I am equal parts Pawnee and white. While my Pawnee part wishes to live the life I found in the village where my people lived, the white part will do what needs to be done. When it is time to kill, I'll kill. Man has studied and perfected the art of war. It's a crazy way to live. For Europeans it is a fight to the death. They seek total destruction without consideration to what is being destroyed. There must be so much more men have to offer, but eventually, it always comes to war. All the knowledge, experience, and perhaps, even wisdom is destroyed. What is left are the most efficient killers. Those killers end up in control, and it starts a new with the ending always being the same.

How many men destined to bring peace to the world have been destroyed during their wars? I never thought of hurting men before. Maybe the white men in Lawrence's store, but killing wasn't on my mind. Faced with the reality of being Pawnee, killing must be considered. Now, I know how it is men decide they must kill each other. I did not want to kill. I would kill if it became necessary.

Since the dawn of time, how can this be what mankind does better than he does anything else?

It comes down to kill or be killed. That's how we've come to this.

The village, the cavalry, the history I know of, all contribute to who Tall Willow is. I live in one tiny space on a vast planet. I know only what I've experienced in this tiny space. What do I know of the Chinese, the Africans? Each culture lives and dies depending on who it is that wants them dead. You either fight or die.

I worked with Simon the slave. He was a black man who worked for my father. We said, 'Good morning. Good night.' He was a hard worker. We didn't have a single conversation. We had a job to do. We did it.

If a man is black, is he always African? I don't know. Where was he before he came to work on the farm? I can learn if I'm taught. Sometimes I learn by seeing a thing done. When I came to the village, I followed the other boys. I did what they did. When I was given a bow, I went out by myself and learned everything I could about how to use it. I watched other boys using their bows. I tried things I saw them do. I was a hunter before I came to the village. It's the common denominator. It required a steady hand and good eyes. I had both. I also had the bow Running Horse made for me in our lodge.

Maybe I'd be able to make a bow one day. I didn't think so.

Running Horse and I scouted the area in three directions, avoiding the west and the fort. We were on flat land, but there were hills all around us and there was endless prairie. We rode to Fort Laramie on one of our explorations. It was a five day ride. Fort Collins was a three day ride. Shiftless, the horse I'd had since the buffalo hunter no longer needed him was happiest when we were going a long way. He loved for me to let him run. He knew when he had enough, and after a good run, he'd walk, eat grass, and drink.

Storms could be furious displays that made me uneasy if we were caught out on the open prairie. The lightning and thunder was a power well beyond my comprehension. I didn't like it when one sprung up, and I didn't mind it after they passed. If they were dangerous to men on horseback, I didn't know for sure. So far, I'd never been struck by lightning. I'd like to keep it that way.

Shiftless did not like storms. If it was bad enough, I needed to get off him before he tossed me off. Standing out in the open, trying to calm my petrified horse, while in the pouring rain, is no fun. On one of our explorations, which was planned for the good weather months, is how we've established where danger was in relationship to the new village. All out war meant cavalry coming from all directions. In an all out war, we did have escape routes for the woman, children, and elderly.

We created an escape route at one corner of the village. We disguised it by growing enough foliage to obscure a path leading to the far side of the lake where we made it impossible for horses to go that way. It put the lake between the soldiers and the people.

There was another path leading from the lake to the meadow where the horses grazed. It would be important for some of the warriors to be able to get to their horse. Some of us would shoot from the rocks and the high ground, and others could maneuver on horseback to keep cavalry soldiers busy.

Running Horse made certain that every man and woman, including the children, knew the best way to get to the escape routes. Drills were called for by Running Horse's distinctive whistle. When you heard that whistle, you needed to head for the exits.

There were no escape routes or drills at the old village. This was a new hazard. Being out of harm's way was preferable, but we had moved into harm's way and we needed to prepare for trouble.

The people wanted to do something rather than do nothing. Even women learned how to fire the rifles. They proved a woman could aim a rifle as well as the warriors could. We had no illusions about defeating the cavalry. If we met force with enough force, some of us might get away from an all out attack on the village. The idea was for some Pawnee to remain alive.

