He stood on the sandstone rim one hundred hands above Yucca Blossom, his white buckskin cape and pants glowing in the torchlight. She clung to the sandstone steps, breathing hard. Gray feathers haloed his wolf mask, rising like silver rays behind the pointed ears. For a time, he crouched so still and calm, the shells sewn around his collar caught the night’s gleam and shone like mirrors.
The world died around Yucca Blossom.
Her ears no longer heard the ritual chanting or flute music that echoed across the canyon. Her eyes no longer sought the Dancers in the plaza. The magnificent dresses, turquoise and shell jewelry. The ornately decorated war shirts which had flashed brilliantly moments ago, vanished as her world became the canyon rim.
Two Hearts lifted his right moccasin and extended a hand to the Dancers in Talon Town.
Yucca Blossom glanced back and forth between them.
He mimicked the steps of the Dancers who snaked around in Talon Town, shaking rattles, Singing in deep resonant voices. Like the Serpent of the Heavens who guarded the skyworld, his body glittered and swayed.
She reached for another handhold, and pulled herself up. The stones were slick, icy with snow. But she hurried.
He stood like a dagger of silver flame. His long white cape blazing.
The shell bells on her cape scraped against the rock, and her white kirtle flashed around her blue leggings, as she scrambled up the cliff.
His breathing seemed loud, hoarse, his need for her unbearable.
Yucca Blossom climbed the last step and ran to him. Her two braids, woven with strips of red cloth, hung down to her waist.
He reached out, almost as if afraid, and stroked them.
She could barely hear his tight voice.
“Afraid?”
he asked.
“No. I want to be with you.”
He nodded, but spread his white cloak and enfolded Yucca Blossom anyway, protecting her from the darkness and cold.
They stood close for several moments, and she smelled an odd scent, musty, metallic, like the dust that rises from fallen buildings.
He whispered,
“Do you know where the pottery mounds are?”
“Yes. I have been there many times.”
“Go. Wait for me. I will be along very soon.”
Yucca Blossom obediently trotted away, heading north. She turned only once to look back.
At first she didn’t see him, then the feathers on his mask quivered.
He lay stretched out on his belly in the snow just above the stairs.
As if waiting for someone.
C
ATKIN SAW THE SEVEN WARRIORS FROM FROSTED Meadow coming up the road, laughing and playfully shoving each other. They wore red capes with the hoods pulled up. Several weaved on their feet. Catkin had seen them earlier, gobbling blue corn bread, and drinking copious amounts of fermented juniper berry juice.
As they climbed the ladder to the roof, she walked down to meet them.
The first man, built like a grizzly bear, stepped off, smiling, and Catkin whispered, “The Deer Mothers have arrived.”
The big man turned and put fingers to his lips to hush his companions.
The other warriors stifled their laughter and stumbled off onto the roof, grinning. As a group, they went to stand overlooking the Dancers. Wind buffeted their red capes around their legs. Two of the warriors were women. As their hoods flapped, Catkin saw their white face powder. They’d applied it thickly, in honor of White Shell Woman. One of the women looked familiar, tall and slender, but Catkin couldn’t place where she’d seen her.
The big warrior elbowed one of his friends in the ribs and laughed.
On the roof of the kiva to their left, Corn Mother, Matron of Frosted Meadow Village, pointed a stern finger, and gave them all evil looks.
Cowed, the warriors shushed each other again and climbed down into the plaza. They lined the wall in front of Cloudblower’s chamber.
Catkin had seen Hophorn crawl into the chamber a finger of time ago, but she looked down anyway, making certain none of the warriors had staggered through the door curtain on top of her.
They stood with their fingers over their eyes, whispering to each other, but they seemed to have calmed down.
Catkin checked the positions of the other six guards standing on the high crumbling walls of Talon Town, then returned to her own position at the southeastern corner.
Catkin folded her arms beneath her white-feathered cape and focused on the potsherds that paved the wide road below. In the torchlight, they glittered and twinkled.
The two guards on the mounds to her right, faced south, gazing out across the starlit canyon bottom. They wore the painted yellow capes of Starburst Village warriors.
Catkin expelled a breath and it frosted in the air before her. Her nerves, which had stretched tighter and tighter over the past quarter moon, hummed at the snapping point tonight. Something out there in the darkness watched her with feral eyes. She could feel that gaze upon her, unwavering, like a cat’s as it stealthily closed in on prey.
