People of the Silence (7 page)

The Monster Thlatsina threw back the door curtain and stepped inside. Buckthorn gaped in horror.

She was
huge.
A red-and-white mouth dominated the bottom half of her jet-black mask, and a greasy gray beard hung to her waist. Long tangled black hair, dotted with tufts of cotton, fell over her menacing yellow eyes. Her mouth puckered in an eternal whistle. All his life he had been told that if he didn’t listen to his elders, the Monster Thlatsina would sneak up on him and suck his brains out through his ears. In her left hand she held a crooked staff to catch her victims. Her right fist gripped a huge obsidian knife: for dismembering those who refused to obey her.

“Here!”
Buckthorn yelled, and thrust the two dead mice at her. “These are for you!”

The Monster slapped them from his hand, and Buckthorn watched the mice fly across the room, strike the wall, and fall to the floor with a dull thump.

“Get up!”
the Monster shouted. She slammed him in the shoulder with her crooked staff.

Buckthorn jumped to his feet.

The Monster pointed to the door. “Get out!”

He scrambled beneath the door curtain and into the late afternoon glare. His mother’s room lay at ground level, on the east side of the building complex. Looking over his shoulder, he could see the twin knobs of rounded sandstone, the Great Warriors, that rose above the cliff.

The River of Souls cut down through sandstone here, and the Straight Path people had found the rich bottomlands perfect for growing corn, beans, and squash. Over the years the village had grown from several small square houses into a three-story structure that rose under the sheer north wall of the cliff, watched over by the ancient bodies of the Great Warriors.

Light snow had fallen last night and blanketed the village like a glittering layer of crushed gypsum. The high cliff dwarfed the gray clay-washed houses. To his right, southward across the mighty River of Souls, cornfields covered the floodplain. There, but a brief run from the village, the river flowed silver in the sunlight. Buckthorn could imagine those murky waters lapping against the cliffs that hemmed it on the south.

People perched on the flat roofs, wrapped snugly in blankets, smiling, happy for him. His mother stood by the ladder that led down into the great kiva. She looked radiant in her red dress with black and yellow triangles around the hem. Eagle down fluttered on the crown of her head. He had to step up onto the circular lip of the kiva. Only about two hands of the structure stood aboveground; the other twenty hands sank deep into the flesh of Our Mother Earth.

The Monster Thlatsina’s staff came down hard on Buckthorn’s shoulder. “Pay attention!”

He spun to look at her. What should he pay attention to?

At that moment his mother stepped back, and a long line of unearthly figures emerged from the black belly of the kiva. They trotted forward in a swinging gait, their feet kicking up sparkles of snow. Ruffs of pine encircled their necks, and their naked torsos gleamed with blue paint. They peered at Buckthorn with great bulging eyes. Their masks, part animal, part wondrous god, bore sprinkles of stars, zigzags of lightning, and dark ridges of sacred mountains. The slant of the sun threw their ethereal shadows across the plaza like leaping beasts. They shook gourd rattles as they came toward him in their loose-kneed shuffle. Their Singing resembled a breeze soughing through a thick stand of pines.

Buckthorn waited in nervous silence.

With each tramp of their sacred feet the Dancers wrested Power from the world, pulling shreds from all living things, and then drawing the Power about them like cloaks of iron—Power that could tremble the distant mountains and mold the thunderheads gathering in the deep blue sky.

The Monster pricked Buckthorn in the back with her obsidian knife and ordered, “Walk!”

He stumbled forward. People on the roofs lifted hands to him, their faces alight. Buckthorn tried to smile back, though he felt a little queasy. Two of the Buffalo Clan elders sat side by side, their legs dangling over the edge of the roof as they shared a pipe of sacred tobacco. Each puff of smoke that rose into the frosty air emulated the creation of clouds … of life itself.

They smoked for him, for his life. Silently, desperately, he prayed to the Great Warriors, asking that they help him find the First Underworld.

When he reached the middle of the snowy plaza, the Dancers split and veered around him. Linking arms, they formed two concentric circles with Buckthorn at the center. The circles of Dancers moved in opposite directions, kicking out their legs and trilling in voices as sweet as a mating piñon jay’s.

