Stone Ghost tipped his head. “Because I suspect that you, like many people, think there is a difference between committing murder in your souls and actually killing someone.”
Everyone at the fire went silent, but their confused gazes riveted on Stone Ghost.
Springbank made a disgusted sound. “Of course there’s a difference. A dead body!”
“But that is a minor point, after all,” Stone Ghost said, his eyes wide and shining. “Don’t you see? It is only because we view soul-murders as lesser crimes that real murders are worth committing. If we openly discussed and judged the reasons for soul-murders, perhaps there would be no real murders.”
Wading Bird and Springbank exchanged a look, then Springbank said, “What I see is that you are addled, old man.”
“Well, that is another minor point, if you don’t mind me—”
“Great Spirits!” Springbank cried. “After the terrible happenings of the last few days, how can you sit here and blather like a fool? Can’t you just once try to think like a sane person?”
Stone Ghost’s eyes flared. “I could, yes. But then I’d never catch the murderer, would I?”
Apparently exasperated, Springbank shoved to his feet. “I am heartsick and tired. I’m going where I can talk with people whose souls don’t flit about like moths. Good evening to you.”
He hobbled toward a group of children playing dice on the eastern side of the plaza. Springbank loved children. He often went into the tower kiva during their teachings to regale the children with the great stories of the Hero Twins. Springbank sat down beside a little girl, smiled, and put his arm around her.
Catkin kept her head down and ate more stew. She wasn’t sure whose side she was on in the argument. While she had learned that Stone Ghost’s peculiar opinions usually proved to have merit, even she had to admit that Springbank had made a good point about the dead body.
A woman laughed, high and throaty, and Catkin clutched her spoon like a knife.
Obsidian’s hood had fallen back, revealing a thick wealth of black hair studded with jeweled pins. Turquoise, coral, and jet beads flashed. Obsidian shook her hair out, then sensuously pulled it away from her long neck, twisted it into a bun, and pinned it on the left side of her head. The women around her smiled, and Obsidian laughed again and looked over her shoulder at Browser.
Browser stiffened, then seemed to force himself to relax.
Catkin could not describe the gut-wrenching loathing she felt for Obsidian. It was more than just Obsidian’s obvious interest in Browser. The woman had a taint, a malignant element that Catkin could not define, but she
felt
it like a cold stone in her belly.
Stone Ghost said, “There are many old stories about this place”—he waved a hand at the village. “Have you heard them, Crossbill? Wading Bird?”
Crossbill set her teacup on her knee and frowned at Stone Ghost. She used her free hand to clutch her black-and-white blanket beneath her chin. “I know one.”
Stone Ghost smiled. “Please, tell us, Matron.”
Catkin had the sense that Stone Ghost had just initiated a game of bobcat and rabbit. He was circling, maneuvering his prey into position before striking.
Crossbill took a moment, as though gathering her memories, then said, “My mother once told me about a strange Trader who lived here. She said he came home to his family only three times a sun cycle. I remember there was a cursed little girl in the story. A girl who was banished from the village.” She stopped and cocked her head. “No. No, I think the village moved and left the little girl.”
Stone Ghost nodded. “That is the version I heard.”
Browser sipped his tea and, in the silence, took the opportunity to check the guards on the village walls. Then he said, “Who were they, Uncle?”
“I never knew, Nephew. I first heard the story about thirty summers ago. People who stopped at my house in the south told me fragments. Each person related the tale a little differently. The one thing I remember,” he said and scooped up his last bite of stew, “is that the girl was cast out of her clan for incest.”
Catkin’s heart seemed to stop. Her thoughts went to the little girl on the kiva roof in Aspen village, but of course that was ridiculous. The
girl Stone Ghost and Crossbill spoke about would have seen more than thirty summers now. “With her father?”
“That is what the storytellers claimed,” Stone Ghost answered. “I don’t know if they were right, however. Tales get confused over time and distances. It may have been something else entirely.”
“No,” Crossbill said and nodded. “That’s what I recall as well.”
The blue vein in Browser’s temple pulsed. “You think the man in the story was Two Hearts? Ash Girl’s father?”
Stone Ghost lifted a shoulder, and his ratty turkey feather cape shimmered in the firelight. “Possibly.”
