The Summoning God: Book II of the Anasazi Mysteries (46 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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“We ran up this canyon on the way to Aspen village. Now gather your weapons and follow me. Browser may be in trouble.” She sprinted up the wash.
Straighthorn grabbed for his bow and quiver, and the little girl caught his eye. She huddled in a dark corner of the rock shelter, petting her doll, humming loudly to herself. Her eyes resembled those of a suffocating animal, huge and bulging, ready to burst from her skull.
A helpless sensation went through him. Should he take her with him? Would she give away his position to his enemies?
They are her people. Of course she will.
Straighthorn pulled his gaze away and ran after Catkin.
R
EDCROP STOPPED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WASH. THE canyon had grown steep and narrow. Pines fringed the rim five hundred hands above her. Despite the pale blue sky, shadows cloaked the canyon bottom. The screams and shouts had died a finger of time ago, leaving her in eerie silence. She didn’t know what lay ahead, but she couldn’t risk going back.
“He’s coming,” she whispered, and tears blurred her eyes. “He’ll be here soon.”
She didn’t want to imagine what she would do if it wasn’t Straighthorn who came for her.
Redcrop trotted up the winding canyon, searching for a place to hide. She studied the toppled boulders and brush, but nothing moved. Not even a whisper of wind penetrated this deep. After about one hundred paces, the sand started to grow damp, and she could smell water. Her dry throat constricted, longing for a drink.
Mist crept from around the next bend like ghostly serpents, slithering out, then retreating, only to slither out again. A spring?
She pulled up the hem of her cape and ran.
When she rounded the curving canyon wall, she stopped dead in her tracks.
A tall old man moved through the mist, arranging what looked like stones around a tiny black-and-white pot. He grunted as he bent, then straightened and sighed, as if pleased by his work. He wore a brown-and-white turkey feather cape that flashed as he walked. Even in the dim light, Redcrop could see his long hooked nose and white hair.
Something about the way he moved …
Redcrop walked closer and frowned as he placed another object. Redcrop’s foot slipped off a slick piece of wood, and the old man gasped, and spun around. His wrinkled lips sunk in over toothless gums.
Redcrop blurted, “Elder Springbank! What are you doing out here?”
His black eyes widened. He rushed toward her with his gnarled old hands out. “Blessed gods, child. What are
you
doing here? You must leave immediately! You are in great danger.”
“I know, Elder, I just escaped—”
“What you just escaped from is nothing compared to what’s coming! Do you understand me? Run, child!”
Springbank’s fingers sank into Redcrop’s arms like talons and he swung her around and shoved her back the way she’d come.
“Elder, wait! I think there are warriors coming up this canyon. If I go back—”
“There
are
warriors coming!”
Redcrop spun around breathlessly. “You know there are?”
“Of course, I do!”
“How—”
“I know it!”
he said furiously. Then, more quietly, he added, “Please believe me. They are coming to meet me. I’ve been waiting for them since they dragged me out of the burning kiva last night.”
“The burning kiva?” she said and horror prickled her veins. “At Longtail village?”
“Yes,” he said softly. Beads of sweat glistened on his hooked nose. “If we live through the next hand of time, I will tell you all about it, but for now, we must find a place to hide you.”
The village burned? How many of my friends are dead? Is that the glow I saw last night just before … ?
“Come with me,” he said, and guided Redcrop toward a dark wall of junipers that grew in a pile of boulders. “The problem is, they know about this place, too. In fact, I suspect their people have known about it for hundreds of sun cycles. Every time they find a precious object that belonged to one of the First People, they bring it here to hide it. I can’t guarantee they won’t follow us inside.”
Redcrop followed him. “Where are we going?”
“Over there. Climb up on that slab of sandstone.”
Springbank shoved her toward it, and she climbed.
A muffled groan escaped his lips as he stepped up behind her. He wobbled, and Redcrop grabbed his sticklike old arm to keep him from falling.
He steadied himself, patted her hand, and said, “Thank you, child.”
The stringy muscles in his neck stood out like cords as he parted the branches and peered into the darkness beyond.
Redcrop cast a glance over her shoulder, but she saw no sign of warriors, not yet.
Springbank stepped through and held the branches aside for her. “Come, child. Hurry.”
Redcrop gaped at the cave. The small round opening spread perhaps seven or eight hands wide. She would have to get down on her hands and knees to crawl inside.
“Move, child!”
Redcrop scrambled into the hole. Cool air blew her hair around her face.
Springbank crawled through behind her, and said, “Stand up. It’s all right. The tunnel is more than twice your height, but it’s less than a body’s length wide. Extend your hands and you’ll feel the walls.”
Terror filled her. She did not know which was worse, the warriors outside or the impenetrable darkness that lay ahead. She extended her arms and her fingers touched cold stone. “Where are we going?”
Springbank gave her shoulder a comforting pat. “Don’t you feel the wind? There’s another way out.”
“How far?”
“Just brace your hands on the walls and walk. The tunnel slopes upward and breaks the surface of the ground about a thousand hands from the canyon. I’ll accompany you until you can see daylight, then I must go back.”
To Redcrop’s surprise, the floor of the tunnel was fairly even. They moved swiftly through the musty darkness.
“There’s a bend up here,” he whispered. “You are going to curve to your right.”
Something skittered in the darkness, and for an instant, cold air bathed her face. Cold air and a strange scent that made her shiver. Something fetid and old, like the dust of lost civilizations. Where had she smelled that odor before?
Redcrop glanced over her shoulder, and Springbank whispered, “We haven’t time to dally, Redcrop. Please,
walk.
”
She felt her way around the curve and saw a luminous blur ahead. “I think I see the opening.” Relief made her light-headed; she started to run.
“Don’t run!” Springbank shouted. “The floor is much more uneven up here. Walk carefully until you can truly see.”
“I will, Elder, I just—I’m anxious, I want to—”
The floor dropped away suddenly, and Redcrop cried out and clawed at the walls. Springbank caught her flailing arm and pulled her to her feet. The drop had been little more than two hands deep, but she’d twisted her ankle.
“Are you hurt, child? Can you walk?”
“I don’t know!”
Springbank held her arm in a tight grip. “Try it.”
Redcrop tested her ankle and had to bite back the cry of pain that worked up her throat. “It—it doesn’t want to take my weight, Elder.”
“Then you must crawl, child. Believe me, crawling is better than staying here. I promise you that I will try to return for you, but I cannot guarantee you that the next footsteps you hear will be mine. Do you understand?”
Redcrop felt sick. “Yes.”
She longed to sit down and weep. Springbank supported her arm until she got down on her hands and knees and started feeling her way along the floor.
“I’m all right, Elder.”
“You’re certain?”
She felt the same way she had as a child when she’d first learned of her mother’s death. As if the world had died. “Yes, I can crawl.”
“Good. I should go. I don’t think they will take kindly if I’m—”
“Please, go, Elder. Thank you.”
He was silent for a moment, then she felt his hand on her back, the touch light. “I pray the Blessed Katsinas keep you safe, child.”
“You also, Elder.”
She heard his steps going rapidly back down the tunnel.
Redcrop hung her head and fought to regain control. Without him, she felt terrified and alone.
But she crawled.
 
