He stepped closer to her door in order to better see her withered face peering out at him. Her white hair was drawn neatly back over her wide sloped skull, her head having been bound as an infant to give her such patrician features.
“They must be punished or others will try the same. Next time it might be your skull they split.”
She grinned at him, exposing the few brown teeth left in her lower jaw. “Go ahead, fool. Fan the flames. I don’t know who’s the greater danger, you or that incompetent Webworm. Featherstone was a halfwit. Like begets like.”
“Your words are treasonous.”
“So, what will you do? Come back and punish me?” Her laughter cackled. “You just try it, you homeless half-bred dog of a First Person.”
He began to tremble, enraged by the disgust in her voice as much as by the words.
“Go on,” she growled, shooing him from the shadows of her room. “Go posture before your warriors. They need a good show.”
He stood for a moment, anger running bright along his bones. Taking a breath, he turned away.
Turquoise Fox, his deputy, stood at the head of a knot of warriors and scowled down at the bloodstain on the beaten clay. He was a wide-shouldered man, scarred on the left cheek from a slicing war club. His neck had the thick look of an ancient juniper trunk. Now he turned dark eyes to Leather Hand.
“Turquoise Fox?”
“Yes, War Chief?”
He raised his voice so that it carried across the plaza. “Find the man known as Tracker. Prepare your warriors. It seems the Dust People must learn their place in the world. It has fallen upon us to teach them.” He smiled humorlessly, Husk Woman’s words ringing in his souls. “We must do it in such a way that no one will dare to repeat this atrocity.”
“Yes, War Chief.” Turquoise Fox straightened, a crooked smile on his thick lips.
“They have incurred the wrath of the Blessed Sun!” Posturing? He’d give them posturing. Leather Hand raised a clenched fist high. “We shall show them how such perfidy is repaid.” He stared out at the small crowd that had gathered below the great house. “You, all of you! Carry word out from this place! Those who spit upon the Blessed Sun’s benevolence shall pay the ultimate price! You shall bear witness. As shall the Dust People!”
As he spoke, he tried to read their eyes, tried to see if they would believe. But their dark stares remained impenetrable, their souls hidden. If he failed now, the entire northern frontier could disintegrate around him like an unfired clay pot in a winter rain.
Twelve
Water Bow, Sun Priest of Pinnacle Great House, knelt at the sipapu in the First People’s kiva. The air was cool, damp with the odors of earth and faintly spiced with the aroma of sacred herbs. Juniper ash in the fire pit gave off a whiff of perfume. Around him, newly painted images of the gods danced on the wet-plastered walls.
He felt better knowing that Spider Woman, the Flute Player, the Blue God, and First Bear were watching. He had never been comfortable with the thlatsinas, or Sternlight’s heresy.
Water Bow had seen more than forty summers pass, and his hair had turned as white as the loosely fitting Priest’s robe he wore. Once smooth and muscular, his now-thin body had gone to little more than bone and sinew. He had the wide forehead of the First People, the sharp cheekbones and pointed chin. Three spirals had been tattooed beneath his lower lip.
As he chanted the Awakening Song, he bent down, touching his forehead to the sipapu, and felt the hole’s cool rim kiss his delicate skin. He tried to ignore the discomfort caused by the awkward position. His knees, bony as they were, speared pain, and his joints ached.
“Where are you, great Ancestors? Can you hear me down there? Come to us. Come in our time of need. Your children call you.”
He lapsed back into the chant again, calling it down into the narrow hole just beyond his lips. Again he bent his forehead to the void, listening, extending his senses.
And felt nothing.
In the end, he straightened, relieving the pain in his lower back and hips. Settling on his buttocks, he looked up at the high cribbed roof. The overlapping timbers were sooty, shadowed behind the dim shaft of light coming through the smoke hole. But he could see the masks. They stared at him from where they rested on the pole shelves. Spider Woman inspected him through yellow-circled eyes. Bear’s shaggy face looked menacing, rows of white teeth filling his open mouth. Buffalo Above’s wide horns had grayed with dust.
Ritual pottery, delicate vessels slipped in white with black hatching and geometric designs, held the sacred colors of cornmeal: blue, yellow, white, and red. Other jars—each stoppered with a shaped stone lid—were full of pollen from each of the different kinds of corn plants. Rendered bear lard filled a large white-slipped jar of local manufacture, while smaller pots clustered around it and contained different colors: red hematite, blue clay, yellow dirt, purple larkspur pigment, and white earth. From the ceiling, net bags hung in the south, each holding a different Spirit Plant. On the west, a jumbled line of soot-encrusted skulls dangled from cords tied to the rafters. Missing their jaws, they seemed frozen in surprise, slightly comic, and disorganized. Three other specimens—miscreants from the past—consisted only of skull caps, cut so that they could be used for cups.