The Dawn Country (5 page)

“Enough!
”
Gannajero shouted, rising in the bow. She extended a skinny arm from beneath her cape, and a talonlike finger pointed. “Land there, on that sand spit.”

A din of questions erupted as the warriors steered the canoes to shore.

Kotin leaped into the water and dragged the bow onto the sand. The canoe rocked violently when Gannajero climbed out. Wrass struggled to keep from throwing up, the rolling of the boat adding to his dizziness. He gulped for fresh air and watched Gannajero tramp away into the forest.

Kotin just shook his head and absently scratched his crotch. The two new girls jerked awake and sat up. Wrass glanced at the warriors behind him. They were staring hard at the old woman where she’d stopped just inside the line of trees. She seemed to be staring up at the interlaced branches overhead, as if they held the answer to some great secret.

The older girl, who had a broad nose and long eyelashes, hissed, “We should try to run.”

Wrass hissed, “In the name of the Ancestors, no!”

They turned distrustful eyes on him.

He leaned closer to them. “What are your names?”

The older girl gave him a suspicious look, but answered, “I am Auma. This is my cousin, Conkesema. We are Otter Clan.”

“I am Wrass of the Standing Stone People. I grew up in Yellowtail Village.
Please
… listen. No matter what happens, you mustn’t be any trouble for the warriors.
Don’t
try to run, or—”

“Why not?” Auma replied sharply. “If I have a chance, I’m going to run as hard as I can! Are you such a coward that you won’t try?”

Just the anger in her voice made Wrass’ head pound. He squinted against the pain. “Auma, the first day I was a slave, a girl ran. Gannajero told Kotin to shoot her. The arrow took her through the lungs—”

“They killed her? Just like that? They didn’t even try to hunt her down and bring her back?”

“They killed her without a second thought.” Wrass glanced at the warriors. “We need to stick together, to wait for the right moment; then we’ll all make a run for it. But we have to wait, to plan. Do you understand?”

Auma’s expression said she wasn’t sure she believed him. She cupped a hand to her friend’s ear and whispered something. Conkesema blinked, appeared to think about it for several moments, then nodded faintly. She had waist-length black hair and a perfect oval face. A small white scar marked Conkesema’s left temple.

Auma gave Wrass a wary, sidelong, look. “For the moment, we will do as you say, but only because we saw no Standing Stone warriors among those that attacked our village.”

Wrass said, “None of my people attacked you. I was held captive just outside the big warriors’ camp after the battle. I spent half the night searching for any sign of Standing Stone warriors. If I’d seen one, I’d have risked trying to run to him.”

Auma’s brown eyes glistened in the starlight. “How long have you been a slave?”

“I think it’s been most of a moon now. I’m not sure. My m-memory is shaky.”

Her eyes tightened. “Can you tell us what’s going to happen to us?”

Toksus stopped whimpering to listen.

Wrass considered, then chose the truth. “The worst you can imagine. You will obey, or be beaten with war clubs for the slightest offense. Men will come to Trade for time with you … and they’ll do things that would get them killed back home.”

They glanced at each other with wide eyes, and Wrass knew exactly what they must be thinking, because he’d thought the same things the first night on the trail.

Auma blurted, “What are you
talking
about! The men will take us home and adopt us into their families. That’s how it works!”

“Yes. Normally,” Wrass replied. “But this is Gannajero. Sometimes the child is killed when the man is through with her. Some are marched away never to be seen again. Some are just purchased for the night.”

Toksus choked on a suffering sound.

Auma swallowed hard. In a dread voice, she said, “I don’t believe it. We’re just children. If any man did that, his own relatives would hunt him down and kill him as something sick … soul-diseased!”

“They would,” Wrass nodded. “If anyone found out. That’s why they march for days to find Gannajero the Crow. They—”

Toksus gasped a breath, and everyone went stone still. He stared at them for a few instants, then leaned forward and in a hushed little-boy voice, sang,
“The Crow comes, the Crow comes, pity the little children, beat the drum, beat the drum, grab the young, and run, run, run.”

