It was Running Horse's clan migrating west this time. It was done over the next few months. This time the elders were the last to move and there were plenty of materials to build lodges. It was a bit far to take pieces of lodges that might be shaken apart in such a long move.

We built four campsites on the trail to Popotu Valley. We figured we could make it with four stops, but while moving, we tried to keep moving west for most of the trip. This was the last move for Running Horse's clan. The sooner we made it, the sooner we would settle in to a permanent home where no one wanted to kill us. That was a place worth moving to.

Once Underworld was sealed, a new kind of peacefulness came to Running Horse's clan. We lived easier than we had since my childhood in the wilderness village Lone Wolf moved his clan to after the massacre.

Since I was an indirect result of the massacre, and I arrived at the wilderness village with a broke leg, there was a certain safe feeling the villagers had at that time. The massacre being far behind Lone Wolf's people, I grew up easy and among friends, but as soon as we needed to move, and Chief Lone Wolf told Running Horse we would need to move a little way from his death.

Chief Lone Wolf speaking to Running Horse of the water being blocked off from the wilderness by the Europeans would soon dry up the stream that fed the pond, and the water would stop running.

It was Chief Running Horse who had told his people of the move. Even the spot where we moved was according to Lone Wolf's memories that went back to when he was a boy. The move was hard on everyone. Being so far out of the way in the wilderness, the village kept us safe. Moving to the lake in the valley where the river runs seemed to put us in the open, and when the new fort was built a day's ride away, we soon found out that the cavalry was closer than we liked.

By that time the Indian Wars were going as the great white leaders in Washington wanted it to go. Many Indians were dying of disease and of soldier's bullets. There was always a reason to hunt us, and being great hunters, Indians hunted right back. They wanted to be left alone to follow the buffalo and live like plains Indians had lived for thousands of years.

The number of Indians was growing smaller, and the number of buffalo was even smaller yet. When the great war in the east took all the soldiers to end it, for a few years there weren't so many cavalry trying to run us down, but as soon as the Civil War ended, there were thousands of soldiers with nothing to do but chase Indians. They came to the lake in the valley where the river runs to let us know they were a short ways away.

They made it clear that they could come to get us anytime they decided to. They hadn't come for us that day.

It was just before the war ended that Major Meeks brought his company with him to our village.

He had seen Morning Star, and by that time, an Indian who thought he should be chief, and not Running Horse, helped Major Meeks steal Morning Star. This event triggered a series of events that had me killing Meeks and Tall Elk. Killing them meant me running so the cavalry would chase me and not my people, but I came home, and it wasn't long before the cavalry got around to Running Horse's clan.

With most plains Indians going in during the 1870s, the cavalry had time to devote to people who hadn't gone in, and our people were never going in. We heard the story of desperate lives and rancid food and white man's clothing that did not suit us. When the time came for us to face death at the hands of the cavalry, we ran.

We had a place to go. I knew the place where we could go and be out of the way once more, almost as good as the wilderness village before the waters stopped running.

We got into Paradise Valley on a wing and a prayer, finishing the trip in a vicious storm that covered our tracks. We lived most of a year in the valley I owned, but the cavalry kept moving past the canyon entrance with enough frequency to make it clear, one day they were going to find the hidden valley.

Running Horse's clan was not going in, and because of Big Joe, a man without a country, and a man with more curiosity than the average Buffalo Soldier, began to look under Paradise Valley to see what he could see. It was this exploration that led us to Underworld and a land many times bigger than Paradise Valley.

The new village was built between the cave exit and the lake a quarter of a mile away. This was a temporary village that everyone knew was the first step in moving to Popotu Valley. As beautiful and comfortable as Paradise Valley was, Underworld was maybe a hundred times larger. We could ride a horse across Paradise Valley in ten minutes. We traveled in Underworld for many days, before we came to Popotu Valley.

We began to establish outposts along the trail to Popotu Valley. First they were basic camps built near a source of water, and the warriors would be the first to move themselves and their families west. It was a long way there and having places to camp while going there was going to make the trip easier on villagers.

"Joe, Big Bear, Turtle, Stone Hand, and Porcupine were the builders. Each volunteered for the task, and by using Joe's assembly method, he created lodges with extra insulation, because of the proximity to the mountains, and the expectation of some rather cold weather coming our way.

