People of the Silence (81 page)

At least that part of the journey had ended. Some detached part of his brain noted that the rain had finally stopped, though the sky carried the heavy threat of more.

Huge cottonwoods arched over Poor Singer’s head, their branches thick with new leaves.

Ironwood shifted to look over his shoulder at Jay Bird and Mourning Dove. They walked down the path toward the river. Both had bathed. Jay Bird’s thin face and gray hair shone, and he wore a clean tan shirt. Mourning Dove had braided her black hair. A tiny, delicately built woman, she smiled radiantly, as though happy for the first time in her life. Her plump cheeks glowed pink. She wore a fresh orange dress with two black stripes around the hem, sleeves, and neckline. Mourning Dove stopped two body-lengths behind Dune and Sternlight, as if not wishing to be too close to the renowned holy men.

Poor Singer didn’t blame her. Dune had been giving people lethal looks. Every guard who passed near him lifted a hand and made the sign against the Evil Eye, which seemed to please Dune. Despite the fact that he’d been carried the entire way, his old body had grown scrawny and now it looked as if barely enough skin clung to his bones to keep them from falling apart. His white hair dangled in dirty strands about his deeply wrinkled face.

On the journey, Dune had routinely tried to speak with Poor Singer, but the guards never allowed it, and Dune seemed disinclined to say anything to Poor Singer that might be overheard. Poor Singer had longed to speak with him, too. He could tell by the look in Dune’s faded eyes that he had important news.

Jay Bird walked around the circle and stood between Thistle and Poor Singer, his eyes fixed on Cornsilk’s sleeping face.

Oh, Cornsilk, whatever is going to happen is going to happen now. I wish I could fix this for you.

But he couldn’t, not this time.

*   *   *

Jay Bird inhaled a deep breath, exhausted, still flushed with victory, but nonetheless afraid of what this night would bring. After all these years, here he stood, at an ending he’d dreamed of and longed for—at a beginning he couldn’t quite comprehend.

He noted the positions of his guards, six around the camp, another ten posted on the high points around Gila Monster Cliffs Village. Then he surveyed the faces of the captives. Dune the Derelict and Night Sun stared at Jay Bird defiantly, while Ironwood and Poor Singer seemed to have accepted whatever the future might bring. Sternlight sat with his dark head bowed, refusing to gaze at Jay Bird, and that caught Jay Bird’s attention. A man only refused to look at his enemy when he feared what he might see in his enemy’s eyes—or feared what his enemy might see in his own.

I need to watch this man.
He had learned that most of the people at Talon Town believed Sternlight to be a witch. All through his long life, Jay Bird had fought a relentless battle against sleep-makers and their foul ways.

Mourning Dove sat warily behind Dune. Over supper, she’d told Jay Bird many things and skillfully kept many to herself. By the way she avoided his questions, he could tell she’d held back a dark powerful secret. Perhaps to use later, if she needed to? But she’d also openly told him that she wouldn’t be staying at Gila Monster Cliffs. Though her mother had been Mogollon, she considered the Tower Builders her people. Strange, since she’d shared his prayers before their meal and bowed reverently to his house gods. Apparently, Mourning Dove lived with one foot in each world. She had carefully selected traditions she liked from both the Mogollon and the Tower Builders, and then blended them into a whole that satisfied her. Perhaps that was just her way of surviving childhood—her mother must have been telling her one thing, her father another. Children had curious abilities to make ideas work together, even if they appeared complete opposites to adults.

His gaze shifted. Thistle looked worried. She nervously stroked Cornsilk’s hair. He had offered to have his slaves pour her a bath and give her clean clothing, but she said she would rather wait until Cornsilk woke, so they could enjoy such luxuries together. Thistle loved Cornsilk very much. Of that, Jay Bird had no doubt. But as to everything else …

“Let us begin,” Jay Bird said, bracing his feet, hands clasped behind his back. “I wish to know the truth. Who will be the first to tell me?”

The captives glanced uneasily at each other, then Dune gave Jay Bird a questioning look. “Which truth?”

“Don’t play games with me, holy Derelict! I will have you flayed and burned alive!”

