People of the Longhouse (17 page)
Read People of the Longhouse Online
Authors: W. Michael Gear
Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #Native American & Aboriginal
T
wo days later, Sindak knew for certain they had lost the trail. He floundered around, weaving back and forth through the falling snow, searching for the slightest hint that even one man had passed this way—let alone an entire war party herding a group of unwieldy children. Blessed Spirits, how had Gannajero managed to so conceal the trail? They had followed a wide swath of tracks until mid-morning; then a dozen trails had split off from the main one. They’d gone in every direction, as though men were abandoning the party, heading home to different villages. Gonda had argued vehemently for following one particular trail, and though Sindak had disagreed, Koracoo had ordered that they go with Gonda’s choice. Gradually it had narrowed to the width of one man’s path, and soon after vanished.
wo days later, Sindak knew for certain they had lost the trail. He floundered around, weaving back and forth through the falling snow, searching for the slightest hint that even one man had passed this way—let alone an entire war party herding a group of unwieldy children. Blessed Spirits, how had Gannajero managed to so conceal the trail? They had followed a wide swath of tracks until mid-morning; then a dozen trails had split off from the main one. They’d gone in every direction, as though men were abandoning the party, heading home to different villages. Gonda had argued vehemently for following one particular trail, and though Sindak had disagreed, Koracoo had ordered that they go with Gonda’s choice. Gradually it had narrowed to the width of one man’s path, and soon after vanished.
Sindak was not the only one frustrated and discouraged. Koracoo knelt at every snapped twig, picked it up and examined it, then gently placed it back exactly as she’d found it. In the rear, Gonda was down on his hands and knees, crawling with his nose practically touching the snow that filled in the trail; and to Sindak’s right, Towa stood beside a snow-rimed mountain laurel, studying it for broken branches, or the smallest fibers left from clothing.
When Towa glanced across the trail and found Sindak staring at
him, his brows lifted. Sindak shook his head in answer to the unspoken question:
Have you found anything?
him, his brows lifted. Sindak shook his head in answer to the unspoken question:
Have you found anything?
Towa moved on to a thicket of dogwood.
White veils spun through the chestnuts and basswoods that lined the trail. Already the snow was over Sindak’s ankles, and growing deeper by the heartbeat.
Though he knew it was futile, Sindak started wading through the drifts again, searching. He spotted a few hickory nuts and tucked them in his belt pouch.
“I found something!” Gonda shouted. As he brushed at the trail, he called, “Koracoo? Come quickly.”
She worked her way back to him, carefully stepping in her own tracks so as not to disturb anything that might be hidden on the trail beneath the snow.
Sindak and Towa also walked toward him.
They all arrived at about the same time and stood in a triangle, looking down at Gonda. His forehead was furrowed, and deep lines engraved the corners of his brown eyes. He had his finger placed below a badly washed-out track.
Koracoo knelt and began brushing away the surrounding snow.
They all crouched and brushed at the thick coating of snow and leaves near the “track.” As he scooped away the snow, Sindak grimaced. Hundreds of might-be tracks dotted the frozen soil, but there was nothing that he would even remotely assess as being made by a man. He turned to stare at Towa. Towa shrugged and rose to his feet.
Koracoo spent a long time scrutinizing the indentation Gonda had found. All the while, Gonda watched her with desperation in his eyes, obviously praying that she would say it had been made by a child.
Koracoo expelled a breath, shook her head lightly, and got to her feet. “This is nothing, Gonda. We’ve lost the trail. We all know it.”
“But it’s the best track we’ve found,” Gonda objected. “We should break off branches and start sweeping every step of the ground.”
Sindak waited. Surely Koracoo knew Gonda’s suggestion was folly. They were all exhausted and hungry. It would be far better to make camp and start fresh in the morning after a good night’s sleep.
Koracoo looked up at the dim gray sky. Flakes swirled through the air. “We have perhaps a half-hand of light left. Let’s stop for the day.”
“What!”
