People of the Silence (13 page)

“An offering?” He paused uncertainly. “You mean like two mice on a juniper stick?”

Her smile waned. “I will demand much more from you than the Monster Thlatsina.”

“How will I know what it is you wish me to bring—”

“You will know.”

From the pool behind her a huge figure slowly emerged. Water cascaded from its body, shining with moonlight. Buckthorn’s muzzle gaped as the creature dropped to all fours. It leaped and kicked like a prancing deer. Only when the creature looked straight at him did Buckthorn see its massive twisted face, coated with pink clay from the sacred lake where the thlatsinas were born.

Mudhead!

The sacred being extended his arms and began to Dance. He whirled like a leaf in the primal winds of creation, floating higher, the rhythmic stamping of his feet pounding out the heartbeat of the world.

When the Mudhead kicked and soared like an arrow for Buckthorn’s belly, Buckthorn let out a horrified shriek …

*   *   *

And jerked awake sitting up in his blanket. Drenched in sweat, he blinked to clear his blurry eyes, searching the starlit juniper grove. His firepit had blown clean of ash. One lump of charcoal sat in the ring of stones, completely dead.

“P-Power Dream…”

Buckthorn looked down. The trembling fingers of his right hand had knotted in the fabric over his aching belly. It took an act of will to pry them loose. When he brought the hand up, he frowned at the blood, not understanding at first.

“It can’t be!”

He jerked up his long brown shirt, and starlight shone on the shallow cuts that covered his stomach and legs. Frantic, Buckthorn pulled up his sleeves. He gazed wide-eyed at the bloody scratches.

Just as if he’d loped through brush!

… Or rolled into the spiky nest of dead juniper limbs at his back.

A pack of coyotes broke into song, serenading the silence with mournful cries. Buckthorn bit his lip. Their beautiful voices echoed through the desert stillness. He listened intently for a time.

“Whew,” he finally breathed. “It’s all right. I don’t understand any of their words.”

He snuggled into the worn softness of his blankets and watched the darkness. As his gaze roamed the sparkling heavens, his thoughts kept returning to the beautiful woman in the turquoise cave high in the icy mountains.

Six

Footsteps. Very faint.

Thistle turned toward the leather door hanging that kept some of the cold at bay. As she moved, thick black hair fell over her shoulders, framing her fine-boned face. Thirty summers old, she stood ten hands tall and slight of build. She cocked her head, listening.

The steps came up the dirt path slowly, as though her husband’s soul drifted in one of the skyworlds, seeking answers he could not find. He placed his feet so lightly that his sandals barely crunched the gravel.

She knew that walk. Knew what it meant. She had dreamed of yucca root last night, a warning of the nearness of death. But whose?

Thistle wiped her sweating palms on the hem of her lichen-dyed yellow dress, and looked to her left at Cornsilk and Fledgling. The children slept beneath brightly colored blankets. Only the top of Cornsilk’s head showed, but Fledgling had thrown off most of his covers. She listened to the deep rhythms of their breathing, letting the sounds comfort her fears.

From the woodpile beside the slab-lined firepit, she picked up a pine knot. When she placed it on the glowing bed of coals, flames crackled and sparks winked upward toward the roof’s smoke hole.

Her gaze roamed their small house, four body-lengths square. They had built it from sandstone, then plastered both interior and exterior walls with white clay carried all the way from the sacred lake in the south. A small window with a leather curtain pierced the rear wall. In front of her, on either side of the doorway, a black long-necked water jug stood in a line with several plain pots which held red, yellow, white, and blue cornmeal, as well as a variety of Healing herbs. She and Beargrass had collected them on a trip southward. It had been a bright spring morning filled with laughter and tender touches: turkey mullein for heart ailments, screwbean for stomach distress, prickly pear cactus pads to use as drawing poultices for bruises and burns, and the roots of yucca to ease the pain caused by the knotted-joint disease. Mugwort leaves to induce miscarriages.

A ring of scalps encircled Beargrass’ weapons, his bow, two bone stilettos, and a long obsidian knife, which hung on the wall to her right, over their bed. After being carved from the head, the souls of the enemy scalps transformed themselves into water and seed beings, and bestowed long life and great spiritual Power upon the warrior brave enough to have taken them in battle.

