People of the Canyons

by Kathleen O'Neal Gear

  When I lift the first figurine, it sobs, and I know it’s glad to see me. My hand shakes with the force of the figurine’s wrenching emotion.

  “It’s all right,” I softly say and pet the figurine. “I haven’t forgotten you either.”

  Thirty-two

  Tsilu

  Light snow is falling, soft and silent.

  Where I curl beside the fire with my cape tucked beneath my feet, I watch the sparse white flakes spiral out of the night sky. The wind has died down, and it’s dark. Very dark. I can’t see anything beyond the halo of firelight. Though, on occasion, when the fire flares, I glimpse Crane sitting on a rock, keeping watch. The shoulders of his black cape have collected the snow and make slightly lighter patches against the background of night.

  Flakes of snow melt on my eyelashes, creating false tears that glitter in the light. I don’t know what to do about the things that happened today. I feel like I’ve been beaten with a club, every nerve in my body numb from the stunning revelations. My mind is blank. Just listening to my heartbeat. Watching the flames sputter in the falling snow.

  My memories are coming back. They keep flashing into existence behind my eyes, filling in more of the story of my life. It’s so strange that I recall the desperate run after my father found me. He picked me up and ran through the darkness, clutching me against his chest, whispering, “No, no, no…”

  I remember him rocking me in his arms every time we stopped to rest. I remember the sound of his agonized voice, begging me to forgive him, promising me that everything was going to be all right. I was going to live again. Swearing that he loved me.

  How can I remember those things if I was dead?

  Through the false tears, the firelight is a dancing prism of rainbows. Crane shifts out in the snow. His boots scrape the rock. His cape flaps in a sudden breath of wind.

  Can he truly be my grandfather? He said there aren’t many members of our family left. How many? Three? Just him, me, and my father? Or do I have cousins and aunts and uncles? Is there a real family waiting for me out there somewhere? Not long ago, Grandfather Tocho told me that I would soon have my first blood moon, and then we’d have to start thinking about men I might marry. The only man I could think of was Kwinsi, but Grandfather had smiled and said, “That might not be a good match.” When I asked why not, he said he couldn’t explain, just that I should start thinking of other possibilities.

  Now I wonder if maybe Kwinsi was too closely related to me—maybe of my real clan, or even a close cousin—and Grandfather Tocho knew it. I pray I have a chance to ask him that. Not that it matters now.

  To keep Kwinsi’s pack dry, I pulled it beneath my cape when I lay down to sleep. The figurines have been talking off and on all night. Mostly, they talk to one another about the cold or the storm, but sometimes I think they’re trying to talk to me. They call my name, then their voices fade into nothingness, as though they’ve decided to retreat and talk more among themselves before they truly reveal themselves to me.

  Hugging the pack against my stomach, I quietly say to the figurines, “Grandfather Tocho said you could send your souls flying. Can you fly to him? Please protect him. Tell him I love him with all my heart, and I’m trying to find him.”

  Thirty-three

  Blue Dove

  With my brow furrowed in distaste, I look around the shaman’s pithouse in Flower Moon Village. Round, it spreads about forty hands across. Four pine logs hold up the roof, and the ceiling beams create a giant square, with the four corners aligned to the north, south, east, and west. Juniper bark and grass were used to cover the beams, then clay-rich mud, and finally a thick layer of earth. Ugly shreds of bark hang out around the roof entry. A person cannot climb up or down the ladder without being accosted by them. Why doesn’t Mother Mazanita, the shaman, trim them off? The white-haired old woman who sits beside me wears a red headband. From the looks of her frayed clothing, I suspect she couldn’t care less about the shreds of bark.

  My gaze moves to the six severed heads hanging from the roof poles by their long hair. Positioned above her bedding hides, they swing and twist in every gust of wind that swirls down through the roof entry. Must have been fresh when she tied them up there, for their gaping jaws pulled their faces into long misshapen ovals.

  I squint at them. “Who were they?”

  Mother Mazanita turns to look. “Oh. My husbands.”

  “You had six husbands?”