Two of our best hunters took the rifles with them on our next hunt. The noise they made echoed through the rocks and trees. After bringing down a buck and a doe the first day, the rifles went silent. The hunters went back to their bows.

Breaking the peacefulness of the mountain annoyed all of us. No one liked firing the rifles, but they were necessary if attacked. We'd go back to hunting the way we always hunted. The repeating rifles were for killing men, and when the time came, we'd kill them.

Each time Claude arrived in the village, we brought out our skins from animals we killed. The women made most into clothing, but we put enough aside to interest Claude. He was a reasonable man and there was always coffee he brought to us when he came.

My mother didn't know what she started when many of the people in our village had coffee for the first time. It was far better than the brew made from roots and such. Everyone came around once Claude brought his pack animal into the village. He was our connection to an invisible world few Pawnee saw.

Trappers lived very much like the Pawnee. They lived off the land and what Mother Earth provided. They went months, and sometimes years without brushing up against civilization, but they could go into towns when the mood struck or when they had too many skins and too little of everything else.

The abundance of the whites was remarkable, but much of it was useless. Things you could look at but you couldn't use. Claude never brought trinkets, and he stayed for a day or two, always making his camp a respectful distance from the village. He came alone these days. It was hard to find men he got along with well enough to live with. He'd stumbled on to the German the month before his first visit, and the other French trapper thought the life too rugged. He returned to France.

I didn't regard Claude as being white. He was the same color as me. He was brown from being in the sun all day everyday. Claude was an educated man. After the evening meal, Claude told us stories about the French and American alliance that finally ended British rule in the colonies.

"Once your American Revolution was over, the French went home to have a revolution of their own." Claude said that it was the French Fleet in a place called the Chesapeake Bay that stopped the British from taking Cornwallis off of the Yorktown peninsula. That's why the British got cornered there by Lafayette and then the old fox himself, Washington.

"When the French couldn't get bread to eat, they blamed their government. There wasn't enough flour because of poor crops and the peasants in the countryside were starving. It started a movement to dislodge the royals and the wealthy folks who had plenty of bread but none to give to the people. That's when heads began to roll, and when they stopped rolling, the royals and the wealthy died for their sins. Before long there was plenty of bread for the people and no one around to deny them the bread they needed. The French democracy wasn't much like the democracy in the new world, but Europe was different and royals ruled all across Europe. They mostly belonged to the same families and they insisted on being in charge. The people had no trouble finding those in charge. They all lived in palaces, which stood out a bit. Once they'd chopped up the people in one palace, they moved on to the next palace."

Claude gave me a book on the French Revolution and it was fascinating to read. I liked history because it told me about the men in the world. Claude was also a student of history and it was still the best adventure novels he'd read. Man's story was an adventure from beginning to end. There were rare men like Washington and Lafayette who did what they did to create a better world for the people.

Most men care less for the people and more about what's in it for themselves. Like the French, that only works until the people begin to starve, and then the people can get angry enough to start killing the rich and those who fancy themselves to be in charge. For a few years, no one wanted to be in charge, and even the men who arranged for the heads to roll, lost their heads in the end. The French people weren't in the mood to be told what to do. They knew what to do. They baked a lot of bread for the people and there was no one to tell them, "No, you can't have that. It's for the king."

That was one way to handle the greedy whites, but it seemed a bit extreme to me. Why not just take the bread back from the rich? I wouldn't want to be the chief of our band of Pawnee. I don't know why anyone would want to rule a country. If anything goes wrong, and you're in charge, the people know who to blame. I preferred my head right where it was. I couldn't imagine someone wanting to cut it off.

Claude didn't have much to say about how the French Revolution turned out, but he knew Lafayette came to help Washington fight the British. He said the British and French had been at war for most of five hundred years. It was always about men who wanted to rule everything and everyone.

Claude told us, "Everyone died in the end."

