A heartbeat later, Wrass lets out an enraged cry, and I jerk around. Gannajero has grabbed his left hand. “Hold him!” she orders our guards.
Ugly and Worm swoop down, pin Wrass to the ground, and hold him as Gannajero drags a hafted quartzite blade from her belt. It glints.
“I’m going to teach you a fine lesson, boy,” she says. “You think that someday you will kill one of my men and escape? Watch carefully.”
She slams his hand to the frozen ground and saws off the top of his little finger, neatly severing it at the joint. Wrass kicks and writhes, twisting to get away while he screams.
Gannajero picks up the bloody tip of his finger and cradles it in both hands as though it’s a great prize. “Yes, yes, watch now.”
The guards release Wrass, who sits up, whimpering, and stanches the flow of the blood with his cape.
“Wrass!” I madly crawl over to him and press my hands atop his, trying to place enough pressure on the wound to congeal the blood.
Wrass seems to be in shock. He can’t take his eyes from Gannajero as she slowly, deliberately, bird-walks back across the clearing to where her two men hold the Flint girls.
Crazy-Eyes says, “I am not Hodigo, old woman. That doesn’t scare me. I have cut a thousand men apart!”
The wind must have caught the coals just right. They flare suddenly, and firelight coats Gannajero’s face like a thick amber resin, catching in a searing line along her extended arm. “You’re really not afraid?” she asks mildly.
“Of course not!”
Gannajero steps closer, tempting him to run. He stands his ground and grips the Flint girl’s arm tighter. He can’t run now. The eyes of every man in camp are upon him.
Gannajero smiles as she walks right up to him, then uses the bloody fingertip to paint a zigzagging Spirit line down his sleeve. He flinches, but does not flee. “Oh, yes, look.” She turns to his friends and nods. “He is brave.”
He throws out his chest and glances at his partner, who holds the other Flint girl. “See? I told you. She’s just an ugly old woman.”
Gannajero smiles and reaches into her belt pouch. When she pulls out a hollow eagle-bone sucking tube, the man goes rigid. He starts to back away, dragging the girl with him.
Before he can get too far, she orders, “Stop.”
As though he’s been commanded by his chief, he does it. The Flint girl fights harder—she’s kicking his legs and butting her head into his side—but he barely seems to notice. He stares at the sucking tube and swallows hard. As Gannajero walks closer, he says, “Wait.”
She stops and cocks her head back and forth in that eerie birdlike manner. “Yes.”
“If I let you suck out my afterlife soul, can I have my copper breastplate back?”
Gannajero seems to be considering it. Finally, she nods.
The man grits his teeth and extends his arm. “All right, but hurry. I have plans.”
Gannajero slowly tiptoes forward, rubs the fingertip over the tube, consecrating it, then places the tube against his exposed wrist and sucks. Then she suddenly leaps backward.
He staggers and blinks, as though dazed by the experience.
His friend says, “Dinyoteh? Are you all right?”
“Of course, I—I am.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Don’t be foolish. I don’t feel any different at all. If she thinks she has my soul, that’s fine. I know she doesn’t. Let her suck yours out, too, so we can go.”
His friend pales. “But I don’t—”
“I’m telling you, Sondakwa, it’s all nonsense. Do you really think this ugly old woman can steal souls?”
His friend hesitantly extends his arm, and Gannajero edges forward, places her tube against his flesh, and sucks out his soul.
When she’s finished, she pulls a small pot from her belt pouch, removes the wooden stopper, and blows their souls into it. Then she tucks Wrass’ fingertip into the pot and stuffs the stopper back in. “All right,” she says with a flick of her hand. “Take the girls and go.”
Crazy Eyes, Dinyoteh, grabs his breastplate, and he and his friend drag the two Flint girls away and disappear in the forest. I can hear the girls’ screams for a long time.
Wrass is rocking back and forth, holding his bloody hand.
Chipmunk crawls over and says, “Wrass, let me look at it?”
Shaking, he pulls the finger from his wadded cape and extends it. It’s still bleeding badly.
Tutelo’s eyes go wide.
Chipmunk scrutinizes it and says, “It’s a clean cut. We just need to keep the evil Spirits from infecting it. As we walk, I’ll find a bear oak, shave one of the old knots, and brew you a tea. It will help.”