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  Beneath the backwaters of the Dalles Dam on the mighty Columbia River lies a mound. It is all that remains of the ancient gathering place where people came to trade for the abundant salmon and began the first union of ancient clans that would someday be a nation. Here a migratory tribe led by women had settled; here they had merged with other early peoples; and here, if you look carefully, you can still see a Woman’s face carved into the cliffs above the gorge. Later Indians called her She Who Watches. But her real name was Ashan… the Moonkeeper. And this is her story…

  CHILDREN OF THE DAWN

  AND DON’T MISS THE EXTRAORDINARY FIRST BOOK ON PREHISTORIC AMERICA BY PATRICIA ROWE

  KEEPERS OF THE MISTY TIME

  “Enthralling… beautifully written, about real men and women you will care deeply about. Fans of Jean Auel and Linda Lay Shuler will eat this one up and clamor for more.”

  —Naomi M. Stokes, author of The Tree People

  “A compelling and thought-provoking tale that impels the reader on a mystical journey. Ms. Rowe’s lyrical prose and powerful storytelling ability are sure to garner her legions of fans.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Ms. Rowe weaves a tale set in prehistoric time that is spellbinding and mesmerizing…. This one is a ‘keeper’—outstanding—a book you’ll enjoy no matter how many times you read it.”

  —Rendezvous

  Also by Patricia Rowe

  Keepers of the Misty Time

  Published by

  WARNER BOOKS

  Copyright

  WARNER BOOKS EDITION

  Copyright © 1996 by Patricia Rowe

  All rights reserved.

  Warner Books, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  First eBook Edition: October 2009

  ISBN: 978-0-446-56939-2

  Contents

  Also by Patricia Rowe

  Copyright

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Afterword

  Author’s note

  Dedicated to Don

  —who makes everything possible—

  on our 25th anniversary.

  FOREWORD

  NINE THOUSAND YEARS AGO, ANCESTORS OF THE Plateau Indians flourished in southern Washington State. Hunter-gatherers who were led by women, the People of the Misty Time left a legacy of artifacts, legends, and petroglyphs carved in black basalt.

  From high on a windswept cliff, a woman’s haunting stone face looks out over the mighty Columbia River. Her large solemn eyes are gracefully ringed. Owlish horns perch above curved eyebrows. She Who Watches, known as the Moon-keeper, Ashan (Ah-Shan’), is the heroine of an ancient legend:

  A woman was chief of all who lived in this region. That was a long time before Coyote came up the river and changed things, and people were not yet real people. After a time, Coyote in his travels came to this place. He saw the approach of conflict…

  CHAPTER 1

  THE MOONKEEPER ASHAN TRUDGED ACROSS A WIND- SWEPT plain in the tabu land, with her mate Tor beside her. The Shahala people—eighty men, women, little ones, and grayhairs—followed like a line of ants, carrying packs and pulling travel poles heaped with their belongings and a share of the tribe’s. Ashan felt as if she were dragging the whole tribe behind her, instead of just her travel poles.

  Thirty-nine days, she thought, looking at the notch she’d cut in her staff this morning. Autumn will soon be winter.

  A howl wavered on the wind, trailing sharp yips, making the hair on her neck stand up. She reached for Tor’s arm.

  “Listen!”

  “It’s just a songdog.”

  Ashan felt foolish: The Shahala chief, startled by a coyote.

  “This stupid wind,” she grumbled. “It changes the sound of things.”

  Her mate of six summers laughed.

  “It’s a good thing your name means Whispering Wind. You can make friends with it; learn its language. The Creator sends more than enough to this place.”

  “This is not just ordinary wind, Tor. It’s so cold we shiver, so dry it drains us, so loud we can’t hear each other talk. I wouldn’t want to make friends with such a beast.”

  “It’s not always like this,” he said.

  It had been like this for days. But she said, “Don’t tell me, Tor. Tell our people… tonight, when the wind won’t let them sleep.”

  “I’ll do whatever you say tonight, but now we should go on before they lay down their burdens. We should put many steps behind us before the land swallows the sun.”

  She looked at the late afternoon sky. He was right. The people were bunching up behind, waiting for their chief to tell them what to do. Ashan raised her staff and thrust it forward. She leaned into the horsetail strap across her chest, into the wind, into the future, and urged herself onward. She heard grumbling as people fell back into step behind her.

  Tor said, “You will see, Ashan. The Great River is near.”

  “You’d better be right. I don’t know how much longer they’ll follow us.”

  “They have no choice, my love,” Tor said, smiling.

  “Every creature has a choice—whether they know it or not is the question.”

  As she walked, Ashan held a pebble in her mouth to quiet hunger.

  This prairie, she thought. It gives up little water and less food. Sleep doesn’t even refresh us. What am I doing to my people?

