Read Online Sacred Is the Wind by Kerry Newcomb - Free Book Online

a beaded buckskin dress, worn smooth, soft-looking. A necklace of porcupine quills and blue trading beads circled her throat.
    â€œMy mother, this is Panther Burn, the son of Yellow Eagle,” Rebecca said.
    â€œSo you are the one,” Star replied. She stared at Panther Burn; a look of apprehension crossed her face. Panther Burn shifted uncomfortably. At last the older woman spoke. “I will tell White Bull, our chief, of your arrival. It is good he should know.” She placed her hand upon his leg and fixed him with her unwavering gaze. “What have you brought, Northerner? Ah, never mind. You cannot know. Full bellies and lovemaking are the only visions of the young.” She chuckled. “Well, Northerner, there will always be a place at our cookfire for you.”
    â€œNe-a-ese,” said Panther Burn, at a loss for words.
    â€œNo need to thank me,” Star replied, eyes suddenly twinkling, a derisive tone in her voice as she glanced over at Samuel Madison. “It’s what any ‘Christian’ would do.” She started off through the village in search of Simon White Bull. Several women emerged from their cabins to gather about her to learn what she had learned about the new arrival.
    Panther Burn looked at Rebecca a moment more, holding her gaze with his own, then he turned his horse and walked away toward his uncle’s cabin.
    The door to the cabin swung ajar, pressed by the invisible hand of a summer breeze. A couple of chickens scratched and pecked at the rain-damp earth, clucked suspiciously at Panther Burn as he dismounted and ground-tethered his stallion. The chickens scattered as the brave stepped up to the door, leaned into the shadowy interior.
    â€œBeartusk?” he said in a soft voice. Something stirred in the darkness, trotted toward him. A mongrel dog, its short bristly fur the color of dried corn, stuck its muzzle into the daylight and sniffed Panther Burn’s leggings. The man in the doorway reached down and scratched the dog’s neck and scarred ears.
    â€œWho have you been fighting today, old dog?” Panther Burn chuckled.
    â€œWho has he mated with today would be the better question,” a voice said from the interior of the cabin. “Who is it? What man comes to my door?”
    â€œThe son of Yellow Eagle,” Panther Burn replied. “Have I changed all that much since our people renewed themselves by the banks of the Graybull?”
    â€œNo. I have.”
    Panther Burn shoved the door farther open until an expanding rectangle of sunlight spread across his uncle’s wrinkled features where he sat at a table, dressed in a worn woolen shirt and trousers tucked into battered brown boots. Scraggly gray hair hung to his neck. A clay bottle and two cups rested on the tabletop. He waved in the general direction of the door and then reached down and took up a cup on the second try. His other hand crept across the splintery surface of the table until it discovered a clay bottle, then gingerly he poured the cup full of potent-smelling spirits.
    â€œUncle, what has happened?” Panther Burn entered the cabin and crossed to the table, tripping, as he walked, over the worn-out shell of a tribal drum. The gut head hung in dry brittle tatters. Panther Burn nudged it aside with his foot and continued to the table. He sat on the three-legged stool opposite Joshua Beartusk. “Uncle … what has become of the Circle?”
    â€œBroken,” Joshua replied, sliding the cup toward his nephew and then filling a second for himself. He smiled, revealing a row of yellow teeth. “Old Warrior!” The dog, lying in the doorway, clambered to its feet and padded over to its master, placing its head in Joshua’s lap to be petted and scratched. When Joshua finished, the animal stretched itself out on its side at the old man’s feet. “We live as the white man now,” Joshua continued. “We take his Christian names, we