THE FEATHER KEEPER

Book excerpt: Three teenage Native American boys; John Two- Feather and his cousins, Samuel and Joseph King, grandsons of Navajo Singer John King, grew up on the reservation listening to their grandfather sing the myths of the Navajo twin heroes known as ‘The Feather Keepers’. Now in 1988, King sets about the task of transforming his grandsons from gangly youth into men who will one day serve as champions of the Navajo nation. Their journey begins when after reenacting an ancient ceremony King bequeaths to them the secrets and mystic powers of ‘The Gifts of Ages’. Armed with the Gifts, the boys will soon after face their fi rst trial on the long road to assuming their grandfather’s role as the sole operators of the clandestine Aghia program whose members serve as champions of the Navajo and the United States of America.