Browser swallowed the lump that had grown in his throat and turned back toward the far corner where he’d heard the sounds earlier. They had stopped. He could not recall how the chambers connected here. Was there a passageway that led outside?
Browser backed out of the room, and said, “I lost him, Jackrabbit. He could be anywhere in this crumbling hive of rooms. How are you?”
Jackrabbit touched his head. “I feel sick. Whiproot told me to run for help, but just as I made it to the ladder, young Goathead called out from the road on the other side. He’d heard my cries. I told him to run for help, and I returned to aid you.”
“I appreciate that. I—”
An agonized wail, like a cry ripped from a man’s throat, carried to them.
Jackrabbit jerked around, and Browser gripped his arm with talonlike fingers. “Don’t move.”
“But what if Whiproot—”
“We can’t rush out into the starlight. The killer might be waiting on the roof with his bow ready.”
“But we can’t just wait here like cowards!”
“Jackrabbit!”
shrilled a voice that could have come from the deepest darkest underworld. It echoed through the ruins.
“Jackrabbit! Helllp meee!”
Jackrabbit blurted, “Who is that? I don’t recognize the voice!”
Browser edged to the next doorway, and stopped to examine it before he entered.
“Oh, gods, helllp !”
The scream was inhuman.
Browser clutched his club with painful force and ran heedlessly through the next two rooms.
Another prolonged shriek cut the night.
He halted at the katsina’s hole and peered out into the starlit plaza. Jackrabbit trotted up behind him.
“What do you see?” Jackrabbit panted.
Browser searched the piles of fallen stones, and heaps of windblown dirt. Nothing moved. But a sharp tang rode the wind.
Torn intestines. Blood.
“Stay here,” he said to Jackrabbit. “I’ll call if it’s safe.”
“But War Chief—”
“Just do as I say! Help will be here soon. Wait!”
Jackrabbit sank back against the wall. “Yes, War Chief.”
Browser lurched through the hole and ran with all his might, his legs pumping, for the closest pile of rubble. He dove behind it and crawled on his belly until he felt safe enough to peer over the top. He didn’t see Whiproot.
A cacophony of voices rang outside the walls, and Browser heard Catkin shouting,
“Hurry! Get the ladder up!”
Browser’s souls withered. He and Whiproot had left the only ladder on the inside of the town. Catkin had been forced to send someone back to Hillside to fetch another before they could get over the wall.
A long ragged scream erupted; followed by suffocating sobs.
Browser recognized that voice. He leaped to his feet and charged across the plaza, shouting, “Hophorn? Hophorn, I’m coming!”
As he ran, he caught a glimpse of Catkin as she raced down the ladder. People gathered on the roof, waiting their turns to climb down. Frightened shouts and cries filled the night.
Browser shouted, “Someone bring a torch!”
Catkin met him in front of Hophorn’s door, and they both stopped dead in their tracks. She had risen directly from her robes. A wealth of long black hair cascaded over her knee-length blue shirt. She gripped a bow in her hands.
Pools of black blood filled the hollows in the hardpacked ground. The stench of death nearly overpowered them.
Browser called, “Hophorn? It’s Browser.”
She mewed pitifully.
“Hophorn? Where’s Whiproot?”
Sobs.
Oh, gods.
He reached for the leather door curtain, and Catkin jerked him backward with such force Browser almost lost his footing.
Catkin glared at Browser and called, “Hophorn? Are you alone in there?”
A long pause.
Hophorn weakly answered, “Nnnooo. B-Browser?”
Those were the first words she’d spoken since her head injury, and they affected Browser like a Spirit plant in his veins. His heart raced.
Catkin and Browser took up positions on either side of the doorway. Three other warriors lined up in a semicircle around them, their bows nocked and aimed at the door. Jackrabbit stood among them, his feet braced, breathing like a hunted animal.
“I have the torch!” Cloudblower called.
Browser watched her climb down the ladder into the plaza with a blazing juniper bark torch. She wore a turkey-feather cape and white leggings. Long gray-streaked black braids framed her triangular face. The torch bounced as she ran.
Cloudblower handed the torch to Browser and backed away.
He nodded to Catkin.
As he jerked the door curtain back, they lunged inside at the same time, Browser holding the torch and his war club, Catkin with her bow swinging around for a target.
