Forty-Three

Steps padded in the altar room above the kiva. Moccasins on dirt, soft. Ironwood straightened, studying the pale blue gleam of dawn that filtered down the stairs. Webworm came into view. He bowed to the thlatsinas on the walls. His red-and-black cape hung in dirty folds about his lanky body, and dust streaked his broad face and black braid. He started down the stairs, but when he saw Ironwood his steps faltered. Awkwardly, he asked, “Is Cornsilk all right?”

“For now. I take it you didn’t catch—”

“No,” Webworm answered shortly. He finished climbing down, his movements shaky, and braced a hand against the wall beside Ironwood to steady himself, his gaze going around the kiva.

Night Sun, Dune, and Sternlight slept fitfully on the benches to the left, while Poor Singer sat by Cornsilk in the rear, just beyond the fire box. He’d been up most of the night, feeding the low flames, speaking softly to Cornsilk.

Ironwood frowned at Webworm’s bloodshot eyes. “How long has it been since you’ve slept?”

Webworm sank down on the yellow bench. He smelled of sweat and juniper smoke. “Two days.”

“Blessed Spirits, Webworm,” Ironwood whispered harshly, not wanting any of the sleepers to hear. “You can’t lead a war party on an extended march—”

“I haven’t any choice. Snake Head has risen. The burial procession and accompanying war party are assembling in the plaza. I’ll rest tonight.”

Had Ironwood known last night that Webworm had been up for so long, he’d have led the search party himself. “Forgive me for putting you in that position last night. I didn’t know—”

Webworm waved a hand dismissively. “You were right. I am War Chief. I have responsibilities. I shouldn’t have needed you to tell me to post a guard and organize a search party.”

“You were exhausted.”

Webworm gave him a grateful look and peered around the red pillars to where Cornsilk lay beneath her blankets in the back. Her beautiful face had swollen and blackened. Poor Singer sat with his hand on her shoulder.

“You got the arrow point out?” Webworm asked.

“Yes. It hadn’t embedded very deeply. Either the person who shot wasn’t very strong, or he shot too quickly, before he’d pulled the bow all the way back. We might have surprised him.”

Webworm nodded and braced his chin on his hand. “I noticed you didn’t take the trail. You walked through the shadows near the rocks, staying out of the light cast by Talon Town and Streambed Town.”

“And the attacker? What was he doing?”

Webworm’s eyes narrowed. “He must have used the rocks, Ironwood. Walked across them and shot down at you from the top. We found no tracks at all, except in the drainage bottom. He ran through the water to hide his trail when he fled. Only a few sandal prints marked the mud.”

“A big man? Heavy?”

Webworm nodded, and reached inside his cape to pull something from his belt. “I found this near where Cornsilk fell.” He handed the broken arrow shaft to Ironwood. “It’s like the one that killed Cloud Playing.” Webworm’s eyes softened as he glanced at her shrouded body.

Ironwood turned the shaft in his hand. “No markings. Nothing to tell us who the man might have been or where he came from.”

Gaze still on Cloud Playing, Webworm said, “This killer is very smart, Ironwood. He knows every stone, every patch of grass, every place to hide in Straight Path Canyon. I think, my friend, that he has lived here for a very long time.”

Ironwood’s soul perched on the verge of understanding, but couldn’t seize it. He walked over and sat on the bench beside Webworm. The hem of his gore-encrusted shirt draped over the yellow bench. “What are you thinking?”

Webworm lifted a shoulder. “Cloud Playing and Cornsilk were both Night Sun’s daughters. It may mean nothing. But I wonder.”

Ironwood lowered his head and massaged his temples. “On the march … watch Snake Head.”

“Oh, I don’t trust him, either. Especially not after the strange orders he’s been giving me, and this business with Cone—”

“Cone?” Ironwood blurted. His gaze searched Webworm’s. “What are you talking about? Cone is alive?”

Webworm’s mouth pressed into a bloodless line. “So … you didn’t know anything about it, either. I had thought, since you were War Chief before me—”

“About what?”