  The Shahala loved and feared Ashan. She healed, punished, and taught; settled arguments; remembered legends; knew what needed to be known about animals, plants, seasons, rituals, and magic. Most important, she spoke with spirits so people would know what to do. The tribe could not survive without a Moonkeeper. And so they had obeyed when Ashan said they must leave their ancestral lands and move to a new home that only Tor had seen.

  No one thought they’d still be wandering after thirty-nine days. It had been a terrible journey. They’d been lost in mountains. A river had cut them off; Ashan carried the ashes of two who drowned in the crossing. And now these endless plains where they’d been forced to stop many
times while the warriors hunted. Ordinary things felt forbidding to weary, discouraged people. The sun glared without warmth. The wind—with nothing to slow it but pale, flattened grass—moaned as if grieving; it searched out every gap in the leathers and furs they wore.

  Even a coyote, she thought, sounds like a lost, lonely spirit.

  Everyone hated the tabu land, but Ashan knew they must cross it to reach their new home: Spirits had shown her in dreams.

  A Moonkeeper was the only one strong enough to journey with spirits in the darktime world, and wise enough to understand what they said. Dreaming was forbidden to ordinary people. Babies were most in danger, too often taken by evil spirits who tricked them into the dreamworld before they’d been taught how to stay out of it. Any morning a mother could find a perfect little baby shell—empty and cold. Until little ones were old enough to understand, mothers shook them many times each night.

  Ashan’s mate, Tor, who obeyed no one, enjoyed how dreaming felt, and lied when asked about his sleep. By dreaming his way to personal and tribal disasters, he proved to people why they shouldn’t dream. But when her son, Kai El, kept dreaming no matter what she did, and didn’t seem to suffer, others wanted to try. Knowing she couldn’t prevent it, she had warned them.

  “Dream if you must, but you might not come back. Your dreams are a game you play with yourself. Do not think they are like mine. Spirits speak only to the Moonkeeper. Evil speaks to all others.”

  No matter what others might see in the darktime world, or what use they made of it, the Moonkeeper’s dreams must be heeded as spirit messages. Otherwise, why would people obey her?

  When Ashan had dreamed about a better life on the shore of a huge river, the Shahala had abandoned their homeland. Most of them had set out in hope, except grayhairs who grieved from the first. But day by day, winter’s tightening grip had turned hope sour. Even the breath of the tribe’s guardian, Shala the Wind Spirit, had become their enemy—tearing at the tabu land as if to push the intruders back, as if to push the sun and moon back.

  Ashan spat out the pebble. Ihate this place.

  She remembered Shahala land and swallowed, for she would never see it again. The summer home on Takoma’s forested flank, where Coyote made the First People in the Misty Time. The winter home in the Valley of Grandmothers, where many horses once roamed, where trees kept the wind from going wild. Ancestor Cave. Anutash. Never again…

  Though many wanted to go home, they could not. All the horses had died. The people would starve without their winter food. The Moonkeeper didn’t doubt her vision of the future, but on this late autumn day in this comfortless place, she worried about the strength of the tribe. Hungry, worn-out people, who believed they were lost. How to keep them going? How to keep herself going?

  Tears rose behind her eyes, but she knew how to stop them. Look at the ground, keep moving your feet Don’t let them see what’s inside.

  Two little girls ran up to Ashan.

  “May we walk with you, Moonkeeper?” Kyli asked.

  “You are welcome,” Ashan said, smiling. Little ones could raise a weary soul just by being around.

  They carried light packs, but were too young to pull travel poles. Only hands and faces peeked out from the warm skins that covered them from head to foot. Matching Ashan’s stride, the little girls whispered to each other.

  The one named Kyli liked to talk. The other was shy, with a shy name Ashan couldn’t think of.

  Kyli said, “Wista wants to know if we are going home soon.”

  Wista—Ashan remembered now—daughter of Keeta and Kowkish. Just five summers. Some people, especially the young, had to be told more than once. Hope died harder in them.

  The Moonkeeper’s voice was kind, but firm.

  “We are not going home, Wista. Not ever. We had no winter food because the horses died out. We were getting hungry, remember?”

  “I told you,” Kyli said.

  “But I’m still hungry.” Wista’s bottom lip stuck out.

  Ashan put her hand on the little girl’s shoulder.

  “You won’t be hungry much longer. I dreamed of a new home with plenty of food. Spirits Who Love People showed me the way. Always remember, Wista, the Shahala are Amotkan’s favorite tribe.”

  Kyli said, “My brother says we are the Creator’s forgotten tribe.”

  Hamish, the Moonkeeper thought. Imust watch him.

  “You know how boys are,” she said, giving them a look that showed how much better it was to be a girl.

  Ashan remembered last night. Kyli’s brother, Hamish, and two of his friends had left the camp, a strange thing to do—on this windswept plain, people liked to stay near the nightfire. With the trained ears of a Moonkeeper, she had followed them into the dark, and heard what they said.

