Flight of the Crow (The Southeast Series Book 2) Read online

  Jacques’ eyes flitted from Calling Crow to the bear and back. He grew agitated. “I think the entire carcass would be more appropriate, since it was I who killed him.”

  Calling Crow’s voice was firm. “They would have killed him if you had not happened along. He would not have lived much longer.”

  “And neither would have you.”

  “That is true. And because of that they will not object to my giving you a portion. But if I gave you too much, you might not get away from here.”

  Calling Crow watched Jacques’ eyes flitting about and knew he was planning something.

  Jacques spoke to his small companion in his language and the man slowly brought the thunderstick up, pointing it at Calling Crow’s chest. Jacques smiled nervously.

  Calling Crow looked back at the bravos. They had gotten to their feet, but now they knelt back down in anticipation of another thundering eruption from the thunderstick.

  Jacques spoke. “Unless you wish to suffer the same fate as the bear, you will let us take the whole carcass.”

  Calling Crow smiled at the one called Jacques. “His shooting stick is useless now until he puts more powder and shot into it.”

  Jacques’ smile collapsed.

  Calling Crow went on. “Tell your friend to put it down or I will break it over his head.”

  Jacques relayed the command to his companion and the man lowered the harquebus.

  Calling Crow knelt down beside the bear. He pushed his stone knife into the bear’s buttocks and looked up at Jacques. “I will give you one of the hind quarters.”

  “But that will not be enough,” Jacques blurted out, red-faced with anger. “Do you hear?”

  Calling Crow said nothing as he pulled and cut. The hind quarter came away, leaving much blood on the ground.

  The French men watched Calling Crow and Black Snake’s men warily.

  “They are frightened,” said Calling Crow. “Unlike me, they have never seen a shooting stick fired before.”

  “Yes, so you have indicated,” said Jacques, as he continued to keep an eye on the bravos.

  “They are also angry,” said Calling Crow, “for these are their hunting lands. Did you not see the signs warning all to stay away?”

  “No,” said Jacques angrily. “We saw nothing. We heard the bear and the commotion and so we came quickly.”

  Calling Crow got to his feet and dragged the bloody leg of the bear over to Jacques and his men. The tall man hoisted it onto his shoulder.

  “Go now,” said Calling Crow, “and don’t come to this place again.”

  Jacques paused to translate. Then he turned to Calling Crow. His face was a mixture of pain and fear. “We will meet again.” He turned and his companions followed him toward the river bank.

  Calling Crow watched them struggle up the bank. He knelt and resumed his butchering.

  Rain Cloud and Red Feather were the first to approach. Calling Crow held up the liver proudly, “I claim this as mine!”

  Rain Cloud tried to smile as he crouched down beside Calling Crow, but his face remained grim. He put his hand on Calling Crow’s shoulder. “They told me you kept the bear away from me. You saved my life.”

  Calling Crow met the older man’s eye. “You would have done the same for me.”

  Rain Cloud tried to smile. “I would have tried, but-- “

  Calling Crow waited for Rain Cloud to go on.

  “I was going to approach you and the hairfaces,” said Rain Cloud, “but then it looked like they were about to bring down thunder on you too and I could not get my feet to work. I am sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” said Calling Crow. “I was in no danger, but you could not know that.”

  Rain Cloud nodded. “You know, when I heard you speak in the council house about thundersticks and giant medicine dogs, I prayed that I would someday see these things. I saw the Floating House that brought the white people and today I have seen the power of the thundersticks. I pray that someday soon I will see the giant medicine dogs.”

  “I pray that you and your people do not,” said Calling Crow.

  Rain Cloud frowned at Calling Crow’s words.

  “Did these men come from the settlement on the beach?” said Red Feather.

  “No,” said Calling Crow. “I don’t know where they are from; they are not the same people as the Spanish.”

  “Not the same?” said Rain Cloud in confusion, “then what people are they?”

  “I don’t know,” said Calling Crow, “but I will find out.” He looked over at Black Snake and his bravos. They were taking their time inspecting Elk Rib’s dead body, deliberately not looking in Calling Crow’s direction.