“Where did you hear that?” Auma asked.

He looked around the circle. “My grandmother used to sing me that song when I was little, to scare me. Is it about her? About Gannajero?”

All of their gazes shifted to the old woman standing amid the willows and silver maples. She might have been paralyzed, her head cocked as she stared up into the bare branches.

Wrass said, “Probably.”

“There has to be something we can do,” Auma hissed in panic. “We—”

“There are some things … .” Wrass felt suddenly dizzy. He closed his eyes. The emotions affected his headache like stone hammers striking his skull. His nausea was getting worse.

“What?” Toksus asked.

Wrass took several deep breaths to steady himself. “First, d-don’t cry. After a while, it irritates the warriors. They’ll thump your skull to stop you. Second, just do whatever they tell you to. Don’t argue. Don’t complain. Just … do it. The less trouble you are, the longer you will live.”

No one said a word. They just sat in the canoe, breathing hard.

Finally, Auma turned to him and gestured to his swollen, battered face. “You must not have listened to your own advice.”

Despite his thundering headache, Wrass smiled. “I helped four friends escape last night. The miracle is that the warriors didn’t kill me for it.”

“It looks like they tried,” Auma noted.

“Did they make it?” Toksus propped himself up on his elbows. “Did your friends escape?”

“Yes.” Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. He might not do anything else right for the rest of his life, but last night … he had. Odion, Tutelo, Baji, and Hehaka were free. Safe.

Auma frowned out at Gannajero. The woman gave a crowlike cackle and began to pace. Her hunched figure passed back and forth through the tree-filtered starlight. Over the lapping of waves and the faint sigh of wind through the branches, Wrass could hear her talking to herself, the words indistinct mumbles.

Kotin stood just up from the bow, hands propped on his hips, lips pressed into a hard line. He didn’t seem eager to interrupt the conversation the old woman was having with herself.

Auma said, “Who is Hehaka? Do you know?”

“One of the boys I helped escape.”

“Why does she want to go back and find him? With all the warfare, she can Trade for plenty of boys.”

Two warriors—apparently out of patience—climbed out of the second canoe and stalked over to Kotin. Their low voices were barely audible over the sounds of the river, but they wore worried expressions. They kept gesturing to Gannajero.

Wrass glanced across at the canoe they’d left, seeing his friend Zateri raise her head. She gave the warriors a wary look, then met Wrass’ eyes. He could see her concern as she took in his battered and swollen face.

Wrass turned his attention back to the warriors, trying to read their lips. To Auma, he said, “There was something special about Hehaka. He’d been her captive for seven summers. He—”

“Seven
summers
!” Toksus started shivering. “And he never got away?” His voice turned shrill. “She might keep me for seven summers? That’s the rest of my life!”

Wrass was still watching the warriors, and thought he saw Dakion say:
She’s insane … . Leave her … .

Toksus grabbed Wrass’ hand. “Tell me! Why didn’t she ever sell him?”

“Somehow, and I don’t know how, he kept her safe.”

Auma asked, “How could a captive boy keep her safe?”

As Wrass watched Kotin make a dismissive gesture to Dakion, he said, “Hehaka once told me that he’d tried to escape, but she’d always ordered Kotin to find him and bring him back. He once heard Gannajero tell Kotin …” His voice faded when Gannajero suddenly whirled around and stared at the assembly of warriors. She was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling. The men went utterly still, like mice when an owl’s shadow passes overhead.

“Kotin, come!
”
Gannajero ordered.

Kotin said something to the other warriors, backed away, and hurried to where she waited under the trees. A filigree of dark limbs stained the paler gray behind her. Gannajero’s voice was indistinct, almost a singsong. She shook a fist in Kotin’s face, and he threw out his arms as though in surrender.

