Ghost Horses Read Free Page B

began kicking rocks away from the ground around a small green tree that stood no more than two feet high.
    â€œHey, watch where you’re kicking those things,” Jack yelled. “One of them nearly hit my sister.”
    Summer murmured, “Ethan, maybe we shouldn’t do the Ghost Dance…”
    Her brother ignored her. “I just needed to clear some space around this cedar tree. I told you that’s what we’re supposed to dance around—a cedar tree.” Impatiently, he gestured for Jack and Ashley to come closer. “Go ahead,” he told Summer, who asked him, “You sure, Ethan?”
    When Ethan nodded, Summer said in her soft voice, “Stand around the tree. Boy, girl, boy, girl. Take hands.” Jack grasped Summer’s hand as if in a handshake, but she shook her head and said, “No, like this,” and twined thin fingers through his.
    Since there were only four of them, the circle was small—Summer, Jack, Ashley, Ethan. His voice low, Ethan began to sing:
    I’yehe’ Uhi’yeye’heye’
    I’yehe’ ha’dawu’hana’ Eye’de’yuhe’yu!
    Ni’athu’-a-u’ a’haka’nith’ii
    Ahe’yuhe’yu!
    Tugging Jack’s hand, Summer moved in a circle from right to left, left foot first, followed by the right one, barely lifting her feet above the ground as they moved. Awkwardly, Jack stumbled along; on his other side, Ashley had caught the motion perfectly and danced as though she’d always done it that way. Ethan’s voice grew louder, pounding each note like a beat on a tom-tom. Jack guessed he was singing the same song over and over, although the words sounded so strange that Jack couldn’t tell whether they were being repeated or not.
    He glanced down the hill to the Sacagawea monument, where his mother and father stood looking up at the kids and smiling, probably thinking how sweet it was that the four of them were doing a little circle dance together. Probably figuring that everything was all right now. But was it?
    His attention was jerked back to the dance, because Ethan had stopped his chant and Summer began to speak. Her voice soft, her eyes half shut, she murmured, “Grandmother’s grandmother saw the big fire on the mountaintop. Our people were dancing the Ghost Dance. They danced. They danced. The fire burned higher.” Summer spoke in a monotone, her voice neither rising nor falling, but for some reason it made Jack’s scalp prickle.
    â€œGrandmother’s grandmother saw the smoke. It rolled down the mountain. It covered the earth and the people and the animals. No one could see, but they kept dancing. The smoke got thicker. It hid the sky. It hid the earth. It hid the horses, and turned them into ghosts.”
    Now Summer spoke in a singsong. “After two days the smoke was gone. After two days the horses were gone. They became ghost horses. But sometimes, when the people danced, the ghost horses returned.”
    While she told the tale, Summer’s eyelids drooped lower and lower, while Ashley’s eyes widened until the whites showed. As for Jack, he caught the smell of—no, that was crazy. He couldn’t be smelling smoke—there wasn’t a wisp of it showing anywhere, nothing rising into the perfect blue sky, and from that high on the hill he could see all around. Then Ethan began to sing once more, louder than before,
    I’yehe’ Uhi’yeye’heye’
    I’yehe’ ha’dawu’hana’ Eye’de’yuhe’yu!
    Ni’athu’-a-u’ a’haka’nith’ii
    Ahe’yuhe’yu!
    By that time, Steven and Olivia had climbed closer to where the kids danced around the little cedar tree. They were still 20 feet away when Ethan stopped abruptly and pulled his hands away from Ashley’s and Summer’s.
    â€œOh, don’t stop,” Olivia begged. “That was