The Dawn Country (24 page)

She leaned so close that Akio could see the bizarre yellow flecks in her black eyes as she placed the tube against his temple. She sucked so hard Akio shuddered. With the tube still against her lips, she plucked out the ceramic pot stopper and blew the tube into the pot. After she’d restoppered it, she set it aside and picked up her chert knife.

“Shouldn’t we try to pull the arrow out or—or something?” Dakion said.

“No, it’s too late for that.”

A curious gray haze began to sparkle at the edges of Akio’s vision, growing darker, spreading until it consumed the world.

Gannajero said, “Dakion, Ojib, stop wasting time! Find the children. I have other business to attend to.”

Steps pounded away.

Akio barely felt the sharp bite of the chert knife as she slit his belly open and continued slicing upward toward his chest, peeling back his skin as she went.

Twenty-four

B
y the time the lavender sheen of dawn washed the sky, Wrass’ body felt like lead. The other children were just as exhausted, but no one made a sound. They kept staggering on with their heads down, trudging through knee-deep piles of old leaves. The morning was so silent that if Wrass hadn’t known better, he might have believed they were the only creatures alive in the world.

But somewhere behind them—closer than he wanted to believe—warriors placed their moccasins in the ruts he and the other children had plowed through the leaves last night. Their trail was obvious. While the men might not have seen it in the darkness, with the dawn, they’d be coming.

Wrass halted. His headache was so bad, he was crying. He clenched his fists and stiffened his muscles to hide it from the other children.

From the rear of the line, Zateri called, “Are we stopping?”

“No, I just … we have to do something different. We can’t walk in the leaves anymore. Even a blind man could follow us.”

“But there are leaves everywhere,” Auma said. “Where else can we walk? We just need to keep going!”

He saw Zateri’s gaze lift to the massive maple and hickory trees that surrounded them; she was thinking the same thing he was. A canopy of laced branches roofed the forest floor here. “Maybe it’s time to think like Gannajero.”

“And fast. They’re not far behind us.”

The crazy old woman had taught them a great deal. Right after their capture, she’d marched them for days without ever being on a trail. They’d scurried over bare rock, waded along creeks, and climbed through trees to hide their passage.

Wrass said, “Zateri, I’ll stay on the ground and try to create a false trail to draw them away from you. Then I’ll follow.”

Panic lined her face. “Are you sure, Wrass? Maybe I should try to lead them away?”

The unspoken words,
because you’re so weak and sick,
were clear on her face.

“No, you’re too valuable. If any of the rest of us are injured, we’ll need you. You’re our Healer. I’ll do it.”

She looked like she wanted to argue; then she exhaled hard and said, “All right.”

She turned and considered a pignut hickory. The trunk slanted at an angle, and the branches interlaced with those of a giant sycamore. “Where should we meet you?”

“Head due south. I’ll find you.”

“South?” Auma said. “But home is north.”

“He knows that,” Zateri replied, “and so does Gannajero. That’s the direction she will expect us to run.”

Wrass said, “You probably won’t see me until nightfall, but no matter what, keep going.”

“I will,” she said, but he saw the tears glitter in her eyes as she turned to Auma and Conkesema. “Follow me.”

She walked to the slanted hickory trunk, and Auma said, “What are you doing?”

“Climbing this tree.” Zateri spread her arms and balanced on the slanted trunk until she reached the heavy branches; then she climbed with the grace of a squirrel into the sycamore.

Auma and Conkesema continued to stand at the base of the hickory looking up.

“I’m not going up there,” Auma said. Her catlike face with its broad nose and long eyelashes shone in the sunlight. “They’ll see us.”

“No, they won’t. They’ll be looking at the ground, and besides, we won’t be here for long.”

“Why not?”

Zateri pointed to the branches that laced over her head, connecting to another sycamore. “We’re going to travel through the trees for as long as we can. So they won’t have any trail to follow. Now, hurry. We don’t have much time.”

Auma nervously flapped her arms. “All right, but I don’t like it.”

She climbed, and Conkesema followed, her long black hair swaying.

Wrass watched long enough to see them move through several trees. When he lost sight of them, he started walking back along their trail, scooping leaves to fill in the rut they’d made.

His heart was pounding, and each beat felt like a hammer swung against his skull. He’d started to reel on his feet.

He propped a hand against a basswood tree and looked up. It stood twenty times the height of a man, and its branches snaked into five or six adjacent sycamores and oaks.

For a few blessed moments, he leaned heavily against the trunk and breathed in the sweet scent of the damp bark. His nausea had returned with a vengeance. More than anything, he longed to lie down in the leaves and close his eyes.

“Keep moving. Don’t think about it.”

He grabbed the closest branch and pulled himself into the tree. As he worked his way across the connecting branches, heading north, he thought he heard voices, men calling to each other.

Sick with fear, he hurried, practically running across a huge oak limb.