The instant light filled the room Browser saw blood; it splashed the ceiling and trickled down the walls. He couldn’t move without stepping in it. The stench almost gagged him.
Orange torchlight fluttered over Whiproot’s body. He lay on his back, his mouth covered with blood, his eyes open and staring sightlessly at the ceiling poles. His war club lay to one side. The right arm was rigidly extended; the left arm was tucked beneath
his back, as if he’d twisted as he fell. His war shirt had been pulled up, the blood-soaked material wadded, as if by a fist.
Words caught in Browser’s throat. A slit had been cut into Whiproot’s exposed belly, and two sections of severed intestine protruded from the bloody wound.
Hophorn huddled like a terrified child in the corner to his left. A black-and-white blanket covered her body; she held it against her trembling mouth. A fine spray of blood speckled her face and long black hair.
Browser ran to her.
She gazed up at him with huge eyes.
“It’s Browser,” he said softly. “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”
Her shoulders heaved, and it took Browser a few moments to realize she was being wracked by silent sobs. Her mouth opened, but no sounds came out. Pink rivulets rolled down her cheeks—tears mixed with blood—and dripped onto the blanket she clutched in her hands. He took her in his arms, and rocked her gently. “You are all right, Hophorn. He’s gone.”
She shook her head violently.
Catkin knelt beside Whiproot and placed her fingers against the big artery in his neck. Disbelief, followed by anger, tightened her eyes. She tipped him onto his side to check his back. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help you, my friend,” she murmured and gently lowered him.
Browser tenderly stroked Hophorn’s hair. “Can you tell me what happened, Hophorn? Who did this?”
She whined: the cry a dying rabbit makes when it stares up into the eyes of a weasel smeared with its blood.
Catkin said, “I can tell you what happened,” and got to her feet.
Browser looked up.
Catkin pointed to the sandal prints that had tracked through the blood. They looked like the work of dancers circling each other in some depraved ritual.
Catkin indicated the overturned pots, along the north wall, the scattered coals from the broken warming bowl. “Whiproot was wounded outside,” she said, “that’s what the splotches of blood are
out there. Then he was forced to back into Hophorn’s chamber.” She pointed to the prints on the floor, “after that the killer ordered him to kneel down. These oval spots are knee prints. But Whiproot did not go without a fight. See these tracks? Whiproot was trying to shield Hophorn, to cut the killer off from reaching her. He must have leaped for the killer and knocked him backward into the pots over there. During the struggle, they crushed the warming bowl and scattered the coals.”
Browser pointed to the blood on Whiproot’s head. “Is that what killed him?”
“I cannot say. Probably. I’m sure it dazed him. He has two knife wounds on his arms and one on his neck. Maybe he was stabbed in the belly before the killer yanked his intestines out.”
She bent over a shriveled length of bloody tissue that lay at the base of the wall. “This is gut, Browser. After he cut it out of Whiproot, he must have swung it around like a rope.” She swallowed hard.
“Blessed gods,” Browser whispered, cringing at the stippled clots of blood.
Catkin turned to Hophorn, a frantic glitter in her eyes. “Who did this, Hophorn? Did you see his face?”
“Easy,” Browser said. “She’s terrified.”
Hophorn tried to answer, but it came out a suffocating series of pants.
Browser tightened his grip on the torch to stem the sudden trembling in his hand. “He was wearing a mask. A wolf mask. She would not have seen his face anyway.”
Catkin jerked around and their gazes locked.
“The same mask—”
“I—I don’t know. It looked freshly painted. Even in the darkness, I could see black, red, and white bands—”
“War Chief?” Cloudblower called from outside. “May I come? Is Hophorn hurt? Are you hurt?”
Hophorn stuttered, “Nnn-no,” and shivered as if freezing to death. She shoved out of Browser’s arms and backed into the corner as far as she could.
“She is not wounded,” Browser said. “But she is not well. Come.”
Cloudblower stepped into the torchlit chamber, and Hophorn let out a blood-chilling scream.
Browser whirled, shocked.
“Hallowed gods,” Cloudblower said, and shoved by him to get to Hophorn. “She has lost her senses!”
