The Last Skywatchers

By Mary Schultz

For Chumash and Tongva people of the Southern California coast and valleys, the world unravels as catholic missions stretch their influence from the Los Angeles basin eastward. Gallop ahead through three generations as this western frontier novel from an Arizona author unfolds. Villages pit themselves against invading settler-evangelists and their escort soldiers. Fierce battles arise. And something rivals newly discovered gold in value--the land. In this coming of age family saga, only the secret supernatural knowledge of Skywatchers can ensure ongoing life.

“Powerful and exquisitely researched, exuding the culture of the people..." Spur award-winning author Richard S. Wheeler

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Schultz
• Release date: Jan 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310946851

Mary Schultz

An incurable traveler, Mary Schultz has trekked Chile’s Atacama Desert and Easter Island to learn about the visual astronomy of ancient peoples. Together with her husband, she has explored the Mayan ruins of Mexico and Central America, lived and sailed aboard a 41 ft. ketch, and camped from Alaska to the Panama Canal. Mary Schultz’ personal essays have been anthologized: When A Life Mate Dies: Stories of Love, Loss and Healing (Healing with Words Series) by Susan Heinlein; her short fiction has appeared in Yokoi, the Bozeman, Montana occasional arts magazine, and the Mendocino Review to name a few. If you are familiar with Apple Computer, City of Hope, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, publications focused on software solutions for architecture, engineering and construction, and Total Gym, over decades you have likely read Mary’s award-winning advertising & marketing writing.

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Preface

When I felt the strong grip of talons on my arm, felt the beating of wings above my head, I knew my work had begun. For the Condor is a messenger from ones more powerful than I.

Here then begins a chronicle of my People, from before my birth in the stories told to me about preserving the sacred, through the three years of drought when the oaks refused to bear.

In recounting these events, I strive for truth, but truth is elusive and time is a shadow. What matters is the complete resignation of my soul. For in the stripping away of all the pride that seemed my self, many unforeseen things came to pass.

Dolores

Prologue

The Moon of Brown-and-Sear,

Year of the Condor

Saturday, August 5, 1769

Mamish, the Skywatcher's ward, halted his work of sinew-binding a chunk of quartz to a long straight stick. The child of eleven summers cocked his head and sniffed the breeze near the sacred warmspring pond. News from the coast was on its way. He could smell it. He set his project aside with every intention of returning to it.

The aroma of souring shellfish, drying bonito and mackerel spilled down the hillside in the summer afternoon heat and settled around the willow and thatch huts of the village of Uchungna.

Ahishkan, the fisherman-trader from the closest of the Channel Islands, strode down the rocky slope littered with broad-leafed cactus. He and his party of visitors entered a walnut grove. A pack-laden yoke sat on his wide shoulders.

When Mamish caught sight of the islanders, he ran toward the spring where his aged, blind mentor gathered herbs.

As Mamish sped through the grassy field beyond the river, he came upon a bow-hunter with a decoy made from the head and antlers of the Deer poised on his shoulders. The man set down his bow. He withdrew his blade, hastily gutted his killed doe and cut out her tongue.

Mamish asked, What are you doing?

The hunter answered, Collecting an offering to the Skywatcher. He slung the carcass onto his back and headed toward the visitors who'd come the half-day's hike from the coast to barter their wares.

Pul Moar, the Moon Priest, healer-astronomer and Skywatcher to the Uchungna people, set down his basket and rested against a sloping rose-colored boulder, one pocked from generations of young boys’ target practice with slender, asphalt-tipped arrows. He chewed on a long strand of sour grass. Dragonflies buzzed over the sacred warmspring pond.

Ahishkan is here! He has fish! May I go? Mamish waited, as was his duty.

Pul Moar considered for a long moment. It was a ritual, this making Mamish wait for everything, including permission. You go, he finally said.

Mamish ran into their hut and searched through his belongings for the strand of money beads his parents had given him at their parting. He found the white clamshells made by the village shell-money carver, all uniformly filed into tiny flat disks smaller than his smallest fingernail. Proud to have money for trading, he draped the string around his neck.

He took care not to catch the shells in the band of wrist feathers the dream visitor, Falcon, had given him. The command the Falcon gave him with the sacred feathers, in exchange for guidance and protection in travel, was to report what you see, and only what you see. Mamish had yet to travel anywhere, and he hadn't yet seen anything worth reporting. Pul Moar would have told him if he had. Pul Moar never missed an opportunity to tell Mamish to be quiet, listen and wait.

Mamish ran up the hill to where the tall, sea-weathered Ahishkan and the other ocean-going people displayed their wares. Strings of mackerel and albacore hung between the low-lying branches of a walnut tree and a prickly valley oak.

The boy raised his chin and howled the customary coyote call. Yaw-hoo, Ahishkan, this village hasn't seen you since before the Longest Night.

Oa nahacua, Ahishkan answered in the customary greeting. Tales of your Season of Rains have traveled to us, even on the islands. We hear of a boy who now wears ever-bright Falcon feathers, and who falls from jagged cliffs without breaking bones. He looked to Mamish's wrist bracelet of feathers. I see the reports about my young friend are true. And to think I used to impress you with my stories . . .

