People of the Longhouse(80)

On the other hand, maybe he’d given it to her so that she could take it to the human False Face in the Sky World and set him on his journey, fulfilling prophecy.

Koracoo knelt at the base of the oak and wondered.





Thirty-two

Dim bluish light filtered through gaps in the ramada’s roof and landed like a finely woven scarf across Gonda’s face. He rolled uncomfortably to his side and struggled to get back to sleep. Sometime during the night, Sindak and Towa had rolled closer to him, pinning him in. He could barely stretch his legs out. Worse, the constant low drone of the wind slashed through his dreams, becoming Tawi’s voice every time he drifted off.

After an eternity of restless shifting, he finally rolled to his hands and knees and crawled over near the tree trunk, where he stretched out in the soft sweet-smelling birch leaves and closed his eyes again.

Sweat drenched his face; it rolled down his neck to soak the collar of his hide shirt. He wiped his forehead on his sleeve and stared blankly at the patchwork patterns of light that decorated his closed eyelids. Weariness clung to his shoulders like a granite cape.

Gonda! Tawi screamed.

“Stop it,” he whispered. “Stop dreaming. You can’t change it.”

Moments later, he felt himself sinking deeper into sleep. His breathing melted into soothing rhythms. The sounds of the wind faded. Darkness smothered the light … .





And the snow fell around him in huge wet flakes. “Where, Tawi?”

“Over there!” Her voice wavered in the icy gusts that lanced Yellowtail Village. Tawi pointed. “Near the giant oaks!”

Tawi looked so much like her sister, Koracoo, that sometimes it stopped Gonda in his tracks. She was beautiful, with an oval face and large dark eyes. Though tonight, fear twisted her features.

Gonda ran along the palisade catwalk, confidently slapping warriors on the shoulders as he passed, trying to get closer to the place Tawi swore she had seen movement in the forest. She ran behind him, her moccasins patting softly on the wood.

Warriors had been coming to him for over a hand of time, whispering that they’d seen movement out in the trees, reporting vast numbers of enemy warriors sneaking through the darkness. But there’d been no attack. No warriors had materialized. Everyone was so terrified, he wasn’t sure who or what to believe.

“When will Koracoo be back?” Tawi asked as they continued along the catwalk. “I thought she was supposed to be here before dusk.”

“She was. I’m worried about her.”

Gonda was more than worried. He was terrified that something had happened. Had she met the full force of the enemy out there? Was she even now fighting a desperate retreating action, trying to get back to the safety of Yellowtail Village? Or worse? He longed to dispatch a war party to go look for her, but she had ordered him to keep all of his three hundred warriors inside the palisade until she returned. It seemed foolish. If he could just send out five or six scouts, they might be able to bring him enough information about the enemy’s strength that he could prepare for the attack he felt sure was coming.

But he would not disobey her orders. He never had.

Besides, she’d dispatched two scouts at dawn. Neither had returned.

Tawi grabbed his shoulder hard. “Right there. See?”

She pointed, and Gonda stared out into the darkness.

“There, Gonda! In the center of the oaks.”

Gonda pulled an arrow from his quiver and nocked his bow while he scanned the trees. “Tawi, all I see is falling snow and branches blowing in the wind. What did you think you saw?”

“It wasn’t just me, Gonda. Four of us were standing here when we saw flashes in the oaks.”

“Flashes?”

“Yes, like chert arrow points winking. Or maybe shell beads.”

Gonda squinted at the oaks again. On occasion, as a limb flailed, the old autumn leaves flashed silver in the starlight that penetrated the clouds.

“There’s something out there, Gonda! I swear it.”

“I believe you, Tawi. I just don’t see it.” He turned and looked out at Yellowtail Village. Three longhouses encircled the plaza, one for each clan: Turtle, Bear, and Wolf. Unlike the Hills or Flint Peoples, they had small longhouses, barely two hundred hands long, but each stood over thirty hands tall. The elm-bark walls looked shaggy in the snow. The plaza was dark and empty, but the firelight seeping between gaps in the longhouse walls cast a pale amber glow over the forty-hand-tall palisade of upright pine poles. There was only way into the village—the massive front gates. He’d stationed fifty warriors inside to guard the gates. The rest of his warriors were on the catwalk, staring out at the darkness. He could hear them hissing to each other, and the fear in their voices made his stomach muscles knot. “Is the village prepared?”