Free Kitty’s Greatest Hits by Carrie Vaughn Page B

friar, another man of God, who brought back the story of Cibola, of a land covered in lush pastures and rich fields, of cities with wealth that made the Aztec Empire seem as dust. Coronado had believed those stories. They all had, until they reached the edge of that vast and rocky wasteland to the north. They had whispered to each other, Is this it?
    Ricardo de Avila would find Diego Ruiz and learn what had happened here.
    The wind spoke strangely here, crackling through cottonwoods, skittering sand across the mud-patched walls of the buildings. In the first hut, where he’d been directed to stay, he found a lantern and lit it using his own flint. With the light, he examined the abandoned village.
    If disease had struck, he’d have expected to see graves. If there had been an attack, a raid by some of the untamed native tribes in the mountain, he would have seen signs of violence: shattered pottery, interrupted chores. He’d have found bodies and carrion animals. But there was not so much as a drop of shed blood.
    The huts were tidy, dirt floors swept and spread with straw, clay pots empty, water skins dry. The hearths were cold, the coals scattered. He found old bread, wrapped and moldy, and signs that mice had gnawed at sacks of musty grain.
    In one of the huts, the blankets of a bed—little more than a straw mat in the corner—had been shoved away, the bed torn apart. It was the first sign of violence rather than abandonment. He picked up the blanket, thinking perhaps to find blood, some sure sign that ill had happened.
    A cross dropped away from the folds of the cloth. It had been wrapped and hidden away, unable to protect its owner. The thought saddened him.
    Perhaps the villagers had fled. He went out a little ways to try to find tracks, to determine what direction the villagers might have gone. Behind the church, he found a narrow path in the grass, like a shepherd might use leading sheep or goats into the hills. Ricardo followed it. He shuttered the lantern and allowed his vision to adjust to moonlight, to better see into the distance.
    He was part way across the valley, the village and its church a hundred paces behind him, when he saw a figure sitting at the foot of a juniper. A piece of clothing, the tail of a shirt perhaps, fluttered in the slight breeze that hushed through the valley.
    “Hola,” Ricardo called quietly. He got no answer and approached cautiously, hand on his sword.
    The body of a child, a boy, lay against the tree. Telling his age was impossible because his body had desiccated. The skin was blackened and stretched over the bones. His face was gaunt, a leathery mask drawn over a skull, and chipped teeth grinned. Dark pits marked the eye sockets. It might have been part of the roots and branches. Ricardo might have walked right by it and not noticed, if not for the piece of rotted cloth that had moved.
    The child had dried out, baked in the desert like pottery. It looked like something ancient. Moreover, he could not tell what had killed it. Perhaps only hunger.
    But his instincts told him something terrible had happened here. Fray Juan had to know something of what had killed this boy, and the entire village. Ricardo must find out what, then report this to the governor, then get word to the bishop in Mexico City. This land and its people must be brought under proper jurisdiction, if for no other reason than to protect them from people like Fray Juan.
    He rushed back to the village, went to the church and marched inside, shouting, “Fray Juan! Talk to me! Tell me what’s happened here! Explain yourself!”
    But no one answered. The chapel echoed, and no doors cracked open even a little to greet him. Softly now, he went through the strange decrepit chapel with no cross. The door to the friar’s chamber was unlocked, but the room was empty. Not even a lamp was lit. The whole place seemed abandoned. He tried the trapdoor, lifting the iron ring—the door didn’t move. Locked from the other