People of the Moon(44)

“Let’s go.” She led the way, backing quickly down the slope so that the crest of the hill and old woman Chickadee’s house hid her from the approaching warriors.

Slinging the pack over one shoulder, she took Slipped Bark’s hand and ran swiftly, her sandal-clad feet whispering on the sandstone slabs she crossed.

The great kiva lay little more than a stone’s throw down the slope, and it was there that she paused by the south entrance. Glancing quickly over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching, she touched her head in deference to the spiritual Power of the place and led Slipped Bark up the ladder, over the stone wall, and down into the shadowed depths.

“Should we be here?” Slipped Bark looked nervously up at the roof with its smoke hole open to the morning sky.

The great kiva had been dug down into the ground, its walls built up with thick courses of shaped stones. Four large logs had been set as roof supports, beams laid across, and stringers run down to the thick walls. It wasn’t like the massive roofs that the First People constructed to cover their great kivas, but more of a ramada. Something to keep the sun and rain off.

“No one will look for us here,” Fir Brush said. “Shhh! Keep quiet.” She led the way past the firebox and the rectangular foot drum to the eastern edge of the circular wall. There she stooped and lifted several wooden planks from the small stone-lined pit dug into the floor.

“That’s for the Priests!” Slipped Bark said with a gasp. She had her little doll crushed to her chest, her eyes wide with fear.

Fir Brush slung her pack into the depths, surprised to see a field mouse scamper up the plastered rock and scurry across the beaten clay floor. “We’re going to be like Priests for a while. Hurry now, climb down. They’ll never look for us here.”

“I don’t think—”

“Shhh! Go! Or I’ll give you to the Red Shirts myself. And if you’re not quiet, and don’t obey, they’ll eat you!”

Terrified, Slipped Bark hoisted herself down into the dark hole. Her corn-shuck doll was nearly bent in two as she worked it back and forth against her chest.

Fir Brush lowered her feet into the hole and slid down, bending around to pull the planks back over the top. The gap between the boards cast slivers of dim light across the cramped space where they crouched.

“What are we going to eat?” Slipped Bark asked.

Fir Brush patted the pack she’d made. “I’ve got corn cakes and a bladder of water here. That will hold us. But we’ll have to wait until after dark to pee.”

“I’m scared!”

“Not nearly as scared as you’ll be if those warriors catch us.”

“What about Ripple?”

Fir Brush took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I just don’t. Maybe, somehow, he’ll get away.”

“Mother and Father didn’t.”

Fir Brush turned her face away so that Slipped Bark couldn’t see the tears that trickled from the corner of her eye. “I know.”





Thirteen



The day couldn’t have been more perfect for the task at hand. Spots shifted on his haunches and poked another length of aspen into the long trench where his low fire burned. He squinted against the smoke rolling out of the trench and decided the position of the wood was just perfect.

Backing away, he studied his creation. Two upright poles about chest high had been planted into the ground and a crosspiece lain between the two to create a drying rack. He’d dug the shallow trench between them, filled it with wood, and kindled a fire. Then had come the laborious process of stripping the elk quarter, cutting each muscle loose and splitting it along the grain into thin flats. These he draped over the drying rack, where the heat and smoke rose to coat them.

Periodically he would walk down to where his sister, Yellow Petal, was washing her family’s clothing. After inquiring as to her progress, he would yank some of the rich river grasses out by the roots. These he’d drop on the coals to create thick clouds of smoke in which to bathe the meat.

Satisfied with his smoking fire, he sat back on the flat grass and watched Yellow Petal finish her washing. She’d lain each article of damp clothing across one of the polished river boulders to dry. Now she waded out of the cold water, shaking her hands. Water droplets sparkled as she flung them from her callus-hardened fingers.

She was not a particularly attractive woman, being thick of body, with a broad face. Unlike Spots, only her left arm showed faint patterns of scar tissue. Since the night of their tragic fire she had always kept her hair short, saying that nightmares about it catching fire and burning around her like a halo still haunted her sleep.