Mamish smiled at Ahishkan to say, I'll always relish stories of your travels. He sidled up close and waited for Ahishkan to tousle his hair as he did every visit, but this time the man refrained from touching him.

Ahishkan arranged baskets of clams and mussels. Their sweet acid smell vied for Mamish's attention with the mellow crab and sharper smell of shrimp. The man laid a basket of smelt on the ground. Mamish resisted the impulse to grab one and bite into it.

The rockfish, the albacore smelled to Mamish like the drying blood of the rabbits he often killed with his curved makana stick. He fingered the teeth in the gaping mouth of an albacore, then touched its exposed eye and ran his finger down its gill. He could taste the fish, though a whole season of rains had passed since he'd had any.

The young grandmother and village midwife, Hamisar, her back bowed from a lifetime of gathering plant fibers for making twine, digging roots and grinding acorn meal, sauntered up to the grove where Ahishkan artfully arranged his catch.

Mud slides covered the trails from the coast, Ahishkan. We count it good fortune you've found your way to us, she said. The way the black tattoos on her chin stretched with her smile told Mamish how genuinely pleased she was to see the visitor.

My plank canoe always finds its way to a handful of captivating women such as you, the man said with a broad grin. I bring soapstone from my home, and otter pelts from the north. He opened a pack and laid dark shiny pelts on the grass under the trees.

If you had claimed me long ago when we were young, you could have seen my smile every day, Hamisar teased. But another won me and my husband Kihut, for a man his age, is powerful with . . . shoulders . . . this wide and stamina to match. She extended her hands apart to measure a distance of an arm length.

Ahishkan smiled wryly and said, Alas, I regret I'm a humble fisherman with no such remarkable attributes.

Mamish suspected they shared a joke, but he couldn't understand it and didn't much care. He watched Ahishkan's muscular hands, and thought they must be extraordinary to build and caulk canoes that rode the wide ocean water. The boy lifted one of the pelts, examining the clean scraped hide beneath.

You flatterer, Hamisar said. Hurry now. Give us news from the Topangna and the Maliwuu.

Villagers came from their tasks, money beads draped around their necks and their arms laden with dried meat, caulked baskets and wooden carved effigies. They came to see Ahishkan and barter for his fish. Hamisar fingered the largest of the rock cod. She poked its belly, testing for firmness.

Mamish trusted her to know how to buy the freshest one, and he wanted the best of the catch to take home to Pul Moar.

I choose this one, Mamish said. He reached up and touched the same fish. The woman immediately released it. Her clenched jaw revealed she wanted it for herself, yet she recognized that Mamish's choice now took precedence. Pul Moar, with the sanction of elders from all the surrounding villages, had chosen Mamish to be his successor. And Pul Moar alone, as Skywatcher of his People, had the power to intercede with Sun himself and pivot the seasons from winter to spring.

Ahishkan handed the boy the rock cod, avoiding a brush with the bracelet of feathers.

Yes, this is the one, Mamish repeated. His back straightened tall as he realized his claim to the fish had meaning. He measured lengths of smooth money shells against his own outstretched hand. He longed to eat, but he couldn't bear to return to Pul Moar for fear of missing the news.

Ahishkan pushed the money beads back toward Mamish's chest and grunted, pursing his lips.

I, Ahishkan of the Island Pipimar, wouldn't tempt the power of Pul Moar by taking your money. What you claim, Mamish, you own.

Mamish's chest swelled. He looked into Ahishkan's eyes, nodding appreciation, aware for the first time what becoming Pumal, the priest’s apprentice, could mean. He would, after his future initiation, be responsible for healing, for reading the sky signs and his People's history as painted in the cave, Window-to-the-Sun, and for making decisions for the People.

A man with wrinkles that riddled his face like a walnut shell stepped close and said, Your prices are high, Ahishkan. You gouge us grasslanders.

Quit your incessant complaining, Kyuvish, Hamisar said. You hail from the islands. You were a carver of planks for canoes. You must want to hear from the ocean-goers. Now, Ahishkan, tell us about the world on the islands and the coast.

Ahishkan turned his attention to her and the others.

Ah, it is news you want. Well, the mud killed many from my village during the rains. Ahishkan's hand made a broad swooping gesture, then a cutting motion as he spoke in his own dialect. The catch has been quite poor. The storms washed oddities ashore. There were strangers and more of them come. They arrive in huge canoes with tall trees sprouting out of them. They ride the ocean water, with many men on them.

Did you see these men? the bow-hunter asked, his quiver tied above his loincloth with one leather thong.

I've seen their trees floating on the water, with what looks like clouds attached, catching the wind and pulling them along. But I also hear of these same kinds of men on land along the southern coast. They have pale skin like newts and sickly eyes with no color. They build a village. They have animals, taller than Deer. They sit atop these beasts and ride. He straddled a fallen oak limb to demonstrate.

