Broken Trail Read Online Free Page A

of bright beads. No trophy feathers yet. Ready for his first war party, he had been waiting all summer for Broken Trail to catch up.
    Broken Trail wondered what his friend was doing right now. He might be checking his snares. He might still be asleep on his bearskin on his family’s sleeping platform in the longhouse. If awake, he might be thinking about Broken Trail, worried that something bad had happened to him. Eleven days had passed since his dream quest began. That was a long time.
    The backward churning of the stern paddle roused Broken Trail. The canoe had reached the far side of the river. The paddlers held the canoe steady while he climbed out onto the bank.
    With a brief, “Good luck,” the soldiers backed up the canoe and turned it around. Broken Trail watched their departure. After a moment he turned away and, with the sunrise on his left, began to walk.
    The path led through leafy woods, their green tinged with scarlet and gold; then there was a stretch of low scrub, followed by more woods. Broken Trail kept to an easy pace that would not cause his wound to start bleeding again.
    Around midday, when he began to feel hungry, he pulled a hardtack biscuit from the bag. He nibbled one corner. The biscuit had no flavour at all. But his stomach rumbled, and he had nothing else to eat. Broken Trail broke off a piece and, as he walked along, managed to chew it into a doughy paste that he could swallow.
    Toward evening, he came to a green glade with a stream running through it. Here he stopped to make camp for the night. Taking off his blood-stiffened legging, he washed it in the stream and laid it over a bush to dry. The bandage on his right thigh looked clean. No fresh bleeding. Tomorrow, he thought, he would be able to walk faster.
    Blueberries were plentiful in the glade, tiny dusky globes bursting with sweetness. He feasted on berries and then lay down on a bed of spruce boughs, not bothering to make a fire. It was a warm night. The chirping of a thousand crickets kept him company, and he slept well.
    In the morning his right leg was stiff, although the stiffness eased once he started moving. Again, he chewed hardtack as he walked along. The wet leather of the legging hehad washed felt clammy against his skin. But soon he ceased to notice, and by the end of the day it was dry.
    That evening he removed the bandage from his thigh. The wound was healing well. There would be a small scar—something to remind him of the day his
oki
revealed itself to him.
    On the third day of his journey he reached the west end of Oneida Lake. Charred poles poking up through the grass were all that remained of the fishing village that had stood here three years ago. This was the place to which the warriors who found him in the woods had brought him, a runaway child discovered sleeping in a pile of leaves. He remembered his first impression of the people’s dark faces and the mingled smells of smoke and fish. From that day, he had felt at home among them.
    He would stop here for the night, he decided. And he would fish for his supper. No need to eat hardtack when Oneida Lake teemed with fish. Almost as soon as he threw his line into the water, a big pickerel took the hook. Sitting beside a small fire, he grilled it on a stick.
    As darkness fell, he sang a prayer song. When he lay down to sleep, the sighing breeze seemed to hold the voices of those who had been here before. Not ghosts, but memories populated his mind.
    With his eyes closed, he could see his Oneida mother, Catches the Rainbow, placing fresh split-open fish to be smoked on a rack over the fire. He remembered her smileand her gentle eyes. Her voice was low, and he could not recall her ever raising it in anger—certainly not against him.
    His memory of his Oneida father was not so clear. Leaping Deer had been tall, and had had a habit of holding his head slightly turned, as if constantly on the lookout for danger lurking behind his shoulder. For all his