The Mystery of the Indian Carvings by Gloria Repp

Author:Gloria Repp
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-08-03T22:00:00+00:00

When she awoke the next morning, there was no sunlight to brighten her room, and her legs felt stiff from the bike trip. Gray, lowering clouds covered the sky. Even the birds weren’t saying very much.

They probably wouldn’t hike to the Indian village in this weather, so she took her time getting up. She read a little farther in the book of Mark and wrote out Melissa’s verse so she could remember it better.

For God so loved the world . . . She smiled at the words, started to thank God for loving her, and stopped. The verse said the world. Did that mean Karin too?

It was an unsettling thought. If she was going to follow Christ, how could she hate someone He loved?

She sat up straighter in the chair. Today would be different. No matter what happened, she wasn’t going to lose her temper with Karin.

By the time Julie went downstairs, her cousin was eating pancakes and looking impatient. “You almost ready to go?” she asked.

“I’ll hurry,” Julie promised. She couldn’t admit that she’d thought bad weather would keep them indoors, so she ate her pancakes quickly and made sure she was ready when Karin started out the door.

Karin headed for the trail where Julie had walked Siem the day before. Today it seemed to be hung with cold shadows, and she wished the dog were trotting beside her, but Karin had ordered him to stay home and rest.

Her cousin seemed to be thinking about something else, so Julie didn’t try talking to her. Perhaps today, for once, they could do something together without a quarrel.

The trail wound on and on through deep woods, and as Julie began to wonder how far they were going, it ended in a large, ragged clearing. “There’s your Indian village,” Karin said.

Julie stared at a huddle of ramshackle huts with blank, broken windows and sagging doors. Rusted cans and bedsprings poked through the weeds that choked the clearing.

“But it’s deserted!” she cried. “Where is everybody? You said—”

“I said I’d take you to the Indian village your father told you about,” Karin said. “From the way you described it, I knew it had to be this one. That was a long time ago. Since he was here, the Indians just up and left.”

“But why?” Julie gazed across the empty settlement.

“Probably some kind of disease came through.” Karin shrugged. “Who knows why Indians do things, anyway? They built a new village on the other side of the point from our place.”

Julie couldn’t take her eyes off the tattered shacks. “It doesn’t even look like an Indian village,” she murmured.

“What did you expect, teepees?” Karin said. “These Indians aren’t the same as the ones you Americans have, chasing cowboys and all that stuff. Their customs are different. Like those totem poles over there.”

The sharp tone crept back into her voice. “Ask Robert to tell you about them. If he’ll talk to you.”

“Are those real totem poles?” Julie asked. She walked closer to the carved wooden posts.

Their

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