I felt Running Horse leave our buffalo robe in the middle of the night, and a few minutes later I felt the glorious warmth of the fire roaring a few feet away. As with most things, if no one else did a chore, Running Horse would do it. He was back to where I could get my arms around him a few minutes later. His body was cold, but his warm heart made me delirious with delight. There was no warmth like the warmth Running Horse provided me. I was sound asleep minutes later.

All was right with the world. All was right with me and my man.

Tomorrow, we hunted.

Once Running Horse got up, there was no reason to stay in the buffalo robe. I dressed and went to see if I could be useful. We hadn't filled the first sled yet, and that meant it wouldn't start back until tomorrow, if we had a better day today.

When I looked at the half empty sled, I felt empty inside. Would this be the year we didn't get enough meat to get us through until the spring hunt? We dragged the sled up into the snow and packed it under a good deal of fresh snow.

The next morning, once we cooked and ate the rest of a rabbit we cooked the night before, there was more rabbit to take with us.

We will be gone all day today.

I watched Running Horse get up, bow in hand. I followed him to the trail we would take up and over the top of the mountain. We were hunting in a place on the river side of the mountain. We had been there before and got game.

It was never easy keeping up with Running Horse. His determination kept him moving at a pace I couldn't match, and along the way, he would be standing to wait for me. First he let me get into his arms and we shared a kiss or two before he was off again.

Kissing and running away was not my favorite thing, but Running Horse and I knew each other like open books by that time. I did as much as I could to keep up, but there he would be waiting a little further along.

Once we got to the familiar spot that wasn't below the snowline, I needed to thaw out in my lover's arms. We melted a lot of snow that way, and that meant plenty to drink without going to drink from the creek a few dozen yards away.

While it was light enough to see the trail, it was still mostly in shadows when we got to a spot back in the trees, we silently brushed away the snow to reveal the moss and frozen ground under it.

We were settling into our hunting place before it was full daylight. It seemed like we had been on the move for hours. Once we settled in long before the deer came to drink, we would be there all day. The next few days we started at first light, and we stayed until we had just enough light to return to camp.

Beating the deer to a watering hole meant they didn't know we were there, and we could watch them come out of the forest to take a drink before they went to where the deer went during the day.

This stand of trees was the only stand in that section. We used it twice before, and both times Running Horse got a buck. For me, one spot wasn't that different than another spot. As long as I sat with my back against his chest, as his back rested against one of the trees, it was fine for me. His arms were a glorious place to be, not to mention warm and comfortable.

The place had a wide open view of the watering hole with low hanging branches keeping us in shade. As long as we didn't move around, the deer wouldn't know we were there, and we stayed still.

The tree he picked to lean against was in the shade. There was moss growing all around. It was easy on the butt. It had two trees on each side that shaded our presence, but there was a straight view to the watering hole.

He set his bow and arrows on the left side of him. I put my bow and arrows on the right side. The wait was on.

I could hardly hold my eyes open.

Because we were together, because we furnished warmth for each other, while we waited, it was difficult not to nod off. It was almost an elixir that couldn't help but put me to sleep. Being in those strong arms was ever so nice.

I loved leaning against him. I loved having his arms around me.

I was warm. It wasn't a bitter cold day. It was late autumn and the real winter weather was a month away. I remembered what real winter was like on the mountain. The first time I spent winter on the mountain, I was hunting for grizzly bears. I did not want anything to do with a griz on this trip. I wasn't sure I could bring down a bear with my bow. The idea of standing steady while shooting my arrows at a griz who took to charging me was not my idea of a good time.

My Hawkin would bring down anything, but I had yet to believe that was true of my bow. It was reliable and silent, but would it put a griz down to stay?

I was not eager to find out. I was content to leave the grizzly bears alone.

I only saw a griz charge at me once and once was enough. If I never again saw a grizzly bear, it would be too soon. I suppose if it did charge toward me, I would need to use my bow on it, but not using my bow on one was no hardship.

This was my easiest hunt so far. We had gone hunting together half a dozen times, since I mastered bow hunting. I was confident I would shoot a good quantity of meat to take back, and that's all we were expected to do. If I happened to take back the most meat shot this autumn, that would suit me fine, but that honor almost always went to Running Horse. I did not mind his success.

Hunting was the one thing I liked doing with my father. He was an excellent hunter, and he taught me the things a good hunter needed to know. Because it was the one thing we did together as father and son, I needed to do it well.

