People of the Silence(58)

Almost unconsciously Ironwood’s hand lifted to the turquoise wolf pendant that Night Sun had given him. The first time they’d consummated their love, she’d told him how to get to the underworlds. They’d been lying on a hilltop under a blanket, staring up at a wealth of spring stars …

Ironwood rubbed his eyes and stared out at the night. Sound carried to this highest row of rooms. He could hear Singing from the kivas, the voices weaving a soft background for the night. In the distance, dogs barked, and a child shrilled angrily.

Many lesser clans of Made People existed: the Red Bird, the Buffalobeard, the Canyon Wren. But each allied itself with one of the four great clans, and so was considered part of it. Clans came and went, depending upon the strength of their hands, the productivity of their lands, and the faith in their hearts. Ironwood had witnessed the death of six clans: The Blue Bead had been hunted down and slaughtered by the Hohokam; the Mogollon had wiped out the Butterfly Shield Clan; Two Stone Clan had been destroyed by Ironwood’s warriors—their village burned, their bodies crushed with stones—when it was discovered they were witches.

And then there was the Hollow Hoof Clan, which had lost its sacred bundle to strange tattooed warriors who had come out of nowhere, stolen their Tortoise Bundle, and kidnapped a little girl … what had her name been? Yarrow and Red Cane’s daughter. Three or four summers old. Nightshade? He couldn’t recall for certain, though he had been in the plaza watching the sacred Dances that night. When the attack came, he’d dashed inside for his weapons and missed all but the last moments of the battle. He’d shot two arrows at the backs of fleeing men.

Over the years, Talon Town had lost many children to raiders. They stole them for slaves, then beat them half to death. Sometimes, an enemy warrior took children to make them part of his family. Perhaps his wife had not been able to give him a daughter, or his son had died from a childhood illness.

The Straight Path nation did the same.

Slaves moved about in the dark plaza below. Ironwood’s eyes followed them as they built fires, carried water and food, and prepared for the feast to be held later in the day. He could hear them talking in their strange Fire Dog tongue. Two women delivered wood to the Buffalo Clan’s kiva, carefully placing their armloads near the ladders that thrust up from the roofs.

From Ironwood’s fifth-story perspective, the kivas resembled huge rings on the white plaza. Inside, the Buffalo Dancers Sang, their voices rising like smoke into the frosty darkness.

He leaned out the doorway to check the stars.

Spider Woman had one spindly leg extended over the eastern horizon. When she had climbed fully into the sky, the Dancers would emerge from the kivas, to try once more to save the Blessed Sun’s life.

Behind him, Night Sun sighed. He turned. After a long yawn, she shoved back her blanket and got to her feet. Her bright blue dress clung to her slender body. She smoothed her mussed hair away from her face. When she twisted it into a bun on top of her head, as she did now, and secured it with turquoise-inlaid bone pins, she looked breathtaking.

Sternlight wakened at her movements, and called, “Night Sun?”

Without answering, she lit one of the torches from the glowing coals in the warming bowl. Made from shredded juniper bound together with cotton cord, the torch end gleamed with smoking red eyes. She blew them to life, creating a gold bubble of light in the room. Then she stepped over to her husband.

The Blessed Sun lay in the middle of the floor, covered with deerhides. The blood seemed to have drained from his wrinkled face, leaving it curiously pale in the wavering light. His eyes rested in bruised wells of flesh.

Sternlight rose. The copper bells on his white sleeves tinkled when he put a hand on Night Sun’s arm. “Why don’t you try to eat one of the blue corncakes the slaves brought? You’ve taken nothing in two days.”

Night Sun knelt at the Chief’s side, her blue dress spreading around her. Torchlight made the gray in her dark hair shimmer.

Ironwood glanced away and concentrated on the chamber. He couldn’t stand to think about her, about the freedom Crow Beard’s death would give her. Dared not.

Prayer feathers hung from the roof, and he watched them twist and flutter in the breeze. Every day clan leaders brought more. After Crow Beard’s death, each Made People clan would assign a representative to escort the Chief’s corpse down the south road to the sacred Humpback Butte, where his soul would climb into the skyworlds and become one of the thlatsinas. There, in the sky, he would bring rain and happiness to the people.

Ironwood’s mouth hardened. How strange that after death the Chief would bring happiness, when he had brought nothing but misery during his life.