, but didn't think it was much. The
Chickasaw were Mississippian; the Osage were further west and north.

She would have suspected the young Osage warrior to be opposed to any overtures of peace, but instead, he appeared bored. She was beginning to get a sense of this fellow; vain, more than a bit lazy, and self-centered. Definitely the sort who would avoid anything that might interfere with his pleasure. He probably enjoyed hunting, and he was good at it; despite the tradition of martial courage among the Osage, war meant the disruption of his lazy life. Hence, his reaction to the truce his elders had just made. A truce just meant peace and quiet, no interruption to his pursuit of the women of his clan. And perhaps the Chickasaw men had brought some women along and while they were all off on the hunt, perhaps he would have a chance at them too.

Grandmother Spider unwound faster, and the scene changed to a view of a Chickasaw camp. And that was where Jennie got her first surprise, because this was not a camp, it was a settlement.

It was in a clearing among the trees and it looked a great deal more substantial than the ring of bark lodges that the Osage favored. A palisade of straight tree trunks had been driven into the earth in a still-incomplete ring around the settlement. There were “Summer Houses” already erected inside. Strong, straight trunks of pine, honey locust, and sassafras were driven upright into the ground to form the walls, and a pitched roof made of more trunks
would last for decades. Summer Houses were rectangular and even a white man would have recognized them as a “proper house.” They were meant to hold up against an attack, and had clay-filled arrow ports that could be opened up and shot out of as needed.

But Summer Houses were not the thing that told Jennie this was a settlement. The corn houses and fowl houses were one clue, but what clinched it was the sight of Winter Houses in the process of being constructed. These were round structures with peaked roofs, made of logs plastered over with clay and withered grass daub. The roofs were made of grass thatch and bark over white oak splints, cane or hickory and honey locust posts, protection against the worst winter weather. Winter Houses meant that these Chickasaw were here to stay.

They were also building a Mountain House, made of the same construction materials as the Winter Houses but square, in which to conduct their clan business.

Outside the palisade were fields not unlike the ones the Osage farmed; corn, squash, and beans. Women were tending the plants and harvesting the beans.

Although Jennie had known the Chickasaw came this far west to hunt before the Europeans turned up, she'd had no idea that any of the clans had tried to settle here. She'd assumed that the girl in the legend had just been someone brought to help tend camp for a far-roving band of hunters. It was a sensible thing to do; bring women who were not burdened with children to take care of butchering,
smoking the meat, and tanning the hides. Old women might have a hard time keeping up; young ones would not.

Except that this wasn't a hunting party.

That might go a long way toward explaining why they were eager to make a truce. Not just for hunting, but to prevent conflict while they were still establishing themselves. Even with a truce, young warriors would still do their level best to count coup on each other. But it would mostly remain “bloodless,” confined to weaponless fighting and the theft or winning of the feathers worn in the hair roaches sported by both nations, which represented their honor. The truce wouldn't hold forever, but while it did, this Chickasaw band would cement their position in this territory and establish their defenses to the point where it would be very difficult indeed to dislodge them.

Jennie's sharp eyes, made even sharper by being in the form of Kestrel, spotted the young Osage warrior lying belly-down under cover in a good vantage point. A moment later she saw what he was looking at.

A woman, of course. And the Chickasaw girl he was eyeing with greed was…well, nothing short of stunning. Even by modern standards she was fashion model or movie star material. Her body was as slender and graceful as a willow in the wind; her hair sleek and shining in the sun. She could have been the original of every cloyingly beautiful painting of an “Indian Maiden.” And it was also obvious that, handsome as he was, the young Osage was
no competition for the young man that she was standing beside. Probably her husband, in fact, though she didn't look older than fifteen or sixteen. They didn't touch, but from the way they were standing, staring into each other's faces as they spoke, they might as well have been. He was just as stunning as she was. The look of shining devotion in his eyes was almost painful to see.

And that was when it dawned on Jennie. This wasn't a sentimental “Indian legend.” This was a story of real tragedy.

Because once she had been stolen away, this young creature would have known that if her clan or even her husband came to get her back, it would be war with the Osage. And it would be a war the Chickasaw were not ready for.

And he
would
come for her. More than his honor would demand it, his love would not let him leave her in enemy hands.

If she'd been human, Jennie would have sworn quite nastily enough to turn the air blue. As it was, what came out of her beak was an angry chitter.

