B
ILLOWING CLOUD PEOPLE DRIFTED THROUGH THE LAVENDER sky, their hearts blazing as though aflame, while their edges glowed like eiderdown.
Stone Ghost stopped to look at them, and inhaled the mingled fragrances of roasted pumpkin seeds and cedar smoke that filled the village.
Dusk seemed to magnify sounds. He could hear turkeys gobbling and macaws squawking. Dogs snarled at each other as they trotted around in search of dropped bits of food. Hungry infants wailed on the northern side of the plaza where mothers had retreated to talk and nurse their babies, and a general hum came from the crowded plaza.
A little while ago, Ant Woman had taken fifty or sixty children into the tower kiva to tell them stories. Death Dances often lasted all night. If the children listened to the Creation stories and napped for a time before the Dances began, they did not complain as much.
Stone Ghost propped his walking stick and searched the gathering.
Three young women moved around the village, lighting shredded yucca bark torches. With each new torch, more faces were illuminated in the plaza, but he did not see Obsidian. The shining white heads of the elders sitting along the western wall reflected the yellow light.
Warriors seemed to be everywhere: on the roofs, around the perimeter of the plaza; several stood guard on the high points around the village. A group of ten men huddled outside the great kiva in front of Stone Ghost, whispering with about twenty people from Dry Creek village. The Dry Creek villagers could be easily identified because most wore yellow ritual capes. Bows and quivers hung from every warrior’s shoulder.
Obsidian emerged from her chamber on the western side of the plaza, and Stone Ghost nodded to himself. She saw him, glared, and looked away.
He cupped a hand to his mouth and called, “Obsidian?” then waved to get her attention. “May I speak with you?”
Everyone in the village turned to gaze at him, including Obsidian. He gestured for her to come over, and throughout the crowd people whispered and shook their heads.
Obsidian glanced around. She couldn’t refuse such a request from one of the village elders, but she clearly did not wish to comply. She gathered her long blue skirt in her hands and swept across the plaza with the grace of a dancer. She’d tied her long white ritual cape at the throat, but through the front opening he could see the intricately decorated bodice of her blue dress; it glittered with red-and-white beads. Every man in the village watched as she passed, as did several of the women.
“Ah, Obsidian,” Stone Ghost said when she stopped before him. “You look especially lovely tonight. I hope that you—”
“Tell me what you want, old man. Water Snake said you questioned him. Is that why you waved me over? You wish to blister me with your tongue?”
Stone Ghost pointed to the shining coral beads that netted her hair and flickered like sparks when she moved. “That is a very old and beautiful style, beads in a woman’s hair. I haven’t seen a woman wear her hair that way in sixty summers or more. Did your mother wear her hair that way?”
“Yes,” she said suspiciously, as though fearing ulterior motives for the question. “But I doubt that you called me over to discuss beads.
What do you want?
”
Stone Ghost moved the point of his walking stick and shifted his weight to his left hip. It didn’t hurt as badly on cold nights like this. “Forgive me for disturbing you. I realize this is a difficult time for you. You must be grieving.” She did not, however, appear to be. “I promise my questions will be short.”
“Then begin.”
Stone Ghost rocked against his walking stick. “I wished to speak with you because Water Snake’s story confused me. He said—”
“He confuses everyone,” she replied as if bored by the thought of Water Snake. “It is his way.”
“Really? Well, he told me he did not hear the Matron’s screams, and I—”
“Of course he didn’t. He heard nothing but his own squealing.”
As her implications seeped in, his brows arched. “I’ve never known a man who could ‘squeal’ loud enough to cover death screams, Obsidian. Surely there must be more.”
Obsidian folded her arms beneath her full breasts, and looked at Stone Ghost with cold eyes. “Do you wish me to tell you straightly, or shall I smooth the edges for your elderly ears?”
“Straightly, please. At my age, time is too valuable for smooth edges.”
“Very well. Water Snake is a fool. He did not wish to couple on the roof where anyone might see us. He insisted we go inside. I didn’t wish to. I like to feel the fresh night air on my skin.”
“I see. Where did you go? To your chamber? To his?”
She laughed as though he’d said something ludicrous. “I would never invite Water Snake to my chamber. He’s a slug.” She gave him a sly smile. “I would, however, be very pleased to have your nephew in my chamber.”
She obviously expected Stone Ghost to deliver that message, which, of course, meant he would go out of his way not to.
Stone Ghost pressed, “Where did you and Water Snake go to couple, Obsidian?”
She smoothed her jeweled hands down over her cape and said, “Inside the tower kiva.”
She smiled, apparently pleased with herself. Not only had she lured Water Snake from his guard duties, she had desecrated the kiva.
“Ah, well, that makes everything clearer. How long were you in the kiva?”
“Less than a finger of time. Water Snake couples like a mouse. He squirms, squeals, and runs away.”
Singing rose from the great kiva, accompanied by the faint heartbeat of a drum. Soon the drummer would emerge, the flute players would follow, then the katsinas would rise up from the underworlds and spread out across the plaza. He didn’t have much time.
Stone Ghost said, “I would like to know why you did not marry again after you divorced Ten Hawks.”
Obsidian frowned at the sudden change of topic. “Why do you care? I didn’t marry again because I didn’t wish to.”
“But you are a striking woman. Surely you could have married any man you wished. A war chief, a wealthy Trader, perhaps a powerful—”
“Yes. I could have.”
Stone Ghost held her hot gaze. “I spoke with Crossbill today. She said you were plagued by suitors after Ten Hawks left, but you rejected them all without even speaking with them.”
