People of the Longhouse(12)

They stood in silence, both studying the lay of the land, searching for hidden foes. He led the way, warily heading toward the sound.

In another thirty paces, they walked into a small clearing fringed by gigantic oaks. Gonda’s eyes narrowed. Someone had been here, recently. The deep autumn leaves that blanketed the grass had been scooped into odd shapes, as though many people had shoved them aside to sit down, perhaps to build fires.

“What is this?” Koracoo whispered.

He shook his head uncertainly.

Sunset painted the forest, glittering from the tallest pines like a fine paint made of ground amber. A luminous wall of Cloud People crowded the sky to the north.

“Smell anything?” he asked.

Koracoo flared her nostrils and shook her head. “No.”

Gonda nodded. There was no smell of smoke. If someone had camped here, he would have built a fire to warm himself and cook his food. As warriors, they’d raided and burned enough villages to know how long it took for the stench to fade.

A tingle climbed Gonda’s spine. None of this made sense. He needed a few moments to think, and motioned for Koracoo to take cover. She stepped behind a tree trunk two paces away.

Gonda hid behind one of the many lichen-covered boulders that thrust up across the mountains.

Sunset had just begun to purple the western horizon, and the eagle shadows that played in the trees had a vaguely lavender hue. Otherwise, the only movement was the faint breeze through the branches.

The sound … leaves moving.

His gut knotted.

Blessed gods, what is that?

Anxious, almost to the point of carelessness, Gonda clenched his bow so hard his fingertips went white. He forced himself to think. They’d been tracking the man all day and had seen none of the refuse that inevitably marked the trails of warriors. It was as though the man had simply grabbed the dead girl and headed toward the shell midden without stopping. Why would anyone do that? Had he known the girl? A relative would have taken her home and buried her properly, so that her afterlife soul could find its way to the Land of the Dead. Or … had he been afraid to take her home? Would his village have punished him?

Koracoo hissed to get his attention and used her nocked arrow to point at something beneath a fallen log.

His gaze searched the area until he saw what appeared to be part of a child’s toy, a cornhusk doll.

“Koracoo, you circle north; I’ll veer south.”

She nodded and slipped into the forest shadows.

Gonda carefully stepped off the trail and started moving through the deep leaves. His moccasins crackled softly. Every two steps he halted to listen. As Cloud People drifted across the face of Elder Brother Sun, shadows darkened the trees, then vanished as the amber gleam again flooded the forest.

He swerved around a small outcrop of granite boulders … heard again a whisper of leaves moving … and forced himself to look at the clearing. To see. If there was someone out there, he should be able to make out an odd color, or shape, perhaps a glimpse of clothing. He saw nothing but strange dips and humps in the leafbed.

Across the meadow, Koracoo’s shadow slipped through the trees, cautiously approaching the clearing from the north.

Gonda let his gaze drift around the forest. Were there warriors hiding out there, just waiting for someone, anyone, to come to the sound? Was this a clever trap?

Koracoo signaled for him to stop.

He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand while he waited. He hadn’t heard whatever it was that had spooked her.

Koracoo took two more steps through the trees on the north end of the clearing. Then she said, “Gonda? Come here. This may be where the girl died.”

Gonda trotted to meet her. For a time, they did not speak; they just looked at the blood that soaked the oak trunk.

“How old do you think that blood is?”

Koracoo slung her bow and knelt. “Two days. Three, maybe. You can see where the mice have been chewing at the soaked bark.”

She began slowly pulling away the leaves at the base of the tree. When she neared the ground level, the leaves were stuck together with old blood. She gently lifted the clumps and set them aside, looking for more.

“A sandal track.” She tapped it with her finger.

Gonda moved forward and bent to examine it. “A big man. Heavy. Or perhaps he’d already lifted the girl into his arms when this track was made.”

“Yes.” Koracoo’s dark brows pinched over her small nose. She scowled at the track for several moments. “Don’t you think it’s odd that he’s wearing sandals? It’s late autumn. He should be wearing moccasins.”

“Maybe he’s an idiot?”

“Or maybe sandals are all he has, but …”

Koracoo tilted her head, and Gonda saw that she was listening again—listening as though their lives depended upon it. He held his breath.