Wrass barely heard Gannajero say, “ … plotting against me. Don’t you … he’ll find me.”

But Kotin clearly replied, “We’re far away from his country. We won’t be going back for many summers. He’ll
never
find you!”

Gannajero went silent. She appeared to be thinking about that.

The group of warriors on the riverbank shifted. Dakion had his eyes narrowed menacingly. He said something to Ojib that made the man nod.

Kotin glanced their way, put a hand on Gannajero’s shoulder, and guided her deeper into the trees.

Wrass lifted his left hand from beneath his cape and felt his forehead. His fever raged, but he—

Toksus gasped suddenly and pointed at Wrass’ hand. “What happened?”

Wrass looked at it. The pain in his head was so staggering, he’d forgotten about his little finger. He flexed it. “Gannajero sawed off the tip with a chert knife.”

“Why? What did you do?” Auma asked.

“Nothing. She needed a flesh offering to consecrate the eagle-bone sucking tube she was going to use to suck out a man’s soul.”

Their horrified expressions gave Wrass the queer sensation that he had just stepped over the edge of a cliff … and it was a long way to jagged rocks below.

“She sucked out a man’s soul?” Toksus hissed. “Why?”

“She’s Gannajero the Crow. A witch. She sucked out the man’s afterlife soul and blew it into a small pot that she carries in her pack.”

Starlight coated Auma’s face with a wash of silver. “She has a pot filled with souls?”

“Yes. She took Hehaka’s, too. She got mad at him one night and sucked his soul into that pot. Then she told him that when he died, she would carry his soul far away before she released it.”

“So that he could never find his relatives again, and he’d be doomed to wander the earth alone forever?” Toksus asked breathlessly.

“The old woman doesn’t like to be crossed.”

They all turned to peer intently at Gannajero, who was waving her skinny arms while Kotin slouched, as if under assault.

Barely audible, Toksus whispered to Wrass, “There’s something inside me. It feels like a snake, coiling around.” He put a hand to his chest and winced. “Do you think she cast a spell—?”

“You’re just scared.”

Toksus licked his dry lips. “But it feels like more. Are you sure she didn’t shoot a witch’s pellet into my heart?”

“When she curses you, you’ll know it. Hush. Here she comes.”

Gannajero strode back to the canoe and climbed into the bow. Standing like some perverted bird, she stared at Wrass first, then, one by one, at other children. They tried to shrink through the bark hull.

“Come here, boy.” Gannajero gestured to Toksus.

“W-Why?” He huddled against Wrass.

“We’re going to make camp, and I’m going to feed you first,” she said in a bizarrely kind voice. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“Yes.”

“Then come.” Gannajero’s voice might have been a doting grandmother’s.

Wrass bit his lip, desperate to protest, any words dying in his throat as the old woman fixed him with her soul-eating, empty eyes.

Shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, Toksus walked across the packs toward her. When he got close, she grabbed his arm and jerked him out of the canoe.

Toksus yipped in fear as she dragged him into the small clearing surrounded by silver maples and shoved him to the ground. “Stay there or I’ll slit your throat.”

“What about the others?” Kotin asked.

“Leave Hawk-Face. He’s too sick to run, but bring the girls. Tie them over by that tree.”

Hawk-Face. That’s what she called him. She had unpleasant nicknames for all of her children. Zateri’s was Chipmunk Teeth because her two front teeth stuck out.

Wrass sank back against the packs. All he wanted was to close his eyes and sleep forever.

Five

B
y the time Cord reached the massive chunks of rock that clustered at the base of the pass, he was stumbling and gasping for breath. He propped himself against a stone slab and waited for his men to catch up.

Dzadi emerged from the darkness first. The old bear slumped down in the middle of the trail and flopped back against the rocks. Panting, he asked, “How … many? How many—?”

A long wailing howl pierced the darkness and was answered by shrill yips from lower on the trail: Wolf Clan warriors calling to each other across the lone and silent mountain.