I3

I3

"Sheriff," admonished Tashunka,"if you allow your heart to grow black you will take everything I say in a way I do not mean."

Roddy glared at him while he  took another sip of  coffee, then lowered his eyes. Soon he was  calm again  and said,  "You are absolutely right,  Tashunka. At a  minimum I know  how important the relic is in the life of your Church."

Tashunka said, "Red and White  wings swap power but  the Golden Gift stays  in the Red  Wing. God gave  it to Chief  Wanica, who gave it in turn to his son Jashen. Klaus Hansen says the Apostle should have it.  Jashen thought it would quiet things  to let it pass on, but he gave it to his son Gabriel Shybear."

"Gabriel Shybear. That explains how he got his whipping. And he said his house and the Temple  had been ransacked too. They must have been  trying to beat  the Golden Gift  out of him.  I count myself fortunate  I never embraced  the faith of the  Green Dome Church as my own, Tashunka. It's much too violent."

"It gets better," Tashunka  said. "Jashen said he  was setting aside the rule that Greendomites  must marry only their cousins, in just  one instance, so  that Gabriel could marry  Kim Zinter. When they  heard that Hansen and  half the Bunners stood  up and walked out of the Temple."

Roddy smiled   at  Tashunka's   use  of  the   word  'Bunners'. Greendomites had to wear their hair in a ponytail, even the men, but in the White Wing  this ponytail was done  up in a  bun. He shuddered at how close he had  come to being a  Bunner himself. But even people who had nothing to do with the Church knew about their biggest hobby horse: mandatory cousin marriage. Roddy knew a deep  current  of  racism  ran  among  the  Bunners  but  the requirement for consanguineous marriages had kept a firm lid on it. Kim Zinter was fourth generation White Wing at least, she'd have no kin among the Red  Wing. Her marriage and any subsequent children would have blown the door wide open.

As though he could  read Roddy's  mind, Tashunka  said, "Hansen would see  this marriage between  Gabriel and Kim as  a horrible disease infecting the  body of the Church.  Their children would have marriageable cousins  in both wings, and  with each passing year it would just grow worse."

"So now I have a possible motive," the sheriff said.

Deputies Bill and Bob rushed in just then and threw a Cellophane bag on the  sheriff's desk  containing the  murder weapon.