People of the Longhouse (14 page)

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Authors: W. Michael Gear

Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #Native American & Aboriginal

BOOK: People of the Longhouse
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They sat in silence for another one hundred heartbeats; then Koracoo said, “Gonda, please fill everyone’s cup. Starting with mine.” She pulled her cup from her pack and handed it to him.
Gonda dipped it full and handed it back.
“I’m taking first watch.” She rose, holding her cup in both hands. “Towa, I’ll wake you in two hands of time. You’ll take the last watch.”
“Yes, War Chief.”
Koracoo walked out into the darkness and vanished amid the trees.
As soon as she was gone, desperation returned to taunt Gonda. He ordered, “Towa, give me your cup.”
Towa handed it over, and Gonda returned it full. When Sindak started to extend his cup, Gonda said, “This is awkward, isn’t it? I mean, when I was a child if anyone had told me I’d be sitting around a war camp joking with two Hills warriors, I’d have kicked him in the groin for being an imbecile. But here I am.” He filled Sindak’s cup and handed it to him.
Sindak looked down into the gruel as though he suspected Gonda had spat in it. “I’m glad I didn’t know you as a child.”
“Let’s face reality. None of us is going to trust the other for a long time, if ever, so I guess we should just try to make the best of it. What do you say? I agree not to slit your throat in the night, if you agree not to slit mine or Koracoo’s.”
A gust of wind blew Towa’s long black hair around his face. In a slightly confused voice, he said, “Deputy, we are bound by our chief’s orders to obey you. We will do whatever you tell us to.”
“I take that as a yes. What about you, Sindak?”
Sindak leaned over to sniff his cup, and the nostrils of his beak nose flared. When he looked up at Gonda, suspicion pinched the lines around his eyes. “Are you still married to Koracoo?”
“What?
”
“Are you still married? She doesn’t act like it, but you do. Are you?”
Gonda sat back. “No, she divorced me. Why? Thinking about crawling between her blankets some night?”
“Of course not.”
“That’s smart, because you’ll have a stiletto through your balls before your voice can change. Think how embarrassing that will be.”
Sindak took a drink of his gruel and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “You
are
trying to befriend me. Thanks for the advice.”
Gonda dipped his cup full of soup, swallowed it in six big gulps, then glared one last time for good measure and rolled up in his blanket to sleep.
After a few hundred heartbeats, Towa whispered, “I don’t think he likes us.”
T
he fire has died down to a crimson gleam, leaving the woods frosty and smoke-colored, streaked here and there by the last echoes of moonlight.
I’ve been shivering for over a finger of time. That’s when the shouting started. I watch Gannajero through the weave of frozen grass stems. A pile of riches rests on the ground before her: quivers decorated elaborately with porcupine quills … etched copper breastplates … a shirt covered with elk ivories … and many necklaces, stone tools, feather pouches. But she is apparently unhappy. She paces before two Flint warriors, shouting and waving her fists. One is a big crazy-eyed man. He is stocky, and geometric tattoos cover his face. The sides of his head are shaved, leaving a central roach of hair on top. White feathers—war honors—decorate it. Each man holds a Flint girl by the arm. One of the girls weeps inconsolably. The other keeps trying to fight.
“You fools! This isn’t enough to buy one of the girls, let alone two! Release them!” Gannajero’s wrinkled face has contorted into a hideous long-nosed god mask.
The fighting Flint girl shouts, “Leave my sister alone! Let her go. Take me! Take me!” and repeatedly lunges at the big crazy-eyed man, who smiles and shoves her to the ground … over and over.
Her sister just hangs in the thin man’s grip like a soaked rabbit-fur doll, sobbing.
I don’t know where the other Flint girl is … or Hehaka. He’s gone, too.
“Give them to me, or the girls stay here!” Gannajero yells.
“I’m not giving you my soul!” the crazy-eyed man shouts back. “You can’t have it! I’ve given you everything else I own!”
“Then you can’t have the girls.” Gannajero folds her arms over her chest.
Kotin and three other men move in, surrounding Gannajero as though to protect her, or perhaps to kill the men with the girls if it becomes necessary. They have war clubs in their fists.
I lift my gaze to the trees. Their faint shadows are like smudges of gray silk in the branches, swaying, flying.
“What’s ha-happening, Odion?” Tutelo whispers.
“They’re still fighting. Try to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep!” She weeps softly. “No one could sleep with all the shouting.”
I stroke her long hair and hug her. “Then just don’t cry. Be a cloud. All right? Remember what Shago-niyoh said. Be a cloud.”
Tutelo squeezes her eyes closed and hisses like a snake.
From my right, Wrass murmurs, “The old woman has lost her soul. She’s totally insane.”
Chipmunk stutters, “M-Maybe she needs one of their souls to p-put in her own body.”
