People of the Silence (16 page)

Frowning, Buckthorn removed his own pack and stowed it by the door, then followed.

The old man walked until his path intersected a well-traveled trail. There he sat down in the soft sand with the packs before him and leaned against a giant sagebrush.

Buckthorn knelt at his side. The wash glistened in the distance. A silver strand of water flowed down the middle. When Dune said nothing, Buckthorn ventured, “Black Mesa asked me to give you his warmest—”

“Shh! Listen to the divine musician. Hear his music?”

Buckthorn’s gaze roamed the sage and red cliffs. “You mean Wind Baby?” he asked. “I hear—”

“You’re listening with your ears.” Dune shook a finger. “Listen with your
heart.
”

Buckthorn shifted to sit cross-legged and concentrated. He heard the twittering of birds, saw a roadrunner darting through the brush, heard a far-off coyote yip. “The world’s voice is speaking to me, but I don’t know what you mean by—”

“Stop seeking the musician outside. He is here.” Dune tapped his chest.

“Oh,
emotions!
Yes, I feel things all the time. Very powerfully. As a matter of fact, I—”

Dune lifted a clawlike hand. “Don’t speak! Listen!”

Buckthorn bit his lip. What a harsh voice the elder had, like a braying buffalo in mating season. Buckthorn sighed and tried to do as he’d been instructed. He listened to the sounds inside him. His heart beat like a pot drum, blood
shished
in his ears, and his breathing hissed in and out—but he dared not ask the Derelict if he’d located the “divine musician” for fear he’d be rebuked again.

“Ah,” Dune grunted as he rose to his feet.

Buckthorn stood, too. An elderly woman came down the trail, dragging a little boy by the hand. She wore a faded red dress and had twisted her white hair into a topknot. Her nose seemed to have grown out of proportion with her face, thrusting forth like a crooked thumb. Buckthorn barely glanced at her before his gaze went to the little boy, whose long black shirt had been patched in several places. His moccasins had holes in the toes, and he looked thin and pale. But he skipped happily at the woman’s side, his chin-length black hair bouncing as he asked question after question. The woman answered each with a smile.

“These are very poor people,” Buckthorn said to Dune. “Are they slaves? But what master would deny his own servants good moccasins? It hardly seems—”

“With all that chatter filling your brain, it’s no wonder you can’t hear the divine musician.”

Buckthorn hushed.

When the woman came close to Dune, she bowed reverently. “Greetings, holy Derelict.”

“A blessed day to you, Wolf Widow.” His voice had softened, become rich and deep. “I have gifts for you.” Dune picked up the two packs and handed them to the old woman.

Buckthorn gaped, incredulous. His clan had impoverished itself to provide gifts for Dune, not some stranger! “Elder,” he started to object, “I—”

“One more word, and I will send you straight home.”

The old woman gazed at the packs and her eyes widened. She clutched them to her breast like suckling infants. “My grandson and I thank you, Elder. We are on our way to visit his sick mother. These things will bring a smile to her lips.”

“Give your daughter my blessings, Wolf Widow.” He placed a kind hand on her shoulder.

“Yes, Elder, I will.” But she waited, apparently seeing if Dune wished to speak more. The little boy huddled against her leg, looking back and forth between them, drawing a half-circle in the dirt with the holed toe of his moccasin.

“Be on your way, Wolf Widow,” Dune said gently. “Your daughter needs you.”

“Thank you, Elder.”

The woman bowed again and continued northward along the trail with the boy feeling the packs and jabbering excitedly.

Dune turned to Buckthorn and said, “Love and charity. They are all that matter.”

“Yes, I know, but couldn’t you have given them just one pack? I mean, my clan—”

“Don’t say ‘yes’ when you haven’t the slightest notion what I’m speaking about!”

In morose silence, Buckthorn followed Dune back along the sage-choked path that led to his little house. He might have been passing through a tunnel, for the sagebrush grew head-high.

When they reached the door, Dune ordered, “Collect wood for the fire, but not close to the house. Walk for at least a finger of time, then begin gathering wood.”

“But look at the sage right here, elder.” Buckthorn gestured to the blue-green jungle that practically swallowed the house. “It needs to be twisted out.”

Dune fixed him with a glare. “This sage lives here, boy. Go kill something that isn’t my friend.”

Buckthorn stared. In irritation, he said, “Why didn’t you tell me back at the trail? It will be getting dark soon, and if I have to walk for…”

Dune ducked through the doorway and into his house. The deerhide curtain swung behind him.

