People of the Longhouse (24 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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Towa interrupted. “Wait. Are you suggesting that the warriors are … are each walking different trails? That’s why you want to cut for sign from north to south?”
“We think it’s possible.”
Sindak rubbed a hand over his face as though stunned by the realization. “Of course they are. That’s how they do it. If each warrior takes one or two children and picks his own route, he can climb over
rocks, wade rivers or ponds, climb through the trees. That’s why the sign is so confusing.”
Towa seemed to be putting all the pieces together, and not liking what he saw. His expression became a grimace. “If this is true, their trails may be spread out over a vast area of forest. It’s going to take forever—”
“That’s why no one has ever been able to track Gannajero.” Koracoo was gazing out into the depths of the forest, but thoughts moved behind her dark eyes. “Time. The trails seem to go in different directions. They start and stop, or vanish altogether. It takes so much time to unravel them that people give up.”
“If only we had another fifty warriors,” Towa said, “we might be able to do it. But without them? I don’t know.”
Frustration was building. Gonda could feel it in the air. The task suddenly seemed overwhelming. Despair lined Towa’s young face, and Sindak looked angry.
Gonda said, “We don’t need fifty warriors.”
“Why not?” Towa raised his voice. “How can four people accomplish anything? I—”
“Listen to Gonda,” Koracoo said. She was watching Gonda, waiting to see what he was doing before she interfered. It was the way they’d always operated. They worked as a team to get their warriors to figure out the problem.
Gonda continued, “You were right in the beginning, Towa. We need to spread out so that we can cover more territory. We’ll arrange a place to meet at night; then over supper we’ll discuss what each of us has found, and pick which trail to pursue the next morning. We’ll follow it until it disappears. When it does, we’ll return to cutting north-south again.”
“It seems like we’re grasping for—”
“Towa.” Koracoo put a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to peer into the dark depths of her eyes. He looked faintly mesmerized. “Think this through. If you were arranging such a ruse, how would you do it?”
Towa shook his head as though he had no idea, but after a few moments, he blinked, and said, “Well, I—I suppose I’d tell my warriors to fan out—to get as far from each other as they could—and to pick the most difficult paths through the forest. Both strategies would slow the pursuers down to a crawl and give me more time to get away.”
“But …” A thoughtful expression lined Sindak’s beaked face. “As the day wears on, as each person gets closer to the meeting place, the trails will start to converge.”
“Yes.” Gonda nodded. “And that’s the first thing we should look for. Patterns like that. If we can figure out even the most basic pattern it will cut our search time in half.”
Koracoo gazed up into the oak tree to study the interlacing branches again. Sunlight sheathed every twig. “If we assume that this is one of the trails, and they are headed east, there should be other trails to the north and south of this one. We just have to find them.”
Cloud People drifted through the sky high above, and their shadows roamed the trees like silent Spirits, plunging them into a suddenly dimmer world. Wind murmured through the branches, rising and falling in an ominous cadence. Gonda waited until the shadows had passed and Elder Brother Sun’s gleam again sparkled through the trees.
“All right,” Gonda said. “Where are we going to meet?”
Koracoo answered, “The main trail forks just south of Hawk Moth Village. I say we meet there.”
Gonda turned to Sindak and Towa. “Do you know where that is?”
“Yes,” Sindak said. “We’ve been there several times, on raids. Frankly, I don’t think the Flint People like us very much. If they catch us, they’re liable to cut us into tiny pieces and feed us to their dogs.”
“The same is true for us. That means we need to stay out of their way,” Gonda said.
Koracoo gestured to the oak tree. “Sindak, you found the scars on the tree. Why don’t you start with this trail?”
“Yes, War Chief.” Sindak grabbed a branch and started climbing up into the oak.
While she watched him, Koracoo said, “The rest of us will spread out along an east-west line and start walking north, cutting for sign. I’ll start from here—the base of this tree.”
