People of the Silence (75 page)

Ironwood thought of all the battles they’d fought together, the campfires and laughter they’d shared. When the First People elders ordered his imprisonment, and they would, it would be Webworm’s duty to try and take him, and one of them would die.

Ironwood nodded. “I will, old friend.”

Webworm searched his face one last time, as if memorizing Ironwood’s features, then loosened his grip and climbed the stairs.

*   *   *

Sawfly stood guard, as he did every day from dawn to dusk, in the small square signal tower overlooking the holy South Road. Fifty hands tall, the tower was a single body-length across. It had been constructed of large sandstone blocks, and had walls six hands thick. Perched forty hands above the ground on a narrow juniper platform built into the top of the signal tower, he had an expansive view of the countryside. Four windows, one for each direction, surrounded him. The sacred mountains filled the frames, hovering like pale blue ghosts over the horizons.

He propped his moccasined foot on the south-facing window. The only way in or out of the tower was by ladder. After he’d entered, he’d drawn it up and slid it down into the tower below him. The ladder’s base rested between the dead coals in the fire pit and the wood pile.

Yawning, Sawfly tipped his pointed chin into the morning breeze that gusted around the tower. It cooled his triangular face and tousled the shoulder-length black hair around his jutting ears. In the distance he saw the burial procession heading down the road.

Blessed gods, he was glad to see them go. He’d been born in the northern Green Mesa villages twenty-three sun cycles ago and only moved to Talon Town the summer before last. He didn’t understand any of this First People lunacy. One instant they leaped for each other’s throats, and the next they huddled together like a pack of wolves to decide the fate of the world. Only this morning Snake Head had sent a runner to Center Place to inform the Blessed Weedblossom that his mother’s “misbegotten daughter” lay prostrate in the First People’s kiva in Talon Town. And everyone knew what that meant. Before the day was through, Night Sun would, once again, be in the Cage, along with her lover, Ironwood.

Sawfly shook his head. People of his clan, the Bear Clan, married for love, coupled for pleasure, divorced when they had to, and life went on. The First People seemed to marry for status, couple for children, and keep spouses they hated for their entire lives. And they thought this behavior set a moral standard for the Made People?

Sawfly’s wide mouth quirked at the irony.

Yesterday, Mourning Dove had passed the news that Snake Head believed the young woman from Turtle Village to be his half sister. Then, last night, as Sawfly stood guard on the walls—which he rarely did—the Made People had scurried around in the darkness like packrats, going from chamber to chamber, carrying the news that Ironwood had called the young woman from Turtle Village his “daughter.” It didn’t take a Spirit Dreamer to hook the two together.

Beyond the north window, a hazy veil eddied and spun across the greening highlands. Wind Baby had been fickle the past few days, leaping and playing, or holding his breath. Sawfly studied the veil as it swept up into the air, whirled around, going higher and higher. He squinted at the last spinning wisps … and heard the sound of a moccasin across stone.

Reaching for his bow and quiver, Sawfly drew them into his lap and leaned out the south window. A beautiful woman stood below, looking up at him. She had a thin, fine-boned face, with long dark hair. They gave her an air of innocence, especially when she smiled, as she did now.

“Hello!” she called up.

“Hello.”

“I’m sorry to disturb your watch, but I’m trying to reach Starburst Town, and I seem to have lost my way. Could you tell me where it is?”

Sawfly leaned further out the window, pointing to the right, toward the western end of the canyon. “Over there. You need to follow the road that runs—”

The impact of the arrow knocked him out of the window and sent him crashing to the ground. He landed hard, his body tangling up like a loop of dropped yucca cord. Sawfly blinked up at the sky in terror. He couldn’t feel his body! It had gone completely numb below his neck!…
The arrow must have struck my spine. Oh, thlatsinas, no!

A tall man wearing a black-and-white cape straddled Sawfly. He had a hideously scarred and
familiar
face. The man drew his chert knife from his belt with a smile. As he knelt, lowering the blade to Sawfly’s throat, he said, “Remember me, Straight Path dog? I used to be a slave in your town.” He bent forward to peer into Sawfly’s horrified eyes from less than a hand away.
“Now you pay for what you did to me!”

