by Jeff Posey
Pók stared into space as he dictated. “A patrol is coming from the canyon to Black Stone led by Ráana. They have turned against us. I want you to kill them. All of them. But when you return, say that children killed them. If Ihu and anyone with him resists, kill them as well.” To the runner, he said, “You watch and see that it is done, then report back to me and me alone. Highest priority. Top speed.” Pók turned and the boy seemed too astonished to speak the message back to him. “You die before you tell anyone this, you understand?” The boy nodded. “Do not let Ráana and his men see you. Now go.” The runner nodded again, then fled.
Pók narrowed his eyes as his mind worked. Those so-called children who killed warriors, if they truly existed, could wait until later while he took the opportunity to eliminate a few of his more annoying opponents.
Escaped. Again.
“Grandmother!” Tuwa shouted as he ran into town. He saw her gray head rise from the pallet on the low platform in the courtyard.
Tuwa went to her side, Sowi and the others ran into the plaza at their top speeds. “Ihu and a band of warriors are coming.”
“So soon?” She lifted herself into a sitting position. “He must have found a patrol nearby.”
“We must hide you.”
“Nonsense. I am old. Hide yourselves. I want to have a word with this Ihu.”
Tuwa put his hand under her arm and pulled her up.
She found his forearm and dug her fingers into him. “Listen to me,” she hissed. “Leave me. Prepare yourselves!”
He didn’t have time to argue, so he did as she said. Sowi called, and he ran to confer with him and Kopavi. Choovio joined them. Everyone kept their eyes on the north road, but Tuwa glanced back at the old woman and saw her speaking with her young stick-thin helper. The girl nodded but didn’t blink her eyes.
“Everybody relax and hit your marks,” said Tuwa. “Don’t waste arrows.” He looked at Choovio, who looped his bow over his arm and pulled out a club.
“It’s too late to run, I guess,” said Sowi. “We’d best get ready.” Kopavi looked at Choovio and gave a sign for him to watch himself. Choovio clenched his fist in the barest of response.
Tuwa nodded, then wrenched himself away and trotted back to the old woman. The girl looked up at him in fear and slinked away. The old woman sensed his presence. “You are here?” she asked.
“Yes, Grandmother. What did you tell that girl?”
“A message for the White Priestess. I told you there are those who will help you. She will prepare them.”
“She goes alone? Now?”
“She will be invisible. The evil men who rule the canyon are blind to women unless their man parts are full of lust.”
Tuwa didn’t want to think of that happening to the little girl. “She cannot speak, you told me yourself. How will she tell others?”
“I believe she will speak when she must.”
“Who will help her?”
“Women like me. With the mark on their fingers. She knows how to find them. She has the mark herself. When you have a chance, make the mark on your own fingers.”
“I already have them,” Tuwa said, rocking back and forth impatiently. “From Nuva, long ago. The only male, she said. I always thought it was silly. But that doesn’t matter now. Ihu and his warriors will be here at any moment, Grandmother. What will we do with you?”
“You will leave me be. I have something to say to Ihu. He killed my great-grandson right here where I am sitting. If I can get him close enough to me, I have a present for him.” From her shawl she pulled a bone-handled knife, the blade having been flaked away so many times it looked like a stub. But Tuwa noticed a new edge gleamed in the dying firelight.
“He will hurt you,” said Tuwa. He didn’t want the old woman to die. Especially in a gruesome way at the hands of Ihu.
“I have lived long and well, Grandson. Do not worry about me. Go lead your people.”
Even knowing he must move quickly, he hesitated to leave the old woman. “I feel that I have known you all my life,” he whispered.
“What is my name?” she asked.
“Eldest Woman. Grandmother Hakidonmuya,” Tuwa said. He had paid attention.
“Yes. My family calls me Haki,” she said. “I am named for the time of waiting for the full moon. Do you know what is the moon tonight, my Grandson, my Tuwa?”
Tears filled his eyes when she called him by name. “It’s a growing half-moon, Grandmother Haki. That just set. We are in darkness waiting for the full moon.”
“Yes,” she said. “It is also the time of waiting to recover what has been lost. You have a part in that. Go now. All will be as it must be.”
