The Dawn Country (41 page)
Authors: W. Michael Gear
Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #Native American & Aboriginal
Wrass playfully bumps my shoulder and leans against me for a few awkward steps. It makes me smile. Having him close is like cool water on a fevered wound. I feel safe for the first time since I lost sight of Zateri.
“I miss them, too. But we’ll see them again. You know that, don’t you?”
Neither of us speaks of Hehaka. He was never one of us. Never one of the trusted few for whom we would have willingly given our lives.
“I know we will,” I whisper. But I’m lying, and he seems to know it.
“We
will
,” he answers in a strong voice, as though the desperate wanting alone will make it come true. “I’m sure of it, Odion.”
I want to believe him, but we are at war with everyone around us—and we are men now. Warriors. Deep inside me, I fear that someday I may be ordered to attack their villages. I will refuse, of course … and then my clan will accuse me of treason. What will I do? Has Wrass thought of these things? Is he thinking them even now? The sound of our moccasins hitting the trail is faint, barely there.
“I had a strange dream last night, Wrass,” I abruptly confess. “It scared me.”
He grips my shoulder and forces me to stop walking. His stare seems to pierce my heart. “What dream?”
I hesitate. “It’s many summers from now. You and I are together. We’re standing in a clearing surrounded by Mountain warriors.”
His fists clench. “Go on.”
I lift my hand and gesture futilely. “It’s … bizarre. It’s the middle of the day, bright, too bright. I can’t feel my body, just the air cooling as the color suddenly leaches from the forest, leaving the land gray and shimmery. It must be summer, because hundreds of butterflies settle into the grass at my feet, and the world goes strangely quiet. You call my name and point, and my gaze moves to the west, where I see a black cloud rising from the depths of Skanodario Lake. It slithers along the horizon like Horned Serpent in the Beginning Time. Elder Brother Sun seems frightened. His blazing face begins to darken, and I know he is about to turn his back on the world and flee, leaving us all to die in the cold blackness.” Shivering racks my body, as though the end of the world has already crept into my veins. I force myself to stop. “I feel so empty, Wrass, like an old husk.”
In a deathly quiet voice, he says,
“We are all husks, Odion, flayed from the soil of fire and blood. This won’t be over for any of us until the Great Face shakes the World Tree. Then, when Elder Brother Sun blackens his face with the soot of the dying world, the judgment will take place.”
My heart seems to stop. I feel as though I’m floating in a vast silent sea. “The judgment?” I whisper. “That’s what it feels like. Where did you hear that?”
Wrass looks away, up the trail, and expels a breath before he answers, “It’s something Shago-niyoh told me.”
“What?” I ask breathlessly. “When?”
“On the river. I was fevered. It may have just been a dream, but I think it was real.”
My gaze instinctively scans the twilight forest, searching for him, praying to see a shred of his windblown cape or hear his deep voice call my name. There is only the distant howling of wolves.
“Gods, Wrass, I pray that means he will be there with me at the end.”
Wrass swallows hard. “I don’t know if he’ll be there. He didn’t tell me.” His gaze shifts to the forest, examining the shadows as though he, too, longs to glimpse the Forest Spirit. When he finally turns back to me, his expression is somber, serious. In a very soft voice, he vows, “But
I
will be there. I promise you on my life, I will be right at your side.”
Our gazes lock and hold.
Without warning, tears well in my eyes and roll slowly down my cheeks. Wrass says nothing. He just walks forward and wraps his arms around me, holding me so tightly his arms shake. Only Wrass, who shares the sunny lost days of my boyhood as well as my memories of the past few moons, can understand.
All I want are the sheltering walls of a warm longhouse, a corner in which to hide and hurt, enough peace to allow me to heal.
In my ear, Wrass says again, “We’re going home, Odion. Everything is going to be all right.”
I let out a breath and high above me see a dove flapping through the slate-colored sky, its wings sleek in the last gleam of day. I swear, for just a moment … I believe him.
BY KATHLEEN O’NEAL GEAR AND W. MICHAEL GEAR FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES
NORTH AMERICA’S FORGOTTEN PAST SERIES
People of the Wolf
People of the Fire
People of the Earth
People of the River
People of the Sea
People of the Lakes
People of the Lightning
People of the Silence
People of the Mist
People of the Masks
People of the Owl
People of the Raven
People of the Moon
People of the Nightland
People of the Weeping Eye
People of the Thunder
People of the Longhouse
The Dawn Country: A People of the Longhouse Novel
The Broken Land: A People of the Longhouse Novel*
The Black Sun: A People of the Longhouse Novel*
THE ANASAZI MYSTERY SERIES
The Visitant
The Summoning God
Bone Walker
BY KATHLEEN O’NEAL GEAR
Thin Moon and Cold Mist
Sand in the Wind
This Widowed Land
It Sleeps in Me
It Wakes in Me
It Dreams in Me
BY W. MICHAEL GEAR
Long Ride Home
Big Horn Legacy
Coyote Summer
The Athena Factor
Morning River
OTHER TITLES BY KATHLEEN O’NEAL GEAR AND W. MICHAEL GEAR
The Betrayal
Dark Inheritance
Raising Abel
Children of the Dawnland
*Forthcoming
A PEOPLE OF THE LONGHOUSE NOVEL
Available Now
I
n
The Broken Land
, the dangerous sorcerer Atotarho sets in motion a cataclysmic battle that threatens to destroy the Iroquoian world. Only three people are brave enough to challenge him: a disgraced warrior known as Sky Messenger, his friend War Chief Hiyawento, and a powerful clan matron named Jigonsaseh. To stop the madman, they must find a way to bring five warring nations together.
Jigonsaseh knows the first step is to create an alliance with an even more powerful clan matron, but the only way to accomplish it is by marrying Sky Messenger to the old woman’s fourteen-summers-old granddaughter, a mousy girl who has adored Sky Messenger since she was barely able to walk. In the desperate negotiations that ensue, Jigonsaseh must do two things: convince Matron Kittle that Sky Messenger is the great Peacemaker promised in legends, and keep quiet the fact that he is a man haunted by a secret that could turn all their dreams to dust … .
T
here are many places in the United States and Canada that bring Iroquois culture to life. Some of our favorites are listed below. We encourage you to visit them. Each makes a great family trip.
The Iroquois Indian Museum, Howes Cave, New York
Phone: 518-296-8949
www.iroquoismuseum.org
Ganondagan State Historic Site, Victor, New York
Phone: 585-742-1690
www.ganondagan.org
Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, Midland, Ontario, Canada
Phone: 705-526-7838
www.saintemarieamongthehurons.on.ca
Bruchac, Joseph.
Iroquois Stories: Heroes and Heroines, Monsters and Magic.
Freedom, Calif.: The Crossing Press, 1985.
Calloway, Colin G.
The Western Abenakis of Vermont, 1600–1800.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990.
Custer, Jay F.
Delaware Prehistoric Archaeology: An Ecological Approach.
Cranberry, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1984.
Dye, David H.
War Paths, Peace Paths: An Archaeology of Cooperation and Conflict in Native Eastern North America.
Lanham, Md.: AltaMira Press, 2009.
Ellis, Chris J., and Neal Ferris, eds.
The Archaeology of Southern Ontario to A.D. 1650.
London, Ontario, Canada: Occasional Papers of the London Chapter, OAS Number 5, 1990.