People of the Silence (31 page)

Blood throbbed in Ironwood’s ears. “What … what did she tell Snake Head? Did she defend herself?”

“No.” Moon Bright’s ancient head shook. “Night Sun insisted that there was no child!”

“Then how—”

“Sternlight claimed that the child lived.”

Ironwood’s mouth opened, but words refused to form.

“Webworm gathered his warriors and left immediately for Lanceleaf Village. They followed Straight Path Wash north. He had orders to—”

“Thank you, Matron.” Ironwood patted her hand and turned to watch Dune. The holy man had made it halfway down the ladder. “When the Derelict arrives, please tell him the news. I will meet him in the chief’s chamber later. But, now, I must go.”

He had to speak with Sternlight, find out what he’d told Webworm—it couldn’t have been the truth. Of that, Ironwood was certain. And he had to see Night Sun. Locked in the Cage by her own son’s order! Her heart would be breaking.

Moon Bright gave Ironwood a shove. “Go on.
Hurry.
”

*   *   *

Night Sun sat alone on the dirt floor, her head leaned back against the wall. A terrible darkness closed in around her, pressing on her ears and eyes until she longed to scream. No sound penetrated the gloom, though earlier she had heard the cries of the people in the plaza, some demanding her release, others her death.

Moisture dripped from the ceiling and ran down the wall behind her like forlorn tears. She had no blanket, and the dampness clawed at her bones. She had loosed her long, graying black hair and feathered it over her shoulders for warmth, but she’d been shivering for a long time. How long, she did not know. Time had ceased.

The room spread two body-lengths square. She had walked it over and over. It had no wall benches, no hearth, no ventilation shaft, only a hole in the roof through which a ladder could be lowered. A red clay pot, for her bodily wastes, sat in the southwestern corner. She had received neither food nor water since her imprisonment, and thirst plagued her, as if a dry root had lodged in her throat.

Those things, she could stand.

It was that other darkness, the sick despair, that sucked away her strength.

For the first time in her life, Night Sun was truly alone. Crow Beard had left her, and no matter how much she tried to convince herself she was better off, her soul wobbled for balance, as if she’d broken a leg. She and Crow Beard had grown used to each other over the summers. That familiarity had brought some measure of comfort to their strange lives. She had counted on him, not for emotional support, or love, but for advice on clan bickering, an occasional approving smile, discussions about their children. Things no one else could provide.

Night Sun drew up her knees and braced her chin on them, staring into the darkness. Her people wouldn’t condemn her based upon rumor or gossip, but if proof of her infidelity could be found, they might decide she deserved to die, or be banished. It would be the same. Banishment would tear her from her home, throw her into the desert to slowly waste away. None of the Made People clans would dare take her in. And her relatives among the First People—shamed by the revelations of her conduct—wouldn’t give her refuge.

A raven cawed outside, loud and raucous, perhaps engaged in a battle over food, and her mind wandered. Could there truly be a child? How? Had Sternlight lied?

For three moons before Crow Beard left on his trading mission to the Hohokam, he had tormented her and mistreated Cloud Playing. Night Sun had been so distraught she had actually contemplated divorcing him, which would have disgraced them both.

She’d found herself in the monster’s belly before she realized what was happening. A smothering blackness had swallowed her soul, and she’d become a stranger to herself. At that point she hadn’t even recognized the face of the woman who stared back from her pyrite mirror. Those haunted eyes could not be hers.…

Desperate, she had focused on the nearest human face with any kindness in it. She’d fought to cling to that person long enough that she could follow the awl prick of light and crawl out of the blackness.

That face had belonged to Ironwood.

She had turned to him—and he’d loved her with all of his soul.

When her pregnancy had begun to show, Night Sun had locked herself in her chambers and forbidden even her most faithful slaves, Young Fawn and Mourning Dove, to enter. The only one she had trusted had been her nephew, Sternlight. He had brought her food and water, played the flute for her, and talked in gentle tones to soothe her fears.

Her contractions had begun before dawn. At sunrise Sternlight had picked up his conch shell horn, climbed to the roof above Crow Beard’s chamber, and called the people out. He’d announced that he’d had a horrifying Dream. Everyone had to leave Talon Town! The gods themselves had commanded it! He would send word when it was safe to return. Terrified, the people had gone. Ironwood had led them to Kettle Town for the day.

