Tag: horses

Moon at Midnight – Part XXXXXVI (day 2030)

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(part XXXXXV)

We stayed for five days
With Amy, Frank and Clarinet
As expected, it was really quite enjoyable
There wasn’t enough room inside their cabin
So we set up in Frank’s barn
With some fresh hay we had helped reap –
Clarinet and Lily shared a bed inside,
I was happy to see them getting along so good
In spite their obvious cultural differences
And, truthfully, hardly able to speak to each other.

We were all thankful to have the horses
For the ride home
Amy forced us to take some of her jerky again
And stuffed our bags full of baked buns
Fresh from her oven
But, it was nice to sleep
Under the stars again
Around a campfire
The night was warm and clear
And we all felt happy,
Warmed by the socializing…
By the friendliness Amy and Frank
Always made sure to shower us with
They were really becoming quite good friends
To think, only three short years ago
I had first walked up to their front porch.

The next day we were up early again
And before we had ridden too far
Moon Cow saw a deer and had an arrow through it’s neck
We camped close by, at a creek
And spent the rest of the day dressing it
To prepare it for the remainder of the ride
It was nice to eat the fresh meat that night
But it surely wasn’t as good as
What Amy had packed us, smoked.

The rest of the trip home went
Without much to excitement
I was happy to see how well Willow was doing
On account of her broken ribs
It still hurt her to do long days on the horse
But she was so skilled on the horse
That she was able to avoid much pain
Still, we kept the next two days of riding
Slow and steady, without pushing too much
And enjoying the wildnerness we explored
Lily, of course, was all eyes everywhere
So excited to be on a journey
But a little melancholic about
Having to return to our village
After become so familiar, spoiled I guess I could say
With Amy and Clarinet’s hospitality.

part XXXXXVII

Moon at Midnight – Part XXXVII (day 2011)

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(part XXXVI)

Tall Pine and I kept following the tracks
Until we could hear them laughing
Off in the distance
We had the advantage of being silent
Without horses
So we easily snuck up on the bastards
We counted three
And waited until we saw the other two
We knew we had been following five horses.

When they returned
Pine and I had already made a plan
He was good with the arrow
And I had two tomahawks in my hands
They were against a few large boulders
Beside a creek that had a shallow pool
Eating the meat that we had been smoking
And having a gay old time
He assured me he could have three down
Before I jumped
There was another boulder to the left of the group
That he was able to get beside
And also use as a shield
He had eight arrows.

He watched carefully as I silently
Made my way up behind the group
Clearly oblivious to anybody following them
As Pine began sending his arrows into their chests
I jumped on one who was lazily falling asleep
When I turned around two were looking at me
Fumbling to get their guns
And a third had his trousers down
Caught red handed and frozen
Lucky for me,
When the first one fired his gun
It only clicked
I guess he hadn’t reloaded since raiding our village.

With my first swing his hand was gone
The second swing was into his neck
As I swung around
I planted my tomahawk into the seconds head
And ripped my axe from the firsts neck
Pine had taken down the third
Who had his trousers down
Still just standing there unable to move
The horses spooked
But stayed close being tied up
I went over to the first Pine had hit
And made sure he wasn’t still breathing.

The woman was clearly distressed
But recognized me
She sat there, weeping silently
As Pine came up beside me
He gathered the horses
And asked what we would do with them
I told him to remove the saddles
And we will take them with us
But we will walk for now
He tied them halter to tail.

I brought the woman to the creek
To wash her face
I washed the blood from my hands
And cleaned my axes
I tied the guns onto one of the horses
And we began walking back at a fairly fast pace
Still on alert should we have missed anybody.

part XXXVIII

Moon at Midnight – Part XXIX (day 2003)

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(part XXVIII)

Frank showed up on the first day
He came riding alone
And the scouts had recognized him
Knowing he was coming to us
They knew he was our friend
He spoke to Willow, Moon Cow and I
He said that he didn’t like
What news he had heard of the U.S. Army
Their movement was just too weird
And it seemed like they were gearing up
For a big militia action
He wanted me to know
That he, Amy and Lily
Would happily let us stay with them
Until everything blew over
I told him our plans
Of what Mountain Chief had told us
And that he would certainly see us in the coming months
He understood we couldn’t leave our family
At this time anyways
Without first supporting the migration effort
We had lots of organizing yet to do
So he gave us a token of his friendship
To help us on our way
A knife of fine Swiss steel
His father-in-law had recently given him.

The evening of the second day
We took our teepees down and began walking
Silently into the darkness
The horses carried a lot of the loads
With thongs strapping poles and
Leather skins across their backs
We moved quickly
As our family was very used to walking
Not like settlers
Walking in their fancy Victorian rags
And raggedy old wagons.

We walked for three days to the West
Into the heart of mountain country
It was colder in the foothills
Then out where we came from in the plains
But I loved the trees
Lots of jack pine
With big ol’ needles on them
Covering the ground that we walked on
Very nice and easy on the horse hooves.

We stopped in a valley
North of where Mountain Chief said
The U.S. Army would patrol
He knew the valley as a good hunting ground
That his fathers’ fathers hunted it
And it was far enough off of any regular trail
That it would be very hard for anybody
To find us
And over the next few weeks we
Began making ourselves acquainted with the land.

part XXX

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