He set his beer aside and reached over to slice sharp Cheddar from a block of cheese. “Then there’s the distance thing. Sylvia’s here in New Mexico. Steve is in Arizona. The University of Arizona just about did back flips to get Steve. He comes from a prominent family in Cincinnati. His dad’s a lawyer who can’t understand what his bright son is doing living in a tent in the desert when he could be pursuing the capitalist dream. I’m afraid that Steve might go back to Ohio some day. Sylvia would be like a duck out of water back there.” He placed the cheese slices on the burgers and covered them with a pie pan. “Want anything besides coffee to drink with dinner?”
“Mango juice would be nice.”
Dusty gave her a disbelieving look. “They serve mango juice for dinner in Canada?”
“Mangoes and papayas are staples. We have a large immigrant population from places like India and Pakistan. In fact, Stewart, if you really want an adventurous food tour, come to Toronto. I’ll take you out for curried fish that will knock your socks off.”
“Can I get them smothered in fresh jalapeños?”
“Umm, maybe not, but we have some remarkable substitutes.” She brought her thumb and forefinger together to show him a space of about two centimeters. “We have tiny peppers from Indonesia that are about ten times as hot as your beloved jalapeños.”
Dusty leaned his butt against the counter and picked up his Guinness again. “Sounds like heaven. Careful, though. I might just take you up on that invitation.”
Maureen read the sincerity in his eyes, and it scared her a little. “I wish you would. I think the people at the ROM would enjoy talking to you about Canadian archaeology.”
He smiled, turned around, and scooped her burger onto a plate. As he set it on the table in front of her, he said, “Here’s your supper.”
“Aged meat, eh? Makes me think of boiled babies dug from fresh graves.”
“I’m not a witch. It’s cow meat from the City Market in Durango.”
She looked down at the burger on the paper plate. The melted cheese was piled with fresh green rounds of jalapeño. He set a pot of refried beans on the table, and she noticed that peppers dotted the beans, too.
“Here’s a fork,” he said and handed it to her.
“Thanks.”
At first bite, she grabbed for her coffee and tried to wash away the burn. After coughing a few times, she choked out, “You may not be a witch, but you still shock unsuspecting victims with what you feed them.”
W
HEN WIND BABY BLEW, SISTER MOON’S GLEAM SLIPPED around Browser’s door curtain and fell across his walls in bars of silver. The fragrance of cedar smoke filled the night. Cloudblower would be up most of the night, tending the sacred fire in the tower kiva. This was the most dangerous time for the village. By now, Flame Carrier’s afterlife soul would be desperate. She would be wandering about, grabbing onto people, shouting at them to tell her what was wrong, why they wouldn’t speak with her. The ritual fire kept Flame Carrier’s dead face lit so that she could see her own body and hopefully realize her life had ended. Some souls never did. They remained on earth as homeless ghosts, wailing, searching forever for loved ones who had died long ago.
Browser sighed and his breath frosted in the cold night air. For the past nine moons he’d felt like a homeless ghost, weary and disheartened. He performed all the duties expected of him, talked to people as if he knew who and what he was, but the appearance was a thin veil over the collapsed wreckage of his life. He had lost the path, and didn’t know how to find it again. Every night he lay like this, staring at the ceiling and questioning his worth as a man.
He put an arm over his eyes and tried not to see Grass Moon’s little boy smile.
“Father, come and play hoop and stick. I am much better today.”
Images of Ash Girl flared like pine knots in a fire. Ash Girl.
The one hope that fed his heart was the defeat of Ash Girl’s father; he had to find and kill Two Hearts.
But what about the woman who seemed to do the witch’s bidding? Was she a willing participant? Or a slave? A slave could be freed. A murderous partner, another witch, would have to be destroyed. He couldn’t get the white-caped war party out of his mind. He and Catkin had witnessed the passing of an unholy assembly.
Browser rose from his blankets, slipped on a knee-length leather
shirt, and reached for his sandals. He laced them up and tied them around his ankles, then sought out his buckskin cape where it hung on the peg by the door. He grabbed it on his way out and swung it around his shoulders.
When he stepped into the plaza, he saw Catkin standing on the tower kiva with Water Snake. Spider Woman’s constellation had not yet crawled to the middle of the night sky. Catkin had another hand of time before she had to take Water Snake’s guard position. What was she doing up? She should have been sleeping. She had slept for perhaps ten hands of time out of forty. She must feel even more exhausted than he.
