The Eden Hunter Read Online Free PDF Page B

“But what we believed was not so different.”
    She dropped the reins and began gathering her chocolate hair into a topknot. She was sideways and facing him still, but her horse stayed the trail, following that of Morning Star. “They are gone?” she asked. “Your people?”
    He nodded and then the path made a sharp turn. The redsticks banked their stallions quickly—so quickly that, for a moment, they all seemed to be spinning in place.
     
    THEY TRAVELED THROUGH the night and then until late the next day. Along a wide spot in the trail he saw where the trunk of a big live oak had been notched twice with an axe. Here they at last halted. Little Horn dismounted and patted him on his leg. “Florida,” he said, stomping down hard on the earth.

     
    AT DARK THEY left the trail and made their camp at the far end of an oak grove. He spread his horse blanket out beside the fire and sat down. Morning Star and Blood Girl were across from him; Little Horn was already on his back and sleeping.
    Kau watched through the smoke as Blood Girl began scrubbing the war paint from Morning Star’s skin with the torn corner of a charred quilt. The redstick prophet whispered to her, and she looked over at Kau and spoke: “He tells me that we have many more to kill.”
    “White men, you mean?”
    “Yes.”
    Kau folded his blanket over so that he was cocooned within it. He was through with killing. “I have heard that there are places here in Florida where there are still no white men,” he said. “Is that true?”
    She balled the quilt in her hands and handed it to Morning Star. “I think so,” she said. “But at one time you could have said that about the whole of this land.”
    “I only need a piece of it.”
    He saw Morning Star shake his head. The prophet rose up holding the quilt, then walked with Blood Girl away from the fire and into the darkness. Soon there came sounds like those made by small animals tussling, and Kau stared at a far southern star as he lay listening to the snarls and squeals of their lovemaking.
     
    IN THE MORNING he watched as Little Horn took a knife to Lawson’s longrifle. The redstick unscrewed the buttplate and shaved down
the stock. When he was finished Kau lifted it to his shoulder, and though the balance was off it did fit him perfectly. He lowered the flintlock and motioned toward Morning Star. The prophet was wandering among the hobbled stallions.
    “Yes?” asked Little Horn. “What is it you want to know?”
    “Why does he not carry a flintlock?”
    Little Horn brushed the curled chips of wood from his lap and shook his head. “He follows the old ways in everything.”
    “So only the club?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you?”
    Little Horn laughed, then he bent the brass buttplate over onto itself and threw it into the fire. The full sun had appeared in the sky, but the air was still cool within the shade of the oaks that surrounded them. “I am no prophet,” he said.
     
    LITTLE HORN AND Blood Girl both gave him lessons with the longrifle—teaching him the proper powder load and how to shoot with some accuracy. On occasion he made to leave but always the redsticks delayed him, convincing him that he needed more rest and more food, more training with the longrifle before he should continue on his journey. At night they built great roaring fires without concern, but when he asked if here at last was a place where men need not fear discovery the redsticks only shrugged and said no but let them come. We fear no one.

     
    HE SPENT ALL of the day with the longrifle, concealed within briers near the fork of a deer trail. Late in the afternoon a doe appeared, and when she paused to glance back the way she had come he pressed his cheek against the longrifle and peered down the barrel, closing his left eye same as the redsticks had taught him. The front sight was a thin blade of silver, and he lined it up with the groove of the rear sight, fixing on a spot just behind the doe’s shoulder. At