People of the Silence (89 page)

Night Sun couldn’t breathe. As Father Sun rose toward noon, he poured a harsh white light upon the plaza.
How long has it been? Two hands of time. More? Blessed Ancestors, let this end!

“Get him up!” Jay Bird shouted, and gestured to the guards. The elderly Chief’s eyes had taken on a monstrous gleam of delight. He was smiling. “Howler! Drag him to his feet! And be mindful of the stones he throws!” Jay Bird gripped his own lance, ready to deliver the final blow when the time came.

Howler and another warrior broke from the line and hauled Ironwood to his feet. He braced himself on wobbling legs and wearily lifted his gray head to face his executioners.

Night Sun looked into that tormented face and the whole world died around her. She was remotely aware of the shrill laughter and war whoops, of the stench of sweating bodies, the coppery odor of Ironwood’s blood …

Her throat went tight. One of his eyes had swollen shut from a nearly fatal lance thrust. The rest of his body looked worse. Every time he’d deflected a blow downward, the lance point had driven into his chest, stomach, or legs. Blood drained from
dozens
of punctures and gashes.

Dune took Night Sun’s arm in a frail grasp, as if he needed something to hold on to. His voice came with difficulty. “How can he stand? How?”

She lifted her head and stiffened her spine. “He’s showing them how a Straight Path warrior dies.
Never let anyone forget.
”

“So long as I live, the story will live.”

The guards spun Ironwood around and shoved him down the corridor again. Shrieks of joy rose from the Fire Dogs. They leaped and danced and struggled to get close enough to see what was happening.

Howler’s lance flashed, and Ironwood let out a small, wretched cry. He staggered, holding both hands over his left eye. Another lance shot out, striking him in his right cheek … his legs went weak. Ironwood collapsed. But this time, he did not try to rise. He lay on his side in the dirt, his chest heaving.

Night Sun’s eyes burned with tears. She lived his every heartbeat, his every breath. Images flitted: laughing together … loving each other … the pain that had lived in his eyes all those summers. A thick band of rawhide had tightened around her chest. No matter how much air she drew into her lungs, they felt starved. Panic gripped her. Would his pain never end?

Night Sun glanced at the two guards. One stood to her left. One to Dune’s right.

Night Sun strode forward, her sandals sinking in the sandy plaza. The guards shouted at her in the Fire Dog tongue, but she didn’t stop. She headed for Jay Bird.

“
End it!
” she shouted. “Ironwood has proven himself! It is time you acted like a
Chief,
Jay Bird! Be done with this!”

A guard ran up and gripped her arm, jerking her backward so hard he almost pulled her off her feet. Without thinking, Night Sun backhanded him. The guard’s head snapped back, and the crowd roared, half cursing, half laughing.

The humiliated guard tore the stiletto from his belt, and came at her …

“
Stop it! Stop!
” a terrified voice cut through the din. “
Grandfather,
make him
stop!
”

Poor Singer shoved through the crowd and ran toward Night Sun, his black hair flying. Cornsilk came through behind, started to follow … then saw Ironwood. She let out a cry and rushed to her father’s side.

The guard glanced between the two youths, hesitating, his stiletto hovering above Night Sun as she glared at him.

Jay Bird threw up a hand and shouted something in Mogollon. The guard scowled, cursed her, and lowered his weapon.

Poor Singer stopped in front of Night Sun. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Night Sun hurried by him, chancing that she would have one last opportunity to see Ironwood.

Poor Singer caught up and kept pace with Night Sun, escorting her across the plaza. As they approached, the villagers shoved each other out of the way. Wide eyes examined them. People whispered behind their hands.

Cornsilk had thrown herself over Ironwood. He lay unmoving. Blood rushed in Night Sun’s ears. She knelt beside Cornsilk, but looked up at Poor Singer. “Please, speak to your grandfather. Perhaps you can convince him—”

“I’m going!” He ran, shoving through the crowd.

Night Sun cataloged the wounds leaking the very life out of Ironwood, and whispered, “Hold on.” She took his bloody hand in hers. “Hope just walked into camp.”

His left eye was a blood-clotted hole. He looked up at her through his right eye, and a fleeting smile crossed his face. “Too late … I think.”

Cornsilk wrapped her arms around Ironwood’s gory chest and wept. “Don’t die! Don’t die, Father.”