A flat basket of stone tools and a pot of dried juniper berries rested to her right. When brewed into a strong tea, the Spirit of the berries trickled into a person’s soul and warded off witchcraft. She had been using these more often of late. Rumors ran the roads, saying that entire villages had turned to witchcraft to protect themselves from the ambitious First People at Talon Town—especially the Powerful priest, Sternlight, and the terrible Crow Beard.

Thistle wet her lips anxiously. Her gaze drifted to the right. At the foot of their bed sat a large, elaborately painted pot, the ceramic lid weighted down with a heavy stone. The pot held extraordinary trade goods: red and green parrot feathers, jet and turquoise jewelry, seashells brought all the way from the great ocean, two flutes made from the leg bones of large cats, and six intricately carved statues—alien gods, with long teeth and bulging eyes.

The statues had been gifts from the Blessed Sun, Chief Crow Beard of Talon Town, and neither she nor Beargrass could have refused them. They terrified her. When Thistle least expected it, the Spirits in the statues would suddenly wake and send Power rushing like melted rock through her veins. She was no Spirit Dreamer, not even a seeker of visions, so their message eluded her. She knew only that they, too, feared the future.

The steps halted outside the door.

A gentle voice called, “You should not be awake, my wife. The Evening People have walked from dusk until nearly dawn. Did I not tell you you should—”

“And I
begged
you not to attend the meeting!” She leaped to her feet and went to stand over the children.

Beargrass pulled open the deerhide curtain, ducked through the low T-shaped doorway, and entered the house. He had a narrow face with a round nose, and eyes the color of old cedar bark, an odd gray-brown that glinted in the firelight. His long black hair hung loosely about his shoulders. Though he had seen only thirty-three summers, lines etched his forehead and ran crookedly from the corners of his eyes. He wore a beautiful blue blanket over his shoulders. Beneath it, his long red-and-black striped shirt hung to below his knees.

“I regret that the meeting took so long,” he apologized. “I hope you didn’t worry.” He removed his blanket and quietly folded it. “How is Cornsilk?”

Thistle looked at him, knowing that he was delaying.
It’s worse than I thought.
“She’s still weak, but her cough is gone.”

“And Fledgling?”

Thistle knelt beside the fifteen-summers-old youth and gently tucked the blanket around his bare back. Her long hair fell over her shoulders, shielding her strained expression. “He asked me many questions about where you had gone, and what news the runners had brought. He…”

Her hands started to shake. Tightening them into fists, she got to her feet and walked to stand face-to-face with her husband. “Tell me. What did they say?”

The grim runners had arrived at sundown, drenched in sweat. They had run for three days straight, neither eating nor sleeping. They went immediately to the clan Matron and asked to speak with Beargrass and Thistle, saying they brought urgent news from Ironwood, the great War Chief of Talon Town.

Panicked, Thistle had refused to leave her house, using her daughter’s illness as an excuse, and advised her husband to do the same. He had ignored her—as loyal to the Blessed Sun and his favored War Chief now as he had been sixteen summers before.

Beargrass walked to their willow-twig sleeping mats and placed the folded blanket atop them. With his broad back to her, he murmured, “They say Crow Beard is dying.”

“Are they sure? But how
can
they be after—”

“Please.” Beargrass turned, and she saw the ache in his eyes. “Let us sit down and speak of this calmly.” He gestured to the mats spread around the fire.

Thistle cast a terrified look at the children, but did as he’d asked. Legs unsteady, she dropped to the south mat, facing the doorway, drew up her knees and wrapped her arms tightly around them. “Do you believe it?”

Beargrass knelt on the north mat, across from her. The golden aura of the fire bathed his shirt with a curious orange color. “Wraps-His-Tail told me himself. He is the War Chief’s deputy and dearest friend. He is bound to the truth. He would not lie, as I wouldn’t have when I was the War Chief’s deputy. Thistle, the Blessed Sun has seen almost fifty-five summers. Given his frailty and the many illnesses he has suffered, Spider Woman has been generous to give him so many. I pray she—”

“But what will become of us?” The desperation in her voice surprised her. More quietly, she asked, “Of our
family?
He can’t die! Not yet. Besides, how many times have we heard his death proclaimed? At least five! I do
not
believe it!”

