Savage Courage

Chapter Two

I will not let thee go.

Have we not chid the changeful moon?

—Robert Bridges

A few days later . . .

“It was a good day for a mock hunt, was it not, Little Bear?” Storm said proudly from his brown pony. He was ten winters of age and of the Chiricahua tribe of Apache, of the Piñaleno River Band.

He looked over at Little Bear, who rode at his side on his own pony, as others followed behind them. He noticed quickly that Little Bear did not even seem to have heard what Storm had said to him.

Wondering what had caught his friend’s attention, Storm followed the path of Little Bear’s eyes.

He grew cold at heart when he saw smoke in the distance. There was no doubt where it came from. It rose from their village which sat alongside the Piñaleno River.

And it was far too much smoke to be accounted for by the cooking fires of the village.

It was billowing and black, turning the sky dark where it had only moments ago been such a peaceful blue.

“My father . . . my mother . . . my sister . . . our people!” Storm gasped as he sank his heels deep into the flanks of his pony. “Nuest-chee-shee, come! We must go and see what we can do to stop the fires and help our people!”

“We are only small braves,” Little Bear whined as he came up closer to Storm on his spotted pony. “We will be riding into danger!”

“Do not cry and whine like a scared puppy,” Storm said scornfully. “Huka, I am not afraid! We must help! We must fight if any enem

ies are left at our village!”

“With our tiny bows and arrows?” Little Bear whined again. “We only have what is needed for a mock hunt, not for true killing. And . . . look at us, Storm. We are but a few!”

“Little Bear, we are but a few, but we are the future of our Piñaleno River Band!” Storm shouted. “Behave like a warrior instead of a mere brave! Be ready for whatever we find at our village! It takes courage, Little Bear. It takes savage courage to be what only moments ago we were not. If our people were ambushed and are no longer of this earth, it will be up to us to carry on the traditions we have been taught.”

Then a thought came to Storm that made his heart skip several beats. His sister Dancing Willow had left at the same time that Storm and his friends had left. She, who was thirty winters of age, a spinster, and a Seer, had gone out into the hills to dig roots.

Dancing Willow had promised to teach the younger girls which roots to dig today. If they had returned to the village before the attack, then she, too, would be dead.

And what of his Ina, his mother? And . . . his . . . chieftain ahte, his father?

He feared his father would not have survived such an ambush, for he would have been one of the first the enemy, whether renegades or pony soldiers, would target!

To kill a powerful chief would be something to brag about.

Storm raised his eyes heavenward. “Please, Maheo, Great Spirit, do not let what I am thinking be true,” he shouted. “Please!”

He rode harder until he entered the thick smoke. Then he slowed his horse down to a slow lope, feeling sick to his stomach at the sights that greeted him. Death was everywhere.

“To-dah, no!” he cried.

Tears sprang to his eyes as he dismounted and began running from person to person, checking to see if any of his fallen people might still be alive.

It was obvious that they had been shot where they stood, unable even to defend themselves.

And then Storm found his mother.

He gagged when he fell beside her on his knees and saw that whoever had shot his white-skinned mother had also taken her golden hair, her scalp!

“Ina, mother,” he sobbed. “How could they do this to you? How? And . . . why?”