“Hold it,” Washais said. “I don’t understand this. Four years ago, I went to the rededication of an ossuary. We held our Feast of the Dead, and invited our ancestors to come visit us from the Village of the Souls. When it was all over, we each took little containers of earth from the burial pit, because we believe it contains bits of our ancestors. My container sits by my bedside table. That’s
traditional
, isn’t it?”
“Your tradition, not theirs,” Dusty said, and took a sip from his juice bottle.
“What makes one traditional belief more important than another ?” Washais’s brows lowered.
Gently, Hail said, “Washais? I don’t understand your ways, but I’m glad your ancestors hear you and help your people. This place is different, though. Our ancestors lived and died here. Their blood runs in our veins. We have different ways. That
stuff
you found today is dangerous.” She blinked her white-filmed eyes at the clouds building in the sky. The scent of rain had grown strong. “It’s bad enough that those NOAA people want to put a weather station here. With all the bad things that happened on this spot that weather station is never going to work right.” She looked back at Washais. “I think we have to take that pot away, and cover it up. Maybe put a big rock on top so that the evil can never get loose again.”
Dusty nodded. “I agree.”
Dale pushed his fedora back on his head. “If that’s what our Indian monitor wants, then that’s what we’ll do. Just tell us where to bury it, Maggie.”
Magpie’s brow furrowed. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“But, Dale,” Washais said. Disbelief crept into her voice. “I
need
to do more work on this burial.”
“I know it would be nice, Maureen, but it isn’t going to happen. We’re over the budget already, and I hate to keep bringing it up, but she’s outside of the impact area.”
Washais’s gaze went from Magpie, to Dale, then rested on Dusty. She looked at him as if for support. He slowly shook his head.
“Not this time, Doctor,” he said. “Sorry.”
“I don’t understand either of you.” Her hot gaze went from Dale to Dusty. “You’re telling me that you are willing to stop scientific inquiry based on religious fundamentalism? Do you realize the precedent this kind of decision sets? What happens if next week a group of Cherokee fundamentalists come out, say that the contents of that pot are the sacred remains of their ancestors, and claim it as a holy relic? Will you let them have it based solely upon religious mythology? What if a Navajo witch claims it because he wants its Power? Will you give it to him? How do you decide
which
religious beliefs are more valid than others?”
Dusty leaned forward. “I agree it’s difficult, but—”
“Difficult? It’s
insane
! And you’re as nutty as your father if you let it happen!”
Dusty seemed to turn to stone. He stared at her through glittering blue eyes.
Washais rose to her feet, and stood quietly for a long moment. “I need to get away for a while, Stewart. To think about this. Would it be possible …”
Dusty fished in his pocket with his free hand. The keys rattled as he tossed them to Washais. “Drive carefully, obey the speed limit signs, and don’t trust the gas gauge. Fill up at Crownpoint going and coming.”
Washais nodded, said, “Thanks,” and stiffly walked to her tent. She dragged out her purse, and headed for the Bronco.
As the engine roared to life, and she backed out, dust filled the air.
Hail watched the blue truck jounce down the dirt road for town. “I hope she’s all right,” she whispered in concern. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“She’ll be all right, Aunt,” Magpie said, and came over to sit in Washais’s chair. She took Hail’s hand and stroked it. “Don’t worry about her.”
Dusty peered at Hail over the rims of his sunglasses; she could see a mixture of hurt and rage in his eyes. “She’s fine, Elder,” he said in a clipped voice. “She’s just not accustomed to making decisions based upon real life cultural taboos. Physical anthropologists work with sterile facts. Life has just taught her a valuable lesson.”
“Really?” Dale asked with mock interest. “What?”
“Sometimes science is irrelevant.” Dusty adopted an authoritative posture, his broad shoulders squared, his chin up.
The first drops of rain started to fall, stippling the ground and hissing in the fire.
Dusty finished his juice, and threw the bottle into the trash box. It clattered through the other garbage. He stabbed a finger at Dale. “If we have trouble over this, I want you to remember that you’re the one who invited her out here. I was against it from the start. A lab rat in a field camp! God forbid.”
Sylvia examined Dusty through squinted eyes for several seconds, clearly on the verge of defending Washais, then as if she’d reconsidered, she smiled, and her gaze dropped to Dusty’s pink shorts. “Tell me something, boss? Do those come with the panties built in?”
T
HE HOLLOW THUMPING OF THE FOOT DRUMS IN THE First People’s kiva echoed through the twilight, slow, steady, like a sleeping person’s heartbeat.
