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.Though he observed scrupulously, nothing happened to change Shonan’s plan.At midafternoon, they walked upstream behind their ridge of land.Shonan carried the one spear thrower he was familiar with, Yah-Su carried two.Shonan was confident that his single dart would do the job.At the spot he’d picked out, they eased up to the top of the ridge and watched.Normal village activity.When the two were sure they wouldn’t be seen, they slipped down the hillside and into the river.Yah-Su signed, “Success or failure, we stick together afterwards.”Shonan answered, “And go to the Amaso village.”Yah-Su pursed his mouth and gave a reluctant yes.They floated downstream.This was the dicey part.Mostly the riverbank hid them from the village, but not always.They stayed in the water up to their eyes and floated their weapons like sticks.Where the bank got low, they turned onto their backs and floated downstream with only their noses above water.They slipped into some river cane and squatted in the dense foliage, heads above water, to get a break from floating.Shonan fingered the cane, remembering that he needed to make weapons when he got home—knives, a couple of war clubs, a couple of spears, a couple of spear throwers, even a blow gun.The damn Brown Leaves had taken all his weapons except the little blade that saved his life, the knife in the cleft of his bottom.They floated.The river braided, and they eased into the left-hand fork, toward the bay.This braid was closest to the village, but it was also the deepest and brought them to their prey.Shonan motioned toward the left bank.When they beached, he signed that he was going to take a look at the town.He crawled up a short gully in the bank, raised his head behind some weeds, and peered toward the village.Everything as usual, even another ball game.Some villagers were watching the boys play, which was good—it held their attention.He crawled back down the gully and nodded at Yah-Su.They slipped into the water and floated on.Shonan thought, I’ve never gotten a ride to a killing before.Around the bend a young man stood waist-deep in the water cutting cane.Damn!Shonan kicked his legs silently and eased to the far side of the narrow stream.Maybe the young fellow wouldn’t look up.If he did, maybe he wouldn’t see them.Shonan saw that Yah-Su was swimming quietly closer to the Brown Leaf.The Red Chief yearned to scream, but noise was exactly what they didn’t need.The young cutter got a piece he wanted and raised up.He put one end on the river bottom to measure it.Just right, his own height.He put it to his mouth to blow through it.Then, terribly, he swung the cane upriver, as though to shoot at something there.Two steps away the cutter saw the face of a beast in the water.He screamed.The beast rose up hugely—now the young man’s lungs froze—and plunged a knife deep into his chest.Shonan swam like the devil for the village side of the river.He scrambled up and looked.No one was disturbed or excited.The ball game was in full swing, and some spectators were cheering.As Shonan watched, one team scored a goal.The players tucked their rackets under their arms and talked idly with each other.We got away with it.Shonan looked back toward Yah-Su.The buffalo man had heaved the cutter’s body onto the bank.Unless someone found it this afternoon—unlikely—the high tide would probably take it to sea tonight.Yah-Su himself was already back in position, floating downstream.Shonan followed suit.When they came into the bay, at first they couldn’t find the log.Then they saw it, beached on the sand, probably by tidal action.They swam to it—nothing to do except take the risk—and pulled it into the bay.Communicating by nods, they decided to swim the log very slowly, so that an observer wouldn’t realize it was moving, to some reeds on the village side of the bay.This was close to where Maloch customarily undressed and came into the water [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]