I fancied myself a hunter, and I practiced with my squirrel gun until I rarely missed a shot. Before I was anything, I was a hunter.

As I sat in my lover's arms, I remembered the day Running Horse drew the line with the toe of his moccasin in the dirt. I had never fired an arrow that far, and he knew it. Because he made me the bow I was going to use, I calculated it was stronger than the bow Lit'l Fox first made for me.

I was growing up. I was growing stronger. Running Horse made me a more powerful bow. I hunted with that bow for years to come, but the day he drew that line in the dirt, the day Lone Wolf stood a few feet from the target, I hadn't used the bow even once, and that worried me, when it didn't worry Running Horse.

Because Chief Lone Wolf picked this time to come watch his bowman, and he stood uncomfortably close to the target, I winced when I did not see my arrow hit the target as soon as Running Horse's arrow did.

I put my hand on the bow that was on the moss a foot away from my hand. Running Horse made the bow for me, and it was the bow I used to hunt. It's funny how your mind works while you wait. Mine worked a lot. I had a lot to think about. I had lots to learn. Remembering one of my best days was nice.

I was a lot more confident these days. I got better with the bow, and I looked forward to going to the mountain. I did think of the cabin in the valley where the river runs, when we walked in that direction, or we went on the valley side of the mountain to do our hunting.

I lived at the cabin for a long time. I hadn't seen it in years. Did Maw and Paw figure me to be dead? Did they think of me at all?

I hadn't worked through all the misgivings about my first life. I was too busy getting the most I could out of the second life I had been given. It was the second life I wanted the entire time I was living my first life.

Until I lived in the Pawnee village, I didn't know what was missing. Once I realized I was living the life I dreamed of, I didn't think of my first life any longer.

Running Horse and I were lovers. Everyone knew it. We didn't hide our love, although we didn't make love where we could be seen, unless someone followed us wanting to watch. I was sure we hadn't discovered anything new. People had been falling in love since time began. I read about love in Mrs. Taylor's class.

In Mrs. Taylor's class, we read stories about the great lovers in history. Of course you couldn't call them lovers, because that brought up the sex deal you couldn't talk about, and so we read about the great couples in history, but they were lovers, and in spite of Mrs. Taylor, I'm sure they had their share of sex. If they didn't, they were foolish lovers indeed.

I don't know how other couples found out about the sex deal, but Running Horse was happy to teach me everything he knew, fervently and often.

Once I caught on to my feelings about him, I taught him a thing or two.

Running Horse and I were lovers. The whole sex deal made it wonderful.

I didn't always wear my eagle feathers. I did want them in my hair when we hunted. They told me that I would have a good hunt, bringing back much meat. My chief honored me with those feathers. I would fill the villages pots with as much meat as I possibly could on hunts.

If that didn't say I was deadly with a bow, nothing would, and I was ready for anything, except maybe a griz. Which I made up my mind to leave alone, once Lit'l Fox brought me off the mountain alive.

I tempted fate once. I wouldn't risk it a second time. Grizzly bears were cunning, fast, and a powerful predator who could hunt a man if he decided to.

I spent a lot of time planning to get a griz once. I was older and wiser now.

We visited that mountain often enough for me to remember my first trip there. Now, our trips were about hunters feeding our people, and it was work we took seriously, and as younger boys grew into young men, the number of hunters increased. When the time for the hunt came, we had plenty of bows for the hunt.

Half the warriors stayed home in the village when ten of us went to hunt.

Once upon a time, Chief Lone Wolf took his hunters to kill the buffalo. When they returned from that hunt, the village was destroyed and half of the chief's people had been killed. These days, half the hunters went to hunt, half stayed.

Everyone knew of the massacre, even our hunters that weren't born then. I wasn't born then. I knew of the massacre before I came to learn it as lore.

The likelihood of enduring another massacre at the hands of renegades wasn't likely. The village had been moved to such an isolated spot, and it was half the size it once was, but if lore does one thing, it speaks of what can happen if the wrong people cross your path.

One day they crossed my people's path, and we were very careful not to leave our peaceful village unguarded, and warriors kept it safe.

It was a sad lesson to learn. It was a sad piece of history for my people. The fact such evil brutal people lived in the same world with us was knowledge we wished we hadn't learned at such a high cost.

We were a peaceful people living simple lives. We learned a hard lesson, and we wouldn't make the same mistake that cost so many lives twice.

