The Next Skywatcher: Prequel to The Last Skywatcher Triple Trilogy Series (The Last Skywatcher, Anasazi Historical Thrillers with a Hint of Romance Book 1) (35 page)

Choovio turned his head as if he heard something in the distance, but his body didn’t move. “Not at first.”

“But eventually you did?”

Choovio sighed. He signed
yes
with his left hand.

“Did you know he was
my
father?”

“Not for certain,” Choovio said.

“But you guessed it.”

Choovio leaned toward Tuwa. He looked him head to toe and nodded. “He looks just like you.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say to a guy who intends to save your life someday,” said Tuwa, trying to lighten the moment.

“Fights like you, too,” said Choovio.

“When I look at him, in the eyes, I recognize something,” Tuwa said.

“Other than that you both want to kill each other?” asked Choovio.

“I’m tired of wanting to kill him.” Tuwa imagined building a cage of sticks where Pók would live, near the great open round room in the center of his home village. People could look at him and remember how wrong a man can go. “I recognize what I could become if I do not follow the right path.”

“We will take him into the mountains this winter,” Choovio said. “Leave him.”

Tuwa imagined that. Traveling through snow with Pók and Choovio. Stopping. Watching Pók turn blue.

“No,” he finally said. “Maybe I’ll just throw him into the trash pile.”

That night, Nuva called again for Tuwa and Chumana to walk with her. As they dropped off the desert plateau into a wide, contorted canyon that let to Three Waters, more and more people came out to meet them. They stood in the middle of the road and then would move out of the way and stand to the side to gawk at the albino woman, the new White Priestess, as she walked by. Many more women and girls came than men and boys, and most of the men were old. The only places Nuva could speak in private to anyone anymore were on the steepest uphills. Nuva breathed hard and took her time. Tuwa maneuvered himself behind Chumana. He liked watching her move in the moonlight.

“What,” asked Chumana, “have you heard of Black Stone Town and the injured girls?”

“Nothing from Black Stone. A runner this morning said the girls are better. Hita already has them talking. That’s a good sign.”

“Hita is amazing. She brought Wooti out very quickly.”

“Yes, she did.” Nuva walked past a group of women and girls who waited on a small flat place up the steep side of a long hill. She waved and spoke to them, encouraged the girls to use their minds and grow strong, and to come see her when they were ready to serve the Sisterhood. Their faces went brilliant when Nuva addressed them, and Tuwa could see how she recruited strength for the future of the Sisterhood. Good for the long term. Not worth much in the short term.

“You remember Sweena?” asked Nuva.

“Yes,” said Tuwa. “He hid Grandfather’s string record.”

“That’s right. He’s still at the Village of the Twins, and he has something for you. I wanted you to know so you can be thinking about how to thank him: Grandfather’s staff.”

Tuwa looked at Nuva, and she broke into the biggest grin he’d seen from her since he was a child. Grandfather’s staff, he thought. He saw Grandfather’s hand, his old knuckles and yellowed thumbnail, wrapped around the head of that long stick. Tuwa would hold it the same way. He grinned at Chumana.

Nuva patted him on the shoulder. “That’s all. I’ve nothing else to tell you that you don’t already know.”

The Pochtéca joined them and Tuwa told him about the string record and the staff. He laughed heartily and beamed at Nuva. “See, I told you, didn’t I?” he said to Tuwa. “You had to want more than revenge when you came here. If that’s your only reason, you would have failed. Just like my coming here for trade as my only motive was a mistake. Haki pointed that out. I was too blind to see. But now, I see many, many more reasons to be here than bluestone trade. Much more indeed.” Tuwa didn’t quite understand the attraction, but there they were, Nuva and The Pochtéca, gawking at each other like shy teenagers. He shook his head.

Tuwa heard a commotion and saw Sowi running toward them. Running hard. Choovio waited beside Tuwa and they watched Sowi approach.

“Pók,” Sowi said as soon as his breathing allowed, “has escaped.”

Choovio turned to Tuwa. Chumana and Kopavi, who had been on their knees brushing Nuva’s dress with twists of dry grass, stopped and stood. The Pochtéca, too, stared at Tuwa.

