People of the Earth Read Free Page A

worked
in."
                   Skip shot him a measuring look. "Yeah,
well, Red, you tidy this up and there might be another thousand dollars in your
check at the end of the month. Keep your mouth shut and there's always a job on
one of my projects."
                   Swenson shrugged awkwardly. "Anything you
say."
                   A thousand in Swenson's pocket made a better
deal than paying out fifty grand and losing months while the archaeologists dug
the site. Besides, Red would drink it all away within a month or two anyway.
Then he'd be back to shagging overtime to meet his truck payments.
                   Gillespie walked back to the Ford and threw the
shovel in the back. He kicked the sand off his ostrich boots and slid into the
driver's seat.
                   The yellow Cat chattered as the catskinner started the big diesel and backed up,
accompanied by the sound of loud warning beeps. Skip watched as Red lowered the
blade and moved forward to the clattering of the tracks, making another cut,
destroying the last evidence of the house-pit site. Skip caught sight of one of
the bones as the heavy blade rolled the roiling cascade of dirt. Red backed to
make another cut, piling the rest of the skeleton into the backdirt .
                   Skip slipped the truck into gear and drove
onto the rough two-track that would take him back to the main complex. Five
minutes to the meeting with the engineers.
                   He still held the fossil shark's tooth. The
stone felt cool and heavy in his hand. How many centuries had it lain next to
that skeleton? How did a bunch of dumb Indians drill a hole through stone like
that? What damn Indian would have done such a thing?
                   Who the hell cared? Skip had a project to
build.
     
                

Prologue
     
                   Three Forks Camp, Wind Basin , 5,000 years before present.
                   Sandstone the color of dried blood rose in a
sheer ridge that jutted from the rich grasses of the river bottom. The shape of
the ridge goaded Sage Ghost's frightened imagination while he lay hidden in the
grass; it looked as if some huge buffalo's back thrust up from the land itself
to shelter the Earth People's camp from the prevailing winds. He shifted his
gaze back to the camp he spied on. Sage Ghost belonged to the Sun People—a
member of the White Clay clan. Here, in this southern land, he hunted again. He
pitted his skill and cunning against an unknown people. Failure would mean
swift death.
                   A shaft of sunlight split the clouds,
brightening the crimson stone of the ridge until the rock seemed to burn.
Erosion had carved the slopes; Sage Ghost could see the bones within the
buffalo-shaped ridge. Did his imagination trick him, or did the ridge contain
some Power he couldn't understand?
                   Is that the Power of the Earth People? Do they
draw monsters from the dirt and rock? Stories told by Traders haunted his
memory—stories of Spirits the Earth People had tied to the rocks and trees. And
if the Earth People catch me, is that what they'll do? Kill me? Trap my soul in
the ground to wail forever in darkness? Thunderbird, help me! Taking a deep
breath to buttress his courage, he returned his attention to the camp.
                   The spot had been well chosen, with a southern
exposure to catch the sun in winter. Five earthen mounds humped the sandy soil
at the base of the ridge. Each no more than four long paces across, the
dwellings resembled wasp nests, or the doings of some huge mud dauber.
Openings, at ground level, faced the southeast. For the moment, the door flaps
of tanned animal hide had been rolled up and tied with thongs.
                   A group of elderly men and women sat under a
sagebrush sunshade in the trampled place between the structures. A smoldering
fire