Seven
Buckthorn halted in the middle of the road on the crest of a low hill overlooking the canyon, and tried to catch his breath. Stumps of long-dead ponderosa pines covered the hill. With all of the building that had gone on over the past fifty sun cycles, the larger trees had been chopped down and laboriously carried to the towns and villages as roof supports for rooms or kivas. Even the branches were tied together and used as lintels for the windows.
As far as he could see, the slopes were barren of the big trees. The weather-grayed stumps looked melancholy, as if remembering the towering giants that had once shaded the slopes. Gray-and-white squirrels must have played there, and the deer lurked in those cool shadows. Even the duff had washed away to leave exposed yellow soil. Rivulets had begun to eat into the soil around the parched roots, cutting away at the last of their rotting memories.
Buckthorn rubbed the back of his hot neck as he looked into the canyon before him. The future lay down there, not among the fading ghosts of dead trees.
Cloud People trailed gauzy filaments of rain as they glided northward. The warp and weft of light and shadow wove a shifting blanket of color. As he watched, the rugged canyon walls went from the deepest crimson to a washed-out pink. He smiled. When the thlatsinas Danced they brought rain, and life.
His long black braid fell over his shoulder. He swore he’d grown skinnier over the past five days. He rubbed the sweat from his thin hooked nose and narrow face. His mother had once told him he should be glad he had fawnlike eyes, otherwise people would call him The Vulture Child. His lungs drew deeply of the damp earthy air. Wind Baby flew across the hilltop, whipping Buckthorn’s long tan shirt around his legs.
It felt good to rest. He had been running all day, rushing to his destiny.
He bent forward and braced his hands on his knees, taking the weight of his three packs from his lower back.
“I’ll be there soon,” he said, and joy flooded his chest.
Black Mesa had told him, “Follow the holy road to the stairs cut into the cliff face. At the bottom of the stairway, you will find a small white house. I have sent a messenger ahead. The Derelict knows you are coming.”
The thought of meeting the blessed elder left him awestruck.
Buckthorn got one last breath into his lungs and trotted forward again. His sandals clicked as they struck the gravel in the road.
He reached the edge of the canyon, and a precipice dropped before him, perhaps two hundred hands. Buckthorn stopped and looked around. For as far as he could see, ridges twisted across the highlands like the knobby spines of ancient monsters. Ropy braids of red, yellow, and white rock sliced through the spines at odd angles. Eroded stone pillars poked up everywhere.
He peered over the precipice. Steep stairs had indeed been cut into the face of the cliff. Excited, he trotted forward. He went down backward, using the steps like a pine-pole ladder. His packs suddenly felt feather-light.
When he jumped off the bottom step, sweat coursed down his face, stinging his eyes. He blinked them clear and looked around.
A tiny, dingy house, two body-lengths square, hid in a tangle of tall sage and bricklebrush. The flat roof sagged. The deerhide over the low doorway had been mouse-gnawed. Plaster flakes from the cracked walls sprinkled the ground. It looked abandoned. Frightened, Buckthorn hurried forward, shoving his way through brush until he found a winding path. Deer tracks dimpled the red dirt, but he saw nothing that looked human.
“Oh, no. He must be here!” he whispered to himself. “I can’t have run all this way for nothing.”
He stopped ten hands from the door. The scent of old juniper smoke sweetened the air. Windflower villagers considered it impolite to shout or make your presence known by stamping your feet, so he stood quietly, breathing hard.
After several moments, a reedy old voice called, “Is it you?”
He smiled his relief. “I am Buckthorn of Windflower—”
“No, you are not. You no longer have a name, or a clan. You are simply you.”
A hunched old man drew back the gnawed curtain and squinted out at him. The Derelict had a deeply seamed brown face and white hair that hung in thin wisps to his shoulders. His small round nose sank into his wrinkles like an egg in a nest, and he had bushy white brows. His lips had shrunken over his toothless gums, but his eyes … his eyes shone as though the blessed Sun Thlatsina lived inside him.
The Derelict hobbled out, scratching his hip through his tattered brown shirt, and gestured to the packs on Buckthorn’s back. “Which are mine?”