A commotion broke out behind her, and Catkin saw the red-caped Frosted Meadow warriors climbing off the ladder onto the roof. They shoved and nudged each other, stumbled around, and choked back laughter. Two of the warriors supported another warrior between them, as if he’d passed out in the plaza. The incapacitated man’s cape was much too long for him; it trailed the roof as they dragged him, grinning, toward the ladder down to the road.
Catkin called, “If you can’t behave appropriately during the sacred Dances, I suggest you return to the Hillside plaza fire.”
As if eager to obey, the big “grizzly bear” warrior tiptoed toward the ladder, but he couldn’t quite keep his balance. When he tilted too far in one direction, his friends shoved him back up and snickered.
Catkin’s heart lurched into her throat when the big man almost toppled over the edge, but his friends snatched the hem of his cape and tugged him backward in a flurry of waving arms and cries.
Catkin scowled at them.
The big warrior sheepishly climbed down the ladder. The two warriors dragging the other went next. They jostled the unconscious man until he roused, then shoved him onto the ladder. He climbed down unsteadily. The others filed behind him, and they
staggered in a weaving, colliding herd back toward Hillside Village.
Jackrabbit met them as they rounded the southeastern corner of the town, and hastily stepped back to let them pass. He wore a blue-and-green painted buffalohide cape, and his shoulder-length black hair shone as if freshly washed. He gazed up at Catkin and his pug nose crinkled. He said, “I saw them earlier. I didn’t wish to be flattened.”
“A prudent decision,” she called.
Jackrabbit trotted to the ladder and climbed up. Just as he made it to the roof, the flute went silent, and the drums began, pounding out the heartbeat of Our Mother Earth, and introducing the Buffalo Dancers. They shuffled from the kiva with their curving black horns shining, shaking their shaggy heads. Long brown beards draped their red-painted chests. Buffalo brought the blessing winter snows that gave birth to spring grasses, and fed all creatures, small and large. They also possessed magical powers. They could live under lakes, and run to the skyworlds by leaping from one cloud to the next. They were cousins to the Thunderbirds. They both made deep rumbling roars, and both brought water from the sky. Healing teas were always drunk from a buffalo horn cup, if possible.
Cloudblower led the Dancers around the plaza on a sinuous path, uttering a deep-throated call, the rumble a buffalo makes when she’s searching for another animal in the herd.
The people in the crowd “rumbled” back to Buffalo Above, saying “Here we are, mother. We’re right here. Give us your blessings.”
Jackrabbit walked to Catkin and whispered, “Are you going to stay for the Dances?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been here since dawn. I think I will return to my chamber and rest for a time. But I’ll be back for the grand midnight Dance.”
“Rest well. I will see you then.”
Catkin started to walk away, then turned. “Jackrabbit, the Sunwatcher is in her chamber, but she may come back outside later. Please watch for her and let her know you are close.”
He nodded, “I will. Is she still frightened?”
“Terrified. She came out for the first Dance, and saw the katsinas arrive, but went back into Cloudblower’s chamber soon after.”
“I will watch for her, Catkin. Don’t fret.”
She nodded and headed for the ladder.
Weary to the bone, her limbs felt like dead weights. She watched her feet as she walked toward the Hillside plaza fire. Six of the Frosted Meadow warriors clustered around the large jars of fermented juniper berry juice on the south side of the fire, dipping up cups, laughing too loudly.
The big bearlike warrior said,
“Is that what he told you when he borrowed your extra cape? He told me it was his sister, that he wanted us to help him play a joke on her. Some joke, she could barely walk!”
His friends roared with laughter and stumbled around the fire.
Catkin passed them without a word. She was no longer on guard, and they were disturbing no one out here. Let them be happy.
As she neared the ladder that leaned against the side of Hillside Village, she stopped and frowned at the ground.
Though the snow had been churned up by hundreds of sandals and hide boots, these tracks were fresh. And made by bare feet.
Catkin knelt and studied the toe and heel prints. A woman probably. Maybe a youth. She’d been staggering.
Catkin’s gazed followed the tracks back toward the fire. Another person, wearing hide boots, had stepped on several of the barefoot tracks.
