She could hear his panting breath. Too close.
She slowed, whirling the bola, casting it low at the legs of her pursuer; she heard him go down, grunting at the fall, and she turned and pelted onward, sprinting blindly through the rain lashed night.
Sometime in the past, another storm had fallen the old cottonwood.
The current of the river had carried it to this slow backwater and beached it. Silt had settled as the water slowed around the snag, and now only one rotted branch rose above the sand.
At the last instant, Pearl saw the pale wood. She tried to cut her pace, to set herself for a jump, but she managed poorly. Her trailing foot hung on the branch, spilling her full on her face on the beach.
Impact knocked the breath from her. Stunned, she gasped, digging her fingers into the sand. Agony burned through her, but still she forced herself to crawl toward the water.
Feet pounded in the night, men called.
Pearl couldn’t stop herself from coughing.
“Over here!” a voice cried.
She dragged herself forward, her lungs starved. Flickers of light, like dancing fireflies, sparkled in her vision. She slapped a hand into the chilly water, then lurched forward. A wave slapped her full in the face. Icy water shocked her hot flesh.
A hand grabbed her foot, drawing her backward.
“Got her!” an excited voice cried.
Pearl went limp, gasping, finally recovering enough breath to cry.
The hard hands pulled her back onto the sand, and a heavy body fell on her, pinning her in place. She barely caught some of the words. “… tried to … you could escape?”
Dark shapes appeared around her.
Grizzly Tooth bent down, his necklace rattling. “Good thing that tree was there, huh, woman? As it is, you almost broke my neck back there. You’ll pay.” He straightened, and she saw that he was limping. “Tie her up. Take her back. From now on, she stays tied.”
Pearl let her head fall to the damp sand. Rain beat steadily on her face. Then she was jerked up and thrown over a muscular shoulder.
Wave Dancer cut through the placid water like a dart through air, the wake streaming out in a V as Otter guided her up the winding stream. Overhead, the branches intermingled and laced together in a thicket. Squirrels darted across, shaking the limbs and vines. Birds chirped around them.
Black Skull had grown tense and irritable. He glanced uneasily to each side, starting at the forest sounds.
And well he might be edgy, Otter decided. Six days of traveling with the warrior and the Contrary had him more than a little jumpy himself.
Black Skull’s nervous reaction seemed to stem from something besides just his disdain of the Contrary. As they had proceeded north, Black Skull’s mood had grown more sullen. At night, Otter had observed the warrior lying awake, staring around uneasily, or up and prowling the perimeter of the camp on silent feet.
Something about Black Skull’s manner reminded Otter of a child who’d lost his way in the forest. But what did the warrior have to fear?
They rounded yet another bend in the creek. Here the roots of an elm had curled down the crumbling brown bank for a hold in the murky water. Brown grasses hung in tufts, and saplings crowded the shore, striving for the sky.
Otter used his paddle as a rudder to round a series of wooden floats that marked the location of a trotline. “We’re getting close.”
Black Skull turned his head, his eyes narrowed. “I don’t see the purpose in this.”
Green Spider sat in the middle of the canoe, backwards as usual, legs crossed. He dragged his fingers in the muddy water, muttering, “Purpose, purpose, always a purpose.”
Catcher balanced on a pack, nose searching the wind. His tail cut slow arcs in the air.
“We’re stopping at Green Turtle village to Trade with old Long Squirrel for shirts. They produce a luxurious kind of fabric here. I’m not sure how they do it … the clan is very closemouthed about it. They do something with milkweed and cottonwood fluff. Then they dye it purple. They’ll Trade a shirt for a couple of sharks’ teeth.”
“A shirt for sharks’ teeth?” Black Skull frowned. “But why do we need a purple shirt?”
“We need one of these purple shirts to Trade to Meadowlark, clan leader at Brown Water. Meadowlark likes purple shirts. He has come to believe that wearing anything purple gives him special Power. Of course the problem with purple is that it fades over time. So Meadowlark is always looking for purple clothing.
For the shirt, Meadowlark will give us a couple of his badger bowls.”
“His what?” Black Skull shot a look of annoyance Otter’s way.
“Badger bowls. Meadowlark’s potters make a bowl that has a badger’s head on one side and a tail on the other. They’re the handles, you see. Only the Brown Water potters make them.”