Buckthorn swallowed his next words, stood uncertainly for a moment, then trudged away, kicking every sagebrush he passed. Did the old man yell at all of his disciples? Black Mesa hadn’t mentioned this cruel streak. Nor had anyone else.

Maybe Dune just doesn’t like me.

While Father Sun descended into Our Mother Earth’s western womb, Buckthorn angrily ripped off dead sage branches and stacked them in his left arm.

“It’s all right,” he whispered to calm himself. “You can endure it. Think of the things you will be able to do for your people once you’ve become a great Singer. You’ll be able to Heal the sick, and help lonely ghosts find their ways to the afterworlds. You’ll be prepared to battle witches, and speak with the plants and animals in their own languages.”

It didn’t take long before he’d lost himself and his anger in sublime thoughts of his future. Why, when he’d earned the title of Singer, no one would ever shout at him again. He’d be revered, and not a little feared. He chuckled at the thought.

A breath of wind trailed over the sage like the hem of a woman’s dress, soft and silken. Buckthorn looked up. The gust whipped the brush on its journey westward toward a distant butte that stood alone in the middle of the canyon, its rocky top gleaming. Brush-covered flats spread around the butte, running until they butted against the red canyon walls on the north and south.

At some point in his training, Dune would bestow a new name upon Buckthorn, and he longed for one that echoed the names of his greatest heroes: Wolfdreamer, Born of Water, and Home-Going-Boy. Maybe something like Going-Home-Dreamer or Born-of-Wolf-Water. Those would be very powerful names. He’d have to hint about it to Dune.

Buckthorn happily trotted back for the house.

The light had faded to a rusty hue that turned the cliffs dark vermilion. Desert fragrances intensified with the night, the sage more pungent, the juniper rich and savory.

As he thrashed through a clot of buckbrush, he saw Dune come out to stand in front of his door. The old man had his sticklike arms folded. White hair made a wispy halo around his shriveled face.

Grinning, Buckthorn hurried forward. “Isn’t it a beautiful evening, Elder? Just look at the colors!”

Dune scowled. “What
is
the matter with you?”

Buckthorn stopped dead in his tracks. “W-what?”

“You don’t carry sacred sage like that! What a jumble! Do you wish to offend the Spirit of the plant? Order the sticks. Lay each in the crook of your arm like a precious child. Gently. One atop the other. Well? Don’t stand there staring. Drop the sticks and order them. Now!”

Buckthorn hastily dumped his load and began picking them up again, doing as he’d been instructed, one at a time, gently. But he wondered at this lunacy. What possible difference could it make to the Spirit of the sage how he carried her dead branches?

Once he’d finished, Dune held aside the door curtain, and Buckthorn entered the house. He laid the branches by the fire-pit in the middle of the floor and looked around.

What a bleak place! Dune owned almost nothing. A flat slab and handstone, for grinding seeds, lay near the door. Beside them sat a large water jar and two clay pots, one for cornmeal and the other for dried meats. Ears of corn, squash gourds, sunflowers, and other plants hung from the rafters. In the corner, to Buckthorn’s right, a stack of colored baskets leaned precariously. Two plain gray blankets lay rolled up on either side of the house. But no floor mats cushioned the cold dirt floor; no paintings brightened the soot-smudged clay walls.

Dune entered and heaved a tired breath. He gestured to the wood pile. “Make a fire. There are hot coals beneath the ash bed.”

“Yes, Elder.”

Buckthorn used a stick to dig around, isolating the hot coals from the dead ones. When he had a mound in the center of the pit, he laid four small pieces of wood on top and blew gently. White ash fluttered. The coals slowly reddened and flames crackled up around the tinder.

Buckthorn kept adding wood while he watched the Derelict. The old man set up his tea tripod and hung a soot-coated pot in the middle, then slumped down on the dirt floor and sighed.

Buckthorn said, “Elder? Why is it that you have not painted images of the thlatsinas on your walls? You are their greatest messenger. You
should
have them around you, and it would certainly brighten your house. It would please me very much to do that for you, if you wish.”

Dune squinted. “Paintings and possessions are for people who plan to sleep in the same house for a long time. I do not.”

“Oh, forgive me.” He paused, squinting. “I thought you had lived here forever. Black Mesa knew right where you would be, and so I assumed—”

“Forty-four summers.”

