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People of the Masks(152)

By:W. Michael Gear


A high-pitched animal scream escaped Rumbler’s throat.

Dust’s souls froze. She reached for him, to hold him, but Rumbler tore free, and dashed away, racing back down the beach with his fox-fur cape flying around his legs.

“Wren?” he cried. “Wren!”

“Oh, Sparrow!” Dust lunged to her feet. “Hurry! Catch him!”

Sparrow ran, his long legs eating at the distance, calling, “Rumbler? Rumbler, wait!”

When Sparrow caught up with him, he grabbed Rumbler’s hood, and pulled him backward. Rumbler stumbled, shrieking, “No! No!” Sparrow lifted Rumbler, kicking, into his arms.

“Rumbler, listen. Listen to me!” Sparrow shouted.

Rumbler punched Sparrow with his wounded hands, sobbing, “She needs me! Wren needs me, Grandfather!”

“Shh! Shh.” Sparrow hugged him tightly, and found himself saying something he’d never intended to. “We’re going to help Wren. All right? We’re going to help her. We just have to go to Sleeping Mist Village first. We need their warriors, Rumbler. The Walksalong war party is probably on our trail this instant. The three of us can’t fight a whole war party by ourselves. If we tried, we’d all be killed. Then who would save Wren?”

Rumbler stopped fighting, but he sobbed, “So … the war party will bring Wren to us?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Grandfather?” His mouth trembled. “Make them come fast. Her echoes … Wren’s echoes, they’re getting harder to hear. We have to make them hurry.”

Sparrow nodded, said, “We will, Rumbler,” and carried the boy up the beach toward Dust Moon. She stood by the fire with her gray hair blowing in the wind.

When he reached the camp, Sparrow set Rumbler on the ground, and gave Dust an ironic smile. “We’re going to Sleeping Mist Village.”

Dust exhaled in relief. “Good. How did you—”

“I told Rumbler we would go to Sleeping Mist and get help. Then we would save Wren.”

Dust looked down at Rumbler’s tearful face and understanding dawned. She murmured, “Yes. Of course we will.”

Dust slipped on her pack and kicked sand over the fire, then said, “Let’s go.”

As they headed north, Rumbler trotted up between them and tucked his hands into their palms. Sparrow’s fingers closed around that tiny hand. A heartrending expression creased Dust’s face.

They walked forward together.

But toward what, the Spirits alone knew.





Thirty-Two



Sparrow and Dust Moon left the sandy fringe of the lake, and took the trail up the low rise toward Sleeping Mist Village. The three women working in the plaza hadn’t seen them yet. Early afternoon sunlight streamed through the sour gum and dogwood trees, throwing a patchwork of light over the conical bark-covered lodges. Smoke curled from the roofs. The day had warmed and melted most of the snow. Sparrow counted seven lodges in the clearing, but he could see the dark circles where four more had stood. The burned debris had been hauled away, but the earth held their shadows.

“I wonder how many died,” Sparrow said to Dust, who walked beside him, her long gray braid hanging down the front of her cape. Rumbler trailed a few paces behind.

“We heard that Jumping Badger slaughtered half the people.”

“Then there should be more than three people in the plaza on a warm day like today.”

Dust gave him a look. “Yes. On a warm day like today there should be fifteen or twenty people in the plaza, milling corn, knapping new arrow points, scraping hides from recently killed animals. Where do you think they are?”

Sparrow shrugged uneasily.

They crested the low rise, and five dogs raced from the village, barking and snarling. Sparrow unslung his bow and waved it at them to keep them back, then he looked at the virtually empty plaza again. He pulled an arrow from his quiver and nocked it.

Dust turned around. “Hurry, Rumbler. Let me hold your hand.”

The little boy ran forward in his stiff swaggering gait, his hand out, and Dust grasped it.

Rumbler whispered, “Is something bad happening, Grandmother?”

“I don’t think so, but we aren’t going to take chances.”

Rumbler had removed his cape, and tied it around the waist of his long pale blue shirt. The shell beads across the chest shimmered. “I have cousins here,” Rumbler reminded her.

“Yes, I know,” Dust whispered. “But I want you to stay close to me anyway.”

“Yes, Grandmother.”

The dogs followed them into the plaza, barking and wagging their tails.

One of the women, pudgy and young, perhaps twenty winters, warily rose to her feet. Her black hair had been cut short in mourning. She called, “Who comes?”