The Land - Robert K. Swisher Jr.

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by hand and with horses, piled rocks between the already protruding boulders to form larger defenses. Then small shelters were erected anywhere they could stand. Crude shelters from wood and stone. Then and only then did the women and children sleep and the warriors gather for council.

      The warriors were divided into three groups. One group would be to the front, behind the boulders. Another with bows would scale the sides of the canyon and rain arrows down upon the enemy and the other would stay behind the front defense, filling in men as others fell from wounds. Several men were sent out as sentries to return when the invading warriors were sighted.

      With the darkness, the camp became silent. Women and children slept in the crude shelters. Warriors took turns sleeping. Overhead the night was bright with the full moon. Black Bison walked amongst his people, heavy of heart and deep in meditation. Man of Darkness had not had a dream. The spirits were not talking to him. This battle would be up to man alone.

      In the morning Black Bison sat on a small rise within the canyon and looked at his people. He was very proud of his people and filled with emotion. Below him old women, bent and twisted with time, carried heavy loads of wood and piled it on the growing stacks. Old men sat working arrow shafts, their fingers barely able to withstand the pain. The children worked with the others but too young to know of the danger around them, they laughed and sang as if it was nothing but a great adventure that would end soon and they would go back to the pueblo.

      Outside of the canyon men searched quickly for game, hoping and praying they could kill enough to feed the tribe during the upcoming battle. Around the rocks and trees of the canyon, birds darted and fluttered, chasing bugs. Overhead the sky was blue and small powder puff clouds moved lazily, as though dancing with the changing seasons. It was a good day to go out onto the land with one’s love and make love beside a river. Letting the cool air touch one’s skin.

      Black Bison stood and looked out beyond the canyon and spoke to the breeze and the sky and his unseen enemy. “Whence do you come, my enemy? What have I done to bring you from the south with your pain and destruction? We are a peace-loving people, content to grow our corn, content to let children sing and play. Happy to let our warriors grow to old men without the taste of battle. But now you come, come like some dark demon with the day, bringing to our hearts sorrow and pain. Bringing to the lives of our women fear and grief. The sky is blue, but the earth will be red with our blood. And now we, with our love of peace and the mother earth, will fight you to the end. You will not make us captives to your bidding. We will not lay down before you like whipped dogs.” And with great sadness Black Bison lowered his head. “But I pray, mother of us all, in our battle do not make us hate. Life is too short for us to hate.”

      Black Bison walked down into the canyon. He must go see Man of Darkness. Maybe he had had a vision. Maybe the gods had spoken and they would help Black Bison and his people.

       FLYING BIRD

      When Flying Bird rose and went to get water the morning Shining Moon had ridden out looking for danger she did not know if she could withstand the pain of separation. Mother watched her daughter closely for several days, and then one afternoon she took Flying Bird aside and shook her firmly and spoke.

      “You are to be married now, my little one, it is time to be a woman, not a child. There is much pain in this life but we must be strong.”

      After this, Flying Bird held her tears, and although her heart was breaking she helped her mother and grandmother and kept her mind busy by working all her waking hours. When the brave returned with news of the invaders, she could no longer feel pain but was caught up in the frenzy of breaking down the pueblo. People rushed everywhere and many good and wonderful things were left behind. Pots that Mother and Grandmother had worked laboriously on were broken to release the spirit of the maker from them. Dried corn and beans were poured into large baskets and tied to litters behind pawing and snorting horses growing excited by the milling, chattering people around them. With the excitment and growing fear, Flying Bird felt growing in her stomach tight knots thinking about what the invaders might do.

      She herself had never seen or been close to a battle. But she had heard tales of what strange men did to women of other tribes. Women would be tied to the ground and men at will would penetrate their separated legs. There were even tales of after the women were close to death, they would be cut up and fed to the dogs of the invaders.

      When finally the packing was done and the tribe formed into a jagged line, then and only then did Flying Bird once again think about her love. Why me? she thought — so close to our wedding date. Surely the gods smile on us, there is no love like ours, no love ever in the world. And as they marched circled by the warriors, Flying Bird could not wail like the other women. Her sadness was beyond pain or sorrow but was a dark emptiness that seemed to sap all the hope from her body. My love is gone, she thought to herself. Gone out into the wilderness. Gone to find the danger that follows now at our heels like some evil wolf following a wounded deer.

      With the beginning of the march Flying Bird was oblivious to the sound and movement around her. She walked in desolation. One step in front of the other, hour after hour after hour. She did not feel the weariness creep into her feet and then up her legs. She did not feel the blisters slowly forming on her heels or the weight of the straps from the basket she carried filled with beans. She only felt the heaviness in her thoughts, and thought terrible thoughts about Shining Moon. Deep inside herself she knew she would never see him again.

      Mother walked slowly behind her daughter. And although she was tired she carefully watched Flying Bird. Inside herself she knew how the little one ached. But what was one to do over heartbreak? There were no words or helping things. There was nothing but the deep bitterness of it. The sleepless hours and the shallow days. Silently in between her own sorrow, she prayed for Flying Bird, hoping she would find strength and grow strong. She would watch the young girl who every other minute or so would reach up to her ears and touch the turquoise earrings Shining Moon had given her. “He is with you, my child,” Mother spoke to herself, “in all things he is with you. Now you see the bitterness of love, the longing and heartache. The first feeling of separation. Now you see you must learn to accept. Love is all things in happiness and agony.” Mother made a sour face and spit on the ground. Men, she thought, Love … and she let her thoughts trail off into happy thoughts of the past.

      She remembered when she was a small girl and how she had longed for a brave named Tall Tree. He was such a handsome, brave young man, so full of life and health. When they were children she had fallen in love with Tall Tree, and as she grew up she would dream of the day he would ask her to marry him. But even as a youth she knew Tall Tree would never desire her. She was far too plain and not beautiful like other girls, and Tall Tree was so handsome he would hever marry a girl like her. But still she held onto her dreams of him. Watching as they grew together, he becoming more and more handsome and she staying plain and in her heart ugly.

      It was a cold winter day and she was fifteen years old when the news came. Tall Tree had fallen through the ice of a river far to the north and was never found. Mother had felt as though the same cold river water flooded over her heart. For many suns it seemed she could not sleep, and in all her waking moments the cold of the ice held a tight hand around her heart. But in the spring Sleeping Bear had asked for her hand and her father had taken three good horses for her.

      At first when the match was made, Mother hated Sleeping Bear. He was not handsome like Tall Tree. He was a short little man, not a warrior but a grower. A man who worked in the dirt. He was not brave. She told herself she would run away, but she knew in her heart she would never do that.

      The day of the marriage she was sad, but Sleeping Bear sat across from her on the elk robes and looked deep within her eyes. For the first time she saw a great gentleness in this man of the earth. After several long moments, Sleeping Bear spoke in a soft deep voice. “I know that your heart rests with the spirit of another and I know I am not the most handsome man of the tribe, but I promise you in all things of my life you will be by my side and in all things I will treat you with truth.”

      That night Sleeping Bear did not come to his new wife, but they sat and talked about many things. And in

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