People of the Longhouse (30 page)

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Authors: W. Michael Gear

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

BOOK: People of the Longhouse
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G
onda trotted in the lead. Ahead, black smoke billowed into the night sky, creating what appeared to be a massive thunderhead that blotted out the campfires of the dead.
The People of the Dawnland called their country Ndakinna, meaning “our land,” and it was a beautiful place, filled with towering tree-covered mountains and rushing rivers. Despite the stench of smoke, red cedars, firs, and black spruces scented the air with sweetness.
He slowed down to trot beside Koracoo. Her short black hair clung to her cheeks, matted by sweat. They’d been running most of the day. “The war party may still be there.”
She nodded. “They will certainly be close by. Be especially careful. We are all so tired we’re shaky and vulnerable.”
Gonda forced his wobbly legs to climb the steep trail and trotted through thick pines. When he reached the crest of the hill, he saw the burning village. The sight was stunning. There had to be over one hundred houses. The pole frames had collapsed into heaps, and flames leaped fifty hands into the air above them. Koracoo stopped beside him. In the firelight, her flushed face looked like pure gold. She didn’t say a word. She just looked out over the horrifying vista.
“Blessed gods,” Gonda said. “I had no idea Bog Willow Village was so big.”
Koracoo took a deep breath and coughed, then rubbed her throat. “A Trader once told me over one thousand people lived here.”
By Standing Stone standards, the Dawnland People had a crude, backward culture. Their houses were partially subterranean pit dwellings made by digging a hole in the ground twenty-five hands long and around twenty wide, then erecting a pole frame over the top and covering the oval structure with bark. They lived in their pit dwellings from fall through spring, but abandoned them in the summer to fish the many lakes and streams and gather plant resources.
“The attack was brutal,” he said softly, and scanned the hundreds of bodies that littered the ground. Crushed baskets, broken pots, and other belongings were strewn everywhere, probably kicked by racing feet.
“To make matters more complicated,” Koracoo said, “there will be survivors roaming the forest, waiting for a chance to kill any enemy warrior they find.”
“Which means us.”
Sindak and Towa stopped beside them, breathing hard, and stared out at the devastation. Sindak’s sharp gaze moved across the village, then out to the blackened spruces that fringed the plaza, and finally westward to the endless blue mountains. “Who attacked them?”
Koracoo answered, “Flint People, probably. They’ve never gotten along with the Dawnland People. Let’s continue on.”
She broke into a trot again, taking the lead.
As they moved closer, the gaudy orange halo swelled to fill the entire sky, and ash fell like black snowflakes, coating their hair and capes.
Gonda said, “This happened just a few hands of time ago.”
They veered wide around the burning houses, passing them from less than fifty paces, close enough to see that most of the bodies lay sprawled facedown, as though they’d been shot in the backs as they’d fled. The coppery tang of blood and torn intestines was redolent on the wind.
Gonda trotted by the last burning house and out onto the main trail that led south. He’d gone no more than two hundred paces when he saw a new orange gleam in the distance.
He slowed down and lifted his arm to point. “If that’s a warriors’ camp, it’s huge.”
Sindak frowned. “Are you sure it’s not another village?”
Koracoo said, “It’s a warriors’ camp.”
Towa shook sweat-soaked hair out of dark eyes and said, “We lost the children’s trail two hands of time ago when it was obliterated by thousands of footprints, but it was heading right for this village. Do you think Gannajero was bringing the children here to meet the victorious warriors?”
Gonda’s knees trembled.
Don’t think about it.
He stiffened his muscles to still them and replied, “Victorious warriors always have plunder in their packs. That’s why Traders follow war parties. If I—”
Koracoo interrupted him. “Let’s stop talking and find out.”
She loped toward the orange gleam. Gonda, Sindak, and Towa fell into line behind her.
