Before The Fires Went Out - Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

THE HOUSES BEYOND THE PALISADE

Rain had fallen during the night but not long enough to settle the dust.

By morning the lower districts beyond the central mound had become a mixture of damp earth and churned mud where thousands of feet moved daily between houses, workshops, storage pits, and narrow market lanes. Smoke from cooking fires drifted low beneath the gray sky and settled heavily between the packed rows of buildings. The smell of wet clay, wood ash, and standing water lingered across the district long after sunrise.

Makwa-itha walked southward beyond the central plaza accompanied only by one attendant who remained several paces behind him and spoke to no one. The roads nearest Monks Mound were broader and better maintained than those farther outward near the palisade. There the city narrowed into crowded passages lined with timber houses plastered in clay and roofed with reed thatch darkened from years of smoke and rain.

Women knelt beside grinding stones beneath covered shelters while children carried water jars from communal wells dug near the lower lanes. Dogs moved between the houses searching refuse pits for scraps. Smoke drifted from cooking fires built inside shallow clay hearths just beyond the entrances of the homes.

The district already sounded tired.

Not silent.

Not broken.

But slower than it should have been this early in the season.

Makwa-itha noticed it immediately.

The maize portions set outside several homes for the morning meal appeared smaller than they had during previous years. Thin stew simmered in clay vessels where thicker mixtures of corn and squash should have been cooking after the summer harvest. A woman seated beside one of the lane-side hearths scraped the bottom of a storage basket repeatedly with her fingers before adding the last handful of dried kernels to a pot.

She looked up briefly as Makwa-itha passed.

Then lowered her eyes.

Ahead, the sound of shouting rose near one of the labor assembly areas beside the southern repair works.

Makwa-itha turned toward it.

Several dozen workers stood gathered near stacks of woven baskets and digging tools beside a partially eroded mound platform where repairs had continued since the spring floods. Younger supervisors moved through the crowd demanding names while several armed retainers watched nearby with expressions too rigid for ordinary labor disputes.

One of the supervisors struck a basket sharply with a cane rod.

“Those assigned to the western crews will move now.”

Few moved.

The young man’s face tightened.

“You were ordered here before sunrise.”

An older laborer near the rear of the group answered without lifting his eyes.

“The lower roads flooded during the night.”

“Then you should have left earlier.”

Another voice spoke quietly from somewhere inside the crowd.

“Earlier for what?”

The words were not loud.

That made them worse.

The supervisor stepped forward sharply.

“You speak against the city now?”

No one answered.

The laborers stood motionless in the damp morning heat while smoke drifted between the unfinished structures surrounding the work site. Several men carried visible signs of exhaustion already despite the early hour. One younger worker leaned heavily against his digging pole while another wrapped strips of bark cloth around blistered hands before picking up his basket again.

Makwa-itha watched the supervisor carefully.

The young man was frightened.

That frightened him more than the laborers.

Fear traveled downward faster than hunger ever could.

The supervisor noticed Makwa-itha standing near the edge of the gathering and immediately lowered his head.

“Speaker.”

Makwa-itha approached slowly.

“How many failed to report?”

“Thirty-two.”

“From which districts?”

The young man hesitated.

“Mostly southern fields near the lower marshes.”

The answer settled heavily.

Those districts had always produced dependable labor crews. The southern settlements depended more directly upon river harvests than the higher ridge communities, and the failed flood cycle had struck them hardest.

Makwa-itha studied the gathered workers.

“They came.”

The supervisor frowned slightly.

“Some did.”

Makwa-itha looked toward the unfinished mound slope where spring rains had carved deep channels through the packed clay.

“Then use those who came.”

The younger man glanced uneasily toward the armed retainers.

“If punishment is not given, others may refuse.”

Makwa-itha turned toward him fully now.

“And if punishment is given publicly?”

The question lingered.

The young supervisor lowered his eyes.

Makwa-itha said nothing more. He walked past the work crews and continued deeper into the lower districts while the sounds of labor slowly resumed behind him.

The houses grew smaller near the outer neighborhoods.

Here the lanes narrowed into twisting corridors of packed mud bordered by refuse pits, storage holes, stacked firewood, and drainage ditches carrying stagnant rainwater slowly toward the lower marshes. Smoke hung heavier beneath the low clouds, trapped between the roofs until breathing itself felt thicker.

Near one of the communal wells, a burial procession moved quietly through the lane.

Makwa-itha stopped.

Four women carried a small reed litter wrapped carefully in woven cloth dyed dark with red clay pigment. A child.

Two older men followed carrying shell ornaments and a clay bowl filled with charcoal ash for the burial fire. Behind them walked the child’s mother with both hands pressed tightly against her mouth as though afraid sound itself might escape if she loosened them.

No drums accompanied the procession.

Only footsteps.

The lane emptied slowly before them as people stepped aside respectfully. Some lowered their eyes. Others watched in silence from doorways darkened by smoke.

Makwa-itha recognized one of the older men and spoke quietly when the procession paused near the crossing path.

“How long was the child ill?”

“Three days.”

The old man’s face remained expressionless.

“Fever?”

“Yes.”

“Others?”

“A few.”

The answer remained unfinished deliberately.

Makwa-itha nodded once and stepped aside.

The procession continued southward toward the burial grounds beyond the residential quarter while the mother never once lifted her eyes from the earth.

He watched until they disappeared into the smoke.

Children died often enough in Cahokia.

The city was too large for death ever to remain distant long.

But lately the burials seemed quieter.

