“Did she say when?”
He shook his head. “No, but I have known her since we were children, Catkin. The look in her eyes told me she meant
soon.
”
A swallow went down Catkin’s throat. The morning breeze fluttered her hair around her face. Her eyes lifted to the towering canyon wall. Snow filled the shadowed crevices, and wispy Cloud People sailed through the blue above the tan sandstone.
“What are you looking for?” Browser asked.
Catkin tipped her chin to the rim. “For the place where they must stand.”
“Who?”
“Hasn’t it occurred to you? The perfect place to watch from is up there. Men could sit on the rim, unnoticed, all day. They could study people’s habits, when they rise, when they go for water, how often, and at what times of day they walk alone. It would take little effort. They could bide their time until they saw their chance.”
Browser felt as if he’d been bludgeoned. “Blessed gods,” he whispered. “We have to post guards on the rim. Why didn’t you tell me this before? When did you first—”
“The day we found your wife,” she said. “That was when I …” She paused. A strand of black hair blew across her turned-up nose and tangled with her long eyelashes, but she did not seem to notice. “Browser, how well can a person hear from up there?”
A light-headed euphoria filled him. “The canyon wall seems to magnify sound. I have stood on the rim many times and heard every word spoken by people in Hillside Village, You think they—”
“Listen,” she finished. “Yes.”
The slanting light touched the dark circles beneath her eyes and flashed from her juniper hair combs. She shifted to examine the road that ran in front of Talon Town, and Browser gripped her hand to make her look back at him. He was conscious of the warmth of her skin and the frail bones beneath her long fingers.
“Catkin, why didn’t you wish to enter Cloudblower’s chamber?”
The longer he held her hand, the more swiftly her pulse pounded.
As though choosing her words with care, she whispered, “There is something …” A shiver went through her.
“What?”
“I do not know, War Chief!” she hissed angrily. “There is something in her chamber. I have never seen it, but whenever I go near her chamber, I
feel
it, like a serpent slithering through my veins!”
Browser stood rigid. “Is it a—a Spirit, or a thing? Perhaps a witch’s charm? We must tell Cloudblower. She may not even know it’s there.”
In the long silence that followed, Browser saw Redcrop and another slave, an old man named Hawkfoot, walk down to the drainage with water jars swinging in their hands. The shell bells on their sandals clicked. As Father Sun rose higher into the sky, the shadows scuttled back, clinging against the cliffs like dark frightened children.
Catkin whispered, “Cloudblower knows it’s there.”
“How can you be so certain?”
She disentangled her arm from his grip and walked away into the slanting rays of sunlight that fell through the clouds. She held her head down, as if disinclined to continue their discussion.
Browser matched her stride. “Do you think Cloudblower is involved in these murders?”
“Do you?” she said, and a half-hearted smile touched her lips. “I doubt that either of us do.”
He took her hand again, forcing her to stop. “Explain.”
Catkin gazed down into the plaza. Two hundred hands away, Cloudblower stood beside Stone Ghost. “Haven’t you ever noticed?
Whenever I must go to her chamber, she never invites me in. She always comes out to meet me, as if she knows that
I
know.”
“Know what?”
“That she is hiding something. That she has a terrible secret. Something she wishes no one to know.”
“Are you accusing her of—”
“Nothing! I would never accuse Cloudblower of harming anyone, War Chief! I love her. She is a good and kind woman. She works very hard to Heal the sick and injured. She loves children and tirelessly cares for the old people. How could I accuse Cloudblower of anything wicked?”
Browser searched her tormented expression. He was not sure if she’d meant that last statement to be taken seriously or if it had been a cry of frustration, meaning no one would believe her if she did.
He reluctantly released her fingers, and propped his hands on his hips. “You are not being wholly truthful, Catkin. I know you. Why aren’t you sharing your thoughts with me?”
Her eyes evaded his.
Browser fumbled with the polished handle of his war club. Over the sun cycles the wood had absorbed the oils from his hands, the blood of his victims. The club felt solid beneath his fingers: the only thing in the world that did.
He glanced up at Catkin. Loneliness always drove him to her, and he’d never felt more lonely in his life than he did at this instant.
“Please, my friend,” Browser said softly. “There are many good reasons for not trusting me, and I know them all. I am often foolish. But”—he looked up and she held his gaze—“you must know that you are the only person in the world I trust completely. I know you keep my confidences locked in your heart, and you must know that I do the same for you.”
“Yes. I do.”
He spread his arms wide. “Then trust me now. I am worried that there are many things you have kept from me, and I need to hear them. Do you understand? I should have posted guards on the rim the day we found my wife. I was confused and grieving.” He tightened his fists and frowned at the rim above Skink and Water
Snake. A flock of pinyon jays floated on the air currents, flapping and diving. “I am still grieving. I need you to help me, Catkin.”
She looked vulnerable. Her hair combs winked as she turned to look southward, across the canyon. The sparse grasses gleamed like a mottled golden blanket.
Browser moved to stand close beside her, his face no more than two hands away. He could smell the delicate fragrance that clung to her hair, and see the sweat that beaded the elegant line of her jaw. “Please. Help me.”
Catkin closed her eyes. “The night I—I found you … on the cliff? Last summer?”
“Yes?” he said, but shame filled him. He’d fought half the night with Ash Girl. His son had been huddled in his blankets with his head covered, coughing and whimpering. When Browser had lifted his fist to strike Ash Girl, he’d suddenly stopped, realizing what he was about to do. He’d run from their chamber like a madman. Catkin had found him on the rim, bent double, sobbing like a five-summers-old child.
