The People of the Black Sun (37 page)

Dekanawida set his bowl down beside hers, and tried to follow her gaze out into the trees. He whispered, “Did you see something?”

“There's someone out there. Let's move out of the firelight.”

Dekanawida glanced down at Gitchi happily licking their bowls clean. “Gitchi doesn't seem to smell anything.”

“Trust me.”

She led the way around the pond to stand half-hidden behind a sycamore trunk as wide as three men standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Dekanawida took a position just behind her, peering over the top of her head.

The noise of Gitchi licking bowls suddenly stopped.

Baji glanced back at the wolf. He stood absolutely still, his tail straight out behind him, his muzzle pointed at something in the aspen grove on the other side of the pond.

 

Thirty-four

Sky Messenger

My heartbeat quickens as I follow Baji's gaze to a dense grove of aspens that shine faintly white in the dark forest weave. Gitchi growls, barely audible.

Baji hisses, “Keep Gitchi here until I've circled around behind the fool. Once my arrow is in flight, we'll both rush him.”

“I don't see anything. Where is he?”

She half draws back her bow. “Standing right there in the aspens.”

With the silence of Eagle hunting Rabbit, Baji eases into the trees and vanishes amid the warp and weft of branches and trunks. Her steps are completely silent.

I slide around the massive sycamore to get a different view of the forest, and softly call, “Gitchi, lie down. Don't move.”

The wolf flattens out behind the hearth stones with his ears laid back. His yellow eyes dance with reflected firelight, still focused unblinking on the aspens.

I don't understand why Gitchi and Baji see the intruder and I do not. I cast a quick glance to my right at the thin, spiral-twisted pines where Baji disappeared. The morning air smells of hickory smoke and raspberries, almost obscuring the tangy forest fragrances.

I search for recognizable threats—human shapes like rounded heads, extended hands, legs amid the saplings. Often, strands of hair fluttering in the breeze or the swaying of a cape gives an opponent away. This murderer must be especially skilled, for I see absolutely nothing.

Then, far to the right of the aspens, a glint flashes and vanishes. It flashes again, moving through a thicket of chokecherries.

Jewelry? Cape decorations? Maybe a white arrow point being aimed at Baji or me?

I keep my gaze on the location, and slowly work my way through the frosty ferns that cover the forest floor. Each movement of my feet stirs a faint
shish.
Slipping from tree trunk to tree trunk, my gaze scans for movement. Where is Baji? She should be somewhere in the maples to my right. Can she see the light? Gitchi lies in the same place, at least partially sheltered behind the largest hearth stones. As the morning sky begins to shade deep purple, angled layers of snow-sheathed limestone appear and glisten amid the patchwork of shadows. Grass stems cluster at their bases. In the trees, fluffed out for warmth, birds hunch on the branches like small circular boles.

The light winks again and vanishes, heading into a grove of birch saplings.

I glance back at Gitchi. He hasn't moved. His coat shimmers in the newborn light as though strewn with crushed amethyst. From this position, I can't see where his eyes focus. He seems to still be looking at the aspens, some fifteen paces ahead of me and to my left. If so, he's not looking at the flashes, but at something else.

Maybe there are two men out there.

I squint at the dense stand of birch saplings that create a slatted white wall, interrupted here and there by black streaks of forest background. The only motion now is a tremble of old leaves clinging to branch tips. The flashes are gone. Which may mean the man has stopped moving because he's sighted his prey.

Me.

Wind Woman's breath carries the rich mineral scent of the forest floor at dawn, which tastes like iron on my tongue.

If I continue on this path, the space between my hiding place and next tree trunk is three paces. Without knowing where my opponent stands, that is a killing space. By the time I reach the next maple, I will have been in the clear for three heartbeats. He can easily aim and let fly.

I'd be smiling right now if I were him. I'd inhale through my nostrils, and hold my breath, anticipating the moment my enemy tried to step to the next tree.

I …

Brush thrashes, followed by a hoarse surprised cry, then a man shouts,
“
S
tay back!”

He lunges from the aspens, releases two quick arrows at something behind him, then whirls and flees through the maples with his buckskin cape flying. He keeps glancing over his shoulder in terror. When he charges into the open, he sees me, gives me a wild look, and shouts,
“For the sake of the gods, don't you see it? What is it?”

The faint whisper of an arrow lances the dawn, followed by a meaty splat.

The man grunts and careens forward, tumbling face-first to the ground, rolling several times before he can stop himself. The arrow has punched its way through his cape just above his heart. His voice turns into a high-pitched breathless wail.
“It—it's coming! Help me!”

Sobbing, he manages to shove up on his hands and knees and struggles to crawl away.

I shout, “Gitchi!” and burst from cover, pounding for the man as I search the forest for whatever has so terrified him. There must be another warrior out there, or perhaps a bear, or one of the flying heads—fearsome Spirit creatures with long trailing hair and great paws like a bear's.

Gitchi leaps up and streaks out ahead of me, his lean, muscled body cutting a deadly swath through the pale lavender light. At the very edge of my vision, I catch sight of Baji leaping deadfall as she dashes for our enemy. She's slung her bow and grips her war club in her tight fist. Gleaming waist-length hair bounces across her back as she runs.

“Gitchi, don't kill him!” I shout. “Just guard!”

Gitchi leaps around the man in a snarling bristling blur. If the warrior even tries to grab for a weapon, Gitchi will tear his throat out.

I reach the man before Baji does. Hills People markings cover his cape. He lies on his back, his panicked eyes wide and unblinking. Blood already bubbles at his lips, rising from his wounded lung. He has a severe triangular face with a nose so thin the bones appear to have been removed. When Baji arrives holding her bow nocked and aimed down at his head, the man lets out a shrill cry and tries in vain to slide away from her.

I kneel beside him. “Who sent you? Chief Atotarho?”

Only his eyes move, sliding to me in dazed confusion. He chokes out the words, “
What … is … it?
”

Thinking that he means he didn't hear me, I repeat, “Did Chief Atotarho send you to murder me?”

His gaze returns to Baji and his eyes go so wide they resemble those of the flying squirrel, too huge for his face, bulging slightly from their sockets. He tries to speak again, but falls into a coughing fit that spatters gouts of blood across his chest and face. As the life drains from his eyes, a red pool spreads around him, looking faintly blue in the murky gleam.

Baji slowly releases the tension on her bowstring and her aim moves aside. “He was less than one heartbeat from killing you,” she says, “when he suddenly went crazy and started shrieking. What do you make of that?”

I rise to my feet and frown down at him. “I think his soul was loose, Baji. That explains the strange light I saw.”

“You saw a light?”

“Yes, winking in the trees. When a person's afterlife soul is loose, it tries to stay as close to the body as it can, hoping to be allowed back inside. The flashes must have been his soul chasing after him.”

Gitchi growls and edges forward to sniff the man's eyes. Bits of wind-blown forest duff stick the wide orbs. After Gitchi has convinced himself that the enemy is dead, he backs away and drops to his haunches, patiently awaiting whatever comes next.

Baji and I stare at each other. The white knife scar that cuts across her pointed chin has picked up the bluish tint of coming dawn. Black wavy hair frames her beautiful oval face and flutters over her buckskin cape. Her knee-high black leggings are speckled with old pine needles, collected in her mad dash through the forest. Seeing her standing there over the body of the man who was about to kill me is ethereal. Her hair blows softly in the breeze, feathering over her shoulders.

“You are so beautiful.”

She tilts her head reprovingly and her mouth quirks. “We were talking about insanity and murder.”

“Well, I'm past that now. I'd rather talk about you, about how you look in the blue morning light, your long legs spread and your bow half-drawn. The image is heartrending.”

She tucks her arrow back in her quiver, slings her bow over her left shoulder, and walks around the dead man to step into my arms. As she embraces me, a warm sensation tingles through my muscles. I rest my chin against her temple, and drown for a time in the silken texture of her hair. The glossy strands smell of campfires and leather, things that comfort me.

“I'm glad you're here with me,” I whisper. “Being with you is all I've ever wanted.”

She hugs me harder, her strong muscular arms like granite bands, but says, “I think you want peace more than me.”

The soft words remind me of my duty to our Peoples. I heave a sigh. “I take it that you do not wish to stay here in my embrace any longer than necessary.”

She laughs and looks up at me with shining eyes. “If I could wish for anything that would be it. But we do not have the luxury of wishing, Dekanawida. We still have to pack up our camp. As it is, we won't make it to Shookas Village until late afternoon. And I have the feeling, somewhere deep inside me, that we
need
to get there. I don't know why, but I want to hurry.”

She pushes away from me, and clasps my hand. We walk back toward our fire with Gitchi at our heels.

As the day brightens, the scent of pine suffuses the cold air.

Out of curiosity, I ask, “Baji, where were you when the man burst from his hiding place in the aspens?”

Black waves dance around her face as she looks up, and gives me a hesitant smile. “In the birch grove, why?”

“No reason. I just didn't see you out there. I…”

She smiles again and looks away. She's avoiding my eyes. Why?

My heart starts to pound harder as a strange weightless sensation comes over me. The light.
No, no, it's not possible, but …
Images cascade.
Baji appearing on a trail I didn't even know I would take … running all the way to find me with a head wound that would have killed most men. No … I—I would know.

I look down at her, my gaze searching for some sign …

As though my unspoken words are bludgeoning her, she stops and a shiver goes through her. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing, I … I was just wondering…”

She looks up and the lines around her eyes tighten as though she senses my thoughts. Her gaze shifts, scanning the forest as she sighs, “Dekanawida, before we leave, there's something I need to tell you.” She clutches my hand tighter.

“About what?”

Her black eyes glisten like jewels. “About what Shago-niyoh said to me on the trail.”

 

Thirty-five

A short while later, Baji crouched across the ashes of the campfire, staring at Dekanawida in the resplendent predawn glow. Gitchi lay between them, his gray muzzle propped on his forepaws, watching in utter silence. Occasionally, when their voices grew strained, his tail lightly tapped the ground trying to ease the tension by showing them he loved them.

Baji pulled a branch from the woodpile and toyed with it to keep her hands busy. Dekanawida's handsome face showed barely endurable pain. She could feel every shifting thought that moved behind his eyes. Like obsidian-sharp lances, they stabbed and jerked, cutting and carving her souls. Is this what strong emotions felt like in the afterworld? Is that why the Land of the Dead was beautiful and peaceful, and people only made war for sport? They couldn't bear anything else?