People of the Longhouse(99)

Koracoo ordered, “Towa, Sindak, help Gonda get the children to safety. I’m going after Tutelo and the other girl. I’ll meet you at the overlook hill.” She ran past Gonda and her son and lunged onto the trail with her feet flying.

Contrary to orders, Sindak was right behind her, pounding into the trees.





Forty-two

A sudden cold tingling sensation made Gannajero turn away from the man she was negotiating with and stare out at the clearing where Hehaka and the children who were not working should be sleeping. The wind had come up. Branches swayed and glimmered in the firelight. She did not see Tenshu standing guard.

“Ojib? Where’s Tenshu?”

He turned toward the clearing. Ojib was of medium height, but wide across the shoulders, built like a buffalo bull. His nose had been broken one too many times and spread across his flat face like a squashed plum. “Kotin went to check on him. He’s supposed to be guarding the—”

“Go find him.”

“Yes, Lupan.” Ojib broke into a trot just as several men on the western edge of camp rose to their feet and started heading in that direction.

The short, ugly little Flint warrior she’d been negotiating with, Tagohsah, said, “Throw in another five shell gorgets and they are yours.” The sides of his head had been shaved, leaving the characteristic single ridge of hair down the middle of his skull. He’d decorated the roach with white shell beads.

“Five?” Gannajero scoffed. She glared at the roped children, who looked up at her with tear-filled eyes. They were beautiful. Worth a fortune to the men who craved them. “I’ll give you three,” she said.

“Done.” Tagohsah gleefully rubbed his hands together. His anxious gaze flicked to her pack where it rested by her feet.

Gannajero knelt to retrieve the payment. As she pulled out the gorgets and tossed them onto the pile, she saw Kotin. He was walking in from the southern edge of the camp with Waswan, shoving the beaten hawk-faced boy before him. The boy had his jaw clenched. His hands were tied behind him.

Tagohsah chuckled. “It’s a pleasure selling to you, Lupan. You have a good eye for child slaves. These are top quality.” He knelt and began scooping the pile of wealth into his own pack.

Gannajero rose to her feet, and locks of long black hair swung around her wrinkled face.

Ojib had reached the clearing, along with two other men, and shouts rang out. Ojib bent down, as though examining something on the ground, then rose to his feet, looked at her, and ran back. The other two men remained standing over whatever lay upon the ground.

When Ojib arrived, he said, “Tenshu is dead. The children are gone.”

“That’s impossible!” she exclaimed. Rage flooded her veins. She pointed to her pack. “Pick that up; then find Chipmunk Teeth, rope her with the others, and meet me at our camp.”

“Yes, Lupan.”

She tramped across the camp to meet Kotin and Waswan. The hawk-faced boy glared at her as she approached. Kotin flashed broken yellow teeth and called, “We caught him! Are the others back yet?”

“What others?”

Kotin’s grin faded. He’d been with her for moons and could probably tell his life was teetering in the balance. “The Mountain warriors you hired this afternoon. They went after the girls and Hehaka.”

The rage in her body burned like fire. “Hehaka is gone, too? I told you he was the one child that would cost you your life if he ever escaped!”

Kotin threw up his hands and cried, “I’ll find him, Ga—Lupan! I thought he’d already be back. Just give me—”

Her attention shifted to the northern hill that sloped down to the river. Tilted slabs of rock jutted up between the spruces, ashes, and white walnut trees. She hated Dawnland country; it was little more than densely clustered mountain ranges cut by an endless number of rivers, streams, and creeks. It was exhausting to traverse.

She squinted. Something moved there—a glimmer. She scanned the hill carefully. In the sky beyond the hilltop, the campfires of the dead blazed and vanished through the drifting smoke.

Gannajero started to look back at Kotin—but she had seen a glimmer. A cold shiver passed through her when it appeared again.

The blue sparkle moved among the spruces, disappeared, then flashed again farther east, as though walking down toward the dozens of canoes bunched at the river landing.

“Kotin? Do you see that?” She pointed.

“See what?”

“On the hilltop, you fool. Look!”

The sparkle flashed again in the branches of a mountain ash tree. “There! See?”

Kotin shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t see anything.”