The Grey Pilgrim by J.M. Hayes

Author:J.M. Hayes [Hayes, J.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-59058-452-1
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2011-01-25T16:00:00+00:00

Complete With a Rumble Seat

Three strangers rode into Fat Wolf’s village near the end of December. They kept mostly to themselves and that was not like the People. After one night, they left their horses, loaded their belongings on their backs, and set out to go trade with a nearby rancher. That was really peculiar. A horse could carry more trade goods than a man.

“Who are these strangers that they act so secretively?” the kid with the rodent-like face asked. He got the answer he wanted. Jujul’s people.

In the middle of the first night they were gone he sneaked into the corral and marked a hoof on each of their horses. Someone would have to look very closely to notice it, but Talker, who had shaped the marks, would be able to pick out their tracks at a glance.

The three came back at a trot shortly after noon two days later. He watched as they sought out Fat Wolf for a hurried council. The three saddled and loaded their horses, then took separate trails out of Shongam. That scared him. Someone was chasing them. Whoever was after them might be after him as well.

Talker had started at his home village. After watching it for a day to be sure no one was there looking for him, he had taken the chance. It proved safe, but it was hard going back without anything to show for the time he’d been away. He endured the humiliation of being Mirage Talker again so he could speak to his grandfather. One of the old man’s daughters, his aunt, had married a man from Jujul’s village.

Grandfather wouldn’t tell him where to look, but the old man pointed him in a direction. “Jujul is a man who runs toward his enemies, not away from them.”

So Talker headed toward Tucson and the eastern edge of the reservation. He asked at the villages he visited and the answers were usually silence. Occasionally, though, someone would admit they thought Jujul was nearby. Talker knew, if that was true, Jujul’s people would have to establish contact with the villages close to him. They would need to trade and get word to friends and relatives that they were well, that babies had been born, that young people needed brides and grooms. Talker decided he was more likely to succeed if he stopped hunting and waited for his prey to come to him.

He chose Fat Wolf’s village of Shongam because it was a poor place that needed hunters and laborers badly enough to take in a stranger without asking too many questions. He chose it because the rumors he’d collected put it in the right area and because something about the place felt right to him. It didn’t take long to find that he’d chosen well. Gossip wasn’t always shared with an inquisitive stranger, but a fellow citizen was different. Jujul and his people were, indeed, nearby. No one knew just where, but they passed through Shongam often enough and sometimes came for news and trade.

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