Beargrass shifted uncomfortably and his shadow leaped over the wall behind him like a silent dancing ghost. His wrinkles deepened. “I admit that Crow Beard may just be off on another Soul March to the afterworld, but I don’t think so.” He rubbed his hands together, warming them. “In any case, we’ll know soon enough. Sternlight will place his body on the great foot-drum in the First People’s kiva and instruct slaves to watch over him.”

Thistle closed her eyes. “If War Chief Ironwood doesn’t slit his throat first to make certain. He hates Crow Beard. The man is—”

“Hush, wife!”
Beargrass glanced around anxiously. “You know Wind Baby is his Spirit Helper! He tells Ironwood every word he hears!”

Thistle leaped up and ran to the door to peer out into the predawn darkness. A pale lavender glow lit the mountainous eastern horizon, pushing up the indigo of night, making way for Father Sun’s daily rebirth. From this hillside above Lanceleaf Village, she could see the broad plaza and most of the valley. Within the protective rectangle of the village, the plaza was gray and silent.

Wide-eyed, she studied the desert plants. Not even the barest of breezes moved the sagebrush. She let the door curtain fall closed. “I think we are safe.”

As she walked back toward her husband, forbidden thoughts crowded her soul, old fears she had worked cycles to suppress. What would life be like without her children? Every vista, every flower or tiny bug, looked brighter and more beautiful when she looked at it with them. She put a hand to her face to cover her tears.

“Don’t cry, my wife.” Beargrass drew her down to the mat beside him. “We
are
safe. Not even Wind Baby would betray us after what we have gone through for the Blessed Sun.”

“I wasn’t crying for us, my husband, but for the child. Don’t you see? Crow Beard wouldn’t have sent runners to us unless he himself believed he was about to die, and he was warning us that … that we might lose our child.”

Beargrass put a gentle hand on her soft hair. “That makes no sense, my wife. Crow Beard has other children to rule after he is gone. If Crow Beard had wanted ours to come to Talon Town, he would demand it outright. Not send messengers with news that he is dying. What purpose would it serve?”

“I don’t know,” she answered softly.

He nuzzled his forehead against hers. “Listen to me. The Chief abandoned his offspring out of kindness, and has compensated us well for keeping his secret. Look at the fine blankets we own. The magnificent turquoise jewelry. The copper bells from the Hohokam people far to the southwest. Each is worth more than the rearing we’ve provided. He’d never ask for the child back. He couldn’t be so cruel.”

Hope, light and sweet, sent tendrils through her. She looked up at Beargrass. “Do you think so? Truly?”

“Yes. Maybe the Chief only wished to warn us that if he died the payments would stop coming.”

“
Yes.
Yes, of course!” A desperate laugh escaped her lips. She clutched handfuls of her yellow skirt. “That’s why he asked Ironwood to send runners! We have nothing to fear. There will be no more payments, but what do we care? The secret will die with us and our family will be safe forever!”

Beargrass whispered, “Yes,” but his gaze darted uncertainly over the clay-washed walls.

“What’s wrong? What are you thinking?”

Beargrass rose and went to stand over the children, his gaze on Cornsilk. Long raven strands of her hair spread over the sleeping mat. Beargrass reached down to touch them, but stopped a hand’s breadth short, probably because she’d been ill, and he didn’t wish to wake her. As though it hurt not to touch his daughter, he drew back his open hand and clenched it into a fist.

“I was thinking that we are not the only ones left who know.”

Thistle swallowed her response when she saw Fledgling rouse. Their voices had been too loud. He yawned and stretched his arms over his head. His round tawny face gleamed when he rolled on his back to look up at Beargrass. “Hello, Father.”

Beargrass knelt by his side. “I’m sorry I woke you, my son. It is not yet morning. Sleep some more.”

Sleepily, Fledgling asked, “Did you just return?”

“Yes. It has been a long night.”

“What did the runners want?”

“Oh, many things, most—”

“Father.” Fledgling lifted himself on one elbow. The flame glow made his dark eyes shine as if coated with pure copper. His bare chest looked skinny and very pale. “The ghosts in the afterworld told me that they had come to ask you to be a warrior for the Blessed Sun again. It scared me.”

“No, no, my son.” Beargrass cast a worried glance at Thistle. “Nothing so serious.”