Coming of the Storm by W. Michael Gear & Kathleen O'Neal Gear

Author:W. Michael Gear & Kathleen O'Neal Gear [Gear, W. Michael & Gear, Kathleen O'Neal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Historical
ISBN: 9781439153888
Google: TP2eKPAba2YC
Goodreads: 6745901
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2010-02-09T06:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

THE PEOPLE OF CHOLUPAHA, ONE OF THE UZACHILE FRONTIER towns, fared better. They had received news of Tapaloholata’s fate a day’s march to their south. The Cholupaha holata ordered that his people pack what belongings they could, and all fled to the forest. The happy Kristianos had looted the granaries and gorged themselves on fresh stores of corn.

Just beyond Cholupaha, as we slogged through the rain, we found a great bridge—another wonder created by the Kristianos. This one spanned the rain-swollen Black Duck River, just a little over two bowshots across. Pearl Hand and I stopped, marveling at the sight. The thing was built of timbers and freshly split planks lashed over crosspieces. The wood, so neatly cut by the hierro axes, gleamed in the rain. To surface the span, earth had been carried and poured over the planks. We walked out on the soil, marred by the passing of cabayos, and stared over the edges at the swirling waters below.

The dogs, tails wagging, glanced over, too, as if curious at what we were seeing. Squirm gave me a questioning look, his white blaze accenting his mystification at our preoccupation with water. I ran my finger over the cut marks left by the Kristiano axes, musing at how they reminded me of the work of a giant beaver.

On the trip down, I’d had to hire a canoe to carry me across. This time Pearl Hand, the dogs, and I walked across, feet dry but for the rain-slashed mud. Then we followed the trace into virgin forest.

And straight into more trouble than we wanted.

Crossing the river put us firmly in territory controlled by the great Holata Uzachile, the most powerful Timucuan chieftain in the north. Not only did Uzachile’s resources allow a larger population, but only a unified chieftainship could hold off the powerful Apalachee to the west and the Mos’kogean nations to the north.

This was thickly forested land with low rolling hills. You must put yourself in that place: an old forest of walnut, great oaks, hickory, and gum trees, the sky literally roofed with arching branches high overhead. Beneath that lofty canopy, the ground is open, matted with leaves so deep the foot sinks at every step. The sensation conjured by the massive tree trunks, the hanging vines, and the semidarkness is one mindful of the Underworld, where little light penetrates. Here, the soul perceives a sense of age and grandeur.

The forest, however, is anything but quiet, with birds singing, squirrels chattering, and the distant breeze in the treetops. Night or day, the ear is regaled with the whirring and clicking of insects.

That day, while rain hammered the high leaves, we followed the chopped trail left by de Soto on his march north. The way wound around the great boles of the trees, and large drops of water collected on the leaves high overhead, then fell with soft plops onto the leaf mat. Or louder spats when they hit us.

Because of the sound-deadening rain, we had no warning. The wet soil, thick with leaves, muffled the sound of the approaching cabayos.

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