People of the Weeping Eye (North America's Forgotten Past) by W. Michael Gear, Kathleen O'Neal Gear Read Free Book Online

wanted everything. One day, he would obtain some item so valuable and rare it would be the envy of all: chief, Priest, warrior, farmer, and slave. Then, by blood and pus, he’d show them.
    “You’re a fool!” Snow Otter called from the rim of the hole. He was holding a section of tanned deer hide over his head. Rain battered at them.
    “So are you … for staying here.”
    “My conscience won’t allow me to leave an idiot to his fate.”
    “And you’re curious,” Trader muttered under his breath as he straightened his back against the strain and selected another of the hardwood stakes. Through the pelting rain he could see another crack opening to the side of the rock he worked on. Bending at the hips, he began hammering another of the pointed stakes into the faint gap.
    “You’re a lunatic!” Snow Otter called from above.
    The rain fell in relentless sheets, turning the hole into a mucky mess. Trader slopped about on soaked moccasins. He could feel sand between his toes. His long black hair had matted to his head, and cold droplets were tracing paths down his cheeks. The stone mallet head now slipped when he pounded it against the mushrooming wood.
    “That hammer’s going to fall apart,” Snow Otter observed from above. “The head is only held on by shrunken rawhide. Once it’s wet …”
    “I know.” Trader whacked the stake with growing frustration.
    Cold fingers of water trickled down his ribs. Was it
worth it? Snow Otter’s wife would have a smoky but warm fire going down in the village. He could imagine that baked whitefish melting on his tongue. This was crazy. What had prompted him to think he could dig his own copper anyway?
    “I’m leaving,” Snow Otter said pointedly.
    “Smart man,” Trader muttered, whacking the stake one last time.
    The rock shifted enough to allow him to slip his fingers into the crack. Trader lifted, feeling stone slide on stone. He rolled the angular fragment to one side, staring at the backside of the rock as rain spattered it. The stone looked as if it were veined with fungus. Lines of green seemed to dive into the rock’s heart. Green. But not metallic.
    You’re nothing. Just some bird. You lost it all, and you’ll never have anything again. Not a friend. Not a wife. Only a canoe, and whatever trinkets you can barter.
    A memory flashed from deep down between Trader’s souls. He saw his brother Rattle’s eyes, the cunning and deceit turning to fear as Trader’s club whistled. He felt the anger surge within, a hot red Power, as he put his weight behind the blow. He remembered Rattle throwing himself backward in the vain attempt to save himself. Trader relived the instant that sharp stone ax had smashed into his brother’s head. He could still feel the blow that crushed Rattle’s skull, as if the memory was embedded in the bones and muscles of his arm.
    I killed him. Became the man I swore I never would.
    Trader blinked it away. He was once again standing head-deep in a mucky hole, wet, cold, and hopeless. Frustration made him lift the hammer high. The blow struck the center of the mottled green stone, the crack like thunder as the hammer head disintegrated into shards that spattered around the inside of the hole.
    “Hey!” Snow Otter cried. “That’s my best mallet!”
    Trader stared at the ruined maul, then at the cracked
stone. With one hand he pulled a spalled section away and blinked. The color was unmistakable.
    “You’re going to have to replace that!” Snow Owl insisted from above. “Good hammers like that are hard to come by. I spent days making sure that one was just right. It cradled in my hand like a fine woman. It had a special balance.”
    Trader used a fragment of broken rock to crack off more waste stone.
    “Why don’t I ever learn?” Snow Otter was saying to the falling rain. “Other people never treat your tools with the respect they should. What is it about these foreign Traders? Why do they flock to me with their destructive