  “There’s no Great River in this tabu land. No sheltering cliffs, no food forever.”

  “If it’s this bad now, what will we do when it’s covered with snow?”

  “If I’m going to die, I’d rather starve at home than walk myself to death through this place. At least my ashes would be with the ancestors.”

  “But the Moonkeeper dreamed the new home. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “The Moonkeeper—phhht! All that time, she was fat in the mountains, while we starved. Then she walks out of the woods one day and old Raga tells us to follow her? Tenka should have been chief. What’s wrong with her? She wouldn’t have made us leave the home of our ancestors.”

  “And what about Tor? Remember when Moonkeepers were forbidden to mate? And that boy of theirs? Where did he come from?”

  “All that time, we couldn’t even say Tor’s name, had to call him the Evil One, and now… ”

  Then the wind had shifted, carrying their words away. Ashan reminded herself that the three almost-warriors were too young to have power in the tribe. But there were others who felt the same. How much longer would she be able to control them?

  “Yes,” Ashan said absently. “You know how boys are.” But Kyli and Wista had fallen back with the tribe.

  The wind brought a new scent.

  Ashan sucked deep breaths of clean, moist air—

  “We made it!” Tor yelled.

  “Water!” Ashan yelled, thrusting her hands in the air. “I smell it!”

  People threw off their packs and ran toward her.

  “Water to drink, and walk in!” Ashan licked her lips. “Water to taste and listen to!”

  “Tomorrow you will see the Great River,” Tor said in his proudest voice.

  Laughing, crying, hugging, people thanked the Moonkeeper for her dream, and her mate for knowing the way. They praised each other for faith and courage.

  “Don’t forget. Thank the spirits,” Ashan told them. “Get this place ready for sleep. Talk in whispers and make no fire. We are the strangers here.”

  CHAPTER 2

  AS THE SHAHALA PEOPLE MADE THEIR CAMP READY for the night, the Moonkeeper went off by herself to offer thanks.

  Ashan was twenty-two summers in age, and shorter than most women, but by carrying herself as a chief, she seemed taller, and older. She held a staff with magic powers. She wore a browband with two eagle feathers taken from an old proud bird who’d lived and died in the ancestral homeland. Her black hair separated in back and blew long and thick around her shoulders. She wore a fox cape over a doeskin shirt, pieces of leather as a skirt, and knee-high moccasins.

  Standing on a low mound, she dropped her staff and cape, and lifted her slender arms. Her sleeves slid up. The light of the setting sun gave her dark amber skin an unworldly glow.

  The Moonkeeper faced Where Day Begins, tipped her face to the sky, and began an ancient song.

  “Spirits Who Love People, the Shahala thank you… ”

  The wind whipped at her skirt and stung the backs of her legs.

  “Spirits Who Love People,” she began again. But her thoughts drifted. She sat on the fox fur cape, and let them go where they would.

  The Gre
at River… in dreams I soared above it, but Tor is the only one who has tasted its water… .

  Ashan didn’t like to think about how he’d found the Great River—so much bad on the way to something good. She remembered how it began, six winters ago…

  While she had sat deep in prayers, Tor had kidnapped her—the only way he could have the Chosen One. He’d stuffed her in a bearskin sack, and run, and when he’d stopped in snow up to her knees, she hadn’t known where she was.

  Why had Tor wrenched her from her life like a sapling from the ground? Why not simply ask her to be his mate?

  Because Ashan, chosen to lead the tribe after the Old Moon-keeper’s last death, was forbidden by ancient law to have a mate.

  After a time in the wildplace, Ashan got over hating Tor, because she loved him. She had always loved him. They were soulmates after all. The hardest thing had been to accept that she would never see her people again. She could have found the tribe, but the risk to Tor, and to Kai El, the son she had borne, was too great. There was no way to know what the Shahala would do to them.

  Ashan had been happy with her little family, thriving in friendly mountains, living in a cave she herself had found… the Home Cave. Then Tor had brought it all crashing down. How like a man to get what he had to have, then find out it wasn’t what he wanted.

  She had known he was dreaming again when he talked about new places and people, about belonging to something larger than just a family. He got all his crazy ideas from dreams. She had tried to make him stop, but in the wildplace, she was nobody’s chief.

  Tor was unhappy without a tribe. Ashan found out how unhappy when he stole away one night—just left them—a woman and a baby of only two summers. She had waited at the Home Cave until their food ran out. It broke her heart to leave, but she had to find the Shahala, or she and Kai El would have died.

  Maybe she would have found the tribe. But savages stole Kai El, and she broke her leg, and got him back, then they fell in that pit—

  Even now, Ashan shuddered to think of that time in her life. One of the things she learned was that a mother would suffer any pain for her child, would even give her life— indeed she nearly had. “Be strong, be smart, or your child will die.” Words that kept a woman going, that taught what she must know. And when her child lived, she believed in herself.