People of the Morning Star Read Online Free PDF Page A

roof overhangs the walls. The floor is packed clay, well swept. I can see only one place where water has dripped from a leak in the thatch.
    I can hear the voices whispering among themselves, the words just below the threshold of my understanding. I can tell they are pleased.
    “This will do. I have a bale of dried yaupon. Would that cover the rental?”
    He watches as my hands form the dimension of the yaupon leaves. I can see the calculations behind his eyes. That much yaupon would brew enough black drink to last an elite household for a year.
    “I’ll throw in a shell columella for your effort if you can talk them into it.”
    He nods and touches his chin, a sign of respect, though a bit overdone given the nature of our bargain.
    “Let me see,” he tells me.
    “I’ll meet you back at the canoe.” Stepping outside, I lift my hand to the sun, adding, “Perhaps in two-finger’s time.”
    “If I’m just a little late,” he says, “don’t take another’s offer.”
    “Not until a full hand of time passes,” I reply, and watch him hurry off between the buildings.
    As soon as he’s out of sight, I grin. Then, calling upon old memories, I wind my way between the close-packed houses and back toward the canoe landing. Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, or First Woman, as she is often known, has a temple right where I remember it being. The mound upon which it sits has been added to, and the temple atop it is new. I resist the impulse to spit upon the guardian post before it: a carved rendition of Morning Star. The image looks nothing like the man I remember. A curious twisting, almost like the urge to vomit, stirs in my gut.
    Then I am up the stairs; I pause on the flat before the temple. To the west I can look down on the landing, swarming with activity. The river is dotted with canoes, and Evening Star City dominates the high bluff across the river on the west bank.
    Then I turn and look east. As I do, my heart leaps with sudden anxiety. The temple’s elevation above the warehouse roofs, and its location at the highest point on the levee, allows me a faint glimpse of the high palace in the eastern distance.
    The voices hiss with excitement. Images flicker in my memory: Love and desire swell in my breast as I lower myself onto her exquisite body. For that one sweet moment I am in bliss as my seed explodes. Broken memories of shouts … screams … hard hands clamping on my body from behind and jerking me off of her. His face as he orders me bound. A coarse-fabric wrapped around me. My body, bouncing in blackness … The sounds of water.
    I tell the voices: “He is there. They all are.”
    So is she. The woman my flesh aches to possess. Love for her burns in my veins. Memories of her body, her smile, the lithesome way she moves, twine through me like a sweet liquid.
    “Soon, my beloved. Soon.”
    They wouldn’t expect me to return in the manner I have, nameless, without fanfare. The man they knew would come at the head of an army: proud, belligerent, and boastful.
    “ That man is dead ,” I whisper regretfully.
    They, however, are still alive. And I have chosen a way to bring them down. Even him. The living god! And to do it, I will unleash Powers not even the Morning Star himself would dare to attempt.
    “Hear me, Powers of the Sky, the Earth, and Underworld. The Wild One has come. And before I leave, the three worlds will be rent and broken as I unleash my passion!” I find a certain irony in announcing my challenge before Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies’ temple. Hopefully she is still slumbering in her cave in the lowest depths of the Underworld. May she and her minions remain oblivious until it is too late.
    I am different now, hardened, and trained in a subtle manner of killing. They shall learn this lesson over the next couple of moons. Soon, all Cahokia shall feel my wrath. If the Powers of Sky, Earth, and Underworld permit, I shall tear sacred Cahokia right down the middle, and fill its avenues with blood.
    The