Black Moon Sing (The Turquoise Path Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

sign, its once-red logo faded to a sickly orange-pink from the merciless onslaught of the sun, and below the logo, the words BURGERS * TACOS * COLD DRINKS were barely legible
    It was a stark reminder that Ellery hadn’t eaten for far too long. As Hosteen began pumping the gas, she eyed the store, wondering if she ought to slip inside and grab a bite. But a few older men and one rough-looking, hard-eyed woman were gathered in the shade of the store’s eaves, talking and sipping on bottles of soda. One of the men caught sight of Ellery in the truck. He turned and murmured something to the others; they all stared at her, and a tension fell over them that Ellery could feel even at a distance. She hunched back in her seat, grateful for her shades, and refused to look at any of them, though she was on high alert for any sign of movement from that direction—anyone who might approach the truck and demand to know what she was doing back here, if she really was Ellery Chee.
    No tacos for me , she decided firmly. And not for the first time that day, she mentally kicked herself for agreeing to return to the Rez. What the hell were you thinking? It had been ten years since she’d left, but ten years wasn’t a very long time in the grand scheme of things. There were still plenty of people in the Navajo Nation who would recognized her on sight.
    But even without the mystery of Roanhorse’s murder, Ellery suspected she would have found herself returning to the Nation sooner or later, in Hosteen’s truck or in her own car. That strange sensation of calling—summoning—still pulled at her, drawing her attention toward the northeast with an insistence she wasn’t sure she could resist for much longer. In fact, the further Hosteen drove along Highway 160, moving steadily northeast, the stronger the pull felt.
    Hosteen went inside the shop to pay for the gas, and Ellery swallowed hard at the sight of him walking away. She was alone in the truck, alone with the stares and whispers of the people leaning against the white-washed cinder block of the shop’s wall. The air in the trucks’ cab had long since grown stuffy, but she didn’t dare crack the window, afraid that if she made any move at all she would attract more attention from the group—or inspire one of them to approach, to start asking questions.
    When she saw Hosteen emerge from the store carrying a paper bag, she sighed in relief. He was back in the truck moments later, handing the bag to her as he started the engine.
    “Food,” he said. “I don’t know about you, but I didn’t eat much since last night. And late-night coffee is pretty hard on the stomach.”
    “Thanks.”
    Ellery dug into the sack and produced a burger wrapped in greasy paper. Truck-stop burgers weren’t exactly fine dining—in fact, they were the lowest form of burger known to mankind. But she was hungry enough that she ate the thing with as much relish as she would have a rib-eye steak.
    At the taste of meat, however substandard, her two animal spirits expressed their approval—Dusty with a shake of her pelt that Ellery could feel rippling all down her skin, and Ghost Owl with a screech she could hear inside her head. She downed half her bottle of Coke in a single swig while Hosteen managed his burger carefully with one hand, never taking his eyes off the road.
    Soon enough the landscape took on a poignantly familiar look, the flat lands over which they drove giving way in the distance to a steady rise of green-flushed pastureland, the fields speckled with the pale-gray forms of sheep. Beyond were the dark ridges and shadowed folds of Black Mesa, the isolated community where Ellery had grown up.
    Hosteen turned off the main highway and found the narrow dirt road that led, Ellery knew, to William Roanhorse’s home. She watched the remembered fields and fences take shape around her, emerging out of the mists of memory and into the present. Finally, several miles from the highway, the domed,