“Not yet,” Hoarse Caller rasped. “But how many more loads of tribute can we watch carried out of our granaries before it’s our bellies that grow gaunt?”
“Not to mention some other sort of catastrophe,” Red Water reminded. “An early frost … a flash flood that takes out too many fields … a plague of insects?” She shrugged. “We’re working very closely to the edge here, having just enough to see us through after giving the Blessed Sun his tribute.”
“And tribute comes first,” Elder Rattler reminded. “Webworm won’t lose a moment’s sleep if his demands leave our granaries empty and our families starve to death before spring.”
“We might be able to hide some of the harvest,” Red Water reminded. “Make secret caches and store enough to make the difference.”
“Sure,” Green Claw added dryly, “with the Red Shirts slipping around all winter wondering where the constantly full stew pots are coming from? Don’t forget, they have their sources among our people. As long as they perch up there atop our sacred mountain, they see and hear everything.”
“Now is not the time to stir things up.” Black Sage glanced back and forth among her peers. “This new Deputy, Leather Hand, has been making quite a name for himself. Traders tell me that the troublemakers in Lanceleaf Village are lying headless, sprawled in trash pit graves, their newly polished skulls staring down from the kiva niches.”
Old White Eye spoke: “We are losing the purpose of this meeting.” He steepled his fingers, the sightless white eye bulging from his ruined face. “Cold Bringing Woman came to Ripple. We didn’t act quickly enough to remove the young man from the Blessed Larkspur’s enthusiastic deputies. Now he is discovering just how much pain his young body can stand.” He turned his head toward Elder Hoarse Caller. “Perhaps, gentle Elder, his voice will be forever broken, as yours was so many summers ago.”
Hoarse Caller’s whispery voice replied, “Yes, a human throat can only scream for so long before it tears away like a cobweb in a gale.”
Bad Cast watched the elders shift uncomfortably, queasiness slipping about in his stomach. He tried to keep his imagination from conjuring images of Ripple, of how his friend’s face must be contorting to make screams like that.
“All the more reason to avoid a confrontation with the First People,” Black Sage maintained. “Who wants to suffer what Hoarse Caller did? Who wants to see their relatives endure that, let alone live with memories of the horrors?”
“Yes, yes,” Green Claw avowed. “And we must not forget, the moon cycle is coming complete. The Blessed Sunwatcher, Blue Racer, will be leading his entourage this way. Perhaps even the Blessed Webworm and Desert Willow will be coming to view the renewal of Sister Moon.”
Old White Eye smiled. The satisfaction it communicated brought a shiver to Bad Cast’s souls.
“Why do you smile?” Elder Rattler asked.
White Eye chuckled softly. “Because, my old friends, what you wish is no longer at issue.”
“And why is that?” Green Claw sounded annoyed, as if his stature had been impugned.
“Because the gaming pieces have already been cast:” White Eye added. “And once they were released, no amount of longing on your part can call them back.”
“What gaming pieces?” Black Sage demanded, her deeply lined face reflecting skepticism. “We have made no decision here, committed ourselves to no action.”
“How arrogant you are.” White Eye tilted his head back, the firelight bathing his damaged face, gleaming redly into the dirt-encrusted socket of his missing eye. “You have no gaming pieces to cast. They were thrown by the gods long ago.”
“When Webworm was made Blessed Sun?” Green Claw asked.
“Before that,” White Eye replied.
“When the Rainbow Serpent rose from the Below Worlds?” Hoarse Caller whispered.
“Much before that.”
“When Matron Night Sun mated with Ironwood?” Dead Bird guessed.
“Long before that, even. No, the pieces were cast the night the Tattooed Raiders stole away the Tortoise Bundle from Talon Town and carried off the little girl who Dreamed with it.”
Silence followed.
Bad Cast could see that each of the clan elders was puzzled.
White Eye continued. “From that moment on, the future of the First People began to unwind. Power shifted. But, most curious of all, almost no one in our world marked the moment when the destruction of the First People became irrevocable.”
“And when was that?” Elder Rattler asked skeptically. “Surely not when Ripple had this supposed vision.”