“Tell me about the passageways?”
“Well, I—I know almost nothing, Uncle. None of us have spent much time inside. The town is falling apart. Every day we hear crashes and thuds as new sections of walls collapse. No one willingly enters that decaying hive. It is very dangerous.”
Flame Carrier added, “When we first arrived, ten moons ago, a twelve-summers-old girl was killed running through the passageways. Browser’s wife was with her. She said a roof collapsed on top
of the girl. I have forbidden children to enter the town, except with an adult.”
Browser could see thoughts churning behind Stone Ghost’s eyes. Suspicion glinted.
“We found her body beneath a pile of rubble and fallen timbers, Uncle. It must have been an accident.”
“Where did you find her?”
Browser turned, and pointed to the northeastern side of Talon Town, near Propped Pillar. “There. In a fourth-story chamber.”
Stone Ghost gazed at it, then swirled his tea in his clay cup. For a time, only the moan of wind stirred the silence. Stone Ghost pulled the worn softness of his feathered cape up around his throat and sipped from his cup.
“Did you know,” he said, “that the last Matron of Talon Town was as mad as a foaming-mouth skunk?”
Browser blinked, wondering what that had to do with the murderer. “No.”
“Oh, yes, it was a calamity for the First People. The Blessed Night Sun ran away with her lover, the War Chief Ironwood, and the next woman in line was completely daft. Let me see. I think her name was Featherstone. Yes. I believe that’s right. As a child, Featherstone had been captured and taken slave by the Fire Dogs. They had beaten her in the head until her souls hung by the thinnest of webs, sometimes in her body, frequently not. She—”
“Uncle,” Browser said reprovingly, “what does this have to do with the murderer?”
Stone Ghost looked at Browser with unwavering concentration. “Why, everything, my nephew.”
“Why should it concern us that more than one hundred sun cycles ago, Featherstone was struck in the head?”
“Because she was,” Stone Ghost responded. “I heard that tale from my own grandmother, the Blessed Orenda. You don’t think she lied to me, do you?”
“No, Uncle. I just don’t see how the story is related—”
“Oh, all things are related to all other things, my nephew. Whether we like it or not. Yes?”
Browser glanced at Matron Flame Carrier, saw her mouth turned down. He replied, “I wouldn’t know, Uncle.”
Stone Ghost cocked his head like a curious bird. He pointed to a chunk of sandstone twenty hands away. “Do you see that rock? If we went back far enough, I guarantee you we would discover that it hit someone in the head.” He paused to examine Browser’s expression. “Humans are like that. We bash each other all the time and for the most trivial of reasons.” He lifted a finger. “But, if you make a careful study of bashed heads, you learn a lot about rocks and the people who throw them. Do you see what I mean?”
Flame Carrier gruffly folded her arms beneath her turkey feather cape, and gave Browser a disgruntled look. “I told you his souls flitted around like bats.”
Stone Ghost swerved to stare at her. “Well, I should think that fact would comfort you, considering that I am here to study people whose souls flit around like bats.”
“What?” Browser asked in confusion.
Stone Ghost swung back. “Oh, come, my Nephew. Your wife had no friends, did she? People feared and distrusted her. Many accused her of witchcraft and whispered that she sent her souls ‘flitting’ about at night to harm others. She suffered violent headaches and on occasion went for days without speaking—”
“How do you know that?” Browser leaped to his feet in sudden fright. The old man’s reputation for Power, and possibly even sorcery, dropped on Browser’s chest like a landslide. His hand instinctively lowered to his war club. “You never knew my wife!”
Stone Ghost gazed at Browser through strange, glowing eyes. “No, but I know a great deal about her, Nephew. Because I know her Spirit Helper.”
Silk Moth let out a wrenching cry, and the world seemed to go still. They all turned to look behind them, toward her chamber at the western end of Hillside Village. Her cries dropped to a series of suffocating gasps.
Browser gripped his club to halt the quaking of his hand. “Is Wolf your Spirit Helper, as well?”
“Mine? No.” Stone Ghost shook his white head. “This katsina is a very selective god. It takes him moons of careful observation and much thought before he chooses those he will visit. He makes certain they are outcasts in their villages, and either sick themselves, or with desperately ill family members. He claims he can
cure the coughing sickness if only the woman, or girl, will release her souls to him.” Stone Ghost rose to his feet and took a step toward Browser. “She tries, of course, very hard. She doesn’t wish to die, or to see precious family members die. But she fails. Always. The punishments inflicted by The Visitant for this failure are severe.”
Browser’s nerves had started to hum. “How do you know these things? Did Catkin tell you about my wife?”
