“Thank you, but I must get home.” I gesture to the bones. “To collect the remains of my own loved ones.”
They seem to understand this. They both nod approvingly.
“Good luck, then!”
I start up the trail with Gitchi at my heel, and they both lift their hands. Pandurata calls, “May you find the end before it finds you, friend.”
Just before I climb the next rise in the trail, I hear Pandurata Singing. I look back. Kanadesego’s deep voice joins hers. They are sitting alone on the log Singing the death Song over their ancestors’ bones.
I stare.
The human False Face is riding the winds of destruction. Nations are crumbling. Starvation stalks the land, and sorcerers have loosed a mysterious evil that is laying waste to one village after another. It’s all crashing down.
Yet they sound so happy.
Eleven
Sky Messenger
Brilliant sunlight strikes my eyes as I walk the main trail toward the Yellowtail Village palisade, built of upright logs that stand forty hands tall. Sentries move along the catwalk at the top, just their heads and shoulders showing. By now they have seen me and notified War Chief Deru that a lone man is approaching.
As I pass the large marsh, Reed Marsh, that swings around the northern and western sides of the sister villages, Yellowtail and Bur Oak, I study the dense stands of cattails. Those closest to the shore, the easiest to gather, have been harvested. My people weave the leaves into mats and pound the roots to jelly to use as poultices on wounds, sores, and burns. The soft downy fuzz from the mature flowers is used to prevent chafing in babies, and absorb menstrual blood. The young flower heads stop diarrhea. We also eat the shoots, pollen, roots, and stamens. The entire plant is so useful I am puzzled that thousands of stalks in the middle of the marsh remain standing tall and straight. Has the fever struck here? Is that why the harvest is not yet completed? Soon the seedpods will burst and be carried away in the wind. They will be lost.
I continue walking. Blood begins to pound in my ears.
Ice skims the surface of the marsh. An empty muskrat house sits in the middle, the occupant long ago thrown into some stew pot. Soon the stems will be scavenged for firewood. Given the cold, I’m surprised it hasn’t already been collected. I—
A shout goes up, and my gaze returns to the catwalk. Warriors are running, calling to each other. The commotion increases when I stride directly for the closed palisade gates.
“It’s him and his wolf!” a man shouts. “I’d know his walk anywhere!”
“It can’t be. There’s a death sentence on his head. No man wishes to be executed by his own relatives.”
I keep walking. When I stand before the gates, I look up at the warriors on the catwalk. Their eyes are wide with surprise. Some aim arrows down at me, debating whether or not to shoot me on sight. I know every face. I call, “Wampa, please inform Matron Jigonsaseh that her grandson wishes to address the Matron’s Council.”
Twelve
Koracoo dipped the soft hide into the water bowl again and wrung it out. All down the Bear Clan longhouse people muttered darkly or thrashed in their sleep, tended by exhausted relatives. The fever had come to Yellowtail Village seven days ago and swept through the longhouses like wildfire. The nauseating smell of vomit and loose bowels permeated the smoky air.
Two compartments away, the great Healer, old Bahna, sprinkled a man with water, then used a turkey tail to fan him. Healers had been working nonstop, but half the village was down. Forty-two dead. Bahna Sang softly. The lilting words of the Healing Song rose into the air like golden wings, soothing every person who could hear them.
Koracoo bent over and washed her mother’s fiery face with the cool cloth. “Mother, try to sleep.”
Matron Jigonsaseh, leader of the Matron’s Council of Yellowtail Village, whispered, “Too much … to think about … fever … all the refugees. We’re … vulnerable.”
“Our warriors are prepared, Mother. Don’t worry. I spoke with Kittle only yesterday. Every person able to carry a weapon knows he or she may be called at any moment to defend the five allied villages.”
Koracoo smoothed the cloth over her mother’s forehead. Long gray hair streamed around Jigonsaseh’s face and looked stark against the black bear hide that covered her frail body. Sickness rattled in her lungs. In the past two days, her breathing had grown labored, as though there weren’t enough air in the world. Koracoo dipped the hide again, wrung it out. Her heart ached.
When Mother closed her eyes, Koracoo leaned back and took a deep breath. A commotion had risen outside. Warriors called to each other on the catwalks. Feet pounded the plaza.