People of the Black Sun(55)
“Sent by Atotarho?”
“Who else?”
Dekanawida eased her hair back into place over her wound, and reached down to tightly clasp her hand. “I was going to walk for most of the night, but I’ve changed my mind. We’re making camp so I can tend that head wound.”
Baji let him lead her out of the pawpaw copse and to a place beneath the arching branches of the pignut hickory, where an old log lay. After he’d brushed the snow from the wood, he ordered, “Sit down and rest while I get a fire going.”
“Just for a moment.” She sat on the log.
As Dekanawida went about cracking dead limbs from the tree trunk, Baji forced herself to concentrate. Her legs were shaking. When had that happened? She pulled bow and quiver from her shoulder and propped them against the log beside her. Suddenly, she felt utterly exhausted. Her head now hurt so badly she knew it would explode at any instant. She leaned forward, braced her elbows on her knees, and massaged her temples. Fiery pokers stabbed behind her eyes.
Gitchi came around the log, apparently satisfied that the rabbit was nowhere to be found, and curled up at Baji’s feet. She lowered one hand to pat his side, and went back to massaging her temple.
Dekanawida returned, dropped one armload of branches on the ground, smiled at her, and went back to gathering wood, cracking twigs from one of the nearby chestnuts.
Baji granted herself the luxury of closing her eyes. After all, Shago-niyoh was close. Surely, he and Gitchi would protect Dekanawida while she rested.
* * *
… A short while later, Baji sneaked through the forest, coming up behind the camp of the Hills warrior who’d shot Cord. The man sat with five friends before a campfire, tearing off big chunks of venison jerky with his rotted teeth, laughing too loudly. He liked to wave his hands as he talked. It made him appear a blustering fool. How strange. She thought she’d killed him. But here he was, surrounded by relatives, chortling like an imbecile, and obviously enjoying himself. One of the men had left a war ax lying at the edge of the trees. He’d probably been using it to hack off branches for the fire and forgotten it.
It lay half covered with snow five paces in front of her.
She might have let the man go if Dzadi hadn’t appeared in the trees on the opposite side of the clearing and nodded his head to her, encouraging her to continue. Then her friend Ogwed appeared just to her right, and whispered, “We have them surrounded, War Chief.”
“Good.”
Ogwed led her forward, picked up the ax, brushed the snow off on his pants, then put it in her hand. “We all wish to kill him, but it is your right.”
Baji’s fingers went tight around the handle. Glimmering through the trees, she saw the firelit faces of many friends—men and women she had fought with. They would guard her back while she completed her task.
Baji stalked into the clearing and the men around the fire leaped to their feet. From the trees, arrows hissed and each fell silently to the ground, leaving only her quarry standing.
“Hello, fool.”
Like the coward he was, the man rushed to put the fire between them. As he thrust out his empty hands, he said, “War Chief Baji! What are you doing here?”
Baji cautiously flanked him. She felt neither pity nor hatred, just the calculation of a warrior fulfilling her duty.
“Wait. Let’s talk this over!” the man shouted, and tried to run.
Baji raced forward to cut off his escape. They circled each other.
The man said, “You bitch in heat! I’ll club you like a fish.” He kept glancing at a red-painted war club a few paces away, lying canted against a rolled blanket.
As Baji closed in, the man lunged for the club, grabbed it, and rolled away.
Baji dove for him. Her ax chopped into the spine at the base of his neck, and he went limp. Lying broken on the ground, his eyes were still upon hers, blinking feverishly. His fingers twitched and jerked. His lungs desperately sucked and expelled air. She tossed the ax aside and got her hands around his throat, grunting as she fought to strangle him.
Dzadi, Ogwed, and the others edged out of the trees to watch.
When she felt the enemy warriors’s heart stop, when his frantic lungs no longer pulled at his throat, she staggered to her feet and stared down into his dead eyes. The fire had gone out. How quickly the night cooled! Darkness seeped close around her. She looked past Dzadi’s blank face to a narrow starlit trail that weaved through the trees. In the distance, at the end of the trail, a bridge spanned a dark glistening river. Flint country lay on the other side. She knew it, could feel home in her bones, calling to her.
How would Cord take it when he heard that she had avenged him?
Baji walked out of the clearing, her friends following behind, and passed on into Wild River Village in search of a warm longhouse. The familar crowd filled the plaza. Women used mallets to pound corn in hollowed-out logs. Old men slept in the sunshine beneath the porches, with dogs curled at their sides. Children played stick-and-ball games along the palisade wall. None seemed to notice that Baji and a remnant of her war party had returned home. Not that it mattered. The day was warm and fragrant with the scent of dogwood blossoms. They would gather around the plaza bonfire with the other warriors who stood eating heaping bowls of freshly roasted grouse and talking of the latest news. And what was that in their hands? Cornmeal biscuits dripping with bumblebee honey! As she led her party closer, Baji saw twenty or more grouse, skewered on poles, being cooked over the flames, sizzling with fat.