Around him, the forest was waking, birds chirping, squirrels chattering. He could hear the breeze whispering in the trees overhead. The morning looked gray and cold, though the sun was casting its light through the high lacework of branches.
He stood, relieved himself, and scratched at the bug bites that had raised welts on his skin. His urine steamed as it spattered on the leaf mat. Dropping his shirt, he studied his hands, crisscrossed now with red scratches; they were mud-caked from where he’d floundered through streams. His feet, clad in sandals, were black and swollen. What had once been a clean brown hunting shirt had been turned into a pattern of smudges, mud spatters, and holes where thorns had ripped the fabric. He’d watched his mother weave the material. She’d spent a fortune—two sacks of corn—for the silky hemp fibers. Now the garment looked like something the Chikosi had thrown away.
When Paunch had asked him to make this trip, he’d dressed his best, determined to make a good impression on the Chahta. Now, when he arrived, if he arrived, he’d look like an escaped slave.
Hugging his arms to warm himself, he listened to his belly growl angrily. The last of the food he’d packed—enough for three days—had been breakfast two mornings past. Fallen nuts, dried rosehips, and withered plums had made for poor trail fare. How could things have gone so wrong? He stared around at the trees, thankful for once that he knew where east was.
“Stay off the main trails,” Paunch had told him. “You don’t want to run smack into Smoke Shield’s war party. But if that should happen, you tell him you’re lost. Do you understand?”
He’d stayed off the trails, all right. Then, somehow, in the rain, clouds covering the sky, he’d gotten turned around. Following a creek down from the ridges, he’d found himself right back on the Black Warrior River. Retracing his path, he’d become confused among the interlacing valleys.
“I’m a farmer, not a hunter,” he muttered under his breath just one more time. But the sun came up in the east. White Arrow Town was west. For the moment, his direction was clear. He worked his mouth, anxious for a drink of water. Five days! Who knew how long it would take Smoke Shield’s war party to reach White Arrow Town?
“Got to hurry,” he muttered. “If I don’t get to White Arrow Town, Smoke Shield will have the place turned to ash before I get there.”
He made ten paces before a warrior stepped out from behind a tree. In fluent Albaamaha, he asked, “But what will you do if Smoke Shield has already burned it?”
Crabapple turned to run. He made it five whole paces back the way he’d come before a war club smacked him in the spine. He felt the blinding pain; then his lower body went limp, tumbling him facefirst into the leaf mat.
For the moment, he could only gasp, his legs tingling. He blinked at the leaves, so close to his face. Then the warrior leaned into his field of vision, asking, “So, who are you? And why would you want to get to White Arrow Town before Smoke Shield burned it?”
“Now,” another voice—this one Chikosi—stated, “there is a good question.”
“I’m a farmer,” Crabapple gasped, rolling painfully onto his side. “I got lost.” He looked up, and his souls froze. Coming through the trees was a large party of warriors. He knew them for Chikosi by the white swans’ feathers they had tied to their arms and run through their hair. All carried weapons, while the grisly pelts hanging from their belts were easily recognizable as scalps. Behind them, flanked on both sides, came a line of captives in single file, their arms bound; a rope ran from neck to neck, looped about each.
“We don’t have time to dally,” Smoke Shield said, staring down at him with a terrible interest. “Bring him.”
The warrior who’d captured him dragged him to his feet. Crabapple wobbled, but managed to keep from falling.
The warrior pushed him to the rear of the line, saying, “You’re going to join the rest. If you fall, you’ll get a taste of this.” He lifted a blood-caked war club in front of Crabapple’s nose.
By the time they’d bound his hands and roped him into the procession, enough feeling returned to his legs that he could stagger along behind the other captives.
His hot tears quickly cooled as they rolled down his dirty cheeks.
Trader sat in a backwater and scowled. Swimmer rested on his fabric bed and watched him with questioning eyes. His black dot of a nose rested between his paws.
“What?” Trader asked, then stared out at the water. He needed time to think. Gods, how had this happened to him? Behind the willows where he sat in his gently rocking canoe, thick trees betrayed the location of the bank. Like gray fuzz, their winter branches mixed with the cloudy sky. Somewhere a crow called, and a squirrel chattered in return.