When Sindak and Towa saw the flames, they trotted across the clearing to dump their armloads of wood beside the fire.
“I could eat an entire buffalo,” Towa said, and crouched before the fire. “What are we having?”
“Jerky and watery cornmeal gruel with dried onions,” Koracoo said.
“Good enough.” Towa smiled, trying to be pleasant. “While we were out in the trees, I picked up a good cobble for the boiling bag.”
He pulled a rounded stone the size of his fist from his pack and set it at the edge of the flames; then he helpfully began laying twigs over it. As the wood burned, it would heat the rock.
Sindak made no attempt to help. He knelt and glanced uneasily at Gonda and Koracoo. Oddly, that made Gonda feel better. Getting too friendly too fast was the dead giveaway of an assassin.
As the tiny blaze grew to a fire, Koracoo lifted the sack filled with dried onions and poured some into the boiling bag. The sweet fragrance of onions rose.
In anticipation, Towa pulled his wooden cup from his belt pouch and nervously turned it in his hands while he waited.
Sindak’s nostrils flared at the aroma. To Towa, he said, “My wife used to make jerky and cornmeal gruel.”
Towa looked at him askance. “Puksu cooked?”
“Not often, but occasionally, when she wasn’t over at her mother’s place in the longhouse cursing me.”
“Was it good?”
“Her cursing?”
“The gruel.”
“Oh. Sure. Unless she’d poisoned it. I don’t think it’s healthy for a wife to know so many Spirit plants. The temptation is too strong.”
“As I recall, the study of Spirit plants was something she took up after she married you.”
Sindak scratched beneath his chin. “She told me she wanted to become a Healer. I believed her.”
Towa chuckled and shook his head.
Gonda sat quietly for several moments before he said, “I hope you two are a whole lot smarter than you look or sound.”
The two youths blinked, and Koracoo glared at Gonda with lethal intent.
“Uh … ,” Gonda said with a shrug. “That was a joke.”
“Oh. Ha.” Towa smiled politely.
Sindak looked like he wanted to get his hands around Gonda’s throat.
Gonda placed more branches on the flames and glanced around the clearing. Fire shadows danced through the massive oak limbs. He watched them for a while; then his gaze returned to Sindak, and he found the youth staring at Koracoo’s breasts as she bent to stir the gruel. The neck of her cape had fallen open, revealing a glimpse of her chest. Generally, the youth had dark beady eyes that shifted as though rolling around loose in their sockets, but not now. He’d fixed unblinking on Koracoo’s breasts like a starving wolf about to leap upon an unsuspecting rabbit.
“Sindak,” Gonda said.
He turned. “What?”
“Life is an uncertain thing. You might want to consider that.”
Sindak’s brows lifted. A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth; then he nodded and looked away. He had understood perfectly, but Koracoo did not. She glanced between Gonda and Sindak with a hostile expression on her face.
Gonda explained, “Nothing to worry about. I’m befriending him.” He casually watched the sparks flit upward into the night sky. Only the brightest campfires of the dead shone in the wash of moonlight.
“War Chief?” Towa said. “The cobble is probably hot enough. Should I drop it into the boiling bag?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Gonda evaded Koracoo’s eyes. She still had her evil gaze squarely on him.
Towa rose, pulled two branches from the woodpile, and used them to pick up the hot rock. As he walked around the circle, he tripped, almost dropped the rock down Sindak’s collar, and continued to the bag. When he dropped the cobble into the water, an explosion of steam gushed up, and the rich scent of venison filled the air.
They sat in silence for another one hundred heartbeats; then Koracoo said, “Gonda, please fill everyone’s cup. Starting with mine.” She pulled her cup from her pack and handed it to him.
Gonda dipped it full and handed it back.
“I’m taking first watch.” She rose, holding her cup in both hands. “Towa, I’ll wake you in two hands of time. You’ll take the last watch.”
“Yes, War Chief.”
Koracoo walked out into the darkness and vanished amid the trees.
As soon as she was gone, desperation returned to taunt Gonda. He ordered, “Towa, give me your cup.”
Towa handed it over, and Gonda returned it full. When Sindak started to extend his cup, Gonda said, “This is awkward, isn’t it? I mean, when I was a child if anyone had told me I’d be sitting around a war camp joking with two Hills warriors, I’d have kicked him in the groin for being an imbecile. But here I am.” He filled Sindak’s cup and handed it to him.