Mamish etched every word the man said into his memory.

I've heard of creatures like that, said Hamisar. They're part man and part animal, she gestured to her waistline, indicating where the man left off and the animal began.

You'd think that to look at them, so I hear, Ahishkan corrected her. In truth, the men do step down and walk. These men with white skin also have their chests bound with hard coverings, like beetles.

Does this grow out of their skin? Kyuvish asked. The creases around his eyes deepened. He rested a hand on the shoulder of one of his young sons.

I think not, Ahishkan said. But I can't be certain. I wasn't that close. This much is certain. They carry poles that spit smoke and fire. The stick makes a huge noise, like Tacquich, the ball lightning from Two Thunders. And at that noise, when the stick is pointed toward an animal, the animal drops dead. Yes, dead. This is what the People to the far south tell me.

Does it frighten the animal to death? Or does it shoot lightning? Mamish asked. He needed accurate understanding to report to Pul Moar.

Ahishkan looked aside and didn't answer right away. Mamish suspected the man hesitated because he'd been stretching the truth, enjoying his enraptured audience. Then the visiting islander must have recollected that Mamish was to be Pumal. No one knew yet if the boy could read thoughts the way the old man seemed to do.

It could be either, Ahishkan said. He picked up a straight stick with one hand and a handful of dusty clay soil with the other.

Baum. Baum! he shouted. He thrust the stick forward and tossed the dust skyward. Hamisar and the bow-hunter laughed at Ahishkan's antics.

And they carry images of their gods, who they say are more powerful than the Giver-of-Life, Ahishkan added in a serious tone.

Mamish attempted to conceal his uneasiness. This story was less and less appealing to report to Pul Moar.

He shuddered and looked around to the faces of the others. They laughed at Ahishkan's pantomime, apparently less disturbed by his last bit of news about gods more powerful than the Giver-of-Life than they were about sticks that belch fire.

It's of no importance. They're merely an oddity, Ahishkan said. I wouldn't care to see one up close, myself. They sound so ugly; their looks probably caused my poor catch, he laughed, and the others laughed with him, except Mamish.

The spring months of Roots and Young-Eagles-Flying gave way to the summer Season of Frogs and the hotter Brown-and-Sear Month. One night while the air lay still and heavy, frogs croaked and bellowed their songs all around the pond where the sacred warmspring flowed. The tule marsh vibrated with them. At the northernmost rim of the village where the river narrowed and the willows grew thick, the village boys, except Mamish, captured the slippery green creatures and skipped them like flat stones across the water. The frogs agile enough to escape the game would quickly bolt into the ferns beside the cool mossy banks.

In the daytime, the stream bank beneath the cottonwoods and alders provided the only cool spot near the village. Everywhere else, Sun parched the clay soil and the skins of the People. Dust hung in the air with every footstep. Flies buzzed and darted, sniping. The Flea pulsed in the sleeping mats, waiting for the weary to lie down and provide a feast of human blood.

Smoke filled the air. A neighbor who always cowered in the presence of his jowly wife lit his hut afire and prepared to build a new one. Soon the others would do the same, to be rid of the flea infestation for a time.

When the Evening Star chased Sun away at the end of day, Mamish felt some relief from the heat. But inside the hut this night, the air stifled like a blanket over his face.

Mamish lay on his tule mat and slapped at a flea. His leg itched furiously. He scratched until the fiery bite turned to a throbbing hot welt. Then, he rolled over. As a way of returning to sleep he named the frogs whose voices he heard. Then, the frog voices stopped. Silence hung all across the valley floor.

Itaru, the Coyote, howled from the hills. Yelps of all the coyote brothers filled the air. Tobangnar, the Earth, rumbled. The ground pitched, rising, and then sinking abruptly. The smoke hole in the ceiling spun in a wide ungainly circle as if trying to center itself under the light of the Moon. Mamish awoke. His mouth surged with saliva. He felt a sense of nausea as real as if the Mountain Lion were snarling at the entrance to his hut. He was overtaken with fear.

Mamish uttered the forbidden curse, Niomare!

His stomach lurched. He grasped for something to steady himself by, but everything was in motion.

Pul Moar sat up, clutching the edges of his woven bed as it rose upward. Small heating stones rolled across the floor. Baskets fell and stone bowls rocked and toppled, clacking violently as they skidded into each other.

Pul Moar, Mamish shouted as he crawled toward the old man.

Again the ground swayed, then jolted, knocking Mamish face first onto the floor.

Pul Moar, take my hand, he said, attempting to stand once more. He got his footing, reached for Pul Moar and helped him up. The wailing of the coyotes stopped, replaced with the cries of the littlest village children.

Let me take you outside, Mamish said. He could smell his own fear and Pul Moar's in the contained space of their home.

No, Pul Moar answered. It's forbidden. Spirits roam.

Should I start the morning fire? Mamish wanted to do something constructive, anything at all.

No, boy, said Pul Moar. The dew hasn't yet fallen.