Flute music rose from the kiva, akin to the fear and joy that filled Buckthorn. The melody twined across the village like a beautiful solitary vine, twisting through the air. The booms of a pot drum grew stronger, keeping time with the flute.

The Dance circles broke apart and veered outward, then reformed into one large circle around Buckthorn. With a ululating cry that prickled his scalp, they took off running for the kiva, forcing Buckthorn to run with them.

As they neared the kiva, the Bear Thlatsina climbed the ladder and stood beside Buckthorn’s mother. A helmet of bear fur covered his head and draped down over his back and shoulders. Three black dots, for eyes and mouth, painted his white buckskin mask. Naked to the waist, the thlatsina had two blue lines running down his right breast and two yellow lines down his left. His forearms were painted blue, his hands white. Around his waist, he wore a plain white cotton kirtle, secured with a red sash. The frayed ends of his sash whipped in the icy wind.

The Bear Thlatsina lifted a white hand and dismissed Buckthorn’s mother. He watched her walk through the middle of the plaza, smiling at the people on the roofs. She entered their home and vanished.

The protective circle of Dancers which had carried him this far split and retreated, leaving Buckthorn alone before the kiva. The sweet notes of the flute brought tears to Buckthorn’s eyes.

Buckthorn’s gaze riveted on the Bear Thlatsina. He had to stand by himself now. Either worthy … or not.

His knees shook.

The Bear Thlatsina took four steps toward Buckthorn, extended his left fist, and opened it to reveal a small sack covered with glimmering turquoise beads. The thlatsina opened the sack and sprinkled corn pollen to the four directions. He lifted it to Brother Sky, where his gaze lingered a long moment on the building clouds, then reverently touched the bag to Our Mother Earth.

Without a word, he lifted the empty bag over his head.

Two women, attired in white doeskin dresses, climbed from the kiva and shuffled through the snow in white boots, their cheeks painted with black spots. They passed very close to Buckthorn—but sacrosanct, untouchable. Two long eagle feathers adorned their freshly washed hair. The Deer Mothers circled Buckthorn four times, Dancing, moving through the dazzling white sunlight, supernatural beings that had just stepped from the haze of myth and legend.

The other masked Dancers drew back with strange haunting mutters, withdrawing from the divine Deer Mothers. Some hunched in terror. Others bleated like animals about to be slaughtered. The people on the roofs placed hands over their mouths, keeping silent.

The Deer Mothers took up their places at Buckthorn’s sides.

He clenched his fists and forced a swallow down his tight throat.

The Bear Thlatsina held out a pollen-covered hand.

Buckthorn walked forward and bravely put his fingers in the thlatsina’s palm. Gazing up into that bizarre half-human, half-animal face, he nearly buckled at the knees.

The sky god led him to the ladder jutting from the kiva’s packed roof and went down first, descending into the belly of the underworlds to announce Buckthorn’s coming.

Buckthorn stood at the yawning mouth and peered into the firelit darkness below. The blessing scent of cedar wafted up through the opening. Juniper fires burned all year long in the kiva, in honor of the Grandmother of Life: flame. At the core of the universe and in the hearts of people a flame burned always—until the day a person’s soul escaped and returned to the underworlds for good.

The flute stopped, but the pot drum continued to boom in its rhythmic bass.

With thuds and creaks his relatives on the roofs stood up, their blanket-wrapped bodies silhouetted against the translucent blue of Brother Sky, faces joyous. Little children stared at Buckthorn in awe. They would watch, he knew, until he vanished from sight completely.

The Bear Thlatsina’s deep voice began:

The Creator calls you,

The divine Mother has seen you on your journey,

She has seen your worn moccasins,

She offers her life-giving breath,

Her breath of birth,

Her breath of water,

Her breath of seeds,

Her breath of death,

Asking for your breath,

To add to her own,

That the one great life of all might continue unbroken.

Buckthorn gripped the pine-pole ladder, the use-polished wood smooth under his fingers. Then, swallowing hard, and vowing to be brave, he climbed down into the warm firelit womb of the underworlds.

