Running Horse grew better looking with time. He aged well in spite of his responsibilities.

It was late afternoon as we stepped on the stones to cross the river. The fall rains hadn't come and the river was as low as it got. When the fall rains came, they filled the river ahead of the coming winter.

Scampering up the other side, I felt like I was floating in air as I stood looking at the cabin where I was raised. I felt no connection to it. I felt drawn to it. I knew my mother probably called Paw out of the field. She'd seen us. She'd be petrified by savages at the river.

Wait until she found out that one of those savages was her son.

I stopped at the steps that went to the front porch. We used to sit on the porch, looking at the mountains after supper.

I turned to look to see the mountains. They were still there. It was those mountains that drew me toward where my second life would be lived. Now, I was back where it all started.

I was home.

Running Horse and I stumbled over each other as we clattered up the stairs. I was trying to organize myself to knock on the door no one ever used for coming or going. Everyone came in the back door.

I wanted to look my best with my hair piled high and eagle feather adorning my big head of blond hair. Running Horse stood facing me, looking every bit of his six feet, before you reached his hair with his eagle feathers blowing in the breeze.

As I reached to knock, the door disappeared. It was replaced by my father, rifle in hand.

This wasn't the reunion I pictured.

Paw was immediately backing away. Stumbling, he went down. The rifle skittering away from him as mother came up from behind, pistol in hand.

Disarmed, Paw looked up at two of the biggest savages he'd seen since he was a savage.

"You're going to shoot your kid? Nice going, Paw." I said in my best English. "I'm home."

"Oh, my god. Gregory?" Maw said as she went into a swoon.

As Maw went down, Paw was standing, looking at my dark eyes.

He left the rifle where it was as he tried to see his son in the Indian in front of him. His face took on a curious expression as he took a step closer. He found his son among all that hair.

I could see him looking back over so many years as he studied my face.

"Gregory? It is you. You're alive."

"Afraid so, Paw."

"It is you," he said, taking me in his stunned arms. "Gregory. We thought you were dead."

He stepped back from the unusual expression of emotion for him. He no longer looked like he might shoot me. I thought that was progress.

It was a rare day when Paw smiled, but he was smiling at me.

I didn't know what I expected, but I was sure this wasn't it.

"Gregory," my father said, getting use to the idea. "You scared your mother half to death. She ran to the field to get me. She thought you were getting ready to attack," Paw said.

"Glad to know you're so happy to see me, Paw."

"What are you dressed for. You know how scary you two look? Who's he?" Paw questioned me.

"Chief Running Horse, meet your father's brother," I said.

"He small. Thought him bigger. You made sound bigger," Running Horse said.

"I was small the last time I saw him," I said. "I've grown in ten years."

"You're my brother's son?"

My father smiled a second time. He had a pleasant look on his face, like he find long lost piece of himself. I couldn't imagine what it was like for him to be seeing people he thought were long dead. He did move closer to Running Horse to get a better look.

"You chief? Lone Wolf no chief?"

"Died two years. I wanted to bring your mother and father home with me, but Dark Horse die in last spring. We're moving our village and we figured we'd drop in on you."

"My mother?"

"Paw, she's weak. I think the only reason she's alive is to see her son one last time. She's across the river. She can't walk here. You'll need to go to her. Lit'l Fox is with us."

My father looked like I just slapped him.

"Lit'l Fox dead. I see body."

"He's come back from the dead too, Paw. He saved my life right after I got me a griz. No one told me that where you find one griz, there may well be more. I almost got ate. Broke leg. Lit'l Fox found me."

"Little Fox is alive?"

"Yeah, he's never asked me about you. Your Maw and Paw raised him. He's the best of us. Brave, courageous, and all Pawnee."

"He like brother," Running Horse said.

"My son's alive?"

"Both of them are very alive, Paw."

"Gregory?" my mother said weakly.

"Yeah, Maw. Your kids home. What's for supper?"

"Gregory!" Pas rebuked me, sounding more like dear old dad.

"You shouldn't wait, Paw. Your mother is weak. She wants to see her son."

My father was no longer an overpowering presence. He didn't appear as strong as he once was. I was in my twenties. I left at fourteen. We'd all changed. I didn't know what I'd find at the cabin in the valley where the river runs. It wasn't this, and now it was about the people Paw left behind before I was born.

He never went back to the village. Now, the village came to him.

We crossed the river and went to Medicine Woman together. Paw made sure Maw was okay before we left the house. My father had changed. When he hugged my grandmother, it made me choke up.

