“Yeah, well, trust me. Santa’s headquarters at the North Pole isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Ask Rushdie.”
Maureen gave them a disgusted look, then unscrewed the cap, extracted the test tube, and held it up to the lantern light. “Well,” she whispered.
“What is it?” Stewart squinted at the little red blob in the bottom of the test tube.
“A positive reaction,” Maureen said. “The precipitation we’ve just completed tells us that this pot is full of powdered people.”
“Uh-oh,” Sylvia whispered.
Dusty gave Dale an uneasy glance. “Jesus. We’re in trouble.”
“That’s an understatement,” Dale said.
“I don’t understand.” Maureen propped the tube on the table. “In many cultures around the world, people macerate their dead and save the flesh. It’s a variation of keeping your husband’s ashes on the mantle. Among the Chocktaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee—”
“This is the southwest, Maureen,” Dale said, and his gaze locked with Dusty’s.
Dusty nodded and exhaled hard. “Well, at least we know something more about Maureen’s serial murderer.”
“What?” Maureen asked.
Dusty looked at her with bright blue eyes. “He was into a lot of things. He specialized in young women, did a little basic experimentation in neurophysiology with a war club. After he killed his victims, he stripped the flesh from their bones, and …” He let the word hang, and turned to Sylvia.
Sylvia finished, “And used it to make corpse powder.”
“Right.”
“Corpse powder?” Maureen said. “You think that’s what this is?”
“No question about it,” Dale replied. “And we’ve opened it up without taking any precautions. The evil is loose.”
Dusty ran a hand through his blond hair. “Let me be the one to tell Maggie and Elder Walking Hawk. This will probably shut the excavation down for a few days while we undergo a cleansing, but—”
“A few days if we’re lucky,” Dale said. “Things like this can
end
an excavation.”
No one seemed to hear the coffeepot as it began to perk.
S
ISTER MOON’S GLEAM PENETRATED THE GATHERING clouds and streaked the cliffs with soft dove-colored light. Where it fell upon patches of ice, they shone like glassy eyes.
Browser sat with his elbows propped on his knees, throwing pebbles into Straight Path Wash. He had deliberately taken the guard position farthest from the village. If the murderer wanted to find him alone, now was the time.
He longed to see the man face-to-face, with his war club in his hand.
And he could think out here. All the conversations, the laughter, the running children, and the barking dogs had frayed his nerves.
He drew his buckskin cape more tightly around him. Seven warriors walked the torchlit tiers of Talon Town, and another six perched on the roof of Hillside Village. Most of them, he did not know. After Flame Carrier had approved his plan, Browser had gone to the newly arrived matrons from the other villages and explained that he needed additional warriors to maintain the “harmony and sanctity” of the celebration. Everyone knew that large gatherings tended to provoke arguments. Two summers ago in Flowing Waters Town, a man had been killed. The matrons were happy to oblige. He had posted half of the warriors, sixteen men and four women, in strategic locations: on roofs, the mounds in front of Talon Town, and three men on the rim. They would stand guard through the night. Tomorrow, while they slept, he would post the other sixteen warriors.
Wind Baby ruffled Browser’s hair with icy fingers and whistled in his ear, as if taunting him, trying to get him to rise and return to the village.
Browser tossed another pebble into the wash. Moonlight gleamed from the stone as it fell, then he heard it splash into the water.
Dozens of campfires sparkled at the base of the northern canyon wall, running like twisted strands of beads from Kettle Town on his right and well past Talon Town on his left.
At least two hundred and twenty guests had already arrived, and Flame Carrier expected another forty before dawn. Many of the visitors had moved in with friends from Hillside Village. Others had settled into the cleaner rooms in Kettle Town. No one would brave Talon Town. They all knew the legends about the ghosts and witches who roamed the abandoned chambers at night.
Most people had made simple camps in the flats. They’d dug a fire pit, spread out their hides, and arranged their belongings around the camp’s perimeter. Large water pots, painted with tadpoles and baby snakes, stood close to the fires. Beside them sat small-handled pots painted with the sacred images of the Corn Dancers; they contained white cornmeal for making the sacred breads they would share tomorrow night.