Tuwa touched her shoulder, and then ran to the center of the plaza. The youngest ones had already left with town girls as guides. None had cried or whimpered. They were too shocked, he thought, or perhaps Kopavi’s magic touch with children had calmed them. Choovio and the largest boys hid themselves behind the bundles, baskets, and jars they had piled in the main storage room, and Sowi and the archers were settling into the spots they’d created on the rooftops. Kopavi, their best archer, crouched up there as well. They could not do much more.
He whistled low and got the attention of Choovio and Sowi. He pointed at his eyes then at the north road. He would run out to watch.
“Too late,” called Sowi.
Tuwa saw a man with a hairless head—Ihu—run into the plaza with six grizzled warriors. He wondered if Grandmother’s prediction that some would split off had been correct. Were a half-dozen archers sneaking in a tightening noose around the town? She had not been right about them pausing to gather themselves before storming the town. They looked exhausted from their run. A good time to surprise them. Tuwa pulled two razor-sharp stones from his knife pocket, and, hearing the voice of Grandfather say Cut off the head of the snake, he raced to meet Ihu.
Ihu stopped and rocked back, clearly surprised by Tuwa’s mad rush. He raised a club just enough to block Tuwa’s right-hand jab at his throat. Tuwa pivoted off the club and slashed with his left hand at Ihu’s head. Ihu twisted and ducked. Tuwa’s knife opened a gash from Ihu’s jaw muscle to his lips.
Ihu screamed, blood spraying from his open cheek, and pulled away. Tuwa tripped, and before he landed on the ground, a blow to his head dimmed his world and vibrated his body like a piece of seasoned wood struck with a stone. His vision narrowed to a pinpoint. He thought he would die from lack of air and he felt as if he had zoomed very far away with only the barest of connections to where he had just been. So this is death, he thought. He drifted without control of his limbs, his head floating and spinning. He thought of Chumana and the children they could have had. Of Grandfather’s turkey-feather robe and its many tendrils of down waving in a breeze. He saw Grandfather and Nuva waiting for him in the shade of mountain trees. He felt cold in the pit of his stomach.
His lungs suddenly unparalyzed themselves and he breathed, and soon realized he lay on the ground staring at Grandmother Haki. Her mat had been overturned and she lay on the ground near the fire circle. She raised herself on one arm as if to look around. Her long hair flowed like a white waterfall in the starlight.
Tuwa heard grunts and shouts, blows to flesh, scuffling, the zip of arrows. The fighting made no sense to him. His head felt pressurized, his thoughts unfinished. He realized archers ringed the plaza and fired toward the roof above Tuwa’s head. He saw a body fall from the top story and the face turned to him in a surprised last gasp of life, an arrow buried in his chest. He recognized the boy called Earless. Even with his thoughts scrambled, he remembered when The Pochtéca found that boy and brought him into his fold, and when his ear had been severed in a skirmish with Másaw Warriors like the ones who attacked them now.
Tuwa noticed a dark pile of bodies near Choovio’s storage room, and heard the sounds of fighting from within. He saw Ihu, his bare head shining in starlight and his face and neck black with blood, run toward Grandmother Haki and club her viciously i
n the head. Then he looked at Tuwa and charged, his eyes flashing, his bloody pointed teeth barred. A small arrow appeared in his left shoulder. He slowed, but kept coming, his club raised in his right hand. Another arrow lodged in his right shoulder. He dropped his club and fell to his knees a body length from Tuwa.
Tuwa wanted to stand, but his legs would not cooperate. Ihu also tried to stand, but his arms hung limp and he couldn’t get his balance and push himself up. Finally, Tuwa forced himself to his knees and he crawled to Ihu. He forced his heavy hands to obey him and grabbed the ends of both arrows and twisted them. Ihu screamed. Tuwa head-butted Ihu in the face, which sent sparks of pain rushing down his spine and pinpoints of light dancing in the darkness, and then he pushed Ihu backward. Tuwa almost went over with him, but managed to stay upright on his knees and scan the plaza. Fighting had stopped. The warriors had either fled or been defeated. He saw bodies on the ground. Heard sobbing. He looked at Grandmother Haki. Her open eyes stared lifelessly to the sky. Good, he thought. She could see her path. He noticed her knife still clutched in her hand. She had never gotten the chance to have her word with Ihu.
