People of the Wolf Read Online Free PDF Page A

ruffled his long gray-white fur with her fingers.
    "This is the way, man of the People," the beast's voice echoed from the walls. "I show you the way to salvation. I should've come here first. I wouldn't have needed to chew on Flies Like A Seagull and you wouldn't have shot me,. Now, take my flesh. Eat it and grow strong so you can come this way . . . this way. ..."
    Wolf jumped from rock to rock, bushy tail catching the silver sunlight as he balanced and disappeared over the top of the ridge in a flying leap.
    Runs In Light chewed his lip, sudden loneliness closing around him where he stood in the pale blue shadows of the ice-piled rocks. He followed, attacking the rock. Pulling himself slowly up, he flopped a knee to lever his straining body. Bracing off the polished surfaces of granite, he climbed higher, higher.
    Father Sun bathed his face with light as he sweated his way—lungs heaving—to the top of the ridge. Half-blinded, he looked out and sucked in a sudden awed breath. Thick grasses waved under the caress of Wind Woman. Brown hair shining, Mammoth turned, raising his head, trunk curling up around ivory white tusks to sniff the air. Caribou snuffled, antlers nothing more than nubs under a new growth of velvet. Musk Ox pawed, dropping his nose to present horns in his age-old defensive posture. Far out into the grass, Wolf ran, greeting Fox, and Weasel, Crow, and others.
    Runs In Light smiled, opening his arms so Father Sun could beat life into his veins. Below him, Grandfather Brown Bear rolled on his back in the grass, grabbing his toes before tumbling sideways to shake his silky coat in the brilliant light. Long-horned buffalo grazed, tails flipping nervously on their short-haired rumps. Moose stood in the wallows, moss hanging from antlers as he ducked his head to search for tender water plants.
    "This is the land of the People," Runs In Light whispered. "This is-where Father Sun lives. His home in the south. Wolf, bless you for showing me this way. I will bring the People here . . . and together, we will sing our thanks to you."
    He turned, reluctant to leave such a land behind him. The climb down into the blue shadow behind the ridge sucked up his energy, leaving him cold and tired by the time he reached bottom.
    Chapter 2

A strong gust of wind battered the rock cairn, lancing through the frozen black rock. Ice Fire huddled in his double-layered caribou-hide parkas, arms crossed where he squatted in the protection of the rock pile.
    Despite the wind-spawned ground blizzard that obscured the land in a white haze, he could see up through the wispy tendrils of snow, clearing his mind, letting his eyes catalog the myriad of stars. Snow rustled over the rock, sifting down around his long-booted feet in a fine powder.
    Ice Fire, Most Respected Elder of the Mammoth People, ran his tongue over the remains of his teeth. The new gap was unfamiliar where the first upper left molar had fallen out. Only the right side of his mouth could still chew. He traced the ridges on the backs of his upper incisors and watched the stars.
    "So many years," he whispered to the sky, "I've been alone. Why have you taken all I ever loved? Great Mystery above, what do you want from me?"
    Only the ceaseless wind whistled and hissed. He listened, hoping for a voice, for a vision to form from the blowing snow rippling out of the endless plains, blotting out this terrible year.
    He shuffled, an angle of rock cutting into his back as he looked to the north. The drawing unease still nagged at him. How long ago? Almost two tens of fingers since he'd first traveled there, following the call. Now it had begun again, only calling him south this time, leaving him sleepless, like this-night. A subtle tugging, it worried the fringes of his thoughts, driving him to leave the warm mammoth-hide lodges of the White Tusk Clan to climb the heights and sit, and watch, and wonder while he waited.
    The Enemy lay there. The Enemy whose land they now hunted. The