As Browser and Cloudblower walked across Talon Town’s crowded plaza, Cloudblower said, “Hophorn is afraid, Browser, but I think it will be good for her to watch the Dances. This is her favorite ritual of the sun cycle. If she does not attend, I think in a few moons, she will wish she had.”
Cloudblower wore her painted buffalohide cape, red leggings, and moccasins covered with shell bells. They clicked pleasantly. She had coiled her long gray-black braid on top of her head. The style made her face appear starkly triangular.
Three lines of people encircled the plaza. Children sat in front, with the elderly behind them. Other adults stood against the wall. The bravest people perched on the flat roofs of Talon Town, wrapped in many-colored blankets. The village elders, along with Stone Ghost, sat on the roof of the great kiva. Each group of elders had their own colors and styles of ritual capes. The Hillside elders wore red-painted buffalohides; the Starburst Village people preferred yellow deerhides; the elders from Frosted Meadow adorned themselves with rabbitfur capes, covered with a thick layer of blue-gray pinyon jay feathers. The capes adopted by the Badgerpaw Village elders had an intricately woven layer of cotton lace draped over the top of finely smoked leather. Stone Ghost, of course, wore the same mangy brown-and-white turkey-feather cape. His wispy white hair looked as if it had been teased just for this occasion; it stuck out like a frizzy halo.
In the northernmost corner of the plaza, beneath the enormous paintings of the Great Warriors of East and West, an array of blankets
had been spread. Haunches of roasted venison, whole cooked turkeys, and a variety of smaller game, hung from racks above steaming pots of beans, plates of breads, baked gourds, bowls of roasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds, large fabric bags filled with popped corn, and several water jars. People were free to help themselves throughout the celebration.
Peavine walked through the gathering, speaking to people. She had an annoyed expression on her ugly face. Her white doehide cape shone in the torchlight.
“You have spoken with Hophorn about this?” Browser asked.
“This morning. She agreed to try. I don’t know how long she will be able to sit outside. The only place she feels safe is in my chamber. But even if she sits for less than a hand of time, it will help her, Browser.”
Dusk fell over the canyon like a gray opalescent blanket, gleaming from the snow that had fallen at dawn. The towering cliff behind Talon Town shone faintly blue. Above the rim, the first Evening People sparkled.
The booming of the foot drums grew louder, and the high wail of a flute joined in. The note hung like a hawk in midair, before it lightly swooped down and fluttered.
Cloudblower stopped before her door curtain and called, “Hophorn. We are here. Are you ready?”
A stammering voice responded, “Y-yes, I—I am.”
Cloudblower drew back the curtain, and Browser saw Hophorn sitting just inside the entry. She gazed at Cloudblower and Browser as if terrified by the sight of them. She was trembling, her long black hair moving as if alive.
Softly, Cloudblower said, “Don’t be afraid, Hophorn. I’m going to spread your hides right in front of the door in case you wish to go back inside. And Catkin will be standing guard on the roof above you.”
“Yes, she will,” Browser said.
Hophorn wet her lips, nodded, and reached for the black blanket that lay folded beside her. She drew it to her chest. She wore her usual Longnight ritual clothing, a scarlet macaw cape elaborately decorated with bone beads, and tiny red shale figurines carved into the shapes of frogs, birds, deer, and wolves. Her strange
jet pendent, the serpent coiled inside the broken eggshell, hung down to the middle of her chest. “R-ready,” she managed, and extended a trembling hand to Browser.
He helped Hophorn outside and held her up while Cloudblower ducked into the chamber to grab an armload of hides.
Cloudblower carefully spread the hides out next to the door curtain. “You’ll be safe here, Hophorn. I swear it. I—”
“Have you seen my daughter?”
Peavine said as she strode up. Her pocked face had mottled with what appeared to be anger. “She was supposed to be here a half a hand of time ago.”
“I haven’t seen Yucca Blossom, Peavine,” Cloudblower said. “But she is eleven. Several of the older girls gathered near the Hillside plaza fire to talk. Perhaps she is there.”
“Well, she isn’t supposed to be!”
“Do you wish me to send someone to fetch her?”
“No,” Peavine replied irritably. “If she isn’t here by the time the Dances begin, I’ll fetch her myself. And she’ll be sorry.”
Peavine turned and stalked away.
Cloudblower exchanged a bewildered glance with Browser, then reached for Hophorn.
But Hophorn turned to search the roof, as if for Catkin.
Catkin lifted a hand and walked over. “It is good to see you, Sunwatcher. Are you well?”
