The Next Skywatcher: Prequel to The Last Skywatcher Triple Trilogy Series (The Last Skywatcher, Anasazi Historical Thrillers with a Hint of Romance Book 1) (34 page)

“I might remember a few things. I’ll teach our boys about skywatching when I teach your girls. Other than that, they’re on their own.”

“We’ll need a helper. To cook and clean.”

“You said Wooti might do it.”

“Hita wants her to, but she says no and clings to Hita,” Chumana stepped away from him and spun around, her arms outstretched. “The moonlight is wonderful!” she said.

Tuwa smiled. “You’re a goddess.” The white moonlight on her white dress made her look like a living spirit.

“I’m the Goddess of the Skywatcher.”

Tuwa laughed. “The Goddess of My Future.”

They walked in silence as they ascended a long incline, so steep in a couple of places that steps had been carved into the bedrock.

“That Wooti girl needs three summers with The Pochtéca,” said Tuwa. “That would bring her out.”

“Like it did you and Choovio? With her own little orphan army?”

“Exactly. She could flush out all the nasty men still hiding in the canyon.”

“I think all the women with sharp sticks will do that. They’re not likely to bow down to men like that again.”

Tuwa squeezed her to him. “If I’d known you were still alive back here, I would never have run away or joined The Pochtéca.”

“I know that,” she whispered.

A Butterfly Runner found them and bowed low. “The White Priestess requests you walk with her,” she said to Tuwa.

Tuwa said nothing and continued walking. The runner looked with alarm at Chumana, as if Tuwa might not give an answer for her to return. “Tell her I’ll get him to come,” she said. The girl looked relieved and ran back to Nuva at the front of the procession.

Chumana took Tuwa’s arm. “You must walk with Nuva.”

“Why?” He sounded like a child and he knew it. “I already know the story. She just wants to torture me through it again and make a few corrections. Can’t we just walk together, the two of us?”

“It’s important to know your birth story,” Chumana said.

“It doesn’t really matter anymore. I don’t think I could learn anything that would help me.”

“Are you serious?” They walked together in silence a few steps. “There’s always something to learn from the stories of our birth. There’s always more to it than you think. Every time you hear it, you see something you’ve never noticed before.”

“Like what? That you’re constantly surrounded by a bunch of snakes?”

Chumana laughed. “Exactly.”

“Tell me your story again. And tell me what you learn from it that’s new.”

“No.
You
tell my birth story, and then you can say what
you
learn from it. You’re the one who needs practice. And I want to see how well you remember.”

“I don’t remember your being this bossy.”

“Being a goddess for three years can do that to a girl.”

Tuwa laughed and snatched at her, but she dodged out of the way and walked backward in front of him. Her smiling face was hidden in shadow from the high moon behind her head.

“Okay. Okay then. You want a story, I’ll give you a story.” Tuwa puffed up and took on the voice of a comic storyteller. “Your mother, may her spirit live forever in the joy of having given birth to the only Goddess of the Future in the history of this world, and her people were moving to a new place. They’d grown tired of the old place because there were not enough snakes around to suit them. She was pregnant and thought she could make the journey, but you decided to be born in spite of the extremely bad timing and so she went off by herself to squeeze you from her loins while everyone else just stood around and waited, slapping mosquitoes and impatient to get going to their new snake-infested place. Anyway, your dear mother squatted and birthed you onto a blanket she’d laid on the ground, and right after you fell into this world she realized she’d born you into a den of rattlesnakes—dozens of them coiled and turned their heads to her, rattled their rattles, and your mother screamed so that every village for two days’ walk heard the shriek and thought the end of the world was nigh.”

Chumana giggled hysterically. Tuwa exaggerated his voice even more.

