Springbank said, “The sacred trail will lead your son to the Great North Road. From there he will be able to find his way to the Land of the Dead.”
It would also lure his hungry ghost away from the village before it could grab onto any of the living and take them with him.
Wading Bird shuffled for the door, and the other Elders followed, ducking out into the icy morning wind.
Catkin stepped forward with the burial ladder. Made of juniper branches, it looked feeble and small. But it would be enough to carry his little son.
“Come,” Browser said. “He is ready.”
For such a tall woman, she moved with remarkable grace. Her white cape swayed around her strong body. Beneath the cape, she wore a knee-length blue warshirt. She had painted a black coyote on the front. Whiproot followed her, his face made all the more sober by the ribbed white scars.
Catkin placed the ladder beside Grass Moon’s white blankets and murmured, “Whiproot, help me lift him onto the ladder.”
Whiproot set his pot of coals aside and gripped the edges of the burial blankets. They lifted Grass Moon as if moving a mortally injured man. Whiproot set the pot of coals by Grass Moon’s side and took one end of the ladder, while Catkin took the other.
Browser exchanged a soft look with Catkin as they passed and bent to pick up the tied bundle of Grass Moon’s clothing. He clutched it to his breast and stepped out into the cold.
Mourners lined both sides of the cornmeal trail, weeping, and tearing at their clothing. Many had cut their hair short in grief—as he would when the ritual ended. Several people coughed, suffering the same illness that had taken Grass Moon. They had a haunted look, a thin grayness to their pallor. Their eyes had grown cavernous in their heads.
Catkin and Whiproot filed slowly past them, allowing each person to touch the boy or lay gifts on his chest.
The lavender shadows coated Grass Moon’s face like liquid amethyst.
Browser stood numbly.
Grass Moon’s bubbly laugh rose in his memory, and he saw the boy’s shining face smiling up at him, his arms reaching out, wanting to be held …
Browser’s chest seemed to expand, filling with black tingling emptiness.
You can do this. Just walk. See this through.
He forced himself to place one foot in front of the other. Propped Pillar, a massive slab of sandstone that had broken away from the canyon wall, stood to his right, leaning threateningly over the ruins of what they prayed was Talon Town. The top of the pillar glowed golden.
Browser followed the burial ladder out onto the path that curved around the massive eastern wall of the town. Painted katsinas danced across the cracked white plaster. Three times the height of a man, the gods wore fearsome masks. Once, long ago, they must have stirred awe. Now, they looked pitiful. Chunks of the paintings had flaked off with the plaster, adding to the pile of debris at the base of the wall. Several of the gods were missing eyes, arms, or legs. Only the last painting remained disturbingly intact. The Badger katsina stood tall and black, his eyes glistening with life.
Four terraces of blue thunder clouds adorned his chest, and white streaks of falling rain striped his kirtle. He carried a fire ball in his right hand.
The Badger katsina had been repainted recently. Not by his village or any of the other small villages in Straight Path Canyon, but by someone. The red fire ball looked molten.
As Browser passed, a whisper, like wind through sage, pricked his ears. The katsina seemed to lean toward Browser, trying to get his attention.
Browser shot him a hard look in return. Unlike his wife, he had never longed to speak with the gods. He did not understand them, nor did he wish to.
Catkin and Whiproot rounded the southeastern corner of Talon Town and headed west along the road. Six body-lengths wide, the roadbed sparkled with crushed pot sherds.
The straight east-west wall of Talon Town faced south. Huge patches of plaster had fallen off, revealing the extraordinary sandstone masonry beneath. Pieces of stone no bigger than his hand had been rubbed together until they fitted so tightly an obsidian knife blade could not be forced between them. To his left, two mounds rose. Long and square, they’d been built atop trash heaps. Ash, bits of animal bones, broken pots, and the refuse from stone tool-making, constantly eroded out of the mounds. After heavy rains, the trash washed down across the road, and had to be raked aside.