Hophorn smiled, weaved on her feet, and sank to the hides as though her legs would no longer hold her.
Browser called, “The Sunwatcher will be sitting here for the Dances. You’ll watch over her, won’t you?”
“Of course, War Chief. And when Jackrabbit takes my place in another hand of time, I’ll tell him to do the same.”
An expression of relief slackened Hophorn’s pretty face.
Cloudblower gently pulled the black blanket from Hophorn’s hands. “Let me help you.” She shook the blanket out, then draped it over Hophorn’s head, and tied it in a knot in front. “There. You should stay warm now. I must go into the kiva to purify the Dancers, Hophorn, but I won’t be away for long, and Browser will be close while I am gone.”
Hophorn looked up at Cloudblower with huge eyes.
Cloudblower gently touched her cheek. “Browser? I know you
are charged with maintaining harmony in the plaza, but if you are able—”
“I will stay as close to Hophorn as I can, Elder.”
Cloudblower gave him a grateful look, backed away, and strode for the kiva.
Hophorn gripped a handful of Browser’s buckskin pant leg and held tight.
He knelt beside her, and whispered, “You don’t see them here, do you, Hophorn?”
She scanned the faces in the plaza, and on the rooftops, then she did it again, with great patience, before she shook her head.
“Good. I asked the village matrons to personally identify each person before we allowed him or her into Talon Town. People will, however, be coming and going all night long.” Browser pointed to the ladder that stood ten paces to Hophorn’s left. “If you see
anyone
come down that ladder that you think might be—”
She gestured to the roof. “C-Catkin.”
“Yes, good, Hophorn. Call out to Catkin, or to me if you see me. We will have those people face-down in the dirt before you can shout again.”
Browser patted her hand where it gripped his pant leg. “I’m going to have trouble breaking up fights if I have to drag you with me.”
Hophorn gazed at her hand, and slowly, a finger at a time, let go.
Browser said, “If you need me, I’ll be close. Just call. Do you understand?”
The black blanket hid her face unless she was looking directly at him, but he saw her nod.
“Good. I’m going to go stand over there.” He pointed to the door that led into the kiva’s antechamber. “That’s thirty paces away, Hophorn. I’ll be there the entire time. I promise.”
Hophorn gazed up at him with terrified eyes, but she nodded.
Browser smiled, and walked across the plaza to his ritual position beside the door. A total of two hundred and forty-three people had come for the ceremonial. Villagers from Starburst Town, the last to arrive, had trotted in just after dawn. Conversations and laughter filled the night.
Browser glanced back at Hophorn. Her eyes had not left him.
He waved.
Her expression didn’t change. She watched him as if her life depended upon it.
Catkin stood tall on the roof right above Hophorn, her club resting on her right shoulder. Her long black braid draped the front of her white-feathered cape.
Their gazes met and held.
The lines around her eyes had tightened.
He braced his feet, and tried to get a full breath into his lungs.
The flute and drums inside the kiva went silent.
The crowd hushed.
Like a wave rolling toward shore, people turned as one, to watch the door beside Browser.
Cloudblower stepped out with a feathered prayer stick in one hand, and a red pot of sacred cornmeal in the other. As she walked she Sang in a deep melodic voice:
“I am planting the northern mountains.
I am planting the western sea.
I am planting the southern deserts.
I am planting the eastern trees.”
She knelt in the middle of the plaza and planted the prayer stick in the snow. The downy eagle feathers on the top fluttered and swayed in the cold evening breeze.
As she rose, she tipped her pot and poured a line of blue cornmeal at the base of the prayer stick, then backed up toward Browser and the door to the subterranean ceremonial chamber. The Dancers would follow that line, symbolically retracing the path of the First People from their emergence from the underworlds to their arrival at Straight Path Canyon. They would Sing of the long journey in the brilliance of Father Sun’s light.
Cloudblower halted on the other side of the door, and a haunting chorus crept from the kiva, soft howls, and yips, hawk shrieks, and the low roars of mountain lions.
Cloudblower lifted her meal-covered hands to the Evening People, and at that instant, a line of unearthly figures emerged from the firelit womb of the kiva.
They shuffled forward with their arms swinging and their sandals kicking up a haze of snow. Their Song was hushed, like the chirping of newborn birds. Their glorious masks, part animal, part astonishing god, bore sprinkles of raindrops, shining stars, and feathered halos. Ruffs of buffalo fur encircled their throats; and their bare chests, painted pure white, gleamed with black zigzagging lightning bolts. Their turkey-feather capes swayed as they trotted down the road of emergence, tossing their masked heads, and staring at the crowd through dark, empty eye sockets. They carried red-and-yellow dance sticks and gourd rattles.