Gonda looked at Towa. The youth still had a skeptical disheartened expression. “Towa, I’m going to trot east for two hundred paces, then cut north. Why don’t you trot west for two hundred paces, and cut north. If you find sign, follow it out. If not, don’t worry about it—just meet us at dusk south of Hawk Moth Village.”
Towa nodded. “I’ll be there.” He took off at a slow trot, heading west.
Gonda headed east. When he turned to look over his shoulder, he saw Koracoo walking due north into the jade-colored pines, and Sindak maneuvering through the bare oak branches, tracking his prey from tree to tree like an overgrown squirrel.
T
he pattering of acorns falling on the forest floor mixed with the pounding of Towa’s heart. Somewhere close by he heard movement. It might be an animal, but he was fairly certain it was a man.
Gently, so he made no sound, he grasped the scrub oak branch blocking his path and eased forward. When he’d stepped by, he returned the branch to its former position and scanned the deep forest shadows. Slippery elms and yellow birches were in the process of crowding out the oaks. As he tiptoed by a birch, he silently broke off a twig and chewed it. The flavor of mint filled his mouth. Birds watched him, their feathers fluffed out for warmth, but few dared to chirp. He lifted his nose and sniffed the air. A curious odor rode the breeze, like days-old blood, and he thought …
“Sondakwa?” a man called in a strained voice. “S-Sondakwa! Where are you?” Brush crashed and twigs snapped, as though he’d stumbled.
Towa nocked an arrow in his bow and forced a swallow down his dry throat. The wind gusted, and a wealth of acorns let loose. When they struck the brown leaf mat they made a faint drumlike cadence.
More stumbling … then a voice: “
Sondakwa? Is that you?”
Something swayed ahead. Towa stood perfectly still, watching. The man thrashed through the brush, panting and whimpering. He had a war club in his fist.
Towa drew back his bowstring, just in case, and his shoulder wound ached with fiery intensity.
“Sondakwa, where are you? Stop hiding from me!”
As he came closer, Towa could see the man better. He was big, stocky. Black geometric tattoos covered his face. To create the designs, warriors pricked their flesh with bone awls, then rubbed the tattoos with charcoal to darken them. The sides of his head had been shaved in the manner of the Flint People, leaving a central roach of hair on top. A few limp, soaked feathers decorated the style.
The man staggered and had to grab hold of a birch limb to keep standing. Then he lifted his head, saw Towa, and pinned him with wide, vacant eyes.
Towa blinked. The impact of that gaze struck him like a spectral fist in the dark. His scalp prickled. When his grandfather had been dying, there had been a moment at the very end when Grandfather’s eyes had suddenly opened … but there was no soul there, no awareness, just a sort of surprised stare. That’s what he saw now.
Softly, Towa called, “Who are you?”
The man didn’t seem to hear him. He kept holding onto the branch for a few instants longer. Then he swayed on his feet, and slowly toppled facefirst to the ground.
Towa watched him for fifty heartbeats before he released the tension on his bowstring and gazed out at the trees again. Only a few faint triangles of sunlight managed to pierce the canopy. The rest of the forest was cloaked in shadow. The man had been calling to a friend. Was there someone else out there Towa needed to worry about? He inhaled a breath and let the scent of wet wood fill him, then cautiously walked forward.
Towa stopped two paces away and studied the man’s shaven head and the white feathers in his roach. The man didn’t seem to be breathing. His war club had bounced from his hand, but it was within easy reach.
Towa slung his bow and tucked his arrow back into his quiver; then he pulled his war club from his belt.
Leaves crackled as he walked to stand over the man. He kicked him in the side. Nothing.
Towa knelt and scooped leaves away from the man’s face. His brown eyes were open, and dead. But just to make sure, Towa touched the man’s eyeball with his finger. Again … nothing. Towa
flipped the man’s cape up and tugged his pack from his shoulders, then rummaged through it.
Stunned, he pulled out a magnificently etched copper breastplate. Leather cords hung from the corners of the plate, clearly for tying it on. A master artisan had etched the copper with hundreds of miniature False Faces. Some had wide smiling mouths and long noses. Others had hideous, terrifying expressions with enormous eyes.
