Turning out the horses to graze at the foot of the rocky slope, they climbed to the storage houses set high above the reach of devastating floods, plastered like swallows’ nests in a crevice at the base of the cliff. The seed corn secured, Sinyella knelt in the field and scratched a hole with his pointed digging-stick. Then he prayed, “Grow good, corn; when your stalk grows, grow tall; grow like the ancient corn up there,” and dropping some kernels in the hole, he chewed another and blew it toward the “corn,” two white rocks high on the canyon wall. Then two short steps forward and he knelt to dig again. Lanso watched, and then followed; first a few kernels, a deft sweep to fill the hole, and then the next hill. Row after row they planted together under the white morning sun that rose to flood the canyon with its light and heat....