People of the Earth Read Online Free PDF Page B

with
talons of ice. Hope had fled with the ghost of summer.
                   Hope? How can I hope? What have I done to
deserve this? What hope will there be for White Ash? She closed her eyes and
shook her head, trying to escape the images in the Dreams. She forced herself
to relive the days when she and Wind Runner and Brave Man had laughed and told
each other what they hoped for the future. The sun had been brighter then. The
meat racks had bent under the weight of rich red slabs. The White Clay had been
whole, powerful. Smiling faces peered at her from the past—faces of people dead
or vanished with the breakup of the clan. Faces now as remote as those of her
native Earth People.
                   Bright Moon made a gasping noise that withered
White Ash's spirit. Sage Ghost, maybe it's better that you don't know.
                   She leaned forward, propping her chin on one
knee, staring dully at the spot where Sage Ghost's bedding should have been.
Various parfleches —collapsible rawhide bags—had been
stacked around the bottom against the skirting of the lodge to act as extra
insulation from the stinging cold. The dogs slept outside but their packs
stayed in, away from eager teeth, be they canine or packrat—assuming one of the
wily rodents made it that far past the famished dogs. Peeled poles, where they
supported the finely sewn hides of the lodge cover, gleamed in the crimson
light. Through the smoke hole she could see the stars, wavering as the hot air
made a mirage of the soot-stained hole.
                   Tired, deadly tired. Her soul ached. Could
this really be happening to her? She glanced at the mounded robes where Bright
Moon lay. How long had it been? An eternity?
                   No, only two long days since Sage Ghost had
left with the other men in another attempt to find game—anything to augment the
dwindling supplies of food. They shouldn't have come out here in the middle of
the basin in the first place. Sage Ghost had told Whistling Hare that
starvation and the Wolf People lurked here.
                   But who remained sane among the battered
remains of the White Clay? They were but one small band of the Sun People,
harried, constantly pushed farther south by the Broken Stones, the Hollow
Flute, and the Black Point. The northern bands had grown, swelling in size
until they strained the hunting grounds and stripped berry bushes of fruit.
                   The clans weren't the only threat. The Wolf
People, who lived in the Grass Meadow Mountains to the east, hated the Sun
People. Only a week ago they'd ruthlessly raided a Sun camp, sweeping through
the village like a swarm of enraged buffalo, burning lodges and murdering
everyone in their path. They'd even killed the women and little children, and
brutally slashed open the wombs of pregnant mothers to rip the babies from
their bodies. Fear stalked the clans of the Sun People like a malignant demon.
To the west, the Sheep Hunters, who hunted in the Red Rock Mountains, had
warned the White Clay what would happen if anyone foolishly pushed into the
canyons in their range. In a world gone hostile, the only hope for survival lay
to the south, beyond the Sideways Mountains . . . maybe somewhere beyond the
land of the Earth People.
                   While the men hunted, the women trekked long,
circuitous routes to check snares and look for concentrations of jack-rabbits
that might be driven into a trap. The endless, nagging cold continued.
                  And I have to face Bright Moon's death alone.
                   The day after Sage Ghost left, the chill had
awakened her, eating through the robes, bringing her out of another of the
strange Dreams. She'd blinked, wondering why Bright Moon—who took such pride
and delight at offering tea to early risers—would have let the fire die. She'd
blinked in the gray light and sat up.