Call Down the Stars Read Online Free PDF Page A

times, then lifted it to the other side, again paddled twice. He went back and forth, until blood from his knees dyed the raw wood crimson, but finally the boat was at the center of the estuary. He turned it, headed against the current, up toward the river, but each time he switched sides, he lost whatever distance he had gained.
    He tried three strokes, then four, and found he made headway with that, though the course he took was no longer straight. Each time he lifted his paddle, he looked toward the shore, sure he would see Bear-god warriors watching him, perhaps even launching one of the other boats to follow him, but no one came, and finally, as the thick black smoke from the burning village billowed up through the trees and curled down to the estuary, Water Gourd’s boat entered the river.
    He closed his eyes in a moment of gratitude as the shadows of the trees welcomed him, then he found a snag, an upended cedar with roots and earth woven into a circle, the weight of it compressing the bank so that the tree had slid, roots first, into the water. The old man maneuvered the boat until it was upriver from the snag, then he turned it and used the paddle like a fish uses its tail, allowing the current to move the boat, the paddle to direct its path until the bow snugged itself into the interstices of the root mass.
    Then Water Gourd, peering out through the tunnel of trees, could only wait while the smoke filled the estuary and blocked his vision of the sky.

CHAPTER TWO
    S OMETIME DURING THE NIGHT, Water Gourd fell asleep. It was a sleep visited by demons, and when he finally managed to awaken, it was still dark, still night. The smoke from the village had dissipated, and he could see stars in that circle of sky afforded him from his seat in the cedar log boat.
    The tide had come in, and the river had risen so that the bow of his outrigger was not wedged as tightly in the roots of the fallen tree. The bumping of the boat—away from the root mass and again into it—had brought him back from his terror-filled dreams. The wind had gathered strength, and he could hear the rattle of leaves above him, spinning their tales to one another.
    Did they tell stories of women raped, babies killed, old men tortured? Most likely not. Why should they care about that? Surely the trees hated his people. After all, what cedar, what nutmeg would choose to leave the close green forest to be gutted by the fire and knives of boat builders? Maybe the trees around him celebrated, as did the Bear-god warriors, rejoicing at the deaths of the Boat People.
    Water Gourd wished he could close his ears to the noise. He shut his eyes and curled into a ball at the center of the boat, his gourds, still cold and damp from their bellies of water, cradled in his arms. Although the night air was warm, the mists rising from the river hovered over him until they had worked their way through his skin to his joints, until he ached with the damp as though winter had suddenly come upon the land, disrupting the gentle weather of spring, the cycle of the seasons suddenly and inexplicably forgotten.
    The boat rocked up, then bumped ahead, rocked again and jerked back. The motion settled behind Water Gourd’s ears in an ache that tensed his muscles into pain. The splinters in his knees throbbed, and new dreams invaded his eyes—monsters that were half demon, half bear. They laughed at his fear, his mourning, and blew with fetid breath to coax new life into the fires that had destroyed his village.
    Then suddenly the boat tipped and swirled, and, as though a hand had gripped the stern, it pulled away from the circle of roots and was thrust violently upriver.
    What giant had captured him? Water Gourd’s panic propelled him to sit upright, hands clasping the outrigger poles. Then he saw the trees sway, though there was no storm. He felt the earth buckle, and suddenly the river spewed him out into the estuary, sending his boat ahead so quickly that Water Gourd nearly