Kallen said, “I don’t think you will be leaving on your journey to search for your friend today, War Chief.”
“No.”
Kallen’s eyes slitted as she looked around. Men had started shifting their weight to the balls of their feet, moving like warriors on a blood trail. “Perhaps it would be best if we go home before this gets out of hand?”
He rose to his feet. “The sooner the better.”
Eight
Sky Messenger
I jerk upright and try to force air into my starving lungs. The musty fragrance of fallen leaves carries on the night breeze. All around me the autumn forest is still and quiet, wrapped in a cool cloak of darkness. The campfires of the dead blaze through the swaying maple branches. I rub my hands over my face and fight to shove away the Dream images.
Gitchi whimpers. When I turn, I find the old wolf staring at me with luminous eyes.
“I’m all right.” I reach out to gently stroke his side. His bushy tail wags.
After several deep soothing breaths, I heave a sigh and drag myself to my feet. Gitchi expectantly lifts his big head. The wolf has seen twelve summers pass. Though the thick fur on his lean body is still dark gray, his face has gone almost totally white. He gazes steadily at me, waiting. He has traveled the war trail with me since he was a puppy and I was a child. He knows my strange ways. This isn’t the first time the Dream has awakened both of us like a clap of thunder.
Through a long, difficult exhalation, I whisper, “We have to go home, old friend. I have to tell them what I’ve seen.”
Gitchi stretches, groans softly, and walks to my side. I know he will follow me anywhere, no matter the danger or disgrace. And there is no doubt in my heart that when I reach home my clan will heap mountains of humiliation upon me. I don’t even wish to imagine the expression on Mother’s face. Though she is now the Speaker for the Women of Yellowtail Village, a village of the Standing Stone People, she spent ten summers of her life as a war chief. Regaining her respect, and the respect of my clan, may well take the rest of my life.
“If it is even possible.” The words echo through the dark trees, coming back sounding more desperate and forlorn than I imagined.
A deputy war chief who betrays his people after a particularly brutal battle and vanishes into the wilderness is a marked man. I pray I can make them understand why I did it, but I will probably be chased from the village as a traitor. I dare not imagine what my warriors, or my war chief, have said about me in my absence. They have, perhaps, declared me an Outcast. In that case, I am dead. When I walk through the gates, the whispering will begin, and I fear it will be like the hurricane that sweeps away my world.
I pat Gitchi’s head, and he gazes up at me with loving eyes. “We may not have a home, my friend. Are you ready for that?”
He wags his tail, telling me he can stand anything so long as I am there with him.
Gitchi has always been at my side, fighting for me with blind loyalty, warming me with his body when I was freezing cold.
I have few other true friends. Four: Hiyawento; Zateri; my sister, Tutelo; and Baji. Our friendships were forged in the white-hot flames of slavery. Even when we are far apart, I feel them breathing inside me, and it gives me strength. Despite distance, or disagreements, or even death, I know they will come to find me if I need them. As I would if they needed me.
That’s one of the reasons my clan considers me an oddity. I am a loner. I have never married, never produced children. To my clan this verges on being criminal. I’ve always managed to keep them at bay by excelling in the skills of diplomacy and warfare. Now, even that is gone.
Gitchi’s luminous eyes stare off to the south. He cocks his head, as though wondering about something. I say, “I think the Flint children made it. By now, hopefully, they’ve found relatives in other Flint villages, and are being cared for and loved.”
I reach for my pouch and tie it to my belt; then I take a few moments to study the night. Twenty paces away, a marshy bottom stretches to the east. The powerful scents of moss and wet vegetation waft on the cool fragrant air.
Gitchi stretches again, as though limbering up his stiff joints for the journey home.
Involuntarily, my gaze searches the trees for my Spirit Helper. He was just here … wasn’t he?
Time has shifted. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Days? Weeks? Perhaps only moments.
Spirit Dreams, I think, do not really take place in the here and now, but in some otherworldly realm where the sky cycles have ceased. Perhaps it is the Land of the Dead. Or just a frozen future. I cannot say. “Come on, Gitchi. Let’s go face Grandmother Jigonsaseh. And then …” I vent a deep halting breath. “Mother.”