The Canyon of Bones by Richard S. Wheeler Read Free Book Online

they turn into mosquitoes and bite white men.”
    He laughed. “Very good, Missus Skye. Now we’re getting somewhere. Are there secret meetings in the night? All boys, all girls? All women? All warriors? All virgins? Do you sacrifice prisoners to the gods? Do you sacrifice animals? Do you drive a stake through the heart? Do you drive demons out of your village? Do you bury the old and the sick alive? What do you do with the sick? Do you have herbs and potions? Does a medicine man drive out the evil? What do you do with crazy people? How do you torture enemies?”
    â€œSonofabitch, you sure ask questions!” She eyed him. “Best damn questions anyone ever asked.”
    â€œIs one animal favored over another? Do you eat the flesh
of other people? You know, to give you power over them? What do you do with criminals? Banish them? Kill them? Do you have fertility rites? Do men trade wives?”
    Victoria sipped her drink. He noticed and smiled. “Have another,” he said.
    She thrust her half-emptied glass at Winding, who promptly refilled it and handed it to her. That gin was good stuff, oh ho ho! It was making her feel better and better. Damn, how could she answer all those questions?
    Then she knew. She sipped, smiled, and sipped again.
    â€œAt the beginning of time there was a big raven. Its wings filled the whole sky. It had been born on a mountaintop and pretty soon it was bigger than the mountain. Then it flew here, casting a shadow so big that the world was dark under it, and it decided this was the place for the raven people to be. It settled on another mountaintop and opened its beak and began spilling out raven people …”
    Now Mercer was scribbling busily, catching everything she said. Good. This should be worth a few more drinks.
    â€œOut they came, many raven people, and they named themselves the People of the Raven, or Absaroka.”
    â€œGood,” he said.
    â€œThey all had black hair, but then one had white hair, and the people knew they had to kill the white-haired one so they cast him into the sun.”
    â€œGood, good, Missus Skye. The origins myth.”
    â€œWhat the hell is that?”
    â€œThe creation story. All groups have one.”
    â€œWell, all right. But the white one didn’t die. It became the moon, so at night we see the white one, and know it was cast out of our midst.”
    â€œIs the moon evil? Do you gather at night to look at it?”

    â€œOh, you bet. That’s when we do the forbidden things. The nights of the big moon.”
    He perked right up at that, staring at her with a devouring look. Good. This was fun.
    He waited, pencil poised, but she simply sipped. Let him wait Besides, she didn’t know where to go next
    â€œThat’s when we sacrifice a baby,” she said. “Each full moon, the people give a baby to the pale god, deep in the night when the moon is big and fat.”
    â€œSacrifice! You don’t say! How is the victim selected?”
    â€œNot a victim, dammit, an honor. The holiest, most sacred honor. The shamans select the one, and make a bundle and place the bundle before that lodge.”
    â€œAnd then the parents know their baby will be honored?”
    â€œHell yes.”
    She had him running now. She finished her drink and edged the empty glass forward. Promptly, Winding filled it with more gin and bitters.
    â€œThis is done by the Wolf Society,” she said. “That’s a secret society of young warriors. It’s their task. If a young man really wants honors he will go steal a Siksika baby.”
    â€œSiksika?”
    â€œBlackfoot. The Piegans, the Kainah, the Bloods. They are the enemies of our people. A Wolf warrior must go all alone to the land of the Siksika, carry his wolf skin with him so he can wear it, and then wait to capture a baby. He lurks close to the Siksika camp, singing his song to the Wolf so he might succeed, and then when a mother is not