Beneath a Wounded Sky

by Kurt R A Giambastiani

Storm Arriving nudged his drake forward. George looked at him. He saw the war chief his friend had become, saw his intense study of the field. Then he saw the glint of orange light along the seven silver earrings that decorated the rim of his ear, and looked up.

  George nudged his walker and the beast walked past Storm Arriving.

  “One Who Flies,” Storm Arriving said. “What are you doing?”

  George kept moving, his eyes straying heavenward.

  “Come with me,” he said. “One Bear, Two Roads, you too. You and all the chiefs. Come with me.”

  “What are you doing?” Storm Arriving said again, his tone urgent.

  “Look up,” George said.

  They would, he knew. And he knew that they would see what he saw. They would see the clouds above them, colored with burning orange, bloody red, and bruised purple. They would see that sky and they would recognize it.

  George heard them gasp. He could practically feel the power fill them as they saw above their heads the sky from that final vision. And then he heard them ride forward to join him.

  George waited for them at the limit of the airship’s wreckage. He glanced over at Storm Arriving.

  “We began here, you and I.”

  “We did,” Storm Arriving said. “But we will not end here.”

  George turned around.

  “General Meriwether,” he said. “Would you like to join us?”

  Meriwether leaned forward on his pommel. “What is your intention, young man?”

  George grinned. “I intend to issue our terms.”

  Meriwether set spurs and brought his horse as close to George’s walker as the gelding would allow. The general’s eyes flashed with anger.

  “Do you seriously think that the Spanish will give up without a fight?”

  George heard the whoops from the woods behind them. “Yes, General. I do.”

  “With these numbers?” he asked, incredulous. “You’re mad! Why would they surrender to an army less than half their size?”

  “They won’t,” George said, hearing the war cries grow louder.

  Meriwether stared at George. “Then what do you...?” Finally, he too noted the shouts from their rear.

  They turned and saw, skimming down from the high ground and spilling onto the plain, thousands of ghostly warriors on pale whistlers. They whooped and howled as they rode, spine-chilling war cries full of ready mayhem. They rode toward them like a flood, weapons held high in chalk-white arms, their eyes painted black in chalked-skull faces, their whistler’s camouflage skin all ashen. The spirit warriors rode across the flat and up the middle ground, filling the center. Their cacophony echoed from the White Cliffs to the hillside.

  George turned back to Meriwether.

  “But with these numbers, General, I think they will listen.”

  Meriwether was silent, eyes wide as he took it all in.

  George started forward. Calmly they began to wend their way across, weaving through the wreckage.

  “One Who Flies! Wait!”

  George paused a second time and turned. It was Limps, riding in from the rear.

  “Riders came in last night. From home. They brought some gifts. For you.”

  A group of riders came forward with prisoners, hands bound. Through the filth of their travels, George recognized them.

  Alejandro, D’Avignon, and Father Velasquez.

  George felt no anger at their presence, no rage as he had so often in the past. They held no power over him anymore. They could do no more harm to anyone.

  The soldiers made the prisoners dismount, and Limps gave George the tethers tied to their bound wrists.

  “The Council sent the rest of the Ravens on their way. They told them to head south and turn right when they reached Big Salty.” He laughed, and George could not help but smile.

  “These two,” Limps said, pointing to the ambassador and D’Avignon. “The Council says you may do what you wish with them.”

  George gripped the ropes that bound the prisoners.

  “I know just the thing,” he said.

  They crossed the field at a walk. George waved a tattered kerchief and the Spanish quickly rode out to parley.

  Pereira met them at the far edge of the field of wreckage. His commanders were close at hand. George nodded to them, recognizing several from his dinner as their guest. He looked to Storm Arriving and One Bear, but the two chiefs declined.

  “Tell them yourself,” One Bear said. “It is fitting, in this place.”

  George turned then to Meriwether. “May I?”

  The general nodded. “By all means.”

  And so, to Pereira he turned.

