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No one but Thunder Horse and his people knew where he’d found the silver, and thus far no other white men had entered the cave. It was known far and wide that this was a sacred place, where the bodies of many chiefs were interred, and where drawings on the walls told of the history of the Fox band.
Only one man had dared to desecrate this sacred place, and he had taken more than silver from the cave. He had taken some of its sacredness away. He had disturbed the remains of those interred there.
After discovering who had gone into the sacred cave and disturbed the spirits, Thunder Horse had warned Reginald Vineyard that if he ever entered the cave again, he would die a slow, unmerciful death.
He had also told Reginald that he would be haunted from then on by the spirits of those he had disturbed. The evil man would never know another night’s rest as long as he had breath in his lungs!
Now that Thunder Horse knew who the woman had come to be with, he was full of questions.
What was her connection to this terrible man?
Had she come to Tombstone to marry him?
Or was she his wife already?
In another time, when vengeance had been keen on the mind of every Sioux warrior, Thunder Horse would have thought of a way to use this woman to right the wrongs this man had done his people.
But today things were different. If Thunder Horse tried to avenge himself against Reginald Vineyard, the white government would step in. Thunder Horse’s people would be in danger, and what remained of his band in Arizona would immediately be ordered to the reservation in the Dakotas. If there was ever trouble between whites and red men, it was always the whites the soldiers protected, even if those whites were the ones who wronged the red man.
No. He would not use this woman for vengeance. He would put her from his mind. He would do nothing now to cause his people to suffer any more than they already had at the hands of whites. The blood of his Sioux people had already turned too many rivers red.
Suddenly he was brought from his deep thoughts by the sound of a voice outside his lodge. He turned his head to the closed entrance flap. It was his nephew Lone Wing.
“Enter,” Thunder Horse said, smiling at the youth as he came inside the tepee. He looked questioningly at the boy when he saw that Lone Wing was nestling something in his hands.
Lone Wing app
roached Thunder Horse and knelt beside him. He smiled as he held his hands out for his uncle to see.
“A baby bird,” Thunder Horse said softly, then gave his nephew a questioning gaze.
“I saved the bird after older boys killed its mother and several of her babies,” Lone Wing explained as he gazed down at the tiny thing, whose feathers had not yet thickened on its frail body. “The braves left this one baby to die in the hot sun outside its nest. After they left to practice shooting their arrows, I rescued the bird. I will feed and care for it, then watch it fly away.”
“You are a kind young brave,” Thunder Horse said, reaching a hand to Lone Wing’s shoulders, which were beginning to show signs of muscles now that he had fifteen winters of age.
Thunder Horse enjoyed seeing his nephew’s kind heart, but worried that his kindness might lead him into trusting too easily. Too often the red man had trusted in the promises of whites and had died because of it.
But this was not the time to remind his nephew again of these things. There were right times for teaching the young, and wrong.
This was a wrong time.
“Let me help you make a nest for the bird,” Thunder Horse said. He rose and got a small piece of doeskin that he used to bathe himself in the river. He took this to Lone Wing and showed him how to make a nest from it, then watched as his nephew placed the tiny bird comfortably in it.
“He will sleep now,” Lone Wing said, setting the nest aside. “His belly is full. Before I came to talk with you, I fed it tiny insects.”
He laughed as he pointed to the bird’s bulging belly. “You can see his filled belly,” he said, then sat down beside Thunder Horse and gazed thoughtfully at him. “Tell me, my chieftain uncle, did you complete your fasting and praying?”
“I did,” Thunder Horse said, sitting now with his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms wrapped around them.
“Did you dream?” Lone Wing asked anxiously.
“Ho, I dreamed often while I was alone beneath the stars,” Thunder Horse said thickly. “And in those dreams came answers.”
“Would you tell me those answers, or are they only for you to know?” Lone Wing asked, searching Thunder Horse’s eyes as his uncle turned and gazed at him.
“In time you will know all because of how things will be,” Thunder Horse said. He then smiled and again placed a hand on his nephew’s bare shoulder. “And you? While I was gone, did you study? You know that it takes much time and thought to become the Historian of our band. To record the events of our people by painting pictures on skins, you must be alert and knowledgeable of all things pertaining to our people.”
“Ho, as you told me, watching and observing is studying, and I did that well while you were fasting, my chieftain uncle,” Lone Wing said, proudly squaring his shoulders. “I feel that I am ready even now to become our people’s Historian.”