Chief Lone Wolf's village was more careful these days, but even having a village in such an isolated place didn't guarantee safety. There was the cavalry to consider, and any time the cavalry came close to Indians, death was in the air.

You never knew when the cavalry had decided it is your turn to die.

Renegades were not as likely to be moving around in a wilderness, because when they are moving around, they are looking for things of value to come away with. They found little of value in the village they raided all those years ago.

We valued life, sharing, and a community that walked in harmony.

It was nothing renegades could get their hands on. Our wealth was kept in our hearts, but some people wanted any wealth so badly they would kill you for no reason. If you had nothing of value, they would move on to the next village.

This was only the second day in this year's all day hunts, we still had hopes of bringing home more meat than the spring hunt. The feast only lasted for two days, because we needed to make the meat last all summer.

Oh, we hunted critters in and around the village, but they two seem to be less anxious to hop in front of our bows, and we depended on fish more often.

It wasn't a failure of hunters. It was more a failing of what we hunted to appear in sufficient numbers to feed us well. We were not going to starve, but the pots did have less meat in them.

The autumn before we did respectively well, bringing back two sleds, and our hope was to equal that or maybe bring a little more meat back this year.

No matter how good you are with a bow, the bow is useless without game.

I was a good hunter and Running Horse was better, and we thought that should be enough to get a fair amount of game. Hunting together made us twice as likely to kill a buck or two, if there were bucks to be had where we hunted.

These were and always would be the happiest years of my life. I was growing into a man and having fun doing it. It's difficult to look on such a happy time in my life, when I didn't know the hardship that stood directly ahead of me. If anyone said, "Tall Willow, before all is said and done, you'll leave your village and your lover behind," I would have laughed.

My life was good and it only got better while I was becoming a man.

Why would I leave a life I loved? I wouldn't, not willingly.

Looking back on it now, I know you live life by steps. Each day you take steps thinking you know exactly where you are going, but at the end of some days, you stop, look around you, wondering how you got where you are.

My steps had taken me to where I was, and where I was is where I wanted to be. It was difficult to see steps that might carry me away from all that I loved.

On the morning of the third day, Running Horse and I took a trip over the top of the mountain to hunt by a creek that ran there. We had a perch on top of some rocks that were scattered about, and there was a tree to lean against, and a view of the creek. We saw the game that came to drink. They couldn't see us.

We were there for over an hour. Nothing came to drink. The wind was blocked by rocks and the tree, but it was quite cold. We sat silently, keeping each other warm, trying not to move, or bring attention to the place where we waited.

I could feel Running Horse breathing. He had his arms around me and held me as close to him as I could get. It was a nice place to be. Running Horse nibbled at my neck from time to time. It was one way to keep me awake. I didn't want to move, because I knew to move meant dealing with the cold. I sat still.

Running Horse had his bow when he eased his back up the tree trunk and he let me fall where I may. So much for my lover holding me close.

Running Horse dropped him when he stood, after drinking for a few minutes. I didn't see the deer or the shot, but I got a close up view once we left the comfort of the perch from where the hunter brought him down.

"He'll need his own sled," I said, looking at the dead deer.

"You no shoot," he said.

"Me no awake to shoot," I said. "I was having a nice warm dream. You were making the most delicious love to me."

Running Horse laughed.

We had a long way to get that venison back to camp and ready to take back to the village. It would get its own sled, and the rest would go on the second of three sleds to go to the village on this hunt. Two were full sleds and the third sled had to take the biggest buck I ever saw. Running Horse did himself proud.

I didn't get a buck this year, but in the spring, I would be back.

We made amazing love that night. It was the least I could do for my chief.

The deer's rack was impressive on his formidable head. Of course, Running Horse, future chief of the Pawnee would get the biggest buck his braves ever saw. This was the granddaddy of all deer, and Running Horse would take the antlers to Chief Lone Wolf as a gift.

We hardly ever kept trophies from our hunts, but this impressive rack went to Chief Lone Wolf, as soon as we reached the village next to the stream on the far side of the mountain.

It was the kind of thing a soon to be chief took to the man he was being prepared to replace. It was a wonderful gift the chief held high over his head for all to see. Everyone appreciated the antlers of a prize buck. It did Chief Lone Wolf good to know Running Horse got the deer who held up those antlers.

"You are a hunter among hunters, my son," Lone Wolf told Running Horse.

