Copper Falcon Read Free Page B

best with his winning smile. I knew how persuasive he could be. With his charm he could wrap the Copper Falcon Town council around his finger.
    He finally said, “My wife figured it out immediately. Cunning and sharp, that one was. No one could ever pull anything over on her. Before I knew what was happening, I was snatched from my bed by warriors, divorced, and exiled. They called it ‘given the honor of founding a most important colony on the Tenasee.’ I was told in no uncertain terms that if I ever set foot in Cahokia, I’d hang in a square.”
    “I suppose I’m glad that you didn’t run away with this dark-haired beauty. I wouldn’t have been born.”
    “What Power takes with one hand, it gives back from the other. Your mother was a remarkable woman … better than I deserved. She gave me you. I could not have asked for a finer son, nor could I be more proud of you.”
    For a moment I was stunned by the intensity of my normally taciturn father’s admissions.
    He chuckled softly, aware of my fluster. “Why do you think I haven’t married you off already? Half the towns up and down the Tenasee have offered their daughters.” He shook his head. “Horned Serpent House had me engaged to three different women before they finally married me off to a fourth. And the moment they did, I stumbled across the one woman who would fill my dreams for the rest of my life. All it brought was heartbreak and exile. I won’t do that to you.”
    “Do you think she’s still here?”
    He nodded, eyes fixed on the distance to the north, as if seeing her in the eye of his souls. “Oh, yes. But that’s for a different lifetime, and a different man.”
    “What’s this copper falcon Green Chunkey was talking about?”
    I could barely make out father’s grim smile. “Our House may serve Horned Serpent, but Falcon has always been the personal spirit Power behind our lineage. Your great-grandfather obtained the copper at considerable risk, had the thing made, and it was handed down generation by generation.
    “My wife, in her fit of pique, had it ripped from my grasp as I was ordered into the canoe that would take me away.” He paused, apparently reliving that day. “I have felt like a piece of my soul has been missing ever since. That I somehow failed the copper falcon’s Power, failed my ancestors, and you.”
    I hesitated at the hurt in his voice, then asked, “Being here in defiance of the Morning Star’s banishment order is a death sentence. How long do we have?”
    “We’ll be gone by midmorning tomorrow. Not even the Keeper with her quivering nose can smell us out before that.”
    He stood. “Come, let’s sleep. Tomorrow is a busy day. And, as you just pointed out, the one thing we cannot do is linger.”
    *****
    Twice the following morning we were called to the palace. Each time Green Chunkey requested additional information as he called in Earth Clan chiefs and other important people to see if he could come up with a squadron. Apparently these things were complicated. At home, Father would have ordered, and the men would have gone.
    In the meantime I watched the sun creep across the sky, finger by finger, all the while feeling the growing tension. Father hid his worry, but his faint sheen of nervous perspiration was more than just the warm sun. The muscles in his shoulders had tightened; a man of legendary appetite, he waved away a midday meal: corn cake with roasted turkey meat.
    One of the slaves came trotting down the stairs from where Green Chunkey had been in council with the Snapping Turtle Clan chief. The boy spotted us and came at a run. Dropping to one knee he explained, “The high chief wants me to tell you that he has most of your squadron. The Snapping Turtle Clan chief will agree, assuming the clan matron approves.”
    “And how long will that be?” I asked irritably.
    “A runner has already been sent,” the youth assured me.
    High sun had passed and I was playing chunkey on one of the superbly