The sun was getting low in the sky and the campfires were scattered around the field on the far side of the river. For the first time, there was way more room than we needed and families could be together without being crowded together.

My father sat on the litter beside his mother. There were tears and deep sorrow over lost years.

I'm sure Paw could tell how weak Medicine Woman was.

Before dark, the entire encampment settled into the space in front of the cabin. Paw broke out meat he'd stored behind the house in the smoke houses. He'd built a big fire to cook it, and Maw cooked corn, bread, and other trimmings to go with the venison and buffalo meat he'd hunted in the spring.

Some of the young warriors took over the cooking chore. They wanted Proud Eagle to be with his mother for as long as possible.

We ate and visited as night set in and Maw walked from camp to camp with a large pot of coffee. It was one of those things the Pawnee loved but rarely got. You could only get coffee from white people. There was no way to get it at a prairie store. I walked with my mother, carrying metal cups that Maw used for functions at her father's church. My mother smiled at my people. If that wasn't progress, I don't know what was. A few hours before she was petrified by the people she now served food and coffee to.

"A pistol, Maw. When did you start carrying a pistol?"

"My father told me, never let the savages take you alive. Always have a pistol handy, just in case."

I laughed.

"Maw, we ain't no different than the folks that go to your church. We're only dangerous to people who try to take what's ours."

"I've never been around Indians," Maw said, no longer saying savages.

"Maw, I don't know If you noticed. You're married to a Pawnee."

My parents had changed. I'd never seen them interact with a group of people. I'd been gone a long time, and I guess they missed me. I never thought about how I'd be missed. I'd been there fourteen years, and no one acted like they cared one way or the other.

It's funny what you see after you've been gone for a while. I was a man. I was Pawnee, but I was still my Maw's and Paw's kid. I no longer felt the pressure I once felt. My life couldn't have turned out any better, and neither of my parents complained. I was certain they'd object to me. Being surprised was good.

They were happy I'd come home, even if it was only a visit. I did bring company, but Running Horse and I refrained from kissing in front of Maw. I'd heard her preacher father talk about the idea of two men loving each other. White people had a real problem with people who loved each other. It was never right, always wicked, and except for getting a passel of kids born, sex was definitely taboo.

I happened to like sex, but I'd just returned home alive, there was no point in stirring up anymore trouble than necessary, but once among our buffalo robes, we got little sleep in front of the cabin in the valley where the river runs.

Paw never left his mother's side. Except for coming to hold Medicine Woman's hand, Lit'l Fox and my father didn't speak. They eyed each other across Medicine Woman's sled.

Since Lit'l Fox's brother, which didn't come out until months after he took me to Medicine Woman's lodge, he never asked me about his father. I didn't bring him up. If he wanted to talk about our father, he'd bring him up, but he didn't. I figured that told me all I needed to know.

A wail broke the night. A few hours before dawn, Medicine Woman went on her final journey. I knew what it was, but I hesitated going to her body.

Running Horse immediately was up and he went to the side of his grandmother. I cried alone. The people gathered, chanted, and sang. I cried. Another important piece of my life had gone. I never dealt with death before becoming Pawnee. It made a regular visit to our village the past few years.

Everything I was came from Medicine Woman. She'd saw to it that I became a proud Pawnee. I had no pride before that. I didn't have life before I stood with the warriors of the Pawnee village.

As daylight came, my eyes followed Running Horse as he walked beside my father. They walked and talked until they walked out of my view. It was some time before they walked back toward where Medicine Woman lay.

The women washed her with water from the river. She'd laid out her most beautiful outfit and once they dressed her, she was wrapped in clean cloth and readied to go meet her ancestors.

The mourning went on for most of the day. Running Horse lead chants and singing Pawnee songs for the dead. There was no one he didn't talk to that day. It was late in the day when he came to me.

"Father want keep Medicine Woman. He has place. Keep. We come back after build village. Find spot for ancestor. I say ask you. You decide."

"It fine. His mother. Give reason come back," I said. "Need keep in touch," I said.

There was a ceremony and Medicine Woman was place on a bier my father built for it that day. It was beside the pasture in a grove of trees. There were blue and yellow wild flowers growing all around.

"She be at peace," I said to Paw. "We come back," I offered.

"You come back, Tall Willow. You make good Pawnee."

I didn't know what to expect when I came home. All my fear and apprehension were a waste of energy. Nothing was as I thought it would be. Except for nearly being shot, I thought it went well.

The following morning, as we prepared to break camp, mother was back with the big coffee pot. She brewed coffee three times as she fed us all eggs, potatoes, pork strips, and her fluffy biscuits.

