“They must have seen us,” Cornsilk whispered.
“Or scented us. Wind Baby is blowing right down our backs.”
Poor Singer watched the deer lope into the forest and disappear without a sound, then he turned his gaze back to the thick black smoke. “Perhaps the thlatsinas are trying to tell us something, Cornsilk.”
She exhaled tiredly. “Probably that we need to push ourselves even harder. Come on. The village can’t be more than a finger of time away. It’s just down there at the base of the mountain.”
“You go ahead. I need a little longer to catch my breath.”
She squeezed his shoulder, said, “I’ll wait for you at the bottom of the meadow,” and headed on down the slope.
Poor Singer stared out across the basin. An odd sensation tingled his stomach. As if … as if somewhere deep inside he knew the ground was getting ready to split wide open and swallow everyone and everything that meant anything to him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
“You’re being foolish,” he whispered. “The Keeper told you that if you talked with your grandfather, told him what happened in the Dream, that he would—”
He cocked his head when he heard a voice. It seemed to ride the wind like a falcon, soaring and diving over the slope—a low voice, the words indistinct.
“Cornsilk?” he called, and gazed down the trail she’d taken, squinting through the weave of sunlight and shadow that made up the juniper grove. “Did you say something?”
A sharp cry rang out …
And was suddenly silenced.
Poor Singer’s heart thundered. “Cornsilk?”
He ran with all his might, swerving around the twists in the trail, rushing headlong through the trees, his arms up to protect his face from the overhanging branches. “Cornsilk? Cornsilk, where are you?”
* * *
Swallowtail kept his left hand clamped over Cornsilk’s mouth as he shoved her before him into a dense growth of currant bushes that clustered between four tall junipers. The branches scratched his arms and her face as he forced her to the ground. He knelt behind her with the tip of his knife pressed to her silken throat. He could feel her heartbeat pounding against his wrist, and his distended manhood strained at the fabric of his shirt. The excitement of the chase, the thrill of catching her completely by surprise, all of it had stoked an insane need to hurt her.
Poor Singer thrashed through the forest no more than twenty hands away. Swallowtail fought to still his breathing.
Poor Singer cried, “Cornsilk? Cornsilk, answer me? Where are you? Are you hurt? Cornsilk!”
She squirmed, and Swallowtail hissed, “Don’t!”
As a warning, he pricked her throat with his blade. Cornsilk jerked to look at him, her dark eyes terrified, and he smiled as her blood ran warmly over his fingers.
“Cornsilk? What happened? Where are you!” Poor Singer shouted and flailed his way down the trail, out of sight.
Swallowtail could follow his path from the loud cracking of branches and the snapping of deadfall. When Poor Singer had run far enough, Swallowtail lowered his knife and wiped the bloody blade on the shoulder of Cornsilk’s dress. “If I remove my hand from your mouth, will you promise not to cry out? I just want to be inside you, Cornsilk. You are one of the First People, and I need to be inside you.”
He could feel her jaw tighten as understanding dawned.
She hesitated, and Swallowtail ran his hand down her arm, caressing it. “I will do it anyway. The only difference is this: if you cry out and Poor Singer comes running, I’ll shoot him dead before he can get near you. Do you understand? I will kill him. And then,” he added with a smile, and kissed her hair, “I will have to kill you to keep you from telling Jay Bird that I murdered his grandson.”
Cornsilk started shaking and it made Swallowtail chuckle. She nodded against his hand.
“You promise?” he said. “You will not cry out?”
She nodded again.
Cautiously, Swallowtail removed his hand. Cornsilk turned to face him. Red spots, left by his fingers, marked her face. They were exciting.
“Swallowtail,” she whispered. “Why are you doing this? I have never hurt you! Why—”
“Lie down and get ready for me!” he ordered. “And remember—” he slipped his bow and quiver of arrows from his back and laid them on the forest duff, within easy reach “—if you make a sound—”
“I—I won’t. I won’t, Swallowtail. Just don’t hurt Poor Singer. Please, I—”
“Do as I say!”
Cornsilk lay back on the soft cedar-scented ground and pulled up the hem of her green dress, revealing long brown legs.