“What about that night, Catkin?”
She wet her lips. “What name were you calling?”
Browser frowned in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“You were calling a name.
Shadow
something. I heard you, as I climbed the stairs cut into the cliff.”
“I called out to no one, Catkin.”
She looked at him as though angry that he would lie to her at a moment like this.
“I swear I called to no one. Why do you think I’m lying?”
“It was your voice, Browser. I would know your voice anywhere. Unless …” Her anger vanished in an instant, replaced by naked fear.
“What is it?”
She whispered, “Did you know that Cloudblower was there?”
“You mean … on the rim?”
“Yes. When I helped you to your feet I heard her whispering.”
His bushy brows drew together, not sure he understood why that bothered Catkin. Cloudblower had probably heard his fight with Ash Girl, and had been worried about him. “And?”
“She was not alone, Browser. At first I thought she was speaking with He-Who-Flies. The man had a deep voice.”
“Go on.”
Catkin’s eyes scanned the ruins behind them and the roads in front of them. In the distance, several people walked toward Talon Town.
“Browser, just before we left, I saw eyes flash in the darkness. The man and I stared straight at each other. His eyes blazed, as though I had stumbled upon a private ritual, and he hated me for it. Or perhaps he hated me for being with you, I don’t know. I—”
“It was dark, Catkin. If you could not see Cloudblower—”
“I am not finished,” she cut him off.
Browser closed his mouth. “Forgive me.”
“I have heard that man’s voice at least one other time.”
“When?”
Catkin shivered. “Last night. The voice that cried ‘Help me!’ That wasn’t Whiproot, Browser.
It was him.
”
STONE GHOST RELEASED CLOUDBLOWER’S ARM AND PEERED through the jagged hole in the wall. Fallen pieces of red sandstone scattered the floor. A musty scent suffused the darkness. He could make out the sandal tracks of at least three people in the soft windblown dirt.
“Have you ever been in here?” Stone Ghost asked.
Cloudblower’s face tensed. “Yes, Elder. Last Moon of Blazing Sun. I came looking for a cool place to sleep.”
“The interior chambers stay cool in the summer heat?” Cloudblower nodded.
Stone Ghost patted the stones in the crumbling wall, and sighed, “My grandmother told me that. She said that winter or summer the temperature varied little in the innermost chambers.”
Cloudblower cocked her head, and her long graying black braids fell over the front of her painted deerhide cape. “That is true, Elder. Though few people know it. Did your grandmother live here?”
“No, but she grew up with the Blessed Poor Singer, and he told her many tales of this place.”
In a soft, reverent voice, Cloudblower said, “Your grandmother
knew the Blessed prophet? I would have given anything to have seen him just once in my life. What was your grandmother’s name?”
“I’m sure you’ve never heard of her. She came from a great people who live far to the east. They are mountain builders. They carry dirt in baskets for hundreds of sun cycles until they’ve piled up small mountains, then they place their houses on top of them. Her own people called her Orenda, though later in her life she came to be known as The Blessed Mother, because no one was allowed to hurt a child in her presence. She would not even allow a parent to utter a harsh word or give a misbehaving child an unkind look. She spent much of her life loving and protecting children.” A fond smile warmed his wrinkled face. “I think she missed her people, though. She often spoke of their magnificent artwork, the brilliant fabrics they wove, the extraordinary stone-workers who labored for the Sunborn.”
“The Sunborn?”
“Her people.”
“Curious,” Cloudblower murmured. “Why would people do that? Build mountains?”
Stone Ghost stepped inside the dark chamber, and blinked until his eyes adjusted. Refuse clotted the floor. A large packrat nest of juniper needles, grass, feathers, and bits of fur filled the corner to his right. Ahead of him, he could just make out a dark T-shaped doorway.
“My grandmother’s people believe that Father Sun and Mother Earth were torn apart at the moment of creation and that by building mountains they help Mother Earth to touch fingertips with Father Sun.”
“They believe that the earth is their mother?” Cloudblower said disdainfully. “Not their grandmother?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
Cloudblower folded her arms. “That is foolishness. Our Grandmother Earth gave birth to first woman, then she gave birth to the Great Warriors of East and West who helped the people to climb through the underworlds. The twins ridded the surface world of monsters, in order that we might walk unhindered through the light, and—”
“Yes, that is what we believe. The Mountain Builders would think our stories just as foolish as you do theirs, Healer.”
Stone Ghost backed out into the wan winter sunlight and smiled. Cloudblower did not return the gesture. Her expression was that of a man accused of something he had not done.
Stone Ghost sat down on the pile of fallen stones beside the hole in the wall and propped his hands on his knees. A chill breeze blew around the plaza, kicking up plumes of dust. Cloudblower remained standing. Stone Ghost examined the red and yellow images of the gods that danced around the hem of her cape. The Wolf katsina led the procession, followed by the Sun katsina, and Badger.
Stone Ghost hooked a thumb at the wall behind him. “My nephew and I are going to search these ruins this morning. What do you think we will find?”
“I can’t say, Elder.”
Stone Ghost braced his hands on his knees and gazed up into her troubled face. “On my way here, I visited several villages.”
Cloudblower’s teeth ground beneath the thin veneer of her cheeks. “Yes, I know.”
“I discovered some interesting and terrible things. In the past sun cycle, each of those villages has lost a woman or a girl. Many of the victims were dragged through the villages and left in the plaza for all to see. Then their bodies were stolen. Just like my nephew’s wife. Most of the relatives of those women believe raiders are responsible.”