People of the Longhouse (28 page)
Read People of the Longhouse Online
Authors: W. Michael Gear
Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #Native American & Aboriginal
A
s Sindak led the way back to the place where he’d hidden the night before, icy leaves crunched beneath his moccasins. He felt vaguely numb. He hadn’t gotten much sleep in the last three nights, and that, along with the fact that they hadn’t been eating well, was taking a toll on his strength. He veered off the trail and headed out into the glistening grass. Frost coated everything this morning, shining like a thick layer of crushed shells in the tawny halo of morning light that lanced through the trees. The brittle mustiness of late autumn filled the air.
s Sindak led the way back to the place where he’d hidden the night before, icy leaves crunched beneath his moccasins. He felt vaguely numb. He hadn’t gotten much sleep in the last three nights, and that, along with the fact that they hadn’t been eating well, was taking a toll on his strength. He veered off the trail and headed out into the glistening grass. Frost coated everything this morning, shining like a thick layer of crushed shells in the tawny halo of morning light that lanced through the trees. The brittle mustiness of late autumn filled the air.
“Where are we going?” Koracoo called from behind.
Sindak pointed with his bow. “Over there. See that huge hickory tree? That’s where I hid from the warriors last night.”
Towa’s distinctive steps were close behind him. Koracoo was slightly farther back, and Gonda’s footsteps came from far in the rear. Sindak turned halfway around to look back. Gonda was trudging along with his head down, as though totally defeated. His war club was almost dragging the ground, and he didn’t even seem to notice.
Towa caught his gaze, turned to look back at Gonda, and trotted forward to catch up with Sindak. In a low voice, he said, “I think he’s becoming a liability to us.”
“He is. But until Koracoo figures that out and orders him to go home, there’s nothing we can do.”
Towa’s buckskin cape fluttered around his long legs as he walked at Sindak’s side. “Even if Koracoo ordered him to leave, I doubt he’d do it.”
“I suspect you’re right. He’s going to stick to us like boiled pine pitch until he gets us all killed.”
Sindak followed his own tracks across the frozen mud toward the leafless hickory. “Did Gonda keep you awake half the night with his moaning and thrashing?”
“Yes. I was deeply grateful when Koracoo woke him to take his watch. That’s when I finally got to sleep.”
Sindak sighed. “Me, too.”
As they approached the hickory, the cold indigo shadows of the massive limbs began to enfold them. Sindak tugged his cape more tightly around him, and circled to the left. His own tracks were unmistakable. Last night’s mud had squished up around his moccasins, leaving clear prints that, this morning, were crusted with frost.
Sindak stopped and waited for Koracoo, and eventually Gonda, to arrive.
Sunlight tipped Koracoo’s lashes with gold as she looked at him. Even exhausted, trail-worn, and filthy, she was still a beautiful woman. Her large dark eyes resembled black moons, and the dawn light blushed color into her small nose and full lips.
In an irritated voice, Gonda said, “Did you plan on showing us something, Sindak?”
“What? Oh … yes.” He turned, embarrassed. Had he been staring at Koracoo? “This is where I hid last night to allow the warriors to pass by.”
“And where were the warriors?”
Sindak gestured out toward the trail that forked thirty paces away. Towering pines scalloped the edges of the path. “The warriors came up the trail and took the fork that heads off to the west.”
Gonda shoved black hair out of his eyes before he stalked over to examine the trail.
Koracoo said, “Where did you leave the children’s tracks?”
Sindak swung around. “Right back there, War Chief. In that grove of chestnuts.”
Koracoo’s gaze traveled up the trunk of the closest tree and into the branches that stretched almost two hundred hands in the air.
On one of the largest limbs, a squirrel sat chewing a chestnut. Discarded bits of the nut fell from its jaws and floated down like brown snowflakes to litter the ground at the base of the tree.
On one of the largest limbs, a squirrel sat chewing a chestnut. Discarded bits of the nut fell from its jaws and floated down like brown snowflakes to litter the ground at the base of the tree.