  “What did Black Snake say?” said Calling Crow.

  Rain Cloud looked over at Black Snake. “He said you must be white inside. You know too much about their medicine to be of the people.”

  Calling Crow scoffed. “I was too long their slave, that is how I know their medicine. Call the others and we will divide this hairy man up.”

  On the way back to the village, Black Snake’s mind burned with crazy pictures. He saw Calling Crow brushing away his arrow from his chest. Aieyee! It was true what the people said. Calling Crow had very powerful medicine. But the thundersticks were the best medicine. He recalled the thing erupting with lightning as it killed Half Foot so suddenly and completely. If he, Black Snake, could get one of these thundersticks, surely he could kill Calling Crow and free the Coosa people from his evil influence. That was what he must do.

  Chapter 15

  Senor Valdez inwardly cursed his hunger as he struggled with the heavy log he and another man were carrying. They emerged from the forest and started across the sunlit field to the half-circle of upright wooden posts of the unfinished palisade. Sweat ran down Valdez’s face and hands and his fingers soon grew numb. He began to lose his grip on the heavy log. He shouted at the other man and they dropped it.

  Valdez sighed as he sat down on the log. Despite the hard work that building the palisade entailed, he was glad they had finally begun. Even the bare-asses had a fort and Valdez was angry that Senor Peralta had waited so long to start work on theirs. Part of the blame, however fell on the priest’s shoulders. Despite the fact that Senor Peralta and just about every other man in the settlement wanted to use forced Indian labor, Father Tomas had forbidden it. They had put the construction off, hoping they could change his mind, but he was intractable. Valdez looked out to sea. When in God’s name would a ship come? Perhaps never. Maybe the San Juan had sunk after it had left them here.

  Valdez clenched and unclenched his hands. He got wearily to his feet and nodded to the other man. They picked up the log and continued on.

  At the palisade, a young boy stood upon the shoulders of a man as he lashed two upright logs together with vines. The boy’s face blossomed with fear and he pointed at the forest. “Bravos!” he shouted, scrambling down.

  Valdez and his helper dropped the log as men began running every which way for their weapons. Valdez looked around and saw about two dozen bravos emerging from the woods not far from where he had been working. Naked but for their loin cloths, they appeared in no great hurry as they walked boldly toward the settlement. The ones in the rear carried swaying baskets suspended from poles.

  “Stand fast,” Valdez shouted. “They don’t appear to be hostile. Someone go get Senor Peralta. Quickly.”

  Senor Peralta returned with Father Tomas and Juana the Arawak woman to interpret. They were flanked by two men wearing armored cuirasses and carrying harquebuses. Valdez and the men stood in a loose group. The Indians faced them across a distance of twenty paces, saying nothing. Their leader stood slightly forward of the group, his hand resting on his hip. His eyes were crossed, giving him a wild, fierce look. Decorated with bands of black tattoos, he wore a loop of pearlescent shells upon his smoothly muscled chest.

  Valdez looked to Peralta to see what he would do. Sunlight glinted off Peralta’s ring Valdez had seen the ring
up close once. He remembered the sliver of wood inside, from His holy cross. What power it must have, he thought.

  The head bravo said something in his language, startling Valdez out of his thoughts. The bravo pointed into the settlement.

  Peralta shook his head and pointed to the shade cast by the palisade wall. “We will talk to them over there.”

  Juana interpreted for the bravo and they walked into the shade.

  “Ask him what is his name and why has he come here,” said Senor Peralta.

  Juana put the question to the bravo. “He says he is called Black Snake and he wants to make a trade.”

  Black Snake issued an order to the men carrying the baskets and they moved forward, setting them at Peralta’s feet. Indian maize as yellow as the sun filled the baskets. Peralta looked at them with disinterest. Valdez looked at the grain with hunger as he thought of how sick he was of turnips, berries and salted pigeons. Black Snake walked boldly up to one of the harquebusmen flanking Peralta. He reached out to touch the weapon and Peralta pushed his hand away.

