People of the Earth (55 page)

 
          
 
Wind Runner's heart hammered like a stone mallet
on sun-hardened buffalo hide as he backed away. At the slightest sound, he
wanted to jump, to lash out with a dart.

 
          
 
This is never going to work! No one can just
walk through the middle of a war camp this size. This time you’ve killed
yourself—and Snail Shell and Blue Wind, too.

 
          
 
He picked his way carefully, hearing Blue
Wind's nervous steps behind him. Snail Shell could have been tiptoeing around
sage-hen eggs for all the noise he made.

 
          
 
As he proceeded, Wind Runner counted fires;
two tens and two by the time they reached the far side of the camp. He noted
the warriors, pointing at their hands as he and his companions passed. Here and
there in the faint light of the fires, they could see the stub of a shortened
little finger. What horrible thing had happened in the north?

 
          
 
"Who is it?" a voice called out of
the night as they slipped past the last fire.

 
          
 
"Break A Leg." Wind Runner took the
warrior's name he'd heard earlier.

 
          
 
"What are you doing? It's the middle of
the night," the voice asked out of the blackness.

 
          
 
Wind Runner's thoughts deserted him in the
hysteria of fear. Nothing came to him. Curses! You got to say something! Hurry
. . . or we 're all dead! He said the first thing that came to him.
"Actually, we're three Black Point warriors sneaking through the camp.
What do you think we're doing in the middle of the night. Now, are you going to
let us pass, or do you want us to shit right here in the trail?"

 
          
 
"I've got to piss like a bull buffalo in
rut," Snail Shell growled. "Maybe we ought to spray around in the
darkness and see if we get his robe."

 
          
 
"Go on," the annoyed voice growled.
"And get far enough from camp so I don't have to smell it all night."

 
          
 
Wind Runner barely contained fear-silly
laughter as he hurried into the safety of the sagebrush, Blue Wind and Snail
Shell hard on his heels.

 
          
 
"I don't believe you did that," Blue
Wind uttered in a choked whisper after they'd walked a way.

 
          
 
"I almost crapped myself inside out when
you told him we were Black Point," Snail Shell muttered. "What were
you trying to do? Kill us?"

 
          
 
Wind Runner shook his head in the darkness.
"We got lucky. There are so many of them, they don't know who's where. I
just told him the first thing that came to mind. Now, come on. We have to make
tracks before he starts to wonder why we don't come back."

 
          
 
Snail Shell whispered tightly, "For that
many to be here, something
terrible's
happened."

 
          
 
"And our people in the Fat Beaver valley
are as alert as hibernating bears—and as easy to kill," Wind Runner
reminded. "Let's make tracks."

 
          
 
Bad Belly rubbed his eyes and blinked. The
vision had come upon him as he worked. He'd been absently running the bow-drill
to bore another hole in one of the black, triangular stone teeth . . . and the
next thing he knew, his head was full of strange sights.

 
          
 
He'd let the drill fall to one side and sat
back to gaze wearily around Singing Stones' shelter, shaking his head slowly,
painfully.

 
          
 
"What is it?" White Ash came to
crouch beside him.

 
          
 
"Vision," he whispered. "All
the forests were cut down-by people. They slid the logs down the mountains and
floated them down the rivers to make huge . . . well, I guess you'd call them
villages. Tens of tens of tens of people lived there, more than you could count
in days. All the mountains had gone silent. Where the trees had been, there
were only stumps. The rains washed the dirt away from the rocks. You couldn't
hear a bird song anywhere. Then warriors came from the west—with terrible war
clubs that shone in the sun like mica. They fell on one another and killed one
another—until there were more dead than all the buffalo that have ever been run
off all the cliffs in the world. The bodies lay stacked around and only the
flies and buzzards feasted."

 
          
 
"But what does it mean?" she asked.

 
          
 
He shook his head. "I don't know . . .
but the lame warrior's face hung in the clouds above the dead mountains. He
laughed—and his laughter shook the world."

 
          
 
Worn and staggering, Wind Runner and his two
friends reached Black Moon's camp as dawn began to break on the eastern
horizon. Camp dogs appeared out of the shadows to bark and greet them
nervously. The cotton woods—leafing out in spring green—stretched in a friendly
canopy overhead. The pointed tops of the sleeping lodges looked peaceful in the
half-light among the trees. Here and there a spiral of blue rose from a smoke
hole.

