People of the Earth (81 page)

 
          
 
"How do you talk our language?"

 
          
 
He smiled humorlessly. "Stole an Earth
People girl once. She taught me." His smile widened. "And since we
came to the
Wind
Basin
, I've been getting lots of practice. Now
you will learn the talk of the Sun People."

 
          
 
Bitterbrush's legs buckled under her and he
let her down. He glanced at her pack, lying near his feet. "Now you pick
plants for Sage Ghost."

 
          
 
"Others will come," she said.
"The Earth People will fight back."

 
          
 
He squatted on his heels, the darts cradled in
his lap. "I don't think they will. Their Power is gone. We hunt Earth
People before they can hunt us. Kill the men and old women. No word is carried
to other camps by the dead. The young women we take, and they work for the
Black Point now."

           
 
He squinted up at the sun. "It's a new
way . . . Sun People way."

 
          
 
"Never," she hissed.

 
          
 
He lifted an amused eyebrow. "Oh? I think
forever. Now you're my woman. Sage Ghost isn't a bad man. I won't beat you
unless you disobey." He paused and added, "It's been a long time
since Sage Ghost had woman to care for him. I watched you digging plants.
You're old enough to have sense—but still pretty. Your body is strong. I
followed, listened to the sadness in your voice. You don't have a man, either.
Perhaps this is good for both of us."

 
          
 
She nodded numbly. Where were the others? Did
this man truly have companions, or would Cattail appear and drive him off?

 
          
 
A scream echoed from the root grounds.

 
          
 
Sage Ghost cocked his head, glancing at her
from the corner of his eye. "The Black Point will come soon. You fix these
plants. Feed us."

 
          
 
Larkspur sat under the sunshade at Round Rock
camp. In the trampled area between the sun-bathed earthen lodges, the children
laughed and shouted and ran around in circles. Lupine carried the sage wand in
her little brown fist. She had to touch one of the others with it. When that
happened, the child touched would take the sage wand and chase the others,
until another was touched and the wand thus passed on.

 
          
 
In the lengthening shadow of Bitterbrush's
lodge,
Tliber
watched the young children with
resentful eyes—his heart longing to be out gathering roots, no doubt. The very
way he sat irritated Larkspur.

 
          
 
Something had changed in the world. She could
almost reach up with her thin fingers and feel the difference in the air. Power
had been offended in some devastating way. In her very soul she could tell it.
Despite the depth of the summer, the Spirit of the earth held its dusty breath.
Stillness lay on the sage.

 
          
 
Oh, Black Hand, what has gone wrong? She
drifted beyond the realm of the present to the warm days of the past. She could
see him again, strong, muscular, and handsome as he laughed with her.

 
          
 
"Grandmother?"

 
          
 
Thad risen to his feet like an uneasy panther.
Curse it, why did the boy have to be so ill-behaved? She could see his anger
smoldering, ready to burst loose—although he'd been remarkably civil in the
days since Black Hand's death. All during their walk to Round Rock, the boy had
practically skipped and sung. Then the ugly mood had settled on him again.

 
          
 
Have to marry him off as soon as possible. The
boy's like a boil—a constant irritant. Look at the resentment in his eyes. If
he stays around, he'll just fester more.

 
          
 
"What do you want, T?"

 
          
 
He gave her a challenging look. "I think
something's wrong. That old red bitch was sniffing the wind and growling. She
had her hair up and went out into the sage. Then she just went . . . quiet.
Funny quiet."

 
          
 
She scowled at him. "What are you
bothering me with?"

 
          
 
At the chiding tone in her voice, his
expression soured. "Didn't you hear her barking?"

 
          
 
"Dogs bark, boy. Go on now. Tend the
fires. We need more firewood. Go pull some. Be useful for once."

 
          
 
He stiffened, the corners of his lips
twitching. She tensed in response.

 
          
 
"Pull firewood?" He snorted acidly.
"They left me here to help you with the children. What am I? Some sort of
pack beast? Maybe Bad Belly was the smart one."

 
          
 
A white shaft of anger flared in her soul. She
stabbed a crooked finger at him. "Boy, you better listen and hear good.
You've been half crazy since Warm Fire died. Now leave be. You mind yourself .
. . or I'll have . . . Cattail ..."

 
          
 
She stopped, appalled.
Tiiber
,
eyes gleaming, had taken a step toward her, trembling fingers rising toward her
throat. For that brief instant her eyes locked with his and she read black
violence, barely throttled.

 
          
 
"T, don't ..." But her words fell on
empty air. The boy had sprinted away through the lodges.

 
          
 
Larkspur took a deep breath and rubbed her hot
face. *Td be rid of his foul soul in a second if I could manage it." And
as soon as she'd said them, she wished she could withdraw the words. Anxiously
she glanced around at the weathered granite that bordered the suddenly silent
camp. The shadows cast by the lodges had stretched their humped shapes over the
beaten clay.