Needless to say, we ate my parents out of house and home. Maw never uttered an unkind word, and I once again watched my father walking and talking with another member of the tribe he left behind.

Lit'l Fox was my father's size. He listened as my father talked. They walked for over an hour. By the time I watched them return, the peace had been made.

They both smiled and my father hugged his long lost son. My father was not big on hugging. I'm sure he hugged my mother, but out of sight of their kid. I never saw them touch each other. There was that whole, sex bad deal at work at the cabin where the river runs. I suspected they had sex. I could be used as evidence of such a thing.

After a final visit to say goodbye to Medicine Woman, the villagers were lined up on the far side of the river. My father stepped on the stones just ahead of Running Horse and me, after I thanked my mother, and said goodbye to her.

She cried.

"Oh, Gregory."

"Me Tall Willow," I told her for the tenth time.

"You will always be Gregory to me," she said, stepping forward to give me a big hug. "You're coming back for your grandmother?"

"We be back. Nothing like serving folks at the church socials, huh, Maw," I said in jest.

My mother laughed out loud.

It was good to hear her laugh. She was no longer the stern woman she once was. My parents had mellowed with the years. I suppose I had mellowed over the last two days.

My father stood next to Lit'l Fox, Running Horse, and me, as Morning Star looked on. Lit'l Fox nodded when my father bid him farewell. Running Horse shook my father's hand. When my father turned to me, he hugged me. That's twice he'd hugged me in twenty-four years.

"You come back, Tall Willow. This will always be your home."

"It was once, Paw," I said. "I live with the Pawnee now."

"I know," he said, walking away from us.

My father crossed the river without looking back.

Running Horse mounted his horse, and Lit'l Fox and Morning Star got on their horse, as I watched my father walk to the cabin in the valley where the river runs.

*****

As I moved toward the ending of my second life, I won't write about making the trip to where the new village now stands. No one was disappointed in the location. It was pristine and had agreeable features the village we left didn't have.

I'd like to say it was out of the way of western migration. I'd like to say that we hadn't put ourselves in more danger than we'd been in before. I'd like to say that we had peace for all time. I'd like to say Running Horse and I spent eternity together.

The trip was hard on everyone, but a week after we reached our destination, we were all energized and doing what needed to be done to see to it that all our needs were met. Having so much to do to prepare our new home to meet all our needs kept our mind off the missing forces that once guided all our lives.

No matter what I was doing, I'd stop and see Medicine Woman's face. It always made me smile. I knew she was a big part of who I was. It was still difficult dealing with her being gone. I would like to see her, touch her, smile at her. I never told her how much she meant to me.

"She know," Running Horse told me.

"Who?" I asked.

"Medicine Woman knew all."

"Stop doing that," I admonished my man.

"Do nothing. See sad. Not want be sad. We all miss."

A few months after we reached the new village, and after building the new smoke house, we went to the mountain to hunt. It was further away than it once was, when we lived on the far side.

We'd be gone an extra day, but we left warriors to protect the village. There were seventeen warriors now. Eight went hunting and the rest readied the village to prepare the meat to keep until spring.

With Running Horse and me getting a buck a piece, the other hunters only needed to get a buck or two to have five or six hundred pounds of meat after they were skinned and cleaned.

There were always antelope and rabbits to keep us well fed, while we were gone, and even rabbit meat and antelope came back with us. The game was plentiful. No one hunted that section of mountain, and the game practically jumped into our pots.

We returned and feasted at our new village for the first time.

Had I seen what was to come, I might not have left the cabin in the valley where the river runs. For a long time we were blessed with all we needed and all we could have wanted. The water in our new location came off the mountain. No one would build a dam there.

We had more room in the new village. Each lodge was built among the trees and out of view of the next lodge, Running Horse and I had the outside of our lodge the way we wanted it. We were still adding touches to the interior. I stood holding my Hawkin one day. I'd never taken it out of Medicine Woman's lodge, once Lit'l Fox leaned it in the corner there. I put it in the corner of our new lodge, where I left it.

The Hawkin was so much a part of my old life. It was that rifle that took me to the mountain, where Lit'l Fox found me. I hadn't used the Hawkin but once, when I killed the griz. Lit'l Fox found my rifle. He told me that he read signs, and when he looked over the cliff and found me, he was sure I'd be there. Not me so much as the boy who dropped his rifle when the grizzly bear came upon him.

