People of the Longhouse (19 page)

Read People of the Longhouse Online

Authors: W. Michael Gear

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

BOOK: People of the Longhouse
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“That’s silly.” Towa kicked at the woodpile. “Do you recall when you told me that I thought much as Koracoo did?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I don’t. But you do. Keep that in mind.”
Towa set his empty cup beside the fire pit, rose, and walked over to stretch out near Gonda.
Sindak’s gaze returned to Koracoo. He swore she was watching him. Firelight reflected in her open eyes. He just couldn’t be certain if she was looking at him, or out into the forest. His gaze drifted to the trees, where wind-thrashed limbs created such a noise an entire war party could be upon them before they heard a whisper of moccasins on the leaf mat. Stealthily, his right hand lowered to the war club tucked into his belt.
Koracoo gave him one last look, then closed her eyes.
Sindak finished his soup and crawled to the edge of the pine boughs to keep watch on the trails.
S
ometime around midnight, a groan woke Koracoo. She rolled to her side and looked at Gonda. He’d been making soft agonized sounds for over a hand of time—fighting the battle again. She had seen him do this same thing for thirteen summers. After every battle, she spent six or seven days refighting it in her dreams. Gonda spent moons.
Her gaze shifted to Sindak. He was no longer sitting beneath the pine where the flames could blind him to the night, but had moved to stand outside, facing east, looking up the trail. The sleet had stopped, leaving the deep blue sky clear. As the icy breeze gusted through the trees, Sindak’s buckskin cape billowed around his broad shoulders. Though he clutched his war club, he also carried his slung bow and quiver.
Gonda made a sound like a suppressed scream.
Sindak glanced back over his shoulder, shook his head, and went back to watching the trails.
Koracoo stared out past Sindak to the stars visible just over the treetops. They glittered as though silver flames burned in their hearts.
Where are you, Mother? Are you alive or dead?
Her mother’s half-dead eyes seemed to be branded on her souls—always there, always pleading for help. She’d found Mother lying in
the charred remains of their longhouse with Koracoo’s sister, Tawi, beside her. For the rest of Koracoo’s life she would wonder whether or not Tawi had been trying to pull their mother to safety when the burning wall had collapsed on top of them.
Koracoo rested CorpseEye across her chest and put her hands on either side of her head, pressing hard, endeavoring to force some sense into her worry-laced soul. She felt like a sleepwalker, just going through the motions of life, not really here.
“Come on,” she hissed. “Wake up. Wake up, blast you.”
By now, the Yellowtail Village survivors would have arrived at Bur Oak Village, and rumors would be running wild. They’d blame her for the attack. They’d say that if she’d left Deputy Deru in charge, instead of assigning Gonda, their families would be alive—which was probably true. They’d say she’d depended upon the wrong man, that she’d favored him because he was her husband, and it had cost them everything … . Or they’d say she should have never left on the scouting mission the morning of the attack.
She looked at Sindak, Towa, and Gonda. When the fight came, could she depend upon any of them? The only person she was absolutely certain she could depend upon was herself, which meant she would have to be the linchpin of any plan. What would happen if she fell? Which of them would take over and rescue the children?
For twelve summers, she had known the answer to that question. The fact that she no longer did terrified her. Memories were her greatest enemy. One, from three summers ago, kept replaying over and over. It always started the same way. She saw the forest fire reflected in Gonda’s eyes. The rest of their war party had been killed during the first day of fighting. She and Gonda had been running through the burning trees for four days, trying to find a safe way home—but Flint warriors had cornered them in a narrow rocky canyon. When Koracoo had fled there, she hadn’t noticed that it dead-ended twenty paces back. They’d scrambled behind a tumbled pile of boulders, and the victory cries of the Flint warriors had been deafening … .
“How many are out there?” Gonda had asked as he’d checked the arrows in his quiver. Sweat matted his black hair to his round face, making his nose seem longer.
“I’d guess fifteen or twenty.”
“I hate to tell you this, but that’s fourteen more than I have arrows for.”
“And fifteen more than I have.” She’d pulled CorpseEye from her belt.
As the warriors clambered through the rocks around them, Gonda had given her a grin. “I’ve heard the elders talking. You’re going to be war chief someday soon. Surely the future war chief of Yellowtail Village can figure a way out of this trap.”
Koracoo had laughed. He’d always done that to her—made her laugh in the most dire of circumstances. Five arrows simultaneously battered the rocks around them, showering them with rock chips. They’d both hit the ground and covered their heads.
When she’d dared to look up, she said, “Absolutely. Are you ready?”
He’d given her a surprised look. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to climb out of here and start bashing out the brains of any warrior who leaps up to face me.”
“That doesn’t sound like a very sound strategy to me. There are a lot of arrows flying out there.”
“Would you rather wait here? They’ll be coming soon.”
He’d rolled to his hands and knees. “No, I wouldn’t. But before we die, I want you to know that you are everything to me. If we die here—”
“Stop being sentimental. Tell me tomorrow.” She’d jumped up and started swinging CorpseEye.
He’d been right behind her … .
Koracoo forced the memory away, but not before an incapacitating ache filled her chest.
As though he knew, Gonda whimpered.
Koracoo listened, her heart pounding. He was not a coward, or stupid. But by disobeying her, he had broken her heart and betrayed her trust. She vacillated between longing to beat him to death with her bare fists, and bury her face against his chest and weep until she had no tears left.