Webworm leaned back against the wall and stared at the pine poles criss-crossing the ceiling. “It’s a long story. Before dawn, yesterday morning, I saw Mourning Dove going back and forth between Snake Head’s chamber and the wash. It looked suspicious, so I followed her. She was delivering messages between Cone and Snake Head.”

The weariness in Ironwood’s muscles vanished in the painful rush that washed his veins. “Did you speak with Cone?”

“Yes. He said he was working for the Blessed Sun and that his work was very important to the survival of the Straight Path nation.”

Ironwood gripped the arrow shaft. “This doesn’t make sense. If he’s working for Snake Head, why doesn’t he—”

“Just walk in and out of town? Yes, I asked him the same thing. Cone told me that Snake Head does not wish people to know he’s alive. That such knowledge would spoil Snake Head’s plans. Cone said he was just following orders.” Webworm let out a frustrated breath. “I was hoping that you knew about this secret task and had just forgotten to tell me. With everything else going—”

“What secret task?”

Webworm’s head fell forward so that his chin rested on his chest. “Only Snake Head would send a warrior out without advising the War Chief.”

“The man is a fool. He’ll be the death of us all. If he—”

Feet pounded in the altar room, and soft voices echoed. Ironwood placed the shaft on the bench.

Night Sun woke, sitting up in her blanket, her graying black hair loose about her shoulders. Her blue dress was splotched with Cornsilk’s blood. Sternlight and Dune sat up next.

“They’re coming,” Night Sun said. She threw off her blanket and stepped down from the bench, going to stand over Cloud Playing. “I will see you soon, my daughter,” she whispered, and bent to kiss Cloud Playing’s blanketed face. “I love you.”

Dune sighed as he slipped from the bench and marched over to Crow Beard. He fumbled with something, then Ironwood saw him sprinkling Crow Beard’s shroud with the mixture of blue cornmeal and ground turquoise, to purify him for the journey. Next, he went to Cloud Playing.

Webworm remained sitting, but Ironwood rose as the burial procession descended the stairs: four warriors, specially dressed in red shirts with green sashes around their waists, then Badgerbow, Creeper, Yellowgirl, and finally, Snake Head.

The Green Sash Men split, two walking down each side of the foot drums. Night Sun and Dune moved out of the way, giving the burly men room. They stationed themselves at the head and foot of each burial ladder, then lifted the ladders onto their muscular shoulders and stood waiting.

Snake Head wore a magnificent blue shirt covered with red and yellow macaw feathers. A huge turquoise wolf pendant dangled around his neck, and a wooden headdress adorned his head. Consisting of three terraces, all painted white, the headdress symbolized rain clouds. Tall and handsome, he gazed over the ceremonial chamber as though he found everything distasteful. He had not yet deigned to look at Ironwood.

“Blessed Sun,” Ironwood said, provoking the confrontation, “I understand you have been meeting secretly with Cone. Would you tell me for what purpose?”

Snake Head slowly turned, but his gaze glanced off Ironwood and landed on Webworm. Webworm shivered, as if with a sudden chill. “Get up, War Chief,” Snake Head ordered. “We have a long walk today.”

“Yes, my chief.” Webworm rose.

“Are you afraid to answer me, Snake Head?” Ironwood pressed. “Why? What are you—”

“Hurry it up!” Snake Head motioned for the slaves to carry the ladders out.

They marched by and headed up the stairs. Snake Head glared at Ironwood before following in a whirl of blue shirt. Badgerbow and Yellowgirl walked behind him, and lastly Creeper.

The short pudgy leader of the Buffalo Clan halted and scanned Webworm’s bleary face. “Are you all right?”

Webworm forced a ragged smile. “Fine. Is Mourning Dove with Mother?”

“Yes, she’ll be watching over her while we’re gone.”

“Come, then, we have duties to perform.” Webworm gestured to the stairs. Creeper reluctantly started up.

But Webworm did not follow. He stood beside Ironwood with his head bowed. After a moment, he gripped Ironwood’s forearm and pulled him close. “Please. Be gone when I return.”

Ironwood thought of all the battles they’d fought together, the campfires and laughter they’d shared. When the First People elders ordered his imprisonment, and they would, it would be Webworm’s duty to try and take him, and one of them would die.