“Maybe,” I answer. “I just wish she’d kill them and take the girls back. I—”
When Gannajero whirls around and stalks toward us, Wrass yips, “
What—
?”
“Don’t move!” Gannajero says. Ten paces away, she spreads her arms like a bird and spins toward us. She is so graceful she might be a crow sailing on wind currents.
We all sit as if carved of wood. There is a rotten blood stench about her. It envelops me as she leans over. Wrass clenches his jaw and stares at her, but I turn away, too afraid to look into her wild black eyes.
A heartbeat later, Wrass lets out an enraged cry, and I jerk around. Gannajero has grabbed his left hand. “Hold him!” she orders our guards.
Ugly and Worm swoop down, pin Wrass to the ground, and hold him as Gannajero drags a hafted quartzite blade from her belt. It glints.
“I’m going to teach you a fine lesson, boy,” she says. “You think that someday you will kill one of my men and escape? Watch carefully.”
She slams his hand to the frozen ground and saws off the top of his little finger, neatly severing it at the joint. Wrass kicks and writhes, twisting to get away while he screams.
Gannajero picks up the bloody tip of his finger and cradles it in both hands as though it’s a great prize. “Yes, yes, watch now.”
The guards release Wrass, who sits up, whimpering, and stanches the flow of the blood with his cape.
“Wrass!” I madly crawl over to him and press my hands atop his, trying to place enough pressure on the wound to congeal the blood.
Wrass seems to be in shock. He can’t take his eyes from Gannajero as she slowly, deliberately, bird-walks back across the clearing to where her two men hold the Flint girls.
Crazy-Eyes says, “I am not Hodigo, old woman. That doesn’t scare me. I have cut a thousand men apart!”
The wind must have caught the coals just right. They flare suddenly, and firelight coats Gannajero’s face like a thick amber resin, catching in a searing line along her extended arm. “You’re really not afraid?” she asks mildly.
“Of course not!”
Gannajero steps closer, tempting him to run. He stands his ground and grips the Flint girl’s arm tighter. He can’t run now. The eyes of every man in camp are upon him.
Gannajero smiles as she walks right up to him, then uses the bloody fingertip to paint a zigzagging Spirit line down his sleeve. He flinches, but does not flee. “Oh, yes, look.” She turns to his friends and nods. “He is brave.”
He throws out his chest and glances at his partner, who holds the other Flint girl. “See? I told you. She’s just an ugly old woman.”
Gannajero smiles and reaches into her belt pouch. When she pulls out a hollow eagle-bone sucking tube, the man goes rigid. He starts to back away, dragging the girl with him.
Before he can get too far, she orders, “Stop.”
As though he’s been commanded by his chief, he does it. The Flint girl fights harder—she’s kicking his legs and butting her head into his side—but he barely seems to notice. He stares at the sucking tube and swallows hard. As Gannajero walks closer, he says, “Wait.”
She stops and cocks her head back and forth in that eerie birdlike manner. “Yes.”
“If I let you suck out my afterlife soul, can I have my copper breastplate back?”
Gannajero seems to be considering it. Finally, she nods.
The man grits his teeth and extends his arm. “All right, but hurry. I have plans.”
Gannajero slowly tiptoes forward, rubs the fingertip over the tube, consecrating it, then places the tube against his exposed wrist and sucks. Then she suddenly leaps backward.
He staggers and blinks, as though dazed by the experience.
His friend says, “Dinyoteh? Are you all right?”
“Of course, I—I am.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Don’t be foolish. I don’t feel any different at all. If she thinks she has my soul, that’s fine. I know she doesn’t. Let her suck yours out, too, so we can go.”
His friend pales. “But I don’t—”
“I’m telling you, Sondakwa, it’s all nonsense. Do you really think this ugly old woman can steal souls?”
His friend hesitantly extends his arm, and Gannajero edges forward, places her tube against his flesh, and sucks out his soul.
When she’s finished, she pulls a small pot from her belt pouch, removes the wooden stopper, and blows their souls into it. Then she tucks Wrass’ fingertip into the pot and stuffs the stopper back in. “All right,” she says with a flick of her hand. “Take the girls and go.”
Crazy Eyes, Dinyoteh, grabs his breastplate, and he and his friend drag the two Flint girls away and disappear in the forest. I can hear the girls’ screams for a long time.
Wrass is rocking back and forth, holding his bloody hand.
Chipmunk crawls over and says, “Wrass, let me look at it?”
Shaking, he pulls the finger from his wadded cape and extends it. It’s still bleeding badly.
Tutelo’s eyes go wide.
Chipmunk scrutinizes it and says, “It’s a clean cut. We just need to keep the evil Spirits from infecting it. As we walk, I’ll find a bear oak, shave one of the old knots, and brew you a tea. It will help.”
Tutelo looks from Wrass, to the guards, and back to me, and sobs, “Odion? Let’s run away! Hurry. Let’s run!”
