People of the Silence (15 page)

She’d become his only confidante, which he found very ironic. He had been a privileged child, and she had always been a slave. Well, not always. At the age of thirteen summers, her Fire Dog mother had been taken captive by the northern Tower Builders. Mourning Dove’s father had been a Tower Builder. She’d lived among the barbarians for the first eight summers of her life, until she’d been stolen by Straight Path warriors. The strange mixture of traditions had given her curious notions. She believed in the prophecies of her Fire Dog mother’s people, for example, but traced her descent through her father, as did all Tower Builders.

Snake Head smiled. He’d been a precocious child. He’d loved playing “tricks” on her, hiding, pretending to be hurt, shrieking and throwing fits to get her in trouble for mistreating him. Because Mourning Dove had been terribly afraid of what would happen to her if Snake Head really got hurt, she’d followed him everywhere he went, even when he’d sneaked off after grownups to study their forbidden actions away from town. As a result, she knew almost as many secrets about the elders of Talon Town as he did, though she could speak of those things only to him. If anyone else realized she knew so much, it would mean her life.

Over the last fourteen summers, Snake Head had watched her initial fear of him become an outright lust for revenge. It amused him. When he gazed into her eyes these days, he saw death looking back.

“You said you saw Sternlight leave town two hands of time ago,” Snake Head said. “And Ironwood went out about a hand of time later?”

Mourning Dove crushed her red dress in nervous fists. “Yes.”

Snake Head swirled his tea, watching the pale green liquid wash the sides of the clay cup. “I want you to stay in Creeper’s room tonight, where you have a view of the town entry.” He sipped the tea, watching her through narrowed eyes. “Wait until Sternlight and Ironwood return, and note the time. They’ve been leaving separately, but they almost always return together. I want to know how long they’ve been out scheming against me.”

Mourning Dove’s shoulders tightened. “What makes you think they’re discussing you?”

“Oh, they are. Trust me. Both of them are terrified of what will happen when I become the Blessed Sun.”

Mourning Dove watched him from beneath her long lashes. “And what will happen?”

Snake Head made a light gesture with his hand. “
I
will establish new alliances. My father loved to trifle with our enemies. He raided them, then let them raid us. The only way to turn the Fire Dogs into useful allies is to tame them. Perhaps I’ll even send a runner to the northern Tower Builders. They’re savages, but they might—”

“How will you tame the Fire Dogs?” Mourning Dove couldn’t quite hide the note of defiance. He’d touched the enduring fiber that ran through her. The light from the warming bowl cast a fluttering red gleam over her taut face.

“The same way people tame any dog.” Snake Head told her offhandedly. “I’ll throw them some scraps from our tables, maybe send them a great prize, or a supply of raw turquoise. I might even free some of our Mogollon slaves”—she glanced up at him and hope flickered in her eyes—“then, once they start to wag their tails every time they see us, we’ll mount an army the size of which they wouldn’t believe, run straight into the heart of their countries, and slaughter them by the thousands. After that,” he said with a smile, “they’ll be tame.” He sipped more tea.

Mourning Dove clenched her jaw. “My people will fight back.”

“That’s why we have to take them by surprise and wipe them out in huge numbers. The first rule of open warfare is strike fast and hard so you destroy your enemy’s will to fight back.” He propped his cup on his drawn-up knee. “Defeating a warrior is simple, Mourning Dove. You just kill all of his family so he has nothing left to fight for. To do that, you take a village when they least expect it. Kill all the women and children, burn it, and move to the next before anyone can raise the alarm.”

“You would wage open warfare?” she said disbelievingly.

“Of course. No more of this annoying hit-and-run raiding. It’s time the Straight Path nation—”

Mourning Dove blurted out, “I hope the gods strike you dead for it!”

“And for a great many other things, I wager.”

When she looked away, he laughed. The olivella shells on her red sleeves flickered in the light.

Snake Head set his cup aside and rose to his feet, towering over her.