Ironwood nodded. “I will, old friend.”

Webworm searched his face one last time, as if memorizing Ironwood’s features, then loosened his grip and climbed the stairs.

*   *   *

Sawfly stood guard, as he did every day from dawn to dusk, in the small square signal tower overlooking the holy South Road. Fifty hands tall, the tower was a single body-length across. It had been constructed of large sandstone blocks, and had walls six hands thick. Perched forty hands above the ground on a narrow juniper platform built into the top of the signal tower, he had an expansive view of the countryside. Four windows, one for each direction, surrounded him. The sacred mountains filled the frames, hovering like pale blue ghosts over the horizons.

He propped his moccasined foot on the south-facing window. The only way in or out of the tower was by ladder. After he’d entered, he’d drawn it up and slid it down into the tower below him. The ladder’s base rested between the dead coals in the fire pit and the wood pile.

Yawning, Sawfly tipped his pointed chin into the morning breeze that gusted around the tower. It cooled his triangular face and tousled the shoulder-length black hair around his jutting ears. In the distance he saw the burial procession heading down the road.

Blessed gods, he was glad to see them go. He’d been born in the northern Green Mesa villages twenty-three sun cycles ago and only moved to Talon Town the summer before last. He didn’t understand any of this First People lunacy. One instant they leaped for each other’s throats, and the next they huddled together like a pack of wolves to decide the fate of the world. Only this morning Snake Head had sent a runner to Center Place to inform the Blessed Weedblossom that his mother’s “misbegotten daughter” lay prostrate in the First People’s kiva in Talon Town. And everyone knew what that meant. Before the day was through, Night Sun would, once again, be in the Cage, along with her lover, Ironwood.

Sawfly shook his head. People of his clan, the Bear Clan, married for love, coupled for pleasure, divorced when they had to, and life went on. The First People seemed to marry for status, couple for children, and keep spouses they hated for their entire lives. And they thought this behavior set a moral standard for the Made People?

Sawfly’s wide mouth quirked at the irony.

Yesterday, Mourning Dove had passed the news that Snake Head believed the young woman from Turtle Village to be his half sister. Then, last night, as Sawfly stood guard on the walls—which he rarely did—the Made People had scurried around in the darkness like packrats, going from chamber to chamber, carrying the news that Ironwood had called the young woman from Turtle Village his “daughter.” It didn’t take a Spirit Dreamer to hook the two together.

Beyond the north window, a hazy veil eddied and spun across the greening highlands. Wind Baby had been fickle the past few days, leaping and playing, or holding his breath. Sawfly studied the veil as it swept up into the air, whirled around, going higher and higher. He squinted at the last spinning wisps … and heard the sound of a moccasin across stone.

Reaching for his bow and quiver, Sawfly drew them into his lap and leaned out the south window. A beautiful woman stood below, looking up at him. She had a thin, fine-boned face, with long dark hair. They gave her an air of innocence, especially when she smiled, as she did now.

“Hello!” she called up.

“Hello.”

“I’m sorry to disturb your watch, but I’m trying to reach Starburst Town, and I seem to have lost my way. Could you tell me where it is?”

Sawfly leaned further out the window, pointing to the right, toward the western end of the canyon. “Over there. You need to follow the road that runs—”

The impact of the arrow knocked him out of the window and sent him crashing to the ground. He landed hard, his body tangling up like a loop of dropped yucca cord. Sawfly blinked up at the sky in terror. He couldn’t feel his body! It had gone completely numb below his neck!… The arrow must have struck my spine. Oh, thlatsinas, no!

A tall man wearing a black-and-white cape straddled Sawfly. He had a hideously scarred and familiar face. The man drew his chert knife from his belt with a smile. As he knelt, lowering the blade to Sawfly’s throat, he said, “Remember me, Straight Path dog? I used to be a slave in your town.” He bent forward to peer into Sawfly’s horrified eyes from less than a hand away. “Now you pay for what you did to me!”