“Oh!” Buckthorn blurted in embarrassment. “These two.” He slipped them off his shoulders and handed them over. “My clan contributed all their finest possessions, Elder.”
The packs clanked as Dune took them and slung them over his own thin shoulders. Without a word, he took off down a trail that led westward, paralleling the canyon wall.
Frowning, Buckthorn removed his own pack and stowed it by the door, then followed.
The old man walked until his path intersected a well-traveled trail. There he sat down in the soft sand with the packs before him and leaned against a giant sagebrush.
Buckthorn knelt at his side. The wash glistened in the distance. A silver strand of water flowed down the middle. When Dune said nothing, Buckthorn ventured, “Black Mesa asked me to give you his warmest—”
“Shh! Listen to the divine musician. Hear his music?”
Buckthorn’s gaze roamed the sage and red cliffs. “You mean Wind Baby?” he asked. “I hear—”
“You’re listening with your ears.” Dune shook a finger. “Listen with your heart.”
Buckthorn shifted to sit cross-legged and concentrated. He heard the twittering of birds, saw a roadrunner darting through the brush, heard a far-off coyote yip. “The world’s voice is speaking to me, but I don’t know what you mean by—”
“Stop seeking the musician outside. He is here.” Dune tapped his chest.
“Oh, emotions! Yes, I feel things all the time. Very powerfully. As a matter of fact, I—”
Dune lifted a clawlike hand. “Don’t speak! Listen!”
Buckthorn bit his lip. What a harsh voice the elder had, like a braying buffalo in mating season. Buckthorn sighed and tried to do as he’d been instructed. He listened to the sounds inside him. His heart beat like a pot drum, blood shished in his ears, and his breathing hissed in and out—but he dared not ask the Derelict if he’d located the “divine musician” for fear he’d be rebuked again.
“Ah,” Dune grunted as he rose to his feet.
Buckthorn stood, too. An elderly woman came down the trail, dragging a little boy by the hand. She wore a faded red dress and had twisted her white hair into a topknot. Her nose seemed to have grown out of proportion with her face, thrusting forth like a crooked thumb. Buckthorn barely glanced at her before his gaze went to the little boy, whose long black shirt had been patched in several places. His moccasins had holes in the toes, and he looked thin and pale. But he skipped happily at the woman’s side, his chin-length black hair bouncing as he asked question after question. The woman answered each with a smile.
“These are very poor people,” Buckthorn said to Dune. “Are they slaves? But what master would deny his own servants good moccasins? It hardly seems—”
“With all that chatter filling your brain, it’s no wonder you can’t hear the divine musician.”
Buckthorn hushed.
When the woman came close to Dune, she bowed reverently. “Greetings, holy Derelict.”
“A blessed day to you, Wolf Widow.” His voice had softened, become rich and deep. “I have gifts for you.” Dune picked up the two packs and handed them to the old woman.
Buckthorn gaped, incredulous. His clan had impoverished itself to provide gifts for Dune, not some stranger! “Elder,” he started to object, “I—”
“One more word, and I will send you straight home.”
The old woman gazed at the packs and her eyes widened. She clutched them to her breast like suckling infants. “My grandson and I thank you, Elder. We are on our way to visit his sick mother. These things will bring a smile to her lips.”
“Give your daughter my blessings, Wolf Widow.” He placed a kind hand on her shoulder.
“Yes, Elder, I will.” But she waited, apparently seeing if Dune wished to speak more. The little boy huddled against her leg, looking back and forth between them, drawing a half-circle in the dirt with the holed toe of his moccasin.
“Be on your way, Wolf Widow,” Dune said gently. “Your daughter needs you.”
“Thank you, Elder.”
The woman bowed again and continued northward along the trail with the boy feeling the packs and jabbering excitedly.
Dune turned to Buckthorn and said, “Love and charity. They are all that matter.”
“Yes, I know, but couldn’t you have given them just one pack? I mean, my clan—”
“Don’t say ‘yes’ when you haven’t the slightest notion what I’m speaking about!”
In morose silence, Buckthorn followed Dune back along the sage-choked path that led to his little house. He might have been passing through a tunnel, for the sagebrush grew head-high.