I
n the middle of the night, Wrass lifted his head and looked around. There was only one guard, Tenshu. The warrior had his back to Wrass, watching Gannajero and Kotin. The old woman stood thirty paces from her fire. In her ratty buckskin cape and long black wig, she looked so much like a toothless old man, it astonished him. She was haggling with an ugly little Flint warrior and gesturing to the new children. She’d selected five. They sat in a group, roped together, crying. Gannajero kept shouting and shaking her head. Kotin, who stood at her side, held his war club in a tight grip. No one was sitting around her fire. The pot stood unwatched.
Wrass studied Tenshu from the corner of his eye. Gannajero must have figured that Hehaka, two girls, and an injured boy wouldn’t be a problem for one trained warrior. He glanced at Hehaka, Tutelo, and Baji. Despite the noise and shouts, they slept soundly eight hands away. His gaze moved over Hehaka, to the girls. They were pretty. Especially Baji. She was lying on her back. A dark halo of long black hair spread around her face. In another time and place, he might have asked his grandmother if he could …
Grandmother’s dead.
Tenshu chuckled softly, apparently amused by Gannajero’s contorted face and waving sticklike arms.
Wrass slid over and pulled the bag from Baji’s legging. She was so tired, she didn’t even move. He tucked it into his moccasin and rolled onto his hands and knees. The pain in his head almost flattened him. He closed his eyes for several moments and concentrated on breathing in the cold night air. It took all his strength to stifle the urge to vomit. When he felt a little better, he reached for a rock twice the size of his fist and clutched it in his hand as he rose to his feet.
As quiet as morning mist, he sneaked up behind Tenshu, who was laughing out loud now … and slammed the rock into the back of his skull. The warrior let out a surprised grunt. When he whirled, Wrass hit him in the temple as hard as he could. Tenshu staggered, trying to swing his war club at Wrass, but his arms had no strength. Wrass slammed the rock right into Tenshu’s forehead.
Tenshu staggered backward, then dropped to his knees. Wrass hit him over and over, until he heard the man’s skull crack. Wrass stopped only when Tenshu collapsed facefirst to the ground and his limbs started violently twitching and jerking.
Baji, Hehaka, and Tutelo scrambled up and were staring at Wrass with wide eyes. Tutelo started to cry, or scream, but Baji clamped a hard hand over her mouth and hissed, “Quiet, Tutelo! Be quiet.”
Hehaka was watching with wide luminous eyes, as though he couldn’t believe that anyone could kill one of Gannajero’s men.
Wrass tossed the rock aside and wiped his bloody hand on his cape. When he’d managed to stiffen his legs and stand up straight, he said to Baji, “Run.”
“What?” she said in confusion.
“Run. Now. All of you. Don’t stop. By dawn there will be so many tracks leading out of here, they’ll never be able to track you.”
“But I—” Baji reached for the bag in her legging. “Where’s my bag? I’m the one—”
“I’ll do it. Now, for the sake of the gods, go.”
Baji grabbed Tutelo’s hand and lunged to her feet.
Hehaka rose unsteadily beside them. “But … where will we go? Who will feed us?”
Wrass’ eyes narrowed. Was the boy totally unable to care for himself? “Baji will help you.”
Tutelo struggled against Baji’s grip, crying, “But where’s Odion? I can’t leave without Odion! Where’s my brother?”
“I’ll wait for Odion. You have to go, Tutelo,” Wrass said. “Hurry. I’ll take care of Gannajero and her men, kill them all, right down to
the last breath in my body. But you have to save yourselves or it will mean nothing. Do you understand? My life for yours. That’s the Trade. Now, please, get out of here before I lose my nerve.”
Baji looked at Wrass with so much admiration in her dark eyes it made him a little dizzy. She tightened her hold on Tutelo’s hand and vowed, “I’m coming back for you, Wrass. And I’m bringing a war party with me. Come on, Tutelo. Hehaka? Move!”
Tutelo opened her mouth to cry, but no sounds came out. Finally, she whimpered, “Tell Odion I love him. Tell him!”
Wrass nodded. “I’ll tell him.”
Baji dragged Tutelo out into the trees and trotted away. Hehaka ran after her, but he kept looking back at the camp, probably searching for Gannajero. The darkness swallowed them.
