People of the Silence (27 page)

“Yes.”

“He was War Chief, even then. Such a powerful man could have kept his child if he’d wished to. Couldn’t he?”

“You mean he wanted to be rid of me, don’t you?” Fledgling looked miserable.

Cornsilk used her charred poker to draw slithering black designs on the sandstone around her feet. They resembled a nest of baby snakes. “You or me.”

“Maybe he didn’t wish to give me up, but someone told him he had to.”

“Who?” Cornsilk scoffed. “Only an idiot would dare to tell the War Chief to get rid of his child.”

“An idiot or someone more powerful than the War Chief.”

Cornsilk had to fight to keep from pulling the pack from behind her back. The turquoise-studded blanket had been filling her dreams, as if it had a soul, and were struggling to speak with her. “Who?”

Fledgling leaned toward her to breathe, “Crow Beard. Ironwood would have done anything the Chief ordered him to.”

“It’s possible, but why would the Blessed Sun demand such a thing?”

“Incest?”

Fear fluttered in her chest. “No.” She shook her head. “If incest were involved, they would have just killed the child. Or—”

“Maybe it wasn’t incest,” Fledgling said. “Maybe Ironwood mated with one of the First People. A child from such a union would bring great shame on the First People.”

Cornsilk studied the roasting rabbit legs. That actually made sense. She turned and squinted at her brother. “Which of the First People at Talon Town would stoop to coupling with a lowly Bear Clan man?”

Fledgling frowned into his cup. “I’ve only met one of the First People in my life,” he said. “Do you remember him?”

“Who?”

“The Blessed Webworm. He hasn’t come in many summers, but he used to stop at Lanceleaf once every other spring. I remember because Father laughed a lot at the stories Webworm told.”

Cornsilk searched her memory. Many old friends, both male and female, surprised her parents with visits. “Wait … was he a warrior?”

“Yes.”

Cornsilk’s thoughts soured. She
did
remember him. He used to look at her very strangely—as though she were a grown woman instead of a child. He had frightened her. When Webworm visited, Cornsilk had always stayed very close to her mother. “Perhaps he came to keep an eye on you, or me?”

“I don’t know, but—”

They both jumped when a man stepped out of the shadows, tall and muscular, with two short braids that fell to his broad shoulders. He took another step toward them, and firelight gleamed along the yellow threads in his long shirt, as if he were netted all over with a web of flame.

“Stone Forehead!” Fledgling yelled as he leaped to his feet. “What are you doing here?”

The warrior trudged forward. “I have been tracking you since early yesterday morning.” Dirt caked his face.

“Why?”

Stone Forehead crouched by the fire and extended his hands to warm them. “I am on my way to Talon Town, and your parents asked me to check on you, to make certain you had reached your relatives’ villages. At the split in the road, I knew you’d had other plans.” He shook a finger at no one in particular. “Which one of you decided to climb through every rock outcrop on the way here? I nearly broke my ankle!”

Fledgling glanced at Cornsilk.

“Well,” she said, “we didn’t wish anyone to track us. How did you?”

Stone Forehead smiled. “Every so often the yucca bottoms of your sandals left a light-colored scratch on the sandstone. But it took me forever to work out your trail.”

Cornsilk grumbled, “I knew we should have worn our moccasins.”

“They don’t turn the cactus as well as sandals,” Fledgling said, “and we waded through a thorny sea today.”

“Are you hungry, Stone Forehead?” Cornsilk asked, and gestured to the half-butchered rabbit in the tree. “We could cut off another leg for you.”

“No.” He held up a hand. “I have been chewing jerky for the past hand of time. But I could use some of that delicious-smelling tea.”

Cornsilk said, “Where’s your cup?”

He shrugged out of his pack, unlaced the top, and dug around until he found it, then bent forward, filled it, and drank. Steam bathed his face. He refilled his cup and drank some more. “This is very good,” he said.

Fledgling smiled.

Cornsilk, however, watched him glumly. Her parents had said they wanted to hire him to go to Talon Town to monitor happenings there and notify them if Crow Beard died. Her parents must also have feared Cornsilk might do something unpredictable—as was her habit. On the one hand, their concern warmed Cornsilk’s heart, and on the other …

“Stone Forehead.” An unpleasant tickle taunted her stomach, as if doom had walked in with him. “Now that you’ve found us, what are you supposed to do?”

