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Father Sun peeked above the distant hills, offering light to guide Golden Fox. She hurried up to where her mother and grandfather slept. “Grandfather, Mother, wake! Yellow Moon cut her way out after darkness—”
Eagle Thunder jerked up. “No more words need be spoken, girl. We come.”
Outside, a young warrior holding a flask turned his gaze away from Eagle Thunder’s glare.
The warrior’s older brother swayed next to a cold campfire, offering a crooked smile; he did not look away. He held a woman’s hand and she leaned on his body.
A third man, one of the elders, shouted slurred words. “Eagle Thunder, my friend... we have found a new way of seeing the Great Mystery without she... sheekin a vision and fashing.” He tossed a flask his way. “You wish to join us? You may stay if so.”
Eagle Thunder caught the flask, a mix of sadness and anger flashing on his face. He opened the flask and poured it on the ground, and stared as the fire water made a stream that flowed through what remained of the ash.
The elder squawked as the fire water soaked into the ground.
“You are killing yourselves!” Grandfather yelled. “What new way? The way of blackened, dead hearts inside your bodies?”
Yellow Moon lurched across the camp, one hand hanging loosely at her side and gripping her sheath knife, probably the one she used to cut the hide of her lodge to escape. She swayed, and flopped against one of the lodges near Eagle Thunder. As she lifted the leather flask to her lips, she glared at Golden Fox, and then at Sky Bird. With the back of her hand, she wiped dribbles of poisoned water from her chin and sneered.
“Know wh... why I bur... burned your lodges? The pale ones sent by Sky Bird’s man gave me much drink to burn them.” She spread her hands wide. “As many flasks as the fingers on my hands, and more! Ha! Now you have no home but with the white-skinned ones.” She pointed toward the end of camp that led the way to the fort. Her red, squinting eyes barely focused. “It is sad your grandfather also has lost his home because of this. Your pale-skinned father maybe take you, ugly girl with green eyes and hair the color of dead grass and red dirt. They keep... keep you.”
Sky Bird lunged for Yellow Moon, but Eagle Thunder held tight to his daughter. “It is not my granddaughter who is ugly! Inside, her Spirit is pure, and outside her face and body are pleasing to look at. No, it is not her who the Spirits are pained to look at. It is you! The fire-water has eaten away at your face and body. Only loose skin hangs from your body, and your face is so shallow, it is hard to see if you are human or maybe rotting flesh in the heat.”
Yellow Moon snarled and took a swallow. “You, Eagle Thunder, are older than me. Do not speak of beauty you have never seen. The Spirits are angry at you for being a coward, and for not being willing to drink, so you can see the new way.”
Blazing Fire stomped up and gritted her teeth. “I waited for Eagle Thunder to return, to decide what to do with you, but I think you are now an enemy, and you must die!” She unsheathed her knife, but Eagle Thunder grabbed her shoulder and stopped her.
Yellow Moon cleared her throat and held her head high in defiance. She faced Sky Bird. “Everyone in this band knows your father found you abandoned along a deer path. You are not of the Sun People. Who among our band has grey eyes as you? No one! You think you are better, wiser than me? You are wrong!” Spittle flew from her mouth, and her unfocused eyes seemed to see nothing as they moved back and forth.
“The fire water gives my mind visions as a Holy Person, but what would you know about visions?” She raised the flask. “Here ish Power. Here ish how Sprits whishper words to me. If you had drunk the Holy Water, you would have sheen, as I did. You do not belong here. Go back, half-blood, where you and your light-skinned daughter belong—with the white skins.”
Much fire water was passed around in flasks, most of it in the hands of elders who no longer wore the valuable necklaces they had worn only three sunrises ago. They wore old, plain clothing, and staggered when they walked. A few still wore their decorated clothes, holding onto their dignity as they squatted at campfires, eating.
Yellow Moon tried to focus her gaze on Eagle Thunder. “Leave, ol... ol’ weak man. You take Blazing Fire as well. Maybe the white men teach her some things.”
Blazing Fire readied her knife and stepped toward the woman.
Eagle Thunder pushed her back. “She is mine, Blazing Fire.”
Eagle Thunder, full of his own fire, walked close enough to Yellow Moon that his face was only a breath away. “Sky Bird is my blood daughter. You know this. I think you carry envy that has helped to blacken your heart. Your belly could never hold a child, and you blamed your man and sent him away. I see how you stare at other women who grow babies in their bellies. Now, you are past the time of children and have no one to blame.”
Eagle Thunder’s stare never wavered from the swaying woman. He shook her shoulders and his voice deepened. “You are not of my blood, but of my woman’s, who now sits with her relations at their campfire in the sky. Know this, Yellow Moon: she casts shame upon you even from the Spirit Land. She turns away from you. You are not wanted at her campfire, or anyone else’s in the sky. Not one of your relations will offer you a place at their fire. The whispers you hear are not from the same land where my woman waits for me, but a dark place that light has never seen.”
He nodded at her breast. “A good heart lives there no longer.”
Yellow Moon hissed, “You, Eagle Thunder, are a weak old man. Useless!”
“You are sick, woman! Have you no faith without this?” He pointed a trembling finger at the firewater she held, and then turned to the Sun People who had gathered. “Do any of you people feel shame?”
Some people moved away, while others only stared with empty eyes. No one spoke.
Golden Fox shouted at Yellow Moon, “It is you who is useless and weak.” She spat on the ground and moved toward her to spit again.
Yellow Moon’s body stiffened and her eyes showed great anger.
Golden Fox stared at the flask before speaking. “Your anger means nothing to me. Your mind is broken, as was my father’s. Before my grandmother went to the campfires in the sky, she warned me to be wary of you, that you carried hate in your heart, unlike others who let their hate go before it turns their hearts black.”