 
          
 
"I think my legs are half a hand
shorter," Blue Wind complained; his heels pattered on the trampled grass
of the camp.

 
          
 
"I can't figure out why we're still
alive. We've seen more Hollow Flute than I would have believed." Snail
Shell shook his head. "Did we really walk through that camp—or was I
dreaming?"

 
          
 
"It looked easier than trying to sneak
around all their lookouts," Wind Runner said, a tingle of pride still
burning within. He blinked tired eyes at the peaceful camp, thankful to have
found it. Tired, so wretchedly tired, he couldn't help but grin. We made it! We
lived . . . and we brought the warning!

 
          
 
He stopped before the clan leader's lodge and
called,

           
 
"Black Moon! Wind Runner, Snail Shell,
and Blue Wind must see you."

 
          
 
A rustling of robes sounded from inside while
Black Moon's dog sniffed at their worn moccasins. Within moments the old man
ducked through the lodge flap, a buffalo hide around his shoulders. He nodded,
digging sleep from his eyes with a knuckle, then yawned. He wore only leggings
and a breechclout. The skin of his protruding belly looked pale in the morning
light, and the black-moon circle tattooed on his forehead faded against the
walnut hues of his face. Heavy lines stretched from his flat nose to the
corners of his wide mouth.

 
          
 
"You're back early." The old leader
squinted as he assessed the fatigue in their red-rimmed eyes and haggard
expressions.

 
          
 
"The entire north is crawling with Hollow
Flute warriors." Wind Runner gestured back toward the bluffs that rose
above the river. "No more than a half-day's walk from here—by the willow
spring—a camp of warriors is busy rolling up its sleeping robes as we speak.
Smaller bands of about ten warriors each are searching the country, probably
trying to locate us."

 
          
 
Black Moon's face tightened as he looked to
the north. "How many would you guess in all?"

 
          
 
Wind Runner lifted his arms and let them drop.
"Maybe two warriors for every one of ours. Maybe three."

 
          
 
"Tell him the rest," Blue Wind added
soberly.

 
          
 
Wind Runner met the Black Point leader's
inquiring stare. "The whole clan is moving. Behind the warriors come
several large camps of Hollow Flute. Men, women, and children. The dogs are
packing all they can carry. The People look like they're running,
desperate."

 
          
 
"And that's not all," Blue Wind
added. "Wind Runner walked us right through the middle of the warriors'
advance camp last night. Many had joints cut off their fingers."

 
          
 
Black Moon fingered his chin as he thought.
"Joints cut off? They've made sacrifices to Power. They won't want to turn
back."

 
          
 
Snail Shell glanced anxiously at the north.
"We saw several bands. They looked starved—and the few men with the women
and children seemed to be wounded, as if they'd fought a big battle and lost/'

 
          
 
Black Moon paused, lost in thought. He glanced
up at Wind Runner. "What do you think is happening?"

 
          
 
"I think that either the Wasp or the Snow
Bird clan is behind them. The people we saw looked hungry, desperate. Something
happened last winter. Something terrible."

 
          
 
Black Moon squinted at the bluffs. "The
winter was harder than any I remember in a long time. And what do you suggest
we do about these Hollow Flute?''

 
          
 
"Pack the camp now. Get the people across
the Fat Beaver River. Send runners to the other Black Point camps. Three days'
march to the south, the
Stinking
River
runs out of the
Red
Rock
Mountains
. You'll know the place by its stinking hot
spring. We can meet there and hold a council to decide what to do."

 
          
 
"You don't think we can fight them
off?" Black Moon's face had gone stiff.

 
          
 
Wind Runner shot a glance at his two
companions, seeing the answer in their eyes. He swallowed and looked at the
older leader. "I think so many warriors would die that we'd end up like
the White Clay."

 
          
 
"We are Black Point! No one is—"

 
          
 
"With all respect," Blue Wind
interrupted. "We are all Black Point. Courage is not the issue here. A
wolverine has plenty of courage, but not even a wolverine can drive off a nest
of hornets."