When they reached the door, Dune ordered, “Collect wood for the fire, but not close to the house. Walk for at least a finger of time, then begin gathering wood.”
“But look at the sage right here, elder.” Buckthorn gestured to the blue-green jungle that practically swallowed the house. “It needs to be twisted out.”
Dune fixed him with a glare. “This sage lives here, boy. Go kill something that isn’t my friend.”
Buckthorn stared. In irritation, he said, “Why didn’t you tell me back at the trail? It will be getting dark soon, and if I have to walk for…”
Dune ducked through the doorway and into his house. The deerhide curtain swung behind him.
Buckthorn swallowed his next words, stood uncertainly for a moment, then trudged away, kicking every sagebrush he passed. Did the old man yell at all of his disciples? Black Mesa hadn’t mentioned this cruel streak. Nor had anyone else.
Maybe Dune just doesn’t like me.
While Father Sun descended into Our Mother Earth’s western womb, Buckthorn angrily ripped off dead sage branches and stacked them in his left arm.
“It’s all right,” he whispered to calm himself. “You can endure it. Think of the things you will be able to do for your people once you’ve become a great Singer. You’ll be able to Heal the sick, and help lonely ghosts find their ways to the afterworlds. You’ll be prepared to battle witches, and speak with the plants and animals in their own languages.”
It didn’t take long before he’d lost himself and his anger in sublime thoughts of his future. Why, when he’d earned the title of Singer, no one would ever shout at him again. He’d be revered, and not a little feared. He chuckled at the thought.
A breath of wind trailed over the sage like the hem of a woman’s dress, soft and silken. Buckthorn looked up. The gust whipped the brush on its journey westward toward a distant butte that stood alone in the middle of the canyon, its rocky top gleaming. Brush-covered flats spread around the butte, running until they butted against the red canyon walls on the north and south.
At some point in his training, Dune would bestow a new name upon Buckthorn, and he longed for one that echoed the names of his greatest heroes: Wolfdreamer, Born of Water, and Home-Going-Boy. Maybe something like Going-Home-Dreamer or Born-of-Wolf-Water. Those would be very powerful names. He’d have to hint about it to Dune.
Buckthorn happily trotted back for the house.
The light had faded to a rusty hue that turned the cliffs dark vermilion. Desert fragrances intensified with the night, the sage more pungent, the juniper rich and savory.
As he thrashed through a clot of buckbrush, he saw Dune come out to stand in front of his door. The old man had his sticklike arms folded. White hair made a wispy halo around his shriveled face.
Grinning, Buckthorn hurried forward. “Isn’t it a beautiful evening, Elder? Just look at the colors!”
Dune scowled. “What is the matter with you?”
Buckthorn stopped dead in his tracks. “W-what?”
“You don’t carry sacred sage like that! What a jumble! Do you wish to offend the Spirit of the plant? Order the sticks. Lay each in the crook of your arm like a precious child. Gently. One atop the other. Well? Don’t stand there staring. Drop the sticks and order them. Now!”
Buckthorn hastily dumped his load and began picking them up again, doing as he’d been instructed, one at a time, gently. But he wondered at this lunacy. What possible difference could it make to the Spirit of the sage how he carried her dead branches?
Once he’d finished, Dune held aside the door curtain, and Buckthorn entered the house. He laid the branches by the fire-pit in the middle of the floor and looked around.
What a bleak place! Dune owned almost nothing. A flat slab and handstone, for grinding seeds, lay near the door. Beside them sat a large water jar and two clay pots, one for cornmeal and the other for dried meats. Ears of corn, squash gourds, sunflowers, and other plants hung from the rafters. In the corner, to Buckthorn’s right, a stack of colored baskets leaned precariously. Two plain gray blankets lay rolled up on either side of the house. But no floor mats cushioned the cold dirt floor; no paintings brightened the soot-smudged clay walls.
Dune entered and heaved a tired breath. He gestured to the wood pile. “Make a fire. There are hot coals beneath the ash bed.”
“Yes, Elder.”
Buckthorn used a stick to dig around, isolating the hot coals from the dead ones. When he had a mound in the center of the pit, he laid four small pieces of wood on top and blew gently. White ash fluttered. The coals slowly reddened and flames crackled up around the tinder.
