“I know. You’ve told me. But this is different. You and I both know it. I don’t think he was trying to be cryptic. I think he came to help me find my way.”
Dekanawida clamped his jaw to keep it still, and gazed at her like a man who refused to believe in the Faces of the Forest though he saw one hovering right before his eyes. He balled his fists. Stubborn, he enunciated, “I—would—know.”
She smiled. All the love in her heart must have shone on her face, for his tight jaw hardened. “All right. I just needed to tell you. I was tired of carrying the weight of it by myself.”
She rose to her feet and adjusted her bow and quiver where they draped her left shoulder. Her weapons belt clacked. “I’m ready to go if you are.”
He drew a shallow breath and stood up. Short black hair blew over his face, and jet strands glued themselves to his high cheekbones. She hadn’t realized he’d been crying.
Baji walked around the fire and embraced him hard enough to drive the air from his lungs. “Promise me that if you’re wrong, you’ll always take the time to stop and speak gently to old trees.”
He crushed her against him. In her ear, he hoarsely whispered, “I’m not wrong.”
Thirty-six
As Sonon watched them trot away, moving up the snowy trail that led to Shookas Village, he placed a hand on the ancient oak beneath which he stood and caressed the cold bark. It had a rough, ridged texture. He could feel the brave soul of the warrior who slept inside, breathing deeply. All around him, massive sycamores and giant chestnuts dotted the forest, each filled with an old, old warrior. They towered above the rest of the canopy, their winter twigs like dark trembling fingers grasping for wisps of drifting Cloud People.
Though Baji and Sky Messenger had vanished into the indigo shadows, the faint drumlike rhythm of their moccasins carried.
He closed his eyes to listen.
It was, perhaps, a strange truth that for most of their journey, human beings lived as impostors, wearing fear masks to ward off true intimacy. When their disguises at last failed, and they became truly present with one another, everything sensed it. Animals and trees turned to look. Great Grandmother Earth heaved a sigh. The universe itself tilted, balancing on each precious moment.
He didn’t wish to disturb it. Better than most, he knew that great beauty and tears were inseparable, bound together in a crystalline shimmer of longing that tore the heart. Even at the end, love was the only thing that turned suffering into a beauty too great to be borne. Perhaps especially at the end.
A low bark split the morning.
Sonon opened his eyes to see Gitchi loping back down the trail. The old wolf stopped and cocked his head at Sonon, waiting, as though to say, “What’s taking you so long?”
As Sonon lifted his hand to the wolf, signaling that he was coming, his black hood waffled around his face. Gitchi’s bushy tail wagged, then he turned and trotted back the way he’d come, returning to Sky Messenger’s side.
Sonon expelled a deep breath and stepped onto the trail.
Carefully, so as not to smudge them, he placed his sandals in the tracks they’d left in the snow, hoping to touch their luminous paths, knowing that the dying world lay just ahead.
Thirty-seven
Atotarho stood before his campfire gripping the head of his walking stick with crooked aching fingers. The icy morning air had turned pink with the coming dawn. The heads of war clubs and arrow points glimmered as his warriors marched up the rise in the distance, weaving drunkenly across the old battlefield, avoiding the frozen corpses that covered the ground.
A smile turned his lips. Right now, High Matron Kittle must be shuddering, her knees quaking at the sight of over one thousand warriors surrounding Bur Oak Village. If he …
“My Chief?”
He turned to see Qonde and two wounded warriors climbing the slope to reach his camp. Atotarho had sent Nesi off to fight, which left Qonde in charge of his personal guards for the day. A short, stocky man, Qonde’s hawkish face bore streaks of soot. The tall man behind Qonde had his left arm in a sling, and the other man wore a bloody head bandage. Several other wounded warriors stood waiting thirty hands away. From the looks of them, they’d probably been injured in last night’s fiery debacle at Yellowtail Village. As Qonde got closer, Atotarho called, “What is it?”
Qonde spoke to the men, and came forward alone. “Forgive me, my Chief. War Chief Negano ordered the wounded to rest today, but these men would like to be of some use.”
“So put them to use.”
Qonde spread his arms. “I realize this is an intrusion, my Chief.” He respectfully bowed again. “But I cannot countermand Negano’s orders without your approval.”