The Broken Land(67)
Koracoo smoothed her forehead. “Mother? It’s me. I’m here.”
Jigonsaseh’s eyes fluttered open, then fell closed again. Her face had a yellow waxy sheen that Koracoo had seen many times on the war trail. It was drained of life’s blood. She was dying. The idea transfixed Koracoo. Her mother had survived so much: the destruction of her village, the losses of three husbands, the deaths of many children, two just days old. She couldn’t die, not when Yellowtail Village needed her so much. How would they survive without her wisdom and kindness?
Koracoo clasped her mother’s limp hand, holding it between both of hers. The flesh was searing hot. Again, she said, “Mother, I’m here.”
Jigonsaseh opened her eyes a slit, stared as though to make certain in was in fact Koracoo, then drew a phlegmy breath and whispered, “Tell me you’ll accept. They’ll be coming to you … soon. Promise me.”
Koracoo exhaled a long slow breath before she replied, “There are others far more deserving.”
“But none … more capable.”
She gently squeezed her mother’s hand. “Are you sure?”
There was the faintest hint of a smile on her pinched lips. “No … doubts. We talked about it … once. Remember?”
“Oh, yes, I do.”
How could she ever forget that day twelve summers ago? Almost as clearly as if she were there again, she found herself standing in the smoldering ruins of the longhouse, frantically searching through the burned timbers for her family. She’d found her sister Tawi first, burned almost beyond recognition. Then she’d heard a barely audible sound, like a voice rising through layers of hide, and realized there was someone beneath Tawi. Her sister had died trying to protect their mother. Without Tawi’s body to shield her from the roof-fall, Jigonsaseh would certainly have died that day. Amid the stifling heat and stench of burned flesh, Koracoo had dragged her mother free. As she’d carried her outside, her mother’s voice had been crystal clear: “Promise me … . Receive my name.”
Rattling breaths filled the silence, and Mother seemed to be fighting to gather enough strength to speak. “Your son …”
Koracoo frowned. “What about Sky Messenger?”
“He’s … afraid. Told me—he’d done something.”
Koracoo’s brows drew together. “Something he couldn’t tell me?”
“Anyone … close?”
Koracoo cast a glance over her shoulder. “Just Tutelo and me.”
“Baji …” Her voice faded to a rattling like dry bones in the wind.
Tutelo looked at Koracoo with tear-filled eyes. “Why does she want to know about Baji?”
Koracoo shook her head. The time was almost at hand. Grief caught in her throat.
Jigonsaseh reached out to touch Koracoo’s hair and feebly tugged at it. “Look … look at me.”
Koracoo raised her head and gazed into her mother’s loving eyes, drowsy with death. “What about Baji, Mother?”
“ … He … let her … adopt him.”
As the truth of those words sank into Koracoo’s souls, her heart seemed to stop. She clutched her mother’s hand and leaned closer, so that no one could possibly overhear. “Are you saying he allowed the Flint People to adopt him?”
Jigonsaseh made a great effort to nod. “He wished to—marry. No other …”
Koracoo silently finished the sentence for her, no other way. In order to marry Baji, he would have had to become one of her people. Dear gods. If anyone found out, nothing else would matter, not his visions, not his former valor, nothing. He’d be dead in less than the time it took say the word treason. Even if he managed to escape and return to the Flint People, they had certainly “unadopted” him after he’d returned to take up his position as a Standing Stone deputy war chief. Which meant he would be a traitor to two nations, and he …
Jigonsaseh wheezed, “Protect … him.”
Koracoo stared at her mother. Her breathing was coming in short desperate puffs. “Yes, of course. As best I can.”
“His coming … was foretold.”
Koracoo hesitated, uncertain what to say to that. “I’ll look after him. I give you my oath.”
“ … It will help.”
Did she mean Koracoo’s protection would help, or the fact that he’d allowed himself to be adopted into an enemy people would help? Surely, the former.
“I’m sure it will,” she answered softly, and kissed her mother on the cheek.
As though Koracoo’s promise had given her peace, the struggle seemed to go out of Matron Jigonsaseh’s exhausted body. “You’re … a leader—best leader—for our village.”