I glance around at the warriors, and my throat closes up. I lean close to her ear to whisper. “Soon. But not now.
Not now!
”
J
ust before dawn, Koracoo rolled over, shook Gonda’s shoulder, and whispered, “It’s time. Let’s rise.”
Exhausted, shivering with cold, Gonda heaved a sigh and sat up. The frost-coated clearing glittered with the first blue rays of dawn. Beneath the oak trees, ten paces away, the sleeping body of Sindak made a dark hump. The sight surprised Gonda. Sindak must have moved out into the trees in the middle of the night, but Gonda hadn’t heard a thing. Towa stood a short distance from where Sindak slept, watching the trail.
As Gonda stumbled to his feet, he whispered, “Will you wake Sindak, or should I?”
“Let’s get the fire built and heat up the leftover cornmeal gruel from last night. I suspect with all of our clattering, he will wake himself. Or Towa will wake him.”
Gonda reached down, picked up his weapons’ belt, and tied it around his waist. It was colder this morning, and he thought he caught the fragrance of snow on the breeze. Cloud People sailed the heavens.
He walked to the fire pit and grabbed a stick from the branch pile they’d collected last night. “The first thing this morning, we should clarify their duties with our new allies.”
“I thought you did that last night.”
Sheepishly, he said, “Did you hear that?”
“Most of it. You sounded like an idiot.”
Gonda glanced over at Sindak. “I was defending your honor, my former wife. And I wasn’t the only idiot there. Sindak is impulsive. He’s the one most likely to act on instinct without thinking first. He reminds me of me at his age.”
Koracoo pushed short black hair behind her ears. “I remember. You were reckless.”
“I was young.” Gonda used his stick to stir the ashes from last night’s fire. It took twenty heartbeats to separate out the warm coals and pile them in the center of the pit. As he began laying twigs over the coals, he softly said, “Did you get any sleep?”
She knelt across the fire pit from him. Her face looked haggard, her dark eyes dull. “Not much. Towa and I stared at each other for most of the night. He’s the cautious one.”
The sound of their voices woke Sindak. He sat up and stretched, then turned to look at Towa. Towa had worn his deerhide sling while he stood watch to keep his wounded arm from shifting. Towa whispered something to Sindak, who yawned and nodded.
Koracoo’s eyes narrowed.
“What’s wrong?”
“While I was staring at Towa last night, I had time to think about them.”
“About Sindak? Or Towa?” He bent over and blew on the coals until the twigs caught and flames burst to life. He added more twigs, then lifted the tripod with the boiling bag and moved it closer.
“About Sindak, Towa, and Atotarho,” she replied. “I still don’t know why he chose these two. They are not physically suited to the task. Because of his injuries, Towa is not a reliable fighter. And they are friends—probably best friends. That means that when Towa gets in trouble—and that will be very soon into the fight—Sindak will forget his responsibilities and concentrate on protecting his friend.”
“Leaving you and me to rescue the children.” Gonda added a branch to the fire and watched the flames leap around the new tinder. Sparks flitted into the deep blue predawn sky. “If you’re right, what are we going to do about it?”
“Plan ahead, prepare for when it happens.”
“Then you’d better threaten them thoroughly to start with.”
“I plan to.”
Gonda pulled two sticks from the woodpile and reached into the boiling bag to remove the cobble, which he placed at the edge of the flames to heat.
Then he turned to watch the two young warriors. Towa winced as he removed his sling, picked up his quiver, and slung it over his shoulder. Sindak was speaking softly to him while he adjusted his weapons’ belt. Towa’s braid hung down the back of his elkhide cape. Though he had a handsome face, Gonda decided it was slightly feminine. His eyelashes were too long and his chin too pointed. Sindak, on the other hand, kept his right hand propped on the hilt of his belted war club. That told Gonda a good deal about him.
Gonda added two more branches to the fire—enough wood that the flames crackled. When he looked back at Koracoo, he could see the thoughts roiling behind her eyes. They had known each other long enough that they often entertained the same thoughts, and he suspected he knew what was bothering her. “So. What conclusions did you arrive at? How much of Atotarho’s story did you decide you believe?”
“Very little.”
He frowned at the fire. “I arrived at the same conclusion. That complicates our plan.”
“In more ways than one.” She used her chin to indicate Sindak and Towa. “How much do you think they know?”
“About Atotarho’s plans? Probably nothing. But we need to find out.”
“Yes. Just in case this turns into a brawl, we should loose our clubs.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little obvious? They’ll think we plan to crush their skulls.”
“Depending upon what they do or do not know, we may.”
“Now you’re talking like a Standing Stone war chief.” Gonda untied his club and rested it within reach near the tripod.
As she stood up, Koracoo untied CorpseEye from her belt and propped it on her shoulder.
Towa and Sindak noticed, started murmuring to each other, and loosed their own clubs.
“Are you ready?” Gonda quietly asked.
“Of course.”

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