Dekanawida wrapped his arms around her shoulders and powerfully crushed her body against his. “I need you, Baji. Please come with me?”
A warm rush flooded her veins, frightening in its intensity. “You are betrothed to another.”
His lips brushed her face, and he murmured against her hair, “My marriage is a political alliance. My future wife told me so herself.” He tightened his embrace.
For a blessed timeless moment, she allowed herself to believe that she could go with him, and happiness filled her. She slipped her arms around his waist and hugged him so hard her injured arm shook. “I can’t abandon my village now. Not when we may be attacked at any instant by Atotarho, or the Mountain People, or the People of the Landing. You know I can’t. If you were still a deputy war chief, you would do the same.”
… but he needs a body guard. There is no one better to protect his back than me.
Dekanawida slowly released her. A mixture of disappointment and despair shone in his brown eyes.
“I knew you’d say that. I had hoped not, but…” He expelled a breath. “You’ve always been the honorable one. I have just one last thing to say. Baji—”
“Please, don’t.” She knew that tone of voice. “It’s useless, we can’t—”
He continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. “—my feelings for you have not changed. No matter what happens, I will find a way for us to be together, to marr—”
“Let it go, Dekanawida.”
He frowned out at the battlefield for a long time, watching the burial teams. The Standing Stone People were piling the dead near the Bur Oak Village palisade. The mound was already three or four deep.
Finally, he softly asked, “Are you sure?”
“I have to be.”
He bowed his head, and seemed to be mustering his strength. At last, he said, “If you ever need me or … or want me … send word. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
The Flint burial teams had lifted the litters and were carrying them toward the war party. They were almost ready to leave. She said, “If you are ever really in trouble, Dekanawida, you know I’ll be there.”
He balled his fists at his sides. “Yes.”
Their gazes locked. Both desperate. Both at a loss for anything else to say.
She petted Gitchi’s big head one last time, and smiled when he wagged his tail. “Please tell Tutelo I love her.”
“I will.”
The hardest thing Baji had ever done was to nod, turn her back on him, and stride away.
She did not glance back. It would have been a small selfish act that would have given him hope.
Seven
Sky Messenger
My heart slams against my ribs as I watch her walk away. Dreams die with each step.
“Come, Gitchi,” I whisper.
I stride back to Bur Oak Village with Gitchi trotting slightly ahead. Hearing my Flint name, Dekanawida, and touching her, have left me feeling wounded and dazed. Everything inside me shouts to go after her, that if we have more time to talk, we will find a way to be together. But my feet resolutely do not turn from their path. They carry me down the hillside, through the dead grass, and out into the corpse-filled meadow east of Yellowtail and Bur Oak villages. As Elder Brother Sun edges higher into the sky, he casts shadows behind each frosty body. Like dark fingers, they imploringly reach for the villages, or perhaps to their relatives who walk the battlefield. To the west, beyond the burned villages, snow creates a patchwork beneath the leafless maples and sycamores that rise and fall like dove-colored waves.
My shoulder muscles contract, bulging through my shirt. Almost all the warriors of the Standing Stone nation lie dead upon the grassy plain just beyond Reed Marsh. Thousands. Their frozen bodies create a rumpled blanket of small white humps. No mourners have ventured out that far to search for loved ones, but they will, soon.
I follow Gitchi, veering around two teams carrying burial litters piled high. As the morning warms, Wind Woman blows the snow across the battlefield like a low sunlit haze. It mixes with the acrid black smoke rising from the smoldering village palisades, smoke on its way to the Sky World where it will deliver knowledge of the battle to the Blessed Ancestors.
Weeping mourners flow around me like phantoms, averting their gazes. When they do accidentally meet my eyes, they quickly bow and look away. Soft reverent murmurs carry as I pass, which makes me feel hollow. They have known me since I was a child. They watched me grow up, become a deputy war chief, and transform into what I am today. Or, rather, what I became yesterday afternoon: something alien, not quite human. A man to fear. I myself have not yet come to grips with the freak storm. How can I expect them to treat me differently?