Night Sun had been free to cry out all she wanted. Only Sternlight and the empty town could hear her.

Sternlight had never left her side. At dusk, the baby had slid out. Sternlight had wrapped it in a beautiful blanket and disappeared. On his return, he told Night Sun that the baby had never made a sound, that it must have died in her womb.

Ravaged with guilt, certain the gods were punishing her, she had been very ready to believe him. By the time Crow Beard had returned from his trip to the Hohokam, Night Sun had recovered and could greet her husband as if nothing had happened.

But her life had crumbled.

Frightened and lonely, she had longed for Ironwood. They had shared each other’s hearts, begotten and lost a precious child, and only in his arms could she find comfort for her grief … a comfort she dared not seek.

They passed each other every day without a word or a glance.

As the moons swept by, that “dead” baby had called her name endlessly in her dreams, drawing her into a netherworld of doubt and pain.

Night Sun folded her arms over her chest and hugged herself. Sternlight’s words had opened a door in her soul that she couldn’t seal again.

Could
the child be alive?

“Blessed thlatsinas,” she prayed. “If my son is alive, I beg you to kill him.” Tears traced warm lines down Night Sun’s cheeks. “Kill him before the warriors get there.”

*   *   *

Sunset flamed across the sky and lit the high mountain peaks to the north and east with fire. The brassy gleam penetrated the window behind Thistle, coated the white walls, and dyed her yellow dress a deep rich amber. Beargrass, lost in thought, sat opposite her. His expression seemed curiously calm.

She bent over the line of pots along the west wall of her small house, removed the lid on the buckwheat, and scooped a handful into the bowl she held. Next she dipped out dried currants and beeweed leaves, and added a dash of ricegrass flour.

Outside, robins jumped from cactus to cactus, uttering lilting mating calls. The shrill cries of a red-tailed hawk carried on a cool wind that blew through the window. Damp mossy smells wafted up from the creek below Lanceleaf Village.

Thistle returned to the fire, set her bowl down, and poked the low flames with a juniper stick. Sparks rose and blinked out before they reached the soot-encrusted ceiling poles. A pot of boiling water sat at the edges of the flames.

“They must be all right,” she said to Beargrass, who was sipping from a cup of dried yucca petal tea. “If they weren’t, we would know by now, wouldn’t we? I mean—”

“Thistle, they’re fine,” Beargrass repeated for the fifth time that afternoon. Exasperation lined his narrow face. He wore a long red shirt and had twisted his black hair into a bun at the base of his head. “Stone Forehead would have come back to tell us if anything had gone wrong. I’m certain he found Cornsilk happily chattering to Deer Bird, and Fledgling driving my father crazy with questions about making stone tools. You must stop worrying. You’ll wear yourself out.”

She wet her lips anxiously. The fringes on the hem of her yellow dress swished on the bulrush mat as she sat down. “I’ve been annoying you, haven’t I?”

Beargrass smiled gently. “Both children have never been away at the same time before, and never for such a length of time. Your worry is understandable. But you seem to be tearing yourself apart. There’s no reason for it, Thistle. They’re safe. That’s what we wanted. And it’s only for a moon or so.”

Thistle dumped her bowl of currants, flour, and beeweed into the pot of boiling water and stirred the mixture with a horn spoon. A pleasantly tangy aroma rose. The currants would add sweetness to the buckwheat stew, while the ricegrass flour would thicken it. The soup would go well with the squash roasting in the coals. Perhaps later she would take some of her hoarded store of popcorn, place it in the popping pot with a little fat, and salve her worry with the treat.

Thistle’s nostrils flared as she leaned over to smell her bubbling stew. Her stomach growled in anticipation.

Placing her spoon on a hearthstone, Thistle sat back and lifted her own cup of tea. As she sipped, her gaze went to the stacked sleeping mats on her left. Fledgling’s personal basket sat beside them, holding every precious thing he owned. The antelope hoof rattle—the one he’d received after his first kiva initiation—stuck out on top. Cornsilk’s basket sat on the right side. Two beautiful olivella-shell necklaces lay coiled on a bed of colored waist sashes. Terrible longing swelled in Thistle’s chest. She missed them so. They’d only been gone for four days, but it seemed …

High-pitched shrieks split the dusk, rising and falling on the wind. Surprised shouts, then screams, rang from Lanceleaf’s plaza.

