The Five Legends by Anasazi Foundation

Author:, Anasazi Foundation [, Anasazi Foundation]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Published: 2019-01-08T05:00:00+00:00

Under the Stars

Later that night I wrapped myself in a blanket

and laid down for the night. Soon after, I heard

Strong Wolf hobble back into camp. He had

probably been waiting for me to go to sleep.

There came a soft flapping sound as he wrapped the blanket

around himself. The sound was immediately followed by a

loud crunch of leaves and a sigh of relief. Silence fell over

the camp as we stared up at the night sky—a dark blue

blanket speckled with countless stars. I was about to fall

asleep when something startled me awake.

“Thunder Bear,” Strong Wolf whispered, his voice urgent.

“Get over here!”

“Can’t it wait until morning?” I grumbled.

“No, it can’t wait until morning!” he hissed.

“Why not?”

“Because there’s a snake on my leg!”

I sat bolt upright and threw my blanket off.

“What kind of snake?”

“What difference does that make?!”

“It makes a big difference if it’s poisonous!”

“Just get over here and help me!” he seethed.

“All right, all right!”

I rushed over to Strong Wolf. Still wrapped in his blanket, he

lay as motionless as a fallen tree, his face the color of ashes.

“It’s on my left leg,” he whispered. “Under the blanket.”

“Is it moving?” I asked.

“No,” he breathed. “It hasn’t moved for a while.”

I picked up a large stick with a heavy, blunt end.

Strong Wolf looked alarmed.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to kill it.”

“Wait! Wait! Wait!” he whispered, hurriedly. “Don’t be a

fool! You’ll hit me! First, pull the blanket back.”

Bracing myself, I reached out and took one corner of the

blanket. Gripping the heavy stick, my heartbeat quickened.

Strong Wolf closed his eyes tight. Then, in one swift motion,

I yanked away the blanket, and let out a cry of surprise.

Then I fell back—laughing.

Strong Wolf opened his eyes. “What?” he demanded.

“What’s so funny? Is it dead?”

“No, it’s not dead,” I replied, still laughing.

“Problem is, it was never alive.”

I leaned forward and picked up Strong Wolf’s

walking stick. For a moment Strong Wolf just stared

at the stick, completely dumbfounded.

“Well,” he added. “Definitely not poisonous!”

The two of us roared with laughter, intermittently

repeating things we had said during the scare:

“Can it wait until morning?” “It hasn’t moved for a while,”

and “I’m going to kill it!”

When the laughter died down, both of us wiped

tears from our eyes. Strong Wolf sat up and

hugged his knees to his chest.

“You know, that reminds me of the time when our father

took us on our first hunt. Do you remember that?”

I nodded. “We were so excited and on the

first night that skunk came into our camp

and started eating all of our food.”

Strong Wolf chuckled. “We woke up our father and asked

him what we should do and he took one look at that skunk

and said, ‘Well, I guess we’re not eating anything tomorrow.’”

I laughed at the memory. We were supposed to hide our

food from the animals, but Strong Wolf and I had both

forgotten. Unable to stop the skunk (lest we get sprayed),

we were forced to watch him eat our tastiest foods.

“The hunt wasn’t as fun after that,” I said with a grin.

Strong Wolf nodded and looked up at the sky.

He was quiet for a long while.

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.