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We Are Still Here BOOK FIVE of Indian Chronicals by Rick Beck Prologue On to Chapter One "Hunker Down" Complete Chapter Listing We Are Still Here Main Page  Click on the pic for a larger view Teen & Young Adult Native American Action/Adventure
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The 1870s saw a shrinking landscape for Great Plains Indians.
They were running out of time and space. The great chiefs, watching their tribes decimated by disease, hunger and constantly being at war. They signed treaties giving up their rights to the land, and the United States government promised to feed them.
With the buffalo gone, and more and more hunters hunting for less and less game, the once plentiful buffalo were all but gone. The deer, antelope, elk, beaver, once too numerous to count, were few.
After a thousand years of living in brotherhood with the abundance and plenty on the Great Plains, the nomadic tribes of the west that once followed the buffalo were defeated and broken men, looking for a way to survive, and giving in became the best idea if they wanted to save their people from starving.
Once they gave up their weapons, they were helpless and in the hands of the enemy, who broke every treaty indigenous people signed under dubious circumstances. The men in charge didn't believe they had to honor treaties you made with savages, but heaven help the Indians who didn't follow their end of the bargain.
Great tribes on the plains with colorful warriors and families followed the buffalo for thousands of years. Once the Europeans came, and kept on coming, those same Indians were reduced to beggars.
The Lakota signed a treaty at Fort Laramie in 1868. In that treaty the Lakota were guaranteed the sacred Black Hills were theirs for as long as the grass grows and the rivers flowed. No one knew how long that was, because its wording gave the Sioux the idea that this land would be theirs forever, because grass grows and rivers flow for at least that long. They signed away their rights to the land south of the Black Hills, but those mountains were sacred and the Lakota would never give them up.
In 1872, Custer reported gold had been found in the Black Hills. He knew what would happen among men who went crazy with the idea of getting rich. Custer never approved of the Fort Laramie treaty, and letting the word get out that there was gold had white men flooding into the region that would most certainly make the Sioux go to war to stop them.
Custer was just waiting for them to go on the warpath.
Indians learned that words put on paper were meaningless. The American Indians were savages and due no rights. Neither American nor Indian, the indigenous people who were on the land next to forever, knew their days were numbered. They would keep fighting for their way of life, even if they already knew the ending.
Even knowing they would be defeated, the great war chiefs, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Red Cloud fought the inevitable for as long as possible, and even more of their people perished, until all hope was lost. They were tired of the killing, tired of the dying. They did the only thing they could do. They went in.
Once they gave up their weapons and went into prison camps where they thought they would be properly fed. Guarded by cavalry troops, the days of roaming free on the plains had ended. Going in meant giving up the land. Going in meant giving up their rights to the land and staying off of it.
Civilized people owned it now. They would build cities, fence in farms and use barbed wire on the plains so the cows that came from Europe didn't stray. Dividing the land into sections, they sold people patches. They could fence their patch in and keep people off of it. If you wanted to cross the plains, you needed to find the nearest road, and you were free to come and go as you please, just stay off of private property.
The land the Indians were given to live on, once they went in, grew only sand and rocks, more sand and more rocks. The gardening tools provided for their transition to farmers were useless on land no one else wanted, but Indians not in prison camps were fair targets for anyone with a gun. They had made a fool's bargain. They knew that. The only other choice was to be ridden down and killed. They went in hoping to be treated fairly.
They had a lot to learn. Indigenous people didn't realize how being civilized worked.
At the hands of Indian agents, the government supplied food and blankets were sold on the open market, making the agents rich. They gave the Indians rancid varmint infested food and worn out blankets. Not all Indian agents were crooks. Most were friends of politicians appointed to the job with little oversight to see the goods got to the people the government intended to get it. They were too busy to worry about it. They had an entire country to build.
Some tribes did better than others, depending on how crooked the Indian Agent was, but it was no picnic.
The Indians learned that words put on paper were worthless. Once they agreed to give up the land, they gave up their right to be free. What they were told they would get had no relationship to what they received. They had become prisoners on the land they loved. Their crime, not being civilized.
The Pawnee were no different from other tribes and clans who lived on the Great Plains.
Chief Lone Wolf's clan moved into a wilderness village, after a massacre by renegades killed half of Lone Wolf's clan. The warriors left were old. The younger warriors died fighting marauders with bows and arrows against their arsenal of guns. The outcome was never in doubt. Lone Wolf's clan was decimated.
There are sons of warriors who survived, and they will grow into the clan's hunters and warriors, but until they grow up, Lone Wolf intends to keep his people safe by staying out of the way of the violence and wars. He knows a wilderness spot that will keep his people safe. It is close to the mountain hunting grounds where they go to hunt twice a year, and the smaller animals in and around the village would fill their pots..
While Lone Wolf's clan is healing, the next chief, Running Horse, lives in Chief Lone Wolf's lodge, after his father dies at the hands of marauders. Fleet Horse would have been chief after Lone Wolf, but that duty will pass to Running Horse, now that his father is dead. Lone Wolf takes the boy into his lodge to live.
I came out of the massacre, indirectly. My father, Proud Eagle, is wounded in the same ambush that kills his brother Fleet Horse. Wounded and on foot, Paw tries to make it back to his village. He collapses alongside the trail, and trapper and adventurer, Phillip Dubois, taking his furs to sell, picked up my father and he did what had to be done to help the young Indian survive.
Paw left Phillip's wagon, and making an effort to get home, becomes ill, collapsing alongside the trail for my grandpa Kelly, known in town as The Prophet, to find. He does the decent thing. He takes Paw home with him for his daughter to nurse, and that is how I entered the picture in the usual way. I took my mother's word for it.
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Once I returned to Running Horse, after being away for most of twelve years, Running Horse's clan is in a village at the lake in the valley where the river runs. Returning is tricky business, because Phillip Dubois, surveyor and wagon master, also happens to be Tall Willow, a wanted Indian.
Shortly after my return, we are warned the cavalry will attack later that week, which sends us on the run. We are on the verge of being caught by the cavalry. Running Horse's clan is not going in. We prepared to die.
At the time we reach Paradise Valley, we get the word, "The cavalry is two miles behind us and they're coming fast."
The hidden valley would give us protection, but with no time to cover our tracks, we are doomed. The scouts will follow our trail into the canyon's hidden valley, and the refuge we seek would become our grave.
That's when the storm the likes no one had ever seen hit. It rained in torrents. It rained harder than anyone had ever seen it rain before. It rained so hard the water out in front of the canyon is ankle deep. It rains so hard the cavalry is forced to turn back. It rained so hard that the tracks leading into Paradise Valley are covered by five inches of water. The rain covers any tracks we left behind.
The rain saved Running Horse's clan.
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Will the cavalry return once the storm passes? Will they pick up where they left off? ? Could Running Horse's clan stay hidden and safe in Paradise Valley? With most Indians already in prison camps, is that where we would end up going? Would Running Horse's clan finally be forced to go in?
These questions will be answered, but more questions will come to mind in book 5 of Indian Chronicles.
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"Hunker Down"
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