People of the Longhouse(11)

Koracoo straightened. She had an oval face with full lips and a small narrow nose. “What point?”

“That she was filth? Or refuse? Perhaps her killer hated her.”

Koracoo thoughtfully gazed out at the Forks River. “Or perhaps he loved her. The view from up here is beautiful. I can see halfway across the Hills People country.” She studied the body again and softly said, “All we know with fair certainty is that she was carried up here by one of her own people.”

Gonda used the toe of his moccasin to smooth out a ridge of shells. “Should we keep following this trail? Or go back and start over at Yellowtail Village?”

Koracoo tensed. “This is still the best trail we’ve found. The only trail. I say we follow it wherever it leads.”

He exhaled a breath and nodded. “I agree. Which direction should we go? Do we follow him to the west? Or do we backtrack him to the east and hope we find the place the girl was killed? If we find him, he may be able to answer all of our questions.”

“If he chooses to, which I doubt.”

“There are ways to ‘encourage’ his cooperation.”

Koracoo shook her head. “That will take even more time and may be fruitless.”

Gonda flapped his arms against his sides. “Then I say we backtrack him. If we can find where the girl was killed, it may answer just as many of our questions.”

Koracoo didn’t respond, and he knew what she must be thinking. At this very moment their clan elders would be salvaging what they could from the charred remains of Yellowtail Village, burying the dead, and trying to decide what to take with them. Though the elders had sanctioned their search for the missing children, they expected Koracoo and Gonda to be home soon, to help defend the survivors as they marched to Bur Oak Village, a Standing Stone village five days away.

“What do you think we should do?” he asked. “We haven’t much time.”

Her gaze drifted over the crimson-hued forest before she said, “We backtrack him. If the trail goes cold, or it becomes clear it has nothing to do with our lost children, we will go home.”

“Agreed.”

Koracoo headed down the midden trail, and Gonda turned to look at the False Face pendant. He walked over, picked it up, and tucked it into his belt pouch.

As he trotted to catch up with Koracoo, melting ice began to drip out of the trees and shower the forest floor. Gonda flipped up the hood of his buckskin cape and shivered.

The morning was warming up, releasing the brittle scents of autumn, and he wanted to enjoy it for as long as he could. He had known Koracoo his entire life. While they could not track in the darkness, for the next few days there would be no real rest. From dawn until dusk, they would be searching the ground and brush. They would eat and drink on the run. At night, they would take turns sleeping. One of them would always be standing guard.

The faces of Tutelo and Odion smiled at him from his memories, and he had to fight back the cry that rose in his throat.

Deep inside him, a voice kept repeating, My fault. All my fault.

He focused his eyes on Koracoo’s back and tried to think only of her.





Five

Gonda had not had a sip of water all day. Since dawn he had been moving, walking up and down the twisting mountain trails, searching for any sign that a man carrying a girl had passed this way. Now, in late afternoon, he was desperately thirsty. But it did not matter. Off and on all day, they had found sign: a broken branch along the trail, a fragment of white doehide caught on brush, partial tracks, drag marks. This was the trail of the man who had carried the girl to the midden. The problem was that they still did not know if this trail had anything to do with the missing Yellowtail Village children. For all they knew, they could be wasting their time while Odion, Tutelo, and Wrass were being sold from one Trader to another. It would not be long until the children’s trail went stone cold.

Gonda studied the trees. The damp chestnut limbs stood starkly against the sunlight. Here and there fallen nuts dotted the ground. He reached down, picked up several, and tucked them into his belt pouch, for later when …

A strange sound whispered through the forest.

Almost … eerie. He heard Koracoo coming up the trail and held up a hand to stop her. She went deathly silent, listening, as he was.

The sound came again. Leaves rustled, but not with the wind.

Gonda pulled an arrow from the quiver on his back and nocked it in his bow; then he used it to point in the direction of the sound.

A soft hiss told Gonda that Koracoo, too, had nocked an arrow in her bow. After another five heartbeats, Koracoo eased up beside him. Her dark eyes were intent, focused on the source of the sound in the forest ahead.