The Dawn Country (39 page)

Gitchi shifts and props his nose on my hand. “Everything’s all right now,” I murmur. “We’re going home.”

Ahead of us on the water, Mother and War Chief Cord paddle against the current, trying to stay close to shore. In the middle of their canoe, Zateri and Baji sit side by side with their arms around each other, talking. I don’t know where Tutelo and Auma are. They must be sleeping in the bottom of Mother’s canoe.

Wakdanek has told us that he will be leaving us tomorrow, taking Conkesema and Auma back to find whatever remains of their families. After that, War Chief Cord will take Baji away with him to Flint country, while Mother and the rest of us head for Atotarho Village to make sure that Zateri and Hehaka make it home. Finally, Mother will lead the way to Bur Oak Village, where, hopefully, we will find the last survivors of Yellowtail Village. As I gaze at Zateri and Baji, my heart aches. I miss them already. Over the past moon, our souls have woven themselves together into a fine tight weave. We are part of each other. I’ll be ripped apart when they go home.

My gaze shifts to Father, who paddles in the bow of our canoe while Towa steers the canoe from the rear. Sindak and Hehaka sleep on the packs just in front of me, and Wrass sits in front of them. Every time I turn, I find Wrass watching me with glistening eyes.

I shift my aching shoulder. Wakdanek bandaged it and made me a sling, but it hurts badly. Father says he doesn’t know if I’ll have the full use of it when it heals. Right now, I don’t care. I’m alive. So are my friends.

Gitchi growls in his sleep, and his feet twitch. I whisper, “You’re safe, boy. You don’t have to run anymore.”

And for the first time in over a moon, I think maybe I can stop running, too.

Father turns and frowns at me for several moments; then he ships his paddle and carefully climbs over the packs and around sleeping people to get to me. The lines at the corners of his eyes crinkle as he scans my face. “You are a man now, Son. A warrior,” he says with pride in his voice. “There’s something I want to give you.”

“What is it, Father?” I sit up straighter.

Father pulls a False Face gorget from around his throat and drapes it over my head.

In awe, I say, “This looks just like the one that Towa—”

“It’s not the same. It’s just a copy, but it has Power. I’ve felt it. I want you to have it. Perhaps it will protect you in the days to come.”

Father smiles again, then makes his way back to the bow and picks up his paddle.

I reach down to trace the stars with my fingers. When I look at Wrass, he’s still staring at me. I nod to him.

He nods back and calls, “I didn’t think you’d get that so soon.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” He shakes his head. “It’s beautiful.”

A strange sensation filters through me. It is as though I have just awakened from a long sleep and discovered that it is winter and the trees are bare and coated with snow, and I realize I am cold and very tired.

Wrass’ gaze shifts to Baji and Zateri. They are talking and smiling. A sad smile creases his face, and my heart aches. Wrass must feel the same sense of loss that I do, dreading the moment when our friends go away. I don’t even want to think about it.

For now, I’m safe. They’re still here. We’re still together.

I curl my body around Gitchi and watch the endless trees pass by.

Fifty

A
s they were escorted across the village by Nesi and twenty warriors with war clubs, Odion’s gaze drifted over the broad plaza. Zateri walked close beside him. She kept licking her lips and staring around as though this was just another dream, and it might disappear at any instant. Ahead of him, Koracoo and Gonda walked, and behind him, Hehaka clung onto Towa’s cape as though he feared he was about to be eaten alive. Sindak had insisted upon staying outside to guard Tutelo and Wrass until they returned.

The four longhouses were arranged in a rough oval around the plaza. Odion studied them. This was a huge village, perhaps the largest village anywhere on earth. On the eastern side, near the forty-hand-tall palisade wall, four smaller clan houses and another house, probably the prisoners’ house, stood. The magnificent longhouses—surely the biggest ever built—were constructed of pole frames and covered with slippery elm bark. The house they walked toward stretched over eight hundred hands long and forty wide. The others were shorter, two or three hundred hands long, but still stunning. The arched roofs soared over fifty hands high.

