ONCE TELEZ HAD BEEN invited to the Leopards’ territory to discuss their proposal, it’d only been a few days before their would-be farmers had arrived. Libi had come through for them with the recruitment, talking a couple of old friends into making the trek across the river to learn a new trade. It had probably helped that all of them had become quite fond of the taste of cassava.
It’d been Aalyan who’d suggested the Leopards be given some trees near the edges of their land to sleep on so that they’d not need to travel every day, but the notion had made the Awá uncomfortable enough that Ghian had had to step in, asking, “Are we not trying to build an alliance? Then we must show trust. We have no reason to believe our generosity will be repaid with any type of harm to us.”
He hadn’t addres
