People of the Longhouse (31 page)

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Authors: W. Michael Gear

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

BOOK: People of the Longhouse
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O
dion
 
I sit with my teeth chattering. Manidos lies flat on his back, snoring, two paces away. I can’t seem to keep my head still. It keeps jerking, as though my backbone is injured. I saw a deer do this once. Father’s bow shot had gone high, slicing the buck just below the spine. When the animal fell, its antlered head continued to jerk and thrash until it died. Father said his arrow must have damaged the deer’s backbone. I reach around to touch my lower back. I can’t tell. Everything hurts.
I glance around like a stunned owl. I should run … . I … should. But I only have the strength to pull Manidos’ blanket close below my jerking chin. Manidos gave me the blanket. He said it was a present because I’d been a good boy. The blanket is made from strips of moosehide, and it’s warm. The strips have been dyed red, yellow, and white and woven into beautiful geometric designs. It’s very valuable. I can’t believe he just gave it to me. I …
Horrifying images struggle to rise behind my eyes. I shake my head hard, trying to make them go away. “No.”
He makes me lie down on my stomach … . His body is heavy, forcing the air from my lungs
… .
“No, no, no,” I whisper. “D-don’t.”
I try to stand up, but shake so hard my legs collapse beneath me. I hit the ground like an unfeeling lump of clay. It takes three tries before I manage to stand up again.
My gaze searches the camp. A few hundred warriors stagger about and laugh. The sounds of drums and flutes fill the air. Perhaps another one hundred warriors sit before fires, eating bowls of food. I smell the rich scents of roasted duck and sacred tobacco smoke on the night wind. My gaze lingers on their capes. Every color in the rainbow shines in the firelight. I see pure white doehide capes, and pure black capes decorated with seashells. Porcupine quillwork glimmers, and polished copper ornaments blaze. And their jewelry! Every throat is encircled with strings of beads, etched copper and human skull gorgets, and a wealth of bear claw and elk ivory necklaces.
Who are these men? Where did they get this wealth?
Something tugs at my memory, and I lift my nose and sniff the air. Despite the thick blue smoke that hangs in the air above the camp, I know the odor of burning longhouses. It is a scent engraved on my heart. A village is burning somewhere close by. They must have stolen the capes and jewelry. They … I—I remember.
My jaws ache … . He’s holding my head in granite hands
… .
A scream rises and strikes the backs of my clenched teeth. I do not let it out, but the effort makes me stagger and collapse to the ground.
My gaze moves haltingly over the camp, as though my eyes can only jerk from one place to another … and I see Wrass. He is standing with his cold hands extended to Gannajero’s fire, warming them. His face is swollen and bruised. One of his eyes is half-closed. A war club is tucked into his belt … . Why is he free? Did Gannajero release him?
A sudden cold wave flushes my body.
Where’s Tutelo?
I struggle to my feet just as Wrass starts walking back toward our place in the forest, and I stumble toward him, through the trees, paralleling his path. He doesn’t see me for a long time. Then he whirls and stares into the trees as though he knows someone is there.
I call, “Wrass? It … it’s me.”
“Odion?”
I stagger into the open, and relief slackens Wrass’ hideous face. He says, “Thank the gods,” and runs to me.
He hugs me hard, and I start to cry against his shoulder, terrible wrenching tears that make me feel as though I’m suffocating. “Wr-Wrass, I—I’m hurt.”
“I know, Odion. But you’re alive.” He strokes my hair and in a strong
voice, says, “Listen to me. We have to run. This is our chance. Can you do it?”
He backs away and stares down into my eyes. It’s as if the strength in his body is flowing into me through his gaze. I can feel it. My heart starts to beat harder. Hot blood surges through my veins.
I swallow hard and say, “Why haven’t you already run? You should be gone!”
“I couldn’t leave you here by yourself, Odion. Now, let’s—”
Frantically, I grab his arm and say, “Where’s Tutelo? Is she—”
“Right after I killed Tenshu, I told Baji to take her and run. She said to tell you she loves you. She should be far away by now, which is where you and I need to be.”
I stare dumbly at him. “But where …”
Over Wrass’ shoulder, I see Kotin suddenly look toward the clearing where we’d been sitting. Confusion lines his face. He says something to Gannajero, who waves him away and continues haggling for the new children while Kotin stalks toward the clearing.
