AFTER TELLING MAX THE story of Little Deer, Ayokeh suddenly seemed afraid.
“We should go back,” she said. “I smell something.”
All Max could smell was sweet forest air and the cool gushing river.
“Come on,” Ayokeh said, pulling on his arm. “We must return to warn our warriors.”
Max trusted his new friend, and raced after her up the grassy path toward the Cherokee village.
“What do you smell exactly, Ayokeh?”
“Alcohol and rotten teeth.”
Max froze with terror. He knew exactly what that meant.
“Come on, Birdy, we must tell my father. He’ll know what to do.”
“But all this is my fault!” Then he had an idea. “If I disappear into these woods, then they’ll leave you alone. They’ll come after me.”
“No,” Ayokeh said wisely, “they will think we are hiding you.”
WHEN THEY ARRIVED IN the village, Ayokeh and Max ran straight to the great council house where her father was meeting with the elders. They burst in as the Red Chief was speaking. Sequoyah rose awkwardly.
“Ayokeh?”
“There are bad men coming!” she said. “I picked up their scent.”
“I will go call the warriors,” one of the chiefs said.
Max couldn’t believe there was going to be a war because of him.
“I’ll give myself up!” he shouted.
Sequoyah put his hands firmly on the boy’s shoulders. “We all agree the Great Spirit wants us to protect you.”
“So I could get your village destroyed by gamblers and drunks?”
Sequoyah whispered something to his daughter.
“Yes, Father,” she said, then grabbed Max’s hand and led him back out into the village. Warriors had heard the chief’s call, and were assembling. Women and children hurried toward the trees carrying six-foot-long blowpipes made from river cane.
Ayokeh took one of the blowpipes and gave it to Max.
“There is a dart inside,” she told him. “Just blow.”
Max examined the strange weapon, telling himself not to suck.
“But if anyone gets hurt,” he said, “it will be my fault.”
“No, it won’t, don’t be silly,” Ayokeh said. “Now follow me to our hiding tree.”
Ayokeh led Max to the edge of the village and they began to climb. Just in time too, for as soon as Max was settled in a wide branch with his enormous (but very thin) blowpipe at the ready, he saw a figure sneaking through the woods with a rifle.
Max glanced up at Ayokeh, who was on a higher branch, but she shook her head and the man passed beneath their tree toward the village unharmed.
Then Max saw something he couldn’t believe. He rubbed his eyes, and blinked a few times, but she was still there—a girl just a few years older than himself stepping through the forest trailed by a pack of wolves. She was wearing a tartan day dress, and where her bonnet should have been were tiny flashing lights—like little candles that were too small to hold. Max had never witnessed anything like it. How was she able to control the wolves? It had to be connected to the lights on the side of her head, he thought.
As the bounty hunters reached the fringe of the Cherokee village, Max knew that at any moment, the brave warriors would burst from the houses with their weapons raised, then a terrible, violent battle would commence. Without thinking, he swallowed his fear in one gulp, and scrambled down the tree. Ayokeh called after him, but Max ignored her voice and sprinted to the center of the Cherokee village before anything could happen.
“It’s me, Max!” he cried, waving his arms around. “I’m surrendering, hello! Everyone! It’s me, Max! Fresh from the woods! The kid in the wanted poster! Here I am! Hi! Better take me in!”
There was a great commotion from the men hiding, as well as movement in the trees.
“He’s mine!” shouted one of the mercenaries who’d come fifty miles to claim the price on Max’s head.
“Get out of it!” shouted another as the two men began fighting it out with fists. Suddenly the truth dawned on the dozens of outlaws in the Cherokee village. There was only one bounty to be collected. In a mad scramble, they came for the boy all at once. At that exact moment, Mandy Zilch let loose the wolves she had been controlling with a frequency modulator. As if there wasn’t enough chaos already, thirty-three Cherokee warriors came barreling out of their houses with deer-bone knives held aloft.
The battle Max had tried to prevent was about to take place. And it was going to be a slaughter.
But then something unexpected happened. There was a blinding flash of light as the Cherokee village was hit by an electro-graviton pulse. Then another flash—this time green—out of which came something no one had ever seen, except in myths and legends.