Catkin rose and walked alongside the tracks, tracing them across the front of Hillside Village, and onto the dirt trail that led to Kettle Town. Several of the gaps in the town’s tumbled walls gleamed redly. Perhaps the two warriors had decided to return to their chambers for the evening?
Movement caught her gaze. Her eyes lifted to the cliff stairs. Two people climbed up. The red hood of the person on top had fallen back, revealing long black hair. The windblown flames and torchlight made it impossible to see the people clearly, one instant they were there, the next gone, swallowed by the darkness.
Catkin cocked her head, wondering. It was probably nothing, warriors climbing to get a better view of the Dances from the rim, but barefoot?
Her boot struck something buried in the snow.
Catkin took a last look at the figures, and knelt. She dug around in the snow until she felt a leather strap. As she pulled it out, it swung in her hand.
A necklace with a jet pendant carved into the shape of a serpent coiled inside a broken shell. The single coral eye glared at Catkin.
Her eyes jerked upward as her lungs started to heave.
She could barely walk …
“Blessed gods. No. I—I can’t believe …”
The images of the Frosted Meadow warriors flashed. Dragging a man with a cape much too long. She felt sick, shaky.
Catkin slipped the necklace over her head, drew her war club, and ran for the round tower at the base of the stairs.
T
HE BUFFALO DANCERS TROTTED BACK FOR THE KIVA, breathing hard, their long beards shimmering with beads of sweat. Browser reverently lowered his gaze as they passed.
Cloudblower brought up the rear. She started to follow the other Dancers into the ceremonial chamber, but seemed to think better of it, and stopped beside Browser.
“How long did Hophorn watch?”
“Not long, Elder. Less than a finger of time.”
Cloudblower sighed, “At least she saw the katsinas arrive. I’m grateful for that.”
“I think she is, too, Elder. I’ll look in on her as soon as I am able.”
“Thank you, War Chief.”
The next Dance would not start for half a hand of time.
The crowd rose and stretched, conversations broke out.
On the kiva roof above him, Browser heard the clan elders talking. Flame Carrier called, “War Chief? We are coming down.”
“Yes, Matron.”
Cloudblower clasped him on the shoulder, then ducked into the antechamber to attend to her kiva duties.
The elders walked from the kiva roof onto the roof of the long south-facing wall and toward the ladder. Their brilliant capes flashed. Flame Carrier chuckled at something Stone Ghost said.
Browser saw Jackrabbit crouching on the southeastern corner of the town. He searched for Catkin. He had assumed that once Jackrabbit had taken her position she would remain for the Dances, though warriors who’d stood guard since dawn certainly had the right to rest for a few hands of time before the midnight Dances.
Browser strode to the ladder and waited for the elders to climb
down. He extended a hand to those who needed help stepping off.
Flame Carrier, Wading Bird, and Springbank came first, followed by Stone Ghost. His uncle grinned up at him and walked around to stand behind Browser, waiting while Browser helped the others down.
Most of the elders headed straight for the blankets covered with food—except for one man from Starburst Town.
Dressed in a yellow-painted deerhide cape, he stood at the foot of the ladder, staring at Stone Ghost. About forty summers, he had thick gray hair that hung to his shoulders, and a pale oval face. His dark eyes blazed.
Browser turned to Stone Ghost. His uncle stood quietly watching the people in the plaza.
Browser looked back at the Starburst elder. “May I help you, Elder?”
The man stepped forward as if walking through a snake’s den, his steps light, cautious. He grabbed Stone Ghost’s wrist in a hard grip, and demanded to know, “Where did you get this?”
Stone Ghost blinked. “What?”
“This anklet you’re wearing!” He wrenched Stone Ghost’s arm, and hurled the old man to the ground. “Answer me!”
Browser leaped forward and shoved the Starburst elder away. “There is an explanation, Elder,” he said. “Uncle?”
Stone Ghost frowned up in surprise, then as if sudden understanding washed over him, he removed the jet anklet and handed it to the man. “Did it belong to someone you cared about?”
The Starburst elder studied the exquisitely carved jet beads, and swallowed repeatedly, clearly having trouble controlling his emotions. His gaze slowly lifted to Stone Ghost. “Answer me.
Where
did you get this?”
“From a corpse.”
The elder squeezed his eyes closed in pain. “Oh, no, no.”