Buckthorn looked at him. “You’ve lived here for forty-four summers?”

“Almost forty-five.”

“Well…” Buckthorn blinked in confusion. “If this has been your home for so long, where do you plan to sleep if not in this house?”

The old man raised his bushy white brows. “Under a stone slab if I’m not careful.”

“Elder! You mustn’t jest about witchcraft!”

“Why not?” Dune scratched his side.

“Blessed thlatsinas! I was sent here by my clan to learn to be a Spirit Singer. It wouldn’t do to have people whispering behind their hands that I was trained by a man who lopes across the desert at night in the body of a bobcat!”

The deep wrinkles of Dune’s face twisted and contorted when he grinned.

Buckthorn got to his feet and nervously thrust a hand toward the door. “I—I left my pack outside. I have blue corn cakes in it. My mother made them for us for supper tonight. Let me get it.”

The brightest Evening People had opened their eyes. They peered down at Buckthorn as he retrieved his pack from beside the door. Confused, he grimaced at the growing darkness, feeling as if he’d been maneuvered into studying with Trickster Coyote. Didn’t anybody know what a crazy old fool Dune was? Then he remembered the other two Singers-in-the-making who’d returned to Windflower Village proclaiming exactly that. Why hadn’t anybody believed them?

Grumbling softly, he ducked back inside. Dune watched him through half-lidded eyes.

Buckthorn knelt by the fire and unlaced his pack. Firelight fluttered over his hands like luminous butterfly wings. Just as he started to pull out a cake, Dune ordered, “Give it to me.”

“I’m getting ready to, Elder! Here.” He extended a cake.

Dune took it, then held out his hand again. “The pack. Give me the pack.”

Buckthorn did.

Dune took it, rummaged around to find all the cakes, set them on a hearth stone, and began eating. Crumbs fell down the front of his brown shirt, dotting it with blue.

Buckthorn sat in silence, counting each cake the old man ate. Finally, when he feared the worst, he said. “Elder, I ran all the way here. I am very hungry, so if you don’t mind—”

Around a mouthful of food, Dune said, “You should sleep.” He pointed to the blanket rolled up on the floor on the north side of the house. “That is your place.”

“Yes, well,” Buckthorn said as he glanced at it. “After I’ve eaten. I’m starving, and I—”

“
Now,
” Dune shouted. “Go to sleep!”

Buckthorn lurched to his feet, fists clenched. “You do not have to yell at me, Elder! I am human, not a soulless rock! I deserve to be treated with a little dignity!”

“Dignity?” Dune said. He lowered the cake to his lap and gazed at Buckthorn with those strange shining eyes. “Listen to me. Look deeply into your soul. Look hard. Find that man who thinks he deserves to be treated with dignity, and ask him why. He will give you many reasons.” Dune’s voice softened to the same timbre he had used with old Wolf Widow. “That man will tell you all of the great deeds he has accomplished in his life, how kind he is, how deserving, and how many people love and have faith in him.” Dune took another bite of corn cake, working it slowly around his toothless mouth.

“Yes,” Buckthorn said. “Then what?”

Dune squeezed his eyes closed as though in great disappointment. “Each reason that man gives you is a stiletto in your heart. If you collect enough, you will kill your ability to love. Now, do not argue with me. Go to your place and sleep.”

Buckthorn went. Wrapping up in the blanket, he stretched out on the hard-packed dirt floor. He could still hear the Derelict gumming the corn cakes to mush, and his stomach growled.

Buckthorn tossed to his right side and faced the wall, concentrating on the flickers of firelight that danced across the smudged plaster.

Hallowed Spirits, what had he gotten himself into?

*   *   *

Cornsilk came up the southern trail and spotted Fledgling. He crouched behind a sagebrush three body-lengths ahead. The rise overlooked their house and the north half of the village plaza where children ran. Fledgling’s rabbit-fur cape and loose black hair glinted in the afternoon sunlight.

Cornsilk studied him thoughtfully. He had tilted his head, listening intently to their parents’ faint voices coming from within the house.

She cupped a hand to her mouth and softly called, “Brother? Fledgling?”

When he didn’t turn, Cornsilk picked up a rock and tossed it at him. She missed. He didn’t move. Disgruntled, she looked for a bigger one. A fist-sized chunk of limestone lay half-hidden in the sand. She dug it out, hefted it to test the weight, and heaved it.