Gonda exploded. “We can’t stop! We have to keep looking! The snow is growing deeper by the moment. By morning, their trail will be completely hidden!”
Gonda exploded. “We can’t stop! We have to keep looking! The snow is growing deeper by the moment. By morning, their trail will be completely hidden!”
Koracoo’s gaze wandered over the forest and came to rest upon a big pine. The area beneath the thick branches was dry and clear of snow. It was the best place to take shelter for the night.
Gonda seemed to sense her decision. “Koracoo, no. Please, let’s keep searching.” He gave her an imploring look, begging her to listen to him, to keep going.
Somewhere out in the forest, a turkey gobbled. Koracoo turned toward the sound, and Sindak hoped she’d order him to hunt it for supper.
Instead, she said, “No, Gonda. Let’s make camp and fill our bellies with what’s left in our packs. We’ll start again at dawn tomorrow.”
“But, Koracoo, we can still—
“No, Gonda.”
“You’re being hasty! Think this through before you—”
“Sindak?” She turned to him. “Could you and Towa start cracking dead branches from the trees and piling them in the dry area beneath that big pine?”
“Yes, War Chief.”
Sindak and Towa trotted away from the trail. As they snapped off the lower dead branches from two elm trees, they piled them in the crooks of their left arms and watched the interplay of emotions on Koracoo’s and Gonda’s faces.
“You’re being foolish,” Gonda said through gritted teeth. Every muscle in his thin wiry body had contracted and bulged through his cape and leggings. “We should keep searching as long as we have light. Every moment we rest or delay, our children—”
“That’s enough, Gonda,” she said, trying to keep her voice low. “Come. Let’s go over and clean out some of the pine duff for a fire pit.”
As she started for the pine, Gonda called, “You blame me, don’t you?”
She stopped and turned to face him. “For what?”
“At that last fork in the trail, Sindak wanted to go left, but I insisted we go right. You would have taken the left fork, wouldn’t you?”
Koracoo stared at him, her face still and desolate.
Sindak whispered, “Dear gods, the panic in his voice gives me a stomachache.”
Towa’s shaggy brows drew together. He whispered back, “If it does that to you, imagine how Koracoo feels. But he’s right—your trail was the better choice. If he hadn’t argued so vehemently …”
Koracoo softly said, “Gonda, I was the one who made the final decision
to take the right fork. Not you. If it was the wrong choice, I am to blame. But we will not know that until tomorrow when we go back over our tracks and find the place where we erred.”
to take the right fork. Not you. If it was the wrong choice, I am to blame. But we will not know that until tomorrow when we go back over our tracks and find the place where we erred.”
Gonda shook his fists as though he longed to scream at her to ease his own fears. After four or five heartbeats, he replied, “You don’t trust me, do you?”
Exasperated, she threw up her hands, then turned and walked to the pine, where she ducked beneath the overhanging branches and crawled back into the dry shadows.
Gonda trudged through the snow and crawled in behind her. “Koracoo, answer me.”
She propped CorpseEye against the trunk, then unslung her pack and quiver, laid them aside, and used both hands to start digging a hole for the fire pit in the pine duff. Even in the dim light, the red cobble head of CorpseEye gleamed like old blood.
When she just kept digging, Gonda reached out and his hand tightened around Koracoo’s wrist like shrunken rawhide. “I know what you’re thinking. Just say it.”
Sindak and Towa both went rigid.
Koracoo lifted her gaze to Gonda. Death lived in those dark eyes.
Gonda released her as though he’d been holding a poisonous serpent, then slumped to the ground breathing hard. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to—”
“You’re arrogant, Gonda.” Koracoo resumed digging. “It has always been your failing. One of these days, it will cost you—or someone you love—his life.”
“You mean
their
lives, don’t you? Our children?”
their
lives, don’t you? Our children?”
She crawled away and began breaking off the dead branches at the base of the trunk, tossing them into a pile near the fire pit.
Gonda watched her expectantly, then dropped his face into his hands. “This isn’t my fault, Koracoo. It’s yours. If you weren’t always trying to make peace with our enemies, we’d have killed them all long ago. There’d have been no attack on Yellowtail Village.”
