People of the Silence (76 page)

She took a deep breath. The very air seemed to pulse with fear. And they had good reason to be afraid. Straight Path Canyon’s huge towns had been organized and built for defense. If one person screamed an alarm, within half a hand of time every town and village down the length of the canyon responded with an outpouring of warriors.
That
was their strength. They could push an enemy war party back against the canyon walls and literally shoot them to shreds.

Thistle ground her teeth as she scanned Talon Town. She had helped to build those impenetrable walls. Ten hands thick in places, they could not be battered down or scaled—though she had watched very brave warriors throw up ladders in an attempt to do so. The Straight Path archers atop the walls had laughed as they picked them off.

Jay Bird looked at Thistle and tapped the dirt with his forefinger. “Draw it for me. We will have perhaps one finger of time to do this. I must know exactly where the First People’s chambers are.”

Thistle sketched the half-moon shape in the soil, drew the line of rooms that divided the plaza, and said, “Remember that I have not been here in almost sixteen summers, Great Chief. I expect their chambers will be in the same places, but they may have moved.”

“I understand. Go ahead.”

“Here, on the fifth floor at the very back, was Crow Beard’s chamber. Over here on the right, the east side, Night Sun’s chamber sat just beneath Propped Pillar”—she tapped the sketch—“and Sternlight’s chamber was a short distance away … here. Close to the front, on the first floor, Ironwood used to live here. Featherstone’s chamber—”

“She is the elderly demented woman?”

“Yes.”

“Never mind. She would slow us down too much. And if the First People are not in their chambers, where else might they be?”

Thistle made a dimple in the line of rooms separating the halves of the plaza. “Here, Jay Bird. This is the First People’s kiva.”

Jay Bird looked back and forth from her map to Talon Town, as if memorizing the critical locations. A strange gleam had entered his eyes.

He turned to Howler, and the tall ugly warrior wet his lips nervously. Jay Bird said, “I think it’s dark enough. Pick three men to follow us. They’ll have to get as close as they can to their targets and kill as silently as possible. They will have only one chance.”

“I understand,” Howler replied.

“Do you?” Jay Bird made a gesture to the left, indicating the people walking around Streambed Town, talking and laughing. Then he gestured to the right, toward the bright glow of Kettle Town. “One wrong move, Howler, and the warriors from these towns will join forces and leap upon us like wolves on field mice.”

Howler nodded. “I’ve already told our people they cannot make a sound, or even ‘accidentally’ set a fire, that anything which alerts the other towns will bring a thousand warriors down upon us and guarantee we do not make it out of the canyon alive.”

“Good. Make sure they also understand that by first light tomorrow the Straight Path dogs will have mounted a war party. We will need to run as far and as fast as we can tonight.”

“I’ll tell them.”

“Go, then. Get them into position while I speak with Thistle.”

“Yes, my chief.”

Climbing back down into the wash, Howler silently ran through the lines, tapping certain men on the shoulders. Three rose and dispersed, walking separately toward Talon Town. Their gray shirts blended with the twilight.

With the silence of spring mist, Jay Bird crawled over the lip of the drainage and lay flat in the grass, eyes squinting.

Thistle followed his gaze, knowing he must be searching for the warriors he’d sent ahead. She could see nothing in the dusk, but he seemed to be monitoring someone’s movements. His eyes tracked to the left.

She ground her teeth. She had no weapon, because they did not yet trust her. She had only her hands to defend herself. But they
would
trust her. Soon.

After another finger of time, Jay Bird whispered. “It is time, Thistle.”

She scrambled over the bank and stood up, her heart jamming against her ribs. “I’m only sorry Snake Head isn’t here so I could kill him myself.”

“That will come, good woman. Especially if this night’s raid succeeds.” He slowly rose to his feet, checked the bow slung over his right shoulder and the quiver over his left. It held ten beautifully fletched arrows. He untied the war club from his belt and tested its familiar weight.

“You’re sure the warrior on guard over the entrance is called Gnat?”

“Yes. That’s him.”

“All right, let’s go.”

*   *   *

Ironwood ducked out of the altar room and looked around the plaza. Night had fallen, and bats flitted in the faint orange glow that came from the town. No one walked the plaza. The Made People had retreated to their chambers to cook supper, and the slaves had been confined. Soft voices drifted on the wind.