  “Seven. Don’t know what happened to the last one. Just ran off one night.” She leans toward me and refills my cup from a sheep-horn ladle. A quid bulges in her cheek. Quids are wads of yucca fiber wrapped around tobacco leaves and knotted into balls, which are inserted into the mouth and chewed. They’re used for a variety of medicinal purposes, including to ease arthritic joints, cure infections, and even to cause abortions. I suspect her problem is her joints. Her fingers are knobby sticks.

  “Are you feeling better, Blessed daughter?”

  “A little.” I pick up my tea and slosh it around my cup. It’s a weak brew of dried serviceberries, but hot and soothing to my sensitive stomach. As I sip it, I glance at the old bag that dangles from my left wrist. Ever since I moved it away from my body, I swear I can feel it reaching for me with invisible fingers. They’re like feathers brushing over my arms. It may just be my imagination, but I’m beginning to think it’s not.

  Mother Mazanita squints at the bundle, which she’s been doing since we arrived. In the pithouse’s muted light, the faded blue design is definitely a wolf’s head, the ears laid back, the teeth bared. The ancient eyes are little more than wisps of black, but they’re staring straight at me. Why is the image so clear tonight?

  “Your Spirit bundle,” she says and gestures to the bag, “is very old and very Powerful. Where did you get it?”

  I flick a hand at Tocho, who sleeps on his back across the house with a blanket pulled up to his chin. By the time we arrived, his knees hurt so badly, he could barely walk. He fell asleep almost the instant he lay down. He’s snoring softly. The albino leans against the wall near Tocho’s head, watching Wasp Moth, Iron Dog, and Weevil casting bone gaming pieces across a scrap of hide, gambling. Occasionally one of them laughs loudly or hoots, but for the most part they talk in low voices, out of consideration for my aching head.

  Mother Mazanita smiles at Tocho and shifts the yucca quid to her other cheek. While she chews, she says, “Did he tell you it’s trying to kill you?”

  I blink. “It’s trying to kill me?”

  “No question about it. That woman, whoever she is, is a monstrous old witch. She collects breath-heart souls.”

  When I glance down at the bag, I can feel those feathery invisible fingers drum on my eyelids. Lifting my wrist, so that the bag hangs before my mouth, I shout, “Just wait until I get home. My father will squash you like a juicy bug.”

  Across the pithouse, the albino’s mouth quirks, as though I’m a fool and already doomed.

  Mother Mazanita seems to agree. She gets up and moves all the way to the other side of the fire, then sits down again. Her wrinkled face is scrunched up. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  “I’ll do as I please,” I inform her, and take a leisurely drink of my hot tea.

  Wasp Moth calls, “I think the old witch wants us all dead. While I was sleeping, the bag crawled onto my chest and tried to suck out my life. I could feel it leaving my body.”

  “Ah well,” Mother Mazanita says with a shake of her head. “Then you have every reason to be terrified. She probably wants your breath-heart soul.”

  Wasp Moth instantly rises to his feet and walks over to crouch before the fire. The wings tattooed across his cheeks seem to flutter with the light. “But why? I didn’t do anything to the old hag.”

  “Witches use breath-heart souls to do their bidding. Perhaps she found yours enticing.”

  Wasp Moth’s mouth gapes. “She can’t have my breath-heart soul!”

  “Of course she can.” Mother Maz
anita gives him a grotesque snaggle-toothed smile. She has only three teeth left, and they are all black and crooked. “If that bag had rested over your heart for a few more instants, she would have swallowed it whole.”

  “That’s impossible. She’s locked in a pot. How can an imprisoned soul steal anything in this world?”

  “Well, you see, every pot has flaws, weak places in the wall, or cracks in the old pine pitch that glues on the lid. Most souls can’t escape through them, because they can’t kill the spells woven around the pots to lock their souls inside. But the greatest witches can. They dissolve the spells and seep out through the flaws to walk in this world, where they steal hearts, or souls, or kill people. And believe me, she’s no ordinary witch.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Wasp Moth objects. “If trapped witch souls can walk freely in this world, why would they ever return to the pot?”

  Mother Mazanita leans toward him with an inscrutable expression on her wrinkled face. “To hide, of course. To bide their time until they can carry out one last dreadful act. That’s why she crept up on you while you were sleeping. She was probably—”

  “Gods, I’m never sleeping again!”