The firepit was blazing. The meat was approved by everyone there. Song and good cheer flowed through our village the night we returned from the autumn hunt. We exceeded our high hopes for a good hunt.

Perhaps the lack of game on the mountain during last year's spring hunt was just an off year and not a predictor of things to come. We had high hopes that we hadn't begun to deplete the deer population on the mountain. We could survive on smaller critters, but venison was a popular meat we all liked.

As usual, Running Horse got the biggest buck and was responsible for taking home more meat than any other hunter. Because he knew the best places to hunt, and they were often further away than closer in places, we brought in game other hunters didn't get a shot at.

The feasting went on most of the night for everyone but the hunters.

We had returned from the hunt. We were worn out by the long days while enduring the discomfort and lack of rest you got while hunting on the mountain. We did our job and looked forward to a peaceful long night of sleep without the benefit of below freezing temperatures.

These were the best days of my life.

Having Running Horse in my arms, being in his arms, was the best thing I ever did. Being with my man, and as men went, Running Horse was the most impressive man I knew. He was also the most beautiful Indian I would ever see.

There was little thought of war or moves to safer, more practical places. There were no thoughts of the cabin in the valley where the river runs. I left my anger with my father behind me. I was living my life as a Pawnee, and it suited me much better than my first life ever did.

I no longer needed to deal with the Prophet or the men at Lawrence's store.

Lit'l Fox was as well and as strong as I had seen him. The drinks and tonics Medicine Woman fixed in her lodge kept many people in the village healthy.

Chief Lone Wolf and his brother Dark Horse both looked fit as a fiddle, and they were at their best when we returned from hunts with enough meat to last until the next season for hunting. The feasting and celebration made us all happy to be where we were, doing what we did. Life for us was good.

Life was good.

We didn't always bring back so much meat, but hunting was still good, and the competition for the game hadn't gotten out of hand yet.

It would get out of hand. Game would become harder and harder to find.

Once the white men all but wiped out the buffalo, our main food source was gone. Deer, antelope, and even elk were still plentiful where we lived.

As more and more people came, the amount of game was cut in half, and then, they were cut in half again. White hunters knew no limits. They took game they would never eat. They took game we would be unable to eat.

Our hunts would last for weeks. Our sled came home half empty. We came home defeated, unable to do what Pawnee had been doing forever.

That's near the end of the story I tell. We are hardly beyond the beginning.

My life was good. I was in love, and things were as they had always been. The furthest thing from my mind was returning to the cabin in the valley where the river runs. There was no happiness there. I had no life in that place.

My steps as a stupid kid led me to a world I couldn't have imagined, and a life I cherished. When I left to get me a griz, I wanted Paw to see me as a man.

From that clumsy attempt at finding purpose, I found my way to the place where I would grow into a man, but I was able to be a boy for a little longer.

My life as a Pawnee warrior came with risks. The more people who came west to settle, the less room there was for the Pawnee, Lakota, Ogalala, the Arikara, the Northern Cheyenne, the Crow and the Black Foot, and all the tribes that had been on the plains with us for the last thousand years.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Epilogue

The hunts no longer seemed so far apart as I became well acquainted with the flow of the village. The hunts were what gave us purpose.

I was testing my bow string weeks before we left for the mountain.

When we trotted off to the mountain, most of the village was there to watch us go. Everyone loved the feast that would accompany our return and seeing us go was the first step toward celebration.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

I woke when Running Horse moved.

I knew where I was. I knew why I was here.

"Shhhhh," Running Horse told me, when he felt me move.

My eyes opened and I followed his finger. Three deer were standing at the water hole. A doe drank, the two bucks stood alert. The two bucks drank, and the doe stood alert.

"Stand slow," he whispered.

The buck on the left stuck his head up as if he heard something dangerous.

When we were standing, we had our bows ready to fire. We had done this dozens of times before.

Running Horse was partially behind the tree trunk. I was further from the tree. We didn't need to move to take a shot.

I knew he would take the buck on his side. I would take the buck on my side. The doe would live to drink another day.

He drew his bowstring back and I did the same. I listened for his bow string to be released. When I heard his, I released my arrow into the air.

I didn't worry about my aim. I hadn't worried that I would miss. I did what I knew how to do, and I rarely missed or dropped my bow and arrow while shooting at game.