Gnat stood guard over the entry, his stocky body silhouetted against the slate-gray sky. Three other warriors crouched on the fifth-story roof. Ironwood nodded approvingly. With only a handful of real warriors left in town, wariness was imperative. Gnat had done well.

Ironwood started across the hard-packed dirt, and Wind Baby ruffled his graying hair and whipped his buckskin sleeves. The scent of Cornsilk’s blood rose from his stained shirt. He needed to change clothes. A hand of time ago, Weedblossom had sent word that she wished to speak with Night Sun tomorrow morning. Both of them knew what the summons meant. As an act of charity, Weedblossom had given Night Sun time … to prepare a defense, to get rid of the evidence—meaning their daughter—or to leave.

Night Sun had already brought her pack to the kiva in preparation. As soon as they could, the three of them would go, even if Ironwood had to carry his daughter every step of the way. If she woke before dawn, they would ask whether she wished to go, or remain as Talon Town’s Matron. If she didn’t wake, they would simply take her.

He climbed the ladder and walked across the roof toward his chamber, inhaling the cedar smoke that rode the wind. The sweet pungency coated the back of his throat. Hundreds of fires sparkled across the canyon bottom, like topaz beads sewn on a cobalt velvet background.

Ironwood climbed down into his chamber.

The white walls reflected the dove-colored light pouring through the roof opening. He stood for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness, then went to the pile of folded shirts at the head of his bed. He would need something warm and sturdy. He slipped his soiled shirt over his head and tossed it to the floor. He put on a plain doeskin shirt, tanned to a golden brown. The fringes on the sleeves and hem danced.

He closed up his pack and slung it over his shoulder, then reached for his quiver of arrows and his favorite bow.

His eyes traced the fierce images of the thlatsinas, and went over each weapon on the wall. The water and seed beings that lived in the scalps whispered to him, their voices like whimpers of wind, but he couldn’t make out any of their words.

“Good-bye,” he said softly.

He lifted a hand and smoothed his fingers over the ornately carved bow presented to him by Crow Beard after the battle at Gila Monster Cliffs. The world had changed that day. He’d changed.

At Gila Monster Cliffs he had proven his value, not just to his chief, but to himself. For the first time since the deaths of his precious wife, Lupine, and their little son, he’d known who he was.

“Now I’m taking a new road. I pray the gods help me to find my way.”

One last time, Ironwood looked around, reliving every memory brought forth. Then he swiftly turned and climbed the ladder, fleeing before the sadness overcame him. He stood silently on the roof, fingering his bow.

An owl hovered over Propped Pillar, its wings tipping as the wind gusted. Evening People glittered across the sky.

Gnat crouched over the entry, a blanket around his shoulders.

Ironwood climbed down to the eastern plaza and headed for the First People’s kiva, his moccasins whispering on the dirt.

Inside him, exhilaration mixed with melancholy, creating a strange emptiness. He didn’t understand it, not fully. He would be with Night Sun. And, perhaps, their daughter, Cornsilk. He had been praying for this day for almost half his life. Why wasn’t he dancing? Sixteen summers ago, he would have.

You’re an old man now, Ironwood. Too soul weary for such foolish displays.

He neared the doorway to the altar room and, beside it, the gate that connected the halves of the plaza. Just before he ducked inside, he heard an unknown man’s voice.…

*   *   *

Gnat drew his blanket tightly around his shoulders. The shadows of evening were fading to night, the western horizon glowing with the last pale blue light. As hot as the day had been, night would bring a bone-numbing chill.

Gnat rubbed his eyes and craned his neck around. Fatigue had combined with worry to nibble at his senses. Talon Town was his responsibility. Now he finally understood why Webworm had been so jumpy and irritable over the last moon. Gnat’s own nerves were strung as tight as a sinew bowstring.

He could remember that last meeting with Webworm. “This is crazy! You’re leaving me four warriors?
Four?
I couldn’t guard a corn granary against a pack of children with that few men!”

Webworm had given him the dull, flat-eyed look of a man weary to the point of dropping and pointed across the plaza at Snake Head in his funeral regalia. “Do you want to go complain to the Blessed Sun?”