When they reached the planted prayer stick, they broke into four lines and veered outward in the sacred directions, showing the different paths people had taken after they’d reached Straight Path Canyon.
Hophorn clutched the black blanket beneath her nose covering most of her face, but a reverent glow lit her eyes.
Browser smiled.
The Dancers shook their rattles, circled, and formed two concentric circles.
Each breath they released, each thump of their feet, called to Our Mother Earth, telling her that after this long night, Father Sun would hold her longer, love her more, and warmth would seep back into her bones.
The Dancers stopped circling and tilted their heads, as if listening.
The flute sounded again, the note so sweet and high it brought tears to Browser’s eyes. He bowed his head.
Four women emerged from the kiva, their white doeskin dresses and boots shining as they trotted very close to the crowd—but hallowed, untouchable. Eagle feathers adorned their long black hair, twisting and bobbing in the breeze. The Deer Mothers circled the plaza four times, Dancing through the soft torchlight, their arms reaching for the sky, supernatural beings that had just emerged from the misty cloud of legend. Their hoarse breathy voices resembled those of deer in the forest, calling warnings to each other.
The masked Dancers bleated or howled in terror. Some ran for cover in the crowd. Others hunched down and waited for the sacred Mothers to pass.
Spectators put their hands over their eyes and watched through the weave of their fingers. No one could look directly upon such Power and beauty.
Browser glanced back at Hophorn.
She was gone. The hides empty.
Panic went through him, then he saw the door curtain to Cloudblower’s chamber swinging.
Had she only been able to watch for a finger of time?
Browser looked up at the roof. Catkin knelt with her back to him, speaking to someone below. Probably one of the warriors standing guard on the mounds.
Several people perched on the roof near Catkin, watching the Dances, smiling.
Browser heaved a sigh and lowered his head again as the Deer Mothers passed by.
***
My white buckskin shirt and pants blend with the snowy ground, but Shadow’s dress is the darkness.
She paces behind me, her steps silent. Her black eyes glittering. She is an abyss in the night, invisible, dangerous.
A single flute wails.
It begins low, a shrike’s whistle.
People line both sides of the Dancers’ path. Old people grin and clutch squirming children to their chests. The Dancers’ moccasins shish as they prance through the snow. The light of creation lives in their hooves, claws, furred muzzles, and polished wooden beaks.
I rub my cold face, stunned by the beauty.
As the Dancers sway and dip, they watch me with the ancient eyes of long-dead heroes, ancestors, the spirits of clouds.
The flute grows shrill and breathy—like a strangled scream.
And I know it is time.
Shadow creeps up behind me.
I can feel her eagerness.
On the fabric of my souls, I see her smile. Death lives in the elegant curves of her lips, the quivering of her nostrils. She is magnificent.
Her fingers sink into the muscles of my arm like blades.
“Wait,” I whisper.
She is trembling, the longing so strong it is a physical pain.
“Go to the pottery mounds,” I say. “I will bring her to you.”
She backs away.
After several moments, I turn, but I see only darkness and starlit snow. Distant buttes are black blocks on the horizon.
The scent of burning cedar rises from the sacred fires, bathing my face.
I scan Talon Town and Hillside Village.
I wonder if she sees me. If, even now, she is shouldering past the onlookers, hurrying to meet me. The face of death and the face of the beloved are often indistinguishable.
I have experienced this myself when Shadow becomes intoxicated with the kill, and turns on me. The instant before she attacks, there is a moment when I would willingly throw myself into her arms, and allow myself to be consumed by the fires of her lust. I …
I see her.
Running away from the plaza fire in Hillside Village.
She is so young. Achingly beautiful.
“Yes,” I whisper. “Come to me. Have I not told you that you must be bathed in blood to be saved?”
Already I can feel it on my hands, warm, sticky, the scent pungent.
I shiver.
As I rise, I gaze down at the dead guard. The gaping hole in his chest resembles a red-lipped mouth open in a final scream.
He was standing on the edge like the others, watching the Dances. The firelight had blinded him.
I take no pride in such kills. They are like slaughtering coyote pups in their den. Easy.
I tiptoe along the rim.
The night is clear. By morning, we will all be freezing, ready for the bowl of life. The sacred meal. Hot. Steaming. We will shudder as we eat.
I halt near the top of the cliff stairway.
There is another. She follows the first, though the girl does not know it.
Her mother?
I crouch like a cat.
Two of them.
One for each of us.
Shadow will be ruthless.