Shadow Valley Read Free

beard speckled his narrow cheeks.
    Only he and Sky Woman had survived the climb of Great Sky—although to save his honor they had lied and said Uncle Snake had completed it as well. Now Sky Woman shared his hut, and together they led twice ten tens of Ibandi northward to a new life in new lands.
    By twos and fives the Ibandi walked behind them, through drought-stunted acacia trees and across cracked riverbeds littered with dead branches and bleached bones.
    Once those bones had held flesh, enough flesh to feed their grumbling stomachs.
    Bones that had once been living creatures, and that now pointed the way to the death awaiting all men.
    “Come!” Frog called over his shoulder. “We shelter before the sun dies.”
    A small boy walked near him. The boy was thin, with a bald spot on the right side of his head and bright, questing eyes. Frog knew him as Bat Wing.The boy and his mother were from the Wind boma. As they walked, the boy studied every bush, every stone, every dung beetle and mantis, his moon face seldom less than merry and inquisitive.
    Frog had rarely seen the boy without a smile of welcome or curiosity. Had he himself ever been so light of spirit? Could he ever be again?
    Bat Wing glanced back over his shoulder at the ten or so family groups in easy sight. Others were straggling along farther back. “Will we wait for Sky Woman?”
    Frog forced himself to shrug. “She will find us.”
    Before the sun had moved a finger toward the horizon, they came upon the sparsely grassed banks of a trickling stream. A weeping wattle tree’s spreading branches webbed the ground with shade. Careful to avoid ant nests and sharp rocks, they set their lean-toms and skin rolls for the night.
    During rest times, food was shared within and between families. Whether the wanderers originated in Fire or Earth or Wind bomas, all now stood within the same circle, walking toward unknown horizons.
    Just before the sun touched the western horizon, Frog went to find his mother, Gazelle Tears. She and his younger brother were on the far side of the shallow bowl chosen for the night’s camping, near a tumble of fallen trees. He had just greeted her when a boisterous shout reverberated through the hills.
“Stillshado w!”
came the cry. “They are back! The dream dancers have returned!”
    Worry flew from his heart. “At last.”
    His mother squatted at the side of their new fire, feeding it twigs. “You were afraid?” she asked. Time had sharpened his mother’s shoulders and cheekbones. Her hair was streaked with gray but not yet white. Nor had she clipped that hair short as many other Ibandi women do when the loss of their moon-blood signaled entrance to the elders’ circle.
    “Of course not.” The lie slipped from his tongue so quickly that he barely tasted it. It would not do to have his people know how heavy his heart grew whenever his love left his sight.
    He was soon directed to the stream just south of the camp, where it burbled across mossy green rocks. There he found T’Cori and Stillshadow, filling gourds with fresh water. Game tracks dappled the ground around them. Perhaps this was the place they had sought?
    T’Cori smiled up at him, but continued to busy herself with some little game that she and her teacher had been playing. To Frog, that smile had always been like the birth of a new sun.
    To some, T’Cori seemed a sparrow. But Frog was not deceived by the long fine bones in her forearms and thighs. She was stronger than anyhunter, any champion of the wrestling circle. Her strength, not his, had carried them to the top of Great Sky.
    Her gleaming hair cascaded to her shoulders in tightly woven braids. Her hairline descended slightly at the center of her forehead. Like most dream dancers, she wore a deerskin covering both her breasts and her sexual organs.
    All human beings had seven eyes: two on the face, two in the palms, one in each foot, and one in the the sexual organs—the seventh eye, the most powerful and