“Those two guards went with him,” said Sowi. “He must’ve talked them into it. He can be pretty persuasive sometimes, I mean, even to me. He never stops talking, and I can kind of understand why they….”

“Did anyone go after them?” asked Choovio, interrupting. He held an arrow straight up to punctuate his question.

“Well, no. I thought about it myself, but I decided I should let you know, since you guys are the ones with the brains and all. I just kind of go along….”

Choovio put up his hand for Sowi to stop. Sowi closed his mouth and took a hard swallow. Tuwa turned his back on everyone.

What could a one-handed, four-fingered lunatic do? Would anyone other than a couple of goon guards follow him? Take care of him?

Yes, he decided. Pók could talk his way into almost anything. Sowi said so himself. So what would Pók do? He would go to Black Stone Town. That made Tuwa smile. Pók wouldn’t possibly allow himself to be lower than Ihu in rank. That means they would oppose each other. Weaken each other. Especially over winter, when none of them would survive with ease without the help of the surrounding farmers and women. Would they have that? Only if they ensured it by force. And they would certainly try that. But who was left there? Most of the remaining farming families had run away or hidden long ago. So Pók and Ihu would work against each other all winter, quite possibly to the distraction of taking Center Place Canyon when it is most vulnerable, while their supplies dwindle. Pók might actually be doing a favor for his son without realizing it. Tuwa grinned. Two snakes trying to cut off each other’s heads. Snakes would never do that. But humans would.

Tuwa turned back to the group, each of them waiting for him to speak. He smiled. These people were his true family. His father didn’t matter. Even his mother didn’t matter because he had never known her. Only Grandfather and Nuva and Chumana and Choovio and Kopavi and even Sowi. Only they mattered. He didn’t want to chase and fight anymore. He wanted to settle down in one place. He wanted to live the rest of his days as Grandfather had lived. He wanted to be the next skywatcher and have skywatcher sons with Chumana.

“No,” said Tuwa, all eyes on him. “Let him go.” He looked at Nuva, who narrowed her eyes at him. “For now, just let him go. He means less than nothing.”

Two winters later, 1059 A.D., the skywatcher’s house at Chimney Rock National Monument, Colorado: The Twins

Outside the house
where his wife shrieked in pain, Tuwa paced. He wanted it to be over. He wanted to hold his son, his new skywatcher.

The shrieks stopped and he stood still to listen. A falcon screeched from the twin cliff spires where Tuwa stared at the sky from his circle of stones night after night while his son grew in the belly of the woman he loved. What he expected to hear but did not were the cries of a newborn.

He hurried onto the roof and climbed down the ladder, holding his breath as he passed through the cleansing smoke that rose from the hearth, and once inside, in the dim light of the failing fire, he saw the albino midwife he loved as his true mother and his wife looking at a thing that seemed impossibly small.

“What is that?” he asked.

“It’s your son,” said Chumana in a lilting, exhausted voice. “It entered the world with such contentment that it has not cried out. The gods are happy with us.”

Tuwa felt something rise inside him. A shout that did not emerge, a scream of joy he did not loose. He loved this feeling that had begun to recur within him since he rediscovered Nuva and Chumana, his lifelong love. The feeling had become his personal god, something he carefully held and directed to help him convince others to build a monument to the sky high on this tilted mesa he called home.

He leaned close to the wiggling body and inspected it. A boy, no doubt. It had fat arms and thighs, and gurgled like a creek over cobblestones. He curled the child’s fingers over his own and brushed his lips against the soft baby forehead.

Tuwa felt uplifted as he raised his child into his arms and went to the side of his wife while Nuva grinned and wiped her forearms and hands. He wanted to take the baby in one hand and sprint up the ladder outside, hold him up for the moon and the sky to see, but that was not for fathers to do.

“Is this the child you wanted?” he asked, bending low to his wife.

“Yes,” she answered. “More than anything.”

If you enjoyed
The Next Skywatcher
, please leave a review. Find out where
Here
.

A review is one of the most helpful things you can do to help an author. If you have any friends who may like this story, please refer it to them.

Thanks!

Learn More

Receive a single, easy-to-load ebook file with three books, a quarter-million words—700 book pages—of free Anasazi historical fiction!