People of the Silence Read Online Free PDF

it was said, had truly feared for his life. The penalty for witchery was death, and the sleep-maker’s own family had to carry out the sentence. When they’d killed him, they would throw him facedown in a grave and cover his body with a heavy sandstone slab so that his Spirit could never escape. Alone, locked in darkness, the ghost would wail for all eternity. But no one could hear. No one could save him.
    Young Fawn jumped when a flock of piñon jays soared over the canyon rim. Against the twinkling background of the Evening People, they whirled like windblown black leaves. Long ago the jays had lived among her people as sacred clowns, Dancing, bringing laughter, and teaching spiritual lessons. They had chosen to be reborn as birds to watch over the Mogollon people.
    Keep me safe, guardians. I fear I need your protection on this day.
    Sternlight whispered, “Don’t tell me that! I … I can’t.”
    Young Fawn glanced at him. He had his hand out to no one she could see. Clenching her fists over her belly, she waited. No matter how desperately she longed to run away, she could not. It would shame her master and bring terrible punishment upon herself.
    Last moon, the wife of the Blessed Sun had selected Young Fawn as Solstice Girl. The choice had been a competition between Young Fawn and her best friend, Mourning Dove, a fact which had delighted them both. Ordinarily, much older, wiser slaves received the honor. Because of that, Young Fawn performed her tasks with great care. She washed the priest’s ritual clothes with yucca soap and pine needles to give them a pleasant scent; held his sacred herbs next to her heart to keep their Spirits warm; made certain the blood of his meats never fell upon the ground, for that might offend his animal Spirit helpers. Despite her youth, she tried to be the best Solstice Girl ever.
    But as the child in her belly grew, the work became increasingly difficult.
    Sternlight pulled himself to his feet and stood on shaking legs. The turquoise and jet bracelets on his arms winked and sparkled in the silvery light.
    She called, “Elder, are you well?”
    He jerked around, and his copper bell necklaces jingled wildly. His eyes went huge. “Who—who are you?”
    “I am Young Fawn. Don’t you remember?”
    As sunrise approached, the evil Spirit child, Wind Baby, raced through the canyon, bending the scrawny weeds, flicking dust about and whistling around boulders. He ruffled Young Fawn’s turkey-feather cape and probed at her white dress beneath, his fingers frigid. She shivered.
    “Young Fawn?” Sternlight came forward like a man picking his way through a field of rattlesnakes. “You are Young Fawn?”
    “Yes, Elder.”
    A hollow sensation swelled her heart. What a beautiful man. He had a straight nose and full lips. When he was an infant, the back of his skull had been flattened by the cradleboard, shoving his cheekbones forward and accentuating his deeply set brown eyes. Each time his moccasins struck the ground, the seashells tied to the laces made music. His knee-length shirt, woven from the finest cotton thread, outlined every muscle in his tall body.
    He looks like one of the sacred sky gods fallen to earth.
    He halted a hand’s breadth from her, and in a pained voice said, “I prayed you would not be here. Why are you here?”
    “I am the Solstice Girl for this cycle. I go where you go. I do as you tell me.”
    Gently, she took his arm and headed him on down the trail. They entered a grove of stunted junipers protected from cutting by the Blessed Sun’s decree. There, the light fragmented, scattering their path with pewter triangles and glimmering over the clusters of small purple berries among the green needles. Young Fawn proceeded with care. Deer had scooped out beds in the duff, and rocks thrust up along the way, both threats to safe footing. All around them, gnarled gray branches reached upward for the blessings of the sky gods.
    Sternlight gazed at her anxiously, eyes