He stretched his stocky body out across the sandstone and gestured with his cup. The glow of the fire sheathed his dark eyes with a sunrise sheen. “Your parents said to make certain you got to your relatives’ villages. Tomorrow morning that is what I will do. We will walk back to the fork in the road, then I’ll—”

“You’re going to drag us away, even though we don’t wish to go!” Cornsilk said indignantly.

Stone Forehead grinned, his white teeth flashing in the firelight. “Exactly. At the point of an arrow, if necessary.”

Cornsilk reached over, took the two sticks with rabbit legs, and thrust one into Fledgling’s hand. He took it sullenly.

She sank her teeth into the hot meat. As she chewed, she glowered at Stone Forehead. “It’s a good thing you brought your own food.”

Stone Forehead grinned. “You’ve always been a problem. I expected—”

“And a good thing you brought your bow,” she added, “because I’m not going.”

The twinkle vanished from Stone Forehead’s eyes. “What are you talking about? You have no choice.”

“You mean you’re going to kill me? Perhaps beat me into submission? I can’t wait to see the look on my parents’ faces when they hear the news.”

“Cornsilk,” Stone Forehead warned, “don’t force me—”

“Go ahead.” She smiled evilly at him. “
Try
to force me to go.”

Stone Forehead jumped to his feet. “So help me, Cornsilk, I swear, you’ve … Ever since that time you shot those four grouse when I only shot one, I knew you were impossible!” He threw up his hands. “By the Blessed Ones! You are the most stubborn woman I have ever known!” He glared at her through weary eyes, shoulders slumped in defeat. “What did I ever see in you in the first place?”

She lifted a shoulder.

“Cornsilk, you will shame me! Is that what you wish? To make me look bad before our entire village?”

She smiled and took another juicy bite of rabbit.

Fifteen

The sacred road, which had been heading due south, veered off at an angle toward Center Place. Ironwood studied the land while he waited for Dune. A thick coating of frost caught the slanting sun, striking sparkles from each leaf and blade of grass. Behind him, the ancient holy man hobbled along, placing his walking stick with great care.

Spider Woman must have smoked her pipe all night long to create the shimmering layer of fog that rolled through Straight Path Canyon. As the mist crept over the tan cliffs, it changed from golden to the palest of pinks. The brush glittered with a coral hue.

Ironwood propped his foot on a sandstone boulder, unslung his pack, and drew out a juniper stick and an obsidian flake—a thin palm-sized piece of stone. When honed and fire-hardened, the stick would make a deadly stiletto.

They had crossed the flats north of the canyon, where scrubby sage and wispy grasses fought for existence in the clay-heavy soils. The occasional small dunes they’d passed, little more than shadows of thin sand, supported here and there some rabbitbrush or greasewood, but little else.

Ironwood longed for the pines, but few of them grew this close to the canyon, and those that did survived by sinking roots along the steeply eroded cliffs. Ironwood had often stopped to wonder at them. They survived by clinging to any crack in the stone where soil and water existed. Their squat trunks twisted back and forth, seeming to wallow before they gained enough strength to send up stubby branches. There was something Powerful about an old, old tree that refused to die. Something deeply sacred.

Dune came alongside and gazed out over the mist. His long brown shirt and tattered buckskin leggings contrasted sharply with his sparse white hair. He leaned on his walking stick for balance, breath puffing whitely.

“Give me a moment,” Dune said, “to catch my wind.”

“Take as long as you wish. We’ve kept a good pace, Dune. We’ll be at Talon Town by midafternoon.”

Ironwood shaved off a curl of wood and watched it spiral to the ground. The rich fragrance of juniper encircled him.

He had been thinking of Night Sun all morning. The Blessed Sun’s impending death had opened a door inside him that he’d walled up long ago—and he couldn’t seem to close it again. Though he had not touched her in many sun cycles, his hands remembered the softness of her skin and the mink’s fur texture of her long hair. Sometimes late at night, just at the edge of sleep, he heard her joyous laugh and reached out for her … to touch only empty air.

“Ironwood,” Dune said in his reedy old voice. “Is that a runner?”

“Where?” He straightened and peered down the road. At this time of morning, the surface of crushed potsherds glittered with blinding intensity.

Dune lifted his thin arm and pointed. “There.”