Towa rested it to the side and continued going through the pack. The breastplate seemed to be the only thing of real value the man owned—along with several bags of food.
“You won’t need these anymore,” he said softly as he drew open the laces of several small sacks that contained jerked duck, hard acorn meal biscuits, sunflower seeds, walnuts, and hulled beans. Even a bag of what looked like chunks of dried squash.
Towa stuffed all the food into his own pack, then rose to his feet. He didn’t know what to do with the copper breastplate. It was too large to carry in his pack. But he certainly wasn’t going to leave something so rare and beautiful here to corrode. It was awkward with his wounded shoulder, but he managed to flip up his cape and tie the breastplate on over his chest.
Towa squinted at the man’s trail. He could see it clearly in the leaves. It was serpentine, weaving all over the place. He followed it eastward.
Late in the afternoon, Towa reached up, taking sight on the sun and moving his hand, palm width by palm width, to the western horizon. He had less than one hand of time left before he’d have to head straight for the fork in the trail to meet Sindak, Gonda, and Koracoo. He continued following the dead man’s trail.
When he entered a thicket of shining willow, he saw two deep knee prints, then another set, and nearby he found grooves in the mud left by frantic fingers. The man had fallen down several times in the thicket, clawed his way back up, and staggered on. Towa kept walking. On the other side, he saw a narrow deer trail lined by holly and headed for it, expecting to see more of the man’s tracks there.
Instead, he found another set of tracks. The man’s lost friend?
Towa knelt to examine them. The distinctive herringbone weave was made only among the Hills People. He whispered, “A Hills warrior? What are you doing out here, my friend?”
As he rose to his feet, he wondered if one of the other Hills villages had dispatched a war party into Flint lands. If so, this man had
gotten separated from his party, because there was only one set of prints.
Or … perhaps Atotarho had decided he couldn’t trust Koracoo and Gonda?
Towa’s thoughts drifted back to his conversation with Koracoo the first night on the trail, when she’d suggested that Atotarho had not sent Towa and Sindak to help rescue the girl, because he’d wanted his daughter to be captured. That idea had been plaguing Towa for days. His hand rose to touch the sacred gorget where it rested beneath his cape. Atotarho had given Towa specific instructions to present the gorget to Gannajero within moments of laying eyes upon her.
But he did not know why. The gorget was valuable, yes, very valuable, but would it be enough to buy back Zateri and the other children?
Towa didn’t know.
He backtracked the herringbone trail until it intersected with the dead man’s tracks, and his eyes narrowed. Something strange had happened here. The dead man had started running, first one direction, then another, charging about as though being pursued. But the herringbone sandals hadn’t moved. He’d been standing still.
A cold shiver climbed Towa’s spine.
“Why did you start running? Did you see something that frightened you? Why didn’t the man wearing the sandals run?”
Wind clattered in the branches—a thin rattling that reminded Towa of teeth chattering.
He ran his fingers over the copper breastplate beneath his cape and tried to fathom what had happened here. The dead man had been panicked, taking long strides; he’d clearly been running for his life.
Towa turned to stare at the herringbone sandal prints again … and decided to follow them.
Twenty paces later, he stumbled over a second dead man. Another Flint warrior, or at least he wore the same hairstyle. The first man’s lost friend? Sondakwa? Towa walked closer. He saw no blood. The man hadn’t been shot, or clubbed; he just lay sprawled on his back staring emptily up at the storm clouds that filled the afternoon sky. He looked like he’d just fallen down dead in the trail.
Towa glanced around. Birds and squirrels hopped through the trees, unconcerned, but a deep gnawing sense of dread filled him.
“I have the feeling,” he whispered uneasily as he stared at the
herringbone sandal prints, “that now I know what frightened the first man into running. I wish I had more time to track you, my friend.”
But he didn’t.
Towa checked the faint shadows, figured the direction, and broke into a trot, heading for the rendezvous place.

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