“You think I can’t hear you,” Jumping Badger whispered, his nose less than a handbreadth from the rotting head. He knelt, his hands braced on the walls on either side of the head, staring into the decaying eye sockets. “But I can. Everything you say to the dwarf child echoes in my head a hundred times. I know exactly what you’re planning. You and that accursed Briar.”
Old Bogbean, who lay to Cornhusk’s left, tossed to her side and covered her head with her blankets. Several other people muttered.
Jumping Badger did not seem to notice. His gaze stayed locked with Lamedeer’s.
“Don’t try it!” Jumping Badger hissed. “I will find him. Do you hear me? He’ll never be able to hide!”
One elderly man rose, picked up his hides, and walked halfway down the longhouse before spreading them out again. In the reddish glow of the coals, Cornhusk could see the old man shake his head as he lay down.
“Don’t you laugh at me! Don’t you laugh!”
A little boy burst into tears, crying, “Mother? Mother, hold me!”
“Shh. Shh, it’s all right,” the mother said and gathered the boy in her arms.
Bogbean threw back her blankets, sat up, and blurted, “Jumping Badger!” Her fat face had a crimson sheen. “You are frightening the children. Go to sleep!”
Jumping Badger turned and his stony gaze darted over his sleepless relatives. Slowly, as if reluctant to, he sank to his bedding again, and pulled a black-and-white striped blanket over his body.
Sighs of relief eddied through the longhouse. A few people muttered, then silence fell.
Cornhusk studied Jumping Badger through one eye, waiting to see if the crazy War Leader had truly ended his heated debate with the severed head. When he heard no more, Cornhusk closed his eyes, and exhaled hard.
Ever since Jumping Badger had told him he planned to kill Silver Sparrow and Dust Moon, Cornhusk hadn’t been sleeping well. He ought to warn them. He knew that. He just hadn’t figured out how to save their lives and his own at the same time. Jumping Badger had been watching Cornhusk like a bobcat eying a mouse. He couldn’t go into the forest to relieve himself without seeing Jumping Badger’s eyes glinting through the weave of branches. The man obviously feared that Cornhusk’s conscience might foil his plans.
It posed a strange dilemma for Cornhusk. Until the past few nights, he’d prided himself on not having a conscience. He was a practical man, used to bending with the prevailing wind, and making few, if any, moral judgments about people or their curious customs. Above all, he made it a rule never to interfere with warriors or murderers. Oh, he spread rumors now and then, to enliven conversation, but nothing that might get him killed.
Until now.
He’d willingly carried Jumping Badger’s message to Earth Thunderer Village. He’d convinced Dust Moon that if she and Silver Sparrow came to Walksalong Village, she could save the False Face Child. So, if Jumping Badger killed them and sold the child to the Flicker Clans for their bizarre rituals, Cornhusk could expect a greatly shortened life span. Dust Moon’s daughter, Planter, had heard the whole story. She would certainly hire assassins to hunt Cornhusk down. He would flee, of course, but someday the story would reach the ears of someone who’d cared for Silver Sparrow or Dust Moon, and Cornhusk would be wakened in the night by the sound of his own throat being slit.
The problem nagged at Cornhusk. He turned it in his mind, trying to see it from different angles. He couldn’t decide which he preferred, to be killed by Dust Moon’s relatives, or to take his chances that Jumping Badger, being a warrior, might die before he had the opportunity to carry out his threats.
He had one other option. He could head west as fast as his well-muscled legs would carry him, and try to avoid all the possible consequences of his foolish actions.
But he didn’t particularly like that one. Trading in this country had proven not only pleasant, but extremely lucrative. He didn’t wish to leave. He had a stash of riches that …
The whisper of moccasins brought Cornhusk fully awake. He shifted in his warm cocoon of hides, and raised himself on an elbow to hear better. Long hair fell down his naked back. Two people approached the longhouse, their steps placed with great care, but faintly crunching the snow outside. Strange, the dogs hadn’t made a sound.
He turned to survey the hundred-hand length of the longhouse. Dim light trickled through the four smoke holes in the roof and picked out the hide-wrapped bodies of the inhabitants. Old man Buckheel continued to snore like a mad cougar, and Little Twine, his four-winters-old granddaughter, fidgeted in her sleep. She lay to Jumping Badger’s left, one arm over her eyes, her fingers opening and closing as though reaching out for someone. She had been whimpering earlier, the sound barely audible.