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and we sailed back to mother England to see what was th‘ matter.”
    “What was ?”
    “Don’t you know?”
    “England is where you white people come from?”
    “Damn, but y’r more ignorant than me. Yeah, it’s where th‘ best o’ us’re from, anyhow. An‘ what was wrong was a big damn hole where London once were.
    Some French magicians had brung down a piece o’ the sky, we found out later.”
    Red Shoes could hear the strain in the brief silence that followed. The Englishmen—even those, like Tug, born far from England—still took the loss of their mother country hard.

    EMPIRE OF UNREASON
    “It’s well known that the French and English have been enemies, but both are enemies of the Spanish,” Flint Shouting offered.
    “Not no more. H’ant no England, no France, no Spain. Just us as call ourselves English or Spanish or whatnot. An‘ how true is it now? I don’t know, nor hardly care anymore.”
    “That still hasn’t explained—”
    “Well, Red Shoes ‘uz on the expedition, y’ see. He saved my life, an‘ then we were together at the battle of Venice, where our captain Blackbeard made his last stand. Well, after that, I’d about had enough o’ the sea, though I stayed on in Charles Town f ‘r six years. But a while back I took up the trading with the Choctaw, seein’ as I had a friend there in Red Shoes.”
    Another pause. “And I’ll tell ya this,” Tug went on. “I h’ant never had a better friend. I’m a big man—people have been known to piss ‘emselves just lookin’ at me. Fear I’ve had, and respect, but true friends few. That In’yun up there is one of ‘em. You durst hurt or betray ’im, and or Tug’ll make you wish to y’r dreamy gods you hadn’t.”
    “Understood,” Flint Shouting answered.
    Red Shoes smiled briefly. If Tug knew he had just heard him, he would be mortified. He usually had to be good and drunk to get so sentimental.
    The big man, for all his wicked ways, had nothing crooked in his heart. And whether he knew it or not, he was Red Shoes’ best friend, too. His own people had always feared him just a little too much to really like him. Even among family he felt set apart. But Tug—Tug had no questions, no reservations. Tug was his brother in a way no Choctaw had ever been or could be.
    It was nice, from time to time, to know the big man felt the same way.
    “Look like haystacks,” Tug said, regarding the village.
    Having seen haystacks in Pennsylvania and Europe, Red Shoes had to agree.

    EMPIRE OF UNREASON
    The Wichita houses were talf, rather conical frameworks of cedar and willow laths covered with bundles of grass. Each had two doors, one facing east, the other west. To Red Shoes, this made them more resemble beehives like the ones the Italians brought with them to South Carolina.
    There were only twelve such houses, but each was large enough to hold a small family. There were also a number of open-sided ramadas—summer houses consisting of a roof to keep the noonday sun out and not much more. Even from this vantage, he could see the women moving about in those, cooking, pounding corn, weaving mats and baskets.
    Except for the odd shape of the houses, it could almost be a Choctaw village.
    Strings of white, red, and yellow corn, their shucks plaited in long ropes, hung drying in the eaves of the ramadas, along with strips of pumpkin and other sorts of squash. The sight of that and the smell of woodsmoke mixed with the scent of roasting meat made his mouth water. For weeks he and Tug had eaten mostly “cold meal,” parched cornmeal mixed with a little water. Sustaining but hardly appetizing.
    Real food would be a welcome break.
    He tried not to get his hopes up. These aren’t my people, he reminded himself.
    They owe me nothing. They might do anything to him, so far from the retribution of his own kin. It was said that there were cannibals under this western sky. And worse.
    Five thickset, dark men on horses rode out to meet them. Each had