Buckthorn kept adding wood while he watched the Derelict. The old man set up his tea tripod and hung a soot-coated pot in the middle, then slumped down on the dirt floor and sighed.
Buckthorn said, “Elder? Why is it that you have not painted images of the thlatsinas on your walls? You are their greatest messenger. You should have them around you, and it would certainly brighten your house. It would please me very much to do that for you, if you wish.”
Dune squinted. “Paintings and possessions are for people who plan to sleep in the same house for a long time. I do not.”
“Oh, forgive me.” He paused, squinting. “I thought you had lived here forever. Black Mesa knew right where you would be, and so I assumed—”
“Forty-four summers.”
Buckthorn looked at him. “You’ve lived here for forty-four summers?”
“Almost forty-five.”
“Well…” Buckthorn blinked in confusion. “If this has been your home for so long, where do you plan to sleep if not in this house?”
The old man raised his bushy white brows. “Under a stone slab if I’m not careful.”
“Elder! You mustn’t jest about witchcraft!”
“Why not?” Dune scratched his side.
“Blessed thlatsinas! I was sent here by my clan to learn to be a Spirit Singer. It wouldn’t do to have people whispering behind their hands that I was trained by a man who lopes across the desert at night in the body of a bobcat!”
The deep wrinkles of Dune’s face twisted and contorted when he grinned.
Buckthorn got to his feet and nervously thrust a hand toward the door. “I—I left my pack outside. I have blue corn cakes in it. My mother made them for us for supper tonight. Let me get it.”
The brightest Evening People had opened their eyes. They peered down at Buckthorn as he retrieved his pack from beside the door. Confused, he grimaced at the growing darkness, feeling as if he’d been maneuvered into studying with Trickster Coyote. Didn’t anybody know what a crazy old fool Dune was? Then he remembered the other two Singers-in-the-making who’d returned to Windflower Village proclaiming exactly that. Why hadn’t anybody believed them?
Grumbling softly, he ducked back inside. Dune watched him through half-lidded eyes.
Buckthorn knelt by the fire and unlaced his pack. Firelight fluttered over his hands like luminous butterfly wings. Just as he started to pull out a cake, Dune ordered, “Give it to me.”
“I’m getting ready to, Elder! Here.” He extended a cake.
Dune took it, then held out his hand again. “The pack. Give me the pack.”
Buckthorn did.
Dune took it, rummaged around to find all the cakes, set them on a hearth stone, and began eating. Crumbs fell down the front of his brown shirt, dotting it with blue.
Buckthorn sat in silence, counting each cake the old man ate. Finally, when he feared the worst, he said. “Elder, I ran all the way here. I am very hungry, so if you don’t mind—”
Around a mouthful of food, Dune said, “You should sleep.” He pointed to the blanket rolled up on the floor on the north side of the house. “That is your place.”
“Yes, well,” Buckthorn said as he glanced at it. “After I’ve eaten. I’m starving, and I—”
“Now,” Dune shouted. “Go to sleep!”
Buckthorn lurched to his feet, fists clenched. “You do not have to yell at me, Elder! I am human, not a soulless rock! I deserve to be treated with a little dignity!”
“Dignity?” Dune said. He lowered the cake to his lap and gazed at Buckthorn with those strange shining eyes. “Listen to me. Look deeply into your soul. Look hard. Find that man who thinks he deserves to be treated with dignity, and ask him why. He will give you many reasons.” Dune’s voice softened to the same timbre he had used with old Wolf Widow. “That man will tell you all of the great deeds he has accomplished in his life, how kind he is, how deserving, and how many people love and have faith in him.” Dune took another bite of corn cake, working it slowly around his toothless mouth.
“Yes,” Buckthorn said. “Then what?”
Dune squeezed his eyes closed as though in great disappointment. “Each reason that man gives you is a stiletto in your heart. If you collect enough, you will kill your ability to love. Now, do not argue with me. Go to your place and sleep.”
Buckthorn went. Wrapping up in the blanket, he stretched out on the hard-packed dirt floor. He could still hear the Derelict gumming the corn cakes to mush, and his stomach growled.