With that, the ground shuddered a third time. Pul Moar fell against the thatch interior wall. Mamish tumbled back onto the stones of their cold fire pit. He scrambled to his feet and grabbed Pul Moar's hand, tugging the old man and saying, We can't stay here.

In the dark outside the hut, Mamish heard a crashing sound, and then a roar as rocks tumbled from the hills above them.

Pul Moar, come. Pulling the old man, Mamish ran toward the river, away from the spring, away from the mountains.

The sound of the rockslide grew louder, louder than the waterfall over the cave, Window-to-the-Sun, during the recent rains. Stones and boulders cascaded onto the valley floor. One boulder, half the height of Mamish, ricocheted down the hillside, careening with a growing wall of stones the size of fists and skulls. The stone bounded along the path forged by the slide, leveling a dozen alder saplings. It raced through a blackberry thicket and flew, gaining momentum, toward the perimeter of the village and at last, it smashed into the hut of Pul Moar, crushing the wall nearest where Mamish always slept.

Mamish released the old Skywatcher's hand and ran to the side of the hut where only moments ago he had lain. He felt his wrist feathers, bowed to the four corners, to Funi the North, Kitami the South, Crumi the East, and Paymi the West. He trembled with gratitude that he hadn't been crushed.

Mamish whispered to Pul Moar, Old man, you said 'No, don't go outside.' Did you want me dead?

Why do you ask such a thing? Pul Moar said.

The boulder came to rest where I sleep. Take my hand. I'll have you feel.

I don't need to feel the piece of the mountain to know where it sits even now. I have ears, Mamish. I hear things you can't hear.

Mamish tilted his head, staring at the old man in the faint light of the Shushiyot, the Skypeople who in life walked the Earth and who were now stars shining in the night sky.

And I've trusted you to know things others can't know. I thought you knew all things, Pul Moar.

Mamish thought to himself, 'If you know all things, Old Man, you truly must want me dead.' But respectfully he asked, Didn't you know the Earth would shake and our home would be destroyed?

Do you think I make the Earth tremble? The Earth is the Earth. She was our mother long before Pul Moar lived. Mamish, you are a thickheaded boy and I take you as my apprentice only because you show more promise than any of the others. But will I have the time to teach you what you must learn? That is my challenge.

The villagers gathered near Pul Moar.

Listen! Only Pul Moar can interpret what this earth-shaking means, Kihut said. He wrapped a muscular arm around his wife, Hamisar, and pulled her close. His heavy silver hair and bare wide shoulders shone in the moonlight.

The giants who hold the world on their shoulders grow very restless, Pul Moar said. Mamish and I will appease them when morning breaks. Make silence now. Quiet the children. Don't speak until we see Sun again.

Mamish tiptoed into the remains of their hut and removed what bedding wasn't wedged under the boulder. Outside by the sacred warmspring pond, he laid out a mat for Pul Moar. Then, he lay on the soft clay bank. But he didn't sleep.

Instead, Mamish tried to smother the evening's terror with a tumble of images from earlier days. He revisited the look on Ahishkan's face when the man recollected having heard about Mamish's fall from the cliff wall, when the boy plummeted through the rainy season waterfall. No one but Pul Moar knew that when Mamish had awakened, a dream visitor was bent over him. The bird-woman's eyes, human at first, had bulged gold and deep brown like those of his Atishwin, the Falcon. Above him the woman-bird's head sprouted mottled feathers, her nose and jaw hardened, forming a beak, and the beak opened, spilling words:

While you slept a canker festered,

While you slept a fever burned.

Footsore, light-eyed sick ones come.

Wide wings fanned the fire, and the warmth eased the paralyzing pain that kept Mamish motionless. He opened and closed his eyes again, hearing the voice command:

Walk among them,

Destroy their young.

If we should live

It must be done.

Who are they? Mamish thought. He tried to speak but remained mute.

You'll know them by the black sticky tar, the sanot, they wade in. Dry grasses cling to their feet.

Feet are so cold, Mamish thought. He tried to raise his head to look at his feet but his head felt too heavy.

The old woman's hand rolled an egg across his forehead, an egg dusted with ashes.

Our mother Earth heals you while you sleep, she said.

Old woman, you keep changing, Mamish's voice was hoarse.

Her voice flowed thin and reedy, like wind in the cattails on the pond.

Many things change, she said. And much remains the same. The Giver-of-Life remains the Giver-of-Life. Earth teaches us what we must learn and we take from her and give to her in kind. You will become Pumal.

Mamish rested his head on the dry ground. He felt sun-flecks of light filter between the branches overhead.

Clouds took shape and blew away. Stars—countless Skypeople—shone through the swaying branches overhead. The bird-woman's fire burned night and day. Mamish came and went from sleep to gruel to sleep again. He couldn't count how many days. And when he awakened able to sit, the feather-clad grandmother and her fire were gone. Only cold, charred embers had remained in the circle of stones, and he had never seen that being again.

At first light after the quake, Pul Moar and Mamish hiked high into the hills. Mamish listened as ring-necked doves called to each other. A woodpecker tapped in the distance. In the loamy soil under the manzanitas, a pocket mouse scurried to his den. Then, higher up the slope, a coyote ran into the thickets of sage, taking cover from the boy and the old man.

