People of the Masks(145)

Nausea clawed at her stomach.

Jumping Badger thrust the staff at Buckeye, who stood beside him, saying, “Hold this until I’m finished.”

Buckeye took the staff and held it a distance, his head pulled back, as if to avoid the reek. Three hands taller, and twice as wide as Jumping Badger, Buckeye dwarfed the war leader. He had plaited his black hair into two short braids.

“Perhaps I could plant the staff in the snow,” Buckeye suggested. The numerous scars on his round face twitched.

Jumping Badger replied, “You will hold it, as I ordered you to.”

“Yes, War Leader,” Buckeye said, but he grimaced.

The other warriors cast uncomfortable glances at Buckeye, as if grateful he’d gotten the duty instead of them.

Jumping Badger crouched before Wren, and smiled coldly. “Sit up, cousin.”

Wren braced her bound hands on the ground, and tried to sit up, but her shaking arms wouldn’t hold her. She struggled for a time longer, then slumped to the snow, trembling.

Jumping Badger gripped Wren by the shoulders, and pushed her back against the oak trunk. Her head thumped hard.

But she didn’t make a sound. She just blinked at him.

Buckeye glanced disapprovingly at Jumping Badger, and his jaw locked.

The other warriors, Rides-the-Bear and Shield Maker, grinned. Though they were cousins, they looked like twins. Both had ugly triangular faces, with thin noses, and missing teeth. Rides-the-Bear wore a dirty buckskin cape. Shield Maker had on a bear-hide coat, and a necklace made from the toe bones of a dog.

Wren closed her eyes, longing for Trickster. She moved her bound hands to the right and stroked the chewed strip of rawhide. She tried to imagine him chewing it, his eyes bright, his tail wagging.

“Look at me, cousin.”

Wren opened her eyes.

Jumping Badger stared at her from less than two hands away. Filthy strings of black hair framed his oval face. “Where is the False Face Child?”

Wren shook her head weakly. “Uncle … sold him.”

“I know that. I heard Blue Raven tell his tale of his treachery. Who did he sell the child to?”

“People …” She swallowed hard. Her tongue had swollen, making it hard to talk. “Turtle Nation people. I didn’t … know them.”

“What did they look like?”

Wren did not know what to answer. Her uncle hadn’t told her what to say. Could it hurt to tell the truth? “The man … had seen about thirty winters. He had some gray in his black hair. The woman … she was younger. Maybe … eighteen. She had deep black hair.”

Buckeye said, “She just described half of the Bear Nation. What good does this—”

“Yes,” Elk Ivory said as she and Acorn stepped into the circle. “What good does this questioning do, War Leader? The girl knows nothing. Blue Raven said so himself.”

Jumping Badger slowly turned to look at her, then Buckeye’s face and Acorn’s. Hatred lit his eyes. “She may know nothing. But I have not determined that yet.”

Jumping Badger smiled at Wren again, then slapped her as hard as he could.

The force of the blow sent Wren tumbling to the left. Her head struck a rock buried beneath the snow, and pain exploded. Blood filled her mouth from where she’d bitten her tongue again. She weakly spat the blood onto the snow.

“Jumping Badger!” Buckeye shouted. “This is madness! She is a child!”

Jumping Badger ignored him. “Sit up, cousin. Sit up!”

Wren dragged herself up, and Jumping Badger hit her again, knocking her back down in the snow. Sickness welled in her throat. Her stomach pumped until nothing more would come up. But the spasms didn’t stop. Her belly heaved, and heaved.

Elk Ivory glared her disgust at Jumping Badger. Acorn and Buckeye turned away, looking ill.

“Sit up, cousin,” Jumping Badger ordered. “Now!”

Wren struggled to do as he said, but her arms had turned to boiled grass stems. She made it halfway up, then collapsed in her own vomit.

Jumping Badger twined his fist in Wren’s hair, and yanked her to a sitting position. “Where is the False Face Child, cousin? You must have heard something. Where did the Turtle Nation people say they were going?” He picked up a rock and tested its weight in his hand.

Light-headed, confused, Wren shook her head. “No, I—I didn’t—”

The blow came out of nowhere.

She heard her skull crack, and found herself sprawling face first into the snow. She couldn’t breathe. Jumping Badger kicked her over onto her back, and shouted at her, but his voice sounded thin and faint, and his face above her kept diving close, then flying away.

“Blessed ancestors!” Elk Ivory shouted. “She is a little girl, Jumping Badger! Leave her be!”