People of the Silence (46 page)

They listened to his feet trotting down the trail.

Poor Singer ladled more beans into his bowl. “These are delicious, Silk. The onions added just the right taste.”

“I’m sorry I gave away our last bread, Poor Singer, but I thought he needed it more than we did. He’s been running hard for four days. They must not send food with slaves.”

“Probably not. I’m glad you gave him the bread.”

Silk picked up her bowl again and began eating, but slowly, as if her thoughts had wandered far away. She stared at the flickering flames.

“Is something wrong?” Poor Singer asked softly.

She glanced up. “No. Why?”

“I just thought … I mean, you looked frightened when you were talking with Swallowtail.”

She finished her bite of food and turned to him. “Do you think Sternlight is a witch?”

“If so, he’s very clever. To hide your wickedness for more than forty summers … well, that’s almost unbelievable.”

“Yes, it is.” She set her bowl down and drank her tea.

Poor Singer used his spoon to swish his beans around, trying to decide how to ask his next question. “Silk? I—I know I promised I would return to Turtle Village with you—”

“Of course you must go to Talon Town first. I understand. Dune needs his burial herbs and tools.”

Guilt settled onto his shoulders like a great weight. “Will you go back alone? It might be dangerous. There are raiders everywhere.”

She looked down into her teacup, as though gazing at her own reflection in the pale yellow liquid. “Could I … would it be a burden if I came with you to Talon Town?”

“Do you wish to?” he asked a little too eagerly.

“If I find relatives there, they might be willing to return to help me bury my family. That would be much easier than you and me trying to do it by ourselves.”

Poor Singer patted her arm affectionately. “I would be very happy to have you along on the journey. When we arrive, if you want, I will help you search for your relatives.”

“I’d be grateful.”

She finished her beans and tea, and put her cup inside her bowl. “Well, I’ll wash the dishes, if you’ll gather things for the trip.”

Poor Singer handed her his dishes and got to his feet. “I’d better find Dune’s ritual bundle. Then I’ll lay out our things. We should probably leave before dawn. Is that all right?”

“The sooner the better, Poor Singer.”

But as Poor Singer studied her jumping jaw muscles, he didn’t think that was true. She looked like a woman going out to slay a grizzly with only a deerbone stiletto.

“Silk?”

She turned, still holding the curtain up. “Yes?”

“Do you think the raven was trying to tell us about the runner? That the boy would be bringing bad news?”

The dirty dishes in her hands clattered as she shifted them to get a better grip. “He might also have been warning us about something that will happen in Talon Town.” She glanced at him and ducked beneath the curtain.

Poor Singer watched the curtain swing, thinking about that. Then he nodded to himself and went to the stack of baskets to hunt for Dune’s ritual bundle.

Twenty-Seven

The loud voices shocked Featherstone from her nap. She choked on a snore and blinked the sleep from her dim old eyes. The red designs on her tan dress shone in the light streaming down through the roof entry. Yes, she was here, in her room, surrounded by her painted pots and familiar white walls. This was Talon Town. Her soul was home.

“Oh, dear gods,”
a woman cried from outside,
“what happened?”

“Quickly!” Ironwood’s voice answered from beyond Featherstone’s door. “Someone fetch Snake Head! And—”

A roar of voices drowned out the rest. The town dogs started barking and howling like wounded coyotes. Rushing feet pounded by outside.

“Where is Dune?”
Ironwood yelled.
“And Sternlight?… Well, find them!”

Featherstone combed her shoulder-length gray hair with her fingers and grabbed her crooked walking stick. She grunted as she rose to her feet. Her knees wobbled, but propping both hands on the polished knob of her stick, she managed to steady her ancient legs. Her prominent nose had spread and grown longer over the summers, taking up half her face now. No matter where she looked, she saw it. Which annoyed her. She had been such a beautiful child.

She had two chambers all to herself. One she used for storage, and the other served as both a living and sleeping chamber. She had been dozing close to the bowl of warming coals and her pot of steaming spruce needle tea. The chamber spread three body-lengths square. A thick layer of deer hides covered the floor, given to her by her blessed son, Webworm. Across the walls, masked thlatsinas leaped and spun, Dancing beneath a dark blue roof painted with gleaming white stars. Just looking at them brought serenity to her weary heart. Here, in this room, they Danced for Featherstone alone. They were
her
gods, no one else’s.