Now, they'd come to kill the people on the land so they could replace us with Europe. They'd spent since the dawn of time killing each other over there, and now they came here to keep the killing going.

I wondered if they didn't have anything better to do than make war. I did know Lafayette was a very young Frenchman. Washington made him a general, and he trapped the British at Yorktown until Washington could bring his army there to face the British head to head for the first and last time.

It took years, but the fox finally trapped the hounds. It sounded like Washington was one of the truly great men in history. He saw his duty and did it, and twice he gave up power to go home to Mount Vernon to be a gentleman farmer. It's not something successful generals usually did.

When he was called back to lead the country, he did so, but after two terms as president, he once again returned to Mount Vernon. He set the standards for presidents to leave power after two terms. It was one of the most important ways the republic kept fresh blood and new ideas in the presidency.

Washington could have stayed in power until he died. They fought a revolution to get rid of a king. Washington wasn't interested in becoming one. He could rise to any occasion, and proudly walk away.

I suppose what Claude told us explained why Europeans answer to people they found in their way was to kill them. I knew history from the textbooks in the white man's school. While there was more than enough killing to satisfy the most bloodthirsty, they did put a positive slant on it. When you enjoy killing, I suppose you look for chances to do some killing.

We began hunting beaver when Claude told us that the pelts were made into hats in Europe. It was the pelt that brought the highest price, but that would change by his next visit. The beaver were builders. They built dams. There were plenty of them, and so we hunted for beaver along the streams and waters in the nearby forest. We ate the meat and saved the pelts for Claude.

There was an attitude of inevitability in the village once all the warriors had rifles. We'd been pushed and moved and attacked and pushed some more. We needed to move again. No matter where we looked, we ran into a fort or a town. We'd made our move. There was nowhere else to go. This was where we'd make our stand. It was a good spot. It would be a good spot to die.

Most of the lodges had plenty of room around them. There was forest and rock formations where we could run, hide, and fire down on the horse soldiers. All we wanted was to be left alone, but we made plans for a time when the cavalry would come to kill us

I still had my Hawkin. It was used to kill a grizzly bear. It was a precise weapon that would hit anything you aimed at properly, but you better hit it, because it took time to reload. The repeating weapons were meant to fire fast without aiming, and if you hit something, that was why you had a repeating weapon.

I wonder who thought up a weapon that you could fire fast without reloading?

It wasn't an Indian.

Man had become quite efficient at killing each other. I wasn't sure I could kill a man up until now. I'd fight to the last to protect the people who I loved and lived with. I guess you learn to be a killer if you aren't born with a desire to kill. The same question came with this kind of thinking. Why not make peace and share equally with everyone on the land. The trouble was, it was hard to reason with the locust.

Before the spring rains arrived, Running Horse, Lit'l Fox, and me rode to the river and turned north. We hadn't returned to the cabin in the valley where the river runs for some time.

It took two days, which seemed to go faster than the first time we made the trip. My father was working in the field when we got there. We made camp in front of the cabin and we stayed for two days. My father stayed in front of the cabin with us, until we were ready to leave.

I'd watched my father walk and talk with Running Horse and then, Lit'l Fox. Both my brother and my lover liked my father, and he had grown wise enough to treat his people with respect.

I was the last to walk and talk with him. My father called me Tall Willow, although Maw still called me Gregory. I didn't fuss with her, we saw too little of each other. Paw asked about the village. I told him of the cavalry and the trappers. He was not surprised by either.

My father had changed. I felt none of the old tension between us.

"Tall Willow, Proud Eagle is proud of his son. You've become fine man. With your grandpa being the way he is, if I'd have taught you about being Pawnee, there would have been a war at our house. I let it be. You lived in a white world. That was best. You saw how they treated me. It's a wonder I stayed alive all those years. You don't know how many white men I wanted to scalp," Paw said.

He'd said what he needed to say. He threw in a laugh line, and I laughed when he said it.