  Black Snake glared at him. He spoke in his own tongue, not bothering to look at Juana.

  “He says that he only wanted to inspect the thunderstick and that you insult him by touching him.”

  Peralta’s face reddened as he met the Indian’s angry look. “Tell him that he wastes his time; the harquebuses are not for trade.”

  Juana translated.

  Black Snake spoke again and Juana translated, “he said he would give us twenty baskets of maize for two of what he calls our ‘thundersticks.’”

  Valdez again looked at the basket of clean yellow grain. He thought of all the corn bread and creamy corn soups that would make. “Perhaps you can get him to double his offer,” he said to Peralta.

  Peralta turned on him. “Have you lost your senses? Our situation here is tenuous enough without arming the savages with harquebuses!”

  Valdez turned away in embarrassment.

  Black Snake barked an order to his men. Several of them came forward and lay about a dozen hares upon the baskets. The settlers’ eyes grew large as they looked upon the bounty.

  Peralta looked at Black Snake and shook his head. Black Snake’s face grew fierce. Unmoved, Peralta turned to Juana. “Ask him if he wants to trade for anything else.”

  Juana put the question to Black Snake and he grunted in reply.

  “No,” said Juana.

  Valdez watched Peralta and Black Snake staring at each other, each taking the other’s measure. He thought they might fight right then and there. He was relieved when Black Snake finally spoke to Juana. She appeared disturbed by his words.

  “He says that perhaps the White-People-Who-Are-Not-Spanish will trade with him.”

  Peralta’s eyes flashed. “He knows where the French are?”

  Juana translated and turned back to Peralta. “No, but he says they met them in the forest when they were hunting a bear.”

  Peralta nodded, impatient for her to finish. “Tell him if he can locate them, we will talk of trading thundersticks. But not until!”

  After listening to Juana, Black Snake gave a command to his men and they picked up their baskets and turned back toward the forest.

  Overcome with suspense, Valdez said to Juana, “what did he say?”

  She looked at him and then at Senor Peralta. “He said that he will consider it, but that in the meantime, we should be very careful whenever we venture outside our palisade. He said there are many wild, dangerous things in the forest.”

  Chapter 16

  Gregorio Rojas and Pedro Gomez crawled carefully through the sawgrass, their doublets, breeches and hose frayed by the serrations of the plants. Gregorio paused to rub his bald head and check the bolt in his crossbow. A warm breeze blew over his shoulder. At his side, young Pedro lay his harquebus down. After carrying the fifteen pound weapon for so long, his arms ached. At the distant tree line, the stag they were stalking grazed, oblivious to them. It was still too far away to shoot with the harquebus. They watched in silence for a moment. Gregorio’s hunger and fatigue weighed down on him like a stone. “Let us go,” he said in a weary voice. They crawled and stopped, crawled and stopped, for the better part of the day. Finally they were about fifty yards away, close enough to take their shot.

  Pedro placed the heavy harquebus in its stand.

  “Hurry,” said Gregorio.

  Pedro wore a look of worried concentration as he blew on the match, a smoldering length of cord that he had been carrying. He clipped the match into the firing mechanism so that it would ignite the powder charge when he pulled the trigger.

  Gregorio’s face ran with sweat as he watched the younger man. “Quickly, he will soon eat his fill.”

  Pedro put the stock to his cheek and took aim. Inexplicably, the stag bolted, disappearing into the thick forest.

  For a moment, Gregorio’s fatigue prevented him from reacting. Then his frustrations and pain overwhelmed him and he ran to where the stag had been. “Parase!” he yelled, “Come back!”

  Pedro’s face was grim with worry as he hurried after his companion. “Gregorio,” he hissed as he ran alongside, “it is not wise to shout; he is gone. Do you want to alert the Indians that we are here?”

  Gregorio seemed not to have heard him. He ran on until he spent himself and sat in the waist-high grass. When Pedro came up behind him, Gregorio turned away, staring out across the field. Pedro sat beside him and looked at the ground.

  “How do they do it?” said Gregorio after a while.

