One
The day the world changed, three young hunters were gambling. They sat in the shade of a gnarled old piñon pine on the south side of First Moon Valley. With dry pine duff for a cushion, they had spread an elkhide, stained and frayed, but soft from years of use. It kept the sharp needles from sticking the gamblers, and ensured that the counters and gaming pieces didn’t get lost.
The ancient pine dominated a flat that stuck out like a brusque shoulder from beneath the sandstone rim of what was locally called Juniper Ridge. Above them, in the swale behind the rimrock, Mid-Sun Town—a collection of pit houses, moiety kivas, and two-storied masonry structures—baked in the late-summer sun. They could just hear the periodic calls of children, the barking of a dog, and when the wind was right, the gobbling of turkeys as they ran about in search of grasshoppers.
Across the valley First Moon Mountain rose like a triangular wedge. At its summit twin pillars of rock marked the long-sealed opening where Sister Moon had been coaxed into this world by the Hero Twins. The inclined slopes of First Moon Mountain were covered with a patchwork of trees, scabs of exposed rock, corn and bean fields, and dotted settlements, many of which puffed lazy smoke into the hot air.
Just to the right, across the valley, they could see the promontory called the Dog’s Tooth, where a stubby point of sandstone was separated from the base of First Moon Mountain by a low saddle. There, atop the peak, a buff-plastered two-story building, several pit houses, and two great kivas could be seen rising above their walled enclosure. The old sorcerer known as White Eye was reported to live there.
On the other side of First Moon Mountain, across First Moon Creek, they could make out the line of villages atop Pine Mesa.
Below them the valley bottom was a composite of fields dedicated to corn, beans, beeplant, peppergrass, and goosefoot, all resplendent in various shades of green as the plants matured. This was the true wealth of First Moon Valley—the verdant fields and the water that nourished them.
People worked in the floodplain fields, some pulling late-season weeds, others using hoes to channel water from sinuous ditches onto their crops. The workers were bare to the waist, brown skin contrasting to pale fabrics they wore belted about their hips. Sunlight glittered in threads where it reflected from the narrow ditches. Small gray-brown mud-covered frame structures had been built here and there between the fields. These were for storage of tools and sometimes shelter for people when the afternoon storms rolled through. Though there had been few of those this summer.
To the north, looking up the River of Stones, the gamblers could see the distant pointed peaks of the Spirit Mountains. Rocky gray summits, some still patched with white, rose above the dark green-timbered mountains.
A grasshopper clicked in the hot air as it flitted on silvered wings, and the young man known as Bad Cast rattled gaming pieces in a battered gray ceramic mug. He looked north again, then raised an eyebrow as he studied his two companions. “Think Ripple’s having any luck up there?”
“This time of year?” Spots shrugged, then ran a hand down the scars that covered his arms and mottled his skin in colors from pink to brown. In his youth he had been called Bead, a name mostly forgotten since the night he and his sister had barely escaped the fire that burned their mother, father, and uncle to death.
“It’ll be a miracle,” the third, Wrapped Wrist, replied. “The animals are scattered throughout the mountains. And on a day like this, you can bet the elk are bedded down in the deepest, nastiest black timber they can find. Even if Ripple kills one in there, packing him out is going to be a nightmare.”
“Not to mention keeping the meat from souring,” Spots added. “Weather like this can turn a whole elk in less than three hands of time.”
Bad Cast rattled the gaming pieces again. “You know Ripple. Hunting is just an excuse to get him out of the valley and away from his sister. I swear, Fir Brush could be someone’s mother-in-law, as grouchy as she’s getting to be.”
“You going to throw those pieces, or are you trying to wear them into dust?” Wrapped Wrist asked. He was made of muscle. It corded on his packed bones, bunched on his thick chest, and rounded his arms and legs. Slabs of it sloped out from his neck, ramping onto his broad shoulders. His stomach, bare in the heat, rippled and swelled even as he breathed. A faint smile lingered on his wide lips, a challenge in his eyes.
Bad Cast rattled the pieces again and tossed them from the cup. Six polished ovals of bone pattered on the tan hide, bounced, and settled. Gleaming in the filtered light, two were marked with hatching, the others with small crosses.