Wrass staggered. The pain was almost too much to bear. He longed to lie down and weep. Worse, he was having trouble seeing. The campfires were blurs amid a sea of moving bodies and drifting smoke.
He forced his shaking legs to carry him over to Tenshu. After he tugged the warrior’s club from his dead hand, he had to lean against a tree trunk to keep standing.
“I can do this,” he hissed to himself. “I just need … to breathe … for a moment.”
He thought about his father, whom he’d watched die at Yellowtail Village. The arrow had struck Father in the leg, slicing through the big artery. It hadn’t taken long for him to bleed to death … but it had seemed like it.
Wrass hefted the war club, testing its weight. It was almost too heavy for him to wield effectively. Sucking in one last fortifying breath, he looked up at the campfires of the dead and whispered, “Please, meet me at the bridge, Father.”
Then he slipped back into the trees and staggered through the shadows, heading for Gannajero’s campfire.
S
indak looked across at Towa, then past him to Gonda and Koracoo. All four of them had flattened out on their bellies on the rocky hilltop overlooking the enormous warriors’ camp that stretched along the western bank of the Quill River. Over one hundred fires burned, and each was encircled by a rowdy group of triumphant warriors talking, eating, shoving each other playfully. A group of captive children, roped together, huddled to the west, near the tree line, and on the northern outskirts of the camp, four fistfights raged. He also spotted three men coupling with captive women while their friends laughed.
Sindak slid sideways across the frozen grass toward Towa and remarked, “This is worse than the Wolf Clan longhouse at midnight.”
Towa kept his gaze on the camp. “You’re just jealous because my clan is the largest and the oldest.”
“Yes, well, the person who said that being really old was a virtue had seen sixteen summers. Large, however—that could have been any male.”
Towa ignored him. “From this distance, I can’t see very clearly. How many warriors are down there?”
“I’d guess around four hundred, maybe five.”
“Are they all Flint People?”
“Most are. But I see Mountain and Landing warriors, too.”
Towa turned to stare Sindak in the eyes. “So, if we walk in there and try to grab a few children, we’ll be dead in less than ten heartbeats.”
“I’d say five.”
Towa’s mouth quirked. “Do you have any helpful ideas?”
“No. How about you?”
Towa rubbed the back of his neck as though the muscles had knotted up. “Well, if I run hard for ten or twelve days, I should be home.”
Sindak nodded. “When you get there, put in a good word for me, will you? My clan matron, Tila, thinks I’m a coward.”
“Sindak, I doubt that even your glorious death will be enough to convince—”
“
Towa,”
Gonda whispered, as though to shut them up.
They both turned to watch him sliding toward them on his belly. Ash had settled on Gonda’s heavy brow, filling in the lines of his forehead like black paint. His chopped-off black hair stuck to his wide cheekbones. “We’re moving closer. Nock your bows.”
“Closer?” Sindak said. “Why? So they can see the whites of our eyes when they kill us?”
Gonda scowled at him. “We’re not going to get that close, imbecile. There’s enough firelight that if we spot the children, we may be able to shoot their guards and sneak in and rescue them before anyone knows it.”
Towa glanced uneasily at the camp. “Forgive me, but even if our children are there, they’re surrounded by hundreds of warriors. We’ll never—”
“Look at me, Towa.” Gonda glowered. “Try to forget your own hide. We’re going to circle around the western edge of the camp, then work our way north through the trees, staying about ten paces apart. Do you understand?”
Towa’s brows knitted over his straight nose. “Of course.”
Koracoo ordered, “Nock your bows. We’re leaving.”
She slid backward down the hill and trotted for the cover of the spruces. Gonda gave them one last hostile glance before he rose to follow her.
Sindak pulled an arrow from his quiver and pointed it suggestively at Towa’s chest. “Concentrate and you may actually get lucky and hit what you’re aiming at.”
Towa smiled and turned to the camp again. Warriors’ faces
gleamed with a rose-amber hue, and the echoes of laughter and songs rang through the night—but the whimpers of children and screams of the wounded thrummed beneath the revelry.
As Towa nocked his bow, he said, “It’s a good day to die. But I don’t plan on it.”

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