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be a demon capable of appearing and disappearing as it desires. He says it was drawn up from the underworld one full moon ago by a Gift Giver still in touch with the Forgotten Times.”
    “In which case the defenses being erected here will prove woefully inadequate.”
    “They must make a stand, Blainey. Whatever is killing their people must be made to show itself where their warriors will at least have a chance.”
    “Ask him if any of his people have seen the Spirit of the Dead.”
    Wareagle obliged, and the chief shook his head methodically before responding.
    “He says all that has been seen is the shape of the hatred the enemy leaves,” Wareagle translated. “The enemy sucks the life out of the land, out of the world, and the result is a hollow spot, an empty spot. It is into this hollow spot that the Spirit of the Dead disappears after its work is finished.”
    The old man spoke again as soon as Johnny had finished speaking.
    “There is more, Blainey. He says signs of the Green Coats were found in their search for the missing boys.”
    “Meaning soldiers?”
    “Seven of them, their steps orderly and precise.”
    “Ben Norseman,” Blaine replied, recalling his meeting with the Green Beret colonel in the lobby of the Caesar Park.
    “They do not seem interested in his tribe, but they are out there, too.”
    Just then a panting brave rushed up to the chief and sat next to him, whispering. The old man listened calmly, then turned to look up at Wareagle and spoke softly.
    “He says the missing boys have been found,” Wareagle translated. “He wants us to come.”
    The boys’ bodies swayed in the breeze, suspended from the tree by vines tied around their throats. The instrument of death, though, had been something much worse.
    They had been disemboweled while still alive.
    Large, jagged holes had been sliced in their abdomens, the contents drained a bit at a time. The pain would have been enormous, and much of it was still frozen on their faces. Blood from their mouths and noses had dripped down to their chests like paint running down a wall. Blaine kept his eyes on it to distract himself from the holes ripped where their stomachs had been. He kept to a distance where the smell was less intense. “What did this, Johnny? What the hell did this?”
    Wareagle had ventured closer, eyes cold as marbles. He stared at the corpses and swiped at the flies that had clustered about. The boys’ toes dangled two feet off the ground, so Johnny was looking directly into their dead eyes.
    “The vines are knotted in a way that would not bring on suffocation,” he said, eyes lowering. “The initial stomach cuts were made with a sharp object, a knife perhaps, so the skin could be parted and stripped back. The contents could then be pulled out.” He turned to McCracken. “By hand.”
    “Jesus Christ….”
    Wareagle had leaned over the stinking pile of the corpses’ insides. Blaine drew up even with him, while the chief and Tupi warriors kept their distance.
    “What about tracks?”
    Wareagle was on his knees now, sliding his callused palms across the ground. “Nothing from the time of these killings. Much from after.”
    “I’m listening.”
    “Seven men wearing U.S. combat boots.”
    “Norseman,” Blaine muttered. “Ben and his goons must have come in to hunt something down.” He looked at Wareagle. “Our Spirit of the Dead maybe.”
    Wareagle looked up. “The Green Coats came in from the northeast. I can follow their tracks. They may bring us closer to what we have come to find.”
    McCracken gazed up at the last of the day’s light. “Not without sun. We’ll spend the night with the Tupis, help them make their stand, and leave come morning.”
    “Something might come before that.”
    “Save us a trip, Indian.”

Chapter 7
    THE TUPI WARRIORS patrolled the valley’s perimeter in positions shown them by Wareagle. Blaine hung back through it all; not yet fully accepted by the Tupis, he focused his