Chapter 24: Broken Tooth

River Panther made a soft clicking noise with his tongue – a swamp hunter’s signal. From the shadows, a young warrior emerged dragging a heavy burlap sack. When he upended it, three rusted iron shackles clattered onto the platform, their locking mechanisms still crusted with old blood.

“You talk of French ships,” River Panther said, kicking one shackle toward Yellow Hair. “But ships need men to row them.” His fingers flexed—the missing digits a stark reminder. “Last rainy season, we took these from bodies chained to the gunwales of a patrol boat. Spanish men. Apache men. Even a Comanche boy no older than my sister’s son.”

The Girardoni’s stock creaked under Yellow Hair’s grip. He’d seen slave galleys before – during covert ops in the Mediterranean centuries – or was it days? – ago. The stench of dysentery and seawater still haunted his dreams. “How many guards per ship?”

Red Cypress flicked a silver coin into the air, catching it with a snap of weathered fingers. “At anchor? Ten. At sea?” His good eye hardened. “Thirty. With chain whips.”

Yellow Hair glanced at Water Snake, whose wrinkled hands trembled around her walking stick—not from age, but rage. “Show him the yaakni,” she hissed.

River Panther unsheathed a curved knife from his belt, its edge gleaming with a greasy sheen. Yellow Hair recognized the telltale scent of rendered alligator fat—a preservative that kept blades rust-free in the swamp. But it was the dark stains along the hilt that tightened his throat.

“Yaakni,” River Panther murmured, pressing the blade into Yellow Hair’s palm. The handle was warm, almost alive. “It remembers.” Up close, Yellow Hair saw the stains weren’t rust—they were layers upon layers of blood so deeply embedded in the bone handle that the knife seemed to pulse.

Water Snake leaned in, her breath hot against Yellow Hair’s ear. “Every Chitimacha warrior carries one. We feed them French blood to keep them hungry.” She tapped the flat of the blade with a cracked fingernail. “This one ate a Spanish captain’s heart in the last season of the rains.”

Yellow Hair turned the knife slowly, watching firelight dance along its edge. The weight was perfect – balanced for throwing. He’d seen similar weapons in the hands of Moro rebels, centuries – or was it lifetimes? – later. Some blades carried more than steel.

Red Cypress rose with a groan, his joints popping like wet kindling. “Enough talk of knives and ships.” He gestured toward the village, where the scent of roasting gar fish and sassafras root thickened the air. “Eat. Then we’ll speak of how the yaakni will taste French blood tonight.”

The warriors dispersed, their bare feet silent on the cypress plank walkways. Yellow Hair followed, noting the way the Chitimacha moved – not the open plains strides of Comanche riders, but a stalking gait, knees slightly bent, as if expecting the boards to give way beneath them at any moment.

Around the central firepit, women layered gar fillets onto racks above smoldering sweetbay branches. The fish oil dripped into the flames with sharp hisses. Red Cypress tore a strip of meat with his teeth, gesturing for Yellow Hair to sit. “Eat first,” he said around the mouthful. “Then we hunt.”

Yellow Hair took the offered fish – its flesh surprisingly white beneath the char – and bit into the dense meat. It tasted like river mud and lightning. Across the fire, a Cromanche woman was demonstrating the Girardoni’s loading mechanism to wide-eyed boys. “See that branch on an island in the water?” She took the rifle to her shoulder, took a deep breath, and fired it. pfft The audience startled back. The cypress leaves rustled into the water as the lead shot tore into them. “I can hit a man at two hundred paces.”

Red Cypress wiped grease from his chin with the back of his hand. “Your weapons are strong. But New Orleans has more than muskets.” He gestured southeast, where the night hummed with unseen insects. “They dug trenches after the last slave revolt. Filled them with broken glass and Spanish bayonets.”

“If they have no way to exit the city, then they are trapped in the town. If there ARE ways to exit, they will have to go past us.” Yellow Hair said.

The old chief’s laughter sounded like a gator’s cough. “You think like a plains warrior—all charge and no retreat.” He jabbed a fish bone toward the labyrinth of waterways visible beyond the firelight. “The French don’t use the main channels when they run. They try to slip through bayous morts – dead alleys even pirogues can’t navigate.”

“We shall feed them to the alligators,” Yellow Hair laughed. “Why else do they have that name — bayous morts?”

Red Cypress stopped chewing. The firelight caught the web of scars across his shoulders—old whip marks from French overseers. “The bayous morts earned their name when Spanish soldiers vanished there seventy winters ago,” he said slowly. “Their bones still surface after heavy rains.”

Yellow Hair felt the yaakni’s hilt grow warmer against his thigh, as if reacting to the story. Across the fire, River Panther was carving something into a cypress knee with his own blade—a crude map of twisting waterways.

“Then we’ll turn their dead alleys against them,” Yellow Hair said, tossing a gar bone into the flames. “Block the exits with felled trees, divert the smaller channels. Trap them like crawfish in a weir. Do you want the French out of your lands? Can you honestly tell me that no Chitimacha can get into the city? Of course not. We can kill them. Their backs to the ocean, their mighty ships will run to safer grounds.”