People of the Longhouse(76)

Koracoo said, “Towa found fifty tracks, and two dead men, and I found two clumps of rabbit fur on branches.”

“The dead men probably had nothing to do with our children, and two clumps of rabbit fur? That’s nothing. It could have been left by—”

“I’ve never seen a rabbit jump ten hands high,” she said before he could finish his tirade. “Therefore, I assume they were ripped from a cape. I consider both finds to be significant.”

“So are you saying I’m the only one who found nothing?”

She almost shouted at him, but stopped herself. Images fluttered up again, and she saw Yellowtail Village burning, filled with smoke, dying people laid out like firewood. Her children gone. Her husband missing. It had been the worst she could imagine. Running through the flaming longhouses, searching for survivors, the injured quivering, screams, hands plucking at her cape. And when she thought it could get no worse, she’d found her burned almost beyond recognition.

The eyes of Gonda’s souls must be seeing things equally as bad. Or worse, since he’d fought the battle. Guilt was smothering him—but she could not muster the strength to care.

“Our plan worked, Gonda.” Koracoo shifted to bring up her knees and propped her elbows atop them. Her red cape looked black in the storm light. “Both trails appear to parallel the route Sindak found through the trees.”

“Both trails? They weren’t trails. At best they were—”

“They were trails.” She bent over and drew three short lines in the wet dirt, showing the approximate locations of the sign they’d found. The lines were staggered. Towa’s trail was far west of Sindak’s, and Koracoo’s trail was far east.

“It takes a good imagination to see those three dots as parallel trails, my former wife.”

For just an instant, utter despair tormented her. She longed to yell that it was because of him that she would never again lie down as a mother and wife with her family’s love surrounding her. She would never again be able to look across the longhouse where she was born and gaze into her mother’s wise old eyes, or watch her sister cooking supper. Small things. Things she’d taken for granted now meant everything to her.

When grief began to constrict the back of her throat, she said harshly, “They are trails. If you can’t see it, it’s a good thing you’re not in charge.”

The words must have affected him like lance thrusts to his heart. His mouth trembled. He shouted, “You mean, as I was at Yellowtail Village?”

“Be quiet, you … !” She bit back the bitter words and forced herself to take a deep breath.

Towa was watching them with his eyes squinted, as though considering whether or not to run before Koracoo and Gonda brought the entire Flint nation down upon them.

“We’re just—we are all exhausted and hungry,” Koracoo said. “Let’s not argue.”

Gonda glowered down into his cup. Black hair stuck to his cheeks, making his round face look starkly triangular. His eyes resembled bottomless holes in the world.

Towa cautiously reached out and tapped the ground beneath the dots. “All three trails seem to head in the same direction, almost due east, toward the tribal home of the People of the Dawnland. I agree that it may be coincidence, but—”

“Even if they do all head east, it means nothing! We didn’t find a single track today made by a child. Your ‘trails’ could have been made at different times by different war parties, scouts, or hunters that have absolutely nothing to do with our lost children!” Gonda declared.

Towa drew back his hand and tucked it beneath his cape. “Yes. True.”

On the verge of hopeless fury, Gonda set his cup aside and stared up at the roof.

Calmly, Koracoo said, “We need to focus on the task. If we—”

Feet pounded the trail to the south. Each of them reached for weapons and turned to look at the windblown pines. The trail, which ran with water, shone as though coated with molten silver.

“Move,” Koracoo said as she pulled CorpseEye from her belt, got to her feet, and slipped out into the rain behind the tree. Gonda and Towa vanished into the mist.

As the Cloud People shifted, a distant flicker of starlight glinted from the eyes of a man on the trail and illuminated a pale face. Koracoo studied him. She hadn’t known Sindak long enough to memorize his movements, but she thought it was him. The wind stirred the hem of his cape, swaying it. As he trotted out of the trees and saw the fork in the trail, he grew more careless. His long stride quickened, and his feet splashed in the puddles.

Thirty paces away, Towa stepped from where he’d been hiding in a copse of dogwoods, and Sindak broke into a run. Towa trotted out to meet him. They embraced each other, and a hushed conversation broke out as they headed back toward the ramada.