While they strode, Mamish recited the words of the dream song Falcon had given him:

The rope of the world is breaking apart.

Wear these feathers, wear these feathers.

A few will fight with all their might.

Many will quiet like ducks on the water I fly over. Wear these feathers.

Across the mountains, across the water,

Wear these feathers in the heart of the desert.

These feathers guide you home and home again.

He followed the old man, puzzling over the earthquake, and the landslide, and Pul Moar.

How will we appease the giants, Pul Moar? You didn't ask me to carry anything. What will we use?

We don't need to carry anything, Pul Moar said.

At the crest of the mountains, the old man stopped. I rest now, he said to Mamish, and Mamish led him to a wide ledge beside the trail where he could sit down on a flat boulder.

Pul Moar, Mamish said, finally building enough courage to say to the Skywatcher, I thought you knew all things.

I know many things. Not all things. Earth is restless. The giants toss and turn in their sleep. Do you think our mother Earth cares what I think when she's restless?

But you foretell.

You were present on the last Longest Night, Mamish. It was the Longest Night of the Condor Year. You saw how little I foretold.

You predicted an imbalance, a struggle.

Mamish, each year in the month of Cold-and-Hunting, on the night of longest darkness, we, the People, are the stakes in a battle that rages between Tamit the Sun and Romi the Sky Coyote. All the People know this. On that night, Sun tugs at his tie to Earth. If luck and the Skywatcher's skill attend Sky Coyote, the northern star, then Sun's tether won't break . . .

Mamish's mind raced. His job, his future responsibility would be to harness the very Sun! The thought overwhelmed him.

Pul Moar took Mamish's chin in his hand to force the boy's attention on his words. The nights grow shorter, the days longer. Wenot the Rain comes to our hills, and with it fresh grasses for the Deer and the Rabbit, a rich harvest of the Acorn, and the Trout of the streams. The Skywatcher, you, someday, must foretell when food and water will come again, and how much there will be, and when to hunt and gather.

Mamish couldn't imagine how he could possibly live up to the task of predicting and ensuring the very livelihood of the People.

Rains did come, Mamish said in an attempt to feel reassured.

But long before those rains, on the last Longest Night, something terrible happened. I will tell you. Never tell anyone else.

Tell no one? Why tell me?

You need to know. You won't understand now, but you will in time. We'll not speak of this again. Remember the night the Falcon awakened you and proposed to be your Atishwin, your Spirit Guide, and then you found your way to the sacred cave, Window-to-the-Sun?

Yes.

That same night, while all the elders of my council of the Puplem waited in the lower chamber for my invitation to join me in the smaller cave above, I . . . Pul Moar lowered his eyes. He stared at the ground, took a breath, hesitated again. I . . . raised the Sunstone as is my command, raised it above my head. It . . . he paused. It slipped. It fell from my hands.

Mamish's fingertips felt the scrape of sandstone, and he heard the thud of a heavy stone falling onto the bare cave floor. His breath flew out of his mouth as if stolen by a shooting-star cannibal spirit.

It fell to the ground? Mamish gasped.

Yes. Pul Moar squinted and peered off toward the mountains. "Then, you told me the dream song the Falcon gave you, 'The rope of the world is breaking apart.' And that is why I know the earthquake is a sign.

But it's not my fault! Mamish cried, wondering how he could ever make right what went so terribly wrong.

No. That same Longest Night, however, I did capture Sun against his will with a tether of light from the sacred crystal, Tears-of-the-Sun . . . Pul Moar held out the smoky quartz crystal that hung on a thong around his neck, Sun cursed us, cursed me, and stole my sight. Lightning cracked before my eyes. They darkened. I heard a voice no one else could hear. It said, 'The People will not live with my light. The Earth will remain, just as Sky Coyote will remain. But you,' it said, 'the boils and scabs you'll see. I'll have the blood of you, the heart of the seed of the best of you. This land where you hunted and gathered will no longer be occupied by you alone, and your People will forget they are linked to the Sky. The warmspring will run. The rains will come. My tears will fall. There! I have settled my debts with you.

At first, as Pul Moar revealed his secret, Mamish felt angry with Pul Moar. After all, the old one was the Skywatcher, with all the privileges only the Skywatcher received. Then, when Mamish saw the sorrow and shame etched in the old man's expression, he felt sympathy. And pride, for the old man cared for his People more than he cared for himself, and Mamish was the one honored to be his apprentice.

Wasn't there anything you could do to change Sun's mind? Mamish asked.

Ah, see? You are a bright boy after all. None of the others would think of that. Yes, I tried. I begged respectfully, Sun, we honor you on the Longest Night, and in the summer on the Longest Day we honor you with the celebration of Seasons-Divided-in-Half. We keep your calendar, paint your image and record the exploits of all the Skypeople. Please, give me a way to redeem the People. Sun only said to me, To preserve and protect your sacred medicine, bury all that I have given you in the place of greatest shame and degradation."