By the time we had the first camp made, and Running Horse and I went out to make sure it would be suitable for people to spend a few hours or a night if need be, but the first people moving were warriors, and they could make the trip in one long gulp, stopping for a few hours when too tired to ride, and moving on after a few hours of rest. Their families would take a little longer, and the elders and families with the youngest children would go last. When they got to Popotu Valley, our Pawnee village would be built and ready to house them.

A few weeks into our stay in Underworld, we went out to take a look at the improvements made in the trail.

Actually, Running Horse and I were once again taking rides that might keep us out of the village for a day or two. If we were curious about the progress being made on building the new village, we rode to Popotu Valley.

Sitting on our horses next to the monument, the progress being made was evident. The trail going down into the valley had been widened and improved, which made going in and out easier.

There would be no more trips to town, but there would be buffalo hunts. The wagon Joe made from the axles and wheels of the 1st National Bank wagon would come in handy to carry two tons of meat, when we went buffalo hunting. First it was employed to take the elders and youngest children to their new home.

I wondered what Joe was up to when I found my wagon had no wheels or axles. At the time it made no sense, why take my wagon apart, but as usual, Joe had a plan, and with the size of the buffalo we would kill, it turned out to be one of Joe's better plans.

Each time we sat on the mesa beside the monument overlooking Popotu Valley, we saw the progress before taking our horses down so we could see the new building up close. By the time we made our final visit, before we moved to Popotu Valley, lodges covered the hills that stood above the Popotu River.

The first time we went out to let our horses run and take us directly toward the mountains, we were sitting next to the monument overlooking the valley in four full days. On the fifth morning, we were there. By that time several lodges were built across the river in the valley. Most were built on high ground, because rivers flood, and we didn't know how high the floods might go. Joe picked spots with a view overlooking the river. Not only did each lodge have a nice view, but there was plenty of room around them for gardens and such.

We now had a bridge to cross to get to the valley side, and in bad weather, the bridge could be pulled up to higher ground during a storm and put back once the storm passed. Only the hunters would go in and out frequently, when they didn't hunt closer to the mountains, but there was plenty of game in the forest above the valley, and the foothills that became mountains after a few hours of walking. There was game all around us, but the buffalo were on the mesa north of the trail that took us to the valley.

On the first trip all the way to Popotu Valley, we needed to get away, because we knew a village was being built, and we wanted to see it. Since we enjoyed riding so much, taking the trail all the way to the new valley was easy and sometimes exciting. We didn't go all the way often, but we went a few times to have a look as the new village was taking shape.

Neither Running Horse nor I were the hunters Sammy Boy was, but we could hold our own. We once supplied more meat to Lone Wolf's clan than anyone else. As time passes, reactions slow, and you have much more on your mind as you get older. We could hunt and bring down any game we went to get, but the lightning quick reaction of Samuel was probably quicker than our reactions ever were. We weren't telling him that, falling back on the, we are older excuse was no excuse. When we hunted, we brought back game. That is all that anyone cared about. Only other hunters saw reflexes that defied imagination. We all admired Sammy Boy.

There were no wildcats, or cougars, or whatever that cat was, and not even a rattlesnake along the trail going and coming on that first trip back to Popotu Valley. We recognized the landmarks as we went along, which meant we knew where we were and how far we had to go. That made the going easier.

It was a long way to go to build a village in a land we didn't know, but we were invited to bring life back to the land of the Popotu, and that's what we decided to do. We would get as far from our old life as we could get, and no one complained. This time we moved because we decided it was the best thing to do. We weren't forced to move to keep from being run down and killed.

On our way back, after more than a week away, we stopped at the lake and were looking at the cliffs not far away. The horses drank, and after so long away, we took a soak. Running Horse and I usually saved our soak for the evenings when the water was cooler, and the air was still pleasant. It did get somewhat colder at night in Underworld, but not uncomfortably so. We would adapt to it in short order.

When we took our horses up near our lodge, we let them go once we got our riding rigs off their back. I stood to watch Dobbin dash out into the meadow where a dozen horses stood nearby. I always watched to be sure there was no hitch in Dobbin's giddy up. I could usually tell if he had discomfort, but I liked to look to be sure.