Ironwood smiled weakly and struggled to look at Cornsilk. The effort seemed to drain his last reserves. His face contorted as he slowly sank back to the ground. He heaved one final deep breath, and his head rolled to the side, his eye closing.

“No!”
Cornsilk wailed.

Frantically, Night Sun reached for the big artery in his neck … and found a pulse. Weak, but there. “He’s asleep … or unconscious. But he’s alive.”

She spun as a roar went up from the crowd and people began shuffling back, opening a lane for Jay Bird. The Chief tramped down it with his eyes blazing, Poor Singer running at his heels.

*   *   *

As Jay Bird raised his spear over Ironwood, Poor Singer leaped in front, and knocked it aside. “I
must
speak with you!”

“Move! I’ve an old score to settle, and I’ve waited too long to—”

“Just a few moments! That’s all I’m asking!”

“To say
what?
To beg for his life?” Jay Bird yelled. His elderly face glowed bright red. “I told you days ago that I would
not
release Ironwood. And I will not. How dare you run in here and demand that I stop this! Can’t you hear the souls of your murdered ancestors calling for his blood!”

“Grandfather,
please.
” Poor Singer spread his arms in a gesture of surrender. Tears streaked his face. “I must speak with you. Just let me speak with you. I bring you news.”

“News? From whom?”

Mustering all of his courage, Poor Singer said, “From the gods.”

Jay Bird’s enraged face tightened. “What do you mean?”

“I had a vision, Grandfather. The god who spoke to me gave me a message for
you.
”

Jay Bird shoved him aside. “This is a trick. You are telling me this to keep me from killing Ironwood, and I have already made it clear—”

“As the gods are my witness, Grandfather, I
swear
to you this is not a trick! I’m telling you the truth! If you will only give me some time to explain—”

“No!”

Jay Bird lifted his lance again, and Poor Singer leaped, slamming into his grandfather so hard that Jay Bird stumbled sideways. Spinning in rage, Jay Bird lifted a fist to strike Poor Singer.

The instant seemed to freeze.

The crowd went deathly silent. Jay Bird’s furious face turned to stone.

As if his entire life had been leading to this moment, Poor Singer shouted, “You would refuse to listen to the words of the gods? What sort of leader are you? All of my life I have heard stories of the great Jay Bird, and now I find a man who considers himself above the gods.”

“If the gods wished to send me a message, why would they not come in person to tell me? Why send a skinny youth—”

“
I am a Singer, Grandfather!
And, before these people, I tell you, you
will
listen to me!” He turned then, raising his hands to the gawking Mogollon. He cried, “I bring word from the gods! They are angry at this foolishness!”

Howler and some of the other former slaves translated the words, and they passed through the assembly like a hissing snake. Some of the Mogollon spat at Poor Singer. Others eyed him fearfully.

Jay Bird grabbed Poor Singer’s arm and spun him around to glare into his face. “I’ll deal with you later, boy. For now…” His words abruptly dried up as his eyes shifted. He searched the crowd and then the heavens. “Do you hear that?”

“What?” Poor Singer cocked his head at the distant roar, like a violent thunderstorm out over the desert … except it seemed to be growing louder, riding the very air.

“Kill Ironwood!” Howler shouted. “Let us get this over with!”

But Jay Bird didn’t move. He stood listening. Finally, he whispered, “Blessed gods…” threw down his lance, and grabbed for Poor Singer’s arms.

At first, Poor Singer did not understand what was happening. Then the thunderous roar struck like a mountain falling down around them. One of the Mogollon guards screamed and threw himself to the quaking earth, his arms protectively covering his head.

A sick, lightheaded feeling overcame Poor Singer. He struggled for balance, began to stumble, his feet weaving, and grabbed for Jay Bird to keep standing.

Jay Bird shouted, “Why are the gods angry with
me?
They should be venting their wrath upon the Straight Path dogs for all they have done! Not me!”

Yells and shrieks split the air as dust seemed to dance out of the earth of its own will. Frightened dogs yipped shrilly and darted between the buildings.

As the shaking grew more violent, Jay Bird lost his hold on Poor Singer, careened sideways, and toppled to the ground. Poor Singer fell backward, desperately clutching sprigs of grass, as if they could save him. In the sky above, the Cloud People bounced around like hide balls thrown against rock.