  The albino calls, “Best not to.”

  He shoves to his feet and quietly walks across the floor to sit down on the opposite side of the fire from Wasp Moth and Mother Mazanita. He’s unbraided his long white hair and now it falls in waves down the front of his blue cape. In a dire voice he says, “Mother Mazanita is right. You came very close that day. If she’d pulled out your breath-heart soul, you would have become a worthless human husk, a mindless monster wandering aimlessly through life committing evil acts on her orders. You’d kill your own children and eat them if she ordered you to.”

  I glance down at the bag dangling from my wrist. Is it vibrating? Or am I shaking? “Stop that, old hag!” I shout.

  Weevil’s voice squeaks, “Why did you shout at the bag? Did she say something?”

  “No, she just … I’m probably just shivering. I’m still ill. But it … it felt like she was laughing.”

  The flames suddenly roar to life, as though fanned by a gust of wind I did not feel, and huge dark shadows leap across the walls and ceiling.

  Mother Mazanita glances around, clearly scared. “What was that?”

  “Just wind,” I say.

  “Wind? They’re voices. Don’t you hear them?”

  Cocking my ear, I listen hard. “I hear wind whistling around the top of the ladder.”

  “Sounded like shrieking children flying above the pithouse.” Mother Mazanita squints at the roof entry.

  “There’s a storm moving in. That’s all.”

  Cradling my cup in both hands, I watch the snowflakes pirouette through the flickering firelight as they drift down around the ladder and into the pithouse.

  The albino quickly rises and returns to sit down close to Tocho. He looks worried. As though he knows …

  Shadows dart at the corners of my eyes. Like mice, they skitter to hide behind the pots and baskets that cluster along the walls. I search for them. “Do you have mice in this pithouse?”

  The old shaman lifts her shoulders. “Maybe. They climb up and down the ladder. Tell me if you see one. I’ll whack it and throw it in my stew pot.”

  Tiny figures charge across the floor.

  “Dear gods! What are those?”

  “Where? Show me!” Wasp Moth leaps to his feet with his war club drawn.

  In less than two heartbeats, everyone is standing … except the albino and Tocho.

  “Little humans just raced across the floor!” I cry and point to the last place I saw them. “Did anyone else see them?”

  Mother Mazanita is breathing hard. “I didn’t see anything. Are you sure it wasn’t just mice?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Albino? Did you see them?”

  His head is leaning back against the wall, and he seems to be gazing up through the roof entry at the falling snow. In a droll voice he says, “I saw shadows cast by the flames. Nothing more.”

  Mother Mazanita doesn’t look convinced. She reaches down and pulls a branch from the woodpile beside the fire to use as a weapon, then carefully surveys the floor, staring especially hard at the pots and baskets and any other possible hiding place. “You may be the only one who can see them, Blessed daughter.”

  “Me? Why would that be?”

  “They may be ancient breath-heart souls called by the monstrous old witch to help her kill you. If so, they are here for you alone. The rest of us can relax—”

  “Look!” I cry when the figurines coalesce from the shadows and skitter across the floor to duck beneath the corner of Tocho’s blanket. Whirling around, I say to Wasp Moth, “You saw them, didn’t you? The little humans that hid under Tocho’s blanket? Go kill them!”

  Wasp Moth licks his lips and hesitates. When he pivots to gaze at his warriors on the other side of the pithouse, Weevil hunches his shoulders and half turns away so Wasp Moth can’t see his face. But Iron Dog gives him a contemptuous look.

  Wasp Moth orders, “Iron Dog, go check under the old man’s blanket. See if there’s anything unnatural under there.”

  “I saw nothing, War Chief.” Iron Dog insolently sits back down and picks up the gambling bones. As he shakes them in his hands, he says, “You’re all getting worked up over a few flickers of firelight.”

  “I ordered you to go check under the blanket!”

  Annoyed, Iron Dog slams his bones down, rises, and stamps across the floor to Tocho. As he leans over the shaman, his eyes narrow. There’s a lump in the center of the blanket. “Hey, old man, do you have an erection? Or is a little human standing on your crotch?”

