B
ROWSER KEPT HIS EYES ON CATKIN AS SHE SHOULDERED through the crowded plaza on her way to Cloudblower’s chamber. She had her right hand propped on her belted war club. She probably wasn’t even conscious of it, but Browser knew what it meant.
Danger here.
As they passed the great kiva, to their left, Stone Ghost said, “What did Catkin tell you, Nephew?” Thin white hair blew around his face as he looked up at Browser.
“Nothing, Uncle, except that Cloudblower knows things about Two Hearts that I do not.”
Thin white hair blew around his uncle’s wrinkled face. “I’m sure she does. After all, she knew the monster soul that lived inside your wife. Yellow Dove must have told her many things.”
Browser ducked his head as they passed Springbank and Wading Bird. He didn’t want to answer any questions before he’d heard what Cloudblower had to say. “What things, Uncle? Do you know? You sound like you know.”
Stone Ghost stuck a hand through a hole in his ratty turkey feather cape and grasped Browser’s elbow. To the people in the plaza it would appear that he was seeking support for his elderly steps, but he squeezed Browser’s arm, and Browser realized he was actually offering support, not asking for it.
“Cloudblower told me a few things nine moons ago in Straight Path Canyon, Nephew, but I do not know what she will tell us today.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Uncle?”
“The story was not mine to give. It belongs to her. I discovered long ago that if people wished to tell others the same things they told me, they would.”
They veered around a group of mourners, and Browser whispered,
“I am War Chief, Uncle. To protect our people, I must know everything.”
“Then ask her, Nephew. I think she will answer you.”
Catkin stopped in front of Cloudblower’s door and turned to watch their approach. Her red shirt clung to every curve of her tall body. Her beautiful oval face had flushed, as though she feared what the next hand of time would bring.
Browser could feel his uncle’s finger bones through the thin veneer of translucent skin; they felt like knotted twigs.
When they stood before the door curtain, Stone Ghost called, “Healer? We are here.”
“Come,” Cloudblower said softly. “I think I am ready for you.”
Stone Ghost held the leather curtain aside and stepped into the chamber. Catkin and Browser followed.
As the door curtain swung behind them, bright yellow light splashed the dim interior. The chamber spread three-by-three body lengths. Cloudblower stood two paces away, to Browser’s left. She’d braided her gray-streaked black hair and coiled it on top of her head, then fastened it with bone pins. The style accentuated the triangular shape of her face. The shell beads on her long blue dress shimmered with her movements.
Gray pots lined the walls, and the sweet scents of herbs and dried flowers pervaded the air. Katsinas Danced on the white walls with their hands linked and their masked faces tipped toward the smokehole in the roof, Singing. In the ruddy glow cast by the hearth coals, their painted bodies wavered. Their white kirtles seemed to sway as though touched by a wind Browser could not feel. He watched them from the corner of his eye, half expecting them to suddenly look down at him.
“Please, sit,” Cloudblower said, and extended a hand to the opposite wall where deerhides covered the floor.
“We thank you, Elder.” Browser sat down cross-legged, and Catkin and Stone Ghost sat to his left.
The tension seemed to have sucked the air from the room. Browser had to remind himself to breathe.
Cloudblower touched the pot that hung on the tripod at the edge of the coals, and the beads on her blue sleeve twinkled. “I think this tea is still warm. May I fill cups for you?”
Stone Ghost smiled. “Yes, thank you, Healer. It has been a chilly day. My aching bones could use the warmth.”
Cloudblower dipped up the first cup and handed it to Stone Ghost, then she filled cups for Catkin and Browser. Finally, she tipped the pot and poured her own cup full. She did not move for a long time. She just clutched her cup and stared blindly at the glowing coals.
Browser said, “Elder, I—”
“Yes,” Cloudblower responded and sank back on the floor as though uttering that one word had drained her last bit of strength. Her soft brown eyes filled with sadness.
Catkin said, “He must know the things you told me that day long ago, Cloudblower.”
She jerked a nod. “I just did not wish to be the one to tell him.” She looked at Browser. “These things will hurt you, War Chief. That is why I haven’t told you about them before now. You have had many other burdens to consider.”
“If Catkin believes I must hear them, Elder, then our lives may depend upon it. I assure you that I can stand it.”
Browser twisted his teacup in his hands and prayed that was true. For six moons after he’d killed his wife, no matter where he was, or what he’d been doing, Ash Girl’s face had lived before his eyes. The instant before she’d died, she had gazed up at him with all the love she could muster and tried to warn him that Two Hearts was close. Despite the anger and hatred they had inflicted upon each other over the summers, at the last, even knowing that he had killed her, she had loved him.
“Please, Elder, go on.”
Cloudblower nodded, but her voice came out low. “He was a terrible boy, Browser, the monster that lived inside your wife. But he tried to protect her from her father.”
Browser said, “I spoke with Yellow Dove the day I killed Ash Girl’s body, Elder. I know something of his madness. Please, continue.”
He had never told anyone that. Catkin knew because she’d been there. Browser had shot an arrow through the boy’s chest, then ripped off the wolf mask he wore, and stood frozen, looking down into Ash Girl’s face. The horror of that moment still lived in his heart.
Cloudblower sat down again and laced her fingers in her lap. “Stone Ghost helped me to understand monster souls.” She nodded
respectfully at the old man. “He told me that murderers are not born, but molded as children. He said it takes repeated intolerable pain to chase away a child’s souls and make a nest where a monster can be born.” Her eyes shifted to Browser. “That’s what happened to Ash Girl. Her father chased away her human souls and in their places a hideous creature was born.”
Browser sat quietly, listening.