Water Snake and Catkin both turned to stare at him. Browser lifted a hand, then walked out to the great kiva at the southern edge of the plaza. He crouched on the eastern side and propped his elbows on his drawn-up knees. The corn on the roof glinted, frosted by the night. Moonlight sheathed the cottonwoods along the river below. Their windblown leaves were a sea of tarnished silver speckles. The juniper-covered bluff in the distance resembled a black wall.
Browser picked up a pebble and threw it out into the darkness. It made a
click-clack
sound when it landed.
Steps approached from behind him, but he did not have to turn to know they belonged to Catkin.
She knelt beside him and stared silently out at the river. The scent of damp autumn leaves rode the breeze.
Browser picked up another pebble and turned it in his hand. “You should be asleep.”
“I’m not the only one.” Moonlight gilded the arch of her turned-up nose and the war club in her right hand. The long braid that fell down the front of her hide cape shone silver. “What’s wrong?”
Browser threw the pebble as far as he could. It tumbled in the moonlight before it vanished. “I don’t know if I can explain it, Catkin.”
“You mean you don’t know if you want to.”
He gestured awkwardly. “Yes, probably.”
“Tell me.” It was an order.
Browser smiled faintly. Despite the fact that he was War Chief, he was certain she gave him far more orders than he gave her.
He reached for another pebble and held the cool smoothness in his palm. “Do you remember in Straight Path Canyon when I told you that I thought my wife was at the heart of all the insanity, all the murders of women and children?”
Catkin’s eyes tightened. “I do. Why?”
“I still feel that way. Even though she’s dead, I tell you she is central to understanding all of this.”
“All of what?”
“Aspen village, why you and I are still alive, our Matron’s murder. Everything.” He tossed the pebble and it flashed in the moonlight.
Catkin frowned out at the river, and Browser realized how foolish he must sound. He had just blamed his wife for murders committed nine moons after she’d been killed and buried. Perhaps he really was mad.
He dropped his head into his hands and massaged his throbbing temples. “I know how I sound, Catkin. But I also know I’m right.”
“Browser, you are obsessed with that woman. Don’t tell me you think she’s alive? We buried her, placed a stone over her head, and covered her with dirt.”
“I—I know that, Catkin. I just—” He shook his hands in frustration. “Some of this you know, some you don’t.” It took an act of will to force himself to continue. Catkin knew him better than anyone. She was his closest friend, yet he hesitated to confide this even to her. “You’ve heard me say a hundred times that my mother arranged my marriage to Ash Girl without consulting me, and that when I found out, I begged her to let me marry Hophorn. I did not have the right to object to the wishes of my clan. Worse, Hophorn was not yet a woman. I couldn’t even court her, let alone ask that she be my wife.”
“That tells me nothing, Browser. How is Ash Girl connected to Aspen village?”
He let out a breath. “I find it difficult to speak of these things, but please bear with me. I really do have a point.”
She sat down beside him and rested her war club across her lap. “Well, if you are going to say it, say it quickly, and then it will be over.”
It was good advice. He’d given it to her often enough.
He nodded. “Among the Green Mesa clans it is customary for a young man and woman to spend time together before their marriage, to make certain that the Joining will not be a disaster.”
“In my clan, too. So?”
“One moon before our Joining, I crawled under the blankets with Ash Girl for the first time. I had finally resigned myself to the marriage and was eager to touch her, to hold her. She was sound asleep, Catkin. It happened instantly. We had been speaking only moments before.
I shook her gently and called to her. It had been a long, tiring day of feasting and dancing for the Longnight Ceremony; I assumed she was exhausted. I tenderly clasped her hand and fell asleep beside her. Just before dawn, I heard her stir and reached over to touch her. My hand came back wet and sticky.”
Catkin’s fingers curled around her war club. “Blood?”
“Yes, she had used my own knife to slice her throat. Fortunately, she didn’t know what she was doing. She missed the big artery, but blood covered everything. By the time I ran from the chamber screaming for help, my body was soaked with it.”
Catkin studied his miserable expression, then said, “Why didn’t your mother cancel the Joining?”
“She said it was my fault, that I had pushed Ash Girl too fast. She arranged for us to spend another night together, and threatened me to do it right, or else.”
“And?”
Browser massaged his temples again. A dull ache pounded behind his eyes. “She cried through the whole thing, Catkin. It broke my heart. After that, she stayed awake long enough to feel my manhood enter her, then she closed her eyes. I think she actually tried to stay awake, but she couldn’t. Something inside her forced her to go to sleep when a man touched her.”
Browser glanced at Catkin from the corner of his eye. She probably thought his skills as a lover ranked down there with a weasel’s. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any witnesses to prove otherwise.