Him being on the mountain the same time as I was there still baffled me. We were both hunting. Once it froze, Lit'l Fox decided to go to the mountain to get some venison. I waited for the same freeze, and I went after my griz. Lit'l Fox never did get his deer, but I got me my griz, and a griz nearly got me. Why he didn't come for me once I fell off the cliff, I didn't know. Lit'l Fox got down to me easy enough.

It was what it was and we moved and left that part of my history behind me. Now, I'd reunited with my parents and was asked to come back. Maw wasn't that upset by me being Pawnee. I'm sure Paw was pleased that I found myself. It wasn't the path anyone expected me to go down, except me.

It was beautiful. It was peaceful.

After the spring hunt, Running Horse, Lit'l Fox, and I rode three days back to bring Medicine Woman home to us. It was three days out, three back, and we planned a day at the cabin, where we'd sit and talk with my father, Lit'l Fox's father, and Running Horse's uncle.

There was talk of an annual trip back, but it was only talk. Paw wanted to know about the new village, and we told him all about it. We made it clear how beautiful it was.

I could read the troubled look on Paw's face. He said nothing. He mostly listened to the chief that was his nephew. In spite of how he felt, Running Horse had a fair grasp on his English. He knew how to say what he wanted to say. He left out the pesky articles and such that he claimed was too much talk to say too little.

My father's Pawnee was rusty, but we all understood each other. As a man, I had more approval from my father than I'd gotten from him before. I knew we'd all grown since that time. Some memories were still fresh. My father's friendliness kept me off balance.

Lit'l Fox and Paw took care of Medicine Woman, wrapping her in a clean cloth for the journey to the new village.

They carried her to the litter that would be pulled by Lit'l Fox's horse. Once she was placed upon the litter, we all stood silent, looking down at the remains of a woman who impacted all of our lives in ways no one else could. There needed to be a moment of silence for such a great woman.

We said our goodbyes.

My father walked back to the litter, straightening the cloth that covered his mother. I'm sure I saw his tears, as he bid her farewell.

He stood watching us ride away. I did look back. I wanted to remember my father that way. It was a kinder man than I once knew. I don't think I'd mind being around him at this stage in our lives.

I wasn't sure we'd see each other again. We said we would. We even said when, but life has a way of putting off such plans, and it never happens, even if we all intended it to happen on the day we started back home with Medicine Woman's body. None of us could expect what was ahead of us, and if Running Horse saw what was coming, he kept it from me, because he knew I worried about everything.

*****

Another year passed, then, two and three years. There was no return to the cabin in the valley where the river runs. It wasn't that we didn't talk of it. It wasn't convenient one year and the next.

I'd gone nearly ten years without seeing my parents, two or three more years were no big deal.

That's when the trouble came to our new village in the trees next to the lake that was fed by the stream that ran into it. Running Horse and his right hand man had been riding toward the mountains. We were considering a hunting trip, just the two of us. Like we once did at the old village.

We'd only gotten a couple of miles beyond the village, when Running Horse pulled Horse up short.

"Need go back."

"What is it?" I asked as he was galloping back the way we came.

This happened from time to time. Something came to Running Horse and he needed to stop what he was doing and take care of it, or he might forget. I turned Shiftless and we trotted after my man. It was one of those lazy days, warm enough to ride forever in comfort.

I had no idea that I was about to ride into the middle of a hornet's nest. It all seemed quite pleasant and civilized, except the hornets were calm, cool, collected, and showing no sign of how serious a hazard their sting would be.

I didn't know the extent of the problem until I looked into Running Horse's face.

"Here Chief," Young Antelope said. "Want water horse."

Running Horse got off his horse and marched down the side of the column of men. He could have ridden around them and stayed on his horse, but seeing what he was seeing, his mind was working on the problem as he heard Young Antelope's introduction of his chief.

I jumped off Shiftless and ran to catch up and about the time Running Horse stopped his march. My eyes left Running Horse and immediately went to the man who seemed to be in command. He sat tall in the saddle. He was ramrod straight, as he swept his cavalry hat off his head.

"Ah, Chief…, we have been caught short. Our horses needed water. I wouldn't simply water them without your permission. I'm Major Meeks, 1st Cavalry, United States Army."

Running Horse's eyes never left Major Meeks as he spoke.

"Okay. Water horse," Running Horse said.

He watched as the order was given to break ranks to water their horses.

I stood next to Running Horse as his eyes drank in the force that invaded his village. It was not a look of submission or acceptance. He couldn't deny water without drawing a line in the sand.