The sharp blade stung as it sliced through Sawfly’s throat. He struggled to move, but only his head responded, thrashing back and forth as blood filled his mouth. A gray mist fluttered at the edges of his vision, closing in, shading blacker and blacker.…

*   *   *

Cone furiously hurled a rock over the edge of the canyon and watched it fall. His belly churned. His tattered red warrior’s shirt flapped around his stout body. As Father Sun rose toward noon, sweat beaded his pug nose and ran along the jaw of his round face. He wiped the moisture from his eyes and squinted at the burial procession moving away to the south along the sacred road. The people had become faint black dots in the rolling red-and-gold landscape punctuated by long ridges and eroded buttes.

He twisted to look northward across Straight Path Canyon. The white half-moon shaped towns shone brilliantly against the massive golden cliffs. The smaller villages, blocky splotches, would start planting crops in less than a moon, repairing and constructing new additions to the buildings, quarrying turquoise, malachite, and jet. The bravest Traders would run the roads bargaining for coral and seashells, copper bells and macaws, buffalo robes and dried meats. In spring, the Straight Path world came fully alive. How he loved the sights of spring, the greening grass, the tufted clouds in a pristine blue sky, the way the sun lay on the land, drawing the colors out of the soil.

“Look well, my eyes. You’ll never see it again.”

Cone took a weary breath. The ache in his chest expanded.

By now, Howler would have taken the signal tower, and Jay Bird would be stealthily approaching Talon Town. If the Mogollon did it correctly, it would take them the rest of the day. Jay Bird’s warriors would slowly filter down the roads, one or two at a time, so as not to arouse suspicion. Then, when they were all in place, Jay Bird would strike fast and hard.

Cone stared at the rust-colored sandstone beneath his moccasins. Tired, empty, he no longer knew how to think or feel about anything. In all the time he’d carried messages between Jay Bird and Snake Head, he’d believed he was helping to save the Straight Path nation from the wickedness of its new Blessed Sun. Removing Snake Head was the only way to secure his people’s future.

Yet Snake Head would live, because he would be away when the town came under attack. He would survive and live on as Blessed Sun. No one would know that he’d plotted with the Fire Dogs, living among them like a scorpion in their garden.

Everything I did has come to naught.
Snake Head would live, while Wraps-His-Tail, Beargrass, and so many others were dead. Snake Head’s plotting had just led to more dishonor.

“I’m a fool,” he whispered harshly. “I did this!”

He had counted about seventy people in the burial procession, which meant Talon Town had only old men, women, and some children to defend its walls. Perhaps a few sick or injured warriors had remained.

Like nerves shocked into senselessness by the blow of a war club, his despair—despair he’d carried for two days—opened an abyss in his soul.

Thistle had reasons for wanting to hurt Talon Town. The First People had ordered the destruction of her village and family. They were holding her foster daughter. But he … he had no reasons. None at all.

“Those are my friends down there.”

Killing Snake Head was one thing. He had believed in that, and still did. But attacking Talon Town when most of its warriors were gone was a cowardly act!

Cone kicked at a pebble and dust puffed in front of him. When Cone had told Jay Bird he could not, would not, be party to attacking a defenseless town, the aging Mogollon Chief’s eyes had narrowed. He’d said, “Then go. I give you your life for the work you have already done, but do not let me find you fighting against me—
or I will reclaim that life, warrior.
” He’d made the slit-throat sign with his hand and walked away.

Cone had run.

Smarter, wiser men would have headed for a place where no one knew them, but Cone had come straight back to the only home he’d ever known.

And here he stood, like a soulless rock, unable to convince himself to go, knowing he could not stay.

Billowing Cloud People sailed through the blue sky, trailing patchwork shadows across the canyon. Cone gazed at Talon Town and swallowed convulsively.

He ought to be down there.

Fighting.

The old people and children needed him. The sacred duty of the Bear Clan had always been protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves.

As though a ghost had whispered to his soul, Cone slowly turned and looked back along the sacred South Road. The burial procession had become a dark blur.