Stone Ghost softly asked, “When did she disappear?”
The elder bowed his head. “Seven days ago. Our son had just died. She wanted to be alone, and she …”
An odd ringing filled Browser’s ears. His fingers lowered and tightened around his war club as if it could save him from the horror
stirring in his heart. Disbelief vied with certainty. He felt as if he were floating, disconnected from the earth and sky, hovering in some terrible void between. Had his souls separated from his body? How could he stand here so calmly? Why wasn’t he dashing across the plaza, shouting her name, running to find her?
The gray-haired elder held the anklet to his breast like a beloved child. “Where did you find her?”
“Here.” Stone Ghost pointed to the southeastern corner of Talon Town. “She was in a room up there. The murderer had wrapped her in yellow cloth.”
“That’s what she—she was wearing. When she left. A yellow cape.” Tears blurred his eyes. “I want you to take me to her. Now! I have to see her with my own eyes!”
Browser couldn’t move. He could not even force his eyes to look down at his uncle. He stared unblinking at Cloudblower’s door curtain. It swayed in the wind, as if someone had just entered or …
Stone Ghost took Browser’s arm and tugged. “Nephew? Listen to me for a few moments. There are things we must discuss.”
Browser flung off Stone Ghost’s hand and ran.
The people in the plaza whirled to watch him. Conversations halted for an instant, then a din of whispers erupted.
Browser ducked into Cloudblower’s chamber. The breeze fanned the coals in the warming bowl, and a reddish gleam fluttered over the interior. The masks on the walls watched him in mute silence. The bedding hides lay rolled and tucked in the corners. The chamber was empty.
“No!” Browser cried. He lunged through the doorway and dashed for the ladder to the roof.
Jackrabbit met him at the top, red-faced with fear. “What’s wrong, War Chief!”
“Where is Hophorn? Where did she go?”
Jackrabbit shook his head in confusion. “I do not know, War Chief. I—”
Browser grabbed the youth by the shoulders and shook him hard. “You have been standing guard since Catkin left! You must have seen her!”
“I didn’t! I swear! I haven’t seen the Sunwatcher all night! I
don’t know where Peavine’s daughter is either! War Chief, many people have been coming and going, crowding the roof. It is impossible to—”
“Peavine’s daughter?” Browser said. “What are you talking about?”
Jackrabbit lifted his arms in a helpless gesture. “A hand of time ago, Peavine was terrorizing the village, searching people’s chambers without their permission, screaming that her daughter was missing. Perhaps she is with Hophorn?”
Browser glared into Jackrabbit’s worried young eyes. “Hallowed gods,” he whispered and stepped back.
“War Chief, what is it?”
In a bizarrely quiet voice, he said, “Find Catkin. Tell her I have gone in search of Hophorn and, perhaps, Yucca Blossom. Tell her to organize a search party and follow me.”
“Yes, War Chief.” Jackrabbit bowed obediently and ran for the ladder down.
Browser looked over the edge of the roof, down into the plaza where Stone Ghost stood. The old man’s wispy white hair blew about his wrinkled face. Their gazes locked.
Browser called, “I’m going after her.”
“No, Nephew!
Wait!
”
The words died in Stone Ghost’s throat as Browser sprinted for the ladder and disappeared over the edge. “Blessed Ancestors,” he whispered, “give him the strength to endure what he finds.”
Voices rose across the plaza. Shouts rang out as people huddled together, whispering, shaking their heads. Children, sensing danger, grabbed onto their mothers, and peeked, wide-eyed, from behind the shelter of long colorful skirts. Flame Carrier examined the anklet that Rising Fawn held out. The other elders crowded around, hissing questions.
Rising Fawn grabbed Stone Ghost’s wrist and twisted it. “I said
now
! I want to see my wife!”
Cloudblower stepped from the kiva’s antechamber. Her white face powder had been freshly applied and glimmered with a ghostly radiance in the torchlight. She frowned at the Rising Fawn. “I heard the commotion. What’s wrong?”
Stone Ghost replied, “Yucca Blossom and Hophorn are both missing.”
Cloudblower stared at him numbly, her mouth open, as if she hadn’t heard what he’d said. Then she ran for her chamber, threw the curtain back, and ducked inside. A sharp cry split the night.
The crowd surged across the plaza like a tidal wave and massed outside her door.