  Tocho jerks awake at Iron Dog’s voice, then he props himself up on his elbows and yawns as he looks down at his crotch. “Define little human?”

  Iron Dog appears confused. “Is there something unnatural under there?”

  “At my age, I suppose that’s all a matter of perspective.”

  Iron Dog makes a deep-throated sound of disgust and pounds back across the pithouse to slump down in his former place. As he scoops up the bones again, he mutters, “The Blessed daughter’s wild imagination is making fools of us all.”

  Glowering at him, I sink down in front of the fire and pull my knees against my chest, watching the shadows intently. They were there. I saw them! If I had any wits, I’d order Wasp Moth to crack Iron Dog’s skull this instant. Such insolence cannot be tolerated. But I’m fairly sure Iron Dog will not go quietly, and I can’t chance having my two best warriors kill each other.

  Thirty-four

  The Blessed Sun

  For days now, the soul pots on the rear wall of Leather Hand’s chamber had been carrying on a constant low drone of conversation, speculating on how much longer he could live without his fetish. That wretched hunter said that, at most, Leather Hand had a matter of days. But the old woman from Talon Town promised him two weeks. Not one of them gave him longer than a moon.

  Flinging out an arm, he shouted at them, “Shut up! I don’t want to hear any more of your guesses!”

  The four holy people, priests and priestesses, in his chamber stiffened and glanced back at the rack of beautifully decorated pots.

  Leather Hand propped his walking stick and leaned on it, glaring at the gathering. He only had four priests and priestesses left, two men and two women, and all of them had guilty faces. He’d have to appoint some new holy people in the near future, before he ran out.

  “Admit it! One of you stole it!” he shouted in a shrill voice.

  “We are innocent, Blessed Sun,” Cub said and made a reassuring gesture with his heavily ringed hands. Flares of turquoise flashed with his movements. “Don’t blame us for—”

  “Don’t tell me what to do! You’re all liars!”

  Cub closed his mouth, and Leather Hand could see the Sunwatcher’s teeth grinding beneath his cheeks.

  Fighting his dread, Leather Hand turned away to look at the ma
cabre beasts painted on his walls. Every breath of wind that penetrated the chamber around his door curtain fanned the firebowls and made the life-size thlatsinas spring forward and Dance away. On the eastern red wall, the fearsome pair of Black Ogres spun and gyrated like spinning tops. Their magnificent long toothy muzzles flapped up and down, clacking. What truly caught his attention, however, were the long obsidian blades they carried in their right hands. The blades kept rhythmically flashing by, slashing toward Leather Hand’s chest as the ogres whirled. Each time, a bolt of fear surged through him.

  He’d heard the Spirit beasts talking. They planned to end his rule and topple the last remnants of the Straight Path kingdom once and for all. The glory of the First People would soon yield to the wretched Made People, and there would never be kings or kingdoms again. Did the thlatsinas really think ignorant rabble could rule in some sort of egalitarian political system? What utter foolishness. Made People weren’t smart enough. They needed kings to tell them what to do. Without the superior bloodlines of the First People, they’d cease to exist in less than a generation, swallowed up by surrounding nations or dead by the greedy hands of their own neighbors.

  “Where’s my fetish? No more lies!” Leather Hand shook a clenched fist at the gathering. “If none of you stole it, then why haven’t you fools found it?”

  Priest Dogbane flapped his arms against his sides. “We have searched every crevice in Flowing Waters Town, Blessed Sun. I tell you, it’s not here!”

  Forty summers old, Dogbane had a misshapen face where one eye sat much lower than the other. The man was completely incompetent, which was why a younger man, Cub, had ascended to the coveted position of Sunwatcher, instead of Dogbane.

  “Maybe it’s outside. Did that occur to you?”

  “Outthide?” Priestess Beaker asked. Her two front teeth were missing, which gave her an irritating lisp. Stringy black hair hung around her fat cheeks.

  “It didn’t occur to you that one of the slaves might have taken it from my chamber? Did you search the bodies of the slaves? Anyone who’s ever been in my chamber is suspect.”