Free People of the Sky by Clare Bell

it from digging too deeply into her shoulders, but she wished she had done a better job making the packframe. Walking to the far end of the terrace and peering over, she saw another ledge about ten meters below. It opened up into a wider terrace, an esplanade that offered her an easy route along the canyon wall. If she could get down to it.
    A shadow flitted over her. The whisper of air against wings made her stare skyward to see the aronan Haewi Namij glide in beneath the overcast. The creature’s wings were held in a dihedral angle, its legs tightly folded, making the flier appear to be some strange ultralight aircraft. It slid down from the sky, stalling itself at the last instant with a quick fan of its tail.
    The youth was scrambling off before his mount had fully settled. He eyed Kesbe’s pack and makeshift climbing equipment, then glanced at Gooney Berg, sitting abandoned at the end of the terrace. Kesbe’s hopes lifted. If she could make him understand that she needed the help of his people to help raise the C-47 so she could repair the damaged wheel, that might overcome any reluctance.
    It might be a slim hope, but she knew that more than one of Gooney Berg’s contemporaries had been salvaged by the use of primitive manpower. One C-47 had been dragged out of a mudhole by lines of New Guinea natives hauling on vine ropes.
    “Pueblo,” she said to the boy, falling back on Spanish to describe the kind of community he probably lived in. The Hopi words finally came and she added, “Kisokoki. Your village. Wikima. Guide me there.” She knew she must be mangling the Indian grammar but it was sosimple, he must understand. As she spoke, the old language came more easily. “I need help to make my creature fly again,” she said in Hopi.
    He mouthed the words to himself, looking puzzled, then his brow cleared. After hesitating for a moment, while several expressions crossed his face, he motioned for Kesbe to sight along his forearm toward the horizon. She squinted at a chalk-yellow mesa arising from the dusky blues and grays of the Barranca.
    “Wikima kisokoki” There lies my village, he was saying.
    She stared at him, wondering why it had been so easy. Was it that he had recognized her plight? Or had the fear of strangers been lost because these people were so isolated they had never experienced an intrusion from outside?
    The boy lifted his eyebrows at her, his arm still extended toward the horizon.
    She swallowed. The country looked rough. Well, best get started.
    She gestured down at the ledge beneath. The boy gave a sharp nod as if to say, yes, go that way. Making her rope fast about a granite spur near the cliff edge, she made a non-slipping knot about her waist, put on her flying gloves and retrieved her pack along with climbing pitons she had made from tie-down stakes. Approaching the brink on hands and knees, she backed over, gripping the rope and bracing herself against the cliff. Much to her relief, the face was steep but not sheer. Rather than having to lower herself by the rope, she could clamber down backwards using hand and footholds.
    Once she was almost to the ledge, she let herself slide the remaining distance, landing in a puff of dust and a clank of pitons against her canteen. The youth grinned down, undid her anchoring knot and flipped the line to her.
    This part of the ledge was sufficiently wide to walk along, but narrow enough to make her nervous. She looped her safety line over outcrops as she sidled along, hammering in a piton or two for security. At last the shelf widened into another terrace that wound along the canyon face for several kilometers. Coiling the rope over her shoulder, she hiked up her pack again and set off.
    Using a mark scratched on her compass bezel to indicate the direction of the boy’s village, she strode across scrub and gravel. Above, the clouds started to break, letting sunlight enrich the landscape. Bedded sandstone layers she passed turned from a uniform cardboard