My fault. All mine.
“What are we going to do?” Crowfire asked. “We must escape! Tell us how, Lamedeer. What have you planned?”
Blackstone turned to Lamedeer. Short and burly, he had the stoutness of a tree stump. Forgiveness filled his eyes. He put a hand on Lamedeer’s shoulder, whispering, “The ancestors chose our time for us. That is all.”
“Is it, my friend?”
Blackstone searched his face. “There is no blame here. Not for you. Not for any of us. We just … lost our Power.” He exhaled hard and looked out the cave entrance. The lines crisscrossing his face deepened. “The False Face Child was wrong. It was the first time. You could not have known.”
Blackstone studied Lamedeer’s grim expression, let his hand drop, and walked to the opposite side of the cave’s mouth, where he slumped against the cold limestone.
“Lamedeer?”
As Dawn Woman strode closer, more light streamed into the cave, and he could make out Crowfire’s plain, almost austere face, round and framed with shoulder-length black hair. Desperate hope shone in the youth’s dark eyes.
“What is it, Crowfire?”
“You can accomplish anything, Lamedeer. We all know it. You have but to give us your orders!”
Even now, after he’d led his people to their deaths, Lamedeer could not escape the fabric of legends that clothed him. For twelve winters he had been the greatest warrior of the Paint Rock Clan. People told winter stories about his adventures, turning his hard-fought battles into sacred acts. Until three nights ago, they had all believed that just by lifting his bow, he could conquer their enemies.
The destruction of Paint Rock Village had changed that. For all except the most naïve.
“Very well, Crowfire,” Lamedeer answered, “I will give you an order. You and Walking Teal will stay in this cave with me until I signal you”—he raised a clenched fist—“to run. Then you will take the deer trail that winds through the boulders to the top of the cliff. We saw it last night. Do you remember?”
“Oh, yes, I do!”
“When you reach the top, you will run for Earth Thunderer Village as fast as you are able, and tell the story to Silver Sparrow. Tell him …” His mouth went suddenly dry. He swallowed hard. “Tell him he was right.”
“Right?” Crowfire asked. “Right about what?”
Lamedeer rasped, “Just repeat my words, boy!”
Crowfire’s wide eyes disappeared into the shadows again.
Lamedeer turned away. Silver Sparrow had run for two nights, and Lamedeer had laughed at him.
Though many people among the Bear Nation believed Silver Sparrow had great Spirit Power and feared him, among the Turtle Nation people whispered that the old man was deranged. Sparrow’s own wife had divorced him, and told anyone who would listen what an old fool Silver Sparrow had become. Of course Lamedeer had ignored Sparrow’s warning. Sparrow’s words were unreliable. He—
“Lamedeer?” Crowfire pressed. “I do not wish to run. Please? I wish to fight. I am a warrior! I—”
“You will do as I tell you, Crowfire.”
Crowfire’s mouth hung open, then he lifted both fists and shook them—a sign of obedience.
Lamedeer looked out at the valley, trying not to see the bodies, or the enemy warriors. He wanted only to enjoy the breathtaking beauty of this last morning.
Sunlight fell across the forest in bars and streaks of bright gold, sparkling in the tendrils of mist that curled from the creek. As he watched, one tendril crept across the frosty ground, climbed the trunk of an old oak tree, and coiled languidly in its highest branches, like a serpent sleeping in the warm sunlight. The birds had wakened. They hopped from limb to limb, chirping and singing.
Lamedeer inhaled deeply and held the breath in his lungs.
“Do you think Briar is out there?” Blackstone asked. “That she is watching us even now? Perhaps conferring with her husband, laying plans to save us?”
Before he could stop himself, Lamedeer squeezed his eyes closed, his pain obvious. Whispers drifted through the cave.
“I do not see how my sister could have escaped, Blackstone. The Walksalongs struck her house first. They stole the False Face Child. Surely they must also … have …”
The possibility that she might be gone from his life forever left him feeling as empty as Falling Woman’s heart. Briar would have fought like a she-bear to keep her child. The fact that the False Face Child had been taken meant she could fight no more.
A prickly sensation, like a swarm of biting flies, ate at his chest. As he scanned the faces of the people in the cave, he could feel her. Pieces of Briar hid in each of them. Breathing, smiling, gazing out through their eyes. The meekest and yet most self-confident woman he had ever known, Briar had treated everyone with reverence, adults, children, animals, even the wing-seeds that spiraled through the summer air. An admired holy woman, she’d also had a reputation for being flighty. When a village meeting was called, everyone knew she would dash in late, breathing hard, and spend the next quarter hand of time apologizing to the elders. There was always one more person who’d needed her. She had lived her teachings, believing in charity and, above all else, love, which she gave without question. At night, when the rest of Paint Rock Village slept, Briar could be found before her fire, offering consolation to the lost or bereaved, reminding them of what they already knew but—in their loneliness—had forgotten.