BROWSER WALKED BY THE POND SILENTLY, AND EXAMINED the bone beads that encircled the pot. Large beads. Each had a hole drilled in the center. They looked as if they’d been made from pieces of human skull. What sort of strange ritual was this? He had
never seen it before. In the brightening gleam of dawn, he could make out the prints in the damp sand.
He scanned the dark gray cliffs, searching for movement, then followed the man’s tracks; he had hurried away from the pond, his stride long, almost running. When the man’s tracks connected with a woman’s, Browser glanced at the junipers and the toppled boulders.
Gods, is it them?
He gripped his war club and continued on. The steps vanished below a sandstone ledge covered with scrubby junipers. A strange musky scent surrounded the junipers.
Browser stepped up onto the ledge and peered through the dark weave of branches. Someone had passed through the trees, snapping twigs. A turkey feather hung from a tuft of needles.
Browser eased through and saw the cave. Most of the prints had been smoothed away by a dragging cape, or the hem of a long dress, but he saw two handprints pressed into the dust near the cave’s mouth.
He whispered, “They crawled inside.”
Browser bent to examine the interior. Utter darkness met his gaze. He sniffed at the dank odor of packrats and mold, then got down on his hands and knees.
As he stuck his head through, he glimpsed a fringed white moccasin …
The blow came out of nowhere, slammed into his head, and knocked him face-first into the dust. He twisted desperately, trying to look up. A shifting blur of faces swam above him. One face … or ten?
 
CATKIN WALKED CAREFULLY AROUND THE POND, STUDYING the tracks. The sky had begun to purple overhead, but the cliffs remained a deep dark gray.
“Browser found the man’s tracks first,” she said to Straighthorn, who stood guard looking down the canyon. “Then he followed the man’s tracks until they met up with Redcrop’s.”
Straighthorn glanced over his shoulder at her. “And then?”
“Let us find out.”
Catkin placed her steps to the side of Browser’s and followed them back to where they met Redcrop’s tracks. “They veer off,” she said, and swerved right toward a tangle of junipers that grew in a boulder pile. “All three of them stepped onto this sandstone slab.”
Straighthorn backed over to look at the scuffed dust and the mixture
of moccasin and sandal prints. “They pushed through the junipers. See the broken twigs?”
Catkin nodded. “I will let you know what I find.”
Straighthorn licked his lips and jerked a nod. Sweat coated his bruised face. A huge black knot had swollen on the left side of his forehead. Catkin sniffed the air and the coppery tang ate at her insides.
She shouldered through the junipers and frowned. The mouth of the small cave was splattered with blood. She knelt and ran her finger over dark spots. Fresh blood. It had just begun to dry. Knee and handprints marked the soil. Her gut tightened. Browser’s blood? Redcrop’s? She prayed that Browser had caught Two Hearts and the blood belonged to him.
“But if that were true,” she whispered to herself, “the man would be lying here dead. Unless Browser wounded him—”
“And had to follow him inside?” Straighthorn asked.
He peered at Catkin through the weave of juniper needles.
She nodded. “I’d say that’s our best guess. Browser probably struck the man, and the man ran away and crawled into this cave.”
Straighthorn looked at her with soft eyes. “But where are Redcrop’s tracks? Where was she when Browser attacked her captor?”
Catkin shook her head. “I see a woman’s handprint on the left side of the cave, but—”
“Maybe she went in first?” Fear lined his face. “Perhaps the man forced her to crawl inside?”
Catkin wiped the blood from her finger onto her buckskin war shirt. “There’s no sign that she was forced in here, Straighthorn. You can look at the tracks yourself. She met the man and walked here with him. She never stumbled, or dragged her feet as if being forced. She never tried to run. I think she crawled into this cave willingly.”
“But”—he gave her a heartsick look—“how could that be? She would never …”
Straighthorn’s eyes flew open, but before he could spin around, Catkin saw the white capes flash. The warriors crept from behind boulders and trees and glided forward in ghostly silence.
“Oh, gods,” Straighthorn whispered.
Catkin shouted,
“Get into the cave!”
Straighthorn dove through the trees for the hole in the cliff.

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