People of the Longhouse (32 page)

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Authors: W. Michael Gear

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

BOOK: People of the Longhouse
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A
sudden cold tingling sensation made Gannajero turn away from the man she was negotiating with and stare out at the clearing where Hehaka and the children who were not working should be sleeping. The wind had come up. Branches swayed and glimmered in the firelight. She did not see Tenshu standing guard.
“Ojib? Where’s Tenshu?”
He turned toward the clearing. Ojib was of medium height, but wide across the shoulders, built like a buffalo bull. His nose had been broken one too many times and spread across his flat face like a squashed plum. “Kotin went to check on him. He’s supposed to be guarding the—”
“Go find him.”
“Yes, Lupan.” Ojib broke into a trot just as several men on the western edge of camp rose to their feet and started heading in that direction.
The short, ugly little Flint warrior she’d been negotiating with, Tagohsah, said, “Throw in another five shell gorgets and they are yours.” The sides of his head had been shaved, leaving the characteristic single ridge of hair down the middle of his skull. He’d decorated the roach with white shell beads.
“Five?” Gannajero scoffed. She glared at the roped children, who
looked up at her with tear-filled eyes. They were
beautiful.
Worth a fortune to the men who craved them. “I’ll give you three,” she said.
“Done.” Tagohsah gleefully rubbed his hands together. His anxious gaze flicked to her pack where it rested by her feet.
Gannajero knelt to retrieve the payment. As she pulled out the gorgets and tossed them onto the pile, she saw Kotin. He was walking in from the southern edge of the camp with Waswan, shoving the beaten hawk-faced boy before him. The boy had his jaw clenched. His hands were tied behind him.
Tagohsah chuckled. “It’s a pleasure selling to you, Lupan. You have a good eye for child slaves. These are top quality.” He knelt and began scooping the pile of wealth into his own pack.
Gannajero rose to her feet, and locks of long black hair swung around her wrinkled face.
Ojib had reached the clearing, along with two other men, and shouts rang out. Ojib bent down, as though examining something on the ground, then rose to his feet, looked at her, and ran back. The other two men remained standing over whatever lay upon the ground.
When Ojib arrived, he said, “Tenshu is dead. The children are gone.”
“That’s impossible!” she exclaimed. Rage flooded her veins. She pointed to her pack. “Pick that up; then find Chipmunk Teeth, rope her with the others, and meet me at our camp.”
“Yes, Lupan.”
She tramped across the camp to meet Kotin and Waswan. The hawk-faced boy glared at her as she approached. Kotin flashed broken yellow teeth and called, “We caught him! Are the others back yet?”
“What others?”
Kotin’s grin faded. He’d been with her for moons and could probably tell his life was teetering in the balance. “The Mountain warriors you hired this afternoon. They went after the girls and Hehaka.”
The rage in her body burned like fire. “Hehaka is gone, too? I told you he was the
one
child that would cost you your life if he ever escaped!”
Kotin threw up his hands and cried, “I’ll find him, Ga—Lupan! I thought he’d already be back. Just give me—”
Her attention shifted to the northern hill that sloped down to the river. Tilted slabs of rock jutted up between the spruces, ashes, and
white walnut trees. She hated Dawnland country; it was little more than densely clustered mountain ranges cut by an endless number of rivers, streams, and creeks. It was exhausting to traverse.
She squinted. Something moved there—a glimmer. She scanned the hill carefully. In the sky beyond the hilltop, the campfires of the dead blazed and vanished through the drifting smoke.
Gannajero started to look back at Kotin—but she
had
seen a glimmer. A cold shiver passed through her when it appeared again.
The blue sparkle moved among the spruces, disappeared, then flashed again farther east, as though walking down toward the dozens of canoes bunched at the river landing.
“Kotin? Do you see that?” She pointed.
“See what?”
“On the hilltop, you fool. Look!”
The sparkle flashed again in the branches of a mountain ash tree. “There! See?”
Kotin shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t see anything.”
Breathing hard, she clenched her jaw. She couldn’t take her gaze from the scrubby ashes. Then, for a brief instant, the glimmer became two fiery eyes, and the hair on her arms stood on end. She could
feel
him turn to look at her. He seemed to materialize out of nothingness—a shape, blacker than the background sky, tall, wearing a long cape. His hood buffeted in the wind.
Then he was gone.
