People of the Silence (39 page)

The beetle crawled up out of the crack and headed purposefully across the sandstone.

Poor Singer followed.

The bug broke into a run, its face low to the ground, as if sniffing out a trail. It nearly leaped over the rock.

When the beetle scrambled into the shadow of a boulder, halted and began working furiously with its arms and mouth, Poor Singer frowned. He bent down to get a closer look. The cool shadow enveloped him as he peered at the bug.

It had found a splatter of sage grouse dung and was gleefully rolling it into a ball.

Poor Singer rolled the pebble around his mouth. It no longer tasted sweet or earthy.

Dejected, he flopped down on the warm stone. Dune had told him that if you looked long enough at a dew drop, you would see the entire universe in it.

Poor Singer looked long and hard at the sage grouse feces. The beetle worked with great care, legs shaping, rolling.

He ran a hand through his black hair.

Maybe it would be all right if I was a butterfly?

*   *   *

“Dune? Dune the Derelict? Please, wake up!”

At the woman’s voice, Dune braced himself on one elbow and pushed his blankets down around his waist. The beautiful white chamber gleamed pale blue in the predawn light. Covered with four blankets, he slept on soft bulrush sleeping mats. A water jug and cup stood within reach, and pots of food lined the wall.

“Who’s there?” he asked, looking up at the roof entry.

“It’s Mourning Dove, holy Derelict! Please, come. Creeper sent me for you!”

“Give me a moment, Mourning Dove.”

“Yes, Elder.”

Dune wearily threw back his blankets and reached for his tattered brown robe. Slipping it over his head brought a groan from his throat. He didn’t know which hurt worse, his shoulders, his knees, or his hips. Gingerly, he picked up his rabbit fur cape and tied it beneath his chin, then smoothed his sparse white hair back with his hands.

As he rose and reached for the rungs of the ladder, he noticed how the veins knotted and crawled over the backs of his hands, distended like fat blue earthworms. Age had ravaged his body, and weariness always made it worse.

“You can rest when you get home,” he murmured to himself, and climbed the ladder one blasted step at a time. “May that be soon.”

He’d begun to worry about Poor Singer. The boy filled Dune’s dreams—saying incomprehensible things about a turquoise abyss and his father, the coyote. He could sense that Poor Singer needed him, and that added to his frustration. He prayed Poor Singer would arrive soon.

He stepped out onto the first-story roof. Frost coated the grass and sparkled on the winter-brittle weeds that lined the paths and the edges of the fallow cornfields. Despite the warmth of the days, night still held a bite. The blue gleam had dyed the cliffs a rich purple. Propped Pillar shimmered as though sprinkled with amethyst dust.

Mourning Dove stood before him, her chipmunk face swollen, eyes red-rimmed. She clutched a yellow-and-brown cotton cape about her shoulders.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Elder.” She glanced around fearfully, searching the white rooftops as if to assure herself that no one else was up.

“It’s all right, Mourning Dove. What’s happened?”

“Creeper … he sent me.” Tears filled her eyes. “Lark died. But before his soul left his body, he spat up this.” She held a small piece of cloth out in trembling fingers, as if it contained something loathsome.

He reached out and took the cloth, opening it to spill an object into his palm. It felt cold and smooth. Dune squinted his far-sighted eyes for a moment, identified the tiny black object, and murmured, “Oh, no.”

“Do you know what it is?” Mourning Dove asked. “Creeper didn’t. We thought perhaps—”

When had he ever felt this tired and worried? “Yes, I do. Return to Lark’s chamber, Mourning Dove, before anyone sees us together. I will be there shortly. There are—things—I need to gather. Both you and Creeper must be cleansed. Now, go. Hurry. I’ll be along.”

Mourning Dove backed away. “A sleep-maker fashioned it, didn’t he?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Mourning Dove nodded. “I will tell Creeper you are coming.”

When she had climbed down the ladder and Dune saw her running across the plaza, he opened his fist again and looked upon the horror.

Purple light flowed over the flawless jet, showing every detail of the terrible creature. Dune studied the extraordinary workmanship of the spiral serpent coiled inside the broken eggshell. The snake’s red coral eye had been inlaid. How many members of the Straight Path nation would know the symbolism? Perhaps a handful of the Made People, and the highest leaders among the First People.

