People of the Silence(33)

“Featherstone is one of the First People.” Snake Head ran his fingers through her black hair. “Creeper is less than a Fire Dog.”

“How can you say that?” Mourning Dove’s face might have been a mask, so well did she cover her loathing at his touch. “Creeper is a good, honest man. You know nothing about him.”

“I know you think that. That’s why I allow you to couple with him. It’s a small gift from me to you.” And, as it happened, coupling with Creeper seemed to lessen her hatred for Snake Head and made her more pliable.

Snake Head took the dishes from her hands and set them on the floor beside the door. The cups clattered against the bowls.

Mourning Dove made a final valiant try to escape. “Who will keep watch for you, Snake Head?” she pleaded, and glanced out the door. “Sternlight and Ironwood will return and you will have no way of knowing when they—”

“Lie on the floor in front of the door.”

Mourning Dove closed her eyes for a moment, then did as he’d ordered, stretching out on her back on the cold plaster. Her red dress spread across the white floor.

Snake Head lifted and hooked the curtain over the peg. Starlight flooded the chamber, brighter than the crimson glow of his warming bowl. The walls shimmered with a pewter radiance. “From here,” he said as he gazed out the doorway over Talon Town, “I can see the entry myself.”

Mourning Dove propped herself up on her elbows. Her chipmunk face tensed. “But Snake Head, anyone who looks up will be able to see us—”

“Yes.” He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it to the floor, then stretched out on top of her and stared down into her blazing eyes. “Violating sacred laws is one of my favorite activities.”

He chuckled and nibbled her ear. As he reached down to lift her skirt, the macaw squawked and shrilled, “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” in a fair imitation of Mourning Dove’s voice.

Snake Head grinned at the big bird and used his knee to force Mourning Dove’s legs apart.





Second Day





I stand with my bare back against a rain-scented pillar of stone, my feet planted in the ruins of an abandoned house. Gray rock soars high above me. Fluffy Cloud People crowd the sky. I can feel their floating souls—as though clouds live in my heart.

How strange this freedom feels.

All my life I have believed in a wall between inside and outside. “Real” things only happened inside. I alone possessed true awareness. Everything outside had a shadow reality. Other people, the stars and animals, seemed vaguely alive, but not fully.

That wall was a womb that nourished my pride and allowed me to turn my head. To escape responsibility and relationships.

As I gaze across the endless undulating mountains that spread around me, I see a landscape without walls. A place of utter freedom.

But when I look down, I see carefully smoothed stones. What a fine mason she was, the woman who built this house. She hewed the gray stones to the size of her palm, then rubbed them together until they fit so snugly no mortar was necessary to keep the walls standing. She used the curved base of the pillar as her back wall and built out around it, constructing three fine rooms. One for her immediate family, one for storage, and one probably for elderly parents or grandparents.

She made walls outside.

I make walls inside.

I use my bare toe to flip over one of the fallen stones, and wonder …

Do the stones in the hills crawl down at night to look at the enslaved stones? Do they howl, the way coyotes do, at dogs in cages?

Do the unfettered Cloud People howl at me?

Wind whimpers in my ears, bathing my face with the sweet fragrances of newborn flowers and grass.

I smile and gently pet the stones still imprisoned in the standing walls. Then I bend down and begin pulling them apart, one by one, breaking the stones loose … freeing them.





Seven

Buckthorn halted in the middle of the road on the crest of a low hill overlooking the canyon, and tried to catch his breath. Stumps of long-dead ponderosa pines covered the hill. With all of the building that had gone on over the past fifty sun cycles, the larger trees had been chopped down and laboriously carried to the towns and villages as roof supports for rooms or kivas. Even the branches were tied together and used as lintels for the windows.

As far as he could see, the slopes were barren of the big trees. The weather-grayed stumps looked melancholy, as if remembering the towering giants that had once shaded the slopes. Gray-and-white squirrels must have played there, and the deer lurked in those cool shadows. Even the duff had washed away to leave exposed yellow soil. Rivulets had begun to eat into the soil around the parched roots, cutting away at the last of their rotting memories.