Her eyes filled with such a deep, aching sadness that Sindak had the insane urge to run over and wrap his arms around her. The fact that she’d kill him stopped him.
He placed another branch on the big bundle in his left arm. “I can’t hold another twig, but I’ll feel like I’m interrupting a private argument if I go back now.”
Towa stepped up beside him with an even larger bundle cradled in
his arms. “Don’t worry. Our arrival will be a relief to both of them. Let’s go.”
his arms. “Don’t worry. Our arrival will be a relief to both of them. Let’s go.”
They trudged down the hill and ducked beneath the pine boughs. As they worked their way back to the scooped-out hollow, neither Koracoo nor Gonda watched them. Sindak and Towa dumped their armloads by the pit, and Sindak looked askance at Gonda. He hadn’t moved. He sat with his hands over his face.
“I’ll start the fire,” Towa said. “Sindak, can you gather some needles and twigs for tinder?”
“Of course.”
Sindak went around collecting handfuls of old pine needles and twigs, which he piled beside Towa’s right moccasin.
Towa unslung his quiver and set it near Koracoo’s; then he arranged the tinder in the pit and removed two fire-sticks from his pack. He placed the punky stick on the ground, took the pointed hardwood stick and set it in its notch—a prepared hole in the punky stick—and began spinning the hardwood between his palms. The air was damp; it took around five hundred heartbeats for the friction to create an orange glow in the punky wood. Towa kept spinning the hardwood stick until the glow expanded and began to crackle; then he dumped it onto the nest of twigs and dry needles and softly blew on them until flames curled up.
Sindak knelt near the woodpile and extended his hands to the faint warmth. From the corner of his eye, he watched Koracoo. All night long he’d had erotic fantasies about her. It was hard to shove them out of his mind as he watched her remove the boiling bag from her pack and tie the long laces to the tripod. Every move she made had a distinctive muscular grace that brought back his dreams with aching clarity. When she finished, she carried the tripod over to the fire and set it up near the blaze. “How much food do you have left in your packs?”
Sindak said, “I have a little dried fish left.”
“And I have some venison strips.”
“Good. I have some hard cornmeal biscuits, baked with blueberries and sunflower seeds. Let’s throw in everything we have, heat the soup, and fill our empty bellies so we can sleep warm.”
“Yes, War Chief. Did anyone see a good rock for the bag?”
“I did.” Towa rose, ducked beneath the overarching limbs, and went out into the trail to kick loose two small rounded rocks.
“Gonda?” Koracoo said. “What’s left in your pack?”
He lowered his hands and looked at her with hollow eyes. “A few bear cracklings.”
“Please throw them into the boiling bag.”
Gonda unslung his pack and dug around until he found the small hide sack that held his dried food. He upended the sack over the boiling bag and shook out every morsel that remained.
Towa carried the two rocks back, ducked beneath the sheltering branches of the pine, and rolled the rocks into the fire.
“We need water,” Koracoo said. She untied the buffalo paunch canteen from her belt and emptied it into the boiling bag. As she pulled the canteen’s laces tight again, she said, “You’ll each need to add more water from your own water bags.”
“I have some left.” Sindak emptied his canteen into the bag. The rest would be frozen by morning anyway.
As Gonda tipped his canteen over the bag and water trickled out, he said, “Koracoo, we need to discuss—”
“Tomorrow, Gonda. I’m going to bed. Sindak, please take first watch.”
“Yes, War Chief.”
“You’re not going to eat?” Gonda squinted at her.
“I’m more tired than hungry. I’ll eat in the morning.”
She crawled over to CorpseEye, gripped her club, and went to the opposite side of the tree trunk, where she rolled up in her cape and propped CorpseEye across her chest.
As darkness fell, snow gusted down the trail and the forest branches clattered together. Towa dropped the two rocks into the boiling bag, and they sat in silence as steam began to rise. The smoky scent of jerked venison filled the air.
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