People of the Longhouse Read Online Free PDF Page B

Sonon forced himself to breathe.
    The night scents smelled incredibly clear to him. The tang of damp oaks mixed sweetly with the fragrances of the nearby Forks River and the earthiness of the thunderstorm that seemed to have no end.
    Ahead, through the dense tangle of trees, he glimpsed the shell midden used by the People of the Hills. The midden—a trash mound three times the height of a man—marked their territorial border. In a few paces, he would be out of Standing Stone country.
    Just the thought filled him with hope. He forced his shaking legs to move faster. The girl’s body rocked in his arms.
    “Just a little longer,” he murmured to her.
    Repeated flashes of lightning turned the shell midden into a wildly twinkling hill.
    As he started up the steep slope, he stumbled, almost dropped her, and clutched her to his broad chest. “Careful,” he hissed, more to himself than to her. “Careful now. We are almost there.”
    With his sandals skidding and clattering on the wet shells, he carried her to the top of the mound and gently lowered her body. The view from up here was gorgeous. Whitecaps glistened down the length of the wide Forks River, and for as far as he could see, lightning slashed the stormy sky.
    “You’re home,” he said, and bent to stroke her face. Her skin felt cold and clammy.
    Sonon straightened. For a few brief instants, he did not hear the rain or the wind through the branches. His souls were filled with a terrible silence. Each person, before he crossed the bridge to the afterlife, had to discover what he was running from and why. This moment—this exact moment—was the heartbeat of his own search. The terror that had stalked him all his life.
    “The crow comes, the crow comes, beat the drum, hide the young, and run, run, run,” he sang as he tried to focus his eyes. A dark fluttering filled his head. The iron-gray night was suddenly broken and shimmering, as though each instant was nothing more than a shattered glimpse of death.
    Desperation tingled his veins.
    He lifted his face to the storm … . The rain washed her blood from his hands … . The roar of Thunderers drowned his agonized cries.
    When he could breathe again, he choked out the words, “One f-final task.”
    He grabbed the leather cord of his gorget and lifted his precious
conch shell pendant from around his neck. The False Face image carved into the shell stared up at him with hollow eyes. Holding it in both hands, he breathed his soul into it, then placed it upon her chest, right over the protruding shaft of the arrow. As he straightened, the old, tarnished, copper beads that encircled the collar of his cape clicked together.
    “When I reach the bridge to the afterlife, remember me,” he whispered.
    He watched the cascades of falling leaves that showered the forest while he thought about death: hers and his own. There was a bridge that spanned a black abyss of nothingness, and each soul had to cross it to reach the afterlife. Standing on this side of the bridge were all the animals a man had known in his life. Those he had helped defended him and gave him the time to cross the bridge. Those he had hurt chased him, trying to make him fall into the abyss, where his soul would float in black emptiness for eternity. On the opposite side of the bridge—if a man was going to make it—he saw all the people he’d ever loved, waiting for him. A man who was not going to make it across saw nothing.
    Sonon knew, for he had stood upon the bridge many times and seen across the border of death to what lay beyond. That emptiness still lived in his dreams, calling to him in a lover’s voice, luring him to step onto the planks. Someday he would freely walk into those open arms and never return. He longed for that black peace with all his heart.
    Cold wind rustled the trees around him, and leaves pirouetted through the air.
    He sucked several deep breaths into his lungs and forced his trembling legs down the midden slope toward the