“Koracoo?” Gonda called. He was kneeling in the frosty trail, outlining something with his fingers.
She turned and frowned. “What did you find?”
Gonda waved her over. “Come and see for yourself.”
“He must have found the trail of the warriors who chased me last night,” Sindak said, and trotted toward Gonda.
Sindak and Towa arrived a few steps ahead of Koracoo and the three of them bent over Gonda, trying to see what he’d discovered.
Gonda tipped his chin up to look at Sindak. “I thought you said there were three warriors? I only see the tracks of one man.”
Sindak’s bushy brows pulled together over his hooked nose. “I heard the footsteps of three people,” he insisted. “At least for a time. Then two vanished, and only one remained.” He straightened and looked behind him, to the south. A mixture of pines and birches gleamed in the sunlight. “Perhaps the other two veered off back there somewhere.”
Gonda grumbled under his breath, and Koracoo said, “Gonda? See if you can find any other tracks in that direction.”
Gonda rose to his feet and started walking back along the trail, searching. Sindak turned to go with him, but Koracoo said, “No, stay here, Sindak. Help me follow out these prints. Towa, why don’t you go and help Gonda.”
Towa’s mouth pursed distastefully, but he said, “Yes, War Chief,” and trotted away.
Koracoo watched him go with narrowed eyes. When he was out of earshot, Koracoo looked at Sindak. “What do you see down there in that track, Sindak?”
Sindak knelt to examine it more carefully. In places the frost had created a strange pattern of tiny intersecting bars. It almost looked … “Blessed Spirits,” he whispered. “That’s a herringbone design! You don’t think—”
“I’m not sure what to think.” Koracoo swung CorpseEye up and propped the club on her left shoulder. The breeze blew her chopped-off hair around her face. “I wanted to get your impression before I brought it up with the others. Did he sound like a big man when he passed you last night?”
Sindak thought about it. “It was raining, War Chief. The wind was
blowing through the trees. There was a lot of noise. I can’t say for certain.”
blowing through the trees. There was a lot of noise. I can’t say for certain.”
She watched him through hard, unblinking eyes. “What else did you notice?”
He flapped his arms against his sides. “Not much. As I said, for a time I thought I heard three people’s steps, then two vanished … and at one point I would have sworn I smelled rotting flesh.”
Koracoo cocked her head. “Rotting flesh?”
“Yes, the tang reminded me of a two- or three-day-old battlefield.”
Koracoo rubbed her thumb over CorpseEye. “Anything else?”
He thought about it. “I heard a rattle, like branches clattering together in the breeze. And, off and on, I heard the man speaking to someone. I couldn’t make out any of his words, but he sounded sad. At one point, I thought he called—”
“
Koracoo?”
Gonda leaped to his feet and trotted back toward them carrying something.
Koracoo?”
Gonda leaped to his feet and trotted back toward them carrying something.
“What is it?”
Gonda lifted the scrap of cloth into the air, holding it high enough for her to see. “It’s a fragment of a girl’s dress, I think.”
Koracoo’s face suddenly turned to stone, and Sindak wondered if she feared it might be from her daughter’s dress, as the copper circlet had been.
Koracoo wet her lips, seemed to gird herself, and walked out to meet Gonda. “Let me see it.” She held out her hand.
Gonda draped the soft doehide over her palm. Red-and-yellow quillwork decorated the lower half. “It isn’t from Tutelo’s dress; don’t worry about that,” Gonda said, alleviating her fear immediately.
As relief shot through her, she seemed to deflate like an air-filled bladder. The hide in her hand quaked softly before she clenched her fist around it. “The quillwork is exquisite,” she remarked; then she lifted the fragment and smelled it. “Is this what you smelled last night, Sindak?” She held it out.
Sindak leaned close enough to get a good whiff of the putrid odor. “Yes. But the taint on this fragment is faint. I could not have smelled this from thirty paces away behind the hickory tree.”
“No,” Koracoo replied softly, and turned the fragment of dress in her hand to study the quillwork. As though something horrifying had occurred to her, she suddenly seemed to go rigid. Softly, she said, “No, I suspect our friend with the herringbone sandals was carrying another dead body.”
