People of the Longhouse (18 page)

Read People of the Longhouse Online

Authors: W. Michael Gear

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

BOOK: People of the Longhouse
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“We’ll all feel better after we eat,” Sindak said. “Hand me your cups and I’ll fill them.”
Gonda didn’t move. He stared at the flames with haunted eyes. Towa handed Gonda’s cup to Sindak. Sindak filled it, and Towa set it beside Gonda’s moccasin. He didn’t seem to care. He kept twisting his hands in his lap.
What a difference. Last night, he was an offensive wolf. Tonight, after losing the trail, he’s a trembling ruin of a man.
Sindak stared at him and said, “Give me your cup, Towa.”
T
owa handed over his cup and went back to staring at Gonda. In the firelight, the muscles of Gonda’s jaw quivered.
Sindak crouched down on the opposite side of the fire and filled his own cup. The limbs gave them just enough room to sit up straight. As the wind blew the branches the radiant halo of firelight shifted, casting shadows across their faces and creating strange dark wraiths in the snow that gusted by.
Towa asked, “What did you do, Gonda?”
He lifted his head, and guilt lined his round face. “What do you mean?”
“Koracoo doesn’t trust you. Why?”
Anger hardened Gonda’s mouth. “That’s none of your concern. I—”
“If she does not trust you, how can we? Do you have a weakness we should know about? Forgive me for asking, but in the heat of battle, such knowledge may save my life.”
Gonda seemed to be weighing what he should and should not say, and Sindak found that curious. Any other man accused of being weak would have reached for his war club and started swinging. Last night, Gonda would have. But not tonight. He turned away, dug his buffalo horn spoon from his pack, and used it to shovel meat into his
mouth. After he’d chewed and swallowed three heaping spoonfuls, he quietly responded, “I made a mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“Yes.”
“A mistake that led to the destruction of Yellowtail Village and the loss of your children?”
Gonda looked like he wanted to talk about it but didn’t have the strength, or perhaps he couldn’t figure out how.
Towa said, “I had children once, Gonda. A brave little boy and a sweet, beautiful girl. I lost them both, along with my wife, to a fever two summers ago. I have some idea what you must be feeling.”
Gonda’s expression softened, but he just continued eating his soup.
Sindak frowned at Towa. He never talked about the loss of his family. Ever. It hurt too much. What was he doing? Trying to create some kind of tie with Gonda?
Gonda swallowed a bite of soup and softly said, “Do you still live the nightmare of their deaths, Towa?”
“Every day.”
As Gonda brought up one knee and propped his cup on top of it, he kept his gaze on Towa’s somber face. “Then perhaps you can imagine what it would be like to live the nightmare of your children’s lives as Gannajero’s slaves. Every instant I see my children hurt, or hungry, or being tormented by enemies. Or I fear they are dead and their souls are out wandering alone in the forest, calling out to me, trying to find their way home.”
Towa’s breath misted in the air. “That must be like having a belly full of obsidian flakes.”
The scent of the campfire grew stronger as night deepened and smoke hung in the pine boughs just over their heads.
Sindak said, “They may have just been captured by an ordinary war party, and are being well cared for. No man mistreats a child he plans to adopt into his own family.”
Gonda continued spooning soup into his mouth, chewing, swallowing.
Towa gave him some time before he added, “And even if the children are with Gannajero, they’re alive. They’re too valuable to kill. We
will
find them and bring them home.”
Gonda’s spoon halted halfway to his mouth. “We may bring them home, Towa, but I’m not sure even our best Healers will be able to cure them.”
Out in the forest, frozen trees cracked and snapped beneath the brunt of the icy wind, but Sindak pinned his attention on Gonda’s agonized face. Brief, hard flurries of sleet had started to whip by just beyond the pine. Gonda seemed to be watching the veils of snow as they careened down the trail.
Sindak asked, “What was the mistake you made?”
Gonda set his cup down and rubbed his hands over his face. In a voice almost too low to hear, he said, “I disobeyed an order.”
Sindak shifted, and the frosty pine needles at his feet crunched. “What order?”
When Gonda didn’t answer, Towa said, “When we accompanied Atotarho on the trading expedition, we heard rumors that Mountain People war parties were scouting near Yellowtail Village. You must have heard them, too.”
Through a long exhalation Gonda said, “A Trader came through the morning of the attack and told us he’d seen Mountain warriors just a short distance from Yellowtail Village.”
“What did you do?”
“The only thing we could. Koracoo took half our warriors out to verify the rumors. They could have been false. She wanted to make certain.”
“But you did not go with her?”
Gonda stared absently at the ground. “No. I was in charge of defending the village.”
A sleety gust rattled the branches over their heads. Sindak flipped up the hood of his buckskin cape and cradled his warm cup in both hands.
Towa softly asked, “What happened?”
Gonda cast a surreptitious glance at Koracoo, and Sindak had the vague feeling that Gonda hoped she might come to his rescue by answering that question herself. When she did not, he heaved a heavy sigh.
“She ordered me to keep all of my warriors inside the palisade until she returned.”
Towa’s brow furrowed. “You didn’t?”
Gonda took another bite of soup and took his time swallowing it. “Just moments before the attack, two terrified scouts came running into the village, claiming there were over one thousand enemy warriors in the forest.”
“
One thousand?
”
He gritted his teeth. “I panicked. You wanted to know the truth? That’s it. When the palisade was on fire in fifty places, and I could see them massing for a final assault, I panicked. Their eyes glinted in the starlight. I led half my warriors outside to create a diversion—”