The ceiling represented the Fourth World through which the First People had journeyed, known as the Feather-Wing World. The Fog World, or Third World, was represented by the bench that encircled the chamber. The floor level, or Second World, was called the Sulfur-smell World; lastly, the masonry-lined hole in the floor, the
sipapu,
represented the tunnel to the First Underworld—the Soot World. Sacred cedar smoke purified him as he descended, bathing his frail human body, and stinging his eyes.

Two old men and two old women sat on the low Fog World bench that curved around the great circular chamber. A flute nestled on the bench between the men, a drum between the women. All wore long turkey-feather capes. Not one of them looked at Buckthorn. They had their gazes fixed on the four massive masonry pillars that supported the weight of the roof, which represented the four directions. For them, servants of the unseen Powers that hid at the corners of the world, nothing else existed.

The Bear Thlatsina stood silently beside Buckthorn.

Waiting. But for what?

Buckthorn’s gaze took in the softly gleaming chamber. A fire burned in the middle of the floor; honeyed light danced over the breathtaking thlatsinas painted on the white walls. Some Danced around, bent forward, a foot lifted, ready to stamp down. Others stood with their feet planted firmly on the sacred earth, their awesome beaks and muzzles tipped toward the Blessed Evening People, howling their praises.

He tried to draw himself up straighter, but his stomach felt as if it were shriveling.

Twenty-eight wall crypts filled with magnificent offerings separated the thlatsinas, one for each day of the moon. Macaw and parrot feathers gleamed in the crypts, along with ritual pots and painted dance sticks. A wealth of shining black obsidian glittered around the base of each offering.

From the mouths of the elders, the most eerie of all the sacred chants began in a whisper:
“Hututu! Hututu!”

Buckthorn whispered the name of the Rain God with them, knowing that by the end of this evening, that name would rise to a cry so hoarse and piercing it would sunder the skyworlds. Rain would fall tonight. It always did.

He had sat on the roofs through many long nights listening to this ritual, his heart aching to know how the young Singers-in-the-making felt.

Now I know. They all wanted to faint.

The Bear. Thlatsina quietly pointed to the floor, his hand indicating the slender line of cornmeal. The Road of Life. It ran eastward, linking the firepit to the
sipapu,
the dark opening to the lowest underworld.

Buckthorn walked the Road, placing his feet carefully.

Hututu! Hututu! Hututu!

What would he see when he gazed down that black tunnel into the First Underworld? Legends said that all of his dead ancestors would be gazing up at him.

A well of disembodied eyes …

The Bear Thlatsina knelt on one side of the
sipapu
and indicated Buckthorn’s place.

He sat cross-legged facing the god. Afraid to look into the opening until told to, he stared at the thlatsina’s white mask. Through the black eye holes, he saw nothing staring out. Nothing at all. Just darkness.

The four elders, Keepers of the sacred directions, sat down around Buckthorn and the Bear Thlatsina, their wrinkled faces drawn.

Old Woman North removed a small pot, red-brown and painted with intricate designs, from beneath her turkey-feather cape. Cupped in her gnarled fingers, she held it out to the thlatsina. The god took it in pure white hands and blew down into the pot four times, adding his breath, bringing life to whatever resided inside.

Hututu! Hututu! Hututu! Hututu!

The thlatsina reached out with two fingers and closed Buckthorn’s eyes. Buckthorn trembled. He couldn’t help it.

A strange musty smell taunted his nostrils and he felt something touch his lips. He opened his mouth. A thin dry slice of something like desiccated hide was laid upon his tongue. Chalky bitterness coated his mouth. He shuddered involuntarily. Working it around, mixing it with his saliva, just made it worse. He chewed. Within moments, nausea began. Weakness prickled his muscles.

“I … I’m going to throw up,” he said.

A pot was placed in his hands.

Buckthorn’s stomach heaved and heaved until he felt like a quivering mass of bruised flesh. He set the pot aside and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Despite the effort, he had not opened his eyes. Nor would he, until told to do so.

Faintly, the drumbeat echoed through the gleaming chamber.

He
saw
the beat pulsing on the gold-tinged backs of his eyelids. The four sacred colors lanced out from each beat, soaring away like glowing arrows, flying to the farthest edges of his vision, and beyond into a shimmering haze.