Twenty-Five

Purple thunderheads marched eastward, trailing iridescent tendrils of rain across the rumpled desert. Against the golden undercoat of sunrise they seemed to be long-legged giants striding to meet Father Sun.

Gnat stopped in the bottom of Straight Path Wash to watch them. The cool morning air carried the scent of wet earth and sage. He took the fragrances into his lungs and held them for as long as he could before releasing his breath. As he did, the sun rose higher and peeked through a gap in the clouds, and a spectacular orange glow bathed the land. Gnat stood still for a moment, immersing himself in the beauty.

Webworm walked up and Gnat fell in step beside his lanky leader, heading up the wash again.

They had been marching for less than a hand of time, but already the War Chief seemed preoccupied. He had been tripping over nothing and cursing: back stiff, jaw clenched, a black braid draped his right shoulder. He resembled a man walking to his death. Blood had leaked from the severed head in his pack and soaked his red shirt.

The thirty warriors behind them muttered, no doubt wondering, as Gnat did, what ailed their new leader. The raid had been easy, the deaths quick. They had carried out their orders—though not one man had liked them. But what difference did that make? They had done much worse under Crow Beard’s command. Gnat ached for Beargrass, too. Murdering a friend … well, it wounded the soul. But it had been a disgrace that the War Chief had been unable to carry out the order himself.

Gnat had awakened twice in the night and both times Webworm’s blanket had been empty. Once, he’d seen Webworm out in the sage, cradling his wounded arm and kicking at brush.

Gnat veered around a head-high pile of mud. Saturated walls of earth had slumped off the steeply eroded banks and blocked half the drainage. Thirty summers ago, this wash had been a broad shallow stream. Now the sheer walls rose two body-lengths over his head. Here and there lonely roots hung out, dangling in the breeze, their long-dead plants not even the ghosts of memory. A babbling brook of rust-colored water flowed by. Gnat slogged through it.

Yuccas spiked up along the bank, their bulbous seed pods rattling like old bones in the cool breeze. Bleached stems of rice grass quivered.

Gnat’s gaze drifted southward, and he frowned, and stopped. His moccasins sank in the damp sand as he lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the rising sun. Puffs of smoke drifted among the clouds. “What’s that?”

Webworm looked up suddenly, as if Gnat’s voice had awakened him from a nightmare. His broad face lined with concern. “What?”

“Smoke. See it?”

Webworm squinted against the glare. “Yes. From the signal tower near Center Place. Three puffs … followed by two long strands, then a single puff.”

“If we saw the entire message. Let’s wait.”

They watched as the signal began to repeat, the gray smoke floating up among the Cloud People. At night the message would have been sent by draping a hide curtain over the window of the tower and building a fire inside. Three short flashes would have been followed by two longer bursts of light, then another short flash.

Webworm shifted the pack on his back. Gnat had wrapped Fledgling’s head in lengths of cloth to absorb the blood; it must feel like a granite boulder on Webworm’s shoulders.

“May I help with your pack?” Gnat asked.

“No, no, I…” Webworm shuddered lightly. “All night long I heard strange shrieks. I have an eerie feeling, as though the boy’s soul rides my back like an enraged eagle, just waiting to sink his talons into me.”

“Beargrass was your friend, and the boy … the boy was perhaps just Beargrass’ son. But we did our duty, Webworm, what more—”

“But why did I believe Sternlight?” Webworm demanded as he swung around. “Never in my entire life have I trusted my cousin! He’s a stinking witch—and a murderer! Why did I believe his story about Beargrass?”

Gnat’s brows drew together. Webworm looked panicked, ready to flee for his life. “It doesn’t matter,” Gnat said. “Snake Head gave you an order, and you carried it out. What is wrong with you? You had no choice. None of us did.”

Webworm shook a clenched fist in Gnat’s face. “Didn’t you see the look on Beargrass’ face?” he hissed. “I knew him well! He told the truth when he said Fledgling came from his own body. Gnat … don’t you understand? I murdered a dozen innocent people! Many of them children!” Webworm’s eyes went wide and round. “Blessed Ancestors, I pray the gods forgive me.”

So their men would not hear, Gnat gripped Webworm by the good arm and pulled him closer, murmuring, “Many of the gods were warriors. They understand duty.”

“Do they?” Webworm shook off Gnat’s hand and seemed to be struggling for control. He fixed his gaze on the smoke signals again. After several moments, he said, “Something’s wrong. They are warning visitors to stay away.”