  “What is this?” the Spaniard demanded, nostrils flaring, his mouth a twisted line. “Who are these savages? Who do you think you are? I demand you tell me at once the meaning of this charade!”

  “Thank you,” George said, his generous mood evaporating. “You have made this pleasanter.”

  “¿Que?”

  “General Pereira,” George said from his perch atop his walker’s spine. “I am come to deliver you our terms.”

  “Terms?” Pereira sputtered. He put a hand to his ear as if he had misheard. “Your terms?” He sat straight. “You can deliver us no terms. You are an ally of Her Most Catholic Majesty—”

  George’s walker chuffed. All the horses jumped, and Pereira looked as if he had completely forgotten what it was he wanted to say.

  “We,” George said, indicating himself and the whistler riders. “We now reject our former alliance with the Spanish Crown. We rescind all offers and all privileges granted to you are revoked.” He motioned for the prisoners and they were brought forward. He nodded at the prisoners.

  “These men abrogated the terms of their stay in our lands. Against our specific interdiction, they set up a mining operation for their own, private gain.” He leaned forward to pierce Pereira with his gaze. “In our most sacred lands, they did this.” He paused and sat back into his saddle.

  “Our alliance with the Spanish Crown is thus annulled, your priests have been ejected from our lands, and these criminals—”

  He tossed the end of the tethers on the ground at Pereira’s feet. “These criminals we return to you for punishment.”

  Pereira frowned, but George noted that some of his commanders looked worried.

  “We have forged a new alliance that binds the United States of America and the great peoples of the plains. And these are our terms.

  “You will march away. You will get back on your ships. You will never come here again. If you refuse, we will fight you. If you tarry in your retreat, we will fight you. If you ever step foot on our soil again, we will fight you.”

  He swept a hand back to encompass the bluecoats, the chiefs, and the host of spirit warriors behind him.

  “All of us,” he said.

  The clouds began to darken as the sun dipped to the horizon and all along the chalky cliffs, from a thousand burrows emerged a thousand thousand eyes. Diving lizards, their scales blue and gleaming in the fading light, climbed out onto the cliff face, stretched their fine-skinned wings, and leapt up into the air. Men stared as, wings snapping, voices shrill, more and more emerged to fly upward and join the flock, forming a huge, amorphous cloud that twisted and gyred above the moon-white river. The cloud shimmered blue to black, black to blue. It coiled and folded in upon itself, rising high on one side and sweeping so low on the other that men ducked for fear of being struck.

  George grinned as the living cloud swung and danced above the field. Their piercing chorus deafened and the thunder of their million wings shook the air until, as the last light of day caressed the soft belly of the skies above, the entire mass folded in and flew off toward the Big Greasy, leaving only silence and gaping men in its wake.

  Whistling Elk was the first to laugh, his woman’s giggle setting off all around him. The laughter traveled, man to man, growing, strengthening, until it became a whoop, a shout, a cheer of joy, a huzzah five thousan
d men strong.

  But that joy sped no farther than to George, Storm Arriving, and the gathered chiefs.

  The Spanish were not happy, but George saw the glances exchanged between the general’s commanders, and from commanders to their men. They would not fight.

  “Turn away, General,” George said. “You do not want this fight. And you cannot have this land. It is our land, from now until the mountains fall.”

  George’s walker chuffed again, and he sensed her growing agitation.

  “Now, Pereira. Go now. Some of us grow impatient.”

  Pereira, eyes locked on George, his newborn hatred a palpable thing between them, spat orders at the others, and his staff eagerly moved to obey. The prisoners were taken away; the Spaniards began to melt away into the gloaming, until only Pereira remained at the parley point, his wounded ego unable to free itself from the source of its injury.

  George nudged his walker. Her intake of breath was massive, and the roar she loosed was epic, built of the memories, the joys, and the fulfillment of the hearts surrounding her. She roared, and whistlers sang, and men cheered until Pereira fled the field, until the last Spaniard disappeared down the river path.