Buckthorn tossed to his right side and faced the wall, concentrating on the flickers of firelight that danced across the smudged plaster.
Hallowed Spirits, what had he gotten himself into?
* * *
Cornsilk came up the southern trail and spotted Fledgling. He crouched behind a sagebrush three body-lengths ahead. The rise overlooked their house and the north half of the village plaza where children ran. Fledgling’s rabbit-fur cape and loose black hair glinted in the afternoon sunlight.
Cornsilk studied him thoughtfully. He had tilted his head, listening intently to their parents’ faint voices coming from within the house.
She cupped a hand to her mouth and softly called, “Brother? Fledgling?”
When he didn’t turn, Cornsilk picked up a rock and tossed it at him. She missed. He didn’t move. Disgruntled, she looked for a bigger one. A fist-sized chunk of limestone lay half-hidden in the sand. She dug it out, hefted it to test the weight, and heaved it.
It struck him in the middle of the back. Fledgling jerked around, startled, his thin-boned face pale, and saw her. As though relieved, he gripped the cape over his heart, then waved her forward.
Cornsilk grinned and walked to him, carefully avoiding clumps of prickly pear. She sank on her knees at his side. “What are you doing? Spying on our parents?”
A thin coating of dust sprinkled his broad cheekbones and dark eyebrows. She could see his pulse throbbing in his temple.
“Listen,” he whispered. “Mother and Father are arguing.”
Through the rear window, she saw them, standing face to face. Her mother had a black-and-gray blanket snugged over her shoulders. Her father wore a pale blue shirt. He’d crossed his arms, as if hugging himself.
Her mother said, “Beargrass, we’ve been quarreling for two days. Enough! If you will not come, I will take Cornsilk and Fledgling and go away!”
“Thistle, please. I am Lanceleaf Village’s War Chief. I have responsibilities. The Tower Builders are raiding. How can I leave now?”
Cornsilk stared breathlessly at the house. The red clay plaster shone orange in the bright sun. Down the hill, children played in the village plaza, wrestling, throwing sticks for barking dogs. A broad square of two-story buildings bordered the plaza. Women sat in the sunlight on the west side, grinding corn, laughing. The lilting voices of men rose from the kiva dug into the middle of the plaza.
“Thistle,” her father pleaded, “don’t do this to me. I beg you. I love you and—”
“If you did, you would protect us!”
Cornsilk breathed. “Fledgling, why does Mother wish to take us away?”
He shook his head. “I’m not certain yet. Shh.”
“Thistle,” her father said. “Please. I know you are frightened, but I do not believe we are in danger. Even if Night Sun discovered—”
“I am not afraid of Night Sun! She was never as wicked as Sternlight said! I thought she was a good woman. Kind to everyone—”
“All right!” Beargrass clenched his teeth. More quietly, he continued, “I don’t believe it, but let’s assume that Crow Beard is not the father, and that Ironwood is. How could his enemies find out where his child is? Ironwood would have told no one, except, perhaps, Sternlight. And I cannot believe that Stern-light would betray Ironwood.”
“Why not?” Thistle asked, on the verge of tears. Her mouth trembled.
“They have been friends all their lives. Besides—”
“Would that matter if—”
“Besides,” her father interrupted in a commanding voice, “we have been safe for over fifteen summers, Thistle. Why, after all this time, would someone suddenly decide to betray Ironwood? What would he have to gain?”
In a choking voice, her mother answered, “I don’t know, but I’m terrified. We must do something! Please, help me think of a way of keeping our son and daughter safe.”
Panic threaded Cornsilk’s heart. Mother wants to take us away because she thinks we are in danger … Ironwood is the father of whom?
Cornsilk whispered, “Fledgling? What child? Who is Ironwood’s child?”
Fledgling closed his eyes. “I think they mean one of us.”
It took some time for his meaning to sink in. “One of us?… Us?”
“Perhaps,” her father said softly, “we should separate Cornsilk and Fledgling.”
Her mother stood very still, then slowly nodded. “If you think that’s best.”
“Cornsilk could go to live with my brother Deer Bird in Two Horn Village. It isn’t far. A half day’s walk. And I suspect she might enjoy it. She has always loved Deer Bird.”