Mamish couldn't hide his bewilderment. He asked, What does that mean?

Child, if I don't live long enough to find out, the responsibility will be yours, Pul Moar said.

Mamish felt extraordinarily tired and older than his eleven years.

Pul Moar's hand settled on the pouch tied to his waist. He reached inside and removed a feather-embroidered basket, smaller than a baby's balled fist. A tuft of purest white down filled it.

The rains come. Go into your house, Pul Moar chanted the words for the winter celebration of Longest Night, even though he and Mamish sat in the heat summer. Mamish doubted he could ever know and practice the magic that seemed to come so easily to Pul Moar. The old man filled his hand with down. He tossed the tiny feathers in the air and recited the ancient words for the arrival of a new season of light:

Attend to what you observe this day.

Here is the force of Sun.

Believe. Have courage.

Bring your children.

Let them see the staff of Earth, and see that it will stand.

Observe it in its place, and always remember it so.

Always remember.

Mamish watched Pul Moar in silence. Finally he asked, You do this to appease the giants?

No. I do this to acquaint you with your role on the Longest Night. The giants are another matter. The giants can't be appeased.

How do you know?

From the events I just told you about, of the last Longest Night. The occurrences were unlike any other in my life, and I'm old.

Then why didn't you admit to the People that we can't appease the giants?

The People would become even more alarmed.

Are you yayare, a liar? Mamish's voice rose. And to think you took me from my parents to be your eyes.

No, I serve, always serve, the People.

You mean Hamisar and Kihut and the others of our village?

I mean our People of Uchungna, and the People of the valleys and the mountains and the coast and the islands. He waved a hand in a broad gesture encompassing the lands beyond. You'll separate from your People one day.

I would never. How can you accuse me of such?

You will. That's all. I'll foretell one more thing for you. You'll live to see a time when the mother of your soul is taken from you. Do you think I want this for you? No. But I see it.

My mother, Namet, was taken from me.

I don't speak of women, Pul Moar spat. He squatted and slapped his open palms on the bare earth. I speak of your true mother, our sacred warmspring, this land that feeds and protects us. If you can't understand, simply listen and remember. Understanding will come later. Then he muttered, That woman gave you nothing. She taught you nothing.

Today, still wanting to be free and still no more free than he had been all those seasons ago, Mamish whispered, Pul Moar, speak not ill of my mother. My ears don't hear you!

Pul Moar stood up. Make your ears hear me, boy. You'll have a woman, a child, a grandchild, and another who is the child of the People, one you would claim for your own with pride. One, at least one, will be a fool, tricked easily, to the great loss of all who remain. One will be a Skywatcher who inherits my Atishwin. Mamish, how can I make you understand? You're the one with the prophecy. 'The rope of the world is breaking apart.' When you sang me the song, I saw only the white stones at the bottom of what was once a river. The riverbed lay dry. The People were gone. Not gone from our village, merely gone. I can only teach you those things I know, that you may shield all that is sacred while the world breaks apart.

Pul Moar's face turned into the wind. He changed his footing, inching until he stood facing the peaks beyond the narrow mountain pass. The old man frustrated Mamish. The boy pressed his hands onto his ears in an effort to save Pul Moar's words.

Do you see four mountain tops, Mamish? Pul Moar asked. He pointed toward the backbone ridge across the pass. The most southern one forms a point at the top.

Mamish no longer questioned how the old man knew direction, but the terror and uncertainty of Pul Moar's revelations plagued him. Why are you asking me about mountains?

That the giants can't be appeased is only for you to know. Here's another bit of knowledge just for you. Pul Moar waved a hand in front of his face and, before Mamish's eyes the Skywatcher opened his mouth to reveal his tongue, bloodied and severed in two.

Pul Moar, Mamish shrieked. What happened?

Pul Moar spat out the tongue of a deer into his open hand and opened his mouth wide, disclosing to Mamish the trick he had just performed.

Why did you deceive me? Mamish asked.

Much depends on faith, Pul Moar said. And much depends on knowledge. Sometimes, you have to use special knowledge like this to persuade the People, for their own good.

Pul Moar's trick so startled Mamish he forgot himself and lashed out, asking, Why did you choose me?

You are capable, and therefore more responsible.

Mamish sniffed the wind. The breeze carried an unfamiliar smell.

The day you see five mountains is the eleventh day before the Longest Night. That's why you must come here when the geese fly. It's the only way you can be certain. Now, what do you prepare first?

I soak the Sunstick on the first day. I kill and pluck the Egret on the second. I visit the tar pits and collect the black tar from the pools on the third day for the Sunstone . . .

Yes, yes, I can see that you know the answers, Mamish. Pul Moar sounded brusque and more distracted than usual. I've been evaluating you for some time, boy. The quaking of the earth is a sign. You're of age.

I? Mamish asked. Boys far older than I are the ones who have the ceremony of men.

Boys far older than you have never been visited by a dream helper. Skywatchers who are far older than I have eyes that see. They'll live long past my last day.

