‘There’s a conical mound atop a platform mound. That’s unusual. Connected to the bottom of the platform mound is another mound, filled with the skeletons of horses which seem to have been shot to death.
‘The bottom platform mound is filled with headless skeletons. There are probably as many skeletons as there are tags, maybe more. They’re lying feet outward, and fill up the whole mound. It is, we decided, what’s usually called a trophy mound.’
‘That usually indicates a great victory of some kind,’ said Bessie. ‘What usually happened was that when a leader suffered a great victory, he had all his enemies killed, beheaded and buried in one place. This is one of the largest of those ever found.’
‘What happened to the heads?’
‘The chief usually kept them as trophies as long as he lived.’
‘Pretty outré.’
‘In this case,’ said Jameson, ‘they buried their great leader on top of his own trophy mound.’
‘You’re sure it’s the same Indian?’
Bessie looked at Jameson. ‘Pretty sure. One, the connection between the mound full of horses and the one with the human skeletons. On top of the one with the skeletons, they build another mound, using different soil. The bottom of that upper mound was paved with human skulls, lots of them. Atop them was a log tomb, with an upright burial. They usually reserved that for their royalty. The burial was filled with grave goods. Some of them were anomalous.’
‘What?’
‘They shouldn’t have been there. Anyway, around the upright skeleton was a necklace, with these identification tags on the necklace.’
‘That makes you sure it was him?’
‘Nothing makes us sure of anything,’ said Jameson. ‘Remember I told you the horses had been shot?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, the chief buried in the upright position had a gunshot wound in the elbow. The wound had healed badly. It looks as if the person lived another twenty years after the injury. Why else would they bury you with a bunch of heads, on top of a mound of headless skeletons, unless those heads belonged to you?’
‘Let me get this right. Those people were killed with firearms, and the ID tags give their birth dates as in the ’seventies and ’eighties? I thought all the Indians were run out by Andy Jackson in the 1830s?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out, Captain. Either we’re dealing with a remarkable hoax, and if we are, why don’t the numbers match like you say, or else we’re left with the only conclusion we have – that the people who built these mounds died out around the year 1500 a.d.’
‘Jesus Christ on a crutch!’ said Thompson.
Leake XIII
‘To be gnawed out of our graves, to have our souls made drinking bowls, and our bones turned into pipes, to delight and sport our enemies, are tragical abominations, escaped in burning burials.’
I woke to the smell of dirt and fire and wood.
At first I couldn’t move. Then I remembered the black drink, and the tomb and my helplessness.
Slowly I began to move my arms and legs. I couldn’t make a sound; my throat wouldn’t work. I pushed, felt wood. I was weak, my arms were like rags, and my chest felt hollow.
I heard something outside, moaning or wailing. I got my shoulder up against an overhead log and pushed. It gave a little, bark scraping into my skin. They’d put one of the damn copper gorgets on my chest; it was digging into my flesh. I jerked at it and nearly cut my throat on the necklace that held it in place.
There was a club and hatchet in there with me, and god knows what else. I moved them out of the way.
I pushed again. Dirt ran down into my face in the darkness. I got a hand in the space, heaved up. A tiny piece of daylight appeared. I heaved at the log, got a fist-sized clod in the left eye. Blind, I forced my arm up, clawed, sat up.
I wiped more dirt into my eyes, trying to clear them. I jerked another log away.
The mound was less than a meter high around me, only the start of one.
When I could see, I saw that the walls of the stockade were charred and black to the east. There were only five or ten houses left where once there had been fifty. Smoke hung over the village. Warriors stood on the walls, heavily armed.
There were twenty or thirty people standing ten meters away, some with their mouths open, looking at me.
I scraped both my legs on the log bark, reached back in and pulled out the club and my javelin. I had to move broken pots and pipes around to do it.
My stomach was an empty pit. One of the men had a ripe may-pop in his hand.
‘Food,’ I said, my voice as caked with dirt as I was.
He handed the may-pop to me. I swallowed it in two bites. A boy handed me some plums. I ate them, seeds and all. I drank from someone’s waterskin.
Sun Man hurried up with two or three of his close followers, all armed.
‘How long have I been in there?’ I asked.
He studied me a moment. ‘Three days,’ he said. He reached out and touched me. ‘It’s good to have you back,’ he said.
Two of the Buzzard Cult guys, all tattoos in the morning light, stood halfway across the plaza from us. They pointed at me, let out whoops, ran back toward the huts to the north.
The village was half gone with fire, torn buildings, overturned goods. In front of the temple mound, bodies were laid out in neat rows, three of them. Two men were cutting up house logs nearby. Others were pulling arrows and spears out of the ground and houses where they had stuck.
‘What happened?’ I asked the people. Someone handed me dried fish.
‘We were burying you,’ said Sun Man. ‘Many were still feeling the effects of the Black Drink. The Huastecas attacked us at evening. We have been fighting them for two days. They have gone now. They killed many, took many prisoners. They got inside the walls twice.’
‘They just attacked, with no warning?’
‘None at all. Their honor is gone. Their god has driven them crazy.’
Sunflower was running across the plaza, her arms out to me, crying. She ran into me. I grabbed her and she kissed me. Sun Man looked away.
‘Took was captured,’ she said. ‘They have taken him away. I thought I had lost both of you.’ She buried her head. ‘I just heard you had come back to life.’
I was weak and had a moment of vertigo. I needed a lot more food, water, a bath.
‘How long have they been gone?’
‘The last of them left before dawn. They probably left with the prisoners last night. There was not much we could do to stop them,’ said Sun Man. He looked very tired and old. Half his village was dead or taken prisoner.
‘Is my horse still alive?’
‘The Big Dog? Yes.’
‘Could you have someone get me food? I’ll be at the temple in a few minutes.’
I led Sunflower toward the hut. It was still standing, though the thatching was burned. Over at the north end of the village the Buzzard Cult people were starting one of their dances.
‘They sound happy,’ I said. I went to my skins, reached under them and took out my waterproof bag. I pulled out the carbine, put it together, loaded up all my extra magazines and put the bandoliers together.
‘You’re going after them?’ asked Sunflower.
‘Yes.’
‘Then I’m going to lose you both again,’ she said.
‘I hope not. I’ll bring him back. I’ll bring them all back.’
‘No, you can’t,’ she said. ‘You are one man. There are more of them than there ever will be of us.’
‘I’ll do what I can,’ I said. I picked up my gear.