“Then your mother realized she had forgotten something.
Let’s see
, she thought,
what could it be? Oh!
She had left her new little baby in the care of rattlesnake mothers! She shrieked again and without thinking dashed into that nest of snakes and plucked you from the ground without a single snake so much as even daring a single strike at you or her. She carried you to safety like a Great Goddess of the Infant-Rescuing Sisterhood of Snake Women, and forevermore you, my sweet, have been the Snake Maiden, Chumana, she with no fear of snakes and snakes with no fear of her, who turned her back on her sister snakes and instead embraced fortunetelling and prophecy, and will soon marry the most wise skywatcher who has ever paced the platform of the Twin Giants. Except maybe for Grandfather.”

Chumana staggered she laughed so hard. She began coughing as if strangling on her own laughter.

“So,” Tuwa asked, patting her on the back. “How’d I do?”

“That’s pretty close,” she said with a wheeze.

“What do you mean ‘pretty close’? What did I get wrong?” He puffed out his chest and threw his chin into the air.

Chumana laughed again and cleared her throat. “Not a single thing, my most wise Skywatcher.” She got her breath. “But you still have to walk with Nuva tonight.”

“Only if you come with me.”

Chumana took his arm. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“How is your hand?
” Nuva asked.

Tuwa gripped his wounded right hand with his left and Chumana touched his back. A warm pain hovered where his forefinger had been. “Sometimes I still feel it. Like it’s on fire. Or I’ll reach up to scratch myself with it and then….” He poked himself in the eye with his middle finger and jumped back in mock surprise. His one successful performance for Chumana had turned him into a comic.

“Your body doesn’t yet know it’s gone,” said Nuva, ignoring his antics.

“It’s not gone. I still have it. You gave it to me, all wrapped up.” He stepped in front of them and walked backward, looking from Nuva to Chumana.

“I know you feel giddy from going home….” said Nuva.

“And because I’m marrying my childhood sweetheart,” he interrupted with a leer at Chumana.

“And from that, but you must know that you’re not really meant to be a clown.”

Tuwa feigned heartbrokenness and drooped his shoulders.

“Peelay’s the master, I’m afraid,” said Chumana.

“Yes,” said Tuwa, straightening up. “Peelay is indeed the master.”

“The spirit in him,” said Nuva, “turns like a spiral in a direction I’ve never seen before.”

They walked in silence, and Nuva held her head down.

“Are you tired?” asked Tuwa.

“Before you finally agreed to come speak with me tonigh, a report came. Ihu and a straggling remnant of Másaw Warriors have taken Black Stone Town.”

Tuwa’s head bobbed up and down. He moved to Nuva’s side. “That’s not very surprising. I’d wondered what happened to Ihu.” Tuwa remembered the night he couldn’t catch him. And the second time he escaped. He had always known something bad would come of that.

“He captured two Butterfly Runners. Tortured them. Released them. They got back to Center Place yesterday.”

Chumana hurried to Nuva’s other side. She put her arm around her. “Do you want to go back? You should be there now.”

“No.” Nuva held her head up. “Hita went back. She’s an even better healer than I am. They’ll be fine, just have a dark spot on them forever. But we all have those. Not as dark, maybe. But everyone has them.”

“What are you going to do about Ihu?” Tuwa asked. “The Fat Man and his former girls can’t hold off Ihu if enough warriors join him. I’ll bet the Fat Man would welcome Ihu inside if he thought he could make a good deal for himself. He’d release Tókotsi, and we’d be back where we started.”

“The Pochtéca thinks the Fat Man will cooperate,” said Nuva. “We’re setting him up to handle the bluestone trade.”

“But the Fat Man could just take all the bluestone now. The whole place is deserted. Everyone is here with you.”

“He could. He may even be tempted. But what would he do with it? He knows nothing of long-distance trade. He certainly can’t walk anywhere himself. Who would he trade it with? He knows no one outside the canyon. No. The Pochtéca thinks he’ll do all he can to keep his agreement.”

“And The Builder isn’t exactly trustworthy,” said Tuwa.

“Let’s just say he’s easily swayed,” said Nuva. Chumana gave a derisive laugh.

“How many men does the Fat Man have?” asked Tuwa.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Nuva. “Several dozen. Some former warriors that convinced the new Northern Council they’re more loyal to the Fat Man than Pók or Tókotsi. Plus his old bodyguards, loyal for whatever strange reasons men have for being loyal. And a few old men. His former girls are probably his most fierce warriors right now.”