Pul Moar, don't say that. You'll live long.

You'll live longer. That's why we'll soon build the consecrated Yobangnar arena and hut where you'll drink the Manit and seek a man's vision. You'll leave Mamish the boy behind. You'll become Pumal.

The word Pumal lay at the back of Mamish's tongue. To be Pul Moar's true heir was what he had resisted with so much force when Pul Moar first took him. To be boy apprentice, under the protection of Pul Moar, had become a privilege. To be Pumal was quite another prospect.

You're scowling, Pul Moar laughed. Are you worried?

Perhaps, Mamish said. There are so many things I haven't learned yet. Wait. How do you know if I'm scowling?

Your scowls are very loud, Mamish. Until old Pul Moar goes deaf as well as blind, he'll always know when your face is bunched up in a frown.

Mamish ran his fingers across his forehead and under his eyes and shook his head. He would never understand Pul Moar. But he watched a smile creep across the old man's mouth.

You’re joking with me! Mamish said in unguarded affection.

Pul Moar grew quiet and stony-faced, and Mamish instantly regretted letting the old man know that he'd almost grown to like him.

What sort of plumage will you bring me for your feather poles? Pul Moar asked.

I don't know! Mamish wearied of Pul Moar's unending questions.

In an instant, reflected sunlight glinted in Mamish's eyes so brightly that it caused him to see colored spots. He covered his face with one hand and reached for Pul Moar with the other.

What is it? Are you all right, Mamish?

Sun flashed in my eyes, Mamish said.

Mamish, I hear something, Pul Moar turned eastward toward the mountain pass and inclined his head to listen for sounds from below on the trail.

A shadow covered them. Mamish looked up to see a condor riding the updraft above them, his wings stretched wide. Silently, the giant bird soared, gliding, his shadow touching the oaks, the yucca, the bleached red sandstone hills, and the white men whose horses plodded uneasily up the mountain trail.

*****

Mamish looked down into the canyon and saw two columns of men riding the backs of animals he had never seen before. The men were dressed in leather jackets and pants shrouded with loose leather coverings. The men-and-beasts climbed cautiously along the narrow hillside path.

Near the rear of the second column, the man who appeared to be second in command shouted to the one wearing the plumed helmet that bounced with every step his mount made, Capitan Rivera, shall we hold lances and shields ready? The tips of the lances gleamed in the morning sunlight, as did the exposed shafts of the broadswords sheathed at the soldiers' waists.

The one called captain answered, saying, Yes, at the ready! He rode up beside the sergeant and said, Sergeant, the leather armor and the weapons are a necessity if we are to survive this strange island of California. We have the authority delegated by His Majesty, King Carlos and Juan Portola himself, but our expedition leader is not here with us now. He rubbed his auburn beard and the hair glowed like fire. He added, August is hell here."

The sergeant confided, We can never know from one day to the next if the natives will be tractable or savage. I was so at ease with those naked brownskins at the ocean’s edge just out of Velicata. They fished with nets and played with their children, almost as if they were human beings. But then in that barren desert beyond that first stark range of mountains, those dust-caked primitives speared and drank the blood of horned toads.

Rivera said, How most of us got out alive after that greeting barrage of poison-tipped spears is probably another miracle of Holy Mother Church.

The horses’ flanks gleamed with sweat, an indication that the animals would need water soon. The lead horse stopped, and then raised its head high as if catching a scent. The beast snorted, balked, refused to move. The procession stopped.

On the hilltop above them, Mamish crouched and continued to observe them.

The sergeant admitted to his captain, I approach every outcropping with care. Every grove of trees, every thicket makes my skin pucker.

Rivera motioned for the procession to continue and he answered, If the hostiles aren’t menace enough, the land certainly is. The map we are using was drawn by a seaman. He made note of fertile lands and safe harbors. The most placid and promising is supposedly Monterey. But I tell you, the seaman could not have traversed inland beyond the coast. If he had, he would have mentioned the spines that jump from the thick broad-leaved cactus.

And what about the green tumbleweeds? another of the men chimed in. One scratch means fever and vomiting for days. And the reverse hook thorns of the cat's claw plant. That’s how I tore the skin on my leg.

The sergeant said, Even the inland ponds aren’t what they seem to be.

The day before, the scouts had led the expedition to a resting spot at what appeared to be a water hole. Only after wading in on foot did almost a dozen of the travelers discover molten tar spurting and bubbling beneath the surface. Then, in the night the earth jolted and rocked. The frenzied horses scattered. The men searched hours to retrieve them. The cost: an entire day's delay in this thirty-seven day old journey north toward Monterey.

Rivera rode by the soldiers and reminded them, The heat is intense, I know, and the chaps are heavy. But ride protected with your legs draped. Keep those chaps tied to the pommels of your saddles.

Rivera checked the position of the balance of the expedition while the horses swayed on the narrow trail, kicking up dust.

Sound off, he commanded.