In his desperation to get away, he hadn’t realized that the sunlight was warming the branches, melting the frost. When his foot slipped, it surprised him. He gasped and lunged for the nearest branch … but he was so sick. His arms moved too slowly.

The fall seemed to take forever.

Twenty-five

W
hen Zateri heard the scream, she swung around.

Auma, who was right behind her, hissed, “Was that Wrass? It sounded like a boy’s scream.”

In the distance, a man shouted. Dakion.

“They caught him!” Auma grabbed Zateri’s arm in panic. “Hurry, we have to keep moving, or they’ll catch us, too.”

Auma tried to force Zateri to keep walking across the branch, but Zateri’s heart was thundering in her chest, making it impossible to think.

“Don’t push me!” Zateri hissed.

Auma stopped, but she stared at Zateri with panicked eyes. “He told us to keep going,” she reminded. “He said no matter what, we shouldn’t stop!”

Zateri’s fingers tightened around the branch. The bark felt cold and rough. From their height in the big sycamore, she could see all the way across the forest to the river. Elder Brother Sun had coated the wide blue surface with a sparkling layer of pale gold. She thought she knew about where the camp was. Would Gannajero leave without them?

“What are we waiting for?” Auma whispered, on the point of tears. “We have to get away!”

Zateri said, “Move back to the trunk. I need to climb down.”

“Climb down? But it was hard getting up here. We should keep moving over to that sassafras tree!”

Zateri tried to climb around her, but couldn’t. “Move back!” she ordered through gritted teeth.

Auma and Conkesema turned around, made it to the trunk, and then one by one climbed down, using the branches like a ladder. By the time they had all jumped to the ground, Zateri felt light-headed with fear. She tried to force herself to think.

“Zateri, please,” Auma pleaded. Her thin doehide dress clung to her slender body. “We have to keep running, or they’ll find us just like they did Wrass!”

Zateri’s gaze darted around the underbrush. Windblown leaves piled against every trunk and bush. No matter where they went, if they were on the ground, they’d leave a clear trail.

Tears welled hotly in her eyes. She rubbed them away and turned to the two other girls. “I want you to hide here until I get back. If anyone comes, cover yourselves with leaves and don’t move.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going back to the canoes to look for Wrass. I have to know what happened to him.”
Or I’ll go insane expecting to see him.

“But they’ll just recapture you, too!”

“Maybe,” she answered thoughtfully. “I’ll have to go slow, that’s for sure. I can’t take a chance that they’ll hear me coming.”

A look of horror came over Auma’s face. “This is idiocy! I’m going to run north toward home.”

Zateri clenched her fists at her sides. “If you wait here for me, I’ll be back soon, and then I’ll take you to the closest village and make sure you’re safe before I go after Wrass.”

Auma wrung her hands. “But Wrass told us to—”

“Do whatever you want, but I will be back here by nightfall. I promise.”

Wind Mother rustled the bare branches around them, and the forest seemed to shiver in the cold. Zateri pulled her cape closed beneath her chin. “I can’t just turn my back on him and run away, even if he told me to.” She shook her head. “I can’t do it.”

To her surprise, Auma’s face twisted with tears. “If he were my friend, I—I guess I’d do the same thing.” She sat down in the leaves and said, “Conkesema, sit down with me. We’ll wait for Zateri until nightfall. But no longer.”

Twenty-six

C
ord sat behind Sindak in the rear of the lead canoe, paddling it around a rough bend in the river. Rocks thrust up here and there but were barely visible in the choppy current. They had to be careful. Close to shore, the leafless boughs of scarlet oaks overhung the water, casting black shadows over the fallen acorns that littered the bank.

From behind, Cord heard Koracoo call, “Gonda? Put ashore.”

Gonda swung around and shouted, “What? Why? We’re making good time!”

Cord said, “Sindak, let’s put ashore over there near the chokecherries. That looks like the best place.”

While he and Sindak steered the canoe toward the brush, Gonda glowered at them. Cord and Sindak leaped out of the boat as soon as they could and helped shove it up onto the sand. Almost instantly, Koracoo’s canoe slid up beside them.

She jumped ashore and said, “We’re stopping for a few hundred heartbeats. That’s all. Eat something, drink, and do whatever else you must; then we’re leaving.”

Gonda said, “We shouldn’t be stopping at all. Anything people need to do, they can—”

“That was not a request.”

Gonda propped his hands on his hips to watch her as she walked away from him and went to stand beside Sindak. Cord glanced at Gonda. They’d been arguing more and more, snapping at each other like warring turtles. Worse, the constant challenges to Koracoo’s authority were undermining her credibility with her men. Cord had begun to notice that both Sindak and Towa were questioning her orders more often. If she didn’t put a stop to this soon, she’d have a real problem on her hands.

Wakdanek, the children, and Towa disappeared into the trees to Cord’s right.

Gonda strode over to Koracoo and Sindak. Each had pulled small bags of food from their belt pouches and were chewing in silence. “Koracoo, listen to me, you …”