Grandmother Spider stopped unwinding and looked at her with all eight eyes. “And so,” she said, “you see.”

“I think so, Grandmother,” Jennie said carefully. “When the young man stole the girl, she killed herself, not only because she had been stolen from her love, but because she knew that at the very least all the young Chickasaw warriors would come after her, led by her man. And
that would be war, war that would end with all of them dead or captive. The women and children would be Osage slaves, and the men would all be dead. And she would have been the cause of it. She could not bear that thought, probably could not bear the thought of being the death of her beloved.”

“Indeed,” Grandmother Spider said, bobbing approvingly in her web. “And this is the rest. The one who became
mi-ah-lushka
was not very good at anything but being beautiful. He left a trail a blind man could see, and the young Chickasaw warriors, led by her husband, were already near when the girl flung herself over the bluff. In fact, they saw her do it. He had not told anyone in his village where he was going, and certainly had not told anyone what he was going to do. So when the Chickasaw caught and killed him, stripped him of everything and threw his body in the river, so far as his people were concerned, he simply vanished. None of the Osage had any reason to think the Chickasaw had done away with him and the Chickasaw held his death a secret.”

Jennie pondered all of this. The thing that kept returning to her, over and over, was the hungry look in the Osage girl's face. “And the one who loved him?” she asked.

“Also died, of a summer fever.” The spider made a kind of shrugging motion. “So it is said.”

Jennie blinked. She could almost hear Grandfather's voice in her head, something he had told her long ago.
“The
only thing as strong as a powerful ghost is another powerful ghost.”

And she had absolutely no doubt in her mind that the Osage girl would go through the Christian Hell five times over to get her man back.

“Thank you, Grandmother Spider,” Jennie said fervently.

“Ah, so you have your answer then. It is well.” The spider reached out with one long leg and touched her on the “forehead,” above her beak, just past her nares. “Then it is time to go.”

And with that, Jennie was catapulted abruptly out of the spirit world and back to her own.

It had been dancing that had brought the
mi-ah-lushka.
If Jennie was right, it would be through dancing that she would find the way to pull the snake's fangs.

But it had taken a lot of persuasion to get Caroline to cooperate, and even now, she was eyeing the garments that Jennie had brought very dubiously. This was not the trade-cloth dress with ribbonwork and silver brooches that she usually wore to dance. This was something much, much older. Jennie had worked feverishly with a Chickasaw tribal historian and her own mother to put this outfit together. It was the smoke-and-brain-tanned buckskin
dress, leggings, and turtle shell ankle rattles of a woman of the time she had seen in her vision. She was grateful that her mother had been able to
find
that much traditionally worked buckskin and that many small turtle shells. The rattles were incredibly important, the most important part of a Chickasaw woman's dancing gear of that time. It was said that the great spirits themselves had given them to the Chickasaw women, so that they could keep perfect time in their dancing.

Jennie was wearing the same outfit. The only modern thing she had was her own dancing shawl, one that had a phenomenal amount of Medicine poured into it.

“Are you sure this will work?” Caroline asked plaintively.

“No,” Jennie said bluntly. “And if it doesn't, Grandfather is going to get you out of here and put you on a plane to Albuquerque, while I work to find another way of draining the spirit's power.” There was so much more riding on this than just Caroline—she'd explained that, but she still wasn't sure Caroline really understood.

One thing that Jennie did know—if this didn't work, the
mi-ah-lushka
was going to be incredibly angry at her. The beating she'd gotten at his hands before was nothing to what he'd do to her. Or try, anyway.

That was why David wasn't here. He had some idea of his own, something to keep the spirit from taking out his anger on her, and maybe something to help her with her plan. He hadn't wanted to tell her; he'd asked her to trust
him. “I'm going to get you musicians,” he'd told her. “This needs real special musicians.”

“Special?” She had furrowed her brows at him. “The tape worked before—”

“Now, who's the magician and who's the musician?” he interrupted. “You Osage know how to dance, all right, but I never heard you produced any great musicians. Seriously. I don't know if I can do this,” he said, holding her hands and giving her a pleading look. “I don't want you to count on something that doesn't happen. And I think I'm going to be working right up to the last second to
get
this help, if it will come at all. So trust me? And if I can't—well, I promise you'll get
me,
for whatever good that does.”