Canyons Read Online Free Page B

“Isn’t it pretty here?”
    Bill turned and smiled at them. “It’s like a calendar picture, isn’t it?”
    And it was almost sweet. Even the monsters stopped and were quiet for a moment or two. In the sudden silence Brennan heard birds singing and felt the sun on his neck. It had been hot but there was a coolness in the evening air thatfelt refreshing. Brennan lowered his pack and sleeping bag and two other bags and packs he’d been carrying for the younger boys.
    “Is this it?” he asked, looking up and around. They were in the end of a box canyon and the walls rose above them making a huge amphitheater. The kids had been yelling and whistling for half an hour, listening to the echoes, but in their silence Brennan could hear himself breathe.
    Without knowing quite why, he held his breath.
    And in that instant something about the place took him, came into him and held his thoughts. Something he couldn’t understand. Some pull, some reaching and pulling thing that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
    He looked to see if any of the others felt it but they didn’t seem to. Bill was still holding his arms out and smiling, the kids were beginning to move again, and his mother was in the act of dropping her pack on the ground and blowing hair out of her eyes.
    He let his eyes move up and around the canyon again but could see nothing out of the ordinary. The rock cliffs towered over them, blocking the sun off so that now though it was still light they were in shade and it became almost cool.
    Birds flew across the canyon. High overhead an eagle caught a thermal and wheeled out of sight past the edge of the canyon wall.
    He shook his head. Strange, the feeling, he’d never had it before and now it was gone. Somebody was saying something and he looked down and saw Bill nodding.
    “Yes. This is where we spend the night, where we camp. Let’s get wood for a fire and make some dinner. I’m sure everyone is starved, aren’t we, boys?”
    The monsters started screaming and running in circles grabbing sticks and Brennan had to fight to keep from yelling at them.
    It was going to be a long, looong night.

7

Visions

    He did well.
    During the night they went past a camp of bluebellies who had stopped on one of their patrols and Coyote Runs did well.
    There were only eight of the bluebellies and they had a large fire as they always did to keep away the darkness so it was easy to see them and count them and would have been easy to kill them but Sancta shook his head.
    Not this time. They stood for a time not a long bowshot from the soldiers and their fire, pinching their horses’ muzzles so they would not make sounds to the soldiers’ horses, so close the glow from the fire lit their faces, and could have gone in amongst them. Coyote Runs had his bow ready, an arrow on the string, andknew he could hit one and maybe another soldier as they rode in, knew it in his heart but Sancta said no.
    Shaking his head once, a jerk from side to side that they could not miss and the old leader turned and led his horse back into the night.
    And Coyote Runs brought his pony around and led it silently in back of Magpie and did not shoot an arrow at the camp, as he wished, but held back though his neck was stiff and swollen with the need to go amongst the soldiers.
    They rode all night. There were no watering places for the horses but they had carried water in clay pots tied to their horses’ blankets and stopped to walk and moisten the horses’ mouths to keep them moving.
    Twice Coyote Runs’ pony seemed about to go down and he filled his mouth with water and spit it down the horse’s throat so it would not waste out the side of the horse’s mouth and the pony kept moving and he thought:
    I am doing it. I am doing well. I am a man.
    They rode all that night until the ridge led to a flat place with dead grass that seemed to go forever and here they stopped and made a cold camp.
    They did not stay more than three hours, enough