People no longer lingered afterward to speak beside the lanes. Fires burned lower following the processions. Even grief itself felt restrained now, as though exhaustion had begun pressing down upon emotions the same way the river pressed silt across the floodplain.

By midday the clouds had broken partially and heat settled heavily over the lower districts. Makwa-itha stopped near a trader shelter bordering one of the outer roads where several travelers from southern settlements rested beside their canoes loaded with shell bundles, dried fish, and woven cloth.

They looked river-worn and thin.

One older trader carried a scar running from his jaw into the collar of his shoulder. Another coughed repeatedly into his hand while unpacking pottery wrapped in reed matting.

Makwa-itha crouched beside them without announcement.

“You traveled from the southern mounds?”

The scarred trader nodded.

“From near Kincaid.”

“How long?”

“Twelve days.”

“That is slow travel.”

The man glanced toward the road.

“The river channels are wrong.”

Again the same answer.

Makwa-itha studied the traders quietly while they worked.

“You passed other settlements?”

“Yes.”

“Many?”

The older man hesitated before answering.

“Fewer now.”

Another trader looked up from unpacking shell ornaments.

“Several mound places stand nearly empty.”

Neither man elaborated immediately.

Makwa-itha waited.

Finally the older trader spoke again.

“People leave after harvest and do not return.”

“Where do they go?”

“Into smaller villages mostly.”

“Why?”

The traders exchanged a glance neither fully understood themselves.

“One village claimed sickness.”

“Another said the river changed.”

“The priests argued there,” the coughing trader added quietly. “Some left afterward.”

Makwa-itha watched him closely.

“Argued over what?”

The man shrugged.

“The ceremonies.”

That word lingered longer than the others.

Not the river.

Not sickness.

The ceremonies.

Makwa-itha thanked them and rose slowly. Behind him the traders resumed unpacking their goods beneath the low shelter while flies gathered thickly around baskets of drying fish near the roadside.

The city continued moving around him.

But not with confidence anymore.

By late afternoon the wind shifted northward across the floodplain carrying a drier smell from the distant fields beyond the marshes. Clouds gathered again near the western horizon while laborers returned from the mound works in tired lines moving through the lower lanes toward their homes.

Near sunset Makwa-itha climbed the inner walkway along the palisade.

The great timber wall stretched north and south beyond sight, its sharpened posts darkened from years of weather and smoke. Watch platforms stood at intervals above the outer roads where guards observed movement beyond the city.

Below the wall, neighborhoods pressed tightly against the inner embankment in crowded clusters of homes and storage structures.

Too crowded.

The city had continued growing for generations. Houses expanded wherever ground allowed. Older drainage ditches clogged gradually beneath waste and runoff while storage pits dug during stronger harvest years now held smaller reserves than the city preferred admitting publicly.

Makwa-itha stopped near one of the larger grain structures built beside the southern gate district. Workers moved in and out carrying baskets beneath the supervision of armed retainers assigned to protect the reserves.

One of the guards approached him.

“The stores remain secure.”

Makwa-itha nodded once.

“How much entered today?”

The man named an amount lower than expected.

Makwa-itha looked toward the western horizon where darkness had begun settling beyond the fields.

Again too little.

Night came slowly beneath thickening clouds.

The sacred fires atop Monks Mound burned brightly above the darkening city while smoke drifted low across the plazas and residential districts. Drums from the evening ceremonies sounded faintly from the central mound complex before fading into the growing wind.

Makwa-itha had nearly returned to the ceremonial district when shouting erupted somewhere near the southern palisade.

The sound carried differently than ordinary argument.

Fear.

He turned immediately.

A glow rose suddenly above the outer houses beyond the wall walk.

Then another shout.

By the time Makwa-itha reached the southern grain structures, people already crowded the lanes carrying water jars, digging tools, and wet hides toward the fire. Flames climbed through the roof of one storage building beside the palisade while sparks blew across nearby houses beneath strengthening wind.

Workers formed desperate lines from the nearest well, passing jars hand to hand through smoke thick enough to sting the eyes. Guards shouted conflicting orders while several retainers forced people backward from the collapsing structure.

The fire moved quickly.

Too quickly.

Dry corn stored inside the building fed the flames with terrible intensity. Burning kernels burst upward through the smoke like swarms of sparks as roof beams cracked sharply overhead.

Makwa-itha watched the workers carefully.

No one seemed certain how the fire had begun.

One guard claimed a cooking hearth overturned nearby.

Another swore he smelled lamp oil before the flames spread.

A third insisted he saw no one enter the structure at all.

The uncertainty frightened the crowd more than the fire itself.

By full dark the blaze had finally been contained before reaching neighboring storage pits, though half the structure collapsed inward beneath blackened beams and burning grain.

Smoke drifted across the southern district for hours afterward.

People gathered in low groups beside the muddy lanes speaking quietly while guards moved among them carrying torches. Makwa-itha heard fragments as he passed.

“The ancestors are angry.”

“The river warned us first.”

“The fires no longer protect the city.”

No one spoke loudly.

No one needed to.

Rumor moved faster than flame in crowded places.

Near midnight Makwa-itha returned alone toward the central plaza. The city had mostly fallen silent again except for distant voices near the burned structure and the steady crackling of dying embers along the southern wall.

The smell reached the ceremonial district even there.

Burned maize.

Burned timber.

Burned clay.

It drifted across the open plaza beneath the sacred fires atop Monks Mound and lingered there through the darkness like something unwilling to leave.