People of the Earth by W. Michael Gear

Author:W. Michael Gear [Gear, W. Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Historical, Native American & Aboriginal
ISBN: 9781466817784
Google: owSyQrNscTIC
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2009-11-02T13:00:00+00:00

“Now what do we do?" Blue Wind whispered. He used the sleeve of his hunting coat to wipe his broad-boned face.

"We die," Snail Shell murmured. “I never thought I'd see so many warriors in one place."

Wind Runner rubbed his hot face and sagged down in the sagebrush. He stared up at the night sky, where the stars twinkled brightly. They hid in the valley bottom, deep in the sage that grew as tall as a man's chest. On either side the slopes rose steeply to sandstone-capped ridge tops. Before them lay a small spring Snail Shell had known about. The problem was that others had known about it, too. A large party of Hollow Flute warriors camped at the spring-squarely on the shortest route south to the Black Point camp— and time was running out.

Wind Runner shifted, peering through the sage to study the camp. In the confines of the narrow valley, Wind Runner couldn't see any way to sneak past the enemy. Climbing the sheer-walled ridges in the middle of the night would take too long—and could be the makings of a disaster.

Think, Wind Runner. And you d better make the right decision or a lot of people will end up dead.

This camp had to be the Hollow Flutes' vanguard— perhaps the first of ten tens of warriors heading south. These warriors would sweep the country and ensure the safety of their women, children, and elders, who traveled a day's journey behind. The warriors that Wind Runner and his friends had outwitted earlier had only been scouts for one of the three villages they'd discovered during the day. But how many more hadn’t they seen? The whole country to the north seemed to be crawling with women and children leading pack dogs and bearing their belongings south.

Wind Runner's expression turned grim. Everything he'd learned this day struck a painful chord in his soul. He'd seen such a movement of people before—lived it, in fact,—when the White Clay had fled from the Bug River, and later from the Fat Beaver River. The Hollow Flute reminded him of fugitives.

"How did we ever come so far north without being discovered?" Snail Shell wondered. "How come we're still alive?"

"Thunderbird's been playing games with us, old friend." Blue Wind gave a muffled snort. "And maybe he still plays with us . . . because we're walking barefoot through a Hollow Flute snake's den!"

Wind Runner chewed the inside of his cheeks. No more than a half-day's walk to the south, Black Moon's band camped on the river. Stone Fist and Fire Rabbit had moved smaller camps out to the West in order to hunt along the river bottoms. Spread out like that, the Black Point would have no chance against the wave of Hollow Flute rolling south like a herd of buffalo.

"What's happening?" Blue Wind whispered. "Where did they all come from? How can the Black Point defeat so many?"

"We can't," Wind Runner hissed back. "No more than the White Clay could stand against the Black Point.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.