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

lunacy?”
    Trader cradled his find as he looked up into the rain. “I get to keep it, right?”
    “The broken hammer? It’s yours … as long as you find me one as good to replace it.”
    “No, the copper,” Trader said. “The deal was that I got to keep all the copper that I dug up.”
    “That was the deal before you ruined my hammer,” Snow Otter growled. “That’s why I brought you up here to this old hole. We’ve never dug anything but small …” He was squinting through the downpour. “What have you got there?” The metallic sheen from beneath couldn’t be anything but metal.
    “Copper,” Trader said reverently. “And from the weight of this rock, a lot of it.”
    Snow Owl forgot his deerhide cover and scrambled down into the narrow pit. He cocked his head, fingers running across the rain-spattered copper. His eyes widened with disbelief, words catching in his throat. “That’s worth a fortune!”
    Trader stared at the gleaming metal, the cold rain forgotten. “Yes, I know.”

Two
    T he trail Old White followed up from the river wound through the trees, skirting ropy masses of vines that hung from the oak, beechnut, and maples. Overhead the branches intertwined to create a lacework of gray between him and the cloud-banked sky. Squirrels, those few that had avoided the stew pot, watched from heights beyond the range of a boy’s arrow. Fresh leaf mat carpeted the forest floor in light brown, draping logs too rotten for firewood. Every other stick of wood had been scrounged over the last couple of years for village fires.
    Old White cocked his head and listened. The sounds of war were unmistakable. He’d heard them often enough through the years. He grunted under his breath and resumed his pace along the narrow forest path. He grimaced as a loud shriek carried on the north wind. Humans could be such noisy beasts. Only the herons on their migrations, and the geese passing overhead, made such a racket.
    He had seen at least fifty-some winters pass. But, truth to tell, he’d lost count some years back. It didn’t seem to matter much, given the places he had been, the things he had seen. A man could have too many memories. Fact was, he had accumulated more than any man he had ever known. So many trails had passed beneath his feet during his wanderings. And with his death, the sights, sounds, faces, and places would vanish.
    And perhaps this cockeyed venture would, too.
    Trouble was, ever since his days with the desert
shamans, he’d taken his Dreams seriously. Now he felt his heart quicken. Though the path he followed was unfamiliar, a curious tugging on his souls led him forward. Downriver, he had heard tell of a woman possessed of the Spirits. Rumors hinted that even her family had begun to fear her. Was this the place? Images of the girl had filled his restless sleep. In the Dream, she’d been prancing and pirouetting around a lightning-riven tree. One that had looked hauntingly like the storm-scarred oak above the canoe landing where he had just left his long Trade canoe.
    But then, he had chased will-o’-the-wisps before, only to meet blank stares at lonesome villages when he tried to explain his quest. But for the Trader’s staff he carried, many of those backward farmers would have been just as happy to drive him off with firebrands.
    The river landing, below the blasted tree, had been packed with pulled-up canoes: a clear indication that a settlement was close. But so many canoes? The sound of battle clarified the potential ownership of many of those craft.
    An ululating scream carried on the fall air and sent a chill through Old White’s bones. He’d heard that same scream before. It had come trailing out of the Dream like the smoking wraith of a ghost. He had felt pain that he supposed was hers, and that she was desperate.
    Two Petals. That’s the name they had called her by. In the Dream, her eyes had sharpened at that name.
    He stepped out of the trees and stopped short. Sunlight