  When the cheers died down and the allies were alone on the field of their victory, George dismounted and walked over to Meriwether.

  “General, if you would follow me please?”

  Meriwether dismounted and fell in step beside George as he led him over to the chiefs.

  One Bear ordered his whistler to crouch and dismounted. Storm Arriving and the other chiefs followed One Bear’s example.

  “My General Meriwether,” George said in French. “May I present to you One Bear, chief of the Closed Windpipe band and leader of the Great Council.”

  “It is an honor,” Meriwether said, extending his hand.

  One Bear did not move for a moment, then reached forward and clasped the wrist of his former enemy.

  “Mon cœur,” One Bear said, his French thick and heavy with emotion. “Mon cœur chante,” he said.

  The two men regarded one another, respectful, sincere.

  “And this is Two Roads,” George said, carrying the introductions along.

  Some of the spirit warriors cut scrub-wood for a fire. Some bluecoats produced a harmonica and a jaw-harp. Shields became drums, stores of jerky and pemmican were passed around. Songs were sung and dances were attempted.

  As the stars came out in a broken sky, and while the army of the Iron Shirts retreated toward the coast, two nations set aside their generations of war and met each other for the first time.

  George awoke to the sound of the ocean. He looked up and saw dark blurs streaking against the pale sky. He blinked and the blurs sprouted wings, grew from a few to many, from many to a multitude.

  “Awake, I see,” Mouse Road said. “Finally.”

  She sat nearby, resting against an aluminum spar, a bluecoat horse blanket wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the chill.

  Above, the diving lizards were returning from their night’s hunt, streaming back to their cliffs and their tiny caverns, their wingbeats and their chittering calls sounding like waves rushing up against a graveled shore.

  He looked around and saw he was not the only one who had been able to sleep a bit. In amongst the broken girders and metal ribs, men roused from sleep, scratching their heads and rubbing at dream-crusted eyes.

  George saw plenty of soldiers wearing a bluecoat jacket and saw just as many shirt-sleeved bluecoats with a war club or shell-beaded vest. Other, less explicable trades had also been made, but George’s memory of it all was one of firelight, drumbeats, and grinning faces.

  “Sleepy-head,” Mouse Road chided him as he came over to her and nuzzled her neck.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.

  “You snored,” she said, then shoved him away. “And you smell.”

  He sat by her. “It has been a long few days.” He raked fingers through his hair and scratched at the stubble of his beard. Then he stood, stretched, and lent Mouse Road a hand as she rose. She opened her arms and wrapped them both in her blanket.

  “What will we do now?” she asked.

  He pulled her tiny frame close.

  “First, we must see the Iron Shirts to their ships,” he said. “And then...” His gaze drifted across the field of groggy men and sleeping whistlers. They littered the entire field except for one spot, a place to one side where no soldier, no bluecoat, no whistler had slept. An empty circle in which lay a small, fur-draped bundle on a pine-log travois.

  “And then,” he said, “we have one more stop to make.”

  Chapter 26

  Moon When Ice Starts to Form, Waxing

  Four Years after the Cloud Fell

  Near Kansa Bay

  Alliance Territory

  The trip south was slow and uneventful, though not as slow as George was sure the Spanish would have liked it to be.

  Meriwether had offered to ride along, but all the chiefs insisted that he and his bluecoats go home, across the Big Greasy.

  But when Storm Arriving and One Bear asked the other chiefs if they also wanted to return home, no one took that option.

  Storm Arriving’s habit of sending small squads to harry those lagging behind kept the Iron Shirts motivated. And so the Spanish found themselves dogged all the way to Kansa Bay where their ships hung at anchor.

  When the last Iron Shirt was crammed aboard the last ship and the last sail disappeared into the weather that hung over the Big Salty, George felt as if his heart was both buoyant and heavy.

  One more stop, he told himself.