A sound like a windstorm filled his ears and he didn’t trust his senses. His legs shivered and he had no strength.
“Choovio,” he gasped. “Sowi.”
A dark shape emerged from the room where Choovio had been fighting. He recognized his friend, coated in gleaming black blood. He wanted to go to him and touch him, but his legs and arms would not move.
“Hurt?” slurred Tuwa.
“Not much,” said Choovio. His arms hung as if they were too tired to move.
“Sowi?”
Choovio’s eyes went to the roof. Tuwa turned his pounding head and saw Sowi standing. He also saw Kopavi there beside him, holding a bow strung with an arrow. If he’d had the energy to smile, he would have.
“More?” Tuwa called with as much volume as he could muster.
He saw Kopavi point to the north. “Three archers escaped,” she called. “One with an arrow in his back.”
“Ours?” Tuwa asked.
“Three up here,” said Kopavi. She shook her head. Dead.
“Two,” said Choovio.
Tuwa nodded, five Pochtécans lost. His vision wavered like watery images off the floor of the desert in the middle of the day and he fought to stay conscious. Choovio towered over him, blocking the stars. Tuwa looked up, but shadow hid Choovio’s face. Tuwa’s world wavered into black and he felt himself fall into nothingness.
When he came to, it took Tuwa an excruciatingly long time to realize he lay where Grandmother Haki had been the last time he spoke to her—was it the evening before or days ago? The gathering around the central fire was much smaller than before. The young ones were gone, the town’s girls with them. Tuwa saw Kopavi moving among the Pochtécans scattered about, some prone, some sitting. He didn’t see Choovio or Sowi. He caught Kopavi’s eye and she came to him.
“Many wounded?” he asked.
She signed no, then said, “Choovio and Sowi are standing sentry.”
“Five dead?” Tuwa asked, wondering how he remembered.
“Seven.”
He stared across the plaza seeing double. He couldn’t do the calculation.
Kopavi read his mind. “We are twelve now, counting The Pochtéca.” She knelt beside him and touched his bandaged head. He cringed, from his pain as well as from their loss. Too much to bear, though the quiet voice of Grandfather reminded him that twelve was the luckiest of numbers. The number of full moons in a year. Except for seven years out of every nineteen when there were thirteen full moons. He couldn’t remember which year they were in now. Grandfather would be disappointed.
“What happened?” he asked, closing his aching eyes.
“Sowi put an arrow through the throat of the warrior who clubbed you in the back of your head. Ihu charged away from you after you fell and hit Eldest Woman. Then we both missed our mark when Ihu came at you. Sowi got his left shoulder. I got his right. You are our worst injured.”
“I am fine,” he said, though he didn’t feel fine. The world tilted and wobbled. He felt as if he might retch.
“You are not. You need time to heal.”
“Have no time. Archers escaped?” He felt the need to move. To stand. To think and prepare for…something he couldn’t clearly remember.
“They found one dead. Two are gone.” She held his face in her hands and peered closely at him. “Your eyes wander. Your spirit is loose.”
“My spirit is not in my eyes.” He found it hard to hold her gaze because his eyes drifted. He tried to force them to cooperate, but they would not, so he squeezed his eyelids closed. “Ihu?”
“Tied in a storage room. His arms will not work.”
“They will be back.”
“Maybe not so quick this time.” She stood. “I will bring you soup. You eat. Then sleep.”
The soup calmed his stomach, and he dropped into a burning sleep.
The next morning, he saw Choovio and Sowi coming across the plaza toward him with a young, thin boy between them, a stranger. Tuwa’s eyes didn’t drift as badly as the night before, though he still had to close them often.
“You won’t believe what we found this boy doing,” said Sowi. “He was cutting out the teeth of the dead warriors! Putting them in a pouch. Show him.” Sowi shoved the boy toward Tuwa. The boy’s fingers were sticky with blood.
