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

find the First People’s kiva and restore the opening to the underworlds, the wars would end, and the ancestors would restore their Blessing on this, the Fifth World. Our dead Matron believed Poor Singer’s prophecy. We still believe it. It is our duty to continue our search.”
    Crossbill took a deep breath. “It is more than placing your village at risk, Rock Dove. Think about this world we are living in. About how we got here. In the time of our great-great-grandmothers, the katsinas came to give their vision to the Blessed Sternlight, the First People’s Sunwatcher. They came to him in hopes of saving the world.”
    “And look where it got them,” Wading Bird said bitterly. His bald head glowed yellow as he lowered his eyes to stare at the ground.
    “I think the vision was altered,” Crossbill continued, ignoring the outburst. “The Blessed Poor Singer told us the way: We must find the First People’s kiva, the place where they emerged from the underworlds. It
isn’t just us, but the entire world that we have been tasked to save.”
    Cloudblower nodded. “Yes. Look around. What do we see? Villages abandoned, people fleeing to the east. Clans have turned upon themselves. Some, the old believers who cling to the Flute Player and his ways, make war on the Katsinas’ People. The rains have failed. The coughing sickness spreads from village to village. The old roads of the First People are abandoned. Their great cities lie in ruins. We are like mice trapped in a pot who have turned on each other. We are eating each other when we need to work together to save our world.”
    A silence fell on the room.
    Stone Ghost steepled his fingers. “We cannot forget that another element has been added.”
    People turned to look at him. Browser tensed, knowing where this was headed.
    Stone Ghost smoothed the fabric on his new shirt. “When the Blessed Night Sun left Talon Town, and the earth was split, the Made People turned on the First People, hunting them down. Men, women, and children were mercilessly murdered by the hundreds. For years we have believed them all to be dead. Now we know that they are not. The White Moccasins are out there, and they are a force to be reckoned with.”
    “We only know of a handful,” Rock Dove protested.
    “Yes,” Stone Ghost answered. “That’s all that we know of. But they lived among us in Longtail village. And before that, in Hillside village, and who knows how many other places? Can you say for certain that none lives here among us in Dry Creek village?”
    No one spoke, but people looked around uneasily.
    Stone Ghost frowned as he rubbed his hands together. “They pose a unique challenge.”
    “How so, Elder?” Cloudblower had turned her soft brown eyes on Stone Ghost.
    “You cannot hunt them down.” Stone Ghost spread
his hands wide. “The Made People tried that more than one hundred sun cycles ago. If they did not succeed when most of the First People were known, how could we succeed now, when they are in hiding?”
    Browser touched his stomach. Catkin’s sudden piercing stare had a hawklike intensity. Gods, his flush wasn’t obvious to anyone else, was it?
    Crossbill said, “I suppose you know how to deal with them?”
    “I do,” Stone Ghost answered mildly.
    “Tell us, Elder,” Cloudblower said in a calm voice, her steady gaze on the old man’s face. “Please.”
    Browser fought the urge to fidget. What did she suspect? Worse, what did she know? Only a fool underestimated Cloudblower.
    Stone Ghost might have been discussing the milling of corn. “If you locate several of their warriors, and kill them, you might as well cut off an enemy’s hair. It is but a matter of time before it will grow back.”
    “This isn’t hair we’re talking about,” Wading Bird said. He looked irritated.
    Talk concerning the First People struck close to Elder Wading Bird’s heart. He was old enough to suspect—and probably to remember—what the tattooed spirals on Stone