Catkin said, “But how could that be, Elder? If Two Hearts was Ash Girl’s father, then he lived in the Green Mesa villages far to the north—”
“Traders often have many families, Catkin. They move constantly and suffer great loneliness. They mate at one village, leave, and return when they can. In the meantime, they have mated at another village and must return there occasionally, too.”
Crossbill said, “That may be why the Trader here only returned three times a sun cycle.”
Wading Bird said, “I was a Trader once. So was Springbank, I think. But I had only one family. I don’t know about Springbank.”
Catkin cupped her warm bowl in her cold hands. Since she had come to the Katsinas’ People, she had seen only deeply holy men. Wading Bird and Springbank spent their time praying and Singing to the gods, begging them to help the Katsinas’ People. Often, Wading Bird and Springbank were gone for days at a time. Traders occasionally reported seeing one of them sitting on a hilltop with his arms extended to the sky gods—crying for a vision.
“I remember hearing stories about Two Hearts,” Wading Bird said. “He was also known as the Wolf Pitch. His Power was legendary.”
Stone Ghost nodded. “Yes. The Wolf Katsina was supposedly his Spirit Helper.”
Crossbill snugged the front of her blanket closed. “Why would the Wolf Katsina help a witch? I don’t believe it.”
“Nor do I,” Stone Ghost admitted, “but I think that’s what the Wolf Witch believed.”
Crossbill tugged her blanket down around her hips, and paused for a time, before saying, “Twenty-five sun cycles ago, my grandmother dispatched a war party to hunt him down for his crimes. Many other
clans joined hers. No one ever found him, of course. He was supposed to be very clever and very evil. My grandmother said he made a special corpse powder.”
“I remember that.” Wading Bird nodded. “Ordinary witches make corpse powder by gathering and drying the flesh of the dead. Two Hearts made his from the bones of First People. Isn’t that right?”
Stone Ghost said, “Yes, he ravaged the ruins of their towns, stealing whatever he could find, digging up their graves.”
Crossbill’s breath frosted in the cold air. “I recall my grandmother saying that when he sprinkled his powder in someone’s water, or on their food, they died screaming.” She held Stone Ghost’s gaze. “If he is alive, he must be getting old.”
“Sixty summers, perhaps. He could be older. No one knows much about him.”
“Yes,” Wading Bird whispered, and looked around uncomfortably, surveying the village. “Witches often remove their relatives’ hearts with a spindle and put it in their own chests to extend their lives. If he has done that, he may live another sixty summers.”
Catkin set her bowl down and spread her hands pleadingly. “Elders, please tell me how we fight the most powerful witch in the land? Does anyone know?”
Wading Bird shook his bald head. “I cannot imagine.”
Firelight sheathed Stone Ghost’s eyes, turning them into pools of gold. “We can’t fight him, Catkin.”
“Then how do we stop him?” Catkin asked.
Stone Ghost frowned down into his tea. Grimly, he, said, “Oh, I think we know what he wants more than anything in the world. Don’t we, Nephew?”
Browser jerked as though surprised. “What, Uncle?”
Obsidian’s group suddenly went quiet, and all of the elders turned in unison. Obsidian calmly prodded her fire with a branch, but she appeared to be listening to their every word.
Crossbill glanced at Obsidian, then leaned toward Stone Ghost and whispered, “Her mother once confided to me that she’d given birth to two daughters, but only Obsidian had lived. Imagine what it would be like to have two of her around?”
Catkin stifled a chuckle.
Stone Ghost didn’t respond. His gaze had locked with Browser’s. They appeared to be engaged in some form of silent communication.
Finally, as though Browser understood, he straightened. Wind teased his black hair around his face, tangling it with his eyelashes. “Uncle, you can’t mean that I should—I would not ask that of anyone! Let alone a child who has just lost the only person …”
Voices rose from the dimly lit trees beyond the plaza.
Browser and Catkin leaped to their feet in less than a heartbeat, their war clubs in their hands. The village dogs barked and raced toward the river. Women grabbed children and ducked into the closest doorways, while men secreted themselves in the shadows, their weapons up and ready. The elders hobbled for the village as fast as they could.
