Two Hawk Dreams

Book excerpt: Bighorn sheep graze on the last of the green grass on Gets-Struck-By-Lightning Mountain in the late fall. Two Hawk’s father and older brother, Night Heron, set off through newly fallen snow to hunt with their dogs. Two Hawk is sad to be left behind, but he has heard the bull elk’s mating call for only seven seasons, too few to be old enough to hunt. So begins another day for a boy of the Tukudika (Sheep Eater) Shoshones, living in the traditional ways in what will one day be known as Yellowstone National Park. Two Hawk is learning those ways, accompanied by his dog, Gypsum, and a talkative magpie whose secrets only Two Hawk can hear. His adventures, beautifully illustrated by Davíd Joaquín, show Two Hawk, and the reader, the meaning of rituals and responsibilities and the mystical origins of Two Hawk’s name. Only the appearance of the hairy-face man who crosses paths with Two Hawk’s family suggests the vast changes that are soon to shake the Shoshones’ world.