Free People of the Thunder (North America's Forgotten Past) by W. Michael Gear, Kathleen O'Neal Gear Page A

warriors as they raced back and forth on the stickball field. Then he glanced up at the sky, seeing the puffy white clouds scudding away. The ice melted, dripping into puddles from thatched roofs and making travel under the trees a nasty endeavor. The Hickory Moiety stickball players were having a miserable time of it, slipping and sliding more than running, catching, and casting. Most of the men were soaked, streaked with grass stains, and splotched with mud.
    Mikko Amber Bead was old, nearing fifty winters. He wore an old white hunting shirt, the image of Tailed Man—one of the Albaamaha culture heroes—hangingdown over it from a thong on his neck. Faded starburst tattoos could be seen on his withered cheeks. His feet were clad in grass-stuffed moccasins for warmth. That morning he’d pulled his hair up in a conservative bun and pinned it with a turkey-bone awl.
    For the last ten winters he had served the southern Albaamaha clans as their voice in the Chikosi Council. Most thought him little more than a Sky Hand lackey, having but a faint idea of the role he played in his people’s resistance. Amber Bead liked it that way. As long as the Chikosi considered him to be their little lapdog, he learned things. Most of what he learned he had been able to turn deftly against the conqueror’s interests.
    “You run like a bunch of women!” Smoke Shield cried in frustration.
    “Yes, but the women won,” Amber Bead added smugly to himself. He cast a glance back over his shoulder and shook his head. Of course the Hickory warriors were practicing. They’d just lost the most humiliating game in recent memory. Rumor had it that Smoke Shield had bet everything, even down to his shirt, and lost it all. Even his slave, Morning Dew—his prize from the White Arrow Town raid—was now Heron Wing’s possession. The very thought of Smoke Shield’s loss brought a light-hearted joy to Amber Bead’s breast.
    Amber Bead tried to see the pattern in all this. One moment Smoke Shield is at the height, and the next, here he is, at the bottom. Rumors were circulating that Flying Hawk had given the man half of his clothes so that he didn’t have to appear in public wearing a slave’s shirt.
    But what did that mean for the future? Fact was, losing a stickball game was of only passing interest. Great wealth was gambled every season on the games. Clans were destitute one season, wealthy the next. It was the flux of things, dictated by Power. Fortunes rose, and in an instant they vanished.
    None of it meant that Smoke Shield wouldn’t be confirmed as high minko should anything happen to Flying Hawk. That it hadn’t yet was either a tribute to Smoke Shield’s affection for his uncle—which Amber Bead doubted—or the knowledge that he might face embarrassing questions prior to the Council’s approval.
    That being the case, just what was Smoke Shield waiting for? He had had only limited success so far in whipping the Council into a fervor against the Albaamaha. When it came to politics, the enemy closest to home was the one you wanted to pick on. The threat was more immediate than, say, blaming the Charokee far off to the northeast.
    Amber Bead wound his way through the clutter of houses and out the south gate. He nodded pleasantly to the warrior stationed there, and had almost reached his house when a travel-stained young man stepped out, calling, “Mikko? Could I speak with you?”
    Amber Bead noted the mud, the soggy moccasins, and the soaked cape the man wore. The youth had his damp hair in a tight bun, pinned with a wooden skewer. Other than a belt pouch, he carried no other pack.
    “Come from far, have you?”
    The man nodded, a haggard look about him. “Mikko, I am Bull Fish, of the Bobcat Clan. I come from Bowl Town. My mother is Slick Pole, of the Flat Rock lineage. I have news for your ears only.”
    Amber Bead wasn’t sure, but the man’s legs seemed to be trembling. Exhaustion? “Come. My house is this way.”
    He took the