Catkin said, “The guards would have signaled us—”
“If they saw them,” Browser answered. “It’s dark. They may have come up through the brush in the river bottom.”
Catkin trotted out toward the edge of the light and shouted, “Who comes?”
Skink answered, “It’s us, Catkin!”
Catkin flattened her body against the wall of Cloudblower’s chamber at the southwestern corner of the village. Browser came up behind her, breathing hard.
She said, “Do you think it’s them?”
“Yes, but we mustn’t take chances. Our enemies may have captured Skink.”
They waited until Skink and the rest of the search party trotted into the orange halo of the plaza fire, then Browser lowered his war club. “We’re all right. It’s them.”
“Maybe. They are back much sooner than they should be.”
Browser walked forward. “You are early. Did you find something, Skink?”
Skink shook his head, panting, his round face covered with sweat. “No, War Chief.” Mud filled the crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes. The other warriors gathered around them, and people began to emerge from the safety of the village. Women and children ran forward to greet their husbands and fathers. A bustling crowd formed.
“You found nothing at all?” Catkin asked.
“No.” Skink bent over and sucked in deep breaths. “We looked everywhere. There were no tracks, no threads of clothing, no grass bent by footsteps.”
Water Snake shouldered through the crowd. His dirt-coated face
had flushed from the run. “Truly, War Chief. It is as though they never touched the ground!”
Skink nodded vigorously. “I swear they must be witches. That’s why we couldn’t track them. They are flying about on rawhide shields!”
R
ED CROP JERKED AWAKE AND STARED WIDE-EYED AROUND the kiva. She could hear shouts in the plaza.
Her body felt numb, leaden. Her head ached.
The Matron watched Redcrop through cornmeal-covered eyes, eyes drained of all warmth and love. Redcrop smoothed her hand over Flame Carrier’s bony old arm. It felt like a dead branch.
“I think they’re back, Grandmother. I should go and see.”
She petted Flame Carrier’s clawlike fingers and rose on wobbly legs.
“I’ll be back.”
The kiva fire had burned down to red coals. The
Yamuhakto
, the Hero Twins, seemed to be Dancing, their arms and legs moving in time with the wavering gleam.
Perhaps Straighthorn had tracked down the murderers and brought them back. They may even have gotten into a fight and killed them.
“Maybe it’s over, Grandmother. Maybe they’re dead and they won’t ever hurt anyone again.”
Redcrop climbed the ladder with her legs trembling.
After the warmth of the kiva, the cold night air stung her eyes. She climbed out onto the roof and walked to the edge of the kiva. The air carried the rich scents of venison and sweet corn.
A crowd milled in the southwestern corner of the plaza, between Cloudblower’s chamber and the great kiva. War Chief Browser stood speaking with Skink, and close behind him, Cloudblower, Catkin, and Straighthorn stood.
Redcrop searched the gathering, her gaze touching on each face. She didn’t see any strangers.
“They didn’t find them.”
Her legs went weak. She sank down onto the roof.
The murderers still roamed the night. They might be watching her right now, from the darkness.
It took all of her strength to fight back tears.
She rocked back and forth. Her doehide dress did little to block the cold, but she couldn’t return to her chamber to get her cape. She didn’t think she could face Flame Carrier’s empty blankets, or the small baskets where she’d kept the things that were most precious to her. Tomorrow, Redcrop would have to. But perhaps tomorrow she could stand it.
Flame Carrier had left strict orders that after her death, Redcrop was to distribute all of her belongings among the Katsinas’ People. Redcrop wondered how she would decide who got what? Would people argue over the best items?
She tucked her hands inside her long sleeves and drew her knees up to block the wind.
I’ll just carry everything out into the plaza and let people take what they wish.
Would the murderers come to the burial? To gloat over what they’d done? No one knew what Two Hearts looked like. He could say he was a Trader from the far south who just happened to be passing by. He could stand and watch people’s reactions. He could watch Redcrop.
She started shaking and couldn’t stop.
Below, tired warriors walked away with their wives and children. The elders who had briefly stepped out to speak with Skink and Browser headed back for the warmth of the village. Catkin joined Browser and Stone Ghost’s circle, leaving Straighthorn alone with the sacred Man-Woman, Cloudblower.