Mourning Dove hastily bent to pick up the dishes again. “I—I must be going, Blessed Snake Head. I have to find Creeper, let him know I’ll be…”

As she started for the door, he blocked her path. “Not yet.” He ran his fingers down her throat. “I’ll send word that you will be late tonight.”

“Please, Snake Head, I
must
go. Creeper is preparing a special gift for the Blessed Featherstone, and he needs my help with the porcupine quillwork. He cannot do it alone.”

“Is he still wooing my cousin? What an old fool. Doesn’t Creeper realize she’ll never marry him?”

“He loves her, Snake Head. Truly, he does. I think Featherstone reminds him of his dead wife.”

“Featherstone is one of the First People.” Snake Head ran his fingers through her black hair. “Creeper is less than a Fire Dog.”

“How can you say that?” Mourning Dove’s face might have been a mask, so well did she cover her loathing at his touch. “Creeper is a good, honest man. You know nothing about him.”

“I know you think that. That’s why I allow you to couple with him. It’s a small gift from me to you.” And, as it happened, coupling with Creeper seemed to lessen her hatred for Snake Head and made her more pliable.

Snake Head took the dishes from her hands and set them on the floor beside the door. The cups clattered against the bowls.

Mourning Dove made a final valiant try to escape. “Who will keep watch for you, Snake Head?” she pleaded, and glanced out the door. “Sternlight and Ironwood will return and you will have no way of knowing when they—”

“Lie on the floor in front of the door.”

Mourning Dove closed her eyes for a moment, then did as he’d ordered, stretching out on her back on the cold plaster. Her red dress spread across the white floor.

Snake Head lifted and hooked the curtain over the peg. Starlight flooded the chamber, brighter than the crimson glow of his warming bowl. The walls shimmered with a pewter radiance. “From here,” he said as he gazed out the doorway over Talon Town, “I can see the entry myself.”

Mourning Dove propped herself up on her elbows. Her chipmunk face tensed. “But Snake Head, anyone who looks up will be able to see us—”

“Yes.” He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it to the floor, then stretched out on top of her and stared down into her blazing eyes. “Violating sacred laws is one of my favorite activities.”

He chuckled and nibbled her ear. As he reached down to lift her skirt, the macaw squawked and shrilled,
“I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”
in a fair imitation of Mourning Dove’s voice.

Snake Head grinned at the big bird and used his knee to force Mourning Dove’s legs apart.

Second Day

I stand with my bare back against a rain-scented pillar of stone, my feet planted in the ruins of an abandoned house. Gray rock soars high above me. Fluffy Cloud People crowd the sky. I can feel their floating souls—as though clouds live in my heart.

How strange this freedom feels.

All my life I have believed in a wall between inside and outside. “Real” things only happened inside. I alone possessed true awareness. Everything outside had a shadow reality. Other people, the stars and animals, seemed vaguely alive, but not fully.

That wall was a womb that nourished my pride and allowed me to turn my head. To escape responsibility and relationships.

As I gaze across the endless undulating mountains that spread around me, I see a landscape without walls. A place of utter freedom.

But when I look down, I see carefully smoothed stones. What a fine mason she was, the woman who built this house. She hewed the gray stones to the size of her palm, then rubbed them together until they fit so snugly no mortar was necessary to keep the walls standing. She used the curved base of the pillar as her back wall and built out around it, constructing three fine rooms. One for her immediate family, one for storage, and one probably for elderly parents or grandparents.

She made walls outside.

I make walls inside.

I use my bare toe to flip over one of the fallen stones, and wonder …

Do the stones in the hills crawl down at night to look at the enslaved stones? Do they howl, the way coyotes do, at dogs in cages?

Do the unfettered Cloud People howl at me?

Wind whimpers in my ears, bathing my face with the sweet fragrances of newborn flowers and grass.

I smile and gently pet the stones still imprisoned in the standing walls. Then I bend down and begin pulling them apart, one by one, breaking the stones loose … freeing them.

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.