On Earth's Altar

Chapter 3

Circa 8,000 BCE

North America

In what is today southeastern Oregon

A weary hunter shivered beneath a cloak of rotting hides, a spear his only companion. To either side of him, high canyon walls loomed black against the predawn sky. Straight ahead, out to the west, the great River of Fire climbed through the glittering stars, drifting slowly rightward.

The hunter moistened the insides of his nostrils with a little spit and sniffed the brittle air, marking the strong autumn must, and something else, a fishy scent, a lake somewhere off in the darkness. The thought of fish set his stomach growling. For days he had eaten nothing but dried roots and berries. But that would change soon enough.

His pulse quickened as the sky behind him warmed with dim yellow. Setting aside the spear, he got down on his belly and pressed an ear to the frosty ground. Once the sting of it had eased, he closed his eyes and listened. At first, he could hear nothing but the whoosh of his own blood. But as his heart slowed, he thought that he could feel something there between the heartbeats, a faint tremor. A rumor of hooves.

He sprang to his feet. The sky had brightened, and now he could see the canyon clearly: a broad corridor of tawny, frost-rimed grass flanked by sheer cliffs of umber rock. Stunted willows marked the path of a stream as it meandered down the canyon to a vast lake, its calm, gray waters backed by a line of gloomy mesas in the distance.

And when the first rays of dawn struck them, it was like a seam of golden light opening up between earth and sky, seeping forth, spreading back across the lake. Countless birds, before hidden in shadow, now flashed in the sudden light, swimming, skittering, rising up in great flocks. It was all so beautiful that for a moment the hunter forgot his grumbling belly, forgot the rumor of hooves.

Morning light flooded up the canyon, drawing a mist from the frosty grass. High on the northern cliff, to the hunter's right, a raven ruffled its glossy feathers and cawed at something in the tawny grass below.

Now the hunter saw it: a shock of blue caught in the morning light. But it was not the blue of water, or of flowers, or even sacred stones from the south. It was unlike anything the hunter had ever seen. It was as if a flake of sky had fallen to the ground.

Crouching low, he crept through the high grass until he was close enough to see what the blue thing might be. It was not a flake of sky, or a pool of water, or flowers or sacred stones. It was a person, a man it seemed, lying in the grass. Blue was the color of his tunic; it shimmered in sun.

Now, the hunter watched in amazement as the man in the blue tunic sat up, yawned, and stretched his long, muscly arms. He swiveled his head from side to side, his curly black hair brushing a broad back. He got to his feet and stood tall, taller than any man. He was a giant.

The raven dipped its head but said nothing.

The hunter followed as far as the boulders, then veering left, he picked his way through bones to a narrow crevice that split the canyon's sheer wall top to bottom. Slipping inside, he shimmied up and up and up until he had nearly reached the top. There he paused with his back against the frigid stone. Again, he felt a tremor in the ground. It was closer now.

Hazarding a peek, he spied the giant just a few paces off. He was standing with his back to the cliff, gazing south across the plain at a pair of nearby hills that swelled like breasts from the tawny grass. Silently, the hunter hoisted himself up and crouched with the crevice between them, sun at his back, spear ready. For a long while he remained utterly still. A morning breeze snaked through the grass. Then the hunter gradually stood erect, his shadow inching toward the giant's bare feet.