Hophorn flung off her blanket and scrambled madly for the door on her hands and knees, babbling, “B-B-Browssser! She. Knows. She …
knnnows!”
Browser went rigid.
“Don’t!” Cloudblower yelled and fell to the floor. She grabbed Hophorn, gathered her in her arms like a baby, and rocked Hophorn back and forth while she whispered into her ear. Hophorn’s teeth chattered so loudly Browser could not hear Cloudblower’s words.
He stared at Hophorn dry-mouthed, uncertain of what to do.
Catkin tipped her head toward the door, and Browser followed her outside. A mumbling crowd of about twenty people had coalesced in the starlight, and more climbed down the ladder as fast as they could. Browser could hear Flame Carrier shouting orders outside the town.
Catkin led Browser a short distance away, then demanded,
“What happened?”
F
LAME CARRIER’S BREATH PUFFED WHITELY AS SHE climbed the ladder. Young Redcrop waited on the roof above, her oval face and large dark eyes shining in the light of the Evening People. She wore a red-and-black-striped turkey-feather cape that matched Flame Carrier’s. Just seeing the girl made Flame Carrier feel better. Redcrop had left her chamber shortly after supper and had not returned. Flame Carrier had been concerned. A murderer was stalking the canyon, and the girl was out, by herself, taking unnecessary chances.
Frightened voices rose from inside the ruins of Talon Town.
Flame Carrier tried to hurry. When she reached the ladder’s top rung, a gust of wind threatened to hurl her to the ground. Redcrop caught Flame Carrier’s hand in a strong grip and helped her off the ladder and onto the roof.
“Thank you, child,” she said, and patted Redcrop’s hand. “Where is the War Chief?”
Redcrop turned and long black hair whipped over her face. “To the left, Elder. Near the First People’s kiva.” She pointed.
Most of the village milled in the broad plaza, their low voices hissing like a den of newborn serpents. As each person saw her standing on the roof, they elbowed the person next to them, and a hush fell.
Flame Carrier searched the huge crumbling town. “What happened, child? Has anyone seen fit to tell you?”
Redcrop nodded. “Whiproot is dead.”
“That much I’ve heard. Does his wife know?”
“No, Elder, Not yet. Wading Bird just went to fetch her.”
Flame Carrier’s chest felt like it was being squeezed by a huge
rawhide band. She braced her feet to keep her shaking knees from buckling. “How did this begin?”
Redcrop gestured toward the knot of warriors outside of Hophorn’s chamber. “Jackrabbit told me he was standing guard in front of the Sunwatcher’s chamber when someone leaped upon him from the roof above. The tall man wore a sacred katsina mask. A wolf mask. Whiproot and Browser stood here, where we now stand. They heard the commotion, and climbed down as quickly as they could, but by the time they reached Jackrabbit, his attacker had fled into the dark passageways of the town.”
“Did they catch him?”
“No, Matron. Browser and Jackrabbit went after the man, but they did not find him. Whiproot stood guard alone in front of the Sunwatcher’s chamber. I don’t know exactly what happened after that, except that he was killed.”
“Is the Sunwatcher safe?” she asked anxiously. Hophorn had always been one of her favorites, a cherished friend and loyal supporter. The thought of losing her wrenched Flame Carrier’s souls.
“Cloudblower took the Sunwatcher to her chamber. Hophorn looked terrified, but she seemed unharmed.”
Flame Carrier heaved a sigh of relief. “Well, help me get onto this other ladder, child. I must speak with the War Chief.”
“Yes, Elder.”
Redcrop took Flame Carrier’s left elbow, and steadied her while she maneuvered her sandaled feet onto the top rung. She descended slowly. Peavine waited at the foot of the ladder, her black eyes slitted against the wind that whirled through the plaza. A white blanket waffled over her shoulders; her short, black-streaked gray hair fluttered around her homely face.
As Flame Carrier neared the bottom rung, Peavine gripped Flame Carrier’s right arm, and helped her to the ground.
“Thank you, Pea—”
Peavine hissed, “This is witchery, Matron.”
Flame Carrier disentangled herself from Peavine and said, “Why do you say that?”
“The murderer was wearing the same white deerhide clothing
that the War Chief’s wife had on when you found her in the burial pit.”
“Who told you that?”