Gannajero lifted a hand to clutch her constricted throat. “We’re heading south immediately, Kotin. Gather the slaves. Collect our payments.”
“South?” Kotin said. “Into the lands of the People Who Separated? But we’ve never—”
“That’s why we’re going there! No one knows us. Find a Trader. Buy us two canoes, and let’s be on our way.”
Kotin shrank back from her anger. “Shall I hunt for the missing girls and Hehaka first, or—”
“I said we’re heading south
now
. Forget them!”
“All right. I understand. I’ll get things organized. But none of us have eaten, Lupan. We’ve been so busy trading—”
“That’s true.” Waswan nodded. He was sapling thin and looked half-starved. He held Hawk-Face’s sleeve. “I’m hungry.”
“The stew pot at our campfire is full. Feed the men quickly!”
Kotin backed away from her with his hands up. “Right away, Lupan.
Come on, Waswan. You can help me collect our last payments; then we’ll eat, and leave.”
They trotted into the center of the camp, calling orders, assembling the new men she’d hired. Most trotted for the pot to eat, while Kotin and Waswan worked through the camp, collecting payments, dragging Hawk-Face with them. The boy was a nuisance. He kept tripping, sliding his feet, falling on the ground—anything to slow them down. Waswan ended up clubbing the boy in the head to make him stop.
Gannajero stared at the northern hill again, and an unearthly fear gripped her. She couldn’t seem to get her feet to move. In the dark spaces between her souls, she heard him laugh.
“Don’t witch me, Child!” she snarled through gritted teeth. “That’s why I left you for the wolves. I did everything I could for you, and you betrayed me!”
The faint laughter continued, rising up from the darkness that lived and breathed deep inside her.
Her slitted gaze tracked across the camp, staring at the firelit faces of hundreds of warriors. Then she trudged to her own campfire and began arranging her packs.
Four of her newly hired men were gobbling down spoonfuls of stew as fast as they could, joking between bites. Two others were digging in their packs for their cups. Three of the men were Flint warriors; two were Mountain people—including War Chief Manidos, who was a real catch; and one was a young warrior from Atotarho Village. All were slit-eyed thieves with no honor at all, loyal only to themselves and the acquisition of wealth.
Perfect.
Gannajero knelt to tie three packs together and saw Kotin and Waswan shouldering through the camp, dragging the roped children behind them. Whimpers and coughs filtered down the line. The last child, Hawk-Face, kept stumbling to the side to vomit. How hard had Waswan hit him? She wasn’t sure he was going to survive the night—and if he did, tomorrow he’d wish he hadn’t. The boy staggered along with his head down and his eyes narrowed in pain. Chipmunk Teeth—just ahead of him in line—kept speaking softly to him, but Hawk-Face never replied. He looked sick to death.
Kotin stopped in front of her. “We bought two canoes. They’ll be waiting for us at the river landing.”
“Good.” Gannajero rose to her feet and growled, “Fill your bellies and let’s go. We’re done here.”
“Yes, Lupan. We should—” Kotin halted abruptly and stared at the men.
She followed his gaze. Two warriors stood over the stew pot with their empty cups in their hands. Obviously they’d been just about to fill them when their gazes had been drawn to War Chief Manidos.
Manidos grimaced suddenly, then grabbed for his belly. “I don’t feel … very …” He walked unsteadily to the side and started retching violently.
“What’s the matter with him?” Kotin asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe he—”
Another warrior stepped away from the fire, bent double, and vomited.
In less than three hundred heartbeats, all of the men who’d eaten from the pot were on their knees or writhing on the ground. Manidos had both hands around his throat, clutching it as though to strangle himself. His face had gone blue.
Gannajero swallowed hard and backed away. Kotin and Waswan retreated with her, dragging the children behind them.
Softly, Gannajero ordered, “Tear their packs off their backs. Get everything loaded in the canoes, along with the children.”
“But what about the men? They’re sick. Shouldn’t we try to—”
“Bring only the men who didn’t eat from the pot. Leave the others.”
She tramped away across the camp, shouldering between laughing warriors, heading for the canoes, wondering who’d done it. A rival Trader in the camp? Or one of her own men? A traitor who wanted everything for himself? It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been betrayed by one of her own.
Gannajero’s gaze involuntarily slid to the northern hill. “Isn’t that right, Brother?”
She had to clench her fists to keep from shaking as she hurried for the landing.