Laughing children raced by, followed by a pack of dogs wagging their tails. Zateri craned her neck, trying to see faces, but the group of warriors was packed too tightly around them. Odion could barely glimpse eyes. People began to run across the plaza, coalescing into a large crowd. They surrounded the warriors, calling questions, trying to see who was being protected inside the circle.

“Is that Zateri?” a woman cried.
“Zateri?”

“Aunt Dinaga! I’m here, I’m right here!”

“Thank the Spirits, you’re all right! We had feared the worst.”

Aunt Dinaga tried to force her way into the warriors’ circle to get to Zateri, but War Chief Nesi shouted, “Stay back! The chief wishes to speak with them first. You can all talk after the chief is finished.”

Aunt Dinaga faded back with a heartbroken expression on her face. Then the grumbling began. People shouted curses at Koracoo and Gonda. Someone threw a rock at Gonda. He ducked and glared.

Zateri whispered, “Odion, stay very close to me. I won’t let
anyone
hurt you.” She grabbed his hand and held onto it, dragging him forward.

The big war chief, Nesi, must have sensed that the mood was changing. He picked up his pace and led them forward at a run.

“Towa!” a man yelled from the right, and Odion glimpsed the man running at the edge of the warriors. He had seen perhaps thirty-five summers and had gray-speckled long hair. “Are you all right?”

Towa lifted a hand, and called, “I’m fine, Father! I’ll see you soon. Tell Sindak’s parents he is well, also.”

“I will!”

When they approached her longhouse, tears filled Zateri’s eyes.

Odion asked, “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I just never thought I’d see home again.” Her gaze lifted to the two massive log pillars carved with faces and painted in rich shades of red, blue, black, and pure white that stood outside the door. “All of my life, every summer, I’ve watched people repaint the Faces that protect our longhouse. They are like old friends looking down upon me.”

She reached out as though she longed to touch them, to speak with their Spirits, but Nesi drew back the leather curtain that held in the longhouse warmth and ordered, “Hurry. Get inside before I have a riot to put down.”

As Mother and Father passed War Chief Nesi, they exchanged threatening glances, and Odion wondered if they’d met before. Perhaps in battle?

Odion ducked into the longhouse still holding Zateri’s hand, and Nesi said, “Lonkol, I want half of the warriors guarding this end of the house, and other half stationed at the opposite end.”

“Yes, Nesi.”

Feet pounded the frozen ground as men trotted away. Odion blinked, trying to rush his eyes into adjusting to the firelit darkness. He’d been staring at brilliant sunlight reflecting from snow for forty-three days. It would likely take a while to adjust.

All he could see now were the forty fires that burned down the length of the house. They resembled a chain of amber beads. As his vision began to clear, he looked up. High over his head, blue wood smoke crept along the ceiling until it was sucked out through the smoke holes. Cornstalks, vines of squashes, and beans, as well as whole sunflowers hung from the rafters, curing in the rising smoke. The sudden warmth made him shiver.

“Grandmother?” Zateri called, her voice breaking. “Mother?”

She released Odion’s hand and lunged forward to run down the length of the house, but Nesi grabbed her arm as she passed him. “Stay here. Your father is coming.” Scars crisscrossed his face like thick white worms. They writhed when he glowered at her.

“But, Nesi, I live here. Why can’t I go look for Mother?”

“Ask your father when he arrives.”

Zateri swallowed her hope and returned to stand beside Odion. “Something’s wrong,” she whispered.

“It may be nothing. Don’t worry yet.”

His gaze drifted, searching the low shelves stuffed with pots, baskets, and personal belongings, and the sleeping benches that lined the walls above them. Bark partitions separated each family’s space, providing some privacy. And far away, down at the end of the house, people were gathered. Soft voices echoed.

Koracoo, Gonda, and Towa moved closer together and spoke in whispers. Their expressions made Odion’s belly knot up.