I watched in amazement as the two bucks dropped right where they stood. Before they hit the ground, the doe was gone. It was always good when Running Horse got his buck, but today, we both got our buck at the same time. Once we quartered it, we would have over a half sled of meat to go beside the sled of meat that Turtle and Young Antelope would take back first thing in the morning of the third day on this hunt. The hunt was already a success.

There were two antelopes, a prong horn deer, and more rabbits than I could count. We always got a lot of clear shots at rabbits. They seemed anxious to hop in front of our bows. We were all partial to rabbit meat.

The sun was shining brightly as we butchered the deer meat. Running Horse was more delighted than I'd ever seen him. We'd gotten three to four hundred pounds of meat in a split second. Running Horse was almost dancing around the meat as he quartered his deer, while I quartered mine.

"The Great Spirit has been particularly good to us this day," he told me.

We took our deer we kilt back to camp, using a sled Running Horse rigged to hold the meat from both deer. It was slow going. Running Horse pulled the heavy sled over difficult ground.

I asked to take a turn. He insisted he do it. I never argued with the man who would be chief. Running Horse had a need to prove himself, and he endured much more struggle than I had to endure. This was another test he created for himself, and being tired from so little sleep, I let him have his way.

If I had grown strong, Running Horse had grown stronger.

Tonight, I would give him what for as his reward for the extra labor he put on himself. If there was anything Running Horse liked more than getting his buck, it was me giving him what for after we were in the buffalo robe at night. He was a man for all seasons, and he was my man.

Being with Running Horse was about the best thing ever. We were together each and every day, but the days were too short, and I ran out of gas before Running Horse ever did. I wish I was the man Running Horse was, but I wasn't.

I would be in the buffalo robe long before he came to sleep, and that's when our love was perfect and sleep had to wait. We would get to sleeping right after the loving was done.

I knew Running Horse's love was as big as the sky, but he had a mistress who needed his attention. Running Horse didn't talk about becoming chief. He stood silent most of the time. His deeds were many and for all to see.

Some days I sit and watch him. Just watched the most beautiful Indian ever, and I thought a lot about when I could get him alone to do things to him I wouldn't want my mother to know about.

We were young and we calculated we had our entire lives ahead of us.

Being crazy about someone, after liking no one for so long, was probably a little crazy too, but I was crazy about Running Horse.

Our love was true as we looked to find the calms in the sea of change.

The day was coming when there wouldn't be enough room for all the white settlers and plains Indians. As that day closed in on us, we never lost hope that there would be a way to live side by side with white settlers and not need to kill each other in an effort to find a lasting peace.

Lone Wolf warned us, but we were in the prime of life, and giving Running Horse up wasn't given any consideration.

Our love was a forever love.

A chief knew much, and if Chief Running Horse saw our future, he never spoke of it to me. We walked hand in hand, side by side.

I would stand at the right hand of the new chief, and my brother, Lit'l Fox stood at my right hand. There was no idea in my mind that this wasn't the way my life was going to be lived.

Together we could advise Running Horse and head off any coming difficulties we encountered.

What we couldn't see would arise and deal us a deadly blow and scatter us to the winds of change that were going to turn our lives upside down.

We were always in tune with one another. Unseen events were going to close in on us and strike a deadly blow to all that we knew. The new chief would need to find a way to overcome difficulties if the village was to survive.

While Running Horse was already spending much of his time listening to Chief Lone Wolf, he ended his day with me in his arms most nights. I was his refuge in the storm. We shared our forever love, not knowing how it would be tested in the coming years.

There was one truth we both knew.

"Running Horse love Tall Willow."

"Tall Willow love Running Horse."

And we lived happily ever after, for as long as we could, always hoping for a little longer to be together.

The day was coming when that wouldn't be possible.

War was afoot in the land.

It's outcome wasn't in doubt. The time we had was uncertain.

The United States cavalry was growing in strength once the Civil War ended. They were building new forts to put between Fort Riley, Fort Laramie, and Fort Collins, which all became fully manned with Civil War soldiers.

New forts, like Fort Robinson, were being built to make more and more of the plains accessible and keep the trails west open to settlers.

We were a small village. There was a hope that we were so tiny that the cavalry wouldn't want to waste their time on us, but we knew, sooner or later, they would make time.

The best we could hope for was to die a good death.

I'm a hunter. I'm a warrior. I am Pawnee.


The End of Autumn Allies
Book One in Indian Chronicles


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