As though impatient, she snapped, “My life is none of your concern, old man! If you wish to question me about the night of the Matron’s murder, well enough, but I have duties. I am supposed to deliver sweet corn cakes to the tower kiva—”
“Yes, I know I’m delaying you, and ordinarily I wouldn’t. But, you see, I started wondering about you after Matron Crossbill said that you had a sister. Since then, I have been quietly asking around. How old are you?”
Her glare turned icy. “I have seen thirty-two summers.”
“Are you certain? Is that what your mother told you?”
“Of course I’m sure! Why would my mother lie to me about my age?” Stone Ghost smiled in a harmless elderly way. “I doubt that she would, I was just curious. How did your father die?”
“Great Ancestors, these are silly questions! There is no secret about that! He was standing guard one night and someone shot an arrow through his heart.”
Many eyes turned to them when Obsidian raised her voice, but they stood far enough away from the other mourners that Stone Ghost did not think they could be overheard. He kept his voice low anyway. “What about your mother? How long after Shell Ring’s death was she killed?”
Obsidian searched his face, as though trying to ferret out his real meaning. “Six or seven moons. You may ask anyone. They will tell you the same thing. Why do you care?”
“Oh,” he answered mildly, “it is just a problem I have been considering. What clan was your mother?”
Obsidian tightened her arms beneath her breasts, and the flesh swelled against the blue fabric. “She was Ant Clan, why?”
“And Shell Ring?”
“I think he was Buffalo Clan. What difference does it make?”
“None really. Old people like me are just curious about family. Perhaps because family is all we have left, and we cherish it so much.
That’s why I’m happy you like my nephew. He and I are the last living members of our family.”
The Cloud People had turned a fine gossamer shade of purple. As Wind Baby pushed them, thin threads stretched across the southern horizon.
Stone Ghost said, “My grandmother Orenda once told me that the Blessed Cornsilk was Ant Clan. Perhaps you are related to her. That would be a great honor, wouldn’t it? Everyone wishes to be—”
“If you have nothing of importance to say to me, I have duties, Elder.”
“Yes, I’m sure you do. Forgive me. There is just one other thing that has been troubling me. Crossbill told me that you had seen seven summers when you and your mother joined the Longtail Clan.”
“Yes. What of it?”
“That would have been twenty-five summers ago, yes?”
“Yes,” she answered irritably.
Stone Ghost scratched at his wrinkled chin. “Well, I’m confused. You see, Longtail Clan has only lived here for about ten summers, but Elder Springbank told my nephew he had heard you say that you were born here, in this village. That leads me to wonder how old you were when you and your mother left here and headed south to find the Longtail Clan? Five, perhaps? Six?”
Obsidian went still. Her gaze searched the crowd as though trying to find Springbank, then it landed on Stone Ghost’s chin. She didn’t seem to be breathing, as though his words had knocked the air out of her lungs.
“Did I say something wrong?” he asked.
She spun around and ran across the plaza with her white cape flapping.
Stone Ghost touched his chin. Few people these days knew what the spirals meant, thank the gods. His mother had been the last person who dared to identify her children, and she had lived to regret it. All of Stone Ghost’s sisters had been murdered. He did not know why he had been spared.
Yes, few people knew what the spirals meant, but at least two did. He and Obsidian.
Stone Ghost blinked suddenly. “Oh, Blessed gods, that’s why her mother was killed. And—and that’s why Obsidian did not remarry!”
A cold shiver went through him.
Could it be true?
Stone Ghost glanced around the plaza. Over the heads of two shorter men, he saw Skink watching him. When Stone Ghost looked directly at Skink, the warrior’s gaze immediately dropped, and he spoke to one of the men in his circle. He couldn’t have overheard the discussion with Obsidian, could he? Obsidian had raised her voice often enough that a careful listener might have been able to piece together some of the conversation. Though very few people would have grasped its dire significance.
Stone Ghost turned away.
Cornsilk and Poor Singer had escaped the wrath of the Made People because they were raised by Made People and adopted into Made People clans—though they later disowned those clans. Stone Ghost’s great-grandmother, Night Sun, had not been that lucky. As the last great Matron of Talon Town, the most magnificent and powerful town in the Straight Path Nation, she had been quite a prize. Made People had captured her and tortured her to death in front of her husband, Ironwood. Legends said that she had never cried out, not even once, because she couldn’t bear his tears.
Like Night Sun, Obsidian’s mother had married one of the Made People, and thereby violated a sacred trust:
First People only marry other First People.
Stone Ghost propped his walking stick and rubbed his forehead.
“Is it possible?”
Was someone tracking down the last of the First People, studying their lives, and meting out punishment for their transgressions?
The thought sickened Stone Ghost.
Before Obsidian made it to her chamber, Springbank cut her off. The old man lifted a fist and shook it in Obsidian’s face. Stone Ghost couldn’t hear the words, but he could tell from Springbank’s expression that they were not kind words. Obsidian stood like an indignant clan Matron, her breast heaving.
Though Stone Ghost had been looking forward to the Dances, he walked in the opposite direction, away from the village plaza, and out into the growing darkness.
THE LANTERN HISSED, ITS WHITE LIGHT ILLUMINATING the inside of the trailer. Maureen fought a yawn as she removed her
measuring tools from her field kit and spread newspaper across the table.
Dusty stood with his back to her, his hands in the dishwater, scrubbing the pot they’d used to make chili. Dale sat to her right, one elbow propped on the booth’s backrest, his pipe clenched between his teeth as he puffed. His soft dark eyes were focused somewhere in the distance, perhaps on a memory of another long-ago field camp.
Dusty shook the silverware off and set it in the drainer. Then he pulled a dishtowel from the oven door and used it to dry the big aluminum pot. “You know, you can’t leave chili in an aluminum pot.”