Two Rivers Read Online Free PDF

longhouse will also not lose its dweller this
way.”
    “My longhouse can do without the annoying boy,” said the woman,
losing her composure all of a sudden. “But Yeentso will be missed dearly.”
    Seketa hesitated, surprised by her own agitation. “But this
boy, he doesn’t seem so bad. I don’t think he did what he did on purpose. It was
very confusing. We didn’t see what happened, except that they collided and the
ball went out of the field.”   
    “I don’t know.” The woman was back, stirring the contents of
her pot, quiet again. “I wish none of it happened. It was such a good day, with
the game coming right after the ceremony. We were so expectant.” She shrugged,
shaking her head. “Too bad it all happened.”
    “Well, I’ll be going,” said Seketa politely, hiding her
anxiousness to escape the pointless conversation.
    “Go out of the other entrance. It’ll save you some walking
toward the council meeting. The Honorable Healer is there, too.”
    Nodding, Seketa rushed on, passing through the last compartment
and diving into the darkness of the storage space to find out that the screen
covering the entrance was pulled closed, blocking her way.
    Why would someone bother to close the stupid screen? she asked
herself furiously, struggling to keep the water from spilling, pushing the
screen with her free hand. It screeched and refused to move.
    She cursed softly, and was about to place her bowl upon the
floor, when a figure moved out of the shadows, soundless, like a forest beast.
Stifling a cry, her heart pounding, she peered at him as he moved the screen,
allowing some of the faint moon to slip in.
    “What in the name of the Great Spirits are you doing here?” she
cried out, her voice still trembling. “You scared me!”
    He said nothing, his eyes dark and haunted, peering at her, the
intensity of his gaze unsettling. She contemplated just running out and being
gone.
    “What are you doing here?” she repeated, tossing her head high.
If she ran, he might think she was afraid of him, and that would be paying too
much honor to the wild boy. He must be feeling too good with himself for
getting the upper hand with the warrior of Yeentso’s caliber.
    “Nothing,” he said, his voice low, strangled somehow.
    “Are you hiding from someone?”
    “No.”
    She peered at him more closely, but in the faint light of the
moon, all she could see was the mere outline of his face, the hint of the pressed
lips, the blankness of his eyes.
    “No one will hurt you until the Councils decide your fate,” she
said. “You don’t have to hide.”
    “I’m not hiding.” An agitated tone crept into his voice, making
it sound almost challenging. “I’m not afraid of them!”
    “Them? Who are ‘them’?”
    He shrugged. “Anyone. I don’t care.”
    “You almost killed Yeentso. If he dies, you’ll die too. You
should care about that.”
    “Well, I don't.”
    She raised her eyebrows, trying to make him see her contempt,
although the gesture seemed to be lost in the semidarkness. “What do you care
about, then?”
    He shrugged again and said nothing.
    “Well, Yeentso is not dead yet. He is groaning and vomiting,
but he is not wandering the other worlds anymore, so he may live.”
    “I hope he dies!”
    She shook her head. “You are strange, really strange. And you
are wild, too. How do you expect people to think good things about you when you
behave this way?”
    “I don’t expect anything from your people. They hate me,
anyway. They wouldn’t care if I behaved nicely or not. They hate me for being
the foreigner, the enemy. They were only too glad to see the proof of it.”
    “No, they are not!” Finding his words impossible to comprehend,
she fought for breath. “My people are not like that. Your people are the
savages, not mine. You were adopted, and you are one of us now. This is the
law. Maybe your people have no laws, but mine have.” She glared at him, truly
enraged. “We have plenty of