Stone Song Read Online Free Page A

consciousness itself more vibrant.
    Curly knew: This earth, this horse and rider, these grasses and trees, this sky and clouds were not the ordinary ones of every day, but the ones that live …
    He was seeing beyond, seeing in a sacred way.
    As though to offer proof, the pony changed from his pinto, the one hobbled by the sunpole tree, into a bay. And then into an appaloosa, a slate-blue grulla, a strawberry roan, and other colors in succession. Like a statement: “I am not a horse, but Horse. And luminous—aglow—for you who have eyes to see.”
    Curly looked closely at the rider, bright as a shining stone you held in your hand, one you turned to study its every facet. His hair was the color of light sand, and he wore it long and loose far below his waist. His hair was ornamented by a few beads and only one eagle feather, a feather hung upside down, in the position of the war eagle when it is about to kill. The rider’s face and body bore no paint. He had on a shirt of pale deerskin and blue leggings, both unadorned. Yes, unadorned, though he seemed to be a man in the fullness of maturity.
    He did have medicine. Behind his left ear was tied a small stone, Inyan. Beneath his left shoulder, slung over a thong from the opposite shoulder, one eagle feather adorned another stone creature, Inyan.
    Into shadows rode the rider, forever and forever into shadows.
    From the velvety blue-gray of these shadows came enemy fire, streaks flashing toward the rider, fast and dangerous, maybe arrows, maybe bullets. They flashed toward him, ominous in the air. But before touching his flesh they disappeared. Like raindrops from a high thundercloud over desert, they evaporated before striking the earth’s flesh. None tore his skin, none broke his bones, none shed his blood.
    A man of great power, bullet-proof. Then why unadorned?
    Now the rider—Rider—was stripped to nothing but a breechcloth and rode harder, faster, in a martial vigor. But hands flailed at him, clutched at him from behind, slowed him down. He tossed his arms backward like a man slinging off a tangling shirt. The hands kept pulling at him, holding him back, the hands of his own people. He felt threat in them. He shook them off and shook them off and rode on and rode on, but the hands did not relent. Rider shook and shook and shook at them. He feared the hands behind more than the bullets before.
    Behind Rider a thunderstorm erupted. Dark clouds boiled, lightning flashed and gave birth to sound. A zigzag of lightning marred Rider’s cheek like a wound. Hail spots welted his body.
    Into clouds and shadows rode the rider, forever and forever into clouds and shadows.
    The storm cleared, the hail spots faded, the day shone bright as polished metal. Horse and man flew forward. A hubbub of people rose up around him like a storm, his own people, talking and murmuring and grabbing at him. Over his head flew a hawk—a red-tailed hawk—and she cawed forth her warning to the world, KEE-ur, KEE-ur, KEE-ur, harsh and atavistic.
    On flew Horse and Rider into the shadows, hooves floating above the earth, forever and ever on, as the hawk cried KEE-ur, KEE-ur above Rider’s head.
    In his chest Curly felt Hawk lift her wings and turn into the wind. She merged with the red-tailed hawk, and they were one. The weight within his ribs eased. In the whip of the wind, reckless and free, his heart ringed up the sky.
LOOKING AT THE SACRED DREAM
    He lay there limp, his body profoundly stilled, his mind filled with a wonderful clarity, sweet and cool, like floating underwater in a crystalline stream.
    It had not been a dream. He saw it all with his eyes open. He didn’t see it obscurely, as if looking through a shard of creek ice, as he did some dreams. On the contrary, it was more vivid, brighter, more colorful than the world. More real than the world.
    He lay there seeing it again in memory, savoring the details. He didn’t try to decipher it yet, to sort out whatever meaning it might have for