She smiled and ran her tongue through the gap where her front teeth had been. Once, a long time ago, she had known many gods. But that was before the Mogollon Fire Dogs captured her and clubbed her in the head so many times that they’d wounded her soul.

Strange, that she recalled her childhood with such clarity. She had been a very Powerful little girl. Everyone had expected her to grow up and become the Sunwatcher. At the age of ten summers she had flown to Sister Moon on the back of a dragonfly, wheeling and soaring. The dragonfly had fluttered higher and higher, until it alighted on the tallest silver peak on Sister Moon’s face. Featherstone had walked that shining dusty land. She had spoken to Sister Moon in the sparkling voice of a meteor, and when she laughed with joy, the sound had twinkled across the luminous sky like crushed turquoise cast to the wind. Though poor eyesight now prevented her from seeing many things in this world, in her soul that laughter still twinkled—the dragonfly’s glinting membranous wings still beat across the heavens.

“Yes, sometimes my memory is as clear as a quartz crystal, and other times I don’t even recognize my own son. Thank the Spirits that he understands.”

Webworm had always understood. He had been born right after she escaped from the village of the Fire Dogs. Featherstone had run every step of the way home with that infant boy in her arms, starving, praying she would reach Talon Town before her milk dried up.

“How long ago was that, old woman? Hmm?” Her mind mulled over the passing seasons as she rubbed her aching left hip. The fiery pain had grown much worse in the past cycle. She could not lie down for more than a hand of time without rising to agony. “I was fourteen. Yes. Just barely a woman, not that the Fire Dogs cared.”

For more than a sun cycle they had used her cruelly, forcing her to quarry rocks for their buildings, beating her with clubs when she fell or faltered in her work, and raping her often. She hadn’t the slightest notion who Webworm’s father had been, nor did she wish to. She had certainly hated him. Besides, the Straight Path people traced descent through the women. Webworm belonged to her.

She reached for her turkey-feather cape and pulled it around her hunched shoulders. “You haven’t had such an easy life, have you?” She chuckled at herself. Hardships built character, and she certainly had enough of that.

Her mother, Lacewing, had died shortly after giving her birth, and her father had gone home to his family in the Green Mesa villages in the north. Featherstone had been raised by Sternlight’s mother, her Aunt Whitefly, until that fateful attack by the Fire Dogs when Whitefly and her husband, the Blessed Sun, had been killed and Featherstone taken captive.

“Thank the Ancestors that Sternlight and his two sisters were so young. Let me see…” She pondered a moment. “Sternlight was three moons old, I think, and his sisters had seen fifteen and thirty moons. Yes, that’s right. If Whitefly had not left them in Talon Town, they would have been taken captive, too. Or killed.”

The ladder to the roof entry always took such effort that her heart sank. But curiosity had the better of her, and she had to go see what was happening outside.

Tucking her walking stick beneath her arm, she gripped the pine poles and climbed, one step at a time. Her old joints popped and hurt, but she emerged into a brilliant glare.

Noon sunlight burned through wispy clouds, pouring over the desert in streams of molten amber and reflecting blindingly from the white plastered walls of Talon Town. The hard-packed dirt of the plaza shone a dull tan in contrast.

Featherstone hobbled to the edge of the flat roof and looked down at the milling knot of people in the center of the western plaza. Children and curious dogs ringed the adults.

Barks and shouts rang out. Someone wept inconsolably. The slaves had gathered into a cluster of tattered brown garments near the entryway.

Featherstone squinted against the glare, trying to make out who was who, but when she couldn’t, she reluctantly went to the ladder that led to the plaza and climbed down. Her knees cracked like green firewood.

Breathing hard, she stood for a time at the bottom of the ladder, hanging onto a rung. Wind Baby billowed her tan-and-red dress about her aching legs and slapped her gray hair, tangling it in her stubby eyelashes.

When a child raced by, she reached out and grabbed the back of his brown shirt. “Hold up!”

He craned his neck to look at her. Mud clotted his black hair. He must have just come up from the wash.

Featherstone eyed him. “Which one are you?”

“I’m Eagletail, Blessed Featherstone. What is it you wish?” He sounded anxious.