“You disobeyed
Koracoo’s
orders?”
Gonda hung his head. “At the time, it seemed like the right decision.”
A cold shiver went down Sindak’s spine. Among the People of the Hills the penalty for disobeying your war chief’s orders was death. If he had disobeyed Nesi’s orders and half the village had been slaughtered as a result, Nesi would have paraded Sindak from longhouse to longhouse and allowed those who had lost family members to take out their vengeance on Sindak’s flesh. The pain would have lasted for days.
On the other hand, if Sindak had been in Gonda’s position, looking into hundreds of glinting eyes out in the forest, he might have done the same thing—regardless of the consequences. A desperate man facing overwhelming odds had to believe in his Spirit Helpers. Obviously, Gonda’s had let him down.
Towa said, “What happened to the warriors you led outside? Were they killed?”
Gonda tightened his grip around his cup to still the tremors in his hands. Barely audible, he answered, “A few of us survived.”
Against the firelit background of whirling sleet, Gonda appeared thin and haunted. His round face was worn down to its heavy bones. He couldn’t have seen more than twenty-six or twenty-seven summers, but in the short black hair that covered his ears, scattered filaments of silver caught the light.
Sindak said, “Afterward, you didn’t have enough warriors inside the palisade to defend the village, did you?”
He shook his head. “We were overrun with stunning swiftness.”
Even now, days later, he must still see the tormented faces of his dead friends and relatives. Or was he thinking of his children? Perhaps hearing their last cries?
Sindak said, “So, Koracoo blames you? She thinks that if you’d kept all of your warriors inside the palisade, as she ordered, they might have been able to hold out long enough for her war party to get back and turn the tide of battle?”
Gonda twisted his cup in his hands. “She won’t talk to me about it.”
Sindak didn’t really like Gonda, but he said, “Gonda, if the enemy forces were truly as large as you say, they would have overrun Yellowtail Village anyway.”
A faint roar underlay the keening wind. They all tipped their heads to listen to it. It resonated like the thrumming bass note that seems to linger in the air long after the song is finished, more felt in the bones than heard.
Towa asked, “How many warriors did Koracoo have with her?”
“The same number I had—three hundred.”
“Well, Gonda, if Koracoo’s warriors had returned, they would have suffered the same fate as the men you sent outside. They would have been destroyed. The ending would have been the same.”
Gonda shook himself as though trying not to remember. “Don’t you understand? I sent one hundred men out to face over one thousand enemy warriors. It was … hopeless.”
“You were desperate.”
Gonda turned disbelieving eyes on Towa. “I gave the order, Towa.”
“I’m not trying to anger you, Gonda. It’s just that my people believe a war chief should be a good enough judge of character to know when a man isn’t suited for great responsibility. Nesi would have never put you in that position.”
Sindak shifted slightly to look at Koracoo. He wondered if Towa had not inadvertently hit upon the problem:
Koracoo can’t forgive herself for leaving Gonda in charge. Perhaps it isn’t Gonda she distrusts. She’s lost confidence in herself.
Gonda hung his head and shook it. “I was perfectly suited. I’ve done it dozens of times. Koracoo made the right choice in selecting me for the duty. I just … I—I …”
Towa kept glancing down to where Gonda’s hands gripped his cup as though to strangle the life from it.
Gonda smiled weakly. “It’s getting late.”
“I just have one more question,” Towa said. “I don’t know you very well, Gonda, but you have a reputation for valor and brilliance in war. In fact, none of our warriors wishes to face you in battle.”
Gonda stared at Towa with his jaw clenched.
Towa seemed to be worried about how to phrase it. “Men make mistakes in the heat of battle. Koracoo knows this better than anyone. So, my question is, why doesn’t she believe it was a mistake? Earlier, she called you ‘arrogant.’ Does she think you deliberately defied her orders?”
Gonda’s nostrils quivered. “I would very much like to know the answer to that question.” He rose unsteadily to his feet, wiped out his cup, and said, “If she ever tells you, let me know.” Then he tramped away.
Sindak watched him roll up in his cape and prop his head on his pack. Just before he closed his eyes, he grabbed his war club and dragged it close.
A powerful gust of wind blasted the forest, and a branch broke in the fire. The scattering sparks threaded Towa’s handsome face with crimson light. Sindak studied his taut expression.
Quietly, so Gonda could not hear, Sindak said, “I’m surprised he told you as much as he did.”
“I’m not. Gonda’s been desperate to discuss this with someone. The guilt is eating him alive.”
Sindak considered that. His grandmother had once told him to make carelessness his enemy and righteousness his armor, because guilt was like a very dull blade; it could kill, but it took a long time and the pain was excruciating. “I can’t wait to hear Koracoo’s side of the story.”
Towa gave him an askance look. “Hear it? Never, my friend.”
“No?”
“Why would she tell you?”
“How many friends does she have out here to talk to?”
Towa’s brows lowered. Barely audible, he warned, “You’re going to get yourself killed trying to ‘befriend’ her.”
In the shadows on the other side of the tree trunk, he could just make out Koracoo’s face. It had a pale gleam. Bluntly chopped-off locks of black hair fell over her cheeks. He thought her eyes might be open. Was she watching them? Trying to hear their discussion?
Towa followed his gaze and softly said, “Even if you ‘befriend’ her, she won’t tell you. She would consider it a sign of weakness.”
Sindak drew his knees up and locked his arms around them. “As would I.”
“Would you?”
“Of course. Any man who needs to discuss his feelings is a coward.”

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