 
          
 
All the children were watching her with solemn
eyes. The breath penned in her frail chest exploded, and she waved her arms at
them. "Well, go on! Get back to play now!"

 
          
 
But the sage-wand game had died. The children
squatted in a little knot and talked in quiet voices as they fingered the dirt.

 
          
 
The old black dog, Yellow Tooth, jerked awake,
lifting his nose to scent the breeze. A threatening growl vibrated in his
throat; then he barked the old familiar warning she'd known for years.

 
          
 
"Here! Shut up!" Larkspur grunted as
she pushed to her feet and reached for her digging stick. The rest of the dogs
woke and began to bay, charging through the village in the direction Tuber had
taken, then veering out into the sage.

 
          
 
"So help me, if that cursed boy is
playing some game with a bear hide, I'll . . ."

 
          
 
From beyond the lodges, a dog yelped in pain.
Then came a series of yips and canine shrieks. She thought she heard a hollow
thump—the sort of sound that would be made if someone beat an animal.

 
          
 
Fool boy's got no right to take his anger out
on dogs. If he's laid a club to old Yellow Tooth, I'll have Cattail twist his
neck off his shoulders. She raised her voice. "Tuber! Is that you?"

 
          
 
A boy's scream shrilled in the air and ended
abruptly—as if cut off.

           
 
Fear clutched at Larkspur's heart. "You
children. Get inside." With the digging stick, she pointed to her lodge.

 
          
 
They sat frozen, faces panicked.

 
          
 
"Now!" she snapped.

 
          
 
Little bodies scuttled for the lodge flap.

 
          
 
Larkspur swallowed, throat constricted, and
tottered forward. “Tuber? That you? You pulling some sort of prank?"

 
          
 
A brown bitch dragged herself around the
corner of the lodge, a blood-streaked dart transfixing her limp hind quarters.
The animal collapsed in a bloody heap, a keening yelp breaking from her throat.

 
          
 
Two tattooed warriors rounded the lodge, their
moccasined
feet pressing the dog's blood into the
soil of Round Rock. They carried a struggling Tuber in their arms.

 
          
 
Larkspur turned to run—only to see more of the
warriors rushing in from every direction. For an instant she stood paralyzed.
They closed around her, long war clubs dangling from powerful fists.

 
          
 
Her wits returned, along with the old
arrogance. "Get out of my camp!"

 
          
 
As anger buoyed her, she charged forward on
her aching legs, brandishing her digging stick. She heard the harsh male
laughter behind her and tried to stop her headlong rush.
Tiber
's scream split the air, but she barely
heard. The crack of her skull deafened her for a split second before blackness
rushed through her senses.

 
          
 
Wind Runner looked the boy up and down. The
youth appeared older than the fourteen summers his mother claimed. His
shoulders had already filled out. No expression crossed the boy's flinty face.
Nevertheless, in another couple of the summers, the young women would look
twice at him.

 
          
 
Wind Runner considered, studying the
buff-colored earthen lodges. In the twilight, the rounded caps of granite that
rose behind the camp gleamed against the sky like the piled skulls of curious
Dream beasts. As it slid lower toward the western horizon, the dying sun cast a
red tinge over the land.

 
          
 
He shot Sage Ghost a measuring look. "You
want to keep the boy?"

 
          
 
Sage Ghost nodded. "He is strong. He
belongs to the woman I took. Look at him; he'll make a good warrior. I never
had a boy to teach. Only daughters—and this woman has a daughter, too."

 
          
 
"Yes, she does," Wind Runner agreed.
"A daughter young enough to learn the ways of the Black Point—and not bear
us ill will. Uncle, if you keep this boy, I fear we'll find you one of these
days with a dart stuck through your tough hide."

 
          
 
Sage Ghost filled his lungs, swelling the
muscles of his chest. "I have asked the boy. He says he would become Black
Point."

 
          
 
Wind Runner stepped up to the youth, searching
his eyes. "Have him tell me."

 
          
 
Sage Ghost spoke in the swallowed words of the
Earth People.

 
          
 
The boy nodded, an odd festering in his hard
black eyes. In the accented tongue of the Sun People, the boy said, "I
would be a warrior."

 
          
 
Or you it be dead, and you know it, Wind
Runner finished to himself. He glanced at Sage Ghost again. Uncle, how much of
this is your own soul's pain? Is that what you f re doing? Trying to replace
the loss of White Ash?

 
          
 
"You'll watch him?" Wind Runner
asked.

 
          
 
"I'll watch him." Sage Ghost made a
sign with his hand that indicated it would be as he said.

 
          
 
"Then let him stay. We'll see how he
fares, but make sure he knows that every eye will be on him."

 
          
 
Sage Ghost turned to the boy and spoke, then
pointed. The youth nodded and walked off toward the earthen shelter that Sage
Ghost had claimed. The boy's mother, a tall, handsome woman standing there,
hugged him.