Major Meeks sat astride his horse, showing no sign his back could bend. While he sat watching across the soldiers who were all dismounted and going about their business, Meeks looked past them to where Running Horse and I stood. Their eyes were locked together, and Running Horse stood as straight as Major Meeds sat upon his horse.

"Let's go in," I said.

I didn't like the two men on opposite sides of the battle for western expansion locked in their deadly stare. Neither was fooled by the other's politeness. These were warriors. Neither was capable of giving an inch. They drew their battle lines that day. I had no idea I'd end up in the middle of the battle between Chief Running Horse and Major Meeks. I was loyal to my chief, but I wasn't anxious to kill white men, if I was able to kill a man at all. I could not see what was to come. If Running Horse saw, he said nothing.

We stood in front of our lodge as the cavalry watered their horses, remounted, and formed up to march smartly in a column of four horses a breast with Major Meeks leading them through the village. He tipped his hat as he passed us. The wide smile never left his face.

We watched the rear of the final four horses as they trotted with the rest of one solid formation.

"What does it mean?" I asked.

I didn't want him to answer. I knew what it meant as well as he did.

"They know we here. Send message."

I wouldn't ask him what message he heard. His eyes were still on the spot where the final four horses disappeared. He was deep in thought. Were we safe staying in our fine new village? Did the message Running Horse heard tell him they'd be back with guns blazing one day.

Were we safe anywhere in the western territories? No matter where we went, there'd be another Major Meeks to smile at us. No one but Meeks knew what was hidden behind his smile.

"We not go to mountain?"

"No go mountain. Tomorrow go."

Running Horse sat in corner of lodge restringing his bow. He'd finished talking for one day. I watched his hands as they did their patient work. I needed to know what was in his brain at that moment. It would tell me a lot if he just told me what he would do about Meeks. Did the bow tell me something about his solution to the Meeks question.

It would unfold like a play. Each act was separate and had its own meaning, but the last act, everything would be engulfed in a final resolution. I knew it wasn't the cavalry he feared. His eyes stayed on their chief. Sooner or later, there would be a final act involving those two.

Once he had the bowstring fastened to one end of the bow, with one mighty motion, he looped the other end of the string to the top of the bow. He pulled on the string and he smiled.

I waited for him to speak. He remained silent.

My mind swirled around this event for long after the soldiers left. I remembered that look on my father's face when we told him where the village was going to go. My father knew something he wasn't going to say. Moving a village took a massive amount of work. Moving a village to within easy reach of a fort full of cavalry was a fatal mistake. It was our mistake, not my father's.

These were Paw's people. He was Pawnee, but he wasn't going to tell them what to do.

The major was two days away, but on a good horse you could ride at a gallop in less than one. A smart soldier would run his men hard for that day, rest overnight, and attack at dawn. A village of unsuspecting Indians would be unaware of the danger. The white man's army being that close was going to cause a village a problem sooner or later.

The day of Major Meeks visit, I didn't know how close he was. Neither did Running Horse, but he intended to find out.

Running Horse was up the next morning, and after a good morning kiss, he said, "Get horse. We go."

We rode at a gallop, following the trail fifty horses made the day before. We didn't catch the cavalry. We'd have noticed that many men dead ahead of us. They'd ridden back to the fort, and we followed the tracks into a forest. There was a wide passage through that forest, where fifty men could ride four a breast, and at the forest's end, a new fort with wood so green you could smell it sat a hundred yards away.

We stayed back in the forest. There were men walking along the top of the wall. The fort was big enough for three or four times as many men with horses as came to the village. There would be barracks, a mess hall, places where officers were separated from enlisted men.

No one came or went as we watched from the trees.

Running Horse returned to where we left our horses, mounted, and started the ride back to the village. I was a few steps behind him, and I mounted my horse and I followed him. The curious thing about it, there were a dozen ponds of fresh water along the trail to the fort. They'd stopped in village for water. There was plenty of water on the trail to the fort.

What did they really want when they stopped?

I couldn't say what was on his mind, because he hadn't said a word in hours. Needless to say, he was not happy. I wasn't exactly thrilled myself. We did not stop or camp. The next morning, a couple of hours before we left the day before, we reached the village. We made the roundtrip in less than a day. They were very close.

The village was awake. It was another hour to dawn, but once we let the horses go in the meadow, we had a semicircle of people at the front of our lodge.

"Fort close. One day ride out and come back. The want us know they there. I tired. Go sleep."

No one said anything. I suppose everyone was tired and went to their lodges to rest. We were not up until the afternoon, and Running Horse still wasn't talking.


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"Trappers"

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