The Dawn Country(52)

“Are you sure?” Baji asks. Her waist-length hair dances around her body like slender black arms. She appears to be waiting for me to keel over or fall into a frenzied fit.

“I feel better, Baji.”

We all go silent when Wakdanek climbs back up the bank and passes us. Without a word, he returns to searching the ground for tracks.

“We’ll see if it lasts,” Baji replies skeptically. “I’m not sure about him yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, it’s just … something. He’s odd.”

“He’s from the Dawnland. They’re all odd.” I fill my lungs with a deep soothing breath.

Baji swivels around to watch the people roaming the abandoned camp. “I don’t know why we have to stay on the riverbank,” Baji says in frustration. “We were here last night. We might be able to help them.”

Tutelo says, “Mother’s afraid we’ll disturb the sign. The fewer feet out there, the easier it is to track.”

“Look around, Tutelo!” Baji waves a hand. “There’s nothing to track. The ash makes it impossible.” Her long black hair shimmers softly in the smoke-filtered sunlight. She wears an annoyed expression. “They need to start talking to us about the old woman, about how she thinks. They’ve hardly asked us any questions.”

“They will. When they need to. Mother just …” I halt when the strange sound erupts again. Like a baby crying. “Do you hear that?”

I cock my head to listen. Baji and Tutelo instantly go still.

After several heartbeats, Tutelo says, “Maybe we should go see if we can find it?”

Baji turns all the way around to look up the bank toward the canoe landing fifty paces away. Hehaka doesn’t move. He continues frowning down the river, as he has since just after dawn. It is as though he’s waiting to see a canoe coming back for him. I don’t know how to feel about this. I don’t understand him. Does he want to be a slave? Does he like being hurt?

Tutelo says, “It’s whimpering.”

I rise to my feet. “Come on. I can’t stand just sitting here. Let’s go find it.”

Baji points. “I think it’s coming from the landing.”

Tutelo scrambles to her feet. “I do, too.”

Baji turns to Hehaka. “Are you coming, Hehaka? We’re just going to walk to the landing.”

“No,” he says. “I’m waiting right here.” His eyes are glued to the river.

I stand awkwardly for a time before I say, “Hehaka? She kept you as a slave for seven summers. Why do you want her to find you again?”

He looks at me with an agonized expression. His triangular, batlike face and big ears have a reddish hue. “She sucked out my soul,” he whispers, and glances around. “Don’t you remember? She sucked it out with that eagle-bone sucking tube and blew it into the little pot that she carries in her pack.”

“I remember. So?”

Gannajero does this to punish children. She places her eagle-bone tube against their temples, sucks out their souls, and tells them that when they are far, far from home, she’ll let their souls out of the pot. This is a terrible fate. It means that their afterlife souls will never be able to find their way home. They’ll be chased through the forests forever by enemy ghosts.

Tears leak from the corners of Hehaka’s eyes. “I have to find her. She promised that if I stayed with her, she would blow my soul back into my body before I die, then take care of me so I can find my way to the Land of the Dead to be with my ancestors.”

“She’s an old fool, Hehaka. She can’t trap souls,” Baji says and turns, expecting me to support her.

I hesitate before I say, “That’s right. She’s just an evil old woman.”

“She’s coming back for me,” Hehaka says. “I swear it! I’m staying right here until I see her.”

I shift my weight to my other foot, then say, “All right. We’ll be back in a little while.”

Tutelo leads the way, trotting down the bank with her long black braid swaying across her back. Baji and I walk side by side. Her jaw is clenched hard, and it makes her beautiful face appear misshapen.

“Why is he so concerned about the river?” Baji asks.

“I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t make any sense, Odion. Don’t you recall when we heard Gannajero’s men say that she hated to travel the waterways because there were too many towns, men fishing, and other canoes? She feared someone would recognize her.”

I step wide around an old lightning-riven stump. Its hollow interior is charred black, and charcoal stripes its bark. The only answer I can think of is, “Maybe Hehaka knows something we don’t.”