“Blessed First Bear,” he whispered. “I’ll have to hurry!”

He raced down the sandstone slope and bounded for the road. He could still do something for his people. Then, perhaps, he could take himself to his ancestors with some sense of honor.

Seventh Day

My feet barely make a sound as I kneel on the hill overlooking Orphan Village. Laughing children play in the plaza. It is a tiny village, one story, maybe seven rooms, held in the tree-veined palm of rolling grass-covered hills. Turkeys squawk and strut. Dogs lie in the shadows, their tails wagging when the children dash by.

But I have eyes only for the hawk. A passing stranger told me about her. She clings to the willow bars of her cage in the northeastern corner of the plaza. It is a large cage, a full body-length tall and two wide. She is a truly beloved pet. Most owners would not prepare such a lavish cage; they would merely tie her legs and tether her to a post, throwing her food when necessary.

Feathers cling to the willow bars, marking all the places she has beaten her wings against the wood.

In the summer, the Chief of this village robs a fledgling from its nest and brings the bird home. It is part of his Spirit vision. It is said that his Helper is Packrat, and that by caging one of Packrat’s greatest enemies, the Chief pacifies and gains the blessings of his Spirit Helper.

The hawk beats her wings, and striped feathers flutter through the warm sunshine. Her sharp eyes focus on the turkeys strutting arrogantly in front of her cage.

I understand her desperation.…

Though she has never been free, never soared through crystalline skies, or dived for prey, the hunger lives in her heart. With every flap of her wings, she is hunting, hunting …

Like me.

A wild creature lurks in my soul, and it longs to sail free through endless skies. Yet I have spent my life building my own cage. I tie each stick into place as if my life depends upon it. My mother taught me, and her mother taught her, and her mother taught her.

It is what we do. Humans cage things. Dogs, turkeys, and hawks. We domesticate corn, beans, and squash. Any wild strain is promptly plucked out and killed.

Especially if the strain grows in our own hearts.

Wildness is dangerous.

So we line the deserts with roads. That way no one ever strays from the path. We build huge houses to separate ourselves from earth and sky, then paint our walls with majestic images of mountains and rainstorms, and ask, “Don’t they look real?” We busy ourselves making lamps and torches, and boast that we’re not afraid of the dark.

But in our hearts, we are afraid.

For all our efforts, the pretty cage is not safe. A desperate hunter beats his wings against the bars, longing for a leap from a towering cliff, or to dive through rain-scented storm winds.

The hawk below me screams again. The shrill desperate cry echoes from the hills, and in my soul.

I know how she feels.

Inside the cage, the hunter can only hunt himself.

Forty-Four

Thistle dug her fingers into the dirt of Straight Path Wash and pulled herself up beside Jay Bird to peer over the bank at Talon Town. Swirls of dark gray cloud painted the evening sky, and owls
hoo-hooed
as they sailed over the cliffs. She’d braided her long hair and coiled it into a bun at the back of her head. Despite the chill, her tattered yellow dress clung damply to her slender body. Scents of wet earth and grass filled her nose.

Four guards. They stood on the walls, their faces gleaming orange in the soft light coming from the chambers.

Hatred swelled. These people, perhaps these very men, had murdered Beargrass and Fledgling! They’d burned her village and slaughtered her clan. They’d taken
everything
from Thistle!… Everything except Cornsilk.

She fought back the tears of rage that blurred her eyes.

Cornsilk? Where are you?

Leafhopper crouched in the bottom of the drainage, along with about sixty warriors, waiting instructions to move. In the growing darkness, her squat frame and short hair made her look like a boy. All afternoon long, as they’d stealthily traveled the canyon, Leafhopper had talked about seeing Cornsilk again. It had warmed Thistle’s heart, because Thistle had been having terrible nightmares that Cornsilk had never reached Talon Town, that her daughter lay in some patch of sagebrush, dead.

Jay Bird’s thin face had taken on a predatory alertness. He wore the red shirt that Howler had stripped from the dead signal tower guard. Thistle had rinsed it in the drainage, but it still smelled of blood.