Chapter 17Still shocked to find my father—and about his news, I followed him and kept my thoughts to myself, as the crowds along the path overwhelmed me.
Arrow nudged my arm. “What’s the matter?”
“Where are the trees?” Only a few big locust and acacia dotted the landscape, with grass and scraggly scrub in-between. Smoke columns rose in the distance.
Arrow pointed at them. “A lot of people live here, too many fires and not enough wood.”
At home, the women among the Elders would have never allowed this. They kept the one-hearth rule. It must have taken a lot of wood to cook for all these people.
My stomach rumbled, and I wondered what they had to eat. Not much seemed to grow here, and I saw no sign of animals, not even a hippo trail, and no place to hide for the leopard.
Arrow and I, s
