People of the Morning Star(169)

Walking Smoke was singing, his eyes glittering with anticipation. His painted body glistened in the firelight, the man’s muscles now tensed in anticipation. He tipped his head back and lifted the knife. As he did his blue-painted penis stiffened into an erection.

Columella pursed her lips in disgust.

“Where is Power?” she asked under her breath, fearful Walking Smoke would hear. “Where is the lightning to strike such living pollution dead?”

“Gone,” High Dance whispered. “Taken by Walking Smoke. Drawn into a rope. One he has twisted, looped, and pulled into such a hard knot that it’s strangling on itself.”

“You brought him here, brother.”

“I…” High Dance turned his face away as Walking Smoke’s singing voice filled the room.

Columella slitted her eyes, heart hammering, as Walking Smoke’s incomprehensible song bellowed from his lungs. The man’s blue-painted erection strained and quivered. He stepped forward and placed the blade against Sun Wing’s throat.

One of the Tula holding Sun Wing upside down, uttered an agonized shriek. Then he twisted away to display an arrow jutting from his back. As he turned Sun Wing loose and pawed behind him, she fell head-long into the big corrugated pot. It shattered under her weight.

Walking Smoke’s song stopped, the knife still poised. He appeared surprised and confused, blinking, as if Sun Wing’s taut throat should still be beneath the keen blade. The other Tula had stumbled as Sun Wing fell. He bent down to reach for her, his hands slipping along her skin, smeared as it was with the colorful images of tadpoles and caterpillars.

The wounded Tula, eyes bugged, mouth open, tried to straighten, only to gasp in pain and disbelief.

“Hold!” a sharp voice commanded.

Columella sought the source and stared. Impossible! But there stood Night Shadow Star, wearing a black dress that fell to just above her knees. War moccasins hugged her calves. Her hair was in a braid; eyes hard she backed along the wall. An arrow was nocked, her bow drawn.

“Leave her alone!” Night Shadow Star ordered. “Tell your Tula. The next one who touches her dies.”

Walking Smoke, the surprise vanishing from his features, smiled warmly, and said something in Caddo. The remaining Tula, faces lining in frowns, backed away, their attention turned to Night Shadow Star.

“You’ve come at last!” Walking Smoke’s glee matched his smile. “I’ve made a place for you in the circle.” He squinted one eye. “I don’t think your interruption will change the Power. I can start over from the beginning again with Sun Wing. The important thing … what Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies will pay attention to, is the blood. A couple of mistakes in the ritual? What’s that when compared to Four Winds blood?”

Night Shadow Star seemed to have just noticed the body parts spread out in the partial circle on the floor. She fixed on them, a cold realization reflected in her face.

“I really am relieved,” Walking Smoke told her warmly. “I can’t tell you how much better it is this way. Power interceded, you see.”

“I expect that it did,” Night Shadow Star said through clamped jaws. “It’s brought me here to kill you.”

“Is that what you think? You? Here to kill me?” Walking Smoke chortled as he ran a finger along the rippled knife blade. “Had Power wanted it to play out that way, you’d have driven an arrow into my heart. No, my precious love. You’re here to complete me, to join me in accomplishing the most audacious resurrection ever.”

She narrowed an eye, aiming down her slim shaft as she settled on her target.

Columella silently begged her, Kill him already!

Walking Smoke flicked the long chert knife in his fingers, saying, “I thought if I killed you that night outside your palace, it would be proof of my worthiness. Then Power whisked you away in the darkness.” He laughed as if at himself. “Silly me, I thought it was my unworthiness. But no, it was Power, saving you for here, now. Bringing you to me for the final piece.”

“Of what?” she barely gestured with her bow to indicate the semicircle of body parts. “What is that?”

“The opening from the womb, of course.” Walking Smoke raised the knife in his left hand, his right seeming to dance at the end of his wrist, the fingers flicking this way and that.

Columella gaped. Pus and rot! Don’t you see what he’s doing? Shoot!

The Tula, as a whole, tensed as they watched his hand signals. Some nodded, their wolfish eyes darting back to fix on Night Shadow Star.

“Womb?” Night Shadow Star swallowed hard. “You’re making a womb out of my sister’s body parts?”