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

the world of his adopted nation, the Crows; a moment when he was not really comfortable in either.
    He did not dislike Mercer, yet he found himself avoiding
the explorer and knew he would continue to do so, no matter that they shared a tongue and a world across the sea and the prospect of a few gin and bitters was enticing. He used the thickening dark to drift from camp, reaching darkness and quietness after he reached the Shoshone River. He treasured the quietness of the woods. A three-quarter moon, fat and yellow, was rising in the east and paving the path with glistening light. That was good. It bid fair to be a sweet summer’s eve.
    Soon the drumming was only a distant throb and then the sound vanished altogether and he was alone. He found a game trail leading upward through forested foothills, and took it, letting the white moonlight filtering through the pines be his lamp. Juniper-laden air eddied down the hill, perfuming the world. The pungence of the juniper, or cedar, evoked the biblical in him and made this place the Holy Land. The malaise he felt in camp left him and he was at peace. He climbed a sharp rise and found an open ridge, its rocky spine lit by moonlight, a place of peace.
    And there was a woman. Yes, no mistake, a jet-haired woman sitting on the rock, her back pressed into a shoulder of rock, her gaze rapt. She saw him at once, a swift startled gesture, and he paused. He did not want to frighten her.
    â€œI am Mister Skye. I will go. This is your place,” he said in Absaroka, but she did not respond.
    He thought she might be Shoshone, but who could say? He made the friend sign, palm forward, the peace sign. She did not move. He felt himself to be the intruder, and turned to leave.
    She said something he could not translate but her voice was soft and warm, and she patted the rocky table next to her. He accepted the invitation and discovered a young woman, slim and beautiful, perhaps half his age. She had the strong
cheekbones of her people, and almond eyes, and even in the white and glistening moonlight he caught her interest in him. Her survey was as complete as his own and lingered at his gray beard and the beaver top hat. She smiled and spoke again and he could grasp nothing except her meaning: come sit with me and enjoy this sacred place, lit by Mother Moon.
    He did, easing himself to the sun-warmed rock beside her. They sat well above the valley of the summer camp, but could not see it here in this quiet basin, and were alone.
    â€œI’m Mister Skye,” he said in English, “and I live with the Absaroka people.”
    â€œI know,” she said, “and your name is familiar to me. We all know it.”
    He wondered how he understood her. She said it in Shoshone. Maybe he knew more of it than he had realized. He liked her voice, resonant of woodwinds and wind chimes.
    â€œI am called Blue Dawn,” she said. “I am twenty winters, and have turned aside many suitors because I wanted to.”
    He thought about that a moment, her words meaningful to him, as if a wizard were translating somewhere in his soul.
    He nodded. Neither she nor he spoke. It was as if they had already tested the limits by which two people of different tongues could understand each other. She had not used the finger language though she no doubt understood it.
    Some night bird glided nearby, hunting the rocky ridge for a meal. A small cloud hid the moon, so he could barely see her for a while.
    He thought of things to say to her and then spoke: “I wonder who you are. I wonder why you are here, apart from your people. I wonder how you chanced to hike up this side trail to this ridge.”

    She smiled, almost as if she understood him. It was almost eerie. But of course she didn’t.
    â€œI wonder what your dreams are: each of us has dreams, but yours have taken you away from the drumming, and your people, to this place. It is a quiet place but not a lonely one. It is a place to dream, or