People of the Morning Star(155)

Even the stone carvings of Morning Star, Snapping Turtle, Eagle, and Falcon had been consigned to the fire, and now lay, white hot, among the glowing coals and calcined fragments of human bone. Surely any Spirit Power they once contained had been purged from the sacred stone.

A physical pain pierced her heart as the symbols of her world were consumed.

Of her beautiful palace, only the woven-cane wall behind the dais still stood, the intricate design reflecting pale shadows where once-stunning reliefs had hung. She’d waited for most of a year while the craftsmen wove the complicated patterns. For all she knew, Walking Smoke left it standing because it was too cumbersome to tear down.

And perhaps, like her, he placed too much value on keeping his privacy in her personal quarters behind them.

Just this side of the fire a low dome had been lashed together out of cane and blankets before hides were laid over the whole. To her practiced eye, it looked like a sweat lodge.

Even as she pondered it, Walking Smoke emerged from her sleeping quarters, rubbing his eyes and yawning. He wore only a breechcloth, the Four Winds tattoos on his muscular young body stood out vibrantly on his light brown skin. The Morning Star House pattern with its forked-eye design, to her amazement, had been altered. Now a third point, creating the three-forked design of the Underworld had been added to the tattoo.

Walking Smoke yawned again and absently scratched as he studied the plaster walls.

“What’s he doing?” High Dance asked.

“He didn’t tell you?” she shot back. “All those clandestine meetings? All the careful plotting and sneaking you did? Even after you learned he was dangerous you couldn’t let go, could you, brother?”

“Stop!” he said through gritted teeth. “As if you did any better with your shifty dwarf.” He shot her a sidelong glance. “But then he’s a smart one, isn’t he? Haven’t seen him around since Walking Smoke trapped us in here.”

“Be patient.” She narrowed her eyes as Walking Smoke called out orders in Caddo, and two of the Tula, using antlers, began fishing the stone statuary from the coals.

“What’s this? He’s really going to sweat? Here! In the middle of our palace? Using our burned statues for heat?” High Dance wondered.

“Why not?” she asked dryly. “Or did you figure he’d walk out in the plaza like everyone else?”

“Now what?” High Dance tensed as two more Tula dragged a tall boiling jar from under one of the sleeping benches and placed it on the floor just back from the sweat lodge’s entrance.

Another Tula had rounded up one of the water jars. Flipping back the blankets on the sweat lodge, he placed it inside, then walked over to where the slaves huddled against the back wall. He joined three of his companions who stood guard.

Walking Smoke sauntered around the room before stopping to size up the children, one by one. None would meet his eyes. He shook his head, as if in self-argumentation, and turned his attention on the slaves.

He pointed at Cold Water, a longtime slave who had served her for years. She’d obtained him as a young man, and valued his big body, though a wound to the head at the time of his capture had always left him a little slow.

Now the Tula made whistling and hooting sounds as they rushed forward and grabbed Cold Water, who kicked and fought as they dragged him over the matting to the middle of the room.

A war club lashed out, the wet smack loud in the silence.

Columella tensed, half rising. But High Dance, despite his tied hands, managed to drag her down. “Don’t get in the middle of this, Sister. Don’t call attention to us.”

“But Cold Water—”

“Is already stunned and quivering,” High Dance gritted.

She watched in horror as the slave’s head was lifted by his hair; his eyes rolled back and fluttered in his head. The Tula positioned him over the corrugated cooking jar.

A long brown-chert blade appeared in one of the Tula’s hands. Columella gasped as it was drawn quickly across Cold Water’s stretched throat.

She heard her children cry out and glanced down the bench to see them cringing, hiding their eyes, crying in horror. They’d loved Cold Water. He’d always taken care of the children, his big dumb heart delighted to look after them.

Now his blood jetted red through the wide slit under his chin. She could hear it splashing and trickling into the corrugated jar. So deep and clean was the severing cut, and so skillfully did the Tula catch the flow, that no blood bubbled up from Cold Water’s nose or mouth.

Then, to Columella’s horror, she watched the Tula hoist Cold Water’s feet ever higher until they held him almost vertically above the pot to drain every last bit of blood from his body.