The Summoning God: Book II of the Anasazi Mysteries (11 page)

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Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear,W. Michael Gear

BOOK: The Summoning God: Book II of the Anasazi Mysteries
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Firelight glimmered from Sylvia’s freckles. “Not much. It was like
she was testing the water: ‘How’s Dusty?’ ‘What are you working on?’ ‘Seen any flying saucers lately?’ You know, chitchat kind of stuff.”
“Wonder why she never writes me.”
Sylvia squinted. “Do you ever write her? Figure it out, Einstein.”
Dusty turned his bottle in his hands. “Okay. Guilty as charged.”
His gaze drifted around the camp, landing on the Coleman lantern on the opposite side of the fire, the wooden box marked TRASH, and the array of ice chests, foot lockers, and green ammo boxes stacked in front of the tents. He could hear Dale rattling dishes in the camp trailer to his left.
“Did you ask her to come out?” Sylvia asked.
“I haven’t decided. We’re not exactly best buddies.”
Sylvia picked up a bag of those awful little cheezy fishes. Her favorites. Around a crunchy mouthful, she said, “If she wants to come, we could use her.”
Dusty tucked his Guinness between his knees and pulled the cellular phone from his coat pocket. Sylvia and Steve watched him with curious eyes.
Steve said, “What’s the verdict?”
Dusty tossed the phone to Sylvia. “I’ll tear up my letter, if you’ll call her and ask.”
“Wow,” Sylvia said in awe. “Another example of Dusty the Lionhearted.” She tossed it back. “How about if I tear up your letter, while you call?”
Dusty caught the phone and scowled at it.
Sylvia tipped her head and said, “If she can come, ask her to meet us at the bar at the Durango Doubletree Hotel. It’s nice.”
Dusty’s stomach muscles knotted. He stared at the number scrawled across the top of the phone, then punched in the numbers with one eye closed.
Sylvia whooped and stuck out her hand. Steve groaned, pulled his wallet from his back pocket, and stuffed a ten-dollar bill into Sylvia’s hand. She grinned.
While the phone rang, Dusty waved a finger at the bowls. “Let’s eat. My upset stomach can use something else to chew on.”
“G
RANDMOTHER?”
Even before the sound of her voice died away, Redcrop knew something was wrong.
She and the Matron lived in three interconnected chambers on the east side of Longtail village. The rooms, eerily quiet and cold, had an ominous stillness.
Flame Carrier always awoke long before dawn and by now had a fire going and food cooking.
Redcrop pulled on her moccasins and slipped a doe-hide cape over her blue sleep shirt. Long black hair tumbled down her back.
She ducked through the doorway into the large chamber where Flame Carrier slept. The coals in the fire pit had burned down to gray ash. Morning light filtered around the door curtain and striped the room.
She bent to feel Flame Carrier’s blankets. Icy cold.
As she straightened, Redcrop caught her reflection in the pyrite mirror on the wall. Her large black eyes shone like polished stones. She brushed at her hair, smoothing the worst tangles. She had seen fourteen summers, most of them as Flame Carrier’s slave. She and her mother had been captured in a raid when she was less than a sun cycle old, but she had never felt like a slave. Flame Carrier treated her as a granddaughter, caring for her when she fell ill, giving her beautiful clothing and jewelry, loving her. Flame Carrier was the only mother Redcrop had really known.
“Matron?”
She shoved the hide door curtain aside and stepped out into the village plaza.
She couldn’t see Father Sun, but she knew that beyond the distant bluff he’d crested the horizon. The sky glowed a pale luminous gold.
Shadows filled every undulation, turning the rolling hills around the village into a patchwork of light and dark.
People had just begun to rise. Two women hunched over the plaza fire pit, arranging kindling. In the distance, three boys trotted along the shore of the river. Probably Little Calf, eight summers old, and his younger brothers. Their soft laughter carried on the morning wind.
Redcrop scanned the plaza for Flame Carrier. Longtail village spread around her. Two stories tall, it contained two hundred and ninety rooms and stretched seventy-five body lengths long and about thirty wide. An old place, half the chambers had collapsed and brimmed with fallen roof poles and weeds. They could not be entered. The Katsinas’ People had been working tirelessly, cleaning, replastering, and repainting the rooms where they lived.
Redcrop shielded her eyes against the slanting morning light and turned to look at the tower kiva, which formed the central portion of the E. The stocky warrior, Hummingbird, crouched on the flat roof. He stood guard every night. Short and built like a tree stump, he had an oval face with amused brown eyes. Instead of the usual bun most warriors wore at the base of the skull, a waist-length black braid draped the front of his painted buckskin cape.