“Catkin is very loyal to you, my nephew. I have a different source of information. The families of the dead in Whitetail Village, Badgerpaw, and Frosted Meadow Village.”
“What would they know about my … wife …” Browser’s voice faded.
“Each of those villages had lost members over the past sun cycle. Women. Girls. Everyone assumed raiders had stolen them.”
Browser stared unblinking at Stone Ghost. “Are you telling me that all of these females were murdered? By the same man?”
“That appears to be the case, Nephew.”
Flame Carrier’s small brown eyes flared. “Are you certain of this?”
Stone Ghost smiled. “The first rule of investigation, Matron, is that if you are certain, you’ve probably got it wrong.”
Stone Ghost hobbled back toward his rock but before he seated himself he said, “Tell me one last thing. During the turmoil in Talon Town last night, where was the Blessed Cloudblower? Is her chamber not there? In the town?”
“Her chamber is there, yes, but she was not,” Browser said. “We have many people ill with the coughing sickness. Cloudblower was in Hillside, Healing.”
Stone Ghost nodded mildly. “Yes, I’m sure she was.” He sat on the rock and sighed, “It will be dawn in another hand of time. When we have enough light, Nephew, I would like you to show me the passageway where you chased the katsina.”
“I will gladly show you, Uncle, but I wish to examine Straight Path Wash first. Before the frost melts.”
“Ah.” Stone Ghost nodded. “Yes, of course. For tracks. I will wait in the First People’s kiva. I must examine Whiproot anyway. I am in no rush.”
“Well, I am,” Flame Carrier replied. She rose and propped herself on her walking stick. Gray hair fell around her wrinkled face. “The Ceremony of the Longnight begins day after tomorrow. I don’t like the idea that a murderer might be moving among us, choosing his next victim.” She stabbed her walking stick at Stone Ghost.
“Find him.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” Stone Ghost said with a smile. He finished his tea and poured the dregs on the hearthstones where the droplets sizzled and popped. “I assure you, he will find me. They always do.”
C
ATKIN WOKE AT THE SOUND OF SANDALS ON THE ROOF. She rolled onto her back and squinted against the morning light that pooled on the western wall.
“Catkin?” Redcrop’s young voiced called. “Are you awake?”
Catkin sat up in her buffalo hide. Her breath formed a white cloud in the cold air. Through her roof entry, she could see the girl’s pretty oval face and large black eyes. She wore a yellow-and-red-painted deerhide cape. Behind her, the dawn sky shone glistening and golden. “What is it, Redcrop?”
“Matron Flame Carrier requests that you meet with her in the First People’s kiva. Stone Ghost arrived last night. The clan Elders—”
“What?” She threw back her hide, and lurched to her feet, sleepily looking around for her cape, comb, and a number of other things she knew she needed, but could not think of right now. “Why was I not informed?”
“The Matron knew you were exhausted. She did not wish to wake you. The clan Elders and the War Chief are already in the kiva. They were about to begin but Stone Ghost insisted that I come and fetch you first.”
“Please tell the Elders that I will be there shortly.”
“Yes, Catkin.”
Redcrop’s face disappeared, and Catkin heard her steps retreating across the roof.
Disoriented and groggy, Catkin stumbled toward the big red pot that stood in the northeastern corner of her chamber. She opened the lid and surveyed the array of folded war shirts, cotton socks, hair pins, shell bracelets, combs, and pendants. The icy
wind last night had knotted her hair. She pulled out a comb, and tugged it through the tangled mass, and winced as she ripped out strands.
She had been up half the night reliving the events, hearing the disturbance, leaping out of bed, and running to Talon Town only to discover no ladder there. Panicked by the cries coming from inside, she had dispatched He-Who-Flies for a ladder, and tried to climb the south wall of the town, to no avail. Then, after He-Who-Flies delivered the ladder, and she had made it inside, the sight of Whiproot, the look on Hophorn’s face when Cloudblower had entered the chamber … How could anyone sleep?
Catkin pinned up her long hair and fastened it with two plain wooden hair combs. As she slipped off her tan sleeping shirt, she examined the folded clothing in the pot, and selected a knee-length red shirt with white lines zigzagging around the collar and hem. She slipped it over her head, and reached for her buckskin leggings, then stepped into her sandals. She grabbed her cape and climbed the ladder into the morning cold.
Around twenty men and women stood in a whispering ring around the plaza fire pit below, their backs stiff, expressions taut. A group of unnaturally quiet children squatted a short distance away, playing a dice game. Their young eyes kept darting about, as if anxiously waiting to see what would happen next. A half-dozen dogs slept on the warm sand near the fire, their ears pricking when someone got loud.