As though Cloudblower had told Straighthorn where Redcrop was, he turned and looked at the tower kiva.
Redcrop gazed down at him yearningly. He was a warrior. He had duties to perform, but he’d told Catkin he would come to see her when he returned, and she longed to have him close.
Strains of conversation drifted on the wind, mostly warriors recounting the day’s events. The plaza fire crackled and spat. To her left, in the east wing of the village, a child cried.
Redcrop hugged herself.
STRAIGHTHORN GAZED UP AT REDCROP, AND HIS CHEST FELT hollow.
“I think she’s been waiting for you to return,” Cloudblower said.
“Is she all right?”
A long, gray-streaked braid hung down the front of Cloudblower’s blue dress. She had seen perhaps forty summers, but her mass of crisscrossing wrinkles made her look more like sixty. A softness lived in her eyes. People for three-moon’s-walk knew her and relied upon her skills as a Healer. Runners often dragged into the village in the middle of the night with a message that someone needed her. Cloudblower never hesitated. She grabbed her Healer’s bundle and left. Sometimes, she stayed gone for days.
“I do not think she will be all right for many moons, Straighthorn. She is broken inside.”
Straighthorn nodded and hair fell over his eyes. Though he wore a braided leather headband, locks had worked loose and straggled around his thin face. Sweat beaded his hooked nose and created a shiny arc above his full lips. “Please excuse me. I promised I would see her tonight.”
Catkin turned as he started to walk away and said, “Do not forget that you and Jackrabbit will be taking Water Snake’s guard position at midnight. See that you rest first.”
“Yes, I will, Catkin.”
His red-and-black cape swayed around his skinny body as he walked across the plaza.
The walk had never seemed this long, or his legs this fatigued. It was as if the day’s events had skewed his perspective of distances. The ears of corn stacked on the rooftops, the tan walls of the village, all seemed to be closing in upon him. The evening carried the resinous smells of sage and juniper. Redcrop watched him as he came closer.
Straighthorn climbed the ladder to the kiva roof and Redcrop looked up.
“Oh, my poor girl,” he said.
Her eyes and face had swollen. She brushed lamely at her tangled hair.
He crossed the roof. “Are you well, Redcrop?”
“Did you find them?”
“No. I’m sorry.” He sat down beside her. “How are you? How is the Matron?”
Redcrop’s mouth trembled. “Please, Straighthorn. Tell me what you found. You must have found something?”
As he slipped his bow and quiver from his shoulders, he said, “Four hands of time to the south, I found a place where the man slipped off the stones into the mud. Skink told me it was nothing, but it was, Redcrop. The murderers walked in the water most of the way, but they stepped out onto the river rocks when their feet grew cold.” He made an awkward gesture. “They may still be walking on the rocks. We stopped pursuing them three hands of time ago and returned home.”
“But I thought …” Redcrop’s mouth hung open. “I heard Catkin say she had ordered the parties to search both sides of the river until they no longer had enough light to see.”
Straighthorn reached out to take her hand. It felt cold in his grip. He cupped it between his palms to warm it. “She did.”
All day long Skink had acted imperiously, ordering people about, sneering at anything the other members of the search party found.
“Skink ordered the parties back early?”
Straighthorn nodded. “He said that since we were finding nothing, he saw no reason to continue looking. He may have been right, Redcrop. The killers were taking great care to hide their trail. We probably weren’t going to find anything else.”
“Did you wish to keep looking?”
He squeezed her hand. “I would have searched all night if Skink had let me.”
Redcrop nodded and gazed down at the plaza. From this side view, she looked all the more frail and vulnerable. It touched his heart.
He said, “Did you hear what Skink said when we first entered the village?”
“No.”
“He told the War Chief, no one can track witches. They fly about on rawhide shields. He thinks they are the same witches who murdered the women and girls in Straight Path Canyon, Redcrop. I’m certain that’s why he ended the search. He was afraid. He could not bear the thought that we might actually find them and he would have to fight witches.”
Wind Baby gusted over Longtail village and probed beneath Straighthorn’s cape with icy fingers. After the long run, every muscle in his
body burned and ached. The cold felt good to him, but he saw Redcrop shiver.