I remembered all those mean and angry white men at Lawrence's store. I tried to imagine Paw scalping one, but I couldn't, but I couldn't leave my father without giving him a chance to laugh.

"If you like, if Maw is still sour on me being Tall Willow, tell her, 'I ain't scalped no one in a spell."

Paw laughed again. It was a funny thought. I might be able to kill. I would never scalp anyone.

"Paw, if I die. Know I died Pawnee. I realize you were right not tempting me with stories of the life of a Pawnee, but I'm glad I was able to become Pawnee. I will not dishonor you. I will be courageous once my time to kill comes. I will die a proud Pawnee, Paw."

"I known, Tall Willow. You are what I would have become if not for the massacre."

I was sad when it came time to leave. For the first time I missed the farm, the work, the way of life I'd left all those years ago. I'd been gone almost as long as I lived in the cabin where the river runs.

My father rode Dobbing with a saddle when we began our trek west. He rode with us for several hours. We stood down beside our horses. He hugged his nephew and both of his sons. He bid us farewell and turned his horse to ride back home as his Pawnee relatives watched him go.

We got back on our ponies and started riding toward the village. It took a while for Running Horse to break the silence.

"Proud Eagle not so hard as you tell Running Horse."

"He's changed. I never saw my father show emotion before. He is different from the man I knew while I grew up. I suppose we all change."

"You going changed Proud Eagle," Running Horse said.

"No. Maybe my absence bothered him, not my going. He certainly didn't know me as a boy before I ran away. He knows me as Pawnee. I become what he ran from. He is remembering his life as a Pawnee warrior. That make him think. Maybe change," I reasoned.

"Maybe not run. Maybe guided. No road seen beyond next bend. It mystery," Running Horse said.

"You say some of the damnedest thing," I said with a smile.

Lit'l Fox laughed. He often laughed at things Running Horse and I said to each other. My brother did not talk much. He rarely had anything to add to what Running Horse and I talked about.

"Say what think," Running Horse said. "Chief know much. See many things."

That was for sure. What did he know he didn't tell me? Running Horse was loyal. He loved me, but his first duty was to the village, his people. A chief can love. He doesn't leave his responsibility for love.

I didn't expect him to. I couldn't imagine a reason why he'd need to consider it. As far as I was concerned, we'd be together for as long as the river flows and the grass grows.

Running Horse saw things I did not see. He showed no fear when Meeks overstepped his bounds. It was impossible to compare the power of a major with a power of a chief of the Pawnee.

We were not the Cheyenne. This was not Sand Creek. Running Horse knew it.

Meeks knew it.

Running Horse did not push it. Meeks got on his horse and rode away. He'd seen what he came to see.

Young Antelope followed the cavalry for over an hour before he turned around and came back to report to Running Horse. The most provocative thing the cavalry did, trespass by going into our lodge. He wasn't looking to see if our colors clashed or if we made our bed in the morning. He went in the lodge to see if he could find evidence of the amount of fire power we had. He saw the rifles when he turned around to leave.

Since Meeks rode away, the information he gained didn't warrant any response at the moment. There was no way to know if there would be a response or not. He could easily disarm the village without firing a shot. People weren't allowed to give Indians rifles, but Indians were arming themselves to fight the war we knew would come sooner or later. One day there would be a final battle, and the guns on the plains would go silent, after the cavalry surrounded and killed the final free Indians on the plains.

I lacked the wisdom and foresight of Running Horse. I did not see the final battle as it unfolded inside my brain. I had seen enough, and I knew just enough, to see how the story would end. I'd like to say it would be our band of Pawnee who made its last stand with the cavalry surrounding us. That would be a battle worth dying for, no matter who died there,

After that last battle, Indians would never be allowed to roam free on the plains again. The people who roaming free since the dawn of time, would never again be allowed to roam or hunt on their own land.

How could anyone think that was right? Who thought it wouldn't end in a battle for the ages?

Being out gunned and out numbered, warriors would fight to the death rather than live on the white man's terms.


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"To Settle"

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"Trappers"

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