A line of mourners followed Browser beyond the western wall of Talon Town and across long abandoned fields grown tall in sage and greasewood. Ahead of them, the six Keepers marched in single file toward the burial site. The hole had already been hacked into the frozen ground at the base of the cliff.
It won’t be long now,
Browser promised himself.
You can finish this without giving in to grief. Your son would want you to be strong for others.
He knotted his hands at his sides.
A large fire burned twenty paces from the pit, sending coils of blue-gray smoke into the brightening sky. The Sunwatcher, Hophorn, sat unmoving beside it, her back braced against the cliff, her head bowed. How still she was. So lost in contemplation. She wore a red-feathered cape around her shoulders.
She did not even raise her head as they approached, and Browser’s heart constricted. She had loved Grass Moon as much as he had. During the time Grass Moon had been ill, Hophorn had checked on the boy as often as she could, given her other duties, helping Ash Girl to wash and care for Browser’s son, going for any supplies Ash Girl needed. But she had been away when his child died, Healing at Starburst Village at the eastern end of the canyon. The boy’s death must have shredded her souls.
Browser marched forward with his heart thudding. The long leather fringes on the sleeves and hem of his tan shirt flapped in the cold breeze, creating an irregular cadence.
In what seemed like another lifetime, he had loved Hophorn. He had seen fifteen summers, and she was not yet a woman. Browser’s people had found her wandering the forests alone, bruised and battered. She had escaped from the Fire Dogs, that much she remembered, but she couldn’t recall her family or clan. In six moons, they had become best friends. Her frailty and innocence had drawn him like a starving man to food. That was the summer before his grandmother forced him to marry Ash Girl. Blessed gods, how he wished Hophorn had agreed to marry him. He’d asked her to, but she was not a woman. She could not say yes, nor could he approach her adopted mother about courting her. Browser’s grandmother had arranged his marriage to Ash Girl instead. His grandmother told him that Ash Girl needed a strong man to care for her, that her father had run off when she’d been a child, and that she’d never gotten over the loss. Ash Girl had begged her grandmother to wed her to Browser.
Deeply religious, Hophorn had entered the priesthood, and vowed not to marry until one of the katsinas soared down from the skyworld and gave her permission.
As Browser gazed at her, the ache in his heart expanded. On occasion, over the lonely sun cycles, they had been lovers. Holding her affected him like a cool Healing salve on a fresh wound.
Hophorn had left Green Mesa Village to join the Katsinas’ People the same day Browser had. She’d followed on his heels every step of the way, smiling gently at him, soothing his misgivings in her soft musical voice, promising that everything would be all right.
But nothing had been right since he’d left Green Mesa Village. He and Ash Girl had started fighting and never stopped. His wife’s zeal to find a Spirit Helper and restore the First People’s kiva interfered with everything he—
A woman screamed.
Browser whirled.
Near the burial pit, Flame Carrier reached frantically for Cloudblower’s arm. The other Keepers rushed forward to peer into the pit. Old Woman Up Above fell to her knees, wailing.
Browser ran.
As he passed Catkin and Whiproot, he ordered, “Put my son down! Follow me!”
Chaos erupted among the mourners. People grabbed children, and shouted questions. A din of coughing exploded. Babies shrieked as people hurried after Browser. The elderly hobbled in pursuit as quickly as their ancient legs would carry them.
Browser shouted, “Flame Carrier? What’s wrong? What do you see?”
Springbank turned, his mouth round in shock. He stammered, “Q-Quickly,” and waved a hand.
Cloudblower helped Flame Carrier to sit down, then knelt over the pit. She put a hand to her lips as if to quiet a cry that pressed at the back of her throat.
Browser halted at Cloudblower’s side.
At first, he did not understand what he saw.