“The question was not a game, Jay Bird. I merely wished to know which story you wanted to hear? About Cornsilk or—”

“Of course, I wish to hear about Cornsilk! Why do you think I rescued her from Talon Town and carried her all the way here?” His angry face softened when he gazed down at Cornsilk again. “Is she my granddaughter? That is what I wish to know. I don’t see it in her face. Thistle has told me she believes Cornsilk is—Mourning Dove has told me she’s certain Cornsilk is not.” Jay Bird lifted his eyes and looked from Mourning Dove to Ironwood. “What do you say, War Chief? Are you this child’s father?”

Ironwood took a deep breath, nodded, and said, “I am.”

Jay Bird frowned at Cornsilk. “I see you in her. The brows, the shape of the face, the skin. But I do not see Young Fawn in her.”

Sternlight propped his bound hands on his drawn-up knees and leaned forward. Wet strands of black hair fell limply over the front of his filthy ritual shirt. “I was present at Cornsilk’s birth, Great Chief. I brought her into this world with my own hands and, that same night, delivered her to Beargrass, Thistle’s husband. Ironwood is her father. I know this to be true.”

Jay Bird rubbed his chin and considered the implications. “And her mother?” Jay Bird’s heart pounded with hope. “Was her mother my daughter, Young Fawn?”

Sternlight glanced at Ironwood, Night Sun, and Dune, before shaking his head. “No, Great Chief. Young Fawn was not Cornsilk’s mother.”

Thistle sucked in a disbelieving breath. “You lie!” She would have shouted it, but she clearly did not wish to wake her daughter. The accusation came out a hoarse whisper. “Right after you gave her to us, Young Fawn’s mutilated body was found in the trash mound! Who else could have been the mother?”

Night Sun took a breath. Streaks of dirt and sweat covered her blue dress. Her graying black hair had come loose from its braid and straggled about her triangular face. The four black spirals tattooed on her chin shone in the firelight.
“Me.”

“You?” Jay Bird demanded sharply. “You mated with the lowly War Chief and didn’t induce a miscarriage when you discovered your pregnancy? Ridiculous! Any thinking member of the elite—”

“I tried everything, Jay Bird,” she said calmly. “Mugwort leaves, black nightshade berries, cottonroot bark, a mixture of juniper needles and berries. I’m a Healer. I know
exactly
how to induce a miscarriage. But…” She sighed and smiled sadly down at Cornsilk. “My daughter insisted upon being born. I conceived Cornsilk when my husband, Crow Beard, was away Trading with the Hohokam. I was terrified, because I knew he would kill her when he returned. And”—she gazed tenderly at Ironwood—“I knew Crow Beard would kill the only man I’ve ever loved.”

Jay Bird glanced around the circle, judging the truth in people’s eyes. One by one he read them. No, there was no deceit here. Mourning Dove gave him an “I told you so” look.

Disappointed, he locked eyes with Thistle. “These people say she is not my granddaughter. Did you deliberately mislead me? So that I would attack Talon Town and avenge the wrongs done to you and your clan?”

Thistle shook her head, looking uncomfortable with this disturbing information. “I truly believed Cornsilk was your granddaughter, Jay Bird. But I do not deny that I wished to avenge the deaths of my family. I felt great joy during the raid.”

Jay Bird had shared that joy. Because of Thistle, he had pulled off one of the greatest raids in Mogollon history. His name would live in legends. Even if Cornsilk were not his granddaughter, he owed Thistle a great deal. And, yes, from her defiant expression, from the narrowing of her eyes as she spoke, she hadn’t purposely deceived him.

He glanced at Cornsilk, resting peacefully on Thistle’s lap.
Not my granddaughter.
A twinge of pain speared his soul. By the Spirits, he’d prayed for it to be true. But perhaps this disappointment was simply the price of victory. The gods never gave a man all he wanted. He knew that better than most. Besides … if Cornsilk were Night Sun’s daughter, then Jay Bird had truly taken out his vengeance for the abduction of Young Fawn. A daughter for a daughter.

Thistle sat quietly, now frowning at Sternlight, as if assessing his words.

“Well, then,” Jay Bird said, and smiled grimly at Ironwood. The man knew what was coming. Jay Bird could see it on his face. “My only task is to decide what to do with each of you. I—”

“I think,” the Derelict said with a tilt of his ancient head, “that you need to listen for a time longer, Jay Bird.”

The authoritarian tone rankled. “To
what,
old man?”

Dune smiled, and firelight flickered over his toothless mouth. “To the story of your grandson.”

Jay Bird stared. From the corner of his eye, he saw Mourning Dove nod, and he remembered Thistle’s story of how Young Fawn’s stomach had been slit open, the child stolen from her womb. “This is the ‘other’ truth you mentioned?”