When he veered off to the right, I saw him galloping toward the cliff, and I'm sure I saw something gray running right along the base of the cliff. Dobbin's nose went down, and I could see something gray going nose to nose with my horse. This was a strange thing for a horse that never did anything strange. I did my best to figure out what he was doing.

It looked like a wolf. It looked like Demon, and I began to run, leaving Running Horse behind.

Before I got there, Demon heard me coming, and he leaped into my arms, knocking me down.

We rolled. I laughed. I cried, and Demon licked my face the way he had that first morning I knew him. I don't remember ever being happier than I was the morning when we rode back from Popotu Valley the first time.

Demon was a mess. If he ate anything in the last month, he hid it well. He weighed more than he should, because everyone fed him in Paradise Valley, but he obviously hadn't eaten in some time. I went to the smoke house and got the biggest piece of meat with a bone that I could find. I took it out and sat down beside my dog as he gobbled the meat and he chewed the bone for two days. I limited the amount of meat I gave him after that. I knew from my own body, not eating for a few days makes you hungry all the time, but if you eat too much too fast, it is sometimes worse than not eating at all, and I would fatten Demon up slowly. He would never go hungry again.

"How did he get down here?" Running Horse asked.

"I don't care how he got down here," I said. "He's here. That's what I care about."

"If a wolf can find his way into a valley with no apparent openings to the surface, we might want to know."

This was one time I wasn't going to worry. I had Demon back, and I missed him. I thought I would never see him again. Demon was back. Only John was missing from Underworld. I wasn't likely to see him again, but those were choices made already, and I was glad I knew John, but he would have a good life on the surface. We went underground to stay alive.

Most of Running Horse's clan was happier to see Demon than they were to see we had returned. That goes to show you who is important among Running Horse's clan. Somehow, Demon's return made everyone feel good. He was a fixture at the firepit any time food was being roasted, and he was back where he belonged.

There was a relief when Joe set off the dynamite that closed off the way to the surface. We could look forward for a change. No one would be coming after us, but we knew Demon somehow got down from up there.

Could there have been a cave we didn't find, and that cave led to Underworld?

I knew there was no open cave to Underworld. I don't know how I knew it, but I was sure the worry over how Demon managed to get to Underworld was futile. As I believed the spirits led us to where we would go to live, I knew the spirits had a hand getting a lonely wolf back to the people he belonged with.

I was grateful they did.

The building of lodges sped up as everyone got better at building. Joe was no longer the only one to be able to make the pieces that were a lodge once put together. Each lodge was a little different than each other lodge, because no two pieces were exactly alike, and when put together each lodge had a look all its own.

They were lodges that could be moved, like the lodges we built in Paradise Valley. They wouldn't be moved. There was no longer a reason to move. We were at peace with Popotu Valley, and no one hunted us.

We were free Pawnee that might live a thousand generations, like the Popotu lived. It was a good valley, and the final time we rode from the cliff to Popotu Valley, we saw the most spectacular lodge either of us had seen, when we sat upon Horse and Dobbin next to the monument that overlooked our new home.

This time Demon came with us, because it was time to take up residence in Popotu Valley. We were the last residents to arrive, after making sure the camp in front of the cliff we came out of was neat and clean. There would be no sign: We went this way. If somehow someone got down to Underworld in a hundred years or so, they wouldn't be able to tell there was once a village next to the Cathedral cave, and so they would never go looking for who it was that lived there while preparing our new home, and our new home was a long ways off.

Joe said, "It's terraced. The chief will sit on the highest point, his village spreading out below."

Joe explained to us that the hanging gardens of Babylon were terraced and built in such a way that the terraces would not collapse under the weight. Our terrace was less formidable, but his Auntie told him, "Thousands of years ago, Nebuchadnezzar had the hanging gardens of Babylon built on terraces."

Our lodge stood at the highest point overlooking the river. Other lodges spread out across the landscape. They were built back in bushes and among trees so that each had a unique view that didn't have you looking into your neighbor's lodge. The village was easy to keep neat and clean, and each day there was time given to clearing branches and things that fell between lodges. Once picked up, they were delivered to the firepit to be used as fuel for the evening meal.