  Pedro’s brow knit in confusion. “What do you mean?” he said.

  “How do the savages catch their meat? They are excellent hunters.”

  Pedro looked across the field. “How would I know? I am a farmer. I know nothing about--“

  Gregorio got to his feet and stared across the field.

  Pedro stood up. “What is it?”

  “I saw something in the grass,” said Gregorio. “There!”

  Gregorio got to his feet and ran, Pedro following. Gregorio slowed as he approached a clump of green bushes. He poked the crossbow into the bushes and something tan in color shot out between them.

  “A hare!” said Pedro in amazement. Gregorio was already in pursuit. Pedro cursed the heavy harquebus as he struggled to catch up. For a few moments they ran side by side, then the rabbit suddenly veered to the right and Pedro turned to follow. He ran into Gregorio, knocking him sprawling onto the sandy soil.

  Gregorio jumped to his feet. “You fool! We lost him!”

  Pedro said nothing to the older man, instead busying himself picking up and inspecting his harquebus. As he brushed the sandy dirt off, Gregorio began walking back the way they had come.

  “Where are you going?” called Pedro worriedly.

  “Back to the river,” said Gregorio. “I am thirsty and I have had enough of this hunting business.”

  Pedro looked around as if the Indians might already be creeping up on them. He hurried after Gregorio.

  Back in the thickness of the forest, they attempted to retrace their steps. In vain they searched for the game trail that led to the river. Gregorio grew disgusted and pushed off through the bushes.

  “We will make our own trail,” he announced to Pedro. Hurrying, they reached the banks of the Little River, but at a spot that they did not recognize.

  “This is not where we were before,” said Pedro.

  “So what,” snapped Gregorio, “it matters not. I’m going to get a drink and rest in the shade. Then I will figure out where we are.” Gregorio noticed the worried look on young Pedro’s face and softened his tone a bit. “Do not worry,” he said. “I will get us back all right.”

  Pedro nodded. They climbed down the bank and waded into the waist-high water in the center of the river. Gregorio cupped his hands and brought the cool water to his lips. His thirst slaked, he was about to climb back up the bank when he heard something magical-- laughing female voices floated along on the surface of the river.

>   “What is it?” said Pedro, worry again in his voice.

  Gregorio held up his hand for silence. He listened a moment longer and climbed up the bank. Pedro grabbed his harquebus and followed.

  They moved with stealth through the foliage along the bank. Gregorio’s hunger left him when he saw the women. They stood in the water wearing skirts of grass or some course fiber, and necklaces of beads or stones. He watched their breasts move as they washed their hair. There were others on the bank, laughing and talking, but Gregorio could not see them for an overhanging tree.

  Pedro leaned out over the bank for a better look. The branch he held onto broke and he tumbled down the bank and splashed into the water. The women quieted and scattered.

  Gregorio slid down the bank to help Pedro to his feet. He looked back at where the woman had been, expecting them to be gone, but they were still there, watching them from behind the bushes. He did not think there were any bravos with them. He hadn’t seen any.

  Pedro picked up his harquebus and wiped the sandy mud from it. He looked around in confusion. “Are they still there?”

  “Si,” said Gregorio, continuing to stare at the women with great interest.

  One of them gestured at him to come closer. “They want us to go to them.”

  Pedro followed Gregorio’s gaze. “It could be a trap.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Gregorio. “If there were bravos with them they would have already attacked us.”

  “What do you think they want?” said Pedro.

  Gregorio did not answer as he pushed through the bushes.

  The women stood together in a little clearing in which the bank sloped down gently to the river. Most of them were young and wore gowns of smooth animal skins. Some wore grass skirts and necklaces. Gregorio noted how their grass skirts parted for their knees when they moved, but otherwise covered them modestly. There was a very old, toothless woman among them. From the way she talked to the others, Gregorio knew that she was in charge of the group.

  Gregorio’s heart beat faster as the woman who had been waving at him again caught his eye. She stepped out of the group and came to him. Speaking rapidly in her strange tongue, she fingered one of the four red glass buttons on his doublet.