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nodded. “We had no enemies,” he said quietly. “Not until the end.”

III
    The Ota and the Kesa
    N O ENEMIES UNTIL the end.
    The redsticks pressed him on this comment but he gave no answers. The entire truth was that he had brought those enemies and that end, same as he had brought about the death of Benjamin, the torture of Samuel. The fawn was pulled from the fire and consumed, and as the night wore on the redsticks finally left him alone save Morning Star. The prophet rose up from beside Blood Girl and went to sit with him. At first Kau was nervous but then he relaxed. He stared at the fire and thought of his lost home, of an emerald forest cut by swift rivers.
     
    THOUGH HE AND his band of Ota roamed the forest like bees, they seldom strayed very far from the Kesa settlement of Opoku, trading wild meat and wild honey for the vegetables and fruits of the village
fields. The Ota and the Kesa were separate, but they were also the same in that each depended upon the other for their survival—still, while the Kesa viewed the Ota as something like allies, they did not consider the tiny forest people to be their equals. And for their part, Kau and his tribesmen, they too were not without arrogance.
    But the arrogance of the Ota was akin to the quiet satisfaction of a spy who continues to escape detection. Moving among the Kesa, the Ota were shy and deferential because an Ota is a mimic. What he knows of survival is learned in the forest and—just as a stalking Ota huntsman copies the bark of duiker, the chatter of monkeys—the Ota long ago traded their own language for that of the Kesa, doing what they must to gain access to that village world of plenty they had grown to covet. Only when the Ota were alone in the forest was their true nature revealed. Here, with the last remnants of their dying language, they described those things for which the Kesa had no words or understanding. And they mocked the villagers, a superstitious people who presumed evil spirits and witchcraft to be the cause of every ill.
    The villagers’ fear of the forest was above all a confusion to the Ota, as the Ota trusted in the forest. The Ota saw the forest as benevolent and kind and believed that when there was a hardship it was only because their guardian had fallen into a slumber. During these bad times the Ota would send for the sacred molimo that they kept hidden high in a treetop, and with this wooden trumpet they would call out to the forest so that it would then awake and continue to protect them. There would be singing and dancing, a celebration of the happiness soon to return.

     
    OCCASIONALLY IN THE long history of their association, the condescension of the Kesa and the deception of the Ota caused minor clashings between the two peoples. Insignificant disagreements and confrontations that were always soon resolved.
    But then one day Kau’s wife was caught foraging in the village cassava fields. Her name was Janeti, and she was the mother of their young daughter Tufu, their infant son Abeki.
    The farmer who seized Janeti had long desired her from afar—as it was a fact that most Kesa men found the small and cheerful Ota women to be more attractive than the sullen females from the village. And with her shiny skin and wide hips Janeti was even prettier than most. The farmer wrestled her to the ground and then clamped his hand over her dark lips. Janeti’s barkcloth fell away, and when she returned to the Ota camp that evening she was dirt-caked and crying and bruised. There was outrage among the Ota, and though they were not warriors some of the younger men took up their hunting bows and threatened to attack the village of Opoku. Kau himself was leaving the camp when his mother and his wife locked their arms around his leg. At last his father intervened, asking that the elders be allowed to speak. The women and children withdrew to their leaf huts, and the men held council until a consensus was reached. Because it was the Ota way,