People of the Longhouse(65)

Sindak paused. Finally, he softly said, “I can’t help being attracted to her, Towa. What man wouldn’t be?”

“Me. But I’m smarter than you.”

They walked out of the meadow and into the cold shadows of the boulders beneath the slope. Lichen-covered and streaked with black minerals, many stood four or five times Sindak’s height. Every place that a tree could take root, it had; stunted saplings grew in the crevices and curled around the bases of the rocks. In places the saplings grew so thickly, they formed a dark impenetrable wall.

As Sindak began climbing through the detritus, still following the deer trail, the earthy fragrance of soaked granite and moss encircled him. In many places, the deer had leaped over the rocks that cluttered the slope. Sindak had to work his way around them while keeping his gaze on the ground, searching for evidence that humans had passed this way.

From behind him, Towa called, “This is going to take time. We have to move slowly through this kind of jumble. I wish—”

“Towa?” Sindak’s breath caught. Something sparkled amid the saplings.

“What?” His moccasins grated on stone as he hurried up the slope. “Did you find something?”

Sindak knelt and pushed aside a clump of saplings to reveal the tiny circlet of copper that had lodged in the grass at the base. It was no bigger than a fingernail.

Towa’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t move. I’ll go fetch Koracoo and Gonda.”

While Towa trotted away, calling, “Koracoo? Gonda? Come look at this!” Sindak stared at the copper. It was a small ornament with a hole punched in the top. Among the People of the Hills, children’s capes or moccasins were often sewn with such decorations. But who knew when it had been lost here?

While he waited, Sindak searched the surrounding area. The outcrop was wide enough that ten men could have walked abreast up the rocky slope, but if they had, their feet would have disturbed the sand and gravel, shoving it into distinctive man-made lines. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. But who knew what the rain and melting snow had washed away?

“What is it? What did you find?” Gonda called as he scrambled up the slope, breathing hard. He looked like a man awaiting a sentence of death. His dark eyes had a wild look, and his round face ran with sweat.

Koracoo and Towa were close behind him but taking their time, trying not to disturb anything.

“A copper ornament,” Sindak explained, and shoved aside the saplings again.

Gonda dropped to his knees to study it, then, in a trembling voice, whispered, “Oh,” and grabbed the ornament. He squeezed it tightly in his palm, as though he feared it might vanish at any moment.

Koracoo walked up behind him and saw his shaking fist. “What is it?”

Gonda handed it to her.

As she tipped the ornament to get a better look, the copper flashed in the sunlight. Recognition seemed to dawn slowly. “Gonda,” she whispered. “The night of the attack, was Tutelo wearing—”

“Her tan doehide dress.” Gonda’s eyes sparkled with tears. “Yes.”

Koracoo’s gaze moved from his agonized face to the granite outcrop and the forest of saplings that covered it. Puddles of melted snow filled every hollow. On this windless afternoon, they appeared to be a field of calm, glistening eyes.

“May I have it back?” Gonda extended his hand.

Koracoo seemed confused at first; then she gave him the ornament. He clutched it to his chest.

Koracoo turned to Sindak and Towa. “Spread out. Keep searching. There must be more than this.”

Sindak headed up the slope, picking the path through the saplings that looked the easiest for children to travel. Towa went left, cutting across the outcrop, clearly searching for parallel trails.

When Sindak looked back, he found Gonda still sitting with the copper ornament against his chest, rocking back and forth.

Koracoo was kneeling beside him with a hand on his shoulder, speaking quietly.





Twenty-six

Sonon crouched on the riverbank, surveying the willows where a collection of bones clung in a tangled embrace, still held together by fragments of cloth and sinew.

The river was not quite dark. As the dove-colored veils of evening settled over the land, the water took on a pewter sheen. If he kept his eyes half-closed, the current seemed to move like a phantom serpent, twisting out of its banks and writhing in the air above, keeping the skeletons suspended between Great Grandmother Earth and the Land of the Dead in the Sky World.

The men had been laughing when they’d killed the girls. He’d arrived too late, at the very end, and had watched from the shadows, unable to understand it.

Like them, he had been a warrior. He had suffered wounds, buried loved ones, and been as brave as his own weaknesses had allowed him to be. He knew only too well the hardships of war and the things men did when they thought no one was looking.