C
ATKIN FOLLOWED THE TRAIL OF RED MACAW FEATHERS she had noticed at the burial site. Wind Baby had blown the feathers about, but they appeared to lead from the burial pit to where the Sunwatcher sat with her head bowed.
As Father Sun climbed higher into the sky, the sand gleamed like powdered amber. The fresh scents of thawing earth and wet grass carried in the cool air.
She moved forward with her war club in her fist, her dark eyes searching the boulders, and brush.
Shadows mottled the face of the cliff to her left, turning the eroded sandstone into a patchwork of gray and gold. The larger crevices could hide a man.
With witchcraft lingering on the wind, Catkin would take no chances.
Wreaths of sparks spiraled up from the Sunwatcher’s fire, which meant that someone had recently thrown wood onto it. Less than a quarter hand of time ago.
Catkin stopped five paces away. The Sunwatcher did not move. Her long braid fell over her left shoulder, looking startlingly black against the red cape.
Catkin gripped her club more tightly. She called, “Hophorn?”
A flock of pinyon jays flew over the cliff, their blue-gray wings flashing in the sunlight.
Catkin glanced at them. Witches often changed themselves into animals to elude capture, but these birds did not circle or appear unduly interested in the commotion below. They soared and dove in the sunlight, as if offering prayers to Father Sun.
Catkin took another step. No tracks ringed the fire pit, but she walked wide around it, careful not to disturb anything. When she
reached the Sunwatcher’s side, she crouched. Ashes sheathed Hophorn’s hair and cape, and four lines led away from the body, pointing in the sacred directions. Two ash-coated eagle feathers stuck out from beneath her sandals.
Catkin’s eyes slitted.
Shamans dipped ashes from fire pits and scattered them to the four directions for physical purification. What could this mean?
She reached for Hophorn’s chin, and tipped her pretty face up. Blood matted her hair to the left side of her skull. A trickle of crimson ran down Hophorn’s neck onto her red-feathered cape.
Feet pounded behind Catkin.
Browser’s voice had turned frantic. He yelled, “Is she alive?”
“I don’t know yet. A moment.”
He ran to Hophorn’s side and grabbed her hand to test her pulse. The fringes on the hem of his tan knee-length shirt flipped in the wind. “Gods, she’s alive,” he exhaled the words, and clutched Hophorn’s hand to his chest. “Thank the gods.”
Chaos broke out as people left the burial pit to rush in their direction. The rustling of clothing and hissing of questions assailed the quiet.
The crowd massed ten paces from the fire pit, whispering, wringing their hands. When Catkin glanced at them, she saw a wall of frightened eyes.
Browser gently tipped Hophorn’s head, and studied her slack expression, her half-open eyes. “Her pupils are two different sizes.”
“I know.” Catkin tied her war club to her belt, and reached beneath Hophorn’s cape to touch her chest. “She’s cold. She must be in shock.”
Browser tenderly stroked Hophorn’s hair, and whispered, “I’m here, Hophorn. Don’t be afraid. You’re safe. Everything is going to be all right.”
Cloudblower shoved through the crowd. Graying black hair straggled around her cheeks. She indicated the path Catkin had taken. “If I walk here, may I come?”
“Yes, but take care.”
Cloudblower nodded. When she reached Catkin, she fell to her knees and gently took hold of the Sunwatcher’s head. “Blessed Ancestors.” She ran her fingers over the indentation in the skull.
“Evil Spirits must be flying in from everywhere to feed on her brain. The brain will be swelling with them. If we do not relieve that pressure, she may die.”
Cloudblower lurched to her feet, and yelled, “Whiproot, help me carry her. We must get her to my chamber immediately!”
Whiproot ran the path Cloudblower had taken. Gusts of wind ruffled his white-feathered cape and chin-length black hair. He had only seen eighteen summers, but each showed on his face. His scars twitched as he neared Hophorn, and Catkin saw the tears that welled in his eyes.
“What—”
“Take her feet. I will take her shoulders.”
Whiproot did as the
Kokwimu
instructed. They lifted the Sunwatcher and started for the crumbling town where Cloudblower lived. Most of the crowd went with them, leaving less than a handful of onlookers. They milled about, speaking ominously to each other, gazing back and forth between Catkin and Browser, and the burial pit where Flame Carrier and Springbank still stood.
Browser rose. His wife and son were dead. His lover had been injured and might die, too. The very ground seemed to quake beneath his feet. “Did you see any sign of the attacker?”
Catkin shook her head. “Nothing except the red feathers. The sand is frozen solid. None of us are making tracks. Even with fifty people out here, we’ve barely scuffed the ground.”
Browser walked to the fire and stopped suddenly. His eyes widened, as he caught sight of something on the ground.
“Catkin?” he said. “Come over here.”
“What is it?”
Browser picked up the object and turned it in his hand. “A turquoise wolf.”
For a moment she was too stunned to say anything, then she blurted,
“What!”
She ran forward and grabbed for the precious talisman.
During the Age of Emergence, there had been two kinds of “people”: First People and Made People. The First People were related to those who had bravely climbed through the four underworlds; led by a blue-black wolf, they had emerged into this world
of light. Originally, all First People had lived in Straight Path Canyon, near the sacred tunnel from which they had emerged. Legends said the First People had built their kiva around that hole. The four clans of the Straight Path nation were, on the other hand, Made People. The Creator had fashioned them from “animals” to provide company for the First People. The Buffalo Clan, Bear Clan, Ant Clan, and Catkin’s own clan, the Coyote Clan, had originally been the animals their names implied. The Creator had breathed upon them, and they had turned into humans. But the First People had considered them inferior because they had once been animals, whereas the First People had always been human.
