Dreams That Burn In The Night by Craig Strete Read Free Book Online Page B

and a seeing into the heart
of the world that made her wise beyond her years.
    When she turned
her unseeing face to the sun, it danced for her and her alone, and she was happy in her heart.
The people praised her for she had brought good medicine into their lives. And they said she
would someday heal with a touch. Perhaps it was so, because she had been touched with magic and
magic moved through her days.
    And thus things
went until the day the magic died, the day the white-head hawk was killed.
     

5
     
    The white-head hawk
was a thing of wonder, of sun magic and summer dreams and the shining blue skies of youth that
chase the sullen moon across the sky.
    It was an unselfish
and shared wonder. It had no evil in it, no harm.
    And as with all
things of this kind, there was one who wanted to see it end, who sought to destroy the white-head
hawk.
    There was one who
had only envy and hatred for Natina and Elk Dancer and the white-head hawk. He was Blue Snow, two
years older than Natina and blind to the world even though his eyes saw. His heart was cold. The
love in it had soured like a black cherry. A moon shadow had passed across his face and stayed to
live in his heart.
    Every time Elk
Dancer returned from the hunt with a deer, a small dark hatred grew like a black snake in Blue
Snow's stom­ach. The more the people of the village praised this wonder and gave thanks for its
coming, the larger the black snake grew in his stomach, until one day Blue Snow and the evil snake were as one.
    One day while the
other young ones were at play in the hills below the village, Blue Snow snuck into Elk Dancer's
lodge and stole the white-head hawk.
    The hawk would have
cried out, but Blue Snow had foreseen this and had quickly thrown a blanket over the bird,
muffling his cries.
    Blue Snow put the
bird in a basket and crept carefully out of Elk Dancer's lodge. He looked all around, but no one
was look­ing at him. Tucking the basket under his arm, he turned and ran away into the hills, far
from the others.
    As he ran into the
forest, something moved in the dark trees, and two eyes opened and followed Blue Snow as he
ran.
    Blue Snow came to a
clearing in the forest. It was his secret place where he often went alone to plot out his hatreds
and re­venges against those he imagined had done him harm.
    As he pushed
through the trees into the clearing, Blue Snow cried out in astonishment. Ahead of him, instead
of the fire-ruined ground and blasted trees, the dead brown grass, where no animals or birds or
insects lived, was a green world. Flowers and thick tall grass grew in riotous abundance. New
trees, slender and sturdy and eager for life, pushed up into new life, into the gentle
sun.
    Of the lightning
that had once burned and charred and leveled this clearing in the forest long ago, there was
almost no sign.
    Somehow, this
sudden change made Blue Snow even angrier, as if someone had stolen his secret place from him. He
had liked the charred trees, the dead brown grass. These things were like the way he felt, like
the black and brown snake he grew in his own belly.
    Blue Snow took the
bird out of the basket. He held the hawk up before him, slipping the blanket off the bird's head.
The hawk wriggled in his grasp, wings flapping, beak flashing forward to strike him.
    Blue Snow laughed
to see the hawk struggle. He had him firmly by the legs and cruelly twisted one leg until the
hawk cried out in pain.
    The bird beat the
air with his wings, futilely trying to escape.
    He knew he was in
the presence of a great enemy. His broken wing was almost mended.
    "I hate you, bird!"
cried Blue Snow, and the snake in him tasted a meal. Loosing one hand from the bird's legs, he
reached up and yanked savagely on the bird's mending wing. The wing broke.
    And the white-head
hawk cried.
    "I hate you!" And
he threw the bird upon the ground and killed him with big stones. The bird cried once before the
heavy stones