People of the Silence(46)

Night Sun tenderly cleaned the gore from the boy, then lifted him by his ankles and shook him. Star Hunter, smiling, stretched out her arms, wanting the baby.

Night Sun shook him again. And again.

Cloud Playing put a hand to her lips. Mite edged forward, staring. As though time had ceased, both of their faces froze. Their expressions might have been carved from wood.

Night Sun slapped the boy on the back and buttocks, turned him right side up and shook him back and forth. His tiny head hung limply.

She held him by the ankles and shook him once more.

“Night Sun?” Mite asked. “Is he…”

Night Sun hesitated. “Yes.” Biting back her own sorrow, she cradled the dead baby in her arms and rocked him gently.

Star Hunter wept. The sound tore Night Sun’s soul. She had lost three newborns herself: two boys and a girl. One of them had been taken from her before she’d even had a chance to see it. She had heard it calling to her for moons, calling and calling …

It was a woman’s trial. Something no man could fully understand. After moons of speaking to the child, feeling it move inside you, seeing it grow up in your dreams, a powerful love, like no other, developed. The shock of losing that child, of suddenly realizing you would never look into its living eyes—it stunned the soul.

“Oh, Mother,” Mite whimpered. She ran to kneel beside Star Hunter and gathered her mother’s drenched body in her arms, holding her tightly.

“Cloud Playing,” Night Sun said, “soak these cloths again and wring them out.”

Cloud Playing took the soiled lengths of fabric, dipped them in the warm yucca water and squeezed them out.

Night Sun washed the baby thoroughly and gestured wearily toward the folded blanket where Sweetwater had been sitting. “Fetch me that blanket. This little boy is getting cold.”

Star Hunter suddenly put a hand on the floor and gasped, moaning as the afterbirth flooded out. Mite supported her during the contractions.

Cloud Playing brought the blanket and Night Sun carefully wrapped the boy, so that only his face showed, making certain his soul would stay warm over the long cold night ahead.

Tomorrow his clan would dress him and Sing over his body. Relatives would offer gifts and their finest blankets, then bury him beneath the floor of a room, a place where his mother frequently walked, in the hopes that his soul might someday wish to enter her womb again and be reborn.

Night Sun prayed it would be so.

She walked to Star Hunter and laid the dead baby in her arms, saying, “Hold him for a time, Star Hunter.”

Star Hunter tenderly kissed her dead son’s forehead.

Night Sun said, “Cloud Playing, please rinse those cloths out again. Mite and I will wash Star Hunter and clean up here. Then she must sleep.”

The Singing stopped in the kiva outside. Perhaps the men had just realized that the birthing cries had ceased.

Blessed sky gods, Night Sun had forgotten about Whitetail, the father. He would be eager to know how his wife and child were doing.

A clamor rose, feet clacking on the kiva ladder, then soft thuds as a man ran across the plaza.

“Star Hunter?” Whitetail called. “Sweetwater?”

Night Sun ducked out the door into the glare of winter sunlight to meet him halfway.





Nine

Buckthorn dressed in the predawn glow, quietly slipping on his long plain-weave shirt, buckskin leggings, and yucca sandals, trying not to wake Dune. The holy man slept on the opposite side of the house, wrapped in a faded gray blanket. Just the white top of his head showed. He’d snored all night—the sort of snores that shook the very earth. Buckthorn had gotten little sleep.

As he laced his sandals, he yawned and looked around. The fire had burned down to a bed of charcoal. Leftover tea from last evening sat in a clay pot at the edge of the coals, probably still warm. But Buckthorn couldn’t have any, just as he hadn’t had any for three days now. Dune had ordered him to fast for four days and climb the mesa every dawn. And, to Buckthorn’s amazement, he had found that hunger kept his mind clear and his heart open to the faint voices of the thlatsinas who lived on the mesa top.

Buckthorn reached for his yellow cape, dyed a rich hue with a mixture of sunflower petals and ground lichen. As he slung it over his shoulder, a field mouse sneaked under the door curtain and sniffed the air. Every mouse for a day’s walk knew Dune left crumbs of cornbread at the head of his sleeping mats. The mouse bounded across the floor and began munching happily, its whiskers quivering.

Buckthorn watched in fascination as the mouse clawed through Dune’s hair to get to more breakfast. Dune shifted, shoving his blanket down so that his toothless smile showed. Buckthorn had seen it before, but it continued to astound him. He’d concluded that Mouse must be the old holy man’s Spirit Helper. That was the only reason he could see for not swatting the creature and throwing it into the stew pot.