The commander and his aides announced their positions. The two Franciscan friars on foot called out. The hems of their gray robes brushed the packed clay soil as they walked. Their broad-brimmed hats shielded their heads from the sun. Tar and dried sun-bleached grass clung to their open sandals. A pawing, whinnying mare followed them. The horse's rider fingered his whip.

The muleteers that followed called out to the captain. The smithy and the carpenter announced themselves. The cook who led the pack-laden animals notified all that he was present.

Cookpots and utensils hung from the packs, swaying with each mule’s gait. And in their dust strode a band of natives, axes and crowbars, mattocks and spades in hand, their loins covered with loose deerskin wraps.

The sergeant on the wary horse glanced to his captain. Perspiration stained the man's crimson shirt from under his thick vest of leather armor down to his elbows. The man raised his bullhide shield.

He said to those closest, I don’t know if my horse smells savages or a volcano around the next twist in the road. Or maybe it’s some other danger yet to be imagined.

The sergeant’s horse pranced uneasily and he patted the gray gelding's neck. Then, he fastened his lance and shield to his saddle and reached into the boot behind him that held a musket. Both columns of soldiers, including Rivera, made ready with firearms.

In an instant, darkness covered the sergeant and his horse. All the rest of the soldiers behind him, including Captain Rivera, looked up at what appeared to be a buzzard of unearthly proportion. The bird with a wingspan wider than the length of a horse cast an immense shadow.

Mother of God, one of the men exclaimed.

The sergeant aimed his musket toward the giant bird. He confided to Rivera, My heart is beating so fast, I doubt if I could hit even such a massive target.

He followed the creature in his sights until it swooped out of range. After it glided away toward the south, he strapped his firearm back in its boot and stretched out his arms wide.

That is some blackbird! He called forward to the men and flapped his arms. They laughed apprehensively.

I don’t know what that thing was, but I’m positive it wasn't a raven, Rivera joked.

The lead column moved on, up the hill toward a grove of sycamores at its crest. The second column, even longer than the first, wove behind. Rivera prodded his horse with his tar-covered silver spurs. He turned to glance over his shoulder at the young ensign who rode behind him. Rivera laughed at the lad's expression, wide open eyes taking in the landscape with every jerky turn of the fellow's head. Behind the ensign rode the commander.

Mamish gaped. The boy stood in the shadows of an oak, entranced with the gleaming metal, the rippling horse muscle, the absence of color in the faces of the men.

He watched the giant condor sail beyond the southern ridge, certain that only a promise on the wind of carrion could seduce Panes, the Condor Being, so far from his high cliff home.

Bend right, one of the lead soldiers shouted. As Mamish watched them obey the command and veer off, a wash of dread filled his throat with a taste like rancid shark meat. He swallowed the fear and ran back up the hill to where Pul Moar rested on a shaded boulder.

It's the white men. The ones Ahishkan told us about.

I smell them, Pul Moar said. What ever must they eat?

Part I

Chapter 1

Saturday, August 5, 1769

We descended to the valley and halted near the watering place, which consisted of a very large pool. Near this there was a populous Indian village . . . They offered us their seed in trays or baskets of rushes, and came to the camp in such numbers that, had they been armed, they might have caused us apprehension, as we counted as many as two hundred and five, including men, women and children.

From the Journal of Miguel Costanso

Mamish took Pul Moar's arm and led him close to the edge of the mesa, the best vantage point from which Mamish could report what he saw. Bursting with excitement, he hopped from one foot to the other, jarring Pul Moar with every step.

Still yourself, boy, Pul Moar scolded.

The animals are huge, Mamish whispered. Their legs are long and very slender. Their bellies are round. More round than the Deer. Some have long snouts and tall standing ears. Others have shorter snouts and shorter ears.

Pul Moar clung to Mamish's arm as the boy went on. One of the men is swinging something, a bent willow pole, I think.

The soldier cracked his whip and struck one of the mules on the rump. The animal reared. Mamish flinched, even though the mule that kicked and snorted stood several spreading oaks away. Pul Moar pulled his arm back sharply. What happened?

He hit the long-ear with the swinging rope, Mamish said. The long-ear jumped. Oh, he's very big, like the elk. Out of the soldiers' view still, Mamish stalked back to the ledge and peered over again at the strangers. A few of the men wear broad flat headdresses and long robes the color of the sparrow's breast, Mamish said. Far down the trail, Mamish could see People walking behind the last of the animals. From the way the People walk and hold their bodies, I believe they're the ones Ahishkan tells us about, the Kumyaii. Pul Moar, I want to get closer. May I?

You go back to the village. Tell the others what we've seen.

I can't leave you here alone.

I can't run as quickly as you. Alert the others before the strangers reach the village. Go on without me.

I don't wish to disobey. Please reconsider. Ahishkan has told us these strangers don't provoke a fight.

Pul Moar reflected. There is no precedent for such as this, he said. The People must be cautioned.

Pul Moar, I can see that the last of the ones on the trail below are People from the southern mountains. They walk freely.

Are you certain?

Yes. Can we go and greet these strangers together?

Very well, you've become a persuader, he said.

Mamish led Pul Moar down a steep