Stone Ghost shifted. “I have seen only two monster souls in my life, Nephew. Both were born when the frightened children had given up hope, when they could no longer endure the pain alone. Someone stronger was born inside them, a protector who would never leave them, who could stand up to the tormentor and shield the child from the terror. Protecting the child often includes murder.”
The popping of the fire seemed to fill the world.
Browser said, “What else?”
Cloudblower bowed her head. “I know it hurt you deeply that your wife fell asleep every time you started loving her, Browser, but she couldn’t help it. That’s how Yellow Dove shielded Ash Girl from the pain. Her father—he—he started lying with her when she was two.”
Browser’s grip tightened around his cup. For the first three summers of their marriage, he’d desperately tried to speak with her about it. He could still hear her husky voice shouting,
“I do not know what you’re talking about, and it angers me that you would accuse me of such a thing!”
Browser frowned down into his tea. His reflection stared back with anxious eyes. Jagged black locks fell around his face. He looked like a man who’d been running for summers, scrambling to escape a foe he could not see. That’s how he’d felt throughout their marriage, like he was fighting an invisible foe. Every day he could smell the enemy closing in, but never saw him until the very end when Ash Girl died in his arms.
Cloudblower stared at the red coals in the hearth. “If little Ash Girl cried, her father made her play a game he called ‘beetle.’ He forced her to lie on her back, then push up with her arms and legs until she’d arched her back as far as she could. When she weakened and fell, he beat her in the head with a fire-hardened digging stick. By the time she had seen four summers, she fell asleep every time he walked into their chamber. She went somewhere deep inside her souls to hide. That’s when Yellow Dove woke up. He saw what happened. He took the beatings. He endured the agony.”
Browser felt as though he were seeing Ash Girl for the first time, and it twisted his insides. “Why didn’t my wife tell me these things, Elder? Was she afraid to? Afraid that I would cast her out for being tainted with incest?”
He must have failed her in some way that made her unable to trust him. What had he done? Perhaps he had not shown her enough love, or cared enough about her problems. Or maybe she realized that his family would have forced him to leave her if they had known about her father.
Cloudblower said, “Ash Girl didn’t speak with you about these things because she didn’t remember them. Truly. I know about them because Yellow Dove told me.”
Browser kept his voice even. “How could she not know, Elder? These things happened to her.”
Stone Ghost put a gentle hand on Browser’s wrist. “Tortured children rarely recall what their tormentors do to them. It is the monster soul who keeps those memories.”
Cloudblower reached for a stick of wood in the pile to her right and placed it on the coals. Smoke curled up, then delicate yellow flames licked around the fresh tinder. The rich tang of sage filled the chamber.
“Did Ash Girl’s mother know?” Browser asked.
Cloudblower nodded. “Yes, but not until much later. Ash Girl was five when her mother discovered the truth. Her father ran away to escape being punished for incest. He was a Trader. No one in Green Mesa villages even missed him for two summers. Her mother never told anyone. She loved Ash Girl. She couldn’t bear the thought that her daughter might be Outcast from the clan, or even killed to cleanse the village.”
“And no one else knew? How could that be?” Browser said in a strained voice. “Children say things without thinking. Ash Girl’s strange behavior must have roused someone’s suspicions.”
Cloudblower shook her head. “Not that I know of. Though I cannot prove it, but I always thought our Matron knew.”
The fire crackled and a wreath of sparks spun toward the roof’s smokehole.
Catkin said, “How could our Matron have known? She did not even meet Ash Girl until three summers before her death. Surely Ash Girl would not have told her.”
“Ash Girl
could not
have told her,” Stone Ghost reminded her. “She didn’t carry the memories, Yellow Dove did. And I doubt that your Matron had the privilege of speaking with Yellow Dove. Monsters are very secretive. They may reveal themselves during times of great stress, but even then it is rare that people recognize them for what they are.” He cocked his elderly head at Cloudblower. “What did the Matron say that made you think she knew?”
The shell beads on Cloudblower’s blue sleeves twinkled as she folded her arms. “About six moons before her death, Ash Girl started acted very strangely, screaming and lashing out at people for no reason. I remember our Matron whispering that it was her father’s fault. I didn’t understand what she meant and asked her about it. Our Matron just shook her head. She wouldn’t tell me anything else.”
Browser unconsciously touched the soft hides beside his sandals. For the last seven or eight moons of her life, Ash Girl had awakened swinging her fists and crying from nightmares she would not discuss. Browser had slept with Grass Moon in his arms, just to be certain Ash Girl didn’t hurt him.
Stone Ghost’s thick white brows pulled together. “Ash Girl’s father left the family when she was barely five summers. That’s probably what your Matron meant.”
“Perhaps,” Cloudblower whispered. “But I don’t think so.”
Stone Ghost’s dark eyes glinted. “Why?”
“Our Matron told me once that many summers ago she had spoken with Ash Girl’s grandmother. That struck me as odd. Flame Carrier was born in Dry Creek village, not far from here. With the warfare over the past fifty summers, why would she have risked traveling to the far north? Green Mesa is a dangerous place, filled with canyons where raiders ambush travelers.”
“Did she say when this trip took place?”
“No. But I thought she meant a long time ago, perhaps fifteen or twenty summers.”
Stone Ghost sipped his tea and steam curled around his wrinkled face. “Perhaps, Healer, your Matron did not do the traveling. Ash Girl’s grandmother could have come to Dry Creek village. We should ask Ant Woman.”
“Yes,” Cloudblower murmured. “She might know.”
Catkin’s eyes caught the firelight as she leaned forward. “We found something today, Cloudblower. The tracks of a little girl.”
“A girl?” Cloudblower frowned. “What girl?”
Browser said, “We don’t know, Elder. She had been lying on the hilltop to the west of the grave, apparently watching us. She—”
“One of our children? Or another war orphan?”