Rise of the Death Walkers (The Circle of Heritage Saga) Read Online Free Page A

darted toward the door. I looked at her and she shook her head.
    “I promised Sam to keep you here Pasche.”
    I groaned and sat back down on the chair hard. “Mimi it’s only two weeks till my birthday. Why can’t I see it now?”
    I heard her chuckle as she placed my eggs and bacon on the table in front of me. “Then it would not be a birthday present, would it?” She turned back to the old cook stove and grabbed a pot of coffee from it. She saw me frown and reached over to tweak my cheek.
    “You realize that in the old days on a boys fifteenth birthday they would wander far up the face of Whiteface Mountain to spend the days before their birthday contemplating and getting in touch with nature.”
    I started eating my breakfast. “I know Mimi I’ve been doing a lot of that lately with Grandpa Sam.” The food my grandmother made each day was better than I was used to. I am not putting my mother’s cooking down. She did what she could with what Roger allowed her to get for food. Here at my grandparents, food was in abundance. I knew I would never see another macaroni soup. This was the favorite dish Roger had my mother prepare for us while he would have pork chops and mashed potatoes. Usually the kids would end up fighting about who would get the last piece of macaroni in the pot.
    She reached over and ruffled up my hair.
    I tried to duck away from her hand and exclaimed. “Mimi your messing up my hair!”
    She smiled at me when I said this.
    “And Sam says you are a natural at it grandson.” She looked over at the door as it swung open and frowned at the red face my grandfather was sporting.
    ”You have been running again you old fool! When are you going to start taking the truck like any sensible Indian your age?” She grabbed up a wooden spoon and waved it in a threatening motion.
    My grandfather grinned at her and said. “The spirits provided me with two feet, woman, long before we had four on the floor and metal held together with duct tape and barbed wire.”
    He stomped his feet, removed his hat and tossed it on the table. He ignored the dirty look my grandmother shot him and sat at the table.
    “Feed me woman so I can get our grandson to school.” He drank from the cup of coffee she poured for him and looked at me.
    “Well Pasche, are you ready for your big day?”
    I rolled my eyes at him and shot back.
    “I’m ready but not willing. I learn more when I’m in the woods with you for one hour than I do in a whole day in school.”
    “I will never get used to this new fangled contraction stuff you children talk in. I promised your mother you would get a good education grandson, and we do not go back on a promise.”
    He looked at me sternly. “There will be time enough after school for us to commune with the woods. You are going to help me expand the back yard. We need more room with you here now.”
    I knew what he meant by that. He’d told me the first day here that we didn’t take from nature without asking first and when we took something we always gave something in return. We had spent the past week on old Thompson’s farm rebuilding the old damn the rainfalls of the spring season had torn down.
    “Why do we need a bigger back yard Grandfather?”
    He smiled at me and said. “That is where we are going to build your room boy. No grandson of mine is going to be stuck in a little room in the attic.” He reached over and tousled my hair. “Now finish your breakfast and I will get you to school before I start my day’s work.”
    I did as he said while I contemplated what he would be doing that day. My grandfather ran two of the biggest gas stations on the reservation. He was planning on building one of them bigger and offering some of the crafts my grandmother and great aunts made to the white people who drove to the reservation for cheaper gas.
    He was also building a third station on the east end of the reservation to cover the traffic from that end of the highway. I already knew the