Catkin climbed down the ladder and headed for Talon Town. As she passed the fire pit Peavine yelled, “Wait!” and shouldered through the crowd. Black-streaked gray hair straggled around her ugly square face, and deep lines cut her forehead, making her appear much older than her thirty summers. Her doeskin cape flapped as she hurried toward Catkin. “I have been talking with the others. We wish to know if the stories are true.”
Irritated, Catkin said, “Peavine, I have been summoned by the Matron. I do not have luxury of discussing—”
“Is it true that Stone Ghost has spent the past several days visiting the other villages in the canyon where young women have gone missing?”
Catkin spread her arms. “I have also heard that, but I do not know for certain. I have not spoken with him since I left his house days ago.”
Peavine whispered, “Is it true that he is related to the War Chief?”
Catkin hesitated. Peavine would know soon enough, but Catkin did not wish to be the one to stoke rumors. “You will have to ask the War Chief, Peavine.”
Peavine’s black eyes glittered with suspicion. “How can we expect fairness from the War Chief’s great-uncle? Surely Stone Ghost will not question his nephew.”
Catkin glared. “Peavine, when Whiproot was killed last night, Browser was with Jackrabbit. He could not possibly be the murderer.”
“That is not what I heard,” Peavine said and cocked her head, peering at Catkin through one eye. “Jackrabbit told me that the War Chief ordered him to stay inside the dark passageways while he went out into the plaza alone. She lowered her voice. “Who is to say what happened in the time the two men were separated.” Peavine shrugged. “Perhaps Hophorn knows, but she has told no one.”
Catkin took a threatening step toward Peavine, and hissed, “If Jackrabbit told you that much, then he also told you the War Chief was standing with Whiproot on the roof when Jackrabbit was first attacked.” She jammed a finger into Peavine’s chest. “If you are going to tell the story, tell the
whole
story.”
Catkin stalked away.
Behind her, Peavine called, “The whole story? How about this? The War Chief bribed someone to attack Jackrabbit to create a diversion, so that he could kill Whiproot!”
Catkin clenched her fists to quell her anger and walked straight to the road that ran in front of Talon Town’s south wall. The crushed potsherds on the road shimmered and winked in the morning light. Jackrabbit stood guard on the roof ahead of her. When he saw her coming he lowered the ladder over the side.
“Thank you, my friend,” she called.
“It is good to see you, Catkin.”
As Catkin climbed, she studied his face. He looked every bit a frightened fifteen-summers-old youth. He nervously brushed his
shoulder-length black hair behind his ears and bit his lip, watching her.
Catkin stepped off the ladder onto the roof and said, “How long have you been here?”
“Here? Not long. Two hands of time. I spent most of the night guarding Cloudblower’s chamber.”
Catkin peered down at the kiva that formed a large circle in the middle of the plaza below. Smoke rose through the hole in the roof, scenting the air with the rich fragrance of cedar. If Jackrabbit had stood guard most of yesterday, then all night long, he must be growing muddleheaded, perhaps even feeling ill.
Catkin pulled up the ladder and lowered it into the plaza. She stepped onto the top rung and said, “How are you, Jackrabbit?”
He gestured awkwardly. “Tired. I—I keep hearing Whiproot’s screams.”
They stared at each other in shared pain. Whiproot had been a good friend to both of them.
“And your head?” She pointed to the place he’d been struck last night.
He touched it and winced. “The blow glanced off my skull. I have a headache, but it is bearable. Cloudblower made me drink several cups of willow root tea. They lessened the pain.”
Catkin said, “Good,” but gazed at him worriedly. Jackrabbit should be home wrapped in thick hides and fast asleep. Yesterday, they’d had seven full-time warriors. Now one was dead. Browser had clearly made the judgment that after Catkin’s long run, she needed the sleep more than Jackrabbit. She wasn’t certain he’d made the right choice. Injured, fatigued men tended to say things they did not mean.
“Jackrabbit, Peavine stopped me near the plaza fire. Did you …” She hesitated, then finished, “Did you say anything to her that might have led her to believe the War Chief murdered Whiproot ?”
Jackrabbit’s mouth fell open in shock. “No! Catkin, I would never do that! Last night, she asked me what had happened, and I told her. I do not know how she could have misunderstood—”
Catkin waved it away. “Forgive me for asking. Peavine deliberately misunderstands when it suits her purposes. You are tired,
and have enough to concern you. When I am finished in the kiva, I will take your place here.”
Jackrabbit nodded his gratitude. “Thank you. I—I could use sleep.”
Catkin clasped him on the shoulder. “I won’t be long.”