Simultaneously, Beargrass and Thistle lunged for the door, throwing back the curtain to look outside.

Warriors flooded through the village gate below, their faces lurid in the red flames of sunset. They kicked turkeys out of the way, slammed barking dogs with war clubs, shot arrows into fleeing people.

“Blessed gods, what’s happening?”
Beargrass whispered.

A tall warrior grabbed Matron Clover by her frail old arm, swung her around, and struck her head with his club. When she staggered but didn’t fall, another warrior shot her in the belly. She slumped to the ground, rocking back and forth, her white hair matted to her head with blood. Her screams pierced the din.

“Who
are
they?” Thistle cried. “They’re not Tower Builders! They’re—”

“
Ours.
” Beargrass almost choked on the word. “They’re Straight Path warriors.”

She couldn’t speak.

Beargrass turned, gripped Thistle by the shoulders, and looked her in the eyes. “I must fight. And you must run.”

“But there are so many of them, Beargrass! Twenty or thirty warriors! We can’t fight so many! We must—”

“I will join you at Father’s village. Run!”

“No, please, I want to—”

“Run!”

He grabbed his bow and quiver of arrows from where they lay by the door and charged outside, running down the hill for the village, his red shirt flying about his legs.

Two men ran around the plaza, smearing pine pitch on the plastered walls, preparing to fire them.

Thistle took her pack, threw in some food, an obsidian knife and bone stiletto, and ducked outside. The billowing clouds to the west had begun to shade gray with night. She fled northward, skirting cornfields. At the rim of one of the small gorges feeding into Squash Blossom Canyon, she took the trail off the caprock and down into the rock-tumbled depths, praying the darkness would shield her.

Screams rose to a terrifying cacophony behind her.

She didn’t turn around. Thorns ripped at her legs and shredded her yellow dress as she shoved through a greasewood thicket down by the drainage and pounded along the wet soil, following the canyon to its mouth. Water-smoothed stones in the drainage bottom slipped beneath her moccasins, almost tumbling her.

From out of nowhere, a crackling roar split the twilight. Like thunder, it rose to swallow the screams and shouts.

Thistle turned to look.

Even from the depths of the canyon, she could see. Flames leaped into the darkening sky, dancing like monstrous blazing beasts, licking at the bellies of the clouds.

For a moment, just a moment, she thought she heard Beargrass … screaming …

And she turned.

Three black forms raced down the hill toward her. Friends fleeing the catastrophe?

Thistle fell to her knees and crawled into a dense tangle of head-high sage. Through the fragrant branches, she watched the enemy warriors dash down toward the creek.

A short while later, someone cried out.

Thistle clenched her teeth. And prayed.

Eighteen

Cornsilk tramped her way to the crest of a juniper-and-piñon-studded hill and slowed to catch her breath. Shocks of ricegrass, wheatgrass, and winter-dried lupine made patterns on the yellow soil and bobbed in the breeze.

Stone Forehead had whined all night, declaring that he’d never be a great warrior if it got around that he couldn’t even get a young woman home—and it would be all her fault.

More than a little disgusted with herself for giving in, Cornsilk raised her bow over her head and stretched her aching back muscles while she waited for Stone Forehead and Fledgling. They hiked up the hill slowly, talking. Both carried bows in their right hands and quivers of arrows on their backs, waiting for dinner to run from behind a bush.

Though only two summers separated them, Stone Forehead stood a head taller than Fledgling and had shoulders twice as broad. Fledgling had left his hair free to blow in the breeze; it flapped over his gray shirt. Stone Forehead wore a yellow shirt belted at the waist. A pack hung lopsided on his back between his two short braids. He gestured with his left hand, probably entertaining Fledgling with war tales again.

It had been irksome having Stone Forehead around for a night and a whole day. Once she’d given in, he jabbered nonstop about his battle exploits. While it thrilled Fledgling, Cornsilk had been bored to the point of contemplating murder. She’d run ahead all day just to escape.