A prayer pole stood at each camp. Four perfect ears of yellow corn clothed in glittering beadwork topped the poles. Below them hung magnificent masks draped with necklaces of olivella shells, red coral beads, carved jet bears, and obsidian mountain sheep, as well as fans of mallard, macaw, downy eagle, pinyon jay, and crow feathers. At the base of the pole, a rawhide basket nestled on a willow twig mat. The basket held all colors of corn kernels, squash seeds, pine nuts, sunflower seeds, tobacco, and red-and-white beans. Each was a promise forgotten, but not abandoned. Tomorrow they would be presented to the gods. Gods remembered every vow a person had made to their clans or families and, if properly asked, would gently remind the penitent, so that his loved ones would not know he’d forgotten.
Browser picked up another pebble. He had promised to make Grass Moon a yellow dance stick for this celebration.
His son had seen two summers when Browser first told him the story of the journey through the dark underworlds.
“When humans finally stepped into Father Sun’s blinding light, it hurt them, my son.
Tears ran from their eyes, and each place a tear fell, yellow lilies, and sunflowers grew.”
From that instant, Grass Moon had loved yellow. Ash Girl had dyed all of the ties on their clothing yellow, because it pleased their son.
Browser picked up another pebble.
Ash Girl.
His rage had melted, but he could not describe the emotion that had replaced it. He felt numb, drained of everything human in his souls. After seeing her mutilated body, he could barely think. A part of him still loved Ash Girl, and the realization brought him pain. He also remembered the adoration in Grass Moon’s eyes when he’d looked at his mother.
Browser clutched the pebble and whispered, “I needed her too much. That’s what drove her away. And that’s why she’s dead.”
The sicker Grass Moon became, the more demands Browser had made, and the more time Ash Girl spent searching for a Spirit Helper—as if desperate to ease both his, and their son’s, hurts.
Why hadn’t he seen that?
He’d interpreted her long absences as neglect. Proof that she really hadn’t cared about them at all.
He hurled the pebble into the drainage.
Stone Ghost had said that Ash Girl’s Spirit Helper was a very selective god, only choosing desperate women who were sick themselves or with sick families. He’d said that this “Visitant” promised to cure the illness if the woman would release her souls to him, and that when the woman failed, he killed her.
But now it appeared there were two murderers, not one.
A single madman, Browser could understand. But two? What purpose could they have? What goal would their brutality achieve?
Cloud People sailed in front of Sister Moon, and a well of darkness enveloped Browser. Movement caught his eye.
Across the drainage, a tall dark figure wavered against the firelight. It had no depth, like a cutout of black cloth.
He eased his club from his belt. The blood rushing in his veins turned hot. Sweat ran down his chest. As always before a battle, he felt lightheaded.
As the Cloud People passed, moonlight drenched the canyon again.
Very softly, a voice called, “Browser?”
“Gods, Catkin!” he said, and got to his feet. “Call out to me earlier next time! I was ready to bash in your skull!”
She halted on the opposite bank. “Call out? So the murderers can hear me?” She folded her arms.
He vented a tingling breath. “I thought you were resting?”
“Not anymore.”
Browser stiffened at her tone. “Why not?”
“Come over here, and I’ll tell you about it.”
He trotted for the trail across the wash. As he ran down the slope, and up the other side, some of his tension fled.
Catkin met him at the top of the trail. A black blanket covered her tall lanky body from throat to knees, and she wore black leather leggings, and sandals. Her long braid fell down her back. When Browser got close enough to see her oval face, with its turned-up nose, he noticed how quickly she was breathing.
“Hurry,” he said. “Tell me.”
“Your great-uncle found something interesting. Come and see.”
Catkin turned and headed back for Hillside Village.
“Tell me! I want to know now.”
“He wants to tell you.”
They walked in silence to the edge of the crowd, then Catkin extended a hand. “Stone Ghost is sitting by the plaza fire with Flame Carrier and Corn Mother. Go. I will take your guard position until you return.”
Browser pushed through the crowd, saying, “Forgive me … I’m sorry, I must reach the matrons … Pardon me, please.”
He shouldered through the last throng of about thirty people who blocked his way and stepped out into the firelight.
Stone Ghost sat on a blanket with a pile of rocks between his scrawny legs. Ash coated his wrinkled face and mangy cape and even caked in the creases of his eyelids. The resulting black line gave him a bizarre appearance.
Flame Carrier looked grim. Wet gray hair framed her small narrow eyes, and bulbous nose, as if she’d been perspiring despite the
cold. The beautiful red-feathered cape that Ash Girl had made for her glimmered in the wavering firelight.
Corn Mother, from Frosted Meadow Village, sat to the right, whispering with a young man. A woman sat next to him, her face pale and strained from the coughing sickness.
