The Dawn Country(93)
Kotin moved closer to her to stare at it and said, “What about the rest? When do you get all the riches?”
“When I return to the village, fool! Did you think my brother would send a flotilla of canoes carrying all the wealth of the Wolf Clan? Of course not. We—”
“Our business is not finished,” Towa interrupted. Gannajero turned to glare at him, and he repeated, “Where is Zateri?”
Gannajero slowly, reverently, slipped the thong around her neck and adjusted the gorget. It covered her entire chest. “What are your orders once we’ve concluded our negotiations?”
Sindak had been wondering the same thing. It bewildered him that after all they’d been through, Towa had remained loyal to Atotarho.
Towa’s expression was grim when he said, “My orders are to obey you as the new high matron of Atotarho Village and to protect you until you arrive home.”
Sindak blurted, “What? You’re joking! She’s a monster!” Sindak felt betrayed. The Wolf Clan intended to bring this evil old woman back to live among the children of the other clans? Horrific. No one would stand for it.
“Those are our orders, Sindak,” Towa replied through a taut exhalation.
Gannajero’s jet black eyes darted from face to face. “And are your cohorts also obliged to serve me?” Her gaze fixed on Koracoo.
A humorless smile turned Koracoo’s lips. “Of course,” she replied, much to Towa’s surprise. “Once the Trade is made, our duty is to help escort you and the children back to Atotarho Village.”
“We will follow you in our own canoe, War Chief,” Gannajero said suspiciously. “So we can keep track of your treachery.”
Kotin said, “When do we get paid? We don’t have to follow you all the way back to Atotarho Village, do we?”
As she stroked the gorget, Gannajero offhandedly replied, “Open my small pack. Pay the new men we hired yesterday. Separate the contents of the pack into six equal piles. Once we are finished here, they’re free to go.”
Kotin walked into the trees and grabbed her pack. As he walked back, he called, “You men. Come down.”
Five warriors trotted into the firelight; then another swerved around Sindak and loped forward. As Kotin doled out strings of pearls, shell gorgets, bags of beads, and sheets of pounded copper, the men giggled and danced around like children.
Gannajero said, “Pick up your earnings and return to your positions. You are still mine until this is finished.”
The warriors grabbed their earnings and ran back to their positions, smiling and yipping like demented dogs.
Gannajero turned to her own men. “The rest of you have a choice to make. You can either split my four packs, or you can pledge yourselves to the new matron of the Wolf Clan, and earn vastly more as my personal guards. If you decide to—”
Towa shouted, “Zateri. Where is Zateri?”
Gannajero paused, grunted, then lifted a hand and motioned to one of the men in the trees. “Waswan, bring the girl.”
A very thin man with a broken nose came out of the darkness shoving a girl before him. Zateri was even smaller and more slender than Sindak recalled. She was wearing a blue-painted cape that was much too big for her. It dragged the ground. At some point in the past moon, she’d cut her hair short in mourning. It hung around her chin in irregular black locks.
Koracoo ordered, “Put her in the canoe with the other children.”
Waswan’s inhuman eyes went to Gannajero, and the old woman nodded. “Do as she says.”
As Waswan marched Zateri to the canoe, he laughed and taunted, “I’m going to miss you, Chipmunk Teeth,” and he groped her young breasts.
Koracoo’s eyes flashed with rage, and Sindak’s breathing went swift and shallow. Before they reached home, he was going to kill that man.
Zateri climbed into the canoe, and Tutelo and Baji leaped forward to hug her in a tearful reunion . He heard Zateri say, “Where’s Odion?”
“Now,” Koracoo said with a threatening tilt of her head. “Where are the other children?”
“You mean the two Yellowtail Village children?” Kotin said. “They’re safe.”
“Not just the Yellowtail children,” Koracoo responded. “We want all the children, no matter their nation.”
“We didn’t promise you all the children,” Kotin insisted. “Only your own—”
“Let them have them.” Gannajero turned to one of the Dawnland men and barked, “You. Go fetch Dakion and the other brats. Bring them here.”
“Yes, Gannajero.”
After he’d trotted away into the darkness, Gannajero scowled at her remaining men. Kotin was seething. He looked like he longed to get his hands around her throat. Gannajero said, “Well? Which of you is willing to serve as the personal guard to the matron of the Wolf Clan of the Hills People?”