“Then we should get back soon. It is, perhaps, nothing, but—”

“But it may be.” Webworm pointed to the cut in the bank ahead. It had been packed down by thousands of feet, and the tan soil shone darker than the surrounding drainage. “Let’s take the slave crossing. It’ll be faster.” Webworm turned to the warriors who trailed behind them. Heads went up. “Come closer!”

The men crowded around Webworm and Gnat. Fearful murmurs ran through the ranks. They had all seen the signals. Many men lifted hands to the Power pouches strung around their necks, small leather bags filled with sacred items, and offered silent prayers to their Spirit Helpers.

Webworm said, “Be ready! This may be nothing more than a few people ill with a fever, but we must prepare. Perhaps Talon Town is being raided.”

The warriors pulled arrows from their quivers and nocked their bows. Against the background of the placid wash and slow-moving clouds, their movements seemed chaotic, their worried voices a muted roar.

Gnat drew an arrow from his own quiver and nocked his bow, then trotted toward the slave crossing with Webworm at his heels. The smoke signals repeated the silent warning.

When Gnat reached the crossing, he thrust out a hand to stop Webworm and pointed to the ground. Tracks dented the sand. “Look! Two people. A big man. He was heavy. See how his moccasins left deep impressions? The other is—”

“A woman,” Webworm finished. He began carefully walking up the south side of the trail, working out the tracks.

Gnat took the north side, eyes narrowed as he read the footprints left in the ground. “She was running when she ascended the earthen ramp. Her heels almost never hit the ground, she must have—”

“Blessed Father Sun,” Webworm whispered as he followed the man’s tracks up the slope. “Gnat … do you see this? Look, here and here.”

Gnat tilted his head in confusion. Not running. Not even walking. But Dancing. Despite the blurs caused by the rain, the prints clearly showed a man spinning around, his toes pointing one direction then another, as he climbed the ramp.

The warriors followed in single file, all studying the tracks intently.

At the top, Webworm crouched down and touched the knee print in the soil. Gnat looked over his shoulder. The man had knelt here, his right knee on the ground. Only the toe prints of his left foot showed, so he’d been leaning slightly forward, probably bracing …

Gnat jerked his head up and sighted along the direction the man must have been aiming. Pale green fabric caught the light, contrasting to the winter-brown of the weeds.

He trotted forward cautiously, until he saw the long black hair that haloed the person …

Blessed thlatsinas!

He broke into a run.

Gnat dropped beside her. She lay on her face, an arrow protruding from her back. Blood drenched her green dress and splattered the crushed weeds where she’d fallen.

Webworm trotted up beside him and bent over, frowning. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know, but one arrow through the lung wouldn’t cause this huge pool of clotted blood.” It soaked the soil around her. She had to have been killed yesterday, or perhaps last night, because it had dried and blackened.

Gnat gripped her by the shoulder and flipped her onto her back.

Webworm sucked in a sharp breath.

“What sort of savagery is this?” Gnat’s fist clenched.

Her belly had been slit open from her groin to her breasts. But with great care. Not a single intestine had been pricked, and the diaphragm and internal organs remained in place, but a curious shine coated the insides of her thighs. Semen? Had she been raped? Gnat recoiled, wondering if the murderer had taken her while alive, or after he’d killed her. The smooth places in the sand, and the dirt on the back of her hair and dress … it looked as if she’d been on her back when she’d first fallen. Had he turned her over after he’d finished with her?

“Oh, Cloud Playing,” Webworm whispered. He knelt and every muscle in his strong body knotted.

Gnat clutched his weapons more tightly. Her pretty face bore streaks of blood. But her eyes had been closed by her attacker. Muddy fingerprints smudged her lids.

When Webworm’s shoulders started shaking, Gnat looked away. Webworm had once loved her. Perhaps he still did. It had nearly killed Webworm when Crow Beard had ordered Cloud Playing not to see him again. Gnat didn’t know all the details, except that she had married another, and Webworm had left Talon Town for three moons. Despite their parents, Webworm and Cloud Playing had always been friends. After her husband and children died, Gnat remembered seeing the two of them sitting on the banks of this wash, talking. She had been lonely. It had seemed to comfort her to have Webworm close.

Her name ran through the ranks: “It’s Cloud Playing!”

“Blessed thlatsinas! Cloud Playing? Who could have done this?”

“Snake Head will be enraged! What will happen when he finds out his sister—”

“Quiet!” Gnat ordered. “Spread out! Look for more tracks! Raiders could have done this!”

The men trotted away in all directions, shoving sagebrush aside to peer under the branches, searching for mashed grass, or a thread torn from the murderer’s clothing when he’d fled.