The sharp blade stung as it sliced through Sawfly’s throat. He struggled to move, but only his head responded, thrashing back and forth as blood filled his mouth. A gray mist fluttered at the edges of his vision, closing in, shading blacker and blacker.…

*   *   *

Cone furiously hurled a rock over the edge of the canyon and watched it fall. His belly churned. His tattered red warrior’s shirt flapped around his stout body. As Father Sun rose toward noon, sweat beaded his pug nose and ran along the jaw of his round face. He wiped the moisture from his eyes and squinted at the burial procession moving away to the south along the sacred road. The people had become faint black dots in the rolling red-and-gold landscape punctuated by long ridges and eroded buttes.

He twisted to look northward across Straight Path Canyon. The white half-moon shaped towns shone brilliantly against the massive golden cliffs. The smaller villages, blocky splotches, would start planting crops in less than a moon, repairing and constructing new additions to the buildings, quarrying turquoise, malachite, and jet. The bravest Traders would run the roads bargaining for coral and seashells, copper bells and macaws, buffalo robes and dried meats. In spring, the Straight Path world came fully alive. How he loved the sights of spring, the greening grass, the tufted clouds in a pristine blue sky, the way the sun lay on the land, drawing the colors out of the soil.

“Look well, my eyes. You’ll never see it again.”

Cone took a weary breath. The ache in his chest expanded.

By now, Howler would have taken the signal tower, and Jay Bird would be stealthily approaching Talon Town. If the Mogollon did it correctly, it would take them the rest of the day. Jay Bird’s warriors would slowly filter down the roads, one or two at a time, so as not to arouse suspicion. Then, when they were all in place, Jay Bird would strike fast and hard.

Cone stared at the rust-colored sandstone beneath his moccasins. Tired, empty, he no longer knew how to think or feel about anything. In all the time he’d carried messages between Jay Bird and Snake Head, he’d believed he was helping to save the Straight Path nation from the wickedness of its new Blessed Sun. Removing Snake Head was the only way to secure his people’s future.

Yet Snake Head would live, because he would be away when the town came under attack. He would survive and live on as Blessed Sun. No one would know that he’d plotted with the Fire Dogs, living among them like a scorpion in their garden.

Everything I did has come to naught. Snake Head would live, while Wraps-His-Tail, Beargrass, and so many others were dead. Snake Head’s plotting had just led to more dishonor.

“I’m a fool,” he whispered harshly. “I did this!”

He had counted about seventy people in the burial procession, which meant Talon Town had only old men, women, and some children to defend its walls. Perhaps a few sick or injured warriors had remained.

Like nerves shocked into senselessness by the blow of a war club, his despair—despair he’d carried for two days—opened an abyss in his soul.

Thistle had reasons for wanting to hurt Talon Town. The First People had ordered the destruction of her village and family. They were holding her foster daughter. But he … he had no reasons. None at all.

“Those are my friends down there.”

Killing Snake Head was one thing. He had believed in that, and still did. But attacking Talon Town when most of its warriors were gone was a cowardly act!

Cone kicked at a pebble and dust puffed in front of him. When Cone had told Jay Bird he could not, would not, be party to attacking a defenseless town, the aging Mogollon Chief’s eyes had narrowed. He’d said, “Then go. I give you your life for the work you have already done, but do not let me find you fighting against me—or I will reclaim that life, warrior.” He’d made the slit-throat sign with his hand and walked away.

Cone had run.

Smarter, wiser men would have headed for a place where no one knew them, but Cone had come straight back to the only home he’d ever known.

And here he stood, like a soulless rock, unable to convince himself to go, knowing he could not stay.

Billowing Cloud People sailed through the blue sky, trailing patchwork shadows across the canyon. Cone gazed at Talon Town and swallowed convulsively.

He ought to be down there.

Fighting.

The old people and children needed him. The sacred duty of the Bear Clan had always been protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves.

As though a ghost had whispered to his soul, Cone slowly turned and looked back along the sacred South Road. The burial procession had become a dark blur.

“Blessed First Bear,” he whispered. “I’ll have to hurry!”

He raced down the sandstone slope and bounded for the road. He could still do something for his people. Then, perhaps, he could take himself to his ancestors with some sense of honor.