“No. Not her voice. The sound in her eyes.”
“In her eyes?”
“Yes. It was loud.”
Blue Raven cocked his head, not certain whether to laugh or be afraid. “Do you often hear sounds in people’s eyes?”
Rumbler tucked his finger back in his mouth. “Just when the Night Walkers come.”
The hair on Blue Raven’s arms prickled. The Night Walkers were the ghosts of the ancestors. Their lodges, sewn of white feathers, gleamed across the night sky. They only descended to earth to bring important messages, or to guide the dying to the Up-Above-World.
“Rumbler,” Blue Raven said with an uneasy smile, “I must return to my longhouse to call a council meeting. Do you wish to come with me?”
“I wish to go home.”
“This is your new home, Rumbler. But you do not have to come with me. If you wish, I will take you to stay with Matron Starflower, or—”
“My mother will be here soon.” Rumbler craned his neck to look into Blue Raven’s eyes. “She will. She promised. And you will all die.”
“Rumbler, I—”
“She is coming for me. Lamedeer, my uncle, is helping her. They promised a long time ago. They said they would never let anyone hurt me.” He nodded certainly. “She’s coming.”
Blue Raven stroked Rumbler’s black hair. He didn’t have the courage to tell the boy that both his mother and the Paint Rock war leader were probably dead by now.
“Well, while you wait for them,” Blue Raven said, “let me help you. You had a long journey. You must be starving and tired. First, we will feed you, then you may roll up in my buffalo hides and sleep by the fire for as long as you wish.”
Blue Raven reached down and grasped Rumbler’s hand. They walked from the longhouse and up the sunlit trail toward the crowd of people assembled near the hilltop. Blue Raven studied the boy, seeing him clearly for the first time. Though he had the girth of a normal child his age, his short arms and legs gave him a squat appearance. He swaggered oddly when he walked.
Grandfather Day Maker’s light slanted through the trees and scattered golden triangles across their path, but Rumbler’s gaze desperately roamed the forest.
“Rumbler, I wish you to know that my people, everyone in Walksalong Village, consider you very precious. We will treat you well, and you will be happy with us. I promise you this. I—”
A commotion rose on top of the hill. Blue Raven gripped the boy’s hand more securely. People shouted, and several women raced away from the crowd white-faced. The rest turned like one huge many-headed animal to look directly at Blue Raven and Rumbler.
“What’s happened?” Blue Raven whispered anxiously. He started up the trail at a fast walk. Rumbler trotted at his side to keep up.
“I told them.”
Blue Raven glanced down. “Told who?”
“Them. Those men.”
Acorn broke from the crowd and dashed down the hill. A burly man, he wore his hair in the warrior’s cut of the Thornbush Clan, shaved on the sides with a bristly ridge down the middle of his skull. His buffalohide cape, curly and brown, flapped about him with each footfall.
Acorn halted a cautious thirty hands away, breathing hard, his mouth hanging open. His panicked eyes focused on Rumbler.
“Well?” Blue Raven demanded. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“Elder,” he said breathlessly. “Mossybill, one of the runners who brought in the False Face Child … I think he’s dying.”
Blue Raven gaped, unable to speak for several moments, then he sputtered, “Wh-what? But why? Are you certain of this?”
A swallow went down Acorn’s throat. He took a step backward. “I checked him myself. I know the face of death, Elder.”
Blue Raven just stood there. Then, slowly, he looked down.
The False Face Child’s white teeth shone, and his black eyes had turned bottomless, the darkness alive, moving.
“Rumbler, what—”
Bright childish laughter erupted from Rumbler’s throat, and Blue Raven went rigid. The boy laughed again, his head thrown back.
“I told them.”
Five
At Starflower’s shrill cry, Blue Raven whirled to look up the hill. She stood panting, her elderly face as white as birch bark. “Take it out of the village!” she screamed. “Get it away before it kills anyone else!”
“Matron, please,” Blue Raven urged. “We know nothing yet. We mustn’t make accusations before we—”
“Kill it!” Starflower’s sticklike old legs started shaking so badly she had to grab onto the woman next to her to keep standing. “It is not human!” Her voice had turned hoarse. “Kill it!”