Krysty touched his back. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” he replied. “What about you?” She sat up in bed, her hair tumbling about her bare shoulders and breasts. Only a faint, puckered scar showed where the arrow had pierced her, and according to Sisoka, with applications of aloe juice, that soon would fade.
He and Krysty dressed. “How long are we going to stay here?” she asked.
“That depends on how long you want to stay.” She put on her boots. “If it was up to me, I’d say for the rest of our lives.”
He paused in buckling on his gun belt. “Why isn’t it up to you?”
Krysty shrugged. “The others may not see it that way. May not feel we should stay in this place. And besides, there may be other factors involved.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” she responded, running her fingers through her hair. The locks stirred. “I sense something.”
They stepped from their quarters into the cool air. J.B., Mildred, Doc and Jak were already outside, their faces downcast. Sisoka was with them. Ryan immediately felt a change in the city’s attitude. The past two days and nights had carried with them a snap of good spirits, almost a buoyancy.
The Wolf Soldiers had retaken the city two weeks before without meeting any resistance. With Touch-the-Sky dead, the whole basis of his campaign had been swept away. The Cavern Keeper society was sick with guilt. They vowed to redress their grave wrong and to make Ti-Ra’-Wa the valley of peace again.
Much of the valley was blackened and blasted by fire, though the land near the forest city was untouched. Sisoka had said fatalistically, “It is enough. It will grow again.”
They had missed the ritual period of mourning the dead while in the cavern, and when they arrived back in the city, they were greeted pleasantly enough.
Now, this day, the air of mourning seemed to have returned. Ryan and Krysty approached Sisoka, and they saw she was dressed in her costume of office a long buckskin dress, leggings adorned with tufts of fox fur and a necklace made from alternating disks of gold and silver hung from her throat. A buffalo robe was draped about her shoulders. Her dark eyes were inscrutable.
“You can go now,” she said. “You can go from Ti-Ra’-Wa with clear consciences. You redeemed any guilt that was yours in bringing death to the valley.”
Ryan wasn’t so quick to have their responsibility discharged, or the debt he owed Sisoka. “We could stay, to help keep Ti-Ra’-Wa as it is.”
Her eyes searched his face, then all of their faces.
“No,” she said stiffly. “The stain, the taint, is upon you. The valley cannot fully recover, not heal in your presence.”
“Girl, we bled for Ti-Ra’-Wa,” Mildred said angrily.
“And you spilled far more blood than you shed,” Sisoka replied softly. “It will take a long time for that blood to be absorbed back into the heart of the Grandmother. Until that time, all of you will be a reminder to my people of how close we came to turning her land of happiness into a land of horror.”
Her eyes softened, and she laid a hand on Krysty’s arm and on Ryan’s wrist. “I regret this, I truly do. But it is my duty as Guardian to protect the valley. Besides, it won’t be forever. Grandmother Earth will heal, as she always has, and banish the demons of hatred and greed and ambition.”
Under the watchful eye of several Wolf Soldiers, the six companions collected their mounts from the compound and prepared to leave. Sisoka stepped in front of Ryan’s horse.
” Pilanaya , Ryan Cawdor,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper, her eyes wet. ” Wakan Tanka nici un.”
They rode out of the forest city, passing silent men and women and children. At the grasslands they turned toward the mountain pass.
“What did she say to you?” Doc asked.
” ‘Goodbye and may the Great Spirit go with you and guide you,’ ” Ryan replied.
Their horses carried them across the plain at a walk. The colors of the sun danced across the snowcapped mountain peaks. A breeze, bearing a refreshing hint of autumn, ruffled their hair and the manes of their horses.