Ironwood squinted. “I see nothing.”

“Well, he’ll be here soon enough. It will give me time to rest.”

He hobbled off the road and sat on a gnarled old tree stump. It had once been a huge ponderosa pine, but like so many of the tall trees, it had been taken for building and firewood. The early morning sunlight struck Dune’s face on the right side, shadowing his deep wrinkles and accentuating the age spots on his scalp. “I can’t see well up close, but I can see with the clarity of an antelope at a distance.” He gestured with his walking stick. “That runner is a boy.”

In frustration, Ironwood looked again. Two ravens flapped overhead, cawing, but he saw no other movement. He shook his head. “My eyesight is not what it once was.”

Dune tipped his ancient face to the warming sun and sighed. “You have seen forty-five summers now, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

Dune grunted softly. “That is not so very old, War Chief—though it’s true most people are dead by your age. And I fear they will die much earlier, and with greater frequency, after Crow Beard’s death.”

“You mean because Snake Head will take his father’s place.”

“The boy’s a fool.”

“Well … he does have a passion for battle,” Ironwood said noncommittally. He had taken Snake Head on four raids, and prayed he’d seen the last. The youth’s black eyes gleamed with an inhuman light at the first glimpse of blood. He wasn’t much for the actual fighting, hanging back until the battle was won before charging in. Then he seemed to lose himself in the killing of the wounded. Ironwood had witnessed many horrors, but on several occasions Snake Head had sickened him.

But he
will
be the new Blessed Sun.

Dune’s expression went sour, as if he’d bitten into something bitter. “Unfortunate. Violent raiding is on the increase. Villages no longer fight for women and food, but out of sheer hatred. I fear Snake Head’s arrogance may fan the flames to outright war.”

Ironwood whittled on his juniper stick. “I expect it, Dune.”

He could not serve Snake Head. Would not. Considering Ironwood’s age, the boy might even dismiss him. His forty-five summers had indeed taken a toll, and on more than just his eyesight. On cold nights—like the one just past—Ironwood’s bones ached miserably, and he admitted he had trouble breathing on long runs. His strength
had
begun to fail.

Dune’s bushy white brows lowered. “You won’t continue as War Chief, will you?”

A faint smile came to Ironwood’s lips. He looked down at his stiletto-in-the-making. “There are younger men whom Snake Head will wish to be at his side.”

“Like Webworm?”

“Yes. He’s a fine warrior—brave, thoughtful. And he’s one of the First People.” He sighed. “It’s odd how life works out. I’d assumed Wraps-His-Tail would follow me. Or perhaps Cone. Now, one is dead, the other likely so.”

“Webworm is only four summers younger than you, Ironwood.”

“But he is still strong. I—I am not.” Ironwood examined the road again. The fog had begun to dissipate as the sun warmed, shredding into patches, floating upward to cling to the canyon rim. “Webworm has served me well. I believe he deserves my position.”

“But he doesn’t have your head for things. He doesn’t think his actions through.” Dune kicked at an old sun-bleached pine cone that had rolled against the stump where he sat. The cone bounced off the low masonry wall bordering the west side of the road. “He used to pull the feathers out of baby birds when he was a boy. Did you know that? In the spring, when the babies were just learning to fly, he would run after them as they bounced about trying to escape. When he caught them, he carried the birds back to Talon Town, called all his playmates, and plucked the babies’ feathers out one-by-one. The birds died, of course. Webworm has a cruel streak. I’ve never liked him.”

“Then you and Sternlight have something in common.” Ironwood lifted a shoulder. “Priests judge men differently than warriors.”

“If Snake Head dismisses you, where will you go? What will you do?”

Visions of the forested canyons in the north flitted through Ironwood’s mind. Deer and grouse flourished in the foothills under the high mountains. The creeks ran clear, fed by the melting snows in the high country. He had gone there as a boy, but few people would remember him. He might be able to live in peace.

“I don’t know. It will take some thought.”

Seeing the glum look on Dune’s ancient face, Ironwood changed the subject. “I was surprised to see the youth at your house. You haven’t had many apprentices in the past few cycles, have you?”

“Too many,” Dune snorted. “They come in droves, but few stay for more than a day or two.”

“Well, the hermit’s life is not easy, especially on young men. They have needs. At their age,
pressing
needs. Their bodies are just ripening—”