Redcrop cupped a hand to her mouth and called, “Good day to you, Hummingbird! Have you seen the Matron?”
The warrior shook his head. “No, why?”
“She was gone when I woke.”
Hummingbird propped his war club on his muscular shoulder. “I saw no one leave your chamber, Redcrop. Do you wish me to help you search for her?”
They’d been raided less than half a moon ago. She did not wish to take any of the guards from their positions until it became necessary.
“Not yet, but I thank you. I will look for her for a time first.”
Hummingbird lifted a hand and nodded.
Redcrop walked across the plaza toward the two women standing before the fire. Flames crackled and leaped, sending up a haze of sparks. The rich scent of burning cedar filled the cold morning air.
“Good day, Obsidian.” She bowed to the cloaked woman on her left, then to the skinny, white-haired elder on the right. “And to you, Matron Crossbill. Have you seen Matron Flame Carrier?”
Crossbill tossed another juniper log onto the flames and brushed the duff from her knobby hands onto the red blanket tied around her shoulders. She had a deeply wrinkled face. “No, child, but I haven’t been up long. When did she leave?”
“I don’t know, Elder. Some time in the night.”
Obsidian turned, and her dark blue hood rippled around her exotic slanting eyes. A triangular face was the mark of great beauty among their people. Her wide cheekbones narrowed to a pointed chin. The rich spicy fragrance of blazing star petals scented her body and clothing. Crossbill’s clan, the Longtail Clan, whispered that Obsidian had flown down from the skyworld as a meteorite. They said her mother had caught the meteorite, and when she’d opened her hands, a baby girl lay there. Redcrop believed it. Only one of the gods could be that stunningly beautiful.
“I haven’t seen her this morning.” Obsidian leaned forward to pull a long branch from the woodpile. Wind flapped her cloak, revealing the precious stones that sparkled on her wrists and ankles, even in her hair. “Have you looked behind the village for the Matron? The War Chief shot a deer this morning. Flame Carrier may be Singing the animal’s soul to the afterlife.”
“Oh, I didn’t know the War Chief had returned. Thank you.”
Redcrop trotted toward the southeastern corner of the village, passed the turkey pen, and headed north along the towering eastern wall of the village. When she rounded the northeastern corner, she looked westward, down the long rear wall. Five body lengths away, Straighthorn and War Chief Browser knelt over a young doe.
“A pleasant morning to you, War Chief,” Redcrop said. “When did you arrive home?”
Browser smiled, but he looked tired. Crescents darkened the skin beneath his soft brown eyes, and his chin-length black hair hung limply, as though it needed washing. He had a round face, with thick black brows and a flat nose. The War Chief had endured much pain in his life, and she could see it in the deep lines around his eyes and mouth. Blood stained his elkhide jacket. Dried blood. Had there been a fight at Aspen village?
He said, “Catkin and I returned just after midnight. But I couldn’t sleep. I was up early this morning. Would you like to help us with the deer?”
As a slave she could not refuse, no matter how much she longed to
find Flame Carrier. She trotted forward and knelt across the deer from Straighthorn. “What do you need me to do?”
Straighthorn smiled at her and Redcrop smiled back. He had a thin face, with a hooked nose, and brown eyes much too old and wise for the sixteen summers he had seen. He wore a threadbare red cape. A braided leather headband held his long black hair in place. They’d become best friends and often stayed up late at night talking of their dreams and fears.
He had been deathly ill when the men of Longtail village left and never returned. He’d lost his father and brother. His wife, Siskin, had died a few days after Straighthorn had recovered from the fever. He now grieved alone in a small room near the tower kiva.
Straighthorn stroked the deer’s coat and whispered, “Thank you for your life, mother. We will use it wisely, I promise.” He tipped his face to the morning sky, and Sang:
“Come Deer Above,
Come for your daughter’s soul,
Take her running beneath the waters of the sacred lake,
And along the starry trail to the Land of the Dead.
Come Deer Above,
Guide your precious daughter’s soul home.”
Redcrop lifted her voice to join Straighthorn’s,
“Come Deer Above, come for your daughter’s soul …”
War Chief Browser held a white clay pipe to his mouth, inhaled tobacco smoke, and blew it over the deer’s hair, preparing and sanctifying her for the long journey to the afterlife. Browser handed the pipe to Straighthorn, then untied a small buckskin pouch from his belt.
“Here,” he said, and gave the pouch to Redcrop. “I’ve already dug a burial pit for the doe’s organs.”
Browser lifted the bloody lungs and bladder and carried them to a small hole about thirty hands away. As he gently lowered the organs into the grave, he said, “Please sprinkle them with the strong cornmeal while I gather the rest of her organs.”
