People of the Moon(26)

She had just passed her first moon as a woman, having been initiated into the Blue Stick Clan’s woman’s kiva. She wore her hair cut short, and it hung to the corner of her jaw, as was appropriate for a young woman eligible for marriage. When she finally took a husband, it would be expected that she grow her hair long again, befitting her status.

This night she wore a loose skirt belted at the waist with a rope. Ripple was vaguely aware of her as she knelt by the fire, stirring the stew with a wooden paddle.

To his right, his youngest sister, Slipped Bark, sat beside a bowl of piñon nuts. Employing a small stone and anvil, she cracked the hulls and used her thumbnail to pry out the meats. These she dropped into a wooden bowl. Ripple noticed that more than a few were popped into her mouth.

Because she was still a girl, Slipped Bark’s hair hung down her back in a tangled black wave. Bits of pine duff, milkweed seeds, and other detritus were stuck in the mass. She wore a virgin’s girdle belted around her skinny hips. At ten and one summers, her thin chest hadn’t begun to swell with the first hint of womanhood.

“This vision …” Fir Brush began hesitantly.

“Why are you so skeptical?” Ripple shifted his back as he studied the interior of his house.

To build a home, his people excavated a waist-deep hole, round, and four paces across. They lined it with a thick sandstone foundation, wide as a man’s arm, and then set four posts equidistant into the floor to support the roof. Stringers were set side-by-side leaning from the foundation to the beams; then a thick layer of juniper bark matting was laid over the whole. Finally they packed dirt over the bark matting to seal the structure. A square hole was left in the roof for entry and egress, while a ventilator shaft in the south wall admitted air and provided draft for the fire. Inside, the stone foundation was plastered over to create a combination bench and wall. During winter, the thick courses of stone absorbed heat from the fire and radiated back at night. During the summer, it acted as a cool sink, keeping the lodge interior pleasant on the hottest of days.

“You really saw Cold Bringing Woman?” Slipped Bark couldn’t hide the disbelief. She never believed anything, no matter who said it.

Ripple sighed. “Do I have to repeat myself again?”

Fir Brush gave him an uneasy stare, her eyes gleaming in the yellow light. “What we believe isn’t the issue, Ripple. What if the First People hear about it? They’re scared enough as it is.”

“And you can’t forget who we are!” Slipped Bark added. “They hate us!”

“They don’t hate us,” Fir Brush countered. “But if this gets out, they might remember who we are.”

Ripple rubbed his face. “They haven’t forgotten our family. It’s only been what, ten winters?”

“Ten winters,” Fir Brush agreed, turning sober eyes on Slipped Bark. Their little sister had only been a year old, still dependent on mother’s milk. Too young to remember what happened that terrible day. As Ripple recalled, she’d slept through most of it, even the screams. The miracle was that she’d survived his care afterward.

“I just want you to keep quiet about it, that’s all,” Fir Brush added. “I’ll speak to Wrapped Wrist and Spots. Maybe they’ll just forget you said anything.”

He watched her, wondering how he’d missed the moment when she had changed from a flighty girl into this new, serious person. She might have been a middle-aged woman the way she talked and acted. But then, life hadn’t allowed any of them much leisure for childhood. True, their cousins had fulfilled kin obligations and provided for them when times were tough, but for the most part, Ripple and Fir Brush had raised themselves.

He glanced at the strips of green-bark binding up in the soot-stained rafters, a symbol of their childhood construction. The knots were crude, but they still held. Not bad work for children. In the last five winters, the house hadn’t fallen down around their ears. In some places the stringers had started to rot, but they’d last a couple more winters before he had to strip the upper half off and reroof it.

Ripple lifted his hands. “Who cares if they remember who we are? Cold Bringing Woman came to me. She told me what she told me. I can’t change that.”

“And the meat?” Fir Brush arched a slim eyebrow. “Wrapped Wrist said it really was frozen. Gods, it was still icy when you brought our quarter home. I felt it, but I can’t believe it.”

He glanced away. “Then don’t, Sister. What you believe will not change what happened up on the mountain.”

“Are you going to go find the witch?” Slipped Bark asked, voice dropping.