Running Horse cooked next to our lodge each evening, once we settled into our new lodge, and people came to eat with us and to catch up on what might be coming next. Some nights most of the village came to eat, as long as Samuel and Young Antelope got enough meat to feed the feasters. Having Running Horse's clan back together again meant catching up on how each had faired as the move was made in stages.

There was one new feature in Underworld that took some getting used to. Demon didn't let me out of his sight, and once we were in the lodge, if Demon wasn't inside lying next to us, he laid in the door in a way that he knew anytime we moved out and away from the lodge. He apparently didn't like being left behind, and he was making sure in his wolf way, he wouldn't be left again.

When we were firing up the firepit for the evening meal, that's where Demon wanted to be. If Samuel wasn't petting him and feeding him, Joe was, and Running Horse was certain to cut him a greasy chunk of fat before it got too well done. In no time at all Demon adapted to life in Underworld. It wasn't much different than Paradise Valley, except we no longer worried about someone coming for us.

Running Horse and I were never settled in Underworld, until we moved into the lodge Joe built for us. Once there and in Popotu Valley, the moving was done. I stopped worrying about the cavalry finding us. With no one being in Paradise Valley. The only sign of people once living there was the remains of a wagon with 1st National Bank written on the faded canvas. One of them might remember the surveyor that once worked in the patch across the trail doing surveying, but in time knowledge of who put the wagon there would fade .

Joe hooked the axles and wheels to Moses, and he took them down to Underworld, one at a time. Joe and Big Bear hooked the wheels and axles to their horses, and he took them to Popotu Valley, where he made a wagon out of them, we had nowhere to go for supplies, but when we went buffalo hunting, we could bring back the meat from two buffalo in the wagon Joe built for that purpose.

That wagon made it easier on all of us.

We didn't always take two buffalo, one would feed all of us for a month, but sometimes we did take two, and we smoked and salted meat we kept in the coldest cold cave we found. Being so close to mountains, where everything stopped had advantages, and we knew to look out for the ice. It wouldn't take us by surprise.

Once we went to Popotu Valley to live in the lodge Joe bult for his chief, Samuel came and asked, "When do we go on our first buffalo hunt? On horseback, that will be an experience I dream of having. I want to ride into a herd of running buffalo and I want to shoot me a buffalo. One will feed us next to forever, as big as they are."

Sammy Boy was a hunter, and I must admit, I had a hankering to ride Dobbin into a running herd of buffalo and get me one too. I dreamed of it when I was ten years old and hunting with Paw. I was still having that dream, but finding a buffalo run would take some time, but we had two sides of the river, and it was all east of Popotu Valley, because the mountains were as far as we were going.

It took a week for Samuel to come back with news of where the buffalo herd had been running a few miles north of the cliff where the monument stood. It was at a time when Joe and the builders were widening the trail that came off the cliff. He wanted to be able to drive the wagon up and down, because he figured the buffalo would be east of us, since the mountains were so close.

We had been in Popotu Valley a few months when Running Horse, me, and Samuel followed the wagon out of Popotu Valley. We no longer needed to get off our horses going up or down, which made it easier for anyone to ride out of the valley and go off for a few days to keep to themselves. On the first trip out of the valley to go buffalo hunting, Big Bear and Barking Dog followed behind us as the wagon worked its way up hill.

There was no trail north, but we had to go north, and so Joe blazed a trail. Nothing like a wagon to make a path anyone could follow. Enough wagons making tracks, and you had a trail. That was one of the first lessons I learned as a wagon master. Luckily the trails west were well established by the time I took wagons across.

The forest wasn't as easy, but there were axes in the wagon, and when we needed to make a wider spot to keep the wagon moving, we chopped the tree as low as we could for wagon wheels to roll over it.

We came upon spots that required chopping down more than one tree, but we were becoming good at tree chopping. With blisters issuing me more discomfort than I liked, I let Joe and Big Bear chop away with double headed axes Joe pulled out of his gear. I gave thought to all that dynamite Joe spread out in the caves. If we had saved a couple of sticks of the stuff, we could have blown a few trees out of our way. I doubt lumberjacks would approve, but I had enough blisters to go around. I was no lumberjack.