The boy picked up a flat rock, brushed it free of sand, and then shook out the contents of a blood-soaked pouch. Clumps of teeth spilled out, many with flesh still attached.
Tuwa squinted at the boy and realized he could control his eyes for a few moments at a time. The boy acted proud.
“What’s your name?” Tuwa asked, an ache clenching his head.
“Tootsa.” Tuwa lifted his eyebrows. Named for the hummingbird. Appropriate for such a small boy, he thought.
“Who were you born to?”
The boy looked down. “My mother is dead. All her family, too.”
“Father?”
“Him, too.”
An orphan, Tuwa thought. “Are you from here? Black Stone Town?”
“Not yet, but if I keep getting rich like this, maybe.”
Tuwa puzzled at the boy’s answer. “Why are you here?”
“To see if the rumors are true.”
“Rumors about what?”
“That they really did clear out Black Stone Town and give it to my uncle.”
Tuwa shook his head, which sent arrows of pain into his brain. He couldn’t follow this boy. “I thought all your family is dead?”
“They are. Except for the ones who should be.”
Tuwa blinked. Did the boy speak in riddles or did his own mind no longer work? “So why are you knocking teeth from dead warriors?”
“Because it’s a treasure,” he said. His eyes brightened. “I’m rich!”
Sowi looked incredulously at Choovio, who stood like a bull buffalo without expression. “You’re sick in the head, boy,” Sowi said. “Nobody wants those smelly, bloody things.”
“No, they do,” said Tootsa. “The Wild Boys in the canyon collect them. I’ll have more than anybody, except maybe the Fat Man.”
“Wait, wait, slow down,” said Tuwa. His head throbbed with his heartbeat. “Wild boys in the canyon? A fat man?”
“Yeah, they’re my friends. They’re all like me, no parents, no family. Since that bad Day Star. So we make our own family. I can’t wait to show them these. If you kill any more, can I have them?”
Sowi’s body writhed with exasperation. “Why would they care about a bunch of teeth?”
Tootsa looked at Sowi as if he didn’t understand the question. “Everybody in the canyon cares about the pointed teeth of warriors. Everybody wishes they had some.”
“Why?” Sowi almost screamed.
“Because nobody likes them being around,” said Tootsa with a shrug.
Sowi lifted his hands and walked away, shaking his head. He
sat with his back turned, but within hearing distance. Choovio knelt by the fire where he could watch the north road and still listen, toying with his bow and arrow.
Through his fog, Tuwa realized Tootsa had gathered only pointed teeth. From warriors. And that he’d mentioned everybody in the canyon. He looked into the boy’s eyes. “You’ve been into Center Place Canyon?”
“Sure. Lots of times,” said Tootsa.
Tuwa glanced at Choovio. He would understand. This odd little boy could help them. He wondered how to get the boy to talk. How to pick good information from his riddled way of talking.
“Who will you take these pointed teeth to first?” Tuwa asked.
“Lightfoot,” he said.
“Who is with Lightfoot?” asked Tuwa.
“All the Wild Boys.” Tootsa seemed to become shy with Tuwa’s focused attention.
Tuwa turned and stretched out with his hands under his throbbing head and stared at the sky. The light hurt his eyes and his head, so he closed his eyes and concentrated on talking with Tootsa. “What do you like to do with the Wild Boys?” he asked in a quiet voice.
“Oh, we run some and laugh and get food from people.”
“How do you get food?”
“We run up and take it, and then they get mad at us. But some mothers don’t mind.”
“Who will Lightfoot take your pointy teeth to?”
“Nowhere. I’m not giving them to him. No way. If he wants a treasure he’ll have to get his own.”
“If I were you, I’d give him at least one,” said Tuwa.
“Well. Maybe one. But nobody else. And only because he’s our top man.”
“Then Lightfoot would trade it for something, I guess.”
“Oh, I know what he’ll do with it. He’ll give it to the Fat Man so he can watch the girls.”
“The girls?”
“Yeah. The Fat Man’s girls. Men pay him to do stupid things with them. Sometimes he lets us Wild Boys watch if we do something for him. I don’t like that much yet.”