He untied his cape and gently draped it around her shoulders. “Do you think maybe you should go inside, Redcrop?”
“No, I—I don’t wish to. I can’t go home.”
“Perhaps Cloudblower’s chamber? I would invite you to my chamber if I could, but—”
“But I am a girl, and you are a man. I know, Straighthorn.” She bit her lip.
It wouldn’t matter that they would only talk. A man did not take a girl into his chamber alone. Not if he valued his life. Straighthorn would be accused of coupling with her and might even be beaten or driven out of the village.
He smiled and said, “Yes, you are girl. But a very beautiful one.” Redcrop closed her eyes as though the words hurt. “Do you think it’s them, Straighthorn? Two Hearts and the other witch from Straight Path Canyon?”
He studied the set of her jaw, and the way her hands tugged at his cape. He missed a woman’s company at night. He had been married to Siskin for almost two summers when they’d both come down with the fever that had killed her.
When times got bad, he still heard her musical voice inside him, chiding him, or encouraging him, loving him. He’d never gotten used to living without her.
“I cannot say, Redcrop. They may be.”
“But I’ve never heard of Two Hearts killing old women. Have you?”
“No. Though I do recall hearing of the disappearances of several elders in the past few summers.”
“But old people often go away to die by themselves. It doesn’t mean someone killed them.”
He reached out to touch her long hair where it fell down the back of his cape. “That’s true.”
She couldn’t stand the thought that an insane witch might be wandering about murdering old women, but Straighthorn had been considering the possibility since early morning. Over the sun cycles, he’d spoken with many of the Traders who’d brought them the news of those disappearances. None of the old women had been ill. It didn’t seem likely that they’d gone off to die by themselves.
They sat in silence for a time, watching War Chief Browser and old
Stone Ghost as they walked across the plaza and sat in front of the central fire pit. The two men had their heads leaned close together, as though discussing things they did not wish overheard. Firelight danced over their somber faces.
Redcrop whispered, “What’s happening?”
“The War Chief has been acting strangely since we returned. I heard him tell Catkin that he would speak with her later, and the way he said it sent shivers up my spine. Something terrible happened in Aspen village. No one is speaking of it, but he is desperately worried.”
Redcrop swiveled around to face Straighthorn and he saw tears in her eyes.
“Everyone was dead,” she said. “Browser found the kiva at Aspen village filled with headless people.”
“Blessed gods.” He reached out and pulled her into his arms. Her long hair tumbled down the front of his red war shirt. Straighthorn propped his chin on top of her head. “We will find them, Redcrop. I promise you we will.”
Redcrop wiped her eyes, and choked out, “Cloudblower told me I—I can’t even dream of Grandmother.”
“I know.” He tenderly patted her back. “It’s hard. After my wife’s death, I struggled not to dream of her. I didn’t wish to pull her back from her journey to the afterlife, but I needed to see her face, to speak with her.”
“Cloudblower said that souls who die violently go mad and try to drag the people they love to the Land of the Dead with them.” Her face contorted with grief. “Grandmother would never do that to me, Straighthorn. Though if she—if she asked, I would go. If she needed me—”
“Redcrop, please don’t say things like that.”
“But I miss her so much.”
He stroked her hair. “She was a good and kind woman. When she has traveled to the Land of the Dead, the ancestors will be enriched and we will be poorer. But, please, you mustn’t speak of dying. It would kill my souls if you died.”
“I don’t want to hurt you. I’ve never wished to hurt anyone, but …” She sobbed.
She’d said the words in a little girl voice that made his souls twist. He whispered in her ear, “As soon as you are old enough, I am going
to shower you with rare Trade goods, and crawl on my belly until you agree to let me court you. Then neither of us will be alone.”
The War Chief rose from the fire, said something to Stone Ghost, and strode toward the ladder that led to the tower kiva’s roof.
Straighthorn shifted to watch him.
Redcrop looked up. “What is it?”
“The War Chief is coming.”
Browser’s steps patted the rungs. When he stepped off onto the roof, he stood silhouetted against the firelight. Straighthorn couldn’t make out his face.
“War Chief?” he called. “Is everything all right?”
Browser walked forward with his fists clenched at his sides. His buckskin shirt swayed around his legs.