Where The Green Star Falls by William Jack Stephens

Author:William Jack Stephens [Stephens, William Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

Seven thousand years before, give or take a few hundred years, a young boy stood there in the same entrance way of the cave and stared out across the hillside and the lush green valley below, and down to the river that measured nearly three miles to the far side in those days. It was like a slender sea that moved across the pampas and then splintered out to the eastern ocean in a series of inland rivers. He held in his hands the most efficient hunting weapon his father owned, a Bola. Made from thinly sliced strips of tanned leather that were braided into strong rope; there were three, each about a yard in length that neatly spliced together in the center. On the ends of each rope was attached a leather sack, tightly filled with round stones and sewn shut with sinew pulled into thread from dried gut. This cave was the summer home his clan had used for an infinite number of generations. None of them could remember a story of any of their clan ever spending a summer anywhere else but in this cave, and the hand signatures of each clan member who ever existed covered the inside like modern wallpaper, including the seven who lived there now. It was a personal record of their family back to the first days of the Tehuelche, the "Fierce People".

The Tehuelche spent the summer and fall months higher in the Andes, in caves like this one if they were lucky enough to find them, hunting game animals and stocking up on the tools and clothing and supplies needed for survival. In the winter months they migrated back to the temperate valleys of the smaller rivers and streams, and caught fish and crabs and shore birds, and lived in small huts made from the pelts of guanacos. They were nomads, traveling light and living from day to day in a land that was plentiful and generous.

The boy was called K'achorro by his people, and he was growing in the image of his father, tall with a slender and muscular build, large dark eyes set widely apart, and coarse long hair as black as the night. His father stood nearly six feet ten inches, which was considered tall even for the Tehuelches, but they were a race of giants compared to other native cultures around the world. Today would have been the day his father taught him to become a boleadoro, and to hunt with the weapon that fed his clan. This area of the Andean range was thick with guanacos, which was their primary source of food and clothing and tools at this time of year. Meat, fine bones for weapons and needles, points for fishing spears, leather for bolas and skins for clothing and huts. The rheas, which are cousins to the ostrich, were also plentiful here and always found near the guanacos because they frequently fed from their dung. Their eggs were a delicacy and the meat was

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