“Jackrabbit.” Peavine straightened, as if proud she’d discovered this appalling fact.
Flame Carrier’s kinky gray brows drew down over her bulbous nose. “What sort of madman would do such a thing? What is he trying to prove?”
Peavine shook windblown hair away from her square face. “I think the clothes and mask are witched, Matron. They
give
him his Power.”
“Blessed Spirits, Peavine!” Flame Carrier glanced around to see what might have been overheard. “Do not say such things aloud! You will have our people jumping at their own breathing!”
Peavine’s black eyes tightened. “Perhaps we should be, Matron. Look what happens when we lower our guards.” She extended a hand toward Hophorn’s chamber, where Jackrabbit stood with a torch in his hand. The waves of wind blown light flashed on the blood that pooled outside the chamber.
Flame Carrier started across the plaza, and Peavine matched her stride.
“You should also know, Matron, that Hophorn spoke. For the first time since her injury! It happened just before the War Chief entered her chamber.”
Flame Carrier stopped, and turned. “What did she say?” “No one told me, but she has not spoken since. I asked Cloudblower myself.”
“I thank you for telling me. Now, go, Peavine. I wish to speak with the War Chief.”
“Yes, Matron.”
Peavine scowled at Browser and Catkin where they stood very close together in front of the doorway that led to the newly restored kiva, then she stalked across the plaza.
Flame Carrier watched her feet as she walked, careful not to step in any holes. Without her walking stick, her balance often failed her.
Catkin caught sight of Flame Carrier and ran to help her. “Let me help you, Matron,” she said as she extended a hand.
Tall, and lanky for a woman, Catkin had a beautiful oval face.
Her long hair, recently unbraided, streamed around her like rippled black silk.
“Gladly,” Flame Carrier said and closed her clawlike fingers around Catkin’s forearm. “It seems you did not get much rest. I assure you that all was quiet while you were away. We …”
Flame Carrier’s voice faltered. She gazed at Catkin from the corner of her eye. Catkin had returned very late in the evening the night the War Chief’s wife died. She had also been the one to “discover” the body missing the next day. And then, tonight, she had supposedly been asleep in her chamber.
“What were you saying, Matron?” Catkin asked, as she guided Flame Carrier toward Browser.
“Nothing. Just mumbling to myself.”
Flame Carrier’s blood rushed. Catkin loved Browser. Everyone knew it. Had she so wished his wife dead that she could have killed her and now sought to eliminate anyone who might suspect? Passion often twisted a person’s souls.
Especially a woman’s.
Most women were mothers at heart. The gods had made them that way, whether they liked it or not, whether they actually became mothers or not. Women often saw the man they loved as a child. When that man happened to be married to a unkind woman, they tended to see him as an abused child—one in need of salvation—and that vision formed the rationale for terrifying acts. Getting the child away from the abuse became an obsession. Flame Carrier had seen it. She had known a woman named Maypop, who had dreamed her married lover’s hurts every night, hurts much worse than he had ever experienced, but once her heart became inflamed with those images, they could not be erased by reality. They had flayed her souls with unimaginable pain. To save her lover, Maypop had murdered his wife. Two days later, her lover had set fire to the kindling beneath Maypop’s feet, and watched her scream until the blaze consumed her.
Flame Carrier glanced at Catkin again. Wondering.
Browser strode out to meet Flame Carrier. His buckskin cape, and shorn hair whipped in the wind. His thick black brows had knitted over his flat nose, forming a solid line across his forehead. “Have you been informed, Matron?”
“I’ve heard several things, but I wish to hear the tale from you, War Chief. I understand that you were standing with Whiproot at the guard position when Jackrabbit was attacked. Is this true?”
“Yes, Matron.” He turned and pointed to the ragged hole in the toppled wall near Hophorn’s chamber. “The katsina fled through there. I followed. Later, when he was able, Jackrabbit joined me. We lost the katsina in the dark passageways.”
Flame Carrier pulled up the hood on her cape, shielding her face from the brunt of Wind Baby’s chill breath. “And Whiproot? What happened to him?”
Grief and regret strained Browser’s round face. “I ordered him to guard the Sunwatcher’s chamber. I thought it would be safer than chasing down the katsina.” He exhaled hard. “I was wrong, Matron. I do not know the way of it, but Whiproot was young and as strong as a buffalo. The killer must have surprised him.”