“A snake born from an egg laid by a cock.”

The Hohokam believed that one look from the monster’s eye could kill.

Dune closed his hand, shielding himself from the serpent’s gaze while he scanned the town. Turkeys strutted across the plaza. Dogs played, biting at each other’s ears. People had begun to rise. The orange gleams of cedar bark torches lit many windows and cast a muted amber gleam on the massive cliff behind Talon Town. Soft voices filled the cool morning air.

Could a Hohokam witch be moving unseen among them? One of the slaves? But where would a slave get such a rare and priceless object?

“He could have made it with his own hands, you old fool,” Dune reminded himself. “Plenty of jet passes through this town.”

But how could a slave purchase jet? Or steal it without notice?

Only the most wealthy of the First People could overlook losing a piece of flawless jet.

Dune shook his head to clear it. If Creeper and Mourning Dove did not undergo the cleansing ritual soon, they would sicken. They might even die.

He turned to the ladder.

Twenty-Three

Cornsilk trotted south on the hard-packed dirt road, her heart racing, breath tearing in and out of her lungs. Webworm and his bloody warriors had run down this very road, bearing their grisly trophy. Her feet touched the same soil theirs had. Her eyes gazed at the same wind-sculpted buttes and ridges, the same endless expanse of stumps that poked up from the waving amber grass. Ax marks were still visible on the desiccated wood.

Over and over, she kept reliving the last moments of her father’s and Fledgling’s lives, seeing their faces. The firelit darkness, the stench of pine pitch and smoldering bedding, Little Snail’s wrenching cries, all had been carved into her heart.

“Why didn’t I stay to search for my mother’s body? To bury father and Fledgling?”

Tears blurred her eyes. She kept hearing her mother’s voice:
“If you are ever in trouble, and need help…”

She ran harder.

The road took her to the top of a scrubby saltbush-covered hill. Ahead, Wind Baby and Thunderbird’s gigantic claws had ripped the surface of the land. Bands of red-and-white sandstone twisted through the basin like ribbons of finely dyed cloth. Groves of junipers and pines outlined the drainages with green.

She had been running, sleeping, running for a night and a day. Her lungs burned from gasping for breath, and fear ate at her empty belly. Exhaustion weighted her shoulders like a pack of stones. She
had
to get to Talon Town.

Cornsilk forced herself to think. She had been too dazed to do anything but flee, but as her wits slowly returned, she realized she couldn’t just walk up and present herself and the blanket to Sternlight. First, she had to figure out what had happened.

Sternlight may have been my mother’s friend over fifteen summers ago, but he may be my enemy today.

Someone had ordered those warriors to kill Fledgling. Probably the new Chief, but Sternlight was Talon Town’s greatest priest—he must have known! And done nothing to stop it.

On the night of Lanceleaf’s destruction, the warrior, Webworm, had said many frightening things. He had come hunting a boy—the Blessed Night Sun’s boy—and he’d called Night Sun a “whore.” He’d demanded to know the name of Fledgling’s real father and seemed convinced it was Sternlight. The only thing Cornsilk knew for certain was that Webworm had replaced Ironwood as War Chief of Talon Town, and no one—not even Chief Snake Head—knew the true identity of the hidden child’s father.

All of the arguments her parents had had, all the whispers late at night, made sense now. Night Sun had birthed a child in secret and given it away. She must have paid Cornsilk’s parents to raise Fledgling … or Cornsilk. She was so confused, she couldn’t think straight. Who did she believe? Her mother? Or the War Chief of Talon Town?

Her father had said, “I believe it is our duty to stay with Fledgling at all times.” Because they were being paid to protect him? Or because he was truly their only child?

Who had revealed the location of the hidden child? And why?

Someone must have divulged the secret when Crow Beard died, perhaps thinking it safe to, or perhaps out of malice, but why had Snake Head, the new Chief, wanted Fledgling dead? By lineage, Fledgling posed no threat to Snake Head—at least not so far as the rulership of the Straight Path nation went.

“Oh, Fledgling.” She pounded down the hill to drive the ache away, forcing one foot in front of the other, lungs aching, legs trembling. “Father? Mother? Was I really your daughter? Or did you just raise me?”