Gonda’s head jerked up. Panic tensed his round face. “Herringbone sandals? You found something. Where?”
With her eyes still on the quill pattern, Koracoo instructed, “Show him, Sindak.”
“Yes, War Chief.” They stepped two paces away and knelt.
Towa stopped beside Koracoo. His long braid had come loose from its rabbit-bone skewer and hung over his cape like a black glistening rope. He squinted at Sindak and Gonda. “What are they looking for?”
“Another piece in a great mystery,” she said. “Towa? The sandal tracks you found yesterday—did you see any evidence that the man was carrying something?”
Towa’s handsome face went blank for several moments while he thought about it. “It’s possible. There were several tracks where he’d slipped in the mud and had to regain his balance. He might have been struggling to balance something heavy.”
Sindak and Gonda stood and returned.
Gonda said, “I swear those are the same sandal tracks we saw at the midden and the cornhusk doll meadow.”
Koracoo nodded. For days now, she’d had the uneasy feeling that it was they who were being hunted. She’d dreamed last night that she was a snowshoe hare, running with a bursting heart, trying to reach a burrow before the wolves caught her. Were the Spirits trying to tell her something?
“Towa, you’re a thinker. Think this through for me. If these tracks, and the tracks you found yesterday, as well as the tracks Gonda and I found at the shell midden and the meadow, were all made by the same man … what is he up to?”
Towa shrugged, but his eyes began darting over the sky and trees as he tried to figure it out. When he seemed to be having trouble, Sindak said, “Give Towa time; he’ll figure it out. He really is a genius when it comes to analyzing information.”
Towa gave Sindak a
for the sake of the Spirits, don’t tell them that
look, and Sindak added. “Watch this. Towa, which of these things doesn’t fit? A wolf, a fox, a dog, and a pile of shit in the middle of the plaza?”
for the sake of the Spirits, don’t tell them that
look, and Sindak added. “Watch this. Towa, which of these things doesn’t fit? A wolf, a fox, a dog, and a pile of shit in the middle of the plaza?”
Towa immediately answered, “The dog.”
“The dog?” Gonda growled. “That’s idiotic. Why?”
“Because dogs are the product of generations of careful breeding. Wolves, foxes, and the person who shit in the plaza, obviously are not.”
Gonda and Koracoo stared at them.
Finally, Gonda said, “You know, these warrior things seem awfully complicated for you two. Maybe you should just trot along home and let us unravel the intrigue necessary for finding the children.”
“You didn’t think Towa was brilliant?” Sindak asked in genuine disbelief.
Gonda propped his hands on his hips. “Promise me something, will you? If you see somebody behind me with a bow, do
not
try to analyze the situation. Just yell. I’d rather learn about it through an incoherent cry than by choking on my own blood.” He stalked away, back to kneel beside the sandal prints.
not
try to analyze the situation. Just yell. I’d rather learn about it through an incoherent cry than by choking on my own blood.” He stalked away, back to kneel beside the sandal prints.
While Sindak and Towa muttered to each other, Koracoo concentrated on the sounds of the day. A riot of birdsong filled the trees, and the wind sawed lazily through the ice-crusted branches. Far in the distance, through a weave of trunks, Koracoo saw movement. She kept watching. The way they swayed, the bob of their heads, told her they were men.
“Find cover!” she ordered. “Now! Run for the trees!”
Gonda leaped up instantly and dashed away, his long legs stretching out, heading for the forest shadows. He was accustomed to such abrupt orders, but Sindak and Towa stared at her as though too stunned to move.
Koracoo growled, “I ordered you to run!
Run!”
Run!”
Both men seemed confused, but they charged after Gonda, disappearing into the trees.
Koracoo raced in the opposite direction, pounding along, and stamping out, the tracks they’d made this morning when they’d left the ramada. She ran up and back, confusing as much of the sign as she could in the time she had. It wouldn’t help much, but it might force the enemy to stop long enough that she could kill them.
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