As he remembered, Bad Cast turned his eyes toward the mountain, seeing the twin spires of rock, and relived that long-ago day when he had been made a man. Being initiated to the Blue Stick Clan kiva had been the most important event of his life. From the moment he had repeated the holy story and looked at the twin monoliths, his life had changed.
He shot another glance at Ripple. His friend sat wearily, his chest rising and falling. It was as if he had already set himself apart from them. The deep-seated anxiety that had lain behind his eyes remained, haunting and dangerous. He seemed oblivious as Spots and Wrapped Wrist studied him with hesitant sidelong glances.
It was Wrapped Wrist who leaned forward and whispered, “What do you think about his vision?”
Bad Cast shrugged, voice low. “How do you explain the frozen meat?”
“Maybe he found it in a cave?” Spots suggested. “You know, there are caves like that in the high country. Or at the edge of the snow fields. Places where ice doesn’t melt even in the hottest of summers.”
“Then how did he pack four heavy quarters that far without the meat thawing?” Wrapped Wrist countered. “And those wilted plants. They looked frost damaged to me.”
Bad Cast muttered from the side of his mouth. “I went back to the place he said he killed the elk. The blood’s still there. So, too, were the grizzly tracks. I stuck a finger in a pile of fresh bear shit. Not quite warm, not quite cold, but definitely last night’s. It’s just like he said.”
Wrapped Wrist screwed up his face. “But Cold Bringing Woman? She doesn’t come down from her mountains for moons … assuming you even believe in her.”
Spots lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “Something makes it cold for half the year. Or are you saying the First People are right? They’ve been trying for tens of sun cycles to tell us our stories are false.”
Wrapped Wrist shifted uncomfortably as he kneaded the powerful muscles in his thick thigh. “It’s not that. I mean, not really. I think it’s that Father Sun goes south. We all know that. When he’s in the south it’s colder, that’s all. Just like when the Cloud People roll across a summer sky. The temperature drops. It doesn’t mean that Cold Bringing Woman—”
“Why don’t you go all the way and call her Old Woman North?” Spots used the First People’s name for the terrible white-faced winter god.
“I told you, I don’t believe in the First People’s ways!” Wrapped Wrist scowled at Spots.
“Just in their warriors,” Bad Cast grumbled. What people said aloud in public was closely tied to the proximity of the red-shirted warriors who enforced the Blessed Sun’s will in First Moon Valley.
To Bad Cast’s dismay, Ripple called from where he rested, “Think what you will. I’ll tell you what I believe: We will begin the process of breaking the First People. You didn’t see what I saw. Even the old gods are tired of the First People and their ways.”
Bad Cast filled his hot lungs with a breath. “Don’t forget what they did to your father, my friend. Or how you got your name in the first place.”
Ripple smiled for the first time, but it was forced, almost a grimace. “Perhaps that’s why Cold Bringing Woman called on me. She knows the colors of my souls.”
“Just so this madness doesn’t end with you showing the world the color of your blood,” Wrapped Wrist warned.
Spots had been running his fingers over the puckered scars on his left arm. “This must not be spoken of openly. You must promise, Ripple, that you won’t walk up to the First People’s great house and shout out at the top of your lungs that according to the gods, they’re doomed.”
Ripple lowered his head, eyes on the thick green grass that grew beside the stream. “I am no fool, Spots. The time isn’t right for that yet.”
“Oh?” Bad Cast asked. “You know when this magical blow to the First People is going to take place?”
Ripple shook his head. “No. I have to be tested first. I have to endure. Then, if I survive, I have to go to the Mountain Witch. Then, and only then, can I destroy the First People.”
Bad Cast glanced from one of his friends to the other, sharing their unease. It didn’t do for a man to let his mouth run off about the First People. Those who did were usually awakened in the darkness as red-shirted warriors dragged them out of bed, hustled them off, and dispatched them in the most gruesome of ways. It was said that a cup made out of Ripple’s father’s skull still rested on a shelf in the First People’s kiva up at Pinnacle Great House.
As Bad Cast hitched himself wearily to his feet he glanced up at the high pillars of First Moon Mountain. Below the twin spires of rock, the square three-story structure of the hated great house could be seen. Visible for days’ walks in any direction, the tan-plastered edifice hulked on his people’s most holy ground. In the dusk it made a blot against the indigo sky.