In the distance Turquoise Maiden Mountain glistened as the midday sun struck its snow-shrouded peak. Drainages cut the slopes and crept out across the arid flatlands like tree roots searching for water.

Ironwood might be Fledgling’s real father, as Cornsilk’s mother had suspected. But it meant nothing now. Ironwood had no obligation to offer Cornsilk aid just because she had been raised with his son.

I’m alone. I can’t depend on anyone except myself.

Except, perhaps, the great priest, Sternlight. The tone in her mother’s voice, the worry on her face, everything she had done and said that last day had convinced Cornsilk that Sternlight had given the magnificent turquoise-studded blanket to her mother.

Perhaps
he
had been the one sending the payments, not Night Sun? Had the blanket been another moon’s worth of care for
his
son? As Webworm suspected?

I can’t know for sure. It’s impossible.

Despite her mother’s confidence in Sternlight, Cornsilk would trust no one. Not after what had happened to Lanceleaf Village.

The road came to an abrupt end on the lip of a cliff. Cornsilk slowed, panting for breath.

From the cliff’s vantage, she could see a vast expanse of folded ridges speckled by juniper and piñon, and sage-mottled flats. Green lines of trees marked the drainages. Here and there sharp pillars of stone thrust up, like dozens of cactus needles straining to poke holes through a rumpled red, yellow, and white blanket.

Cornsilk walked carefully to the cliff’s edge and peered over. Stairs had been cut into the stone. Two hundred hands below, a young man stood stark naked in the brilliant sunlight. Tall and skinny, he had waist-length black hair that fluttered as he spun and flapped his arms. He seemed to be Singing, but it sounded more like a zizzing hum.

Was he dangerous? Cornsilk scanned the canyon for signs of a village, people, or even a campsite, but saw nothing. What could he be doing out here?

The young man laughed, threw back his head, and flapped his arms quickly.

Bone-weary, Cornsilk pulled her bow from her back and got down on her belly to watch him. Wind Baby breathed softly across the rim, cooling the sweat on her face. The scent of dust curled up around her. He looked harmless enough. Cornsilk guessed his age at about her own: fifteen or sixteen summers.

The youth started spinning around, stumbling through the sage as if he’d drunk a potful of juniper berry wine. He laughed. The sound echoed off the canyon walls. He didn’t really look dangerous, though he might be slightly deranged.

Hunger gnawed at her belly. She’d eaten everything out of her pack and hadn’t stopped long enough to hunt or collect more food. Even as she watched, her stomach gurgled and growled its displeasure. He might share a meal with her—but not if she greeted him with a nocked bow.

With the caution of a hunting cat, she stood, slipped her bow over her shoulder, and climbed over the edge, using the stairs like a ladder.

The youth didn’t seem to notice. He just stumbled through the sage, grinning.

She stepped silently to the ground and saw the little white house with the cracked plaster nestled in the tall sage. His home? He lived way out here alone? With all the raiding going on, he
must
be deranged.

She stepped closer. Blessed Spirits! He was nothing but skin and bone. And his skin! It glowed an angry red. The sunburn covered his entire body, including his penis and testicles. Blisters bubbled over his shoulders and the hooked arch of his nose. Had he stood naked in the sun for days?

Crossing her arms, she asked, “Are you a hummingbird, or a bumblebee?”

His body came to a sudden stop, but his eyes kept spinning, and he crashed face down in a tangle of sagebrush. “Who
are
you!” He rolled over and struggled to prop himself up. His head wobbled. “Are you … don’t I
know
you?”

“Lie flat until your balance returns.”

“I—I think I’m going to throw up,” he said, and shifted a round object from one cheek to the other.

Cornsilk crouched a body-length from him and studied his roasted body, his long black hair. “What were you doing? Spinning around like that and flapping your arms?”

His eyes roved about as if trying to fix on something. “I was learning to be a moth. You know how they’re always whirling and fluttering, especially near fires.” He paused to take a breath, and added, “I tried being a beetle and a cockroach, but they eat some really foul things. Did you know that?”

Cornsilk lifted a brow. “Why are you learning to be insects? Are you being taught by a shaman?”

He propped himself up on his elbows and his mouth quirked. “Look around. Do you see a shaman here?”

“I already looked. No.”