The size and closeness of the trees proved no one had been in the forest since forever. The trees reached so high, and there were so many, we couldn't see the top of one until it fell. They were close enough to each other to stop a wagon dead in its tracks, but there were more than enough axes.

Once chopped, and much of the wood stored, the wagon was able to continue on its way. When we started, none of us worried the wagon couldn't get through, and with a little assist from the hunters, it kept on rolling. If there was a delay, you could find us chopping on some pretty tall trees. We left markers so we could find the trail we blazed on the return trip, when the wagon would be carrying a lot less wood, and a lot more buffalo meat. By storing the wood we chopped in the wagon, it made Joe's ride easier on him. There was a lot less bouncing, and from time to time, Joe had nearly bounced off the wagon seat.

When we stopped to eat, we didn't need to search for wood. There was a wagon full.

Because it was the first time we went that way, it took two days to clear the forest on the way to the buffalo run Samuel found. Chopping down trees blocking the way of the wagon only had to be done once. We marked the trail as we went along, and from then on, the going would be easier.

Joe knew to go at a reasonable speed while crossing the pastureland. If we broke an axle, we would go back to building sleds to carry the meat, and that meant we would need to bring a lot more hunters.

To carry all the usable meat off of one of those super-size buffalo, it would take ten sleds if not more. It wasn't as far as we went to bring the meat back to paradise Valley, but it was plenty far enough, and on sleds, the meat is a lot more enticing to the wolves. In a wagon, wolves might smell it, but they wouldn't know how to get at it.

Once we were on the pastureland we had easy going for some time. As we approached a small forest late in the afternoon, we stopped to make camp.

"Through the grove of trees," Samuel said. "This is close to where I watched some buffalo grazing."

It was dark after we prepared the game Samuel took as we moved across the floor of the big forest. It was cleaned and ready for the firepit for when we stopped for the night. Running Horse had it roasting and ready to eat in short order. We had flatbread and some nuts and berries we gathered along the way.

A few hours after we started on the third day, we came upon a buffalo herd. It was a bit past where Samuel remembered them being, but it didn't take much looking to find them spread out as far as we could see. Grazing buffalo were as amazing as buffalo running. There were so many of them. It was hard to take in and not remember they had been hunted to the point of extinction on the surface.

After coming all that way, I just wanted to sit there and look at them. There had once been 60,000,000 buffalo on the Great Plains. Now, in a field a few days from Popotu Valley, I was looking at more buffalo than was left alive on the surface. It took less than twenty years to nearly wipe out millions of buffalo. Most of them were left to rot in a field. From time to time, hungry Indians would come upon the rotting buffalo. I can't imagine the torture of seeing the food you've eaten for thousands of years being left to rot in the sun.

Europeans had a taste for killing.

Where were we? Where did all these buffalo come from. Was this the land the buffalo were sent to in order to keep them all from being killed? Had we been guided here for the same reason?

Were the Pawnee and the buffalo going to survive? Live side by side as we had done since the dawn of time?

As the wagon pulled to a stop on top of the rise where we stood, the lead buffalo took off twenty or thirty yards from us. In a second they were all up and the ground began to tremble. They were magnificent.

"We don't go now, they'll be gone," Running Horse said, and we dropped any excess gear we had, got on our horses, bow in hand, and we rode after them. Today we would take two and only two, and we would feast on buffalo for as long as it lasted. These were the cold months, and it was easier to keep meat, but even in warmer months, buffalo kept for quite a while if we smoked it before storing it, and we didn't need to have buffalo every night, but two or three times a week wouldn't hurt my feelings.

Having the taste of buffalo meat in my mouth was like a gift from the gods.

My heart was beating at an incredible rate, and I hadn't hunted yet. I knew the plan. Samuel would ride into the herd first, and Running Horse and I would follow him. Once he took a buffalo, we would take ours, and that was it. We would take two, and we would spend the rest of the day preparing the meat to travel. With the trail we just improved, we would be home late tomorrow, and that was going at wagon speed.