The man seemed to be resting on his stomach with his arms and legs thrown out at his sides, as though he’d been hurled face-first into the yawning grave. He wore an exquisite white buckskin shirt and pants. From the lengths of his pant legs, he must have been very tall. At his feet lay the sacred mask of the Wolf katsina. The gray fur shimmered.
A heavy sandstone slab covered the man’s head.
Browser went stiff. People placed stones over the heads of witches to keep their breath-heart souls locked in the earth forever. Was this man a witch? Was that why he’d been killed?
Mourners crowded around the pit, shoving to get a better view. When they saw the horror, screams split the morning, and
a shoving contest began. Like a herd of frightened buffalo, the villagers practically ran over each other trying to get back to Hillside Village before any of the witch’s evil Spirit Helpers could fasten onto them.
Browser gazed at the handful of people who had stayed behind: the Elders and a few others.
Catkin knelt beside him. The shiny blue and red chunks of stone on her white feathered cape gleamed like bits of morning sky. “Who is it? Can you tell?”
“No.”
Catkin shifted, her movements uneasy as she studied the grave. “Something’s wrong,” she said, and pointed to the places where the hands and feet should be.
Then it struck Browser. The victim had neither. The ends of the pant legs and the sleeves appeared to be empty.
“Mutilation?” Catkin turned hard eyes on Browser. “Someone should remove the slab so that we may name the victim.”
“Remove the slab from a witch?” Peavine shouted. Thirty summers old, she had a square, pocked face with a bulbous nose. She’d coiled her hair on top of her head and fastened it with a wooden comb. “Are you mad? You will release his soul, and it will fly about trying to destroy us!”
Catkin wet her lips, and seemed to be nerving herself. “We must know who it is.” She started to climb down into the pit.
Cloudblower gripped her arm. “No. I’ll do it. You returned just last night from a war walk. You have not been ritually cleansed. I smoked myself in pinyon pine smoke this morning. If there is evil, it will not be able to enter my body.”
Browser said, “Go with care.”
Cloudblower sat down on the edge of the pit, then gingerly lowered herself to the floor. Shallow, the pit sank only six hands into the earth. She stood straddling the body for several instants. Finally, she bent forward, slipped her fingers beneath the rock, and shoved it aside.
The victim’s face had been crushed. Bloody pulp filled the caved-in skull. It looked as if once the murderer got started he couldn’t stop. The man’s hair had been hacked short, as though in mourning. Browser frowned.
Catkin said, “We’ll never be able to name him. He has no eyes, or nose—”
Browser interrupted, “Can you turn him over, Cloudblower? Perhaps he painted clan symbols on the front of his shirt.”
Cloudblower grabbed the right arm and tugged. The rigid body flopped onto its back. As Cloudblower lowered the arm, the long sleeve pulled back, and a small, delicate hand adorned with a snake bracelet fell out.
Stunned silence came over the assembly.
A painful stinging sensation flooded Browser’s veins. “No. No, it …”
The words died in his throat. He jumped into the pit and took the stiff fingers, examining the bracelet.
“Oh,” Cloudblower whispered, and stumbled against the pit wall. “Blessed gods.”
People surged forward, hissing.
Flame Carrier cried, “Is it … ?”
Cloudblower said, “Yes. I think so.”
Flame Carrier shook her gray head. “Why would someone kill her and throw her into her own son’s burial pit? It makes no sense!”
Catkin said, “It did to the killer.” She rose to her feet, looming over Browser.
Browser rubbed his thumb over the back of Ash Girl’s death-cold hand, feeling nothing. No pain, no horror, only a numb sensation. His heart slowed, but each time it beat, it felt like a concussion in his chest.
People shouted questions and a deep-throated rumble of coughing filled the morning.
Browser looked up and, for the first time, noticed their brightly colored clothing and jewelry. They had worn their finest to honor his son. Terrible grief and pity for him filled their eyes. He stared at each person, his soul moving slowly, methodically, trying to recall their names. When he came to the end of the line, a sudden stab of naked terror went through him.