Cornsilk forced a swallow down her tight throat. Her heart pounded.
Fledgling saw her wince and reached out to put an arm over her shoulders, holding her. “Wait. We don’t know anything yet.”
“Oh, Beargrass,” her mother wept. “I’ll miss Cornsilk.”
Beargrass drew her mother close and tenderly kissed her hair. “It should only be for a short time. If Crow Beard lives, I believe we are still safe. If he dies—”
Her mother looked up. “If he dies, we can leave Cornsilk there for a moon or so … just to see.”
“Yes. Anyone who wished to harm Crow Beard’s child would do it immediately, if at all. And Ironwood’s child—”
“Yes, I understand.” Eagerly, her mother added, “And after a moon, we can go and fetch her, and bring her home.”
“Yes.”
“Fledgling,” she said softly. “They mean me. It’s me they’re—!”
“What of Fledgling?” her mother asked. “Where should we send our son?”
Cornsilk watched the muscles in her brother’s jaw tense.
Beargrass said, “I believe it is our duty to stay with Fledgling at all times. We—”
“No, he’s old enough now,” her mother said. “As soon as he kills his first enemy warrior, he will be a man. What if we send him to stay with your father? That way we could remain here, arousing no suspicion, and our son and daughter will be safe. You may continue your duties as War Chief. We’ll just tell people that Cornsilk and Fledgling are away visiting relatives. Oh, Beargrass, that’s the solution!”
Beargrass didn’t say anything for a while, but placed his hands on Thistle’s shoulders and peered deeply into her eyes. “If I agree to this, will you agree to let me send a runner to Talon Town to see what’s happening there? To keep us informed about the Chief’s health?”
Cornsilk waited breathlessly for her answer. Her brother’s arm trembled where it lay over her shoulders.
“Yes,” her mother said, “all right.”
Beargrass heaved a breath. “Thank you, my wife. Now, let us prepare. We must hire someone to go to Talon Town. Someone we can trust to rush back with the news if Crow Beard dies.”
Fledgling lowered his head. “I think it’s me,” he said. “I’m not your brother.”
“You will always be my brother,” she began, but her mother’s strained voice made Cornsilk hush.
“Who can we trust, Beargrass?”
Her father smoothed a hand over his chin. “Young Stone Forehead, maybe. At seventeen summers, he is already a respected warrior. Let me speak with him. The Blessed thlatsinas know we have enough rare trade goods to pay him well for his loyalty.”
Her parents moved out of sight of the window, and Cornsilk turned to Fledgling. His face had gone dark.
“Why didn’t they ever tell me?” he whispered. “I am almost a man, Cornsilk. They should have told me! I—I would like to know my real parents! Who is my mother? And where is she? If I knew, I would go to her now, this instant!”
Cornsilk’s thoughts darted about like bees, landing here and there. Four turkeys waddled across the plaza behind a child dragging a yucca cord. They kept pecking at the cord and each other, and squawking in dismay. “Fledgling, do you recall three nights ago, when the runners arrived?”
“Yes. Father said they brought news of raiding.”
“I know, but I was sick and not sleeping very well, and I heard him say something different.”
He stared wide-eyed at her. “What? Something about us?”
“I think so. At the time, I paid it no attention, because it didn’t make any sense, but now … Fledgling, I woke when Father said that the runners had come to warn him and Mother that if the Chief died, the payments would stop coming.”
“Payments? What payments?”
“Well, consider the beautiful things in our house. We have many more blankets, rare pots, and magnificent jewelry than anyone in the village. Where did they come from?”
Fledgling’s black brows pulled together. Behind him, a roadrunner darted through the sage, its neck stretched out, trying to grab a bug. “I thought they were payment for Mother’s work as a mason and tribute to Father as the War Chief of the village.”
“I did, too. But, after that, Mother said she didn’t care if the payments stopped coming, that the secret would die with them, and our family would be safe forever.”
“Safe from what?”
She pinned Fledgling with her gaze. “Someone they think wants to kill either you or me.”
