People of the Raven (North America's Forgotten Past) Read Online Free PDF Page B

places to gather berries, tubers, nuts. They knew the best fishing coves and where to find elk and buffalo, even in the worst winters. And most importantly, they knew the Healing plants.
    Seven tens of cycles ago, when Cimmis’s mother had led the Council, she’d started to demand payment for such valuable knowledge. They’d exhausted their own mountain resources and needed supplies. She’d told the Raven People they could come to the North Wind villages twice a cycle, on the solstices, and ask anything they wished, but they had to bring “tribute” or they would not be allowed to return.
    His mother had never dreamed what a wealth of food, exotic shells, furs, and other precious things would pour in—including slaves. When the Raven People could not afford to send food or other valuables, they sent some of their children. Many Raven People served here as cooks, wood carriers, basketmakers, weavers, and warriors. Lately, others had been captured in raids and brought back as additional slaves.
    “May the gods curse you, Mother. You made a terrible mistake. We are at war because of tribute.”
    After seven tens of cycles, tribute had freed the North Wind People from the drudgery of finding food every day and had allowed them to pursue grander things. Nearly every elder here was an accomplished Dreamer, Healer, painter, carver, or weaver. They could cure many diseases, and when they couldn’t, their Dreamers could fly to the House of Air where the ancestors lived and seek the advice of ancient holy people who’d been dead for cycles.
    As Cimmis walked around a massive lava boulder, he glimpsed old Red Dog talking to the guards at the western entry—a gap in the circle of lodges—and Cimmis continued up the trail. The runner could find him sitting before his fire just as easily as standing out here in the cold night wind.
    When he neared his lodge flap, he heard his only surviving daughter, Kstawl, say, “Oh, Mother, please try to eat.”
    Cimmis took a deep and despairing breath before he lifted the lodge flap and stepped into the soft yellow glow.
    The lodge measured four paces across. The interior wood had been smoked to a deep brown, and the dark walls provided a stunning background for the white buffalohide shields that hung from the lodgepoles. Each had served him in battle over the years, but they still looked new. He constantly repainted the images of the gods who had blessed his weapons: Wolf, Cougar, and Bear had given him strength for the land battles he’d fought; but out on the ocean, he’d relied upon Killer Whale, Dolphin, and Sea Lion. Their painted eyes seemed to follow him as he removed his lynxhide cape and hung it on a peg beside the door.
    His wife, Astcat, the great matron of the North Wind People, leaned against a pile of hides to his right. Kstawl had dressed her in a bright yellow wrap. Ascat’s jaw gaped, and her beautiful green-brown eyes jerked from place to place. Gray hair framed her long, narrow face. He thought he saw the slightest flicker of a smile on her lips when she looked at him.
    “How is she?” he asked.
    “Not well, Father.” Kstawl had seen three and ten summers. Her whiplike body was still a girl’s, with only the first hint of womanhood beginning to bud on her chest. She wore her long red hair in a bun coiled over her right ear and fastened with a beautifully carved buffalo-bone pin. “The Matron hasn’t eaten since this morning when you left for the Council meeting.”
    She’d been trying to feed the matron spoonfuls of fish stew. Stew had dribbled down the front of Astcat’s dress.
    Cimmis walked across the lodge and untied his belt pouch. It hurt to see his wife like this. Only a few moons ago, she had been bright and happy, her smile like sunshine in his soul.
    “When did her soul fly?” he asked as he placed his pouch beside their bedding hides.
    “Father, it was as though when you left this morning you took her soul with you.”
    Cimmis nodded.
    Before