People of the Lightning(159)

“You were there. You don’t need me to—”

“Think about this, brainless boy. Even you are smart enough to figure it out.”

She shoots upward, like a perfectly cast dart, flying straight and true, heading northeast.

The frond bounces above me, fanning me with cool morning air.





Thirty-five

Dark Rain trotted down the game trail between Beaverpaw, who led the way, and Hanging Star, who brought up the rear. Palms lined their path, fronds swaying in the wind. Heavy clusters of berries draped within her reach. If she’d only had time, she would have stopped and collected several handfuls to eat along the way. But she didn’t. Hanging Star said that they would reach Standing Hollow Horn Village tonight, or at the latest tomorrow morning, so she had dressed in her best red tunic, belted tightly at the waist with a braided rabbit-fur cord. Her freshly washed black hair hung in a glossy wealth over her shoulders, blowing freely in the wind. The small pack on her back jingled with riches. She had won many valuable stone tools, necklaces, hafted wolfteeth punches, for holing leather, even a few fire-sharpened burial stakes enlaced with brightly dyed cord. In the big game ahead, she would need them. Huge sums would be wagered, and she planned to be in the hottest games.

“Blast!” Hanging Star growled behind her.

Dark Rain looked over hershoulder. “What’s wrong with you?”

He raised his sweating arm to wipe his ugly square face. He wore a breechclout and a tawdry whelkshell necklace. “I was thinking about other things and ran through a cluster of ripe palm berries!”

Dark Rain laughed. “Well, pay attention.” She turned back and trotted faster, catching up with Beaverpaw.

While she doubted the wisdom of thrashing through the forest this way, Hanging Star had promised that the only possible threat would be from Cottonmouth’s warriors and, after all, most of them were his relatives. During a nasty disagreement, Hanging Star had absolutely assured Beaverpaw that his presence alone would guarantee their safety. Dark Rain smirked to herself. Beaverpaw had believed him! Even after Hanging Star had insisted on bringing up the rear. If the man felt such certainty, why wasn’t he running in the lead? Why hadn’t Beaverpaw demanded that Hanging Star take the lead?

Not that it mattered to her. Beaverpaw’s position meant he would probably be the first to stop a dart, and that would suit Dark Rain just fine. He’d been deliberately ignoring her. Last night, after she’d tired of Hanging Star, which hadn’t taken long, she’d crawled under Beaverpaw’s blankets and embraced him passionately—and he’d pretended to sleep! She could not rouse him, despite doing things with her mouth that would have driven any ordinary man to take her on the spot, no matter what his better judgment suggested.

Dark Rain glowered at his broad back. Did Beaverpaw really think he could go home, that his spurned wife might take him back and he could live just exactly as he had before he’d met Dark Rain? What a fool. Even if that squat toad of a wife did take him back, nothing would be the same. The clan would remind him of his adultery tens of tens of times a day, in a look, a twist of the mouth, just someone folding his arms at the wrong moment. And worse. His children would plague him with questions. “Father, where were you?” “Why did you go away?” “Did you stop loving us?” “Did you really leave us for that repulsive Outcast woman?” “How could you do that, Father?” “We love you so much. We needed you.”

And when the children grew old enough to truly understand Beaverpaw’s crime, they would look at him with different eyes, suspicious, filled with scorn. It would kill his souls—but he did not see that. Not now. Not with the possibility of going home so new.

Dark Rain had seen it all before. If she’d wished to keep him, she would have expended the effort to point these things out—but Beaverpaw had lost his gleam. As most men did. The creature that ran in front of her, his muscular shoulders shining with sweat, counted for no more now than a broken shell necklace. Not only that, he had given her every precious item he owned, except his weapons, and not even she could convince a true warrior to relinquish those. Beaverpaw’s usefulness had run out.

Dark Rain needed a new lover. Another Trader would be perfect, one with many fine possessions, and preferably more pleasant to look at than this tadpole-faced War Leader. With all the gambling that would be going on at Standing Hollow Horn, she could surely find someone. Just thinking about the hunt thrilled her. No man could resist once she had—

Beaverpaw crouched down in the trail, and Dark Rain came to a halt abruptly. He waved her back with his hand, his eyes narrowing to slits, then nocked a dart in his atlatl and lifted it into throwing position.