Yellow Moon’s brows lowered and she clenched her broken-tipped flint knife. She took the stance of one ready to fight, but tripped on a small tree root and fell. As she pushed up from the dirt, the hilt of the knife slipped and the broken-tipped blade slashed the palm of her hand.
“Aiieee!” She kicked the open flask that lay on the ground. “You! I will get you for thish!” She pounced at Golden Fox.
“No!” Sky Bird lunged and used her shoulder to shove Golden Fox away.
Yellow Moon slammed into Sky Bird and they both fell.
Sky Bird leapt to her feet as Yellow Moon rolled on the ground, trying to stand. Face red with anger, Sky Bird pointed a stiff finger at her second mother’s daughter. “You! You are what the Whites call a savage! You destroy our people and care not what you do.”
Golden Fox rushed over and gripped her mother’s shoulder “Mother, she is not worth as much as the oldest humpback robe in camp!”
Yellow Moon’s face deepened to a dark red-purple as she sat on the ground, her dress muddied and torn. “You musht... reshpect...me!” She slammed her open palm against her thin chest. “I... elder. You know noth... nothin’.” She crawled to her knees, picked up her knife and, after three tries, stood up. She sliced the air with her knife and snarled, and with her eyes focused on her target, she ran at Golden Fox.
Sky Bird raced at Yellow Moon with her arms outstretched. “No! You will not hurt my daughter!” She shoved Yellow Moon at the shoulder, sending her crashing to the ground. Sky Bird stumbled a few feet, then regained her balance, and turned back toward her fallen aunt.
Yellow Moon lay on the ground, face down, unmoving.
Golden Fox knelt down and rolled her over, and they all saw that Yellow Moon’s knife had lodged in her chest. “Sweet Mother.” Golden Fox stood and backed away, covering her mouth with a trembling hand. “If not for me... she would still breathe!”
Sky Bird pulled her away. “I know you are young and have never seen our people fight among our band. We have lived in peace for many cycles of seasons. Now we are broken, but this is not a sorrow that is yours to carry. My aunt has brought this upon herself.”
Yellow Moon’s two brothers, as much as the fire water had control of them, came forward and carried Yellow Moon away.
The eldest brother glared deep into Sky Bird’s eyes. “This is not finished. Leave or die.”
Eagle Thunder stepped in front of Sky Bird. “Do not threaten my daughter. She protected her own child. It was your sister who drank the poisoned water and became crazy.”
The eldest brother let go of his sister’s feet, and they thumped to the ground. He then pulled his obsidian knife, which held an edge much sharper than any met-al one. It could easily cut a hand to the bone with one slice.
Eagle Thunder locked gazes with the younger man as he readied his own obsidian blade. “I will break it off in your heart!”
“No, Father!” Sky Bird screamed. “I refuse to see you harmed over people whose minds drown in poisoned water, when good water runs past the camp. Even the Holy Man does not stir from his lodge.”
Eagle Thunder stared at the knife in his hand and sighed. “We are no longer Sun People. We will go to the other camp, and take the good people with us. We will move on, become new Peoples in our new land.”
Golden Fox tugged at her grandfather’s hand. “Running Girl and her mother are not yet here. They come with the rest of the hunters. We must wait—”
“Girl, I know your friend will soon be here.” Eagle Thunder nodded and watched the band fight among themselves. “Let us hope it is before we leave.”
People spoke in small groups. Some came out of lodges with belongings packed, ready for drags, which the dogs and extra mustangs would pull.
Others held tight to their flasks and only watched.
“People are sick. Even now, if we walked into their lodges, I am sure we would find the poison hidden there. My eyes were blind to this before. I could not accept what the Spirits showed me. Perhaps this is why the Spirits allowed my woman’s sister to burn our lodges.”
***
“Father....” Sky Bird held tight to his arm. “When we traveled to the camp of the pale ones, I thought we traded our furs for blankets of many colors, iron pots, and knives made of what they called met-al. I did not understand we traveled to their camps for poison that kills the mind.”
She nodded toward the band. “I watched our people dance at night, and fall to the ground. You could not see. Your grief lay as a heavy robe over your eyes after Mother took her journey a moon ago. You carried much pain and left camp to call on Mother’s Spirit. How could I speak of it then?”
Her voice trembled. “I failed you, Father. I refused to think this would last long.” Tears gathered on her lashes, and she dashed them away with her hand.
“Our people started to take more of the poison for their furs, instead of blankets, knives and arrow points, as other bands. Instead of returning with our mustangs, we lost some in trading. I know the pale ones stole as many mustangs as they could all cold season. I heard one say a red... filthy redskin savage... should never be allowed a mustang.” She stared at her arm. “Is my skin red? Am I filthy?”
She shook her head. “I had hoped our Holy Man would make them take the drink back, but he took a bladder for himself. He offered it to his young son. The boy drank and fell senseless to the ground.”
Eagle Thunder turned weary eyes upon his daughter. “I will go ready our mustangs to pull drags and carry what is left of our belongings.” He pulled himself tall and spoke to those who would listen. “All who wish to leave with us are welcome.” His eyes misted and he blinked to clear them, then strode away.
Stands His Ground and Blazing Fire helped each other take down their lodges.
Eagle Thunder asked for one of them to remain behind, to speak of what happened when the hunters returned. Perhaps they could return then.
The warrior woman led her mustang over to Eagle Thunder. “I will ride to where the rest of our hunters camp, and tell them what has happened. I will lead the ones who wish to walk with us, and we will catch up to you.”