In the dead of night, Dejunga hides in the shadows beside the trail like a Windigo waits to take a man’s spirit. His face and body are covered in black soot and he holds a vulture wing at his side. A gift for the Sawnay traitor. He is there for only a short while, when the sound of hooves thudding on the path alerts him that the traitor approaches. Cawop rides erect and vigilant of the surrounding forest. Dejunga has been stalking along the Shadow Road for many moons, and so now he is one with the shadows. So Cawop does not see him until he steps out onto the trail directly in front of the thunder horse.
Whinnying, it steps back, kicks its front hooves into the air, kicks at the shadows as if to scare them away. But Dejunga knows shadows do not scare away. A raven flies up into the canopy. He cannot remember seeing a raven fly at night.
“Where are the others?” says Dejunga.
“Sleeping. Soon forever.”
“And you will be new chief of the Sawnay,” says Dejunga.
“And take Poowasan’s daughters as my lifegivers.”
“Ragaroo has promised everything you hunger for,” says Dejunga. He hands the vulture wing to Cawop, who holds it up in the starlight and runs his fingers over the feathers.
“Who is following the party?” says Dejunga.
“No one,” says Cawop. “Only we left the village.”
Dejunga shakes his head. “Another thunder horse follows you. The rider went left at the fork.”
“A lonely horse,” says Cawop, shrugging.
There is a flash in the night from a peculiar-looking bundle that the traitor carries. Then Dejunga notices strange white moccasins on his feet. “Who made the bundle?”
Cawop lifts the bundle at his side, looks at it. “A man named Gucci from Mother Earth.”
“And the moccasins?” says Dejunga.
Cawop kicks his feet out and smiles like a fox. “I took them from one of the boys. The one whose skin is all black. A man named Nike made them.”
“Powerful medicine,” says Dejunga, nodding approvingly.
“Very powerful medicine.”
“Black Skin owned the bundle too?”
“No, a girl.”
Dejunga opens the pouch on his hip. He takes out the shine box and touches the front until the lighted picture appears. He shows the pale-skin Yankee girl to Cawop. “This girl?”
“That is her––Anna from Earth. Her sister also travels with them.”
Dejunga nods, a thrill coursing through him. Two head totems are always better than one.
Cawop starts to move on, but stops and says, “Glooscap is with them.”
“I know,” he says, and he lifts his right hand, which is missing three fingers. “He owes me his spirit, and his spirit I will take.”
Then Cawop smiles and urges the horse forward on the trail and leaves him behind. Dejunga stands there for a while, watching Cawop leave. The only thing Dejunga hates more than a traitor is a thief, especially one whose voice sounds like a dog giving life to puppies. If you want to take from someone, you take their spirit first, as Dejunga will take Glooscap’s. And then Cawop’s when the Wendo attack the village of the Sawnay. He will then feast on his heart and take the bundle made by the man named Gucci, and the white moccasins by the man Nike. Then, he will take Poowasan’s daughters for himself.
As he slips back into the shadows, he hears wings flapping overhead. The raven flies after Cawop. And Dejunga is certain he has never seen a raven at night. He starts off to return to where his braves are preparing for battle, his ghost moccasins treading silently over the forest floor.
And for the fourth time since he came down from his mountain village, Dejunga grins. And among the Wendo, Dejunga is not known as man who grins.