  The entire army—all the chiefs and all their soldiers—rode west with One Bear, Storm Arriving, and the rest of those Speaks While Leaving had called friends. Such a funeral cortege was unheard of in the history of the People. Even when they brought Three Trees Together, one of their most venerated chiefs, here to this spot, George could have counted the attendants on both hands.

  This, though...this was different.

  The body of Speaks While Leaving on its travois was pulled by a lone, riderless hen. Storm Arriving and One Bear led the way, while Limps rode next to the hen, having put himself in charge of the body’s safety. George, Mouse Road, and the rest of her close friends came next, but there ended all similarities.

  Behind George rode the chiefs of a dozen nations and their gathered solders, many still streaked with the pale chalk of their spirit paint. They sang as they rode, now a song from the Crow, then one from the Cut-Hair People, each group tying their song to the end of the one before it, each tribe singing of love, of victory, of the spirits, and of the land, all as their mood decreed.

  But when the burial grounds came into view, where the sage-studded dunes were replaced by empty air, and fern-encrusted cliffs fell hundreds of feet to the seashore below, all singing ended. In silence, the army of the allied tribes watched as Little Teeth, lizards the size of a man with wings twice that size, hung on the updrafts like monstrous kites held by invisible string. These winged beasts would tear open the body of their loved one, releasing the spirit to fly down the star-studded waters of the Big Salty and up the star-strewn river of the Milky Way to reach Séáno and the Spirit World.

  As the mourners turned the travois into a burial scaffold, George doubted the Little Teeth were needed. If anyone knew her way from here to the Spirit World, it was Speaks While Leaving. She had lived with one foot beyond the veil almost all her life.

  There were no words when they lifted her body and placed it on the scaffold. There were no fancy speeches, no orations. Her friends, her family, the soldiers and chiefs, they all merely stood in reverent silence until, at the back, a soldier from the Little Bowstrings society began to sing.

  Nothing lives long,

  Only the earth

  And the mountains.

  George held Mouse Road’s hand as the lonely voice sang the song once more.

  Then, nothing but the wind, the dull thud of the surf below,
and the croaking call of the Little Teeth.

  Storm Arriving stared up at the body for a while, then turned.

  “Come,” he said. “Time to go home. Time to see what this new world holds for us.”

  Chapter 27

  Friday, October 27th, AD 1890

  Aboard the Catarina Michaela

  Gulf of Narváez

  The warships, their decks jammed gunwale to gunwale with the unexpected weight of not one but two retreating armies, rolled heavily against the swell as they sailed west toward the safety of the Tejano coast.

  But safety was a relative term for Alejandro. He stood on the foredeck, sweat stinging his eyes and the taste of bile twisting his gut. His hands, bound now by iron instead of rope, were swollen from the infection of his festering abrasions. His fingers ached at the joints and burned with fire where the skin had split.

  Nearby stood Pereira and two of his officers, but they paid Alejandro no mind. Their attention was on the priest, Velasquez, who stood on the steps below them.

  “And you swear this to be true,” he asked as he leaned over the rail, looking down at the man on the deck, his chief witness.

  “Yes, Father,” D’Avignon said. “On the Bible I swear it. On my life! Don Alejandro wanted the gold for himself, to restore his family’s good name, he told me. He held a grudge, a long bitter grudge, because of some dishonor back during the Tejano War. He said to me, ‘The Crown will get their lands; the priests will get their souls. Why shouldn’t I get their gold?’ His words. I swear it.”

  Alejandro closed his eyes and smiled. The rogue’s performance was letter perfect.

  “Father,” Pereira said. “Do you vouch for this man’s character?”

  “Indeed,” the priest said. “He has been a devout member of our flock, and has studied under my tutelage. He has faithfully attended Mass and taken the sacrament. He told me of his suspicions. I only wish I had given his words more credence, instead of trusting in the reputation of the accused. If I had, this appalling disaster might have been averted.”

  Pereira scowled, but Alejandro knew it was just for show. The little vice-princeling must have been gleeful at having such a scapegoat so expertly served up to him.