“Where’s our father?” Hehaka whispered as he edged forward to stand beside Zateri. Fear tensed his triangular face, and his bat nose wriggled as he smelled the air.

Zateri balled her fists. “I don’t know. Probably down there.”

“What’s he doing?”

For a long moment the question didn’t make sense. The gathering was obviously a village council meeting. Then it occurred to Odion that Hehaka had not been raised in a longhouse or even in a village. He’d spent his entire life moving from camp to camp with a small party of outcast warriors. He knew nothing of village life.

Zateri explained, “Each clan has its own council, but the village also has one big council of clan elders. This is the village council.”

Hehaka’s small black eyes narrowed. “I don’t like this. I don’t want to be here. Who are the people standing on the right?”

“Those are the Speakers. Different groups elect one person to communicate their decisions. There is a Speaker for the Women, a Speaker for the Warriors, each clan has a Speaker, and there are many more.”

Hehaka folded his arms beneath his cape, looking worried and confused.

“Don’t worry, you’ll learn quickly. I’ll help you. You … you’re my brother.”

An old man with a crooked body broke away from the group and hobbled toward them. Zateri took a deep breath.

“Is that your father?” Odion asked.

“Yes. I’m not sure how to feel.”

She had learned things about her father that no child should know. After hearing that he’d sold his younger sister and brother when they’d seen eight summers, her eyes probably saw him differently.

“No matter what he’s done, he’s still your father, Zateri,” Odion said.

“I know.” Her gaze clung to him.

He must have seen over fifty summers. As he came closer, Odion saw that he had braided rattlesnake skins into his gray-streaked black hair, then coiled it into a bun at the base of his head and secured it with a wooden comb. The style gave his narrow face a starved look. He wore a beautiful black cape covered with circlets cut from human skulls.

Gonda said to Koracoo, “Here it comes.”

Koracoo straightened and squared her shoulders, as though anticipating a fight. “Towa, are you ready?”

“Yes,” he responded softly. In the firelight, Odion saw his handsome face go hard.

Chief Atotarho stopped two paces away, knelt, and opened his arms. “Zateri, I’ve missed you so much.”

She let out a small incoherent cry and threw herself into his arms, crying, “Father, I’m so glad to be home.” The last word turned into a high-pitched wail.

The chief crushed her against his chest and kissed her hair. “Forgive me for everything you’ve gone through,” he said. “I would have gone through it for you, if I could have.”

“It’s all right,” she sobbed. “I’m home now. Where’s Mother?”

He pushed her back to look into her eyes. “She’ll be here soon.”

At the far end of the longhouse, the council members began leaving. The curtain lifted over and over, allowing in long rectangles of sunlight. A handful of people remained. They stood like dark pillars, watching.

Chief Atotarho gently touched Zateri’s cheek and rose to face Koracoo. She spread her feet.

The chief asked, “She’s dead?”

“Yes.”

Atotarho briefly closed his eyes, as though the news grieved him.

Koracoo said, “I assume you do not want to speak further in front of the children.”

Atotarho opened his eyes. “I must. After what they’ve been through, they deserve to know the truth.”

Koracoo gave him a suspicious look. The blue buffalo painted in the middle of her red cape seemed to walk with her uneasy movements. Finally, she nodded. “Very well.”

Atotarho put a hand on Zateri’s shoulder. “Someday Zateri will lead this clan, and perhaps this nation. The things she is about to hear may help her do that.” He looked down at Zateri, and his eyes tightened. “But they will not be easy for you. Do you understand?”

She glanced at Koracoo’s distrustful expression, then at Odion, and finally looked back at her Father. “Yes.”

Atotarho had not asked a single question about Hehaka, and Odion saw Hehaka fidgeting, perhaps longing to be held as Zateri had been, or just simply to be acknowledged. The chief stared only at Koracoo.

“You must have many questions, War Chief. Ask. I will answer, if I can.”

With only the barest hesitation, Koracoo said, “You used your own daughter as bait. Why?”