“Nephew?” Stone Ghost called. “Come. See what we’ve discovered.”
Browser walked wide around the fire and squatted in front of the old man. People must have been waiting for Browser’s arrival. The throng pressed closer, hissing and pointing, their eyes wide.
Browser frowned down at the rocks on the blanket.
It took several moments before he understood.
He reached out and touched the fragments. “That’s the head of Whip—of a dead warrior’s club, Uncle. The way it’s cracked, you must have found it in a fire. Where?”
“Catkin said it was his, too,” Stone Ghost answered in a calm voice. “It had been cast into a blazing fire, a fire built up so high and hot, it would be certain to shatter chert. The murderer, or murderers, never thought anyone would sift through the bed of ashes to dig out the tiny pieces that remained.”
Browser drew his hand back, and clenched it in his lap. “You found this …” His voice faded as his souls started to ache. “In the ritual fire pit? The one where Hophorn was sitting?”
Stone Ghost’s dark gaze affected Browser like a lance in his heart. He seemed to sense that the news about Whiproot would wound Browser deeply.
Stone Ghost clasped Browser’s wrist in a gesture of sympathy. “Matron Flame Carrier has set a pot of pine pitch on to boil. As soon as it is ready, we must glue these pieces back together. Will you help me?”
“Of course. Yes, Uncle.”
“Good,” he said, “then we will see if the shape matches.”
“Matches? You mean the—the dent in Hophorn’s skull?”
Stone Ghost shook his head sadly. “No, Nephew.” He prodded the pieces of the rock, shoving them closer together. “I am more concerned about the strange mark by the fire pit. The one you thought might be a ‘heel’ print.”
Confused, Browser said, “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you?” Stone Ghost asked gently, and his smile warmed as he cryptically added, “That’s good.”
“LET ME FETCH A TORCH, UNCLE.” BROWSER’S VOICE sounded hollow, as though his insides had been kicked out. He could not take his eyes from the fractured head of the war club. “I will meet you at the southwestern corner of Talon Town.”
Stone Ghost rose to his feet, and two more feathers fell out of his ash-coated cape and fluttered to the ground. His brown socks showed through the holes in his moccasins. “We will be there shortly, Nephew.”
Browser bowed to the matrons and shouldered through the whispering crowd. People watched him with worried eyes.
He took the trail that curved around the eastern wall of Talon Town. Each time his sandals landed he felt as if another chunk of his souls had shaken loose and shattered to nothingness.
It couldn’t be true. Not Whiproot. Not the man he’d warred beside, and relied upon, even entrusted with his life.
When Browser ran beneath the enormous images of the gods, he glanced up at Badger. The magnificent katsina’s eyes gleamed. He seemed to watch Browser as he hurried around the corner of the town and onto the road. At dusk, he’d staked two juniper bark torches on either side of the ladder to the roof. He ran for the closest one and pulled it out of the ground.
Jackrabbit crouched on the edge of the roof, his wide brown eyes and pug nose glowing orange in the wavering gleam. He’d tucked his shoulder-length hair behind his ears. His doeskin cape flapped in the wind.
“War Chief?” he yelled. “Is all well?”
Jackrabbit turned when a long line of people filed around the corner and marched up the road toward Browser. Stone Ghost and Flame Carrier led the procession.
“What’s happening?” Jackrabbit hissed. He wet his lips as if his mouth had suddenly gone dry.
Browser called, “Stone Ghost found the head of a war club in a fire pit. We—”
“Whose war club? Why was it in a fire pit?”
The procession, at least one hundred people, stopped, and began
shoving on the road behind Browser, trying to peer around each other to hear what Browser was saying. As they moved, the brilliant reds, blues, and yellows of their clothing appeared to be a fluid rainbow.
“Everything is well, Jackrabbit. This is just another thing we must look into.”
Jackrabbit gazed down at the crowd. He could tell from people’s expressions that it was not “just another thing,” but he said, “Yes, War Chief.”
Stone Ghost hobbled by Browser with the glued chert cobble clutched in his right hand. It resembled an oddly shaped black-and-white egg. The pitch had not taken long to set in the cold, but the head of the club was not whole. Many small gaps remained. Stone Ghost had filled them with pitch as best he could, but one end of the cobble had a deep notch in it. The piece that fit there had probably exploded into a thousand tiny fragments in the blazing fire. Browser suspected they’d never find it.