The first shock subsiding, Gnat took a closer look. First, he turned his attention to the arrow, and his gut soured. Mogollon Fire Dogs, Hohokam, and Straight Path people, each had their own distinct style of point. A man also marked each of his shafts with his personal colors, clan markings, or perhaps the cut of the fletching.

The arrow that had killed Cloud Playing was nondescript, made of plain willow, perfectly straight and smooth, but unpainted. The split turkey-feather fletching had been tied with sinew, and the obsidian arrowhead was a simple triangle, its flat base fitted into a slit in the willow shaft, glued with pine pitch. Behind the base, the sinew had been wrapped tightly to hold the point in place.

The skin on the back of Gnat’s neck prickled. He took a deep breath and rocked back on his heels. Whoever did this had deliberately made an arrow that couldn’t be traced. Her death was not the result of a raid, or an accident. This was murder. But who? Why?

Webworm bent forward to peer into Cloud Playing’s open belly and throttled a cry. “Blessed gods…”

“What?” Gnat steeled himself and peered inside. At the first pungency of human entrails, he held his breath and studied the way the intestines looped, and the umber-brown lobe of liver. Dirt clung to the viscera, and they’d begun to wrinkle as they dried.

And then he saw it, down low, just above where the cut ended in the tangled thatch of pubic hair. Gnat swallowed hard and used the handle of his knife to hold the abdominal wall back. His hand trembled. The murderer had deliberately sliced into her womb, cut it wide open, and …

He whispered, “That’s … that’s corpse powder! Inside her. Do you see it? In the shadows, it shines!”

A shudder went through Webworm. “Yes.”

Gnat got to his feet and stepped away from the body, far enough to take a clean breath of air and stare up at the clouds he’d thought so pretty. Now, despite the effects of sun and shadow, they seemed colorless, leached. He blinked and stared at the abandoned cornfields. Life was ebbing away, the land, the drainage channel, everything was drying up before his eyes. As if the world were bleeding to death, and no one knew it was happening.

Webworm rose unsteadily and came to stand beside him. “This … this is not the work of raiders.”

“No,” Gnat agreed.

Webworm slowly lifted his gaze to Talon Town, following the killer’s tracks. The Great Warriors stood tall on the rear wall of the plaza, lightning bolts aimed directly at Gnat and Webworm. Their brilliantly colored masks shone in the early morning sunlight. “This,” Webworm added softly, “is the work of a madman.”

“A crazy witch.”

“Gnat,” Webworm’s voice sounded frail. “I—I argued with her the last time I saw her. I begged her to marry me. She told me she couldn’t. I started shouting like a maniac.”

Gnat frowned. “What does that matter now?”

Webworm shook his head. His fists clenched. “I don’t know.” He turned, slung his bow, and shoved his arrow back in his quiver. Tears beaded on his lashes as, heedless of his wounded arm, he slipped his hands beneath Cloud Playing’s shoulders and knees and clutched her to his chest. Blood ran from her stomach cavity and drenched his shirt.

Webworm began walking toward Talon Town as if in a trance.

Gnat kept pace at his side until he saw Webworm’s arms shaking, and heard him say softly to Cloud Playing, “Forgive me…”

Gnat fell back, letting Webworm go ahead. He didn’t know if Cloud Playing’s soul could hear, but he knew Webworm considered the conversation private.

Gnat looked from the Great Warriors of East and West to the human warriors scattered through the ragged weeds, and back to Webworm clutching Cloud Playing’s limp body in his arms.

Both Wraps-His-Tail and Cloud Playing had been First People. Both had been returning to Talon Town after a journey. Each had been sprinkled with corpse powder. Who could be responsible? He tried to recall who had been standing lookout on the night Wraps-His-Tail died. And who had been there last night.

Gnat shook himself. A feeling of impending doom slithered around his belly.

He studied Webworm’s broad back. The War Chief had his forehead pressed against Cloud Playing’s. Mournful sounds drifted on the morning wind. Gnat prayed none of the other warriors could hear. When a War Chief showed weakness, it sapped every man around him. In the past twenty cycles, Gnat could not recall one time when Ironwood had broken down. Ironwood had always been the rock against which men could brace their backs and fight the whole world, if necessary.

Gnat took up the trail again, weaving through the ratty patches of grass. Perhaps Webworm would not be War Chief very long. Idly, Gnat sifted through the names of men who might replace him. Wraps-His-Tail would have been next, then Cone. But Cone had been missing for half a moon. Everyone believed him dead.

Gnat scanned the trail, surveying the other warriors.

Perhaps, if he watched himself, even he might have a chance.