Flame Carrier looked at Catkin. “What tale do the tracks tell?”
“We think the katsina leaped on Whiproot from the roof above Hophorn’s chamber and struck him in the head. They struggled—”
“The blow must have dazed Whiproot, Elder,” Browser said. “That is the only way the killer could have stabbed him twice.”
“He was stabbed?” Flame Carrier asked. “No one told me that.”
“Yes, Matron. The man who killed him also cut open his belly, cut out some intestine, and twirled it around.” He grimaced, as if forcing himself to speak the rest. “The blood and contents spattered the room. He ended by throwing the empty length of gut against the wall.”
Flame Carrier stared blindly at the ground. She had brought her people here to rebuild the ancient ceremonial chamber in the hopes that they could stop the violence, and restore harmony to the unbalanced world. She
believed
the prophecies! How could this be happening?
Flame Carrier clenched her knobby fingers and shook her fist at Browser. “Find out who is doing this, War Chief!”
“I am trying, Matron. Stone Ghost should be here very soon. I expect him tomorrow.”
Flame Carrier struggled to control the futility that shook her limbs. “In the meantime,
do
something to protect our people!”
“Yes, Matron,” he said, and bowed. “I will, I—I will.”
Flame Carrier started to say something else, but a buzz of voices rose around her. She turned and saw Silk Moth scrambling down the ladder into the plaza. Seventeen summers, with short black hair, and a broad catlike face, she wore a gray rabbithide cape. When her feet touched the ground, she ran for Hophorn’s chamber.
Jackrabbit blocked her way, speaking softly to her, clearly trying to prepare her for what she would see inside.
Silk Moth cried, “Get out of my way! Where is my husband?” Her voice rose to a shrill wail.
“Whiproot? Whiproot, where are you?”
Jackrabbit said, “Please, Silk Moth, don’t just run in. Let me tell you—”
“I want my husband!” she screamed and slammed a fist into Jackrabbit’s shoulder. “Let me by!
Whiproot?
”
Silk Moth tried to shove by Jackrabbit, but he held her sternly by the shoulders, saying, “He is dead, Silk Moth. I’m sorry. He was attacked by someone—”
Silk Moth shrieked, “No!” then tore loose from Jackrabbit’s grip and lunged into Hophorn’s chamber.
For a single stunned instant the silence held.
Then an insane cry split the night.
Jackrabbit rushed into Hophorn’s chamber and came out carrying Silk Moth draped limply over his arms, unconscious.
“Oh, gods,” Flame Carrier said in a tortured voice. “The sight must have—”
“Yes.” Browser’s face tensed. “I told you, there is blood everywhere, Matron. The ceiling, walls …”
Flame Carrier’s old heart cramped, skipped a beat, then stuttered to life again. She grabbed Catkin’s arm for support. “War Chief, find someone to carry Whiproot back … No. No, don’t.” Ordinarily the dead were taken home to be prepared by their families for the journey to the Land of the Dead, but she doubted Silk Moth could stand it. “Have Whiproot placed on one of the foot drums in the newly restored kiva. I will see to him myself. Tomorrow.”
“Yes, Matron.”
Over the long sun cycles, Flame Carrier had cared for many of the dead, including her husband and seven children. All of them had died from the coughing sickness. She had washed
their bodies, rubbed them with cornmeal to purify their flesh, then prepared their burial ladders and the clothing they needed for the journey. She would do the same for Whiproot.
Flame Carrier scanned the plaza. She found Redcrop standing at the base of the ladder, helping people down. “I will ask Redcrop to clean Hophorn’s chamber. Terrible chore to give a girl, but someone must do it.”
Catkin said, “I will help her, Matron.”
Flame Carrier gratefully touched Catkin’s wrist. “Redcrop will appreciate that. Thank you.”
She looked at Browser. The lines around his eyes cut deeply into his skin. He appeared to be waiting for a reprimand. Flame Carrier said, “I’m going back to my chamber to rest. Wake me if you need to.”
“Yes, Matron.”
Flame Carrier nodded to Catkin, and hobbled toward the ladder. When Redcrop saw her coming, she ran to Flame Carrier’s side and took her elbow.