“Just trained for the wrong things,” said Chumana. Tuwa grinned, embarrassed.

“Some of them can shoot an arrow,” said Nuva. “But most will fight like Tuwa. Calm until they get close, then explode in hot anger.” She looked at Tuwa with a half-grin, but he felt a sinking in his lower stomach. He knew what it meant. He fought like Pók, using bursts of anger as his secret weapon. But he forced that out of his mind and concentrated on what Ihu might do from Black Stone Town.

“You may return to a Center Place occupied by Ihu and Tókotsi,” said Tuwa. “Chumana’s right. We should have been joined there, and then we could have slipped away back home.”

“If they take over the palace, then we’ll relocate to Three Waters,” said Nuva.

“And let them have the canyon?” asked Tuwa. He knew Nuva would tend to think defensively, to survive at all costs. But Tuwa had learned how often a surprise attack could weaken an enemy. Tuwa stopped walking. Nuva and Chumana looked back at him.

“We have to capture or kill Ihu,” said Tuwa. “We have to go into Black Stone Town just like we did Center Place. We’ve got to do it again.” He clenched his fists along with his lips and brow. His damaged hand pounded in pain.

Nuva walked to him and touched his shoulder. She held her hand there and squeezed him until he looked into her eyes.

“It’s not your burden anymore,” she said. “It’s mine.” She stood straight and began walking again.

Chumana watched her and then looked at Tuwa. “I don’t want you to do that. Just come home with me.”

Tuwa nodded. He took Chumana’s arm and walked to catch up with Nuva. Maybe they were right. He had to let go.

They walked for a while without speaking. The three of them ahead of the mass of followers strung out behind. Far ahead two figures moved on the road like ghosts in the moonlight. Choovio and Kopavi. Each night as the moon grew brighter, it stayed up longer in the night sky, meaning they traveled farther. Nuva wasn’t used to so much walking, and she crept along at times, but she never stopped until the moon neared the horizon. The night air smelled pure and cool, like mountain water. They often heard coyotes in the scrub not far away, but never close enough to see.

He could go on in silence like this the rest of the way. He thought about how to add his own observations at the Twins to Grandfather’s string record. He would have to study it to become familiar again with the knotted notations. And he thought about children with Chumana. Teaching them to one-hand vault over the cliff where there’s a secret landing place below. Then his mind drifted back to Ihu and Black Stone Town. If he went back, what would Chumana, Choovio, and Kopavi and the others do? He didn’t want to risk them. Not again. Not so soon. They would have to do something about Ihu sooner than later. Else nothing would be truly safe.

But Nuva was right. Tuwa didn’t have to think about that kind of thing anymore. Let others do it. Maybe relocating to Three Waters would work. If Ihu and his band of crazies left them alone. Of course, they wouldn’t. Which meant he and Chumana wouldn’t be safe even at the Village of the Twins.

He wanted to talk it over with Choovio and The Pochtéca. And Kopavi. They probably had a few weeks to decide whether to attack or not. Maybe even until spring. That might be the best time anyway. Surely Ihu couldn’t manage to keep all his underlings alive through a hard winter. Okay, he thought, his brain unclenching. That made a Grandfather kind of sense. Let winter work against your enemy. Attack them in the spring when their supplies are at their lowest. He nodded, and breathed the air, and smiled because he walked in the moonlight with the woman who raised him and the woman who would soon be his wife.

Tuwa spoke to Choovio the next day as they rested after walking to the top of a long hill. Nuva and Chumana lagged far behind. “I’d forgotten, but Nuva reminded me, that he came to the Twins once, when we were little kids. He looked over Grandfather’s shoulder at me and said, ‘Is he watching? I’d like to meet him,’ But Grandfather pushed him in the chest with his staff and made him go away.”

“I remember,” said Choovio in his soft voice. “My father was ready to put an arrow through him.”

“Did you know that was the same man when we came back and saw Pók?” Tuwa asked.