Catkin ran her fingers along her war club, as if comforted by the smooth texture of the use-polished wood.
“I’m waiting for you to tell me what this has to do with Aspen village, and the murder of our Matron here.”
“I have been wondering about the little girl on the kiva roof. Do you think her mother forced her to watch the slaughter? The butchering?”
She turned and moonlight sheathed her beautiful face. “Are you afraid she may be deranged? As Ash Girl was?”
“Wouldn’t you be?” Browser scooped up a handful of pebbles and crushed them in his palm. “I think Ash Girl’s father forced her to watch terrible things.”
Catkin frowned at the guard on the hill in the distance. Against the starlight, he resembled a black pinnacle of stone.
“Did Ash Girl ever hurt herself again?”
“Once.” The pain behind his eyes turned sickening, as though his souls did not wish to remember. “Almost four summers ago. The Katsinas’ People had arrived in our village a week earlier. Ash Girl went to every meeting they held. She listened to the Matron like a child. She told me over and over about Poor Singer’s prophecy, and how much she longed to find the First People’s kiva and restore it. She really believed that a doorway would open to the underworlds and humans would be able to go to the Land of the Dead to seek advice from their ancestors. She wanted the wars to end, Catkin.”
Catkin stared him straight in the eyes. “That’s why she forced you to join the Katsinas’ People?”
“She didn’t force me.”
“You agreed to leave your home?”
Browser’s stomach muscles clenched. “Of course I didn’t. After days of shouts and tears, I threw my war club down in front of her and told her she would have to kill me before I would leave my friends and family in Green Mesa villages.” Browser shook his head. “I should have known what she would do. But I didn’t, I swear it, Catkin.”
She did not ask the question, but her eyes glinted.
Browser said, “Late that night, I woke to find her gone. I checked on our son, Grass Moon, to make sure he was well, then I rose and went out to look for her. I saw her ahead of me in the starlight, walking the rim trail. The mountains around Green Mesa villages are filled with deep canyons. My ancestors built in the cliffs for safety. Raiders couldn’t reach us as easily. But it’s dangerous country, Catkin. One wrong step and a person can plunge to their death before they have time to scream. I ran after Ash Girl. She disappeared into the pines, and I ran harder. I saw her a quarter hand of time later, standing at the edge of the cliff. She was peering over the edge. She looked pale and luminous in the starlight, almost too beautiful to believe. I looked down in the direction where she was gazing, and when I looked back, she was gone.”
Catkin watched him expressionlessly, waiting for the rest.
Browser picked up another pebble and rolled it between his cold palms. “I couldn’t believe it. I screamed her name and ran after her. I leaped down the cliff like a madman. No one sane would have dived off the edge like that in the darkness. I rolled down the rocky slope until I could grab onto a juniper that grew in the rocks. I saw her lying on a ledge below me. She was sprawled on her back. I thought she was
dead. I really did. I made my way to her by holding on to tree limbs and brush. I don’t know how I managed it, but I dragged her out of the canyon and carried her back to the Green Mesa villages.” He clutched the pebble in his fist and shook it at nothing, or perhaps everything. “That’s when I knew …” His voice caught. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes.
“Knew what?”
“I knew she believed in the katsinas, and would rather die than continue believing in the old gods and living in Green Mesa villages with me and our son.”
Catkin took a deep breath and looked out at the moonlit hills. Neither of them spoke for a time. The sound of the river, of water flowing over rocks, came to them, and with it the smell of wet earth.
“That’s when you joined the Katsinas’ People?”
“I had to protect her, Catkin. If a man does not protect his family, he is nothing. I really believe that.”
She frowned down at her war club. “I know you do.”
Browser waited for her to make some profound comment, but it never came. Finally, he said, “I know that if I can just unravel the mystery of what happened to her, I will understand everything. These events are like knots on a single cord; her madness is one of the knots.” His voice came out low and tormented: “If Two Hearts really was her father, and he’s alive, he is doing terrible things to people, making them want to die—as Ash Girl did. I must find him, Catkin.” He massaged his temples again. “I have to kill him.”
“Many have tried before, Browser, and failed.”
“I can’t fail.” Browser found himself toying with the fringes on his sleeve. “There are other things, too—other ‘knots.’ Did you ever notice that our Matron rarely spoke of herself?”
Catkin shrugged. “I always thought it was because she did not wish anyone to focus on her. She wanted people to concentrate on Poor Singer’s prophecy.”
“Yes, she spoke of the prophecy and the duties of the Katsinas’ People, but I do not even know where she was born. Do you?”