People of the River(155)

All around Elkhom, war clubs cracked wetly into skulls, or splintered bones apart. Moans and screams rang out.

His warriors were being slaughtered before his eyes. Only one exit remained open: a small creek bed that led back to the north. "Soapstone! Hurry, this way!"

An arrow slashed by Elkhom's shoulder, and he turned to run, jumping the thick tangles of vines, fighting to close his ears against the wretched screams that rose into the afternoon heat behind him.



Badgertail cautiously worked out the trail that led along the creek. Sweat had laid a fine sheen on his muscular body. Flute, Budworm, and Longtail spread out behind him. They had been heading north when they'd glimpsed the two people but hadn't had a good look at them before they'd lost them. The leader had a talent for obscuring a trail. He had ordered his comrade to circle around on their own tracks, taken them through the creek, then jumped from rock to rock along the bank. But Badgertail had backtracked and spotted the places where their sandals had slipped off the rocks and scuffed the dry ground.

He needed to determine the outcome of this weasel-and-mouse game. If these were Petaga's people and they had recognized Badgertail, they might try to swing around and ambush his party. If they were his own people . . . well, he would find out at last what was happening.

Flute stopped suddenly and knelt down. He waved to Badgertail.

When he knelt by Bute, he frowned. Spots of blood dimpled the earth beside this set of tracks. Wounded. And limping. Look at how he's dragging that left foot.

Badgertail scanned the landscape. Though it might appear basically flat, cycles of erosion had cut knee-deep troughs around the creek and created a maze of possible hiding places. Moreover, clumps of flowering saltbush thrust up thickly through the dry crust of earth. In the distance, the gray bluff stood as a silent witness. Overhead, ravens soared and cawed while they flapped across the infinite expanse of blue.

Badgertail motioned to Flute and the others to fan out in a wide semicircle, then went ahead, his sandals crunching on the desiccated gray soil as his eyes flitted from one drop of blood to the next. The trail led down into a jagged erosion channel, where the warrior had slid a good hundred hands on his stomach, leaving splashes of blood as he went. Every nerve in Badgertail's body hummed as he followed the trail up out of the channel and into a dense growth of cattails so wilted that they crackled against his bare legs.

He took his time, letting Flute, Budworm, and Longtail position themselves around the boundary of the cattails. Gingerly, Badgertail pushed stalks out of his way and inched forward. He had lost the blood trail— but the warrior has to be in here somewhere. What happened to your friend? Did he sacrifice you so he could escape?

Wind rippled through the dried stalks, rattling them before it swept out into the saltbush and formed into a dust devil that whirled into the sky. Badgertail ignored the twisting column spinning across the edges of his vision.

He knelt. More spots of blood. They stuck to his fingertips. Wet. On a day this hot, they'd have dried within moments . . .

Badgertail straightened warily and let his gaze wander the slitted patterns of leaves, searching for any irregularity. The cattails had already started to burst out, weeks early—^a desperate attempt by the plants to cast their seeds before they died.

A single stalk shuddered suddenly. Badgertail didn't move a muscle. The same stalk bent sideways.

Slowly, Badgertail lifted a hand and gestured to the location. Flute and the others began tightening their circle, moving into the cattails with the stealth of Cougar stalking Marmot.

Badgertail took another step and caught movement from his left, down at the creek. So there's your friend.

He ground his teeth. Through the weave of grass at the edge of the creek, he could feel eyes peering out. Powerful. Malignant. The man couldn't have a bow or he would have used it by now.

Badgertail kept glancing at the grass while he moved through the cattails. Leaf blades caught on his breechclout before zipping away to flail back and forth. A percussion symphony resulted as the stalks battered each other.

He took another step-—and spied a brown patch of skin through the dried green. Slowly, he lifted his hand to signal Flute that he had located their quarry. Flute nodded and moved in.

As Badgertail quietly slipped his stolen war club from his belt, a clod of dirt whirred through the air and smacked him in the shoulder. Badgertail whirled. A flock of geese exploded from the creek in a squawking flurry, and Badgertail almost swallowed his tongue.

The lanky old man trudged up from the creek bed, his tattered red sleeves flapping.

"Wanderer!"

Gray hair matted his temples, highlighting the hook of his long nose. "First Woman is so cantankerous," Wanderer remarked. "I can't figure out why she's convinced that you and I have to enter Cahokia together."