People of the Silence Read Online Free PDF Page B

focused on her swollen belly in disbelief. “You are Solstice Girl?”
    “Yes, Sunwatcher. I have been serving you for a full moon now.”
    The trail swung around a large pile of fallen rock and entered the sun cove, a hollow worn in the canyon wall by eons of spring runoff. Sternlight took one look at the stairs cut into the stone, and utter terror masked his face. He threw off her hand and backed away.
    “No,” he breathed, “Oh, no. I can’t go up there!”
    “But,” Young Fawn said, “we must hurry. We have barely two fingers of time before dawn. You know how frightening the drought and warfare have become. You must help make it right. This is your duty. You are Sunwatcher.”
    His mouth quivered. Behind him, the flock of piñon jays wheeled, their cackles wavering in Wind Baby’s gusts. Sternlight balled his fists. “You … you go first. I will wait until you are at the top, then I will follow. Yes, I—I will. Now go.” When she hesitated, he shook both fists at her. “ Go! ”
    She hitched up her white hem and began the climb. Ice filled the rocky depressions, watching her like ancient glazed eyes. The last rainstorm had washed sand and gravel down the steps. Her yucca sandals shished on the grit.
    By the time Young Fawn reached the narrow ledge overlooking the canyon, she was panting. A gently undulating surface, the ledge extended about four body lengths by five. A sandstone wall, taller than Young Fawn, ran along the north side. Scraggly rabbitbrush struggled to grow on top of the wall.
    A magnificent vista spread around her. Chunky buttes rose like square towers from the desert floor, their sandstone faces shading purple and pink in the newborn light. She could see two of the three sacred mountains. In front of her, Thunder Peak rose in the south; to her right, Turquoise Maiden made a black hump against the eastern horizon. Spider Woman’s Butte hid behind a translucent lavender veil. The few shreds of cloud that clung to her face glowed a rich magenta color. Two thousand people lived in the canyon, and their breakfast fires sparkled like a huge overturned box of amber jewels. Wonder filled Young Fawn. Among her people, beauty was sacred, and appreciating it, a prayer.
    Gingerly, she lowered herself to the cold stone and encircled her belly with her arms. She would catch her breath, and then, if Sternlight had not arrived, she would go looking for him.
    An ancient painting adorned the sandstone wall above where she sat—a white circle with rays emanating from all four sides. The Straight Path people claimed that the symbol had been drawn by Coyote in the Age of Emergence, immediately after their ancestors climbed through the four underworlds and out into this fifth world of light. She knew the Straight Path story by heart:
    “Look!” Coyote had said. “I have drawn a map of the Center Place and the four roads of life and death. Listen, now, and I will tell you what it means.
    “There is a Great Circle; it is so huge it holds everything, for it is the universe, and all that live inside the Great Circle are relatives. When you stand at the heart of the circle, in the Center Place, you can see that the circle has four quarters. Each is sacred, for each has a mystical Power, and it is by those powers that we survive. Each quarter also has its own sacred animals, objects, and colors—these make its power accessible to humans.
    “When you pray, you must first look down the east road to the dawn place where all the days of humans are born. Its color is white like the snows. It has the power to heal. White clay will cleanse, and the white hide of an albino buffalo will drive away sickness. Only the very strong may run this road to ask advice or give aid to Father Sun. The weak will be melted.
    “Then you must look down the south road. It is red-hot like the summer. The pepper pod is its plant, and the ant its animal. This road is only for the dead, or those tending ceremonial tasks. They may travel