Roof timbers cracked in the village. Dirt cascaded down, and a wall of dust gushed over the plaza. People crawled across the shuddering earth, trying to get to the collapsing houses where children wailed.

The roar grew to deafening booms, like the footfalls of giants. Poor Singer closed his eyes and prayed.…

Then, suddenly, the roar dropped to a grumble, and the ground stilled.

Stunned silence held the village. Then someone shouted, and people began running across the plaza, heading for the line of rooms that had collapsed. A new roar rose as people pawed through the wreckage, screaming and calling out the names of loved ones.

Poor Singer sat up. Ten hands away Jay Bird braced himself on his elbows. They stared at each other. His grandfather looked like a man who had just seen the Creator, Hummingbird, dive out of the heavens and alight before him.

“Let us go somewhere and talk, young Singer,” Jay Bird said, breathing hard. “I will hear your message.”

Fifty-Two

Jay Bird sat with Poor Singer on a grassy rise overlooking the stream that meandered at the base of Gila Monster Cliffs Village. The newly leafed trees added a bright spring green to the clusters of junipers. Puffy tumbles of cloud sailed across the blue vault of sky, but the air had a curious unfamiliar odor, a bilious, metallic tang.

“So, you killed Swallowtail?”

Poor Singer looked down at the blood on his hands, dried now, flaking off his skin in irregular patterns. “Yes. I did, Grandfather.”

Jay Bird pondered the story of the Keeper and the turquoise cave, and the horror of finding Swallowtail raping Cornsilk. Clots of blood matted Poor Singer’s black hair to his cheeks. Jay Bird leaned forward and propped his forearms on his knees. That sense of serenity, of growing Power, hung about the boy like a mantle.

“I offered my life in exchange for Ironwood’s,” Poor Singer said.

“You would have given your life to save him?”

“I wanted to very much.”

“And what did the Keeper of the Tortoise Bundle say to this?”

Poor Singer turned his deeply tanned face toward the speckles of sunlight falling through the trees. They glittered in his hair and reflected from his soft brown eyes. “She knew that you wished to kill him, and she—”

“She
knew?
”

“Yes, I don’t know how.”

A sharp pain lanced Jay Bird beneath his left breast. He lifted a hand to massage the spot. “Doesn’t matter. Holy people often know such things, sometimes before we know them ourselves. I was just surprised. Go on.”

Sorrow crinkled the lines around Poor Singer’s young eyes. “The Keeper asked me why I would give up my life for a man I barely knew. I told her I couldn’t stand to see any more of my friends die, that all of this was my fault. If I hadn’t been born, if Sternlight had let me die, none of this would have happened.”

Jay Bird lowered his hand to his lap and laced his fingers tightly. He didn’t know what to say. His grandson must love these Straight Path people very much.

Poor Singer shook his head and continued. “She asked me if I understood what it meant to have the heart of a cloud.”

“… The heart of a cloud?”

“Yes. A Spirit once told me: ‘You must have the heart of a cloud to walk upon the wind.’ I didn’t understand back then.”

“And do you now?”

Poor Singer frowned. “Some of it. I told the Keeper that I thought that the heart of a cloud was tears, and ‘to walk upon the wind’ meant to be able to look down from high above, to see more clearly.” He turned to face Jay Bird, and his eyes were moist. “I think the teaching means that if I live inside the tears of other people, I will see life more clearly.”

Jay Bird sat back. For a man Poor Singer’s age to understand the nature of shared pain was rare. How many old men, men in their seventieth summer, had yet to learn that truth? “What did she say?”

“She said, ‘Tell your grandfather what you did here. What you saw here. He will understand.’” Poor Singer frowned at Jay Bird, as if wondering if he did.

Jay Bird smoothed his hand over the grass at his side. The new blades felt soft and delicate. “Did she say anything else?”

Poor Singer nodded. “Yes. She told me that if I spoke with you, I would be a great Singer one day, and that I should make my life an offering. That it would save far more people than my death.”

An odd throbbing pain built above Jay Bird’s heart. This wise woman of the mountains had hidden a message for him alone in those words.
She is warning me that my grandson will be a very great holy man. That is, if I don’t kill his soul by killing his friend.