“But if one of us is Ironwood’s child…” Fear twisted his expression. “Cornsilk, why would Chief Crow Beard pay for our parents to take care of Ironwood’s child?”
She gripped his wrist hard. “Perhaps that’s it.”
His face slackened. “You mean … I am not Ironwood’s son, but Crow Beard’s? And one of the Chief’s enemies fears that I might become the next Blessed Sun?”
Cornsilk made a disgusted sound. “Only if you came from Night Sun’s belly. She has a son much older than you. Snake Head must have seen twenty-three or twenty-four summers.”
The Straight Path clans traced lineage through the female, so when a man or woman died, all of his or her belongings were equally divided among the living daughters. The daughters then administered the lands, houses, and slaves, and gave a share of the remaining belongings—pots, shields, weapons, clothing—to the sons. The Matron of the First People, as a result, owned nearly everything and made all decisions except those regarding warfare. Men generally possessed little, but a Chief from the First People …
“Unless his mother marries again. Then she may declare her new husband the Chief. Though Snake Head would rule until Night Sun selected another.”
Cornsilk released his wrist and fiddled with a twig, shoving it across the sand with her finger. “What if … maybe I am the Chief’s daughter and will inherit part of the wealth of his kingdom, and someone wants to stop that from happening.”
“You wouldn’t inherit much,” Fledgling pointed out. “Night Sun owns everything. Chief Crow Beard has almost nothing without her, a few weapons, some trinkets. If you are Crow Beard’s daughter by another woman, you have no claims at all. Oh, they might feel sorry for you and grant you a pittance, but—”
“Crow Beard’s ‘trinkets’ might amount to unimaginable wealth, brother.”
Fledgling said, “No matter who my real mother is, a true son of Crow Beard would have a claim on his personal belongings. I would be a threat to Snake Head’s inheritance.” He swallowed hard. “Do you think he’s the man who wants to kill me? The one our mother fears? I’ve heard he’s very wicked.”
“I’ll tell you exactly what I think,” she said. “I think we’re both leaping off a cliff before we’re sure we’re being chased. We may have all of this figured out wrong. I think we should speak to Mother and Father.”
She started to rise and he gripped her hand. “We’ve seen fifteen summers, Cornsilk. Almost sixteen. If they haven’t told us by now, they never plan to. You know how they are!”
She sagged to the sand. Their parents loved secrets. She and Fledgling frequently heard them whispering to each other in the darkness at night, always about frightening or forbidden things. “Maybe we should begin making plans of our own, Fledgling. If you have to go to—”
“Let’s pretend we are going where they tell us to, and … and then let’s go somewhere else! Together.”
She nodded. “All right, maybe. We’ll think about it.”
“Let’s just do it. In a moon, we can come home. They might be worried for a time, but in the end, we’d be all right. They’d get over being mad at us. They always do. And then—”
“Listen! If we decide to do this, we can’t tell anyone. Do you understand? Not even Ruddy Boy in the afterworld. He might tell one of the ancestor Spirits, and there’s no telling who would find out after that.”
“I promise I won’t tell.”
Cornsilk got to her knees again and brushed her sweaty hands on her leggings. The fragrance of crushed sage filled her nose. “Well, let’s go in and let them tell us they’re sending us away, then we’ll wait until they’re out of the house and gather the things we’ll need.”
“Thank you, Cornsilk.”
She smiled confidently, but her stomach ached with doubts. Nothing made sense. Except … except that her parents had always treated them differently. An extra pat on Fledgling’s shoulder, a special tenderness in their smiles when they looked at him. Until today, Cornsilk thought they loved Fledgling more because he was just more lovable than she. Her brother obeyed their commands without question, while she took it as a matter of honor to figure a way around directions she didn’t like. Her parents told her not to fight, so Cornsilk waged one subtle war after another among her peers. She had to out-shoot and out-hunt every other child in the village—especially the young men. On many occasions her exasperated mother had joked that a wild strain of weasel blood ran in Cornsilk’s veins.
But they never joked when Fledgling did something wrong. They punished him.
Because he was truly their son, and it mattered?
Through the window, she glimpsed her mother duck out the door and heard her call, “Fledgling? Cornsilk? Where are you?”
They leaped to their feet and ran.