“What’s your clan?”

“What?” he asked. “Coyote!”

“Ah, I remember you.” She released him. “You’re Leafcat’s boy.” Featherstone pointed her walking stick at the people. “What’s going on?”

“Haven’t you heard?”

“If I’d heard, I wouldn’t have to ask, would I?”

He wet his lips and said, “The War Chief found Cloud Playing. She’s dead!”

Featherstone stood stunned for several instants, unable to believe, then she sank back against the ladder and sat on the closest rung. Her heart thudded dully against her ribs. Softly, she said, “Was it Fire Dog raiders?”

The boy flapped his arms. “No one knows! Everybody is scared it was a witch! May I go now? My mother sent me to fetch—”

“A witch? Why?”

“Because Cloud Playing’s belly had been split wide open, and corpse powder was sprinkled inside! Blessed Featherstone, I
must
go, before my mother—”

“Oh, very well! Leave!” She waved him away.

The boy dashed off, and Featherstone’s gaze returned to the crowd. Her son must be out there somewhere. And he must be tearing himself apart. He had loved Cloud Playing with all his soul.

Six summers ago Crow Beard and Night Sun had called her to their chamber to inform her that they were refusing Cloud Playing’s request to marry Webworm. Featherstone’s anger had been stirred, and she demanded to know why. She had never told Webworm their answer. It broke her heart, and the knowledge would have just made things worse for her son.

“He is half Fire Dog,”
Crow Beard had said with his chin held high.
“That would not bother us, but you know the stories. We cannot afford to fuel our enemies’ legends. You must understand.”

“The legends,” she whispered to herself. “The Fire Dog legends about a stolen boy child?”

She had heard the prophecy over and over when she’d been a Fire Dog slave, at both their summer and winter ceremonials—the story of a stolen child who would one day return, conquer the Straight Path nation, and free his people from bondage.

Crow Beard’s words had left her bereft. As if her son—a loyal Straight Path warrior—might fit that description! The Fire Dogs also traced descent through the women! They would never consider her son as one of their own. But Crow Beard had feared someone else might. The northern Tower Builders traced descent through the men. They hated the Straight Path nation. They would, truly, use any lever to destroy the Blessed Sun.

But many other Straight Path women had been violated by Fire Dogs! Why would the Tower Builders choose her son?

Featherstone frowned out at the plaza. Webworm had never married. So far as she knew, he’d never even courted another woman. Featherstone suspected that Cloud Playing would always fill her son’s heart—even in death. She knotted her hands around her walking stick as her soul ached for him.

Taking a deep breath, she braced herself, stood, and slowly plodded across the plaza. After fifty-seven summers, she had to be careful. Even the smallest undulation in the ground might cause her to stumble and fall, and her hips couldn’t stand it.

As she neared the crowd, Creeper stepped away and came toward her. Featherstone smiled. He had been a faithful friend for the past thirty summers. He visited her often to laugh and talk. She suspected he wished more from their closeness, but Featherstone could not contemplate marriage to one of the Made People. It would be degrading, both to herself and her son, especially now that Webworm had become War Chief. It would not do for his mother, one of the First People of Talon Town, to wed a lowly Buffalo Clan man.

Though she did enjoy Creeper’s company.

Short and fat, he waddled when he walked. His black shirt whipped about his legs. “Good day to you, Blessed Featherstone,” he greeted. “Have you heard the news?”

“Yes, I have,” she answered sadly. “How did it happen? Does anyone know?”

“No. Webworm found her down by the wash.” Creeper looked in that direction, and fear strained his expression. “Do you know about the corpse powder?”

“Yes. Leafcat’s boy told me.”

“There were also strange tracks, Featherstone. The man—”

“Tracks?” Featherstone took a step closer. “What tracks?”

Creeper heaved a breath, and explained, “The murderer was Dancing as he came after Cloud Playing.”

“Dancing?” The color drained from Featherstone’s wrinkled cheeks. She gripped her walking stick with both hands. The killer had purposefully profaned the sacred ways. “Hallowed Ancestors, that’s all we need. A witch in Talon Town. I thought it was just talk.” A painful, swelling sensation began in her chest. “And the arrow, Creeper? Whose arrow?”