“Yes, War Chief.”
Redcrop tugged the laces open. Strong cornmeal was a powerful offering to Our Grandmother Earth. It contained the most cherished things in the Straight Path Nation: cornmeal, ground turquoise, and powdered white shell from the great ocean in the west.
Redcrop reverently sprinkled the organs with the meal, then used her right hand to push the dirt back into the grave.
Browser returned with the stomach and intestines. He placed them on top of the grave, and said, “For our relatives, the Raw Persons, mountain lion, coyote, bobcat, and wolf, so they will know we have not forgotten them.”
Redcrop petted the organs, and whispered. “We have not forgotten you, Raw People.”
“Thank you, Redcrop.” He rose to his feet and smiled down at her. “If you will come back with me, I will slice off a thick steak for you and Matron Flame Carrier.”
As he started back for the deer, he drew a long black chert knife from his belt.
Redcrop trotted at his heels. “War Chief? Have you seen the Matron? I’m looking for her.”
He stopped. “Is she missing?”
Straighthorn looked up suddenly. “What’s wrong?”
“Well, I—I don’t know,” Redcrop said self-consciously. She was a slave; she should not be bothering anyone until she knew for certain the Matron was in trouble. “When I awoke, she was gone. It may be nothing.”
Browser’s thick black brows drew together. He stood quietly, but his gaze moved over the landscape as if searching for a hidden enemy.
“She may have just gone down to the river to fill a pitcher with water,” Straighthorn said. He inhaled smoke from the pipe and blew it into the deer’s nostrils, purifying the breath-path for her soul to leave her body. “Or perhaps she decided to offer her morning prayers from one of the high points around the village.”
“Possibly,” Browser said. He knelt and skinned the hide back from the deer’s left hindquarter, then sawed off a thick steak. As he handed it to Redcrop, he stared into her eyes and she could feel his fear. It left a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Browser said, “I will be a few moments longer, then I will help you search for her.”
“Thank you, War Chief.”
Redcrop couldn’t take her eyes from his. Over the past few moons,
Flame Carrier had been speaking more and more of what would happen to the Katsinas’ People when she was gone, of who would take over and become the new Matron, of which villages they would seek out after they’d finished repairing this one—as if she knew she were dying and wanted to prepare them for the inevitable.
Is that what she’d done? Gone off by herself to die?
Tears blurred Redcrop’s eyes. The warm steak in her hands shook.
Browser stood up and tenderly touched her hair. “Don’t worry. There may have been a village crisis that none of us knows about, a child who sickened in the night or a difficult birthing that required her presence. Why don’t you return to the plaza to wait for me. You will probably see her before I get back, but if not we will find her.”
“Yes, War Chief.” Redcrop held tight to the sweet-smelling steak. “Thank you, and thank you, Straighthorn.”
“The joy is mine,” he said, and smiled. He’d tied his leather headband on the side, and the ends flapped in the breeze.
As she headed back to the plaza, Redcrop’s heart started to pound. She broke into a run.
 
BROWSER BENT DOWN TO CLEAN HIS KNIFE IN THE SAND, but caught the look of yearning Straighthorn cast after Redcrop.
Straighthorn whispered, “Sometimes I think I will die before she becomes a woman.”
“It won’t be long now, Straighthorn.”
Straighthorn shook his head. “It’s strange. I don’t recall suffering this terrible longing before my first marriage. Did you suffer this way before yours?”
Images of Hophorn’s beautiful face formed behind Browser’s eyes, but she had been his lover, not his wife. His stomach knotted. “No. I had another friend before my marriage. She kept me company.”
His mother had forced him to join with Ash Girl, though she knew he loved Hophorn. At the end, he and Ash Girl had hated each other.
Straighthorn said, “I pray nothing has happened to the Matron. It would be like a lance in Redcrop’s heart.”
Grateful for the change of subject, Browser answered, “In all our hearts.”
Browser had never seen a warrior with such keen abilities to sense other people’s emotions. The Longtail elders often teased Straighthorn
for stepping between angry people and trying to soothe their hurt feelings. He’d become known as a peacemaker—though the term wasn’t always meant fondly. Many of the warriors considered him fainthearted. Even Browser had to admit that Straighthorn’s timidity often annoyed him.
Browser stroked the deer’s side. “It may be nothing, Straighthorn, though it is unusual. Flame Carrier almost never varies her daily routine. She rises, cooks breakfast for herself and Redcrop, then joins the people in the plaza to help plan the day’s chores. If she was not there when Redcrop wakened, she left very early, and that is curious.”

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