“Wrass?” I hiss. “Kotin … he’s …”
Wrass swings around to follow my gaze, sees Kotin, and orders, “Odion, move! Start walking; don’t run.”
“You lead. You—you lead, Wrass, please?”
Wrass moves past me and heads out into the dark trees, following a deer trail. I try to stay no more than one pace behind him, but his legs are longer than mine. I have to half-run to keep up. Wrass is breathing hard, and he’s put one hand to his head, as though he’s sick, but he moves swiftly along the trail, winding between enormous chestnuts and pines that seem to pierce the smoky belly of Brother Sky.
Behind us, I hear Kotin let out a sharp cry; then he shouts, “Tenshu’s dead! The children have escaped! Waswan? Gather four of our new men and get over here!”
Neither of us turns around. Wrass walks until we’re out of sight of the camp; then he starts running. We lunge down the trail, panting, scrambling through a thicket of nannyberry shrubs, running with all the strength in our bodies. Ahead of us, a scrubby grove of prickly ash trees stands out like a cluster of spikes. Old autumn leaves have blown around the bases of the trees and created a pile ten hands deep and forty hands across.
Within moments, feet pound behind us, the heavy steps like a staccato of arrows thumping a longhouse wall, coming up the deer trail.
Wrass casts a glance over his shoulder and stops dead in the trail.
“What are you doing?” I cry in terror. “Keep running!”
Wrass grabs my hand, places the war club in it, then hisses in my face, “Hide in those leaves, Odion. If they find you, swing the club as hard as you can, and don’t stop swinging. No matter what you hear or see, keep swinging. Do you hear me? I’m going to lead them away. I’ll meet you at the fire cherry camp at dawn.”
“But Wrass, I’m scared. I want to go with you! Let me—”
He growls, “I told you to hide. Now do it!” Wrass shoves me hard in the direction of the prickly ashes, and he breaks into a run.
I careen forward, stumble into the spiky trunks, and bury myself in the deep leaves.
I hear shouts. Men calling to each other.
The pungent scent of the moldering leaves surrounds me. I try not to breathe, or move. I see nothing. Pitch darkness. The leaves rustle softly when I blink my eyes. I should close them … but I can’t. I must keep watch, even if only on the blackness.
“
The filthy brats!
” Kotin snarls. His feet bang against the trail. As he approaches my hiding place, I feel his steps in my bones. I tighten my grip on the war club. Another man runs behind him. His steps are lighter, more like a dancer’s. “I wager it was that older boy, the one with the hawk face. I knew he was going to be a problem.”
“He killed one of your best warriors, Kotin. He’s no longer a boy. He’s a man,” Waswan said.
“In just a few moments, he’s going to be a
dead
man.”
“He’s Gannajero’s property. I’d think hard about that.”
“Well, come on!” Kotin growls. “He’s injured. He can’t be that far ahead of us. Gannajero will flay our skin from our bodies if we don’t catch them.”
“She’ll really miss the two girls. You’d better hope that new group of Mountain warriors finds them.”
Their steps pound away up the trail, heading in the same direction as Wrass.
Relief makes me weak. Breath escapes my lungs in a rush, and the leaves crackle and resettle over my face.
Please, gods, let Tutelo and Baji get away! Let Wrass escape!
Painful, horrifying images of Yellowtail Village, burning, flash behind my eyes: people running … screams … flaming arrows arcing through the sky as I clutch Tutelo’s hand and duck through the hole in
the palisade wall to emerge in a big group of children and elders … then the mad rush into the forest, tripping, falling, Tutelo shrieks … warriors all around … nowhere to—
Odion?
I go rigid.
The voice is inhuman, the haunting song of wolves on a blood trail.
Odion. Are you coming
?
Sobs choke me. My eyes squeeze closed in terror. How does he know my name?
Follow me, Odion
.
As though my body is moving without my souls willing it, I brace one hand on the ground and I’m rising up, leaves cascading away from me. I sit amid the prickly ash saplings, holding the war club across my lap. After the blackness, the firelit forest seems almost bright.
“Where are you?” I call.
I’m here.