Stone Ghost tugged against Rising Fawn’s rock-hard grip. “I pledge that I will take you to your wife later, but at this moment, I must—”
“Healer?” Flame Carrier called to Cloudblower, “What’s happening? Where is the War Chief? Why are you in there?”
Cloudblower ducked out of her chamber and shouldered through the sea of bodies, shouting, “Let me pass! Get out of my way!
I must speak with Stone Ghost!
”
She stopped in front of him with tears streaming down her face. “Elder, please. You must help me.”
He disentangled his wrist from Rising Fawn’s fingers. “I will help you. Tell me.”
“Oh, Elder, no one knows. I’m sorry. I—I thought I could Heal her. I kept begging her to let me help, but she …” Sobs shook Cloudblower. “Elder, I tried so hard.”
“I know you did, Cloudblower,” he said gently, and took her by the arm. “Let us find a quiet place to speak.”
“Not until I have more answers!” Rising Fawn shouted. He lunged for Stone Ghost’s arm. “Who killed my wife? Was it you?”
“Please, I have no time for this now, I must—”
Rising Fawn grabbed Stone Ghost’s cape and shook him until his head flopped on his shoulders like a rag doll’s. Turkey feathers jerked loose and fluttered through the torchlight.
Flame Carrier yelled, “Water Snake? Skink? Hold that man!”
CATKIN CLIMBED THE ICY STAIRS WITH HER WAR CLUB IN her fist. Light flooded the cliff. A man could be standing on the rim, watching her, and she would never see him.
She slid her knee over the next step, and pulled herself up. A strange musty scent clung to the trail, fear sweat, and urine.
As she neared the rim, blood rushed so loudly in her ears, she could barely hear the sounds of the people shouting in Talon Town
below. She searched the darkness, trying to find form in it, an arm, a head, a flash of clothing.
She saw only blowing snow and flickering stars.
Catkin leaped from the last step onto the rim with her club in both hands, and spun around, panting, ready.
Wind Baby had blown large swaths of the rim clean, leaving an irregular black-and-white patchwork of pummeled snow, starlit rock, and a vast expanse of night sky.
Catkin stared into the darkness, forcing her eyes to adjust quickly. Familiar sandstone rises and distinctive lumps began to appear. Blades of grass thrust up through the snow-covered rock at her feet.
He-Who-Flies should be standing here. Where was he?
She held a hand up to block the glare from below and carefully searched the rim. At dusk, she’d seen three guards standing up here. Now, she saw none.
She stepped onto the beaten trail that led westward along the rim.
In the canyon below, the Dances had begun again. Drums beat, keeping time to sacred Songs. She could not look for fear of being night-blinded, but she knew that the twelve Antelope Dancers, led by Antelope Above, had just emerged from the kiva. Decorated alike, a white line would outline their chins, stretching from ear to ear. Their lower legs and arms would be painted white. Each would be wearing a fox skin over his back, a white kirtle, feathers in his hair, and beaded anklets. Antelope Above would carry a bowl of sacred water to be poured on the prayer stick, as the First People had done to bring trees to life.
The trail led down into a snow-filled depression, perhaps ten hands deep. An eerie sensation came over her. She stopped at the top, and glanced over her shoulder. Nothing moved, but she felt as if a monster walked behind her, his steps matching hers, his breathing timed to hers. A chameleon of light and dark, his colors shifting as he silently pursued her.
She gripped her war club in both hands. To fight down the panic, she painstakingly identified each clump of brush and rounded boulder, each shadow in the snow …
Catkin’s eyes narrowed.
An oblong splotch darkened the bottom of the depression.
Catkin edged toward it with her club up.
She heard shell bells rattling in the wind.
Her breathing went shallow. She took another step.
Below her, long hair fluttered, and softly spread across the snow.
Catkin ran down the incline.
A woman. She lay on her stomach, her face half-obscured by her hair. The shell bells decorated the collar of her white cape. Her open mouth and staring eyes formed three pitch-black holes in her white face powder.
Catkin gripped the woman’s wrist, testing for a pulse. Wind whimpered through the depression, and a haze of snow momentarily blinded Catkin. She let the dead woman’s wrist drop and gripped her club, concentrating on the sounds of the night. Voices rose from Talon Town. She could hear every word the Dancers Sang.