People of the Longhouse(15)

The wealth being won and lost stuns me, and I wonder if they are not wagering on more than tangles of necklaces and stone tools.

My eyes move to where the old woman sits alone in the middle of the clearing. Her head is back. She stares up at a flock of crows drifting on the wind currents above her. Her breath frosts as she speaks to the birds and makes strange signs in the air with a black feather. Is Gannajero performing some evil magical ritual? Or just praying for the crows to bring her team good luck?

When we made camp two hands of time ago, she pulled aside the three Flint girls and forced them to put on beautiful doeskin dresses. Then she carefully combed and braided their hair. The elaborate red-and-yellow porcupine quillwork on their dresses flashes when they move. The girls kneel together twenty paces from the game, whispering.

I am the only Yellowtail child awake. I roll to my back and study the bare oak branches. The farther east we go, the fewer leaves there are, and the colder the nights become.

I am feverish and sick to my stomach all the time. I think it’s the baby. Her cries are often so loud I cannot hear anything else. I swear her soul is inside me. I have glimpsed it, flitting behind my eyes like blue falling stars.

Her soul is flying. I feel it. It is the flight of the alone to the Alone.

At the game, Gannajero’s men leap to their feet and shake their fists. Kotin has lost, and passes the bowl to the next team.

The baby shrieks inside me. I glance around, terrified.

“Stop crying!” I whisper. “Please, stop crying.”

I must have spoken too loudly. The other boy, who sleeps to my right, rolls over and stares at me. His brow furrows. He appears to be my age: eleven or twelve summers. He has a starved face—all the bones stick out—and hollow brown eyes. His flat nose and big ears make him resemble a bat. He is lucky, for he wears a heavy moosehide cape with the fur turned inside for warmth.

I whisper, “What’s your name?”

I just barely hear him say, “Hehaka.”

“I am Odion.”

Wrass wakes and looks at us, then glances around to make sure our guards are both paying attention to the game before he crawls over to me. His beaked nose glows orange in the firelight. Dirty black hair frames his narrow face. His mouth is moving. He’s trying to tell me something.

“I can’t hear you, Wrass.” The baby’s cries drown out his words.

He crawls closer, cups a hand to my ear, and I feel his warm breath, but I hear nothing.

“I’m sorry, Wrass. I can’t hear right now.”

Hehaka mouths, What’s wrong with him?

Wrass pushes back slightly, blinks at me, and looks around again, studying the guards. Both men are smiling at the game.

Wrass turns my head to look at my right ear, then my left, and he frowns. Very slowly, his mouth forms the words, We … then a word I don’t understand … run.

I shake my head. “We can’t run! There are too many of them. They will just hunt us down and kill us, like they did Agres.”

Wrass clenches his jaw. He looks desperate. He tries again, very slowly. We … need … plan.

Plan. Not run. We need a plan.

I prop myself up on one elbow and whisper, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Wrass stretches out beside me in the grass with his back to Hehaka. He clearly doesn’t trust him. Hehaka gets the message and crawls away. Wrass waits until he’s gone before he says, “ … don’t like him. He … Gannajero.”

He came with Gannajero?

I can tell Wrass is terrified, but courage shines behind the terror. Faintly, I hear him say, “We … can’t … too long, or we won’t … find … way home.”

I try to make myself fill in the words I can’t hear: We can’t wait too long, or we won’t be able to find our way home?

I nod. “We should try to—”

Wrass suddenly jerks to look at the fire, and I see the men rising. The winners slap each other on the backs. The losers scowl and walk away.

Out in the clearing, Gannajero rises. Her hunched back makes her resemble a buffalo walking on its hind legs. She goes over to the three girls, and as she leans over them, her greasy twists of graying hair sway in their faces. She uses the black feather to stab at their chests. The girls nod.

The winning team of five men circle the girls like a pack of starving wolves, and smile. One of the girls is shaking badly.

The team leader—a skinny man wearing a black shirt—hands over the heavy bag of his winnings. Gannajero takes it, gestures to the girls, and walks away to examine her payment.

The three Flint girls rise as though they’ve been told to and huddle together.

One of the girls starts crying when she is dragged from the group. The man does not even try to hide his brutality. He slaps the girl, forces her to walk to a tree, and undress. When she is standing naked in the firelight, he shoves her against the trunk. He pulls up his warshirt, spits on his hard penis, and thrusts himself inside her. She screams. Her mouth is wide, her pretty face twisted in shock. She tries to fight, and two warriors grab her arms and pin them. The last two men pick out their own girls.