People of the Masks(16)

He could hear the Walksalong warriors gasp.

A man leaped onto the trail fifty hands away, and let fly. The arrow struck Lamedeer in the thigh, staggering him. Lamedeer pulled his last arrow, nocked his bow and killed the man.

Two more arrows flew. One splintered the rock wall to his right, the other struck Lamedeer squarely in the chest, driving him back against the cliff. He clawed at the rocky crevices to stay on his feet.

Enemy warriors whooped. Twenty men, and one tall woman warrior, the woman who’d killed Red Pipe, rushed up the trail.

Blessed gods, did I give Crowfire enough time? He tried to look up the trail, but blood welled in his throat, cutting off his air. Terror overwhelmed him when he toppled backward into the trail, writhing, his body waging a battle of its own. The sensation melted to a warm weightlessness. Lamedeer blinked at the brightening sky. Gray mist, like a thousand dove-colored butterfly wings, fluttered at the edges of his vision. He struggled to imagine Briar’s face, the way her brows lifted when she laughed, the gleam in her soft brown eyes.

Jumping Badger straddled him, grabbed Lamedeer by the shirtfront and shook him hard, shouting “Liar! I haven’t done anything to that old man! Why would Silver Sparrow curse me?”

With his last strength … Lamedeer smiled.





Silver Sparrow walked the trail that led to Earth Thunderer Village. He’d traveled all night after they’d thrown him out of Paint Rock Village, too embarrassed to stop anywhere close, too agitated to rest if he had stopped. He’d eaten a handful of shriveled rose hips yesterday afternoon, and drunk a handful of water this morning. He felt better, though every now and then his legs unexpectedly gave out on him, and he found himself sprawled in the dirt. He wanted to be home. His wounded heart needed the soothing sights of his family, and his gaunt belly needed a thick slice of venison.

He passed through a copse of red plum trees. Standing five or six body lengths tall, the highest limbs grew together, creating a canopy over the trail. Sunlight scattered the ground like strewn chips of amber. As he stepped over a fallen log, he braced a hand on one of the plum trees. It felt cool. The thin gray-brown bark had peeled away in places, revealing the darker inner bark, and the buds on the branch tips had turned chestnut-colored with winter. In less than three moons, however, he knew those buds would be bright green, and a wealth of white blossoms would cover the trees.

Sparrow longed for spring. Acttlally, he longed for any place and time other than where he was. He kept hearing the sound of Calling Hawk’s laughter, and the chuckles that had come from Lamedeer’s lodge.

“What’s the matter with my Spirit Helper? Can’t he get anything right?”

Or did the mischievous boy just like tricking Sparrow to teach him humility? The boy had never directly lied to him, not that Sparrow knew of, but he often presented the Dream images in such a way that Sparrow had trouble determining their meaning. When Sparrow got it wrong, people roared with laughter and reviled him, calling him either a simpleton or a madman.

Sparrow kicked at a squirrel-gnawed plum pit that lay in the trail.

While most of the fault for his curious reputation belonged to Sparrow alone, Dust Moon hadn’t helped matters. Every time Sparrow made a mistake, she made sure everyone for three moons’ walk knew about it.

He strode out onto a grassy hilltop and followed the trail beside a brook. The clear water burbled over rocks, splashing and sparkling in the glory of Grandfather Day Maker’s face. Three crows cawed above him. Sparrow glanced up. The big birds flapped southward, their bodies jet-black against the azure sky.

“You can’t blame Dust,” he chastised himself. “This is your problem, not hers.”

The pain that had lived in Sparrow’s heart for almost two winters tingled to life. He missed her. So much that sometimes he could barely stand it. In the thirty-five winters they had loved each other, she had become part of him—the part he liked best. Together they had made fourteen children, and grieved over the deaths of thirteen of them. Sparrow had loved her with all his heart—until eleven moons ago, when she’d cast him out of the lodge he’d built.

The rift had sprung from many sources. Each time one of their children grew ill, Dust spent all of her time working to heal that child. Sparrow had never thought about it until recently, but while she’d emptied herself into her children, she’d left him alone. Desperately alone. The more children they had, the more they lost, and the less time she could spare for him. Toward the end, he’d felt hopeless, like a starving man locked in a cage, waiting for her scraps.

When his Spirit Helper had come to him, Dust had refused to believe it. She’d treated Sparrow like a stranger.