She climbed down and walked across the plaza. Ahead of her the thirty-hand-tall figures of the Great Warriors of East and West peered down. The rich reds, blues, and yellows of their terrifying masks gleamed with an unearthly brilliance in the morning sun. The lightning bolts in their upraised fists seemed to blaze. An eerie gloom hovered in the plaza, like the stench of carrion on a hot day. Catkin’s shoulder muscles bunched as she walked.
Long before she reached the doorway that led into the altar room outside of the kiva she heard soft voices.
Catkin ducked low to enter through the T-shaped doorway and stared up at the katsinas painted on the walls. Their gaudy, inhuman masks were hateful, fierce. They had their fangs bared and bows drawn, aimed at the person who had just stepped through the entry. At this moment, her. To her right stood a long rectangular stone altar, freshly plastered in white and painted with the images of mountain lion, coyote, rattlesnake, a rainbow, the sun, moon, and morning and evening stars. To her left, a narrow recessed stairway led down into the subterranean ceremonial chamber. Firelight gilded the steps.
Flame Carrier called, “Catkin? Is that you?”
“Yes, Matron.”
Catkin climbed down. Torches burned on either side of the stairs, casting a haunting yellow light over the magnificent circular chamber. They would initiate this chamber tomorrow during the Ceremony of the Longnight and spend the rest of the evening praying that their efforts would open a tunnel to the underworlds, as the Blessed Poor Singer had prophesied.
One hundred hands away, at the opposite end of the kiva, Stone Ghost and Browser tended the ritual fire. Stone Ghost added sticks, while Browser blew on the coals to help them catch. The richness of cedar infused the chilly air.
Four square pillars, painted red, supported the pole roof. In the middle of the pillars that ran north and south, two long rectangular
foot-drums stood. During ceremonials, musicians sat on the edge of the drums, and tapped the leather surface with their feet. Whiproot’s body lay to her left on the eastern foot-drum, covered with the blanket Catkin had thrown over him last night. Gray-and-black geometric designs banded the top and bottom of the white blanket. Dried blood splotched the center.
Catkin lowered her eyes.
My friend. Gone.
Somewhere in this room Whiproot’s ghost stood and watched, wishing they would proceed with his burial so that he could be on his way to the afterlife.
Soon, I promise you.
Three levels of benches encircled the chamber. The lowest bench had been painted yellow, the next red, and the highest bench shone blue. Above the blue bench, thirty-six glorious katsina masks stared at Catkin through hollow eye sockets. Crypts, filled with offerings, sank into the white walls just beneath the masks. Catkin’s gaze took in the bowls of corn pollen, buffalo horn spoons, elaborately carved shell pendants, dance sticks, and beautifully painted gourd rattles. The Katsinas’ People possessed little, but they had given their best to these gods.
The four Elders sat in a line on the yellow bench to her left. Catkin bowed to them.
Wading Bird sat closest to Catkin, his bald head shining in the firelight, his gnarled fists propped on his knees. His fringed brown cotton shirt and pants looked freshly washed. Despite his age, he had lost none of his keen sensibilities. He had not taken his eyes from Stone Ghost.
Springbank sat beside Wading Bird in a red-feathered cape. He had his wrinkled lips sucked in over toothless gums. Sparse white hair matted his freckled scalp. After sixty-five summers, Springbank did not see very well. He had to squint to focus his eyes. He seemed to be scrutinizing Whiproot’s body.
Cloudblower nodded to Catkin. Catkin nodded back. The sacred Man-Woman had plaited her gray-streaked black hair into two long braids and left them to drape the front of her white doehide dress. Her triangular face with slanting eyes and sharply pointed nose appeared frozen as though she held onto her emotions with an iron fist.
Flame Carrier sat to Cloudblower’s left. Her brown-and-white feathered cape shimmered in the firelight. She had fastened her gray hair over her ears with shell combs. The style did not enhance her appearance. Her bulbous nose resembled a dark brown egg tucked into a wrinkled nest.
“I came as you ordered, Matron,” Catkin said.
Flame Carrier gestured at Stone Ghost and Browser. “As soon as we have a reliable fire, we will begin.”
Stone Ghost grunted as he rose to his feet and grinned at Catkin. “It’s good to see you again, child! I passed you on the road the day you left. You were sleeping, and I didn’t wish to wake you. My heart soars to see you alive.”
Browser stood and his thick black brows drew together. His round face and black hair gleamed in the flickering firelight. “Were you in danger?”
“No, War Chief.”
By noon that day Catkin had been too haggard to run another step. She had curled into a snow shadow on the lee side of a large boulder and fallen into a dead sleep. She had awakened late in the afternoon, made a watery soup of boiled snow, deer jerky, and cornmeal, then had run until the darkness and falling snow halted her for the night. Had Stone Ghost bulled ahead through the darkness and storm?