The Dawn Country Read Online Free PDF Page A

earned the men death if their relatives ever learned of it. Gannajero, however, specialized in ensuring that no one ever found out about her children, or what happened to them.
    The farther south Wrass’ captors paddled, the thinner the clouds became until they drifted through the night sky like translucent veils of charcoal silk. He watched them pass. Sometimes they looked like feathers slowly falling to earth. Two canoes bore Gannajero, her captive children, accomplices, and packs south from Bog Willow Village. Gannajero’s canoe, where he lay, was in the lead.
    He tried to concentrate on the river’s tangy smells. Old leaves had piled along the shores, creating moldering borders that suffused the air with the musty scents of just-past autumn.
    The only sounds on this cold night were the soft swishing of oars and the whimpering of the new children who lay beside Zateri in the canoe that followed them.
    For a time, he let himself drift on the waves and think of home—which he rarely did, because it hurt too much. Yellowtail Village had been burned to the ground in the attack, but by now the survivors would have found a new place to rebuild and would already have cut hundreds of logs for the palisade. They might even have the palisade finished, and had perhaps begun building longhouses. He remembered Grandmother Sayeno telling the clan elders, two moons before the attack, that if they were smart they would ally themselves with a larger Standing Stone village. That way they could help protect each other. He wondered where the survivors had gone. Bur Oak Village was the closest large Standing Stone village. Perhaps they’d gone there to rebuild Yellowtail. If they …
    “We have to find Hehaka.” Gannajero’s sharp voice rose from the bow. “It’s the only way.”
    The old woman had been speaking quietly to her deputy Kotin for two hands of time, but as her voice grew more desperate it got louder.
    Kotin replied, “But by now Hehaka could be halfway to Standing Stone country. How can one little boy—”
    “Don’t tell me what I already know!” she snapped.
    Wrass turned in time to see Kotin shrink like a water bladder being wrung dry.
    “Yes, all right,” Kotin mumbled, taking a stroke with his paddle.
    Wrass cautiously lifted his head, wincing at the pain. Two warriors sat behind him, alternatively paddling and steering them through the frozen night. They wore capes against the cold, skin caps on their heads, and did their best to look in any direction but at Gannajero.
    Wrass let his gaze trace the canoe’s sleek gunwale, following it forward to where Gannajero sat in the bow. The old woman wore a new cape made of finely smoked deerhide and decorated with circlets of seashells and flashing twists of copper. She had seen around forty summers. Greasy twists of graying black hair framed her deeply lined face, framing her toothless mouth and that shriveled plum of a nose.
    And her eyes … Her eyes were black bottomless pits that seemed to have no pupils. Looking into them was like gazing into a well of hopeless terror that froze a person’s souls. Whatever Gannajero was, nothing remotely human ever seemed to look back.
    Kotin leaned over her hunched form like a hunting heron about to spear her with his long nose. He reminded Wrass of the hagondes— cannibal Spirits who carried off bad children in a basket. Grandmother Sayeno and her sisters had seen one once. It had been walking near an old longhouse and was clearly visible in the moonlight. The Spirit’s nose had been so long it almost touched the ground. They’d tried to catch the Spirit, but it had let out a hideous scream and vanished into the forest before they …
    “That little boy, as you call him,” Gannajero snarled, “is valuable in ways you’ll never understand.”
    Hehaka? Valuable? Wrass made a face, only to wince at the pain it caused him.
    Three children rode in the canoe just beyond Wrass’ feet: two girls and a boy. The boy had seen