People of the Owl: A Novel of Prehistoric North America (North America's Forgotten Past) Read Free Page B

ideas, and trade, and all the rest?
    Out by the highway the big John Deere 9000s, brought in on
flatbeds, were already starting their runs. By noon tomorrow, the whole of Hoferberg farm would be disked, harrowed, fertilized, and ready for the trucks bringing the seed drills.
    Arnold shook his head, disappointed at the bulldozing. He had expected something a bit more entertaining than featureless black dirt rolling under the blade. He looked again at the gray-stone arrowhead—a big thing, as long as his finger—and slipped it into his pocket as he turned to walk back to his truck. Glancing at his watch, he could still meet Harvey Snodgrass at the Delphi café and show off his arrowhead.
    He was watching his razor-toed cowboy boots as they pressed into the damp black earth. The light brown polish looked so clean and fresh against the dirt. That’s when the gleam caught his eye. He bent, reaching down past some of the endless, oddly shaped clay balls, and picked up a little red stone.
    With his thumb, he cleaned the clinging dirt away and stared in surprise. It was a carving. A little red potbellied stone owl. Something about it reminded him of a barred owl.
    Arnold was more than a little intimate with barred owls, having shot his first one when he was fifteen. Not content just to leave it lay, he’d dragged it home to show off to his friends. Someone called the warden. But for quick work with a shovel, they’d have caught him with that owl. It had been closer than a’skeeter’s peter.
    Turning the little red owl, he could almost believe that the craftsman who’d made it had carved a mask on the face. A masked owl? What did that mean?
    Thing was, he couldn’t call up that Dr. Anson and ask. It wasn’t as if they’d parted on good company.
    “Sorry,” he told the little owl. “Reckon your home had to go. Trees got to go down and crops got to go in. People can’t live without farming. It’s the future, little guy.”
    He opened the door on his shiny new pickup, and paused, studying the little owl one last time before he put it in his pocket. “It’s not like your Indians are coming back.”
    Thunder roared so close it was deafening. Arnold jerked his head up to stare at the sky.

    T he lightning bolt flashed white-blue, the clap-bang! startling the soul half out of José Rodriguez’s body where he sat at the Caterpillar’s controls.
    “¡ Madre de dios! ”
    With the afterimage of the flash still burning behind his eyes, José leaped from his idling Cat, and ran. He reached Arnold within moments. Rolling him over, José got his second fright for the day. The lightning bolt had done horrible things to Arnold’s head.
    “Blessed Mother,” he whispered, and backed away.
    José glanced at the tiny red owl that lay in the soil inches from Arnold’s fingers. It glinted in the storm light like a glaring eye.
    José crossed himself, then he stumbled for the open driver’s door of Arnold’s pickup. The cell phone was fried. He had to get to a phone. Fast! As he cranked the wheel and sped away, the rear tires pressed the little red owl back into the rich black soil.

Prologue
    F rom the shadowed mouth of her cave, old Heron stared out past the Tree of Life. Another in the endless cycles passed as the winter broke and the old Dance started again.
    In the far north, the strengthening spring sun released moisture from the winter-banked snows. At the same time, warm winds blew glistening silver bands of rain up from the gulf to fall on the awakening forests. Freshets added their contribution to the flood as it swelled, rippling like flexed muscles along the great rivers that fed the Father Water.
    The waters flowed, draining the continent, swirling and breaching the banks, cutting crevasses through the levees. In places it rerouted the wide span, changing its course, dissecting backswamps and meanders. Where it rushed, soils were scoured and old glacial gravels were lifted and carried along, pattering like hail along