People of the Black Sun(56)

“Baji?” Dzadi called happily. “How will we ever eat so much?”

She turned, smiling, but …

“Baji?”

Not Dzadi.

She suffered a moment of disorientation. Couldn’t figure out …

“Baji, I need you to wake up.”

Dekanawida’s deep voice. A hand rested lightly on her shoulder.

She opened her eyes. “Gods, I’m sorry. I must have fallen to sleep.”

She sat up and braced her hands on the log on either side of her hips. Her long black hair fell forward over her cape.

“I didn’t want to wake you, but I need you to lie on your left side so I can get to your head wound. I must care for it tonight, before the Evil Spirits smell the blood and fly to nest in your flesh.”

A wooden bowl clacked as he set it on the log, and she noticed in surprise that a small fire burned not two paces away. The bowl, filled with warm water and a piece of soaked hide, steamed.

She nodded tiredly. “Thank you. I’m just so tired.”

Dekanawida’s thick brows drew down over his slender nose. His jagged locks of short hair sleeked down around his wide mouth and blunt chin. In a tender voice, he instructed, “If you’ll stretch out on your left side on the log, I’ll try to work. I don’t want any of the water to drip down and soak your cape. You need to stay dry and warm tonight. When I’m done, I’ll wrap you in my blanket.”

Baji’s wounded arm shook as she braced it to ease down onto her left side, so that Dekanawida could clean the swollen lump behind her right ear.

In a stern voice, he said, “I’m heating willow bark tea for you. When I’ve finished cleaning, I want you to drink it. It will help with the headache.”

“If I’m awake.”

She thought he nodded. She wasn’t sure.

Dekanawida squeezed out the soaked hide and started washing the lump. The warm water hurt. But his touch was a balm upon her soul. He had large hands, strong, and they worked with practiced skill. As a deputy war chief, he’d tended many wounds in his time. Tonight though, his face was aspen-bark white, his eyes blazing like polished brown chert.

“Close your eyes and try to rest,” he ordered.

Hundreds of summers from now, while she slumbered in an old tree, the sound of his deep voice would fill her lonely dreams.

The firelight threw faint multiple shadows across his concerned face.

Gitchi’s ears suddenly pricked, and he turned to stare out at the white cedars. Baji glimpsed something. The hem of a wind-blown black cape, flapping wildly, like a trick of moonlight in the saplings, for the forest around her was absolutely still.

A faint smile came to her lips.

He’s standing guard. I don’t have to.





Eighteen

For the moment, Yi ignored the dusty messenger who stood, breathing hard, on the opposite side of the fire. A shaft of afternoon sunlight streamed down through the smokehole, landing like a golden scarf across his dirty trail-weary face. Yi continued pacing the floor of the longhouse, thinking.

Yi’s chamber in the Wolf Clan longhouse in Atotarho Village sat at the far end, eight hundred hands away from the former High Matron’s chamber. Tila was gone, her chamber empty, but Yi still felt the weight of her presence, as if Tila’s Spirit had refused to travel to the afterlife, and remained in the longhouse. Her afterlife soul had not been Requickened yet, and it was a terrible spiritual loss for the clan. It weakened all of them. Almost everyone had assumed that when Zateri returned from the battle, she would receive her grandmother’s soul.

Yi looked down the length of the house, her gaze passing over the many chambers and people sitting around their fires. Women nearby weaved baskets from willow staves. Children played with cornhusk toys. Yi missed Tila desperately. Especially now when the clan needed her guidance so desperately.

So much had happened in the past half-moon, she was having trouble making sense of things.

First, High Matron Tila had died, then had come the shocking news, delivered by one of Atotarho’s messengers, that Tila had named Kelek, Matron of the Bear Clan, to replace her. One did not question the Chief without good cause, but they’d all known Tila for more than forty summers. It was simply impossible. Then, yesterday morning, news had come that Coldspring Village, their sister village, had been completely abandoned. The villagers had fled in a hurry, carrying only food and blankets with them. The rest of their possessions remained in place, as if awaiting their owners’ return. Scouts had seen the Coldspring villagers running up the Canassatego Village trail. Later, Atotarho Village had been flooded with returning warriors, charging through the gates, proclaiming that they’d lost the battle against the Standing Stone nation after the prophet, Sky Messenger, had called a gigantic storm that swept their forces from the field of battle. There had also been wild rumors of betrayal and civil war. Finally, finally, this morning, more warriors had flooded in, fresh from burning Coldspring Village to the ground. Along with them, a messenger arrived from Atotarho verifying the rumor that Zateri, Kwahseti, and Gwinodje had betrayed the Hills nation and fought on the side of the Standing Stone People. Despite their treachery, Atotarho reported that he had won the battle, and devastated the Standing Stone nation. He’d said they were but a pitiful remnant of what they had once been, and informed the Ruling Council that he would remain in Standing Stone country for perhaps one more moon, by the end of which, he said, he would have completely destroyed the Standing Stone nation.