Bad Cast glanced back to see the hard-eyed warrior gesturing with a muscular arm. People slowly rose amidst a rustling of clothing, their sandals whispering on the packed earth as they shuffled back out the entryway.
That beckoning doorway looked impossibly far away. The people slowly drained away like water through a small hole in a cooking jar. If only he could be going with them. The muscular warrior ducked out behind the last of the people; the door hanging swayed in his wake.
Shouts could be heard outside. Moments later a cowed-looking Spots was ushered into the now-empty kiva. Spots blinked, started to grin, and then recognized the elders seated on the bench. His expression fell like the downdraft preceding a summer thunderstorm.
“Ah, the last of our young cocks has arrived,” White Eye whispered, though how the old blind man could know Spots’s identity was beyond Bad Cast.
Spots walked hesitantly forward, turning questioning glances from Wrapped Wrist to Bad Cast, who gave him frightened shrugs in return.
The muscular warrior leaned in, calling, “My men have moved the curious away, Elders. You may speak in private.”
“Stay, Whistle,” White Eye replied. “We may need your expertise.”
Whistle? Bad Cast tried to place the name, coming up blank. Tens of hundreds of people lived around the First Moon Valley; no one could know everyone. Still, this muscular man, with his almost feline walk, striking appearance, and gleaming black hair pinned in a warrior’s bun would have stood out. The warrior, apparently unfazed in the proximity of so much authority, trotted up and crouched like a waiting cougar beside one of the roof supports, his dark eyes flicking alertly back and forth.
Elder Rattler cleared her throat. “We are here because of the mess you and young Ripple have gotten us into.”
Bad Cast swallowed hard; a band of dread began to close around his chest. Wrapped Wrist winced painfully, while Spots turned so pale that the mottling of his scarred flesh looked uniformly white.
“As we speak, that poisonous serpent, Burning Smoke, is torturing Ripple for information.” Rattler made a grim face. “But for the distance, and the thickness of Pinnacle Great House’s walls, we’d be hearing his screams now.”
The band pulled even tighter around Bad Cast’s chest.
Elder Rattler studied them one by one. “Whatever Ripple’s vision was, it has apparently frightened the First People. We did not act quickly enough to save Ripple, and it was but with the narrowest luck that we’ve kept the three of you out of Matron Larkspur’s grasp.”
“What happened up there?” Hoarse Caller asked in the breathy low voice for which she’d been named. “Up on the mountain … What did Ripple see?”
Uncharacteristically, it was Spots who found his voice first. “He claims that Cold Bringing Woman came to him and that she told him he could destroy the First People.”
Elder Red Water leaned forward, her white-streaked hair catching the light. “The three of you were the first to reach him. Do you believe he really saw Cold Bringing Woman?”
While Spots and Bad Cast shrugged, Wrapped Wrist said, “The elk was frozen solid, Elder. The plants were wilted as if from a frost. We can tell you that Ripple firmly believes it. Were he here, he would swear it was true.”
“Why Ripple?” Dead Bird wondered absently. Her callused brown fingers were caressing the loose wattle of flesh under her chin.
“His family has a history with the First People,” Elder Rattler answered. “They executed his mother and father ten summers ago. The boy watched both of his parents die.”
“His father was Falling Cone, a Bee Flower man,” Green Claw added. “A cousin of mine, and something of a hothead. Ripple’s mother, Pine Berry, had no siblings, and only several cousins living some distance downstream in the valley. Falling Cone took considerable interest in helping Pine Berry raise her children. He doted on them with the same affection as if they were his own clan kin.”
“I remember,” Red Water said thoughtfully. “War Chief Ironwood had already left Straight Path Canyon at the head of a war party when Water Bow signaled that the trouble was over.”
“Just as well,” Black Sage muttered. “It would have gone hard on us had Ironwood come all this way. No telling what might have broken loose. All it would have taken would have been a hotheaded young man flinging a stone, perhaps a shouted insult, and passions could have burned out of control.”
“And we don’t want that to happen now, either,” Dead Bird added. “These are perilous times. People are frightened. Stories are carried to my ears all the time of starvation and drought in the lowlands. The last thing we want is for the First People to make an example of us. We’re some of the few who aren’t teetering on the verge of starvation.”