Jay Bird grabbed Poor Singer’s arm and spun him around to glare into his face. “I’ll deal with you later, boy. For now…” His words abruptly dried up as his eyes shifted. He searched the crowd and then the heavens. “Do you hear that?”
“What?” Poor Singer cocked his head at the distant roar, like a violent thunderstorm out over the desert … except it seemed to be growing louder, riding the very air.
“Kill Ironwood!” Howler shouted. “Let us get this over with!”
But Jay Bird didn’t move. He stood listening. Finally, he whispered, “Blessed gods…” threw down his lance, and grabbed for Poor Singer’s arms.
At first, Poor Singer did not understand what was happening. Then the thunderous roar struck like a mountain falling down around them. One of the Mogollon guards screamed and threw himself to the quaking earth, his arms protectively covering his head.
A sick, lightheaded feeling overcame Poor Singer. He struggled for balance, began to stumble, his feet weaving, and grabbed for Jay Bird to keep standing.
Jay Bird shouted, “Why are the gods angry with me? They should be venting their wrath upon the Straight Path dogs for all they have done! Not me!”
Yells and shrieks split the air as dust seemed to dance out of the earth of its own will. Frightened dogs yipped shrilly and darted between the buildings.
As the shaking grew more violent, Jay Bird lost his hold on Poor Singer, careened sideways, and toppled to the ground. Poor Singer fell backward, desperately clutching sprigs of grass, as if they could save him. In the sky above, the Cloud People bounced around like hide balls thrown against rock.
Roof timbers cracked in the village. Dirt cascaded down, and a wall of dust gushed over the plaza. People crawled across the shuddering earth, trying to get to the collapsing houses where children wailed.
The roar grew to deafening booms, like the footfalls of giants. Poor Singer closed his eyes and prayed.…
Then, suddenly, the roar dropped to a grumble, and the ground stilled.
Stunned silence held the village. Then someone shouted, and people began running across the plaza, heading for the line of rooms that had collapsed. A new roar rose as people pawed through the wreckage, screaming and calling out the names of loved ones.
Poor Singer sat up. Ten hands away Jay Bird braced himself on his elbows. They stared at each other. His grandfather looked like a man who had just seen the Creator, Hummingbird, dive out of the heavens and alight before him.
“Let us go somewhere and talk, young Singer,” Jay Bird said, breathing hard. “I will hear your message.”
Fifty-Two
Jay Bird sat with Poor Singer on a grassy rise overlooking the stream that meandered at the base of Gila Monster Cliffs Village. The newly leafed trees added a bright spring green to the clusters of junipers. Puffy tumbles of cloud sailed across the blue vault of sky, but the air had a curious unfamiliar odor, a bilious, metallic tang.
“So, you killed Swallowtail?”
Poor Singer looked down at the blood on his hands, dried now, flaking off his skin in irregular patterns. “Yes. I did, Grandfather.”
Jay Bird pondered the story of the Keeper and the turquoise cave, and the horror of finding Swallowtail raping Cornsilk. Clots of blood matted Poor Singer’s black hair to his cheeks. Jay Bird leaned forward and propped his forearms on his knees. That sense of serenity, of growing Power, hung about the boy like a mantle.
“I offered my life in exchange for Ironwood’s,” Poor Singer said.
“You would have given your life to save him?”
“I wanted to very much.”
“And what did the Keeper of the Tortoise Bundle say to this?”
Poor Singer turned his deeply tanned face toward the speckles of sunlight falling through the trees. They glittered in his hair and reflected from his soft brown eyes. “She knew that you wished to kill him, and she—”
“She knew?”
“Yes, I don’t know how.”
A sharp pain lanced Jay Bird beneath his left breast. He lifted a hand to massage the spot. “Doesn’t matter. Holy people often know such things, sometimes before we know them ourselves. I was just surprised. Go on.”
Sorrow crinkled the lines around Poor Singer’s young eyes. “The Keeper asked me why I would give up my life for a man I barely knew. I told her I couldn’t stand to see any more of my friends die, that all of this was my fault. If I hadn’t been born, if Sternlight had let me die, none of this would have happened.”
Jay Bird lowered his hand to his lap and laced his fingers tightly. He didn’t know what to say. His grandson must love these Straight Path people very much.