Catkin closed her fingers around the turquoise wolf. All of the First People were dead. Their legendary palaces lay in ruins. Their precious knowledge had turned to dust.
Except for stories. Glorious, unbelievable stories.
Because the First People had climbed through the underworlds, it was said that they possessed a secret knowledge of those worlds that the Made People did not. They had sold that knowledge for a price. From generation to generation, they whispered about the trip through the underworlds, the traps laid by the monsters who haunted the roads, and the landmarks that guided souls along the right path. And sometimes, for special, chosen seekers, they provided a turquoise wolf Spirit Helper to guide them on their way.
Catkin opened her palm and stared at it. The workmanship was magnificent. The wolf had her muzzle up, howling. Catkin said, “Do you think—”
“It can’t be anything else,” Browser answered. “That kind of work takes a master. A person who has spent all of his life carving and grinding turquoise. No one today can work turquoise like that.”
He held out his hand, and Catkin reluctantly dropped the wolf into his palm.
Catkin’s fingers tingled, as if the wolf had left a trace of Power on her skin. “Blessed Spirits,” she whispered. “Do you know what someone would do to possess that wolf? The First People and their secret knowledge of the underworlds might be gone, but who needs it when they have a personal Spirit Helper to lead the way?”
Browser held the wolf out to the sunlight, and watched the
light shimmer off the polished turquoise. “The killer must have dropped it.”
“The killer?” She shook her head. “Why? It is more likely that it was dropped long ago by one of the First People who lived here.”
Browser reached down and lifted a red feather. “It was laying on top of this, Catkin.” Wind Baby tugged the feather out of his hand, and it pirouetted through the air, rising higher and higher until she lost sight of it.
Catkin scrutinized the spot where the feather had rested. The faint outline of something pressed into the sand. She said, “What’s this?” and drew the odd arcing shape in the air above the impression.
Browser’s eyes widened. He leaned forward. “Perhaps part of a heel mark? The sand around the fire pit has thawed. It is the only place we might find such a print.”
She frowned. “If it is a heel print, he was a
big
man.” She put her hand down, and the impression stretched from her wrist to the tip of her little finger. “A big, heavy man.”
Browser nodded. “Yes.”
“Big enough to fit into the clothing your wife was dressed in?”
They both turned when Flame Carrier and Springbank left the burial pit, taking the onlookers back to Talon Town with them.
Catkin stared at Browser’s hand where he held the wolf. “If anyone today possessed such a wolf, he would be famous. I have never heard of such a person.”
“Nor have I,” he said through a long exhalation. Browser massaged his forehead as though a headache pounded behind his eyes. “Which means either the murderer found it recently, or the First People are not gone.”
Catkin shifted. “But no one has seen one of the First People for more than fifty sun cycles, Browser.”
Browser tucked the wolf into his belt pouch, and stood. “Maybe. Maybe we see them everyday, and do not know it, because they do not claim the privilege.”
“So they may be hiding among us?”
“Perhaps.”
Instinctively, her gaze shot upward, searching the sky for the pinyon jays she’d seen earlier. Perhaps that’s how they’d done it.
The last surviving First People had turned themselves into witches and moved unnoticed through the Made People.
“Catkin?” Browser said. “Tell no one about the turquoise wolf. When the time comes, I will speak of it. Do you understand? If anyone knew of this discovery, there would be a war over who should possess it. I do not wish—”
“Of course, I understand.”
Browser scanned the boulders and crevices in the cliff. “Catkin, after we have buried my son, and wife …” His voice broke. He took a few instants to collect himself. His mouth worked, opening and closing. More softly, he said, “After that, I wish you to complete a task for me.”
Catkin folded her arms to keep her hands under control. She longed to touch him, to ease his hurt, but that would just make things worse. She said, “Of course. What is it?”
He turned to her, and his eyes sparkled with tears. “We do not know why someone would wish to kill my wife, but we must assume that it was not an accident. The Ceremony of the Longnight begins in seven days. If we have not discovered who did this before then, we may all be in grave danger. Major ceremonials make excellent hunting grounds. With all the commotion, the Dances, the masks people wear, a killer could walk through the gathering unhindered, picking his targets one by one.”
“Why do you think the killer is a man?”
“If my wife had been dragged, we would see the evidence of it. There would be bits of scraped-off skin on the rocks or hair tangled in the brush. He must have carried her. After we have searched the canyon, we will know more. For now, just call it a feeling.”
“What makes you think he wishes to kill again?”
“His souls are twisted.” Browser reached down and retrieved another red feather from near the crackling fire. “Did you realize that the red cape Hophorn was wearing belonged to my wife?”
Catkin started. “Are you certain?”
“I recognized the yucca ties on the front. My wife wove them for many people, but she used a mixture of rabbitbrush and ground lichen to dye her ties a distinctive shade of yellow. She breathed part of her souls into her own ties.” He nodded. “It was hers. That is why the trail of feathers led from the burial pit to Hophorn. The
killer removed it from my wife’s body, and placed it around Hophorn’s shoulders.”
Catkin’s gaze roamed the cliff while she thought about that. Father Sun had chased away most of the shadows, leaving the weathered sandstone bright and golden. “Why would a killer take the time to remove a cape and walk sixty paces to—”
“Why would he take the time to undress his victim and then redress her in a man’s clothing?”
Catkin could think of no answer.
Browser massaged his forehead again. “I don’t know either, but I know someone who might.”
“Who?”
“I want you to find old Stone Ghost, Catkin. Bring him here.”
Catkin’s jaw dropped. When she’d been a little girl, her mother had told her stories about the terrible crimes the old madman had solved and several he’d committed. No one dared speak his name too loudly, lest he hear and chase them on his flying rawhide shield.