Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries Read Online Free PDF

gnarled wood with callused hands and carefully climbed down into the firelit interior.
    At Catkin’s questioning gaze, Browser smiled and indicated that she should follow.
    Catkin led the way. He watched her take hold of the ladder, her muscular forearms rippling as her hands tightened on the wood, and she climbed down. Just before she disappeared into the interior, she looked up, and her eyes met his. The look touched his soul. Then her head vanished into the kiva.
    Browser slipped his bow over his shoulder and followed her. His anxiety grew as he descended. At the bottom, he looked around. The underground chamber measured five paces across. The walls were plastered in white and painted with the dancing forms of the katsinas. One of the Blessed katsina masks lived in each of the square niches recessed into the wall. Browser’s flesh prickled under their hollow-eyed gazes. Four honey-colored posts supported the cribbed roof. A low fire burned in the central hearth, the dry wood almost smokeless.
    The new Matron of the Katsinas’ People, Cloudblower, sat to one side of the low fire. The sight of her reassured Browser. Her choice as Matron had been prophetic. If anyone could rally the people, it would be
Cloudblower. Touched by the gods, she was a kokwimu, a woman’s soul inhabiting a man’s body. She had a reputation as one of the people’s greatest Healers. Her knowledge of Spirit plants and the rituals that secured a person’s breath-heart soul to their bones was unrivaled. Of all the living Katsinas’ People, Cloudblower’s fame alone could see them through the coming trials.
    Behind her, Wading Bird crouched, one of the few elders they had left. He hunched under an old threadbare blanket, his bald head gleaming, and his lips sucked in over his toothless gums. He looked demented.
    Matron Crossbill, of the Longtail Clan, sat opposite, her age-lined face reflecting the sorrow and strain of their current situation. Her village lay in ruins, and where she had once helped refugees, she now found herself one of them.
    Rock Dove, Matron of Dry Creek village, reached out and laid a hand on the old woman’s shoulder. Rock Dove had lost her mother in the fire at Longtail village. Now, unable to grieve when her people were looking to her for leadership, she had accepted responsibility for her own people as well as for the Katsinas’ People. Browser could read the worry on her face. The simple truth was that Rock Dove had too many mouths to feed, too many bodies to shelter. And she had given her word that these people could share her hospitality.
    Stone Ghost grunted as he seated himself on the split-willow matting. “It’s getting cool out there.”
    “Drop a rock … and it falls. Change a sun cycle, and winter follows. Both are inevitable.” Crossbill blinked her translucent eyes. “And now we must discuss another inevitability.” She looked around, taking their measure. “If I’ve learned anything in my years, it’s that stomachs will end up empty, no matter how much they are fed in the beginning.”
    “We have saved some of the corn we harvested from
Longtail village,” Stone Ghost said. “All that wasn’t burned.”
    Cloudblower nodded. “That’s why I called this meeting. Crossbill and I have talked. We are going to move on.”
    Rock Dove gave her a sober appraisal. “The Katsinas’ People and the Longtail Clan are welcome here. I have told you that. Somehow, we will manage. In the past, when we starved, Longtail Clan sent us food. When raiders prowled our hills, they sent us warriors. This will be difficult, but in my years I have survived many difficult things.”
    Cloudblower smiled, one hand twisting her long black hair, streaked as it was in gray. “Matron, I cannot allow the generosity of your heart to lead you to more suffering.” Cloudblower leaned forward, beads of jet rattling where they lay on her chest. “We are the Katsinas’ People. The Blessed Poor Singer prophesied that if we could