I see him. Shago-niyoh … the Child. Leaning against the trunk of a chestnut. A dark hooded figure. Is it a man? Or a Forest Spirit? He’s tall, broad shouldered. Inside his hood there is only midnight.
Follow me, Odion, he says again, and turns in a sable whirl of cape and heads away through the forest, his steps soundless.
I look around. There is no other choice. I could try to find Wrass, but the warriors will be right behind him now. He may already be dead.
I stand on shaking legs and clench the war club to will courage into my terrified souls. Then I rise and stumble after him through leaf-covered rocks, and over slippery piles of deadfall. Shago-niyoh stays twenty or thirty paces ahead of me, close enough that I can keep following, but never close enough that I can really see him.
When I lurch through a tangle of old vines, I stumble and lose him. The snow-tipped black pine needles reflect the firelight, giving the forest a strange unearthly shimmer.
“Shago-niyoh?” The forest seems to be closing in around me, the trees bending down to stare at me.
A footfall rustles; a sandal crunches in leaves.
Warriors
!
I spin around on the verge of screaming … but I see only a faintly darker splotch in the night forest. Does he have a hump on his back? Is he an old man? As he moves away, on down the trail, he seems to walk hunched over, and there may be a walking stick in his hand. Clicks accompany his steps, like a stick tapping the ground—or claws on rocks.
I rush after him.
In less than two hundred heartbeats, he’s far ahead of me. Very far. I can barely see him. I run, trying to catch up.
Silent as a shadow, he slides through the nightmare of dark trees, and I swear he’s flying now, sailing between the trunks like an owl on a hunt. Wings whisper … but is the sound coming from him, or somewhere else in the canopy?
Tears trace warm lines down my cheeks. I batter my way through brush, fighting to keep sight of him … and my heart goes cold and dead in my chest.
Ahead, on the deer trail, are four warriors. Coming my way. He’s led me right to a group of warriors. They are marching two girls in front of them, and I recognize Tutelo’s walk. Her head is down. Baji walks beside her, holding her hand. Then I see Hehaka to Baji’s left.
I spin around to look for Shago-niyoh. Where is he? Why did he bring me here? Why doesn’t he do something? Tutelo is his friend, isn’t she?
My gaze flits through the forest, stopping on every shadow, searching for him. Trees sway in the cold wind. Brush rattles.
He has abandoned me.
As the warriors get closer, I hear Tutelo crying … and Hehaka laughing.
V
eils of smoke blew around Koracoo’s tall body, drifting past Sindak, who walked ten paces behind her. He cast a glance over his shoulder and saw Gonda and Towa appear and disappear amid the trees. The tempting smells of roasting meat and frying cornmeal balls pervaded the air.
Despite the raucous voices, the clattering of pots, and banging of horn spoons against wooden bowls, there was a strange silence in the wavering firelit shadows of the forest. Wind Mother had stilled to a barely discernible breath, quieting the branches. No owls or night herons called. Sindak’s steps upon the pine needles were ghostly, almost not there.
They had cut across two main game trails as they’d wound around the western side of the camp, and now approached a third. Koracoo took a moment to look down; then she aimed her nocked bow at the trail, telling Sindak to look when he passed, and she continued on.
Sindak slowly made his way to the trail. No wonder she’d wanted him to see. Small footprints covered the mud. Even in the dim firelight, he could tell the children had been running. His gaze followed the deer trail as it curved out into the trees, and his pulse sped up. Reflected firelight danced like leaping giants in the tamarack boughs. He swiveled to look back at the camp, where around thirty children
sat—five huddled in a knot, roped together. The braided hide ropes around their necks and hands shone—then his gaze shifted back to the deer trail. Had the running children escaped?
He heard Gonda’s steps closing in behind him, no more than five paces away, and Koracoo had gotten twenty paces ahead. Sindak aimed his bow at the trail, telling Gonda to look, and continued on. He had to hurry if he was going to—
Koracoo stopped. It was as though she’d suddenly turned to stone. She was so still her black hair caught the light and held it like a polished copper mirror. Deer did that—froze suddenly at the sight or sound of a predator.
Sindak held his breath, waiting to see or hear what had alarmed Koracoo.
In less than five heartbeats, four warriors carelessly walked up the deer trail. They were still fifty paces away. He glimpsed them as they weaved between the dark trunks of the trees. The men were joking with each other, chuckling as they herded two girls and a boy before them. One kept reaching forward to fondle the older girl’s small breasts, while the little boy laughed.
