The Ghost Rifle by Max McCoy

Author:Max McCoy [McCoy, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2021-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

16

Flute Song

When the council ended there was no verdict, as Jack had expected. Instead the members simply drifted away, and no decision was the decision.

Jack would live by default. For Lightning Crow to have agreed with Jack, Sky explained, would have meant shaming war chief and his supporters, so the reasonable thing to do was simply to ignore Jack.

Jack was prevented from sleeping inside the village that night, so made his bed by the river. At dawn, Sky came to him. Her hand briefly touched his shoulder as she knelt beside him, and Jack thought it was as light as the touch of a butterfly.

They sat on the blanket, watching the sunlight chase the fog from the surface of the water. Neither said anything for a long time. Jack thought about the speech he had made the night before, and how Sky had translated, and about how the speech seemed to have changed him, even if it had not convinced anyone else. What kind of steel was he turning himself into, he wondered? Would he eventually break? Or had he already broken? Jack stole guilty glances at Sky and studied how the morning light bathed her bronze face and illuminated her brown eyes. It reminded him of paintings he had seen as a boy, when warm light seems to emanate from the subjects. She smiled when she realized he was looking at her, revealing nearly perfect white teeth, with the exception of a chipped incisor.

“Stop staring at me,” she said.

“I can’t,” Jack said. “What happened to your tooth?”

“I broke it biting the last boy who looked at me as you do.”

“Honestly.”

“I chipped it on a stone that was hidden in some pemican. Is it ugly?”

“No,” he said. “It is endearing.”

She play slapped him.

“I have something to tell you,” Sky said. “My father says you have until the dark of the Green Corn Moon. Then you must leave.”

“How long do I have?”

“Two weeks,” Sky said. “The moon was full seven days ago. We are already into August, I think. It is sometime difficult to reckon our moons with your months. But I spent some time thinking on it last night. Yes, I am sure it is August or nearly so.”

“That hardly seems long enough,” Jack said.

“Oh?” Sky asked. “Long enough for what?”

“To get to know one other.”

Sky frowned.

“Do not be so sure that I want to know you in that way,” she said. “You made a fine speech last night, but even the blue jay can imitate the hawk. You have not convinced me of what you are. I think of you as the Chief of the Village of the Dead, and it frightens me.”

“Because of this?” Jack touched the copper gorget.

“That and other things,” she said. “You mentioned the cave where the old ones drew their souls on the walls, and you shouldn’t have known about that, either. No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

“All right,” Jack said. “So I have two weeks here. But I might just want to leave earlier.

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