“It is.”

Sternlight started to shake. As he bowed his head, his wet hair straggled around his face like shiny black serpents. He squeezed his eyes closed.

Jay Bird said, “Tell me.”

Dune’s eyes never wavered. “Young Fawn mated with Crow Beard. Crow Beard loved her desperately. You might say, obsessively.”

Night Sun’s head suddenly came up and she stared at Dune in a way that made Jay Bird think the news surprised her. It also made him think it might be true. He looked at Thistle and saw her face slacken in understanding.

Ah, here it comes.…

“That’s why Young Fawn couldn’t ask Night Sun’s permission for the mating,” Thistle said. “That’s why she couldn’t tell
anyone
about her lover! Blessed Spirits, of course!”

Quietly, Night Sun said, “He loved her, Dune? Are you certain?”

“With all his heart—as much heart as he had, anyway. I think that’s why he treated you so badly. He truly wanted to marry Young Fawn and put her in your place.”

Night Sun’s fists knotted in the fabric of her dress. She closed her eyes.

Jay Bird lifted his chin to Dune. “Go on.”

“When Crow Beard discovered Young Fawn was carrying his child, he nearly went mad. You see, despite the fact that he loved Young Fawn, he feared your people’s legends more.”

“About the child born and hidden away?” Jay Bird said. “The child who would one day return to destroy the Straight Path nation?”

Dune gestured with his bound hands. “Right after Young Fawn told him about the baby, Crow Beard called Sternlight and me into his chamber”—Sternlight nodded—“and asked us to tell him what to do.”

“And did you?”

“We tried.” Dune shifted, extending his bound legs out in front of him. “He was the Blessed Sun. He wouldn’t listen to us. He decided, in a fit of rage and despair, that both the mother and the child had to die.”

“
What?
He ordered you to kill them
both?
” Jay Bird winced with distaste.
I can’t believe it! What is wrong with these Straight Path people?
If he had lain with a slave, he would have willingly adopted the child into his household. “Why?”

“Crow Beard feared that if Young Fawn lived she would someday whisper the story to the wrong person and it would get back to Night Sun.”

Jay Bird turned to her. “And what would you have done?”

The cottonwoods behind Night Sun swayed in a gust of wind, creaking and moaning, and shadows danced over her taut face. What a stately, elegant woman. Even days of running had not diminished, her beauty.

She said, “I refused to allow my own daughter, Cloud Playing, to marry Webworm because he was half Mogollon. His mother had been taken as slave by your people when very young. I would never have allowed such a birth to take place. My duty would have been clear. I would have divorced Crow Beard, and probably I would have ordered Young Fawn’s death, as well as her child’s.
I
fear the legends, too.”

Dune continued, “Sternlight and I suspected that. It took two days, but we talked Crow Beard into letting Young Fawn and the child live—with the promise that they would both be sent away after the child’s birth.”

“Why would you wish your enemies to survive?”

Dune’s brows arched. He kicked sand with his bound feet. “Because
I
don’t believe your prophecies. And, though the child was barely a moon old inside Young Fawn’s womb, I
sensed
something extraordinary about him. I suggested to Crow Beard that he leave until after the child was born so that the rumors would die down. By the time he returned, we promised him that both Young Fawn and the baby would be gone. He’d never have to hear of or see them again.”

Sternlight paled. “Though on his deathbed, Crow Beard ordered the child killed. It was his last order.”

Jay Bird nodded. The news did not surprise him. Crow Beard had been a ruthless adversary, and proud of his ability to murder without remorse. Jay Bird had despised him for it. “What did he say?”

“He called the boy ‘Jay Bird’s brood.’ In the end, I think Crow Beard feared your prophecies more deeply than any of us realized.”

Jay Bird spread his feet to brace himself. “And?”

Is the boy alive, or did they obey Crow Beard’s order?

Dune and Sternlight looked at each other. Jay Bird noticed that Ironwood sat forward, listening intently.

Through a tired exhalation, Dune said, “The boy is alive. After his birth, Sternlight gave the infant to me. I, in turn, gave the boy to a Trader named Sitting-in-the-Sky, to take to a very old friend of mine named Black—”

“Me?”
Poor Singer asked in a whisper. His soft brown eyes had gone huge and vulnerable. He wet his chapped lips.
“Are you talking about me?”