P.J. Parker

“I refuse to believe the people of Texas and all Americans in the world have forgotten us.”

“No words in our ledgers could do justice to this sublime beauty,” Captain Lewis said. “The expedition should have brought a camera obscura.”Peter wasn’t familiar with the words, but no matter. He knew he was part of something magnificent—something greater than himself or the Corps of Discovery. And he knew what it was. It was America. And it was beautiful.”

“A Time Comes When Silence is Betrayal.”

“Rainbow Cloud strode forward like a hunting cat with the same strength of height and broad shoulders, the same rolling gait as First Light’s father. They were indeed the same man, split in two at birth, so the family might be rewarded by twice the skill in hunting each brother possessed.”

“The Day of Trouble is Near”

“Thunderbird ascended on the heady currents of air that bore her high above the vast landscape of Túwaqachi. She stretched her broad wings, the heat lifting her through the silence, her glossy brown feathers shimmering in the sunlight.”

“The stuff of nightmares is not only relegated to unconscious thoughts upon a pillow, safely beneath an eiderdown.”

“One large cat bounded up the side of the outcrop to stand in full view on an overhanging boulder. She stared down at them, inside their protective enclosure, tilting her head from side to side. Her scarred yellow-brown coat was immaculately groomed, but the long tufting hair of her snout was matted with the bright red smear of uncongealed blood from a recent kill. Her upper lip curved over the top of foot-long saber teeth.”

“He pushed a finger through the surface of the water to trace the outline of her mouth. Ethereal bits of flesh floated loosely about his knuckle and nail. Then, calmly, he pulled her body up out of the tub and into his arms. He placed his lips on hers, now as cold and dead as his own.”

“For whom do you cry, my son?” the Great Spirit asked.“I do not know.”“Yes, you do.”

“This is a time of change,” the Shaman said. “This is a time of enormous power.”

“There were no stars, only the darkness and an arctic chill that had intensified since the first thin, blood-red stripes of sunrise shimmered on the ocean’s horizon.”

“We live in a complicated society, Bromley—one that is changing and which does indeed need to change. But do you not think any change must begin within our own family gathering?”

“Do you understand the meaning of the soil beneath your feet?”

“We the People . . . The People of the Long House.”

“The other Clans will soon arrive. The greatest times of our family are before us. And so are the darkest.”

“We must love our slaves, Papa. We must love them as hard as we are able.”

“West Point—The Key to the Continent and Independence.”

“The early morning sunshine shot up the ice-covered valley. It glinted off the backs of slumbering mastodon, reflected between the antlers of caribou.”

“The Sun Dagger appeared on the rock face directly above the Shaman’s shadowed head. It dazzled within the shade as the sunlight slipped through a gap in the overhead slabs. The dagger cut slowly down the rock, slicing through the very center of the etched spiral. “The middle of time,” Chaco whispered to himself.”