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Informationen zum Autor William Sarabande Klappentext From William Sarabande! whose brilliant re-creation of the prehistoric world of the First American has thrilled readers everywhere! comes a major new novel that awakens us to the true spirit of our ancestors. Following their destiny into an unknown land took more than courage--it demanded a belief in a future they would never see! a certainty that braving a path no human had ever taken was their only choice. Now! in a time of mystery and magic! when all they had protected the People from their enemies for the eons of prehistory seemed to be vanishing along with the animals they once hunted! the young shaman Cha-kwena must break a terrifying taboo! estranging him from his woman and his tribe. Driven by a vision! he vows to follow the forbidden trail of the mammoth to where the fate of his kind will be known: extinction or the possibility of a land where all their dreams may become real. 1 They came like wolves across the land. Slowly, cautiously, into the wind they came, lean men and youths painted black and red with ash and ocher and their leaner dogs, the color of storm skies and late-summer grass. In the pure, savage light of the Ice Age noon, Cha-kwena looked down at the dog closest to him. He held no affection for its kind; nevertheless he envied it. Like the others with which it ran this day, the dog was among the best of the tribe's hunting pack, and Cha-kwena knew that it would instinctively do what was needed when the moment came to signal it into action. May I do as well as you this day upon the hunt, Dog, brother of Wolf and Coyote! He exhaled a tight, unaudible sigh of hope and longing. For if I do not, there are those among this man pack who would have the meat of my bones roasting on the spits tonight! Cha-kwena had not spoken aloud, but somehow the dog sensed his thoughts and turned up its head. Cha-kwena took little notice. His dark, angular eyes were now fixed on other animals. He moved forward with the others, soundlessly insinuating himself around boulders and sidestepping loose stones. Cha-kwena was a young man, small and spare of frame, but as strong and agile and quick to react to his surroundings as the tawny little pronghorn antelope of his distant homeland. Downslope and perhaps as many as a thousand paces ahead, a small herd of striped, broad-bellied brown horses grazed at the base of high bluffs and at the neck of a dead-end draw toward which he and the other hunters had been maneuvering them since dawn. At last we have them where we want them! Cha-kwena was so tense with anticipation, he could barely breathe. Too long have my fellow hunters gone without man-worthy meat and a kill that will make our women sing with pride! As he looked down at the horses, his youthful face split with a wide, white grin of satisfaction. Earlier in the day he had feared that the hunt might be over before it had a chance to begin. Fresh bear sign had made the horses skittish. The hunters had tethered the dogs and proceeded warily, realizing that they must not fail to walk wisely or take every precaution to remain in favor with the spirits. Otherwise they might lose the herd and themselves fall prey to a carnivore of infinitely greater and more terrifying magnitude than man. At this moment Cha-kwena remembered that he was a shaman with a considerable reputation to maintain. With his medicine bag around his neck and his sacred owl-skin headdress securely upon his head, he reminded himself that once--and not so long before--he had led his followers to victory in a great war against their enemies. Secure in this knowledge, he uttered a special chant to Bear, reminding Walks Like a Man that if he were wise, he would avoid confrontation with so powerful a shaman as Cha-kwena of the Red World. "If you are looking for sweet roots and season-end berries and mouse tunnels to dig," he added, "you ar...