Running Horse and I discussed being with the first hunters when we went hunting for buffalo. We both owed it to ourselves to bring down one of the buffalo in this New World. Once we did it, we would be satisfied, and Big Foot, Porcupine. And Stone Hand would take the hunters out with them. There comes a time when hunters our age leave the hunting to younger men. They will take hunters out after our hunting days end.

That first time was a little scary. Now, as a drover, I rode into a herd of stampeding cattle more than once, but cows aren't very smart, and when they stampede, they're just running because other cows started running, and either thunder or lightning can start a stampede. If cowboys get in with the herd and slow their horses down, the cattle will slow down too, and the stampede becomes a walk, and then, the cows were grazing again. That's what they did. They grazed, drank, grazed some more, and fell asleep on their feet.

Once the lead buffalo begins running, all the buffalo run with him, until the lead buffalo stops.

Don't get me wrong, you fall off your horse in the middle of a stampede, and there won't be enough of you left to know who you was. Cowboys knew better than to fall off their horse at any time if you didn't want to get laughed at. If you fell off in a stampede, it wouldn't be a laughing matter. If you were sleeping near the chuckwagon, once your day is done, the last thing you want to wake up to is a single word.

"Stampede!"

You want to wake a cowboy out of a deep sleep, yell that one time. He'll be up and on his horse before the word dies away. You don't want to be caught on the ground when a herd stampedes. The cows will run over you, the chuck wagon, and Cookie if he didn't have sense enough to get on his horse.

Sitting on a slightly elevated piece of ground, we watched the buffalo run. They were every bit as big as the one we killed and took back to Paradise Valley, but this time we wouldn't leave anything but scraps for the wolves and the coyotes and carrion birds that will show up around daylight to clean up after the wolves.

Samuel led us over to a spot close to the buffalo run, and he turned his horse Tomahawk in the direction the buffalo were going in, and when he nudged his knees into Tomahawk's flanks, he took off, matching the speed of the buffalo that ran right beside him. Tomahawk never ran into a buffalo herd before, but that's where Samuel took him, matching the speed of the buffalo he intended to take.

Samuel drew his bow back as far as it would go. He loosed his arrow into the running beast he rode beside. He was alone this time. Young Antelope wasn't there to make sure he brought the big animal down, but Samuel was a hunter, and he knew how to hunt.

In a moment Samuel and Tomahawk were stopped a few feet from the running herd. At first buffalo ran on both sides of the fallen animal, but slowly they began running further away from where the buffalo lay.

As soon as Samuel's buffalo fell silent, Running Horse had Horse on the run, and Dobbin and I ran right beside him as he guided his horse among the running buffalo. It was amazing that a horse that might be spooked by a sound could run in among animals as big as he was and never shy away. Dobbin did the same, and I matched Running Horse's speed as he pulled back his bow and let his arrow go. I did the same, and we both aimed at and hit the same animal, and it fell a hundred feet from where Samuel's buffalo fell.

The herd once again altered its path by enough to be running further out, leaving the dead buffalo behind.

We began to work on Samuel's kill first, and by the time all the buffalo passed, we had it skinned and most of its innards out, and the butcher began as Joe prepared the wagon for the load of meat it would carry home.

It was afternoon by the time both animals were skinned and butchered into the size that was easy to manage. While this was being done, Running Horse built a firepit, and the fresh succulent bison meat was cooking. We would need a good meal before we started back. We didn't waste any time getting the meat back, and this time we had enough to feed us for months when we spread it out among other game that came to our lodges.

I do believe the feasting in Popotu Valley was even more rowdy and lasted longer as we sang, danced, and celebrated our brother the buffalo, after thanking him for giving us a reason to feast and celebrate the life we thought had died a long time ago. The buffalo live, and so does Running Horse's clan.

We live. We eat. We celebrate our good fortune.

"Our spirits are back. They didn't have permission to interfere with the spirits of the Popotu, but they were telling us true, and the object was for Running Horse's clan to finally find safety and peace. Now, that is done, the barrier between me and my spirits has been removed."

I will never understand the province of chiefs. I don't need to understand as long as Running Horse is chief. He gets to do it his way, and I'll do what he wants me to do, especially once we are in our buffalo robe.

On to Chapter Twenty-Six and The Epilogue
"Much Later"
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"Popotu Valley"
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