“No,” Gnat had growled. “But I’d give anything to have Crow Beard back.” And then his gut had knotted, fearing that he’d insulted Webworm and his position as War Chief. To his relief, Webworm had just smiled, said, “Me, too,” and strode off to take his place at the front of the procession.

Gnat turned to inspect the rising bulk of Talon Town, the white walls now ghostly in the gloom. Wisps of smoke carried from warming bowls and cooking fires. The whole place was eerily quiet. Too quiet.

Gnat knew Ironwood and Night Sun would be facing hard questions when Snake Head and the clan elders returned. And then what? If the elders ordered their deaths, did this young Cornsilk become Matron?

Gnat tried to see the way of it all. Cornsilk would depose Snake Head, or at least, he hoped so. Anything would be better than Snake Head’s lunacy.
Leaving me four warriors to guard Talon Town!
Of course, if the need arose, he could call out all of the old men and women. Most of them could use bows, if poorly.

He turned uneasily, watching the shadowed flats. At least the decision to strip Talon Town of warriors had come so suddenly neither the Fire Dogs nor the Tower Builders would have had a chance to respond to the opportunity.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” Gnat said to himself. “It’s only for four days. No one can organize a party of warriors that quickly.”

He grumbled and tucked his blanket tight again. Coyotes yipped in an eerie racket up on the cliffs. Well, good hunting to them. Rumor had it that people in the small villages had even been putting mice into their stews to extend their meat.

Gnat shifted uneasily. From the moment of Crow Beard’s death, it seemed the threads of the Straight Path world had started to unravel. As if a madness had possessed the people.

I could just leave.
He cocked his head at the thought, as if listening to a Spirit voice.
Would that be so bad?

And to think that only a few days ago he’d thought of becoming War Chief. Now he wouldn’t take the job if it were offered to him. He actually pitied Webworm.

He conjured images of the Green Mesa villages, of the roughhewn mountains that rose just to their north. He could see the clear rivers running down from those pine-and-spruce-covered heights to water fertile valleys.

They’d readily take a warrior of his reputation. Maybe it was time to marry into a family that owned good fields and a sturdy house. There’d be fighting aplenty with the Tower Builders, good hunting up in the mountains.

No more raids like Lanceleaf. No more worry about Snake Head’s lunacy, or weird murders, or whether Sternlight was a witch. No more plots!

He rubbed his fingers down the handle of his war club.
I’ll do it! I’ll just up and go.
He’d walk to his room, throw his few things into a pack, roll his blanket, and walk out. Just Go. Tonight. Right now!

He stood up, tempted, and made a face as he glanced up at the rising levels of Talon Town. A sinking sense settled on his heart. No, he owed it to Webworm to see this through.
But just as soon as the War Chief returns, I’m going north.

He took a deep breath, relief flooding him. Then he heard footsteps in the darkness below the entrance. From long experience, he figured them as two people, both trotting.

“Who’s there?”

“A warrior, and a woman of the Ant Clan,” a man called back breathlessly, as though they’d been running hard. “We bear news from the Blessed Sun!”

Gnat winced. What had happened now? “Well, then, enter and come up here to tell me about it.”

He stretched his back muscles as the man and woman passed through the entryway and climbed the ladder. Despite the darkness, Gnat could see that the man was gray-haired, wearing a warrior’s shirt. A bow and quiver hung over his back, while he gripped a war club in his right hand.

Gnat didn’t recognize him, but then, with the Blessed Sun calling up so many for the funeral procession, it was no wonder. Take off the man’s red shirt and dress him in a weaver’s smock, and maybe his face would tug a memory.

The woman looked vaguely familiar. He squinted at her in the darkness. “All right, tell me. What kind of idiocy has the Blessed Sun thought up this time?”

“You won’t like it,” the man said as he walked close and gave Gnat a grim smile. No, this was no weaver, but a true warrior. Why didn’t he recog—

“You remember Lanceleaf Village, Gnat?” the woman asked hollowly. “You were there. You helped to kill Beargrass, and my son.”

“Beargrass?” Gnat started, swinging around to face the woman. “Thistle? Is that—”