K
oracoo clutched CorpseEye in both hands and chased after Tutelo and the other girl, Baji. Baji was leading Tutelo at a dead run through the towering pines, sticking to paths choked with brush and no wider than the span of her own girlish shoulders, which made it tough for adults to follow her. The girl thought like a warrior.
Koracoo kept catching glimpses of their dresses, and thrashed after them. She battered her way through a thicket of nannybushes and charged ahead. Behind her, she heard Sindak curse as he followed.
“Tutelo?” she called loud enough her daughter might hear her, but not so loud the warriors in camp would. “Wait!”
As she ran, Koracoo shoved aside the fact that Sindak had disobeyed her order to stay behind. Between the weave of trunks, she saw warriors moving, heading for the clearing where Gonda and the others had been. They would, of course, be gone by now, headed for the overlook hill to wait for her arrival. But the warriors would go crazy when they found their dead friends. The hunt would be on. And there were so many of them.
A horrifying cry rent the night. Koracoo jerked to look.
At the western edge of camp, a boy had broken free and was making a run for it. Two warriors chased him, cursing at the tops of their lungs. In less than twenty paces, the lead warrior tackled him and
knocked him to the ground. The enraged scream split the darkness. He fought wildly, biting and kicking until the big warrior clubbed him senseless. The man dragged the boy to his feet and hauled him, stumbling drunkenly, back to the other children, where he roped him to the line.
When the boy lifted his head, Koracoo saw his face … . Wrass. At least she thought it was Wrass. He’d been beaten so badly it was impossible to tell for—
“Koracoo, there! To the right,” Sindak said.
She tugged her gaze back to the forest and glimpsed flashes of copper slipping behind the bare branches of an elderberry shrub forty paces ahead.
“Tutelo! Stop running!”
There was a moment of shocked silence; then her daughter called, “Mother? …
Mother!
Baji stop! Let me go! That’s my mother!
”
“It’s a trick, Tutelo. We can’t stop!” Baji shouted.
Koracoo leaped a fallen log, rounded the edge of the elderberries, and ran flat-out for the girls. They were now ten paces ahead. Baji was still dragging Tutelo by the hand, trying to get away, while Tutelo tugged as hard as she could to make her stop.
“Baji, let me go! Please, that’s my mother!”
Koracoo called, “Tutelo, I’m here. I’m right here! Baji, please stop!”
Baji finally whirled around to look, saw Koracoo, and her eyes narrowed uncertainly. Tutelo dropped to the ground and started wrenching to get her hand free of Baji’s grip. “That’s my mother! It really is!”
Baji released Tutelo. As Tutelo struggled to her feet, Koracoo ran forward, grabbed Tutelo, and hugged her hard. “It’s all right. I’ve got you.”
Tutelo wept, “Oh, Mother, Mother,” and buried her face in the hollow of Koracoo’s throat. “Odion said you were coming. He knew you’d come for us!”
“Of course, Tutelo.”
When Koracoo looked up, she saw Baji eyeing Sindak with murderous intent. The girl looked like she was on the verge of running away again.
Baji said, “You’re not Standing Stone. You’re Hills. You’re the sworn enemy of the Standing Stone People.”
“Yes, I am,” Sindak replied. He slowly spread his arms as though in surrender. “But not today. My name is Sindak. I’m a friend to Tutelo’s parents.”
Koracoo rose to her feet, holding CorpseEye in one hand and Tutelo’s fingers in the other. “Gannajero’s warriors are on their way, Baji. We have to—”
Sindak glimpsed the man silently running toward them, his body flashing between the trees, but before he realized it was not Gonda or … a crazed Dawnland warrior rushed out of the trees with his war club raised, crying, “You Standing Stone filth! I’m going to kill you!” and charged.
Sindak shouted, “Koracoo, get down!”
She dove for both girls, dragged them to the ground, and covered them with her own body as Sindak raced by her to block the blow meant for Koracoo’s spine. The crack of their war clubs sounded thunderous.
The enemy warrior roared, shoved Sindak away, and swung with all his might. Sindak ducked under the whirring war club, skipped sideways, and with all his strength brought his own club around to bash the man in the back of the head. The warrior reeled forward, weeping and mumbling. Sindak hit him again, and he collapsed to the ground.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here! There’s no telling how many more survivors there are out here who want to kill us.”
Koracoo leaped to her feet, hauled both girls up, and ordered, “We have to run hard.”

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