Sindak saw Koracoo subtly pull back her bowstring and aim in the men’s direction. He did the same. Behind him, Towa and Gonda had gone silent.
Just as the warriors rounded a bend in the game trail, a bloodcurdling childish shriek tore the air.
Sindak jerked, trying to see where it had come from, but he—
Thirty paces ahead, a thin little boy ran out of the trees, onto the trail, and launched himself at the lead warrior, swinging a war club that was much too heavy for him. He was off balance, struggling, but he surprised the lead warrior and landed a solid blow across the man’s left wrist. Sindak could hear it snap from where he stood. The warrior bawled, “He broke my wrist!”
The three other warriors lunged forward, but the boy didn’t run. He swung the war club with wild fury and cried, “Tutelo! Baji! Run! Run!”
From behind Sindak, Gonda shouted, “Odion?
Odion!”
and the name rang with a familiarity that shocked Sindak.
The warrior who chased me … !
The taller girl grabbed the other’s hand and fled into the forest as the attacking boy ducked a blow aimed at his head, brought his war club around, and cracked it across his attacker’s left hip. The enraged
warrior let out a roar as he staggered sideways and bellowed, “You’re dead, boy!” He lifted his club over his head and swung it down, but the boy parried the blow, though it knocked him flat on his back on the ground.
Gonda shoved past Sindak with his war club in his fist, rushing to get into the fight.
Koracoo shouted, “Gonda, no! Use your bow!”
Gonda ignored her. From the expression on his face, he wanted to kill these men with his own hands.
Sindak leveled his bow, but before he could let fly Koracoo’s and Towa’s arrows flashed through the air in front of him. Towa’s missed and splintered against a tree. Koracoo’s lanced through the shoulder of the man with the broken wrist, thrust him backward into his friend, and threw the second man right into Sindak’s line of fire. He loosed his arrow, and it struck the man in the left lung. As he staggered, clutching at the shaft in his chest, Gonda leaped in front of him and bashed in his rib cage; then he whirled and landed a deadly blow to the throat of the man with the broken wrist. He yelled, “Odion, get out of the way!”
The boy parried another blow that drove his war club into his chest and, as though in disbelief, cried, “
Father?
”
The boy’s attacker lifted his club for the death blow, and Koracoo rushed forward, twisting, leaping, swinging her legendary war club so fast that her movements became a supernatural dance. She spun and crushed the spine of Odion’s opponent, then kicked his feet out from under him and brought CorpseEye down across the bridge of his nose with a shattering
whump.
The last warrior pulled a stiletto from his belt and leaped upon Gonda, knocking his war club from his hand. Both men landed hard on the ground, rolling, kicking, trying to gain leverage over the other.
The boy, Odion, staggered to his feet and stared at Koracoo. He looked stunned, like a clubbed animal. Koracoo ran past him to help Gonda.
Gonda’s opponent managed to get on top and was trying to gouge out Gonda’s eyes when Sindak calmly nocked another arrow and shot Gonda’s opponent through the head just as Koracoo swung CorpseEye to kill him. The man dropped on top of Gonda like a rock. CorpseEye sliced through thin air above him.
Panting, Gonda shoved the dead man away and clambered to his
feet. He pivoted to look at Sindak, who still had his bow up, and gave him a grateful nod.
“Father?” The boy blinked at Gonda. “M-Mother?”
Gonda staggered to the boy, dropped to his knees, and embraced him hard enough to drive the air from his young lungs, saying, “Odion. Odion, I told you I’d find you.”
From behind a tree trunk, the other little boy stepped out and stood gaping at them. He had a starved face, with dark eyes and a flat nose. “You killed them!” he said. “Who are you?”
In the camp, men had started to stand up. They must have heard the commotion and suspected it was more than an ordinary fistfight. A few warriors started drifting in their direction.
Koracoo ordered, “Towa, Sindak, help Gonda get the children to safety. I’m going after Tutelo and the other girl. I’ll meet you at the overlook hill.” She ran past Gonda and her son and lunged onto the trail with her feet flying.
Contrary to orders, Sindak was right behind her, pounding into the trees.

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