For days, she’d secretly endured the same fear that lived in his eyes—the fear that they would never find their children, or that Odion, Tutelo, and Wrass were injured, or being tortured. Worst of all was the knowledge that their children were lying awake at night, praying that she and Gonda were on their trail coming to save them.
Even worse,
even worse,
every time Gonda looked at her, his eyes were reverent with faith in her. And she understood perfectly. Gonda believed that Koracoo would save their children.
As the knot in her belly tightened, she quietly rose and went to stand beside Sindak. He kept his gaze on the trail. She guessed his age at eighteen or nineteen summers. His shoulder-length black hair gleamed in the starlight, and his lean face reminded her of an eagle’s, beaked, with sharp brown eyes.
Without looking at her, he said, “My watch is not over. You have another hand of time to sleep, War Chief.”
Koracoo studied the faint crystalline haze that filled the air. Amid the swaying branches, elusive winks of stars flashed. “At dawn, we will go back and take the left fork in the trail.”
“Very well.”
By the glow of the fire, she could see every small line of his face, from temple to jaw, thrown suddenly into shadow. It made him look older, more sure of himself. He turned, and curiosity glinted in his brown eyes.
“What is it, Sindak?”
“I was just wondering, that’s all.”
“Wondering about what?”
He used his chin to gesture to Gonda. “Why did you bring him on this journey? It’s hard on him. And will be harder still if we don’t find the children.”
“He’ll survive.”
“Will he? I suspect you can stand whatever life throws at you, Koracoo. I’m not sure he can. Every step we take, I feel like I’m watching him fall apart. One day he’s desperate to fight me, the next he barely has the strength to keep hold of his club.”
Koracoo’s fingers unconsciously moved over CorpseEye, caressing the fine dark wood like a lover’s skin. Sindak glanced down, noticed, then apprehensively lifted his gaze to her eyes again.
She said, “This journey may be hard on him, Sindak, but it is also his redemption.”
“Even if we fail?”
“Especially if we fail. At least Gonda will know that he did everything he could to find them.”
“Ah, I see. If you’d left him home, he would always wonder if he could have made a difference?”
“Yes.”
Sindak’s brows arched, as though surprised by her answer. “Then bringing him was an act of kindness on your part.”
“Did you think it was an act of cruelty?”
He shrugged. “I wondered, that’s all.”
She propped the cobble head of CorpseEye on the ground and leaned against the shaft like a walking stick. Power tingled beneath her fingers. When it grew too uncomfortable, she shifted her grip. It might just be the warmth of the wood against her freezing hands. Then again, CorpseEye could be trying to get her attention, to tell her something. She scanned the trees. The forest appeared calm, and she heard nothing unusual.
Sindak said, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing … it’s just … nothing.”
He glanced up the trail. “Your expression suddenly changed, War Chief. You looked worried. Why?”
Koracoo petted CorpseEye. Sindak watched with an intensity she found unsettling. “CorpseEye is old,” she said. “And wise. He often hears or sees things I do not. When he does, he tries to get my attention.”
“How?”
She gestured uncertainly. “Power flows from CorpseEye into my hands. It’s a warmth. At times, it’s painful.”
“Was it painful just now?”
“Don’t worry about it, Sindak. I’ll search after you’ve gone to sleep. I’ll have lots of time before dawn. That way if it’s nothing, I—”
Sindak walked out onto the trail, where the starlight gilded the arrows in his quiver like points of flame. His cape flapped around his long legs. “Let’s search now.”
Koracoo followed him.
The gusting wind had blown the snow and sleet into drifts and exposed patches of the forest floor. Dark irregular blotches of soil marked the trail.
She said, “It will be far easier to search at dawn.”
“You said we would head back to the fork in the trail at dawn.”
“We will, unless we find something here.” She swung the club up to rest on her right shoulder. “Truly, Sindak, you should get some rest.”
“I won’t be able to sleep until we know it’s nothing.”
“All right, we’ll head east.”
Sindak nodded.
Starlight coated the ground and reflected from the snow with blinding strength. Koracoo concentrated on the places that had been blown clean. They hadn’t been able to see those patches earlier in the day.
As she searched, her thoughts strayed to Gannajero. She’d been thinking a lot about her as they’d tried to work out her trail. The mysterious old Trader had survived for forty summers, which meant she was shrewd. She probably kept eight or ten men around her, but no more. A few wary, trained warriors were necessary. They could move fast, and shoot enough arrows to allow Gannajero to escape. More than ten were just loose ends that would need to be disposed of later.
Including herself, Koracoo had four warriors, and three were not fully functional. A draining emotional haze clouded her vision, as well as Gonda’s, and Towa had a wounded arm. It took every bit of concentration she had to try to think clearly. At the same time, she had to keep Gonda focused so that he didn’t run off on some misguided mission of his own.
That was the other reason she’d brought him. He wouldn’t have stayed home. No matter what orders she’d given him, he would have disregarded them and gone searching for their children.
Koracoo walked around a fallen log and saw, behind it, a smooth grassy meadow dotted with boulders. On the far side of the meadow, the mountainside sloped steeply upward. Several trees were down, probably blown over in last moon’s storms. Their roots, ripped from the earth, stuck up like dark crooked arms reaching for the heavens.
Koracoo’s breath, her heart, and time itself seemed to stop. As if he’d heard something, Sindak looked over at her, then out into the darkness. For a long while only the hissing of her breathing filled the silence.
Then at the meadow’s edge, near the blown-down trees, something glimmered.
She cautiously walked toward it. Sindak seemed to understand. He shifted his course to intersect her path.
“What did you see?” he asked.
“I’m not sure yet. A flicker, like a